Luận văn How to maximize part-Time students’ involvement in English speaking lessons

ce and open-ended questions. The questionnaires take 15 minutes to fill in before being collected. After that the responses to each question were calculated and converted into percentage for analysis and discussion. 4. Method The major method used in this study is the Quantitative one to fulfill the aims of the study. The data analysis comes from the 2 following sources. The C level part – timer student and the teacher respondents at HP FLC. All considerations, comments, assumptions, suggestions and conclusions provided in the study based on the analysis of the statistic data collected from Questionnaire Survey and Observation. Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Interpretation The main source of data is derived from the answers of the two questionnaires. Questionnaire 1 (for learners) and Questionnaire 2 (for teachers) are included in Appendix 1 and Appendix 2. 1. Data analysis from Learners‘ Questionnaire The questionnaire for the learners consisting of 14 questions was designed and delivered to 80 learners to ensure the reliability and validity of the data collection. 1.1 Learners ‘assessment of topics based on course book “Streamline English-Destinations” (Question 1). Figure 1: Learners ‘assessment of topics based on course book “Streamline English-Destinations” As shown in Figure 1, only 10.4% of the surveyed students state that topics based on course book “Streamline English-Destinations” are interesting, and 18% of respondents consider topics to be all right whereas most of the surveyed (56%) say that the topics are boring and 15.6% of the total suppose that the topics are not interesting at all. From the results shown in Figure 1, topics based on the course book can be said not to be interesting enough to attract students’ attention in speaking lessons. Therefore, the necessity for the teachers is to provide learners with interesting topics or appropriate speaking activities and so on to motivate them to get involved in speaking lessons. Learners’ reluctance degree in speaking lessons (Question 2) Figure 2: Learners’ reluctance degree in speaking lessons Figure 2 shows that the number of surveyed learners often feel reluctant to get involved in English speaking lessons accounts for 51.7% while 18.4% of the participants are sometimes reluctant to speak. Only 15.3% of the surveyed are rarely reluctant to get involved in speaking lessons, and 14.6% of the total do not feel reluctant to involve in speaking lessons at all. It can be concluded that most of the learners feel reluctant to speak in speaking lessons due to many reasons, and one of those is that topics are not interesting to learners. Factors making learners reluctant to speak in speaking lessons (Question 3) Figure 3: Factors making learners reluctant to speak in speaking lessons As clearly stated from Figure 3, up to 46.4% of the respondents suppose that uninteresting lessons are one of many factors deterring their involvement in speaking lessons, whereas 21.5% of the participants say that boring teaching method make them reluctant to speak. Besides, subjective factors have a certain influence on their interest in speaking lessons such as feeling shy only accounts for 17.5 and not being accustomed to speaking in front of other people makes up 14.6%. Factors affecting learners in speaking lessons (Question 4) Figure 4: Factors affecting learners in speaking lessons The result in Figure 4 shows that teachers’ English speaking affects a great deal to learners’ involvement in speaking lessons. The number of surveyed learners supposing that teachers use too much English in English speaking lessons accounts for 38%, while 36% of the learners state that teachers speak too fast. A very small number of the participants think that teachers speak too much Vietnamese in English speaking lessons (15%), and 11% of the total say that teachers speak too slowly. Learners’ difficulties in speaking lessons (Question 5) Figure 5: Learners‘ difficulties in speaking lessons As shown in Figure 5, 18% of the participants think that finding ideas for the given topic is one of difficulties deterring their involvement in speaking lessons, while up to 41% of the total suppose that finding words is the main reason preventing them from performing their speaking tasks. Poor pronunciation also contributing a not small percentage accounts for 26%. And 15% of the respondents seem to be affected by mother-tongued inference in speaking lessons. In summary, through the data collected from Figure 3, 4 and 5, it can be concluded that there is a variety of factors that make the learners unwilling to speak or affects their involvement in speaking lessons including: subjective factors from the learners themselves such as finding ideas, finding words, poor pronunciation ect and objective ones such as uninteresting lessons, teaching method and so on… Teachers’ talking time in speaking lessons (Question 6) Figure 6: Teachers’ talking time in speaking lessons The information obtained from Figure 6 indicates that teachers always take much time explaining in speaking lessons (70%). Only a small minority (10%) does not do so. And 20% of the respondents think that their teachers talk enough. Teachers’ mistakes correction for learners in speaking lessons (Question 7) Figure 7: Teachers’ mistake correction for learners in speaking lessons The statistics provided from Figure 7 show that most of the learners (72.5%) respond that their teachers interrupt them and correct their mistakes immediately, whereas 18.3% of them state that their teachers wait until they finish and then correct their mistakes. And only 9.2% of the participants say that their teachers do not correct their mistakes and encourage them to speak until they finish. It is amazing to see that none of the teachers only listen to learners and do nothing with their mistakes. It can be said, from the above-mentioned statistics (Figures 6 and 7), that the way of correcting mistakes done by the teachers is inappropriate. In addition, the amount of time taken by the teachers in speaking lessons is not proper. Most of the teachers talk too much. Consequently, learners’ taking time is limited. This proves that teaching method here in Hai Phong Foreign Languages Centre still focuses on accuracy and forms, not on fluency and content. Learners’ attitude towards teachers’ activities (Question 8) Figure 8: Learners’ attitude towards teachers’ activities It can be seen from Figure 8, 27% of the surveyed learners say that activities designed by their teachers are interesting to them while up to 51% of the surveyed show their little interest in their teachers’ activities in speaking lessons. And a not small number of the participants (22%) are not interested in the activities designed by their teachers at all. The data collected from Figure 8 indicates that activities utilized by teachers are not interesting enough to draw learners’ attention and encourage them to get involved in speaking lessons. It can be said that speaking activities designed by the teachers play a very significant role in encouraging students to speak in speaking lessons. Teachers should invest more time and effort to design activities suitable to learners’ ability. Teachers’ activities to encourage learners to speak (Question 9) Figure 9: Teachers’ activities to encourage learners to speak The data from Figure 9 clearly shows that role-play is an activity mostly used by teachers because 43% of the surveyed learners reveal the fact. Other activities such as interviewing holds 13%, using games for speaking accounts for 16% and questioning takes up 28%. Role-play can be considered to be a popular activity utilized by most teachers in order to encourage learners to talk in speaking lessons. However, the other mentioned activities should be used flexibly by teachers in speaking lessons. 1.10 Teachers’ activities before each discussion topic (Question 10) Figure 10: Teachers’ activities before each discussion topic As shown in Figure 10, up to 43% of the respondents state that their teachers let them discuss the given topic themselves. However, 32% of the participants say that their teachers provide them with new words relating to the topic and 18% of the surveyed suppose that their teachers give them main ideas about the topic. And only 7% of the learners say that their teachers divide them in to pair and group before each given topic. 1.11 Teachers’ attitude toward learners’ presentation (Question 11) Figure 11: Teachers’ attitude toward learners’ presentation It can be seen from Figure 11, 49 % of the participants say that their teachers give them good comment after their presentation although their performance is not really good. Only 9% of them state that their teachers criticize their mistakes after presentation whereas 15% of the surveyed suppose that their teachers only point out their mistakes. And 27% of the total say that their teachers point out and correct their mistakes after their performance. It is encouraging to see that most of the teachers encourage their learners to speak by giving good comments. The action can be considered to be a good way of promoting learners’ involvement in speaking lessons. 1.12 Learners’ expectations toward their teachers (Question 12) Figure 12: Learners’ expectation toward their teachers From the result collected in Figure 12, it can be easily recognized that 29% of the surveyed learners expect their teachers to let them choose appropriate topics to discuss. And 26% of the participants need more time to work in pair and group while 31% of the surveyed want their teachers to provide them with speaking tasks suitable to their ability. Only 14% of them desire teachers to let them choose partners who share the same opinion with them. It can be said that giving opportunity to learners to choose their appropriate topics for discussion and giving them more time to work in pair and group can help learners a lot in expressing their ideas freely and creatively. However, it is necessary for teachers to invest more time in designing speaking tasks suitable to learners’ ability to help them take part in speaking lessons. In summary, the learners’ desires to speak well and get involved effectively in English speaking lessons are very encouraging. Teachers need to pay more attention to their learner’s needs to help them in time so that learners can improve their speaking. 1.13 Activities help to motivate learners to speak (Question 13) Figure 13: Activities help to motivate learners to speak most The figures in Figure 13 point out that activities can help to motivate learners to speak most such are oral presentation taking up 35% and reporting news holding 28% whereas telling funny stories accounts for 22% and describing picture occupies 15% of the total. 1.14 Factors help learners better get involved in speaking lessons (Question 14) Figure 14: Factors help learners better get involved in speaking lessons It is very interesting to see that confidence and careful preparation for given topics are the two factors that help learners’ involvement effectively in speaking lessons when 30% of the learners state that be confident when presenting news and 30% of the participants say that prepare well given topics and present in front of other members help them participate effectively in speaking lessons, whereas 19% of the respondents say that try to speak English fluently and 21% of the total suppose that actively work in pair and group help them better involve in speaking lessons. 2. Data analysis from Teachers‘ Questionnaire The questionnaire for teachers consisting of 10 questions was delivered to 15 teachers. The data collected was analyzed as follows. 2.1. Teachers’ assessment of the course book “Streamline English-Destination” (Question 1) Figure 15: Teachers’ assessment of the course book “Streamline English-Destination” The statistics in Figure 1 show that most of the surveyed teachers suppose that the course book “Streamline English-Destination” is not only boring but also difficult in teaching speaking to learners when 38% of the surveyed teachers say that the course book is boring and 34% of the surveyed state that the course book is difficult to learners, whereas only 12% of the participants suppose that the course book is interesting to learners and 16% of the total consider the course book to be easy to learners. 2.2 Teachers’ attitude toward the course book with regard to speaking teaching (Question 2) Figure 16: Teachers’ attitude toward the course book with regarding to speaking teaching The information obtained show that 80% of the surveyed teachers suppose that they are not satisfied with the course book, and only 20% of the total seem to satisfy with the course book in applying speaking teaching. 2.3. Teachers’ current teaching method (Question 3) Figure 17: Teachers’ current teaching method As clearly stated from Figure 17, the teaching method currently applied by 42% of the participants is teaching communication whereas 58% of the total use grammar translation to teach in English lessons. The result states clearly that teaching speaking has become increasingly popular at Hai Phong Foreign Languages Centre. However, the important issue raising here is how these teachers do to teach speaking effectively although teaching communication is applied by a large number of the surveyed teachers. 2.4. Teachers’ difficulties in teaching speaking (Question 4) Figure 18: Teachers’ difficulties in teaching speaking As shown in Figure 18, 27% of the respondents reveal that one of the difficulties that they have confronted when teaching speaking to non-major learners is multi-level class. Whereas, 43 of the surveyed suppose that large-size class is an obstacle of teaching speaking. Learners’ low English proficiency ranks the third (22%), and a small minority (8%) claims lack of teaching aids to be their difficulty in teaching speaking. 2.5. Teachers’ attitude toward reluctant learners (Question 5) Figure 19: Teachers’ attitude toward reluctant learners Figure 19 states clearly that the majority of the participants get angry with the reluctant students (53%) while 32% of the surveyed teachers criticize learners when they are reluctant to speak. None of the surveyed shouts at reluctant learners, and 15% of the total do nothing to motivate learners to speak. 2.6. Teachers’ ways of minimizing learners’ reluctance in speaking lessons (Question 6) Figure 20: Teachers’ ways of minimizing learners’ reluctance in speaking lessons Figure 20 shows that 52% of the participants state that they give learners opportunity to express their own ideas about the given topics to minimize learners’ reluctance in speaking lessons whereas 30% of the respondents minimize learners’ reluctance by shortening the gap between teacher and student, that is be always close to learners and help them with their difficult speaking tasks whereas 11% of the surveyed teachers give learners easy speaking tasks to minimize their reluctance. And only 7% of the total get tolerant with learners’ mistakes to minimize learners’ reluctance in speaking lessons. 2.7. Teachers’ activities to make learners interested in speaking lessons (Question 7) Figure 21: Teachers’ activities to make learners interested in speaking lessons It can be seen from Figure 21, 13% of the participants say that to make learners interested in English speaking lessons they create a natural environment for learners to get involved in while a large number of the total (58%) use interesting topics to draw learners’ attention to speaking lessons. 14% of the surveyed teachers make learners interested in speaking lessons with appropriate speaking tasks to learners’ ability. And 15% of the surveyed let learners talk freely. 2.8. Teachers’ attitude toward discussion topics (Question 8) When asked to express their own opinion about the position of discussion topics, the majority of the teachers (80%) strongly agree that interesting topics can motivate learners to speak in speaking lessons. Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree 80% 15% 5% 0% Table 1: Teachers’ attitude toward discussion topics 2.9. Teachers’ activities to motivate learners in speaking lessons (question 9) Figure 22: Teachers’ activities to motivate learners in speaking lessons The statistics in figure 22 reveal that the majority of the participants say that they resort to funny stories to help learners get involved in speaking lessons (45%), while 22% of the participants use games to motivate learners to participate in speaking lessons. And 25% of the utilize pictures. It is worth noting that only 8% of the surveyed teachers use oral presentation to motivate learners to speak. With purpose of collecting factual data, the researcher designed 10 questions, and 9 out of 10 questions were given ready – made answers under multi-choice and the participants can choose their most suitable reply, however, question 10 without under open question aims at receiving valuable experiences of teaching speaking from the participants. And it is very encouraging for the researcher to collect worthy experiences from some of the participants. In their opinions to help learners get involved effectively in speaking lessons, teachers should: choose learners of the same knowledge to give speaking tasks create a free speaking environment for learners encourage learners to speak as much as possible be patient and tolerant with learners use some teaching aids and real things The result collected from question 10 reveals that teaching speaking is not easy at all. It requires teachers not only a great effort but also great enthusiasm. After collecting the data from the two questionnaires for learners and teachers, the researcher would like to summarize findings and give some recommendations. 3. Observation In order to make the study more reliable and more convincing, the researcher attended a class at HP FLC. Unit: 18 – Where have all the fans gone? Class: C1a2c3 Time allowance: 90 minutes Date: March 5, 2008 In this class, the teacher carried out activities as follows: First of all, she asked students to read the text for about 15 minutes. Then she asked them about the new words and structures in the reading text. After that she wrote those new words on the board and explained the meanings and the ways of using structures, which took about 25 minutes. Next, she called some students to make sentences using the given words and structures, which took about 10 minutes. Finally, she gave them a topic of football for discussion. This activity was given 40 minutes, the rest time of the lesson. However, in the view of the researcher, the topic was rather interesting but difficult for students to discuss. With the type of the activity, the teacher did some following steps: Step 1: gave them 10 minutes to work in pairs Step 2: called 4 students to speak their opinion about football, which took about 13 minutes Step 3: asked other students about their favorite football teams and famous footballers, which took about 15 minutes Step 4: finished the lesson To sum up, activities carried out by the teacher were not interesting enough for students to get involved in speaking. According to the researcher’s observation, the atmosphere was not exciting because some of students seemed to be ignored by teacher because she did not move around the class to give help to learners, jut sat down at the teacher’s table or stand near the board. Due to the fact, the more than half of the class kept silent. Chapter 5: findings and recommendation 1. Findings According to the results collected from the two questionnaires distributed to 80 learners and 15 teachers and the researcher’s observation at HP FLC, some findings can be categorized in the following: Course book The findings from the survey show that the course book currently used at the centre is not only boring but also difficult in teaching speaking to learners. Most of the surveyed teachers are not satisfied with the course book. In addition, topics based on the course book are not interesting enough to draw learners’ attention to the lessons. The majority of the learners show the fact and this is one of reasons explaining why learners often feel reluctant to speak in speaking lessons. Current teaching method According to the survey, communication teaching is applied by a large number of teachers. However, many of the surveyed teachers still focus much on grammar-centered approach. They concentrate on accuracy and form more than fluency. Moreover, the survey also states that the majority of the learners suppose that boring teaching method is one of main factors making them reluctant to get involved in speaking lessons. Teachers play a very significant role in enhancing learners to speak or in other words have a great influence on learners’ involvement in speaking lessons. The statistics in the survey reveal that teachers use too much English and speak with too fast speed, which negatively affect learners. Besides, in class, teachers seem to take much time explaining grammatical rules and isolated words in speaking lessons. Their talking time is inappropriate because they occupy almost all the class-time to speak, which leads to talking time for learners is limited and affects their involvement in speaking lessons. Learners do not have enough time for creative and active study. According to the result of the survey, the number of learners expect their teachers to give them more time to work in pair and group in speaking lessons occupy a not small percentage. In addition to this, the method of error correction done by teachers is not proper, either, which minimizes learners’ interest in speaking lessons. Learners are interrupted during their presentation because of their mistakes, and this is an obstacle for fluency of their speaking and a great influence on their continuous thinking. Learners may forget what they intend to speak. Moreover, interrupting learners for error correction may make them puzzled and shy and can be a hindrance to their participation. Teachers’ attitude toward reluctant learners discovered from the survey shows that teachers seem not to be tolerant with learners. Most of the surveyed teachers get angry or criticize their learners when they are reluctant to speak. However, it is not fair if only teachers are to blame for learners’ poor participation in speaking lessons. Learners’ difficulties in getting involved in speaking lessons The finding states that learners themselves have difficulties in getting involved in speaking lessons. According to the survey, learners find it difficult to speak due to the following reasons: their prior learning experiences their anxiety or shyness in class their low English proficiency 1.3.1 Learners’ prior learning experiences In the view of Nunan, David (1999), one of the main reasons explaining the reluctance of speakers is partly due to their learning experience. To the knowledge of the researcher, many of the learners were educated in large classes in school and even at universities and they had little opportunities to speak and others were taught in school and universities where speaking was simply not encouraged. The teaching method given to these learners mainly focuses on grammar and accuracy not speaking. The finding from the survey shares the same opinion and adds that most of the learners meet difficulty in expressing their ideas because of lack of vocabulary. 1.3.2 Anxiety or Shyness in class It can be realized from the finding that learners’ anxiety or shyness is another main factor affecting learners to get involved in speaking lessons. They feel shy and not willing to speak because they are afraid of being laughed by their partners whenever they make mistakes or when being asked by their teachers. And being not accustomed to speaking in front of other members in the class also make them reluctant to speak in lessons. Low English proficiency According to the survey, learners’ low proficiency in English is also a major factor preventing them from speaking. Although they are at intermediate level, they still have difficulty in expressing what they really want to talk. The statistics from the survey prove the fact that their poor pronunciation and mother-tongued inference have bad influence on their involvement in English speaking lessons. Teachers’ difficulties in teaching speaking in speaking lessons The result from the survey indicates that teachers have met difficulties in teaching speaking to learners. The majority of the surveyed teachers say that large – sized class and multi –level class are the two main reasons affecting their teaching. With at least 30 students in each class, and someti