Full name: Lê Thành Đạt

Date of birth: 21/09/2003

Group: 28A01

MID-TERM TEST
Scientific Research Methodology
DEFINE YOUR RESEARCH TITLE; ACKNOWLEDGEMENT,
INTRODUCTION, LITERATURE REVIEW AND REFERENCE FOR
YOUR RESEARCH PAPER (from 1000 to 1500 words)

1. Research title: Factors affecting speaking skills of the second year students
at FOE, HOU

2. Acknowledgement: In the process of creating this dissertation, I have

received a lot of valuable support and assistance.
First of all, I would like to show my appriciation to my supervisor and
teacher, Mrs. Le Phuong Thao, who has a big role in developing and
completing the research with her enthusiasm as well as her extensive
experience and knowledge.
I would also like to thank the staff of teachers, lecturers at FOE, HOU for
their amazing lessons which gave me the basis to form this research.
Another factor I like to acknowledge is my fellow students at FOE for their
eager involvement in the data collection process.
Finally, the most important people that I want to show my gratitude to is
none other than my family for their understanding, encouragement and
invaluable support, which tremendously motivated me to complete this
study.

3. Introduction:
3.1 Rational of the study

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English is considered as an international language and is used widely in
many fields such as business, science, media, education, … all over the
world. Nowadays, in the global intergration, it is more important than ever to
master this language, therefore many schools and universities from different
countries have put English as a compulsory subject in their national
academic curriculums, and Vietnam is no exception. According to Nunan
(1991), among English language skills, speaking is the most important aspect
of learning a foreign language, and success is measured in terms of the
ability to carry out a conversation in that language. Speaking, hence, seems
to be the most important skills that should be focused on more in the process
of teaching and learning English. Although EFL learners always want to
adept all of the skills (listening, reading, writing, speaking) to the finest but
in fact, their speaking skill is not as good as the other ones. Many university
students still find it challenging to fully achieve the speaking skill, especially
second year English-majored students in the tertitary context of Hanoi Open
University (HOU) in Vietnam.
With the hope of helping students learn to speak effectively, the difficulties
in learning to speak English have been chosen as the topic of the present
research. Realizing the current difficulties that the second year students in
the faculty of English encounter will attribute to the improvement and
enhancement of the learning and teaching English speaking quality in FOE.
The research will first shed a light on how learners think and study to speak
English in FOE; second, it will reinterpret the recent difficulties in learning
to speak English that learners meet in terms of revised relevant theories.
Third, it will recommend some solutions to upgrade the learning to speak
English quality in FOE.

3.2 Aim and objectives

The study is aimed to:
- Investigate the current situation of learning speaking in FOE

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- Identify what difficulties the second year students in FOE meet when they
learn to speak English
- Suggest some realistic and appropriate techniques to help improve learning
to speak English in FOE

3.3 Research questions

The study is carried out to find out the answers for the following questions:
1. What difficulties do students in FOE meet when they learn to speak
English?
2. What are possible causes leading to difficulties in learning speaking
skills of the second year students in FOE?
3. What are possible solutions to the problems?

3.4 Scope of the study

In this study, the researcher tends to overview the difficulties the students in
FOE face when learning speaking English and to suggest some possible
solutions to the problems in order to help students learning speaking English
better. This is also the limitation of the study.

3.5 Methods of the study

This research uses qualitative and quantitative methods
- Two questionnaires are designed to find out the difficulties in speaking of
the second year students in FOE. Afterwards the data collected will be
analyzed and presented in the study.
- Besides, there will be some interviews and observations carried out in
informal situations.

3.6 Design/Structure of the study

This study includes 5 chapters:
Chapter 1:

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 Chapter 2:
Chapter 3:
Chapter 4:
Chapter 5:

4. Literature review
The literature review is organized in two parts: previous studies and review
of theoratical background. The first part summarizes the previous
investigations into criticisms both overseas and in Vietnam. The second part
aims to review the literature on the relationship between language, culture
and communication, definitions, classifications of speech arts, the act of
critisizing, theory of cross-culture communication, which are all related to
the study.

4.1 Previous studies

A number of empirical studies have examined the same research concern
related to difficulties encountered by university EFL students while participating in
oral classroom activities. Alrasheedi (2020) conducted a research with the same
topic in the context of Majmaah university in Saudi Arabia. 200 female and male
students majoring in various field were asked and the results showed that the
students’ hindrances are classified into five major categories: (1) insufficient
exposure to the target language, (2) low motivation, (3)anxiety and lack of
confidence, (4) inadequate language knowledge , (5) ineffective teaching pedagogy.
In the context of Vietnam, Tram (2011) also examined the same research concern in
the context of Ba Ria -Vung Tau University where students faced challenges in
English speaking skills. The findings emphasised the challenges with regard to (1)
learners’ issues such as learning styles, worries and language proficiency; (2)
lecturers’ issues, namely teaching methodology; and (3) teaching facilities. Another
study related to difficulties for students’ speaking skills was Ngo (2011) at Thai
Nguyen University. The study mainly focuses on three possible challenging aspects:
psychology, linguistic, and social-culture.

4.2 Theoretical framework

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The definition of speaking: It is obvious that speaking is the key means of
human communication. It enables people to express their feelings, opinions
and to communicate with other people in the world.
There are many experts defining “speaking” as follows:
According to Brown, speaking is “a constructing meaning interactive
process that is comprised producing and receiving information”.
Furthermore,
Harris (1974) defines speaking as the encoding process whereby we
communicate our ideas, thought, and feeling orally. It means that we produce
spoken message to someone. The spoken message includes ideas, thought
and feeling that we want to share, influence, or interact to other people.
Similarly, Byrne (1984) states “speaking is a two-way process between
speaker and listener and involves productive and receptive skills of
understanding”. It means that the speaker has to convey message in
appropriate language so that the listener
can decode that message. Meanwhile, Lado (1964) describes speaking as the
ability to express oneself in life situation, or the ability to report acts or
situations in precise words, or the ability to converse, or to express a
sequence of ideas fluently. This idea means that
speaking emphasizes more to the ability of an individual to convey
something whether it is in the form of expression, report, etc. with the
language he has. Additionally, Chaney & Burk (1998) defines speaking as “a
process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-
verbal symbol, in a variety of contexts”.
From the definition above, it can be inferred that speaking is a complex
interactive process between the speakers and listeners in order to produce,
decode and receive messages through the use of verbal and non-verbal
symbols. In other words, speaking is
a tool enabling speakers to transfer their ideas that are arranged and
developed to listeners clearly, effectively and correctly.

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5. References
Alrasheedi, S. (2020). Investigation of Factors Influencing Speaking
Performance of Saudi EFL Learners. Arab World English Journal.
Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to
Language Pedagogy. New York: Longman.
Byrne, D. (1984). Language learning in the classroom: Teaching oral English.
Hong Kong: Longman.
Chaney, A. L., and Burk, T. L. (1998). Teaching Oral Communication in
Grades K-8. Boston:
Allyn & Bacon.
Harris, D. P. (1974). Testing English as a Second Language. New Delhi: Tata.
Lado, R. (1964). Language Teaching: A scientific Approach. New York:
McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Nunan, D. (1991). LanguageTeaching Methodology. A Textbook for Teachers.
New York: Prentice Hall International, Ltd.
Ngo, P. T. (2010). A study on the difficulties in learning speaking English of the
first year students at the Faculty of Information Technology, Thai Nguyen
University.
Tram, H. T. A. (2020). Problems of learning speaking skills enoutered by
English major students at Ba Ria-Vung Tau University, Vietnam .