Topic difficulties and some suggested solutions in speaking skills of the freshmen at the department of foreign languages in saigon university

1 ABSTRACT This research “Difficulties and some suggested solutions in speaking skills of the freshmen at the Foreign Languages Department in Saigon University” will give an overview

PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE OF HO CHI MINH CITY

5 Notion of Original Research 0.5

6 Key Assertions/ Objectives 0.5

CONTENT PAGE

ABSTRACT 1

1 INTRODUCTION 1

2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2

2.1 Speaking skill overview 2

2.2 Problems of speaking English in previous studies 3

2.3 Solutions for English speaking skills in previous studies 4 3 NOTION OF ORIGINAL RESEARCH 4

4 KEY ASSERTIONS/ OBJECTIVES 5

5 RESEARCH METHODS 5

5.1 Approach 5

5.2 Population 6

5.3 Location 6

5.4 Time 6

5.5 Research techniques: 7

5.6 Procedures: 7

6 ANALYSIS 8

7 RESEARCH LIMITATIONS 8

8 PROPOSED CHAPTER OUTLINE 9

9 PROPOSED TIMESCALE 10

REFERENCES/ BIBLIOGRAPHY 11

APPENDIX I QUESTIONNAIRE – 14

APPENDIX II 16

1

ABSTRACT

This research “Difficulties and some suggested solutions in speaking skills

of the freshmen at the Foreign Languages Department in Saigon University”

will give an overview of the English speaking skills of the first-year students of the Department of Foreign Languages at Saigon University The study investigated the elements that influence learners' speaking skill as well as the reasons why such factors are considered to influence freshmen in speaking performance This was descriptive research that included both quantitative and qualitative methods We do this research by distributing questionnaires and evaluating data on the English proficiency of freshmen as well as the problems they encountered Then, we provide techniques for improving speaking abilities in the expectation that such solutions will support them in becoming masters of English speaking skills

1 INTRODUCTION

People are in today's progressive era, especially students In addition to equipping hard skills, known as specialized skills, they also need to master soft skills to be able to maintain a certain position in society And one of the necessary skills that we need to have is communication skills, namely in English - the most popular foreign language in the world However, although we have entered the university path, there are still many students, who even belong to the Department

of Foreign Languages, their communication skills still do not meet the criteria set forth by their department Therefore, our following research will find out what are the difficulties in English speaking skills to help students at all levels, especially first-year students, then suggest some useful methods to help them enhance their skills If the freshmen can overcome these difficulties, the background Their English communication foundation will be more solid as a springboard for upcoming study programs and prepare well for the future working environment In addition, finding out the cause of the difficulties in speaking English of individuals will help the department and lecturers take immediate supportive measures such as

improving the quality of education on the speaking skills and figuring out the best support methods for students

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Speaking skill overview

Speaking skill is one of the indispensable skills in communication and is used throughout the learning and working process Speaking skill includes two stages: the process of implementing ideas in the brain and the transmission process information for listeners to understand According to research by Bygate (1987), two factors have been identified for speaking skills, namely production skills and interaction skills Similar to Brown (1994) speaking is the process of speaking includes collecting information data, then accepting, producing and processing the data to become valid information ready to provide good communication Some people have extremely good speaking skills because of the ability Input and output information is very fast And they know that in order to have the most effective conversation, speakers need to use clear and understandable language for listeners However, there are people who only have the ability to think without the ability to deploy information, on the contrary, there are people who do not think ahead but speak according to their feelings or there are people who do not know how to communicate because they are introverted That would render the conversation pointless and uninteresting to the audience Those are the two most striking studies

of 20th century speaking

In the new century, researcher Al-Sibai (2004) argues that students living in the present need to be able to speak English fluently because it has become a must, and good proficiency is Prerequisites to get a good job, especially for those who want to advance in some areas of social life Therefore, our team’s research will specifically explore the origin Of the difficulties in speaking skills of students, especially freshmen, and from there provide solutions

3

2 Problems of speaking English in previous studies 2

Spoken language production is often considered to be one of the most difficult aspects of language learning (Brown & Yule, 1983) Therefore, it is extremely important to thoroughly comprehend the causes of these difficulties and suggest possibly effective methods to help students' speaking skills And here are a number

of studies researched about problems that students face while speaking English and given a strategy to improve English speaking skills Notable studies were conducted by Hosni (2014), Yumniamatillah (2017), Dinh, T B N., & Tran, T D (2020) and Adil, M (2022)

Hosni (2014) investigated 3 main problems that are linguistic difficulties, mother tongue use and inhibition This finding mentioned factors that contribute to the existence of these difficulties such as Teachers’ perceptions and Tacit beliefs about teaching speaking and Teaching strategies

Yumniamatillah (2017) discussed 4 disadvantages that are difficult in pronouncing English words, lack of vocabulary mastery, low self-confidence and grammar use Then he also investigated some factors affecting students’ difficulties in speaking English The researcher believes that this study will obtain deeper and more detailed Understandings about a phenomenon that cause difficulties in speaking among first year students Therefore, using qualitative is appropriate for this study The survey questionnaire students for this “Key factors” research consisting

of 8 questions was principally adapted from the investigation conducted by Marriam, Muhammad and Ashiq (2011) and Nguyen and Tran (2015) Dinh, T B N., & Tran, T D (2020) mentioned Key factors influencing learners’ oral fluency

in English speaking classes: A case at a public university in Vietnam This research then explored factors consisting of 85.1% for “fear of making mistakes”, 82% for

“confidence” and 61.8% for “anxiety and 61.8% for “anxiety”

Adil, M (2022) aims to know about the “Problems Faced by Students in Speaking English Language” There are 6 problems that students face in their speaking skills

2.3 Solutions for English speaking skills in previous studies

There were methods in previous researches that have helped students to improve their English speaking skills This research has shown positive impacts on many students after schools launching an English program in curriculum For example:

(2014) Pham Vu Phi Ho & Nguyen Hai Long discussed The Impacts of Based Speaking Activities on English-Majored Freshmen's Oral Performance at Ba Ria-Vung Tau Teacher Training College In order to accomplish this investigation, the participants in the research consisted of the teacher/researcher and 23 English-major freshmen The results of this study revealed that students were able to achieve 4 significant improvements that 17,4% number of students speak more fluently, 43,5% take part in speaking positively, 73,9% speak more than before, 82,6%become more confident Finally, this finding showed effective impacts on the students’ feeling of the class atmosphere

Task-(2016) El-Sakka, S M.F discussed about Self-Regulated Strategy Instruction for Developing Speaking Proficiency and Reducing Speaking Anxiety of Egyptian University Students It came to a conclusion that teaching self-regulated strategies

to university students was positively effective in developing their speaking proficiency and reducing their anxiety remarkably

From these two surveys, it can be seen that students are absolutely able to improve their speaking skills and these methods are being applied at the moment Furthermore, this can be considered as advantages in practising speaking skills of freshman at universities

3 NOTION OF ORIGINAL RESEARCH

In this research, we will focus on the difficulties in speaking English of students in the Department of Foreign Languages at Saigon University From the literature review section above, we can see that most of the authors only mention about general problems in speaking English of students as a whole Student belonging to the DFL must have above average English knowledge, however,

5

because most of high schools only teach them enough to pass exams, they struggle

to actually use English in real life, especially speaking skills That’s why our research target freshmen, who haven’t been practicing speaking English much comparing to other levels We believe that what we do will help schools and teachers understand more about the difficulties that first-year students face while speaking English, and that we will be able to provide some solutions to help them overcome those obstacles

4 KEY ASSERTIONS/ OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this research is to find out problems that first-year students are prone to encounter when practicing English speaking skills Then, we suggest some solutions to help students to overcome these problems To do this, we take a survey and need to answer the following questions:

1 What are the common problems that freshmen usually face when practicing English speaking?

2 What are the possible causes of these problems?

3 What are some effective methods to improve English speaking skill?

5 RESEARCH METHODS

5.1 Approach

To cater to the needs of the research, we decided to conduct a survey of the Department of Foreign Languages freshmen to identify factors that influenced their English speaking skills

On the one hand, a face- -face interview is the main method we use for data tocollection Because of differences in freshmen’s schedules so it is difficult for us to collect data We decided to use online survey-based studies because of their ability

to collect data with greater ease and faster speed compared to traditional methods However, there are major concerns about the accuracy of findings obtained using the online survey methodology This would be possible when the online survey is conducted via the Google Forms platform by non-English major students

Therefore, the results in the online survey may be influenced and we focus on answers with clearly personal information

On the other hand, we also used data from the survey questionnaires conducted by many res arche ers to compare with our results to know more about students’ problems raised while practicing English speaking skills

5.2 Population

This research was carried out at Saigon University with the participation of

124 first-year English-major students in the Department of Foreign Languages They were in the second semester of the academic year 2021 2022 at Saigo– n University A large number of them have learned English for 7 years (from 12 to

18 years old) However, their English speaking skills are still influenced by high school English learning methods Thus, when entering Saigon University, they have to deal with many difficulties in studying English skills, especially speaking skills

5.3 Location

The locations we selected to conduct our research were Building E and Building A of the main campus of Saigon University, which is located at 273 An Duong Vuong street, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City We headed to any classrooms which were being used to teach English related subjects to have the students do our questionnaire The intention why we chose the main campus was due to the fact that this was where a majority of students in the Department of Foreign Languages were studying; therefore, it was the most suitable place to conduct our research

5.4 Time

The research was done in about 15 weeks in the second semester of the year

2022 We began the work on February 25 and ended on 27 of May In the first th thmonth (week 1 to week 5), we managed to decide the topic of the research that we wanted to conduct and came up with a title for it; next, we assigned the work to each member of the group and collected many references for the research During

7

the next month (week 6 to week 9), we read the references and wrote a part of study consisting of Introduction, Abstract, Notion of research and Literature review After that, we identified the goal of our questionnaire and developed questions for it For the third month (week 10 to week 14), we collected the data from the questionnaire then analyzed it; additionally, we finished up our research study by writing the rest of the it and checking all the errors left On the final week (week 15), we succeeded in submitting our work on time

5.5 Research techniques:

Through using those documents, we discovered a lot of academic knowledge, which is not only relevant to the research but also greatly contributes to finding out the problems we will approach Speaking of the questionnaire, it proved itself to be

a very effective and simple tool in helping us collect the data in a short amount of time With the combination of these two techniques, our team received several responses, which took part in the subject analysis in ten days only by completing the survey

5.6 Procedures:

Due to being the skills that were not focused on in teaching English in high school, speaking skills became an unavertable obstacle when they went to university Therefore, it is essential to figure out solutions to support and improve their ability Here is the procedure of our research which is adjusted and managed

in a logical process:

Step 1: We considered and observed thoroughly to determine the subjects we aimed at (which are freshmen at the Department of Foreign Language in Saigon University) and also the topic which is related to speaking skills in the first three weeks

Step 2: After studying more about methodology, reading references and discussing with our lecturer, we decided to choose survey as the approach to conduct the