A study on oral presentation difficulties of second year english majors of phuong dong university in

Part 1: Introduction

1. Rationale

Nowadays, English is considered as an international language, which is spoken by millions of

people all over the world. In reality, large international companies often use English to

communicate between offices and subsidiaries. As for those people who are working, apart

from using the language as a tool for oral communications, they have the desire to use it for

their jobs. One of the desires is to present in English. As a matter of fact, giving an effective

presentation requires a mastery of a broad range of skills and techniques. To achieve the

objective of the presentation, the presenter is supposed to master techniques of identifying the

purpose, topic, theme, organization so that the audience can easily follow the talk. In addition

to that, the speaker’s use of intonation, articulation, stress, pacing, emphasis, etc., to get the

audience’s attention and concentration is considered essential to contribute to his/her success.

As for the intermediate and advanced Vietnamese students of English, spoken English in

general and presenting in English in particular is extremely important because they expect to

use it frequently for their future work. Unfortunately, for many years, they have been good at

recognizing the correct use of grammar and they can speak English but can hardly present in

English. When many make oral presentations, they seem to pay more attention to lexis and

grammatical structures than presentation style and presentation skills. This leads to the fact that

not few learners of English after a long time learning English find themselves unable to deliver

a presentation successfully.

Being a teacher who has taught English for more than seven years, I realize that my students,

especially the second-year English-major ones, who as part of their studies have to make oral

presentations, also share the same mandate. Many students seem to lack the skills and

confidence to make effective presentations. They know the topics and the ideas are written

down, but their presentations do not go well. This time their fellow students appear

uninterested. Another time they might lose interest before the speakers have made half of the

presentations or sometimes the speakers seem to be confused and embarrassed with the

listeners’ questions.

The above-mentioned problems is the researcher’s primary concern and also the motivation for

doing the thesis. The choice of “A Study on Oral Presentation Difficulties of Second-Year

English-Majors of Phuong Dong University in the Speaking Lessons and Solutions” as the

topic of this thesis, therefore, is not accidental.

2. Aims and objectives of the study

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The study is aimed at oral presentation difficulties encountered by the second-year major

students of English, English Department, Phuong Dong University And then some possible

solutions are given to help my students overcome those difficulties so as to make an

improvement in our teaching and learning oral presentations in general and speaking in

particular. The specific objectives of the study are:

 To investigate the students' perceptions about the importance of oral presentation skills in

their future work

 To get to know their evaluations of their success

 To identify their major difficulties when presenting in English

 To examine the causes of their difficulties

 To give possible suggestions to improve their presentation skills

3. Scope and significance of the study

This study mainly focuses on presentation skills in English in the classroom setting. It involves

the participation of 62 second-year English majors who are in their fourth semester at Phuong

Dong University. The findings and suggested solutions most appropriately applied to the

teachers of English as well as the second-year English majors of Phuong Dong University. That

is, the teachers and students will be able to find ways to improve their process of teaching and

learning oral presentation skills. Specifically, the students will be able to attain better oral

presentation skills and have quite a good preparation for the course of “Oral Presentation” in

their fifth term.

4. Methods of the study

The study has been conducted in the form of survey research with its technique of

questionnaire with informants of two classes of 62 second-year majors of English at Phuong

Dong University. In addition to the questionnaire, informal discussions with the informants and

their teachers and personal observation were also employed

5. Organization of the thesis

The thesis is organized as follows:

Part 1, introduction, presents the rationale for the study, the aims, scope, methods and

organization of the thesis.

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Part 2, development, consists of the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Literature Review, presents the theoretical background: the theories and

concepts related to speaking skills and oral presentations in English.

Chapter 2, namely “The study” describes the current situation of teaching speaking at

English Department, Phuong Dong University and reports the survey research which

was carried out at the beginning of the fourth term of the 2006-2007 academic year at

Phuong Dong University. The report includes the following information:

• Research questions

• Informants

• Questionnaire and procedure

• Data analysis and findings

• Suggested solutions

Chapter 3, implications and suggestions, offers pedagogical suggestions for teachers of

English at Phuong Dong University.

Part 3, conclusion and recommendations, summarize the study and suggest some

ideas for further study.

development

Chapter I: Literature review

In the investigation into ways to develop students’ speaking ability in general and oral

presentation skills in particular, it is believed that the study needs to present the previous and

current literature on oral presentations. Besides, it should show the relation between knowledge

and skills and then define and explore the nature of speaking, types of classroom speaking, and

some aspects of oral presentations. These issues are the focus of the chapter.

1.1. Introductory Remarks

In language teaching, a great importance has been attached to strategies of improving and

developing students' oral communication skills and enhancing their oral competence. That is

why a growing number of linguists and institutions like the University of Canberra, Ball State

University are working on this field and they have, in fact, made a substantial contribution to

the development of language learners’ presentation skills. Such titles as “Presenting in English”

by Powell (2000), “Effective Presentations” by Comfort (1995), “The Business Communication

Handbook” by Dwyer (2000), “Giving Presentations” by Ellis & O’Driscoll (1992), etc. have

so far caught a great attention from a significant number of readers.

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Undeniably, it is clear that these scholars and institutions in their books and course

descriptions, present guidelines to promote learners’ skills in giving oral presentations both in

theory and in practice but those experts just mainly focus on business contexts and other

professional situations (see O’Driscoll & Pilbeam (1987), Dwyer (2000), Reinhart (2002)).

Also, they do not touch upon the problems that language learners have when giving oral

presentations in the classroom setting and the reasons why they experience such problems. In

addition, the solutions/suggestions given from those books are not drawn from their own

research or in other words, they were not research-based. They are somehow based on the

writers’ own observations and perceptions, so the solutions tend to be applicable for some

subjects.

In Vietnam, there have been a lot of studies on oral communication skills and many of them are

presented in M.A theses. However, oral presentations have not been extensively investigated.

For example, there has been so far no study on the oral presentation problems that learners of

English might encounter For that reason, I decided to have my own research in which I tried to

have an investigation of the second-year majors' difficulties when giving oral presentations and

give possible suggestions on how to teach and learn oral presentation skills efficiently. I do

hope that what comes out of this study might contribute to the learning and teaching speaking

at our institution in general and those who share the same mandate in particular.

1.2. Knowledge and Skills

One of the basic challenges in foreign language teaching is to make learners competent in

using the language. Being a competent user of a language means having both good knowledge

and skills of using the language. The relationship between knowledge and skills is clearly and

vividly illustrated in the book entitled “Speaking” by Bygate (1997). He gives lots of examples

and explanations as follows:

Bygate begins by pointing out the fact that in order to speak a language, it is necessary for

learners to know a certain amount of grammar and vocabulary and how to assemble sentences.

However, he emphasizes, the knowledge of the language is never sufficient. It is skill that is

“the most realisable” in a speaking class and in an oral exam: “...to test whether learners can

speak, it is necessary to get them to actually say something. To do this they must act on the

knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. By giving learners “speaking practice” and “oral

exams” we recognize that there is a difference between knowledge about a foreign language,

and skill in using it”. (1987: 3). He then points out that the language teachers are supposed to

understand the difference and the interrelation among knowledge and skill. To illustrate his

point of view, he presents the example of a car driver, which I find the most convincing:

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