Gay hung thu cho hoc sinh hoc noi o truong trung hoc pho thong gia loc

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Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1. Rationale of the study

Nowadays English language has gained its significance among a number of foreign

languages such as French, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, etc... in the world as well as in

Vietnam. The importance of English has been realized in Vietnam because English is

considered to play a crucial role on the path of industrialization and modernization of the

country. Therefore, English is now taught in almost every school, college, university and

language centre all over the country.

One of the main tasks assigned to foreign language teaching at school is that of training

students to be communicatively competent. In an industrialized and modernized society, and in

the time of globalization, communicative competence is required in the spoken as well as

written form. It means communication can be conducted orally or in written documents. In

many fields of life, being able to speak English is a necessity. For high school leavers, a good

oral communicative competence in English may enable them to get a scholarship in a

university in an English speaking country such as in the USA, in Britain, in Australia and so

on, which is believed to ensure a much brighter future for them. Moreover, high school leavers

who can speak English are easier to find a job with quite a big salary in a foreign company or a

joint venture one, or to do an oversea job. Especially, graduates of a good command of English

whose basic knowledge is what they obtain at school have a great deal of chances to be offered

a good job with a big salary in a both state and private company. Thus, it is obvious that being

able to speak English brings about a better career prospect.

At Gia Loc senior secondary school, like at many other high schools in Vietnam,

English has been a compulsory subject in secondary curriculum for many years. The fact is

that, due to the demand of the senior secondary school graduation and university entrance

examinations, the students' focus is on grammar and vocabulary, which means little attention

has been paid to speaking skill.

Besides, teaching English at school is mainly performed with a traditional method- the

Grammar Translation method, which focuses mainly on grammatical and vocabulary items. As

a result, students who are passive recipients become structurally competent but

communicatively incompetent.

While speaking may be a necessity for school leavers, and may serve as a “keystone”

in successful communication, evidence shows that too many school students are unwilling to

take part in speaking activities in class. This may be caused by many factors, among which is

the lack of motivation.

Motivation is one of the key issues in language teaching and it has long been believed

to have a good impact on success or failure of a language learner. Skills and techniques to

motivate students to practise the four basic skills, especially speaking skill, are essential for

language teachers. Many researchers in the world namely, Gardner (1985), Ellis (1997),

Littlewood (1998), Zoltan Dornyei (2001) and so on, have investigated what motivation is and

what dimensions of motivation have effects on second language learning. In Vietnam, there

have been a few studies on motivation of learners in English learning both in general and in

particular skills such as speaking, listening, reading and writing. Yet no researcher has

conducted investigation into the development of motivation in speaking skill for senior

secondary school students in rural areas such as at Gia Loc senior secondary school.

1.2. Aims of the study

This study is carried out to meet the following aims:

1. To investigate the current English speaking teaching and learning situation at Gia

Loc senior secondary school.

2. To identify the motivation and factors making the students reluctant to speak in

class.

3. To give an insight into the speaking teaching techniques used to motivate the

students to take part in speaking activities.

4. To suggest some realistic and appropriate class teaching techniques to help the

students better their speaking skill.

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1.3. Scope of the study

In order to improve speaking skill for students at Gia Loc senior high school, the

teachers can make use of a variety of techniques and a number of things should be done.

However, the researcher's intention is only to overview a brief of current situation of English

teaching and learning speaking English in grade 11 and to identify the factors making the

students reluctant to speak, to study some techniques used by the teachers to see if they

workable, and to make some suggestions on useful techniques to help the students better their

speaking skill .

1.4. Methods of the study

To achieve the aims of the study, both quantitative and qualitative methods are used

and the following tasks are involved:

- Collecting data for the analysis from 186 students grade 11.

- Collecting data for the analysis from eight teachers teaching English in the school.

- Interviewing eight students for further information of the study.

All comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion are based on the data

analysis.

1.5. Design of the study.

This minor thesis is divided into five chapters.

The first chapter, INTRODUCTION, presents the rationale, the aims, scope, methods

and design of the study. Definitions of terms are also presented in this chapter.

The second chapter, REVIEW OF LITERATURE, presents various concepts most

relevant to the research topic such as definition of motivation, motivation in L2 learning, types

and importance of motivation, and factors affecting motivation in L2 learning. Furthermore,

the following are also included in this chapter: definition of speaking, the importance of

speaking, approaches to develop speaking skill, the teaching of speaking in rural area and at

senior secondary school.

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Chapter three, METHODOLOGY, provides the methodology underlying the research

which includes the general information about the study subjects, the teaching and learning

speaking situation at Gia Loc senior high school. This chapter also focuses on the methods of

data collection.

Chapter four, PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA, gives a detailed

presentation of data and a detailed description of data analysis. Some explanations and

interpretations of the findings of the study are also presented.

Chapter five, PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONs AND CONCLUSION, provides the

summary of the findings, emphasizes the implication of the study in which certain techniques

for improving speaking skill to the students at Gia Loc senior high school are suggested. In

addition, this chapter also points out the limitations of the study and provides some

suggestions for further studies.

1.6. Definitions of terms

Since terms used in special education are often somewhat unique to the area, the terms

relevant to this research are defined as below:

Aptitude: refers to learners’ ability to learn an L2.

EFL: stands for English as a foreign language.

Global motivation: refers to a general orientation to the goal of an L2 learning.

Instrumental motivation: refers to the desire to obtain something practical from the

study of an L2.

Integrative motivation: can be seen as an orientation of a successful learner who shows

an interest in people speaking the target language, the culture and customs in that society.

( Falk, 1987 )

Extrinsic motivation: refers to learners' reasons for language learning which derives

from the influence of some kinds of external incentives (Ur, 1996)

Intrinsic motivation: refers to learners' interest in language learning activities (Ellis,

1997)

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