GROUP 6 Research Proposal Final
GROUP 6 Research Proposal Final
Content 0.5
1. Introduction 1.0
6. Analysis 0.5
TOTAL 10.0
Signatures:
Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 1
Literature Review ..................................................................................................................2
Notion of Original Research ................................................................................................. 4
Research Questions ............................................................................................................... 5
Research Methods ................................................................................................................. 5
Approach ............................................................................................................................5
Population .......................................................................................................................... 6
Location ............................................................................................................................. 6
Time ................................................................................................................................... 6
Research techniques .......................................................................................................... 7
Documents ....................................................................................................................7
Questionnaires ............................................................................................................. 7
Interviews ..................................................................................................................... 7
Procedure ........................................................................................................................... 7
Analysis .................................................................................................................................8
Proposed Chapter Outline .....................................................................................................8
Chapter I: Introduction ...................................................................................................... 8
Chapter II: Literature Review ........................................................................................... 9
Chapter III: Research Method ........................................................................................... 9
Chapter IV: Result ............................................................................................................. 9
Chapter V: Discussion .......................................................................................................9
Research Limitation .............................................................................................................. 9
Proposed Time Scale ...........................................................................................................10
References ........................................................................................................................... 11
Appendix A. Questionnaire for Students ........................................................................... 13
Appendix B. Interview questions ....................................................................................... 18
1
Introduction
Beside the sophistication of speaking skill, students also have to be noticeable for
its vitality. Language learners sometimes evaluate their success in language learning
based on how well they have improved in their spoken language ability (Lai-Mei Leong
& Seyedeh Masoumeh Ahmadi, 2017). The level of speaking proficiency can be
appraised as a reliable scale used to measure how much learners really comprehend and
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apply with what they have learned in English courses. For example, the use of
vocabularies in a language is considerably included in speaking ability which reflect the
width in people’s word capacities and the flexibility in the way they transmit words. To
sum up, the challenges in learning speaking skill are created by a great deal of reasons,
this survey will find out these taxing difficulties and the optimal solutions to support the
English using efficiency.
Literature Review
The overview of speaking skills. The transmission of language through the mouth
is referred to as speaking. Many components of our body, including the lungs, vocal tract,
vocal chords, tongue, teeth, and lips, are used to make sounds when we talk. Speaking is
one of active skills, which demands that you have to master four main speaking subskills:
vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar and fluency if you want to improve your English
speaking as quickly as possible. Especially, speaking is a mental process as well as a
bodily action involving the production of sounds employing articulatory and respiratory
aspects. The brain or mind must first process the language that is generated from the
tongue (Zainurrahman & Sumarni Sangaji, 2019), therefore, speaking ability is
determined not just by an individual's articulation system, but also by the development of
thinking in his or her mind. According to Chaney (1998), speaking is also a social
activity in which people construct and exchange meanings in a specific environment. It
means speaking activity has a dual function – individual and social functions, we have to
develop our interaction with others besides self-talking in front of the mirror, for example.
According to these ideas, individual psychology and societal barriers may both contribute
to the difficulty or problems in speaking activity or speaking learning.
speaking classes, many students have the same mother tongue, thus they tend to use it;
because it is simpler to communicate with others in a foreign language, and they feel less
'exposed' if they speak their own language; (4) Poor participation: this issue is
exacerbated by the tendency of certain students to dominate while others speak
infrequently or not at all. This also refers to linguistic issues, as an example, people
struggle to remember language, especially words with many meanings, have a difficult
time pronouncing words; insufficient vocabulary, and so on. However, in our research,
we just discuss non-linguistic problems aspects because you can improve your ability to
speak English by making time for practicing on the subject of linguistic issues, on the
other hand, for example, it's challenging to boost your self-esteem because of
psychological relevance. Dr. Ahmed Maher Mahmoud Al Nakhalah (2016) mentioned
psychological factors that hinder students from speaking, there are five perspectives: (1)
fear of mistake, (2) shyness, (3) anxiety, (4) lack of confidence, (5) lack of motivation.
The fear of making a mistake is undeniably one of the key reasons why students are
reluctant to speak English in the classroom. It is connected to a fear of being laughed at
by other students or scolded by the instructor, which causes students to withdraw from
the speaking activity (Anh Tram, 2020). Lack of motivation in the form of hesitancy, lack
of confidence, and shyness is one of the most significant hurdles students face when
learning to converse (Hulya Unsal Sakiroglu & Halil Ibrahim Kaya, 2018).
Dealing with those English speaking skill problems. Because issues with speaking
English are caused by both language learners and their social surroundings, especially in
classrooms, thus, the teacher's role in assisting students in improving your English
speaking skills in class is critical. Regardless of criticism, shyness, unwellness, or
nervousness, students should practice speaking skills (Atallah A. Al-Roud, 2016). In
adddition, it is critical for teachers to persuade their pupils that making errors is not a
terrible thing, and that they may learn from them. More significantly, severe error
correction or criticism from teachers must be removed since it hinders students from
participating in class speaking activities (Anh Tram, 2020). For that reason, it is critical
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that teachers develop a welcoming and open classroom environment. It is believed that by
doing so, individuals will feel more comfortable making errors in their study. Students
will no longer be concerned about their poor pronunciation or grammar. As a
consequence, students have the courage to speak in front of their speaking class (Pesce,
2011). To get rid of anxiety, Koichi Sato (2003) advises that teachers should be more
aware of nervousness in students and identify strategies that allow students to participate
more actively in oral activities, based on his study on increasing students' speaking
abilities. Teachers should congratulate learners on their ability to communicate in the
English language. They should establish a cordial relationship with their students, make
them feel at ease in the classroom, and instill in them a strong desire to learn English in
general and speak English in particular (Lai-Mei Leong & Seyedeh Masoumeh Ahmadi,
2017). Teachers can give regular opportunity for participants to practice accurate
pronunciation and intonation, as well as to interact freely, according to Kubo (2009).
Students will feel more confident in their abilities to speak English as a result of this. As
a result, the instructor should establish a welcoming environment in which students are
encouraged to speak English and commended for doing so. Aftat (2008) stated that
teachers should give ongoing encouragement and support to pupils, as well as ask
questions that expose the root of a student's issues. This is critical because
encouragement provides learners with a sense of security and welcome in their study. On
the basis of the most up-to-date data, our team will give an in-depth analysis in
combination with data collected from our in-depth interviews and survey questionnaires,
and we will show our opinions needed to be addressed to finish our research.
In this research, we will analyse the problems and solutions about learning English
speaking skills. Our team knows that there were several scientific researches examining
this topic. However, we will provide some unprecedented information which nobody has
ever made enquiry about before.
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Previously, there have been many scientific researches done on this topic at
different universities. However, they do not scrutinize on a specific subject but on many
subjects with different levels in the university environment. In this study, we want to
delve into a specific level that some students are at. That is the pre-intermediate level, for
those who can communicate in simple, familiar situations (shopping, travel, hotel
reservations…) and can write; read and understand short texts.
Next, we also have an another aspect to learn about. When discussing about how to
advance English speaking skill, many people consider that we should watch English
movies or TV shows to learn the intonation and pronunciation of native speakers. There
are some of other efficient solutions, one of which is studying through mobile
applications. With the wonderful development of Internet, they can learn English anytime,
anywhere by taking English learning applications without having to spend hours studying
at the library. Therefore, we decide to add this matter in the questionnaire to appraise if
students are enamored with it or not.
Research Questions
The purpose of this research is to find out more acutely the problems that English
major students at pre-intermediate level confront when speaking English. Then, finding
solutions to help students overcome those problems. To do this, we need to answer the
following questions:
- What are the difficulties in speaking English that make pre-intermediate students not
present a breakthrough in their speaking ability?
- What are the common solutions used?
- Are these solutions effective in improving their speaking performance?
Research Methods
Approach
In this research project, survey will be the core approach. We will utilize survey
administration software called “Google Forms” to design a survey and collect the
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Population
To collect data for this study, 100 students are invited to participate in the survey.
These are students majoring in English linguistics with pre-intermediate level at Sai Gon
University. A total of 10 lecturer specialize teaching English speaking from department
of Loreign Languages of Sai Gon University participated to the individual interview.
Location
10 lecturers who are interviewed come from main campus and campus 1 of Sai
Gon university. These are the locations where a large number of English speaking
lecturers spend most of the time working, making it convenient to access and conduct
research. All pre-intermediate students majoring in English linguistics from main campus,
campus 1 and campus 2 of Sai Gon University can take part in our online survey to help
us collect data.
Time
The time to conduct the survey and the interview is about two weeks. Two weeks is
a reasonable time to gather all the necessary information for the study. With the pace at
which information about the survey is spreading on Facebook, 2 weeks is appropriate so
that the study subjects have enough time to receive and perform the survey; roughly 50
students each week are expected to conduct the survey. Furthermore, it is easy to
schedule meetings with lecturers in order to conduct interview.
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Research techniques
Documents
Questionnaires
As we said before, our research objects are the pre-intermediate students majoring
in English linguistics at Sai Gon University. The number of students taking the survey
will be 100. For this survey, we have prepared a total of 20 questions related to our
research topic, which include 5 scale questions, 7 multiple choice questions, 1
information question and 7 open-ended questions. Scale and multiple choice take
responsibility for meeting the quantitative requirement, while information question and
open-ended questions reinforce the qualitative term of the survey.
Interviews
To collect more essential information for this research paper, we will interview 10
professors teaching Listening and Speaking at Sai Gon University about the solutions of
improving English Speaking skills. We intend to conduct face-to-face interview, and send
the questionnaire to the professors few days before the day of their interview.
Procedure
Difficulties in learning English speaking skills is one of the common problems that
many people encounter. Consequently, we decided to find out about this issue in our
scientific research. In this section, we will recapitulate our research process. To begin
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with, we will make a conjecture about the outcome. After that, we will originate the
questionnaire for the survey, which will be performed on "Google Forms" in two weeks.
When gathering enough surveys, we will analyze the results. Subsequently, our team will
discuss and give conclusions about the survey. We will also interview some professors
teaching Listening-Speaking during the time the students carry on the survey. Our team
will combine the outcome of the survey with the consultation implementing with the
professors to amalgamate into our research.
Analysis
After the answers from 100 digital survey sheets have been collected, they will be
classified based on 2 types of questions: multiple choice questions and expand questions.
For multiple choice questions, the options that the samples choose are counted and
ranked according to the quantity. First-class options will be regarded in the solving
orientations of the problems around speaking skills. Besides, expand questions are in
charge of the quantitative requirement, the answers in these questions are rigorously
discussed by the researcher group and filtered into valuable ideas which have the
extensive attachment with the lecturer’s perspectives in the interview. Subsequently, it
can explore an significant interconnection between student’s thought and teacher’s
experience.
After completing the research, we plan to write a research proposal. This research
proposal will include six chapters and be listed as follows:
Chapter I: Introduction
The introduction will be the section where we present our understanding of the
subject relevant to the research paper. It also conveys some facts in learning speaking
process as well as the importance of this skill. Besides, the introduction state the reason
why we chose this topic for research.
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In this part, we mention about speaking skill in general, some difficulties and
factors hindering students from practicing speaking skill, and solutions for those
problems. Some statements from other professional researchers can be excellent
references which support our research to develop the comprehensive.
We decide to conduct this scientific research by creating a survey with the pre-
intermediate students majoring in English linguistics at Sai Gon University in two weeks.
In addition, we will also interview the professors who teach speaking skills through face-
to-face meetings at the main campus and campus 1. After collecting all the data, we will
discuss, make statistics, and analyze to give the best results for this study.
In this section, we are going to present the outcome of our online survey. We will
provide detailed data and specific statistics collected from the survey. Therefore, we can
have a clear insight of difficulties to discover the way to deal with them.
Chapter V: Discussion
After collecting all the data and statistics in the survey, our team will know about
the difficulties that students may encounter. Thus, we can discuss with teammates and
select common problems to find solutions from the professors. The interview with
professors can help to suggest some precise advice. Based on that information, our team
will give our outlook and suggestions.
Research Limitation
The study has certain limitations in general. Firstly, because of the epidemic
situation, we did not have the opportunity to meet face-to-face to conduct the survey and
interview as well as discuss the issues of the study. Another limitation is that the data
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were only collected from 100 students at pre-intermediate level of Sai Gon University –
small-scale, therefore its accuracy level is not very high. As a result, it cannot be applied
to all sophomores, juniors and seniors in Saigon university and other universities.
The key objectives/ research questions along with the research method including
approach, population, location, time, research techniques and procedure are together
handled with the deadline within 2 weeks until the end of week 5. From the beginning of
week 6 to the end of week 7, our team intends to discover some lacks or flaws of other
researches to accomplish the notion of original research part as well as look back at our
own one to find out the research limitation.
Week 8 is the period that we are in charge of dealing with the analysis
demonstration and proposed chapter outline before designing meticulously the
questionnaires for both the online survey and the interview in week 9. Following our
strategy, the online survey will be posted and shared through the social media, interviews
with professional teachers are also established simultaneously during the periods of week
10 and week 11. Next, our group will assembles and filters the necessary information to
serve our analysis in week 12. If there are no obstacles in our plan, the research report
can be discussed and written in the last 3 weeks, until Thursday of week 15.
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References
Ali, S., & Abdul, K. K. (2019). The issues that cause problems to speak English as a
second language for undergraduate students of Sindh, Pakistan. North American
Academic Research, 2(4), 138-149. Retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/38845872/The_Issues_that_Cause_Problems_to_Speak_
English_as_a_Second_Language_for_Undergraduate_Students_of_Sindh_Pakistan
Kubo, Michael, (2009), Extensive pair taping for college students in Japan: Action
research in confidence and fluency building. Retrieved from http://accentsasia.org/3-
1/kubo.pdf
Penny, Ur. (1996). A Course in Language Teaching Practice and Theory. Cambridge:
CUP.
Pesce, Claudia. (2011). Speak Up! Sure-fire ways to help teens and adults overcome
shyness. Asian EFL Journal, 10(4), 120-125. Retrieved from
http://busyteacher.org/4276-speak-up-sure-fire-ways-to-help-teens-and adults.html
Appendix A
We are doing a survey of problems and solutions in learning speaking skill, and by
the questionnaire below for pre-intermediate students majoring in English Linguistics at
Sai Gon University, we will be able to synthesize and create a database to assess
problems and solutions in speaking English. It should only take 10 minutes, please take
time to fill in this questionnaire and send it by accessing our Google Forms link. We
appreciate your help so much. If you have any questions about this questionnaire, please
contact via email [email protected]
1. Do you feel that speaking skill is the most challenging skill in learning English?
Please tick one of the options below:
strongly
disagree uncertain agree strongly agree
disagree
☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
4. What difficulties are preventing you from breaking through in English speaking skill?
learning environment ☐ psychological factors ☐ linguistic factors ☐
5. The following are some situations related to learning environment, choose at least one
option or more that you are struggling with?
lack of opportunities in meeting native speakers ☐
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teachers are primarily concerned with teaching English grammar; they are
unconcerned with building an English-speaking environment for students ☐
there is not enough time in class for all students to demonstrate their speaking
abilities ☐
when teachers allow students to talk in pairs, their partners frequently discuss topics
in their mother tongues ☐
6. The following are some situations related to psychological factors, choose at least one
option or more that you are struggling with?
fear of making mistakes ☐
lack of motivation ☐
7. The following are some situations related to linguistic factors, choose at least one
option or more that you are struggling with?
lack of vocabulary ☐
illiteracy in grammar ☐
pronunciation issues ☐
8. Which strategies or techniques you are using for practicing your speaking skill every
day?
watching movies and listening to music ☐ self-talking ☐
shadowing technique ☐
9. How much time do you spend practicing your speaking ability based on these
strategies or techniques that you chose? Is it a fixed period?
yes, 2 hours every day ☐ yes, more than 2 hours every day ☐
10. Do you think that utilizing an application on your phone to practice English speaking
is beneficial to you? Why?
We would like to hear from you if you have any further comments:
11. Do you think that watching movies or listening to US-UK songs to practice English
speaking is beneficial to you? Why?
We would like to hear from you if you have any further comments:
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12. Do you think that applying self-talking technique to practice English speaking is
beneficial to you? Why?
We would like to hear from you if you have any further comments:
13. Do you think that trying English tongue twisters to practice English speaking is
beneficial to you? Why?
We would like to hear from you if you have any further comments:
14. Do you think that applying shadowing technique to practice English speaking is
beneficial to you? Why?
We would like to hear from you if you have any further comments:
15. Do you think that applying other strategies or techniques besides those to practice
English speaking is beneficial to you? Why?
We would like to hear from you if you have any further comments:
Duolingo ☐
17. Do you believe the apps you've selected are truly ideal for learning English speaking?
If not, what do you believe app developers should do to make their apps better?
We would like to hear from you if you have any further comments:
18. Do you believe that you need to interact with native speakers in order to improve your
English speaking?
of course ☐
having the opportunity to communicate with native speakers to improve my English
speaking ability is great, but it doesn’t matter ☐
no need, with current methods I can practice on my own ☐
19. Your teachers provide you with opportunities to practice speaking English in the
classroom. Please tick one of the options below:
always sometimes rarely never
☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
20. Is your present English speaking study environment satisfactory to you? Why?
very dissatisfied dissatisfied neutral satisfied very satisfied
☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
Please tell us the reasons for your choice:
Appendix B
Interview questions