I. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
Since the open-door policy adapted to Vietnam, the need for integrating into the world has increased. That is why, English teaching and learning have become very important to our country’s modernization and industrialization.
However, in some places in Vietnam English teaching has been strongly influenced by the traditional methods. Teachers as well as students paid too much attention to the grammatical items. In these classes, teachers mainly focused on explaining the grammatical rules and structures to students who were considered as passive recipients. As a result, those students might be structurally competent but communicatively incompetent. That causes a lot of difficulties in using English in their real-life communication.
In addition, the political and economic changes have a great positive impact on the teaching methods of teachers of English in Vietnam. They have realized that students can only improve their language competence through communication. It is the need for oral competence in English that has turned the teachers’ emphasis from teaching grammar into teaching communication. Therefore, speaking skills nowadays play a much more important role in modern English than ever before. In every English class, teachers would like to develop students’ speaking skills by applying the communicative language teaching method known as one of the most effective approaches that help students speak.
To meet the demand of students, English teachers in general and English teachers at Hanoi University of Industry (hereafter HaUI) in particular have been trying to find out the most suitable and effective method of teaching English Speaking. Thus, the Communicative Language Teaching Approach (hereafter CLT) is applied to teach English Speaking at all levels at this university. Teachers hope with this teaching method, they can help their students both improve their English knowledge and use it effectively and fluently in communication. This idea is also suggested by many linguists and methodologists such as Nunan, 1991 and Das, B.K, 1985.
As one teacher of English at this university I realize that although both the teachers and students try their best to reach their goals to teach and study English Speaking skills effectively, up to now the results have been still far from satisfaction. Hence, I would like to do something with a hope to improve Speaking skills for our students so that I have carried out the study entitled “An investigation into the Reality of Teaching and Learning Speaking Skills to the 2nd year non-major English students at Pre-Intermediate level of Proficiency at Hanoi University of Industry. ”
II. AIMS OF THE STUDY
The main purpose of this study is to research the reality of teaching and learning speaking skills to the 2nd year non-major English students at Pre-Intermediate level of Proficiency at HaUI in order to find out the problems preventing the students from willingly taking part in speaking activities at the English class. The writer also makes some recommendations for the English teachers to consult and apply in their teaching speaking skills with a view to help the students improve their speaking competence.
III. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The above aims of the study can be realized by the following research questions:
(i) What is the present situation of teaching and learning English speaking skills at HaUI?
(ii) Which problems do the teachers and students have in a speaking lesson?
(iii) What are the techniques to be used to improve speaking skills for the 2nd year non-major English students at HaUI?
IV. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study focuses on the reality of teaching and learning English speaking to the 2nd year non-major students at Pre-Intermediate level of English Proficiency at HaUI. Although the author is well aware that the survey statistics are not fully representative of all the non-major students of English at many universities in Vietnam, she hopes to propose some of the most popular facts that occurring in the study.