MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
QUY NHON UNIVERSITY
DUONG TIEU LINH
FACTORS AFFECTING GIA LAI HIGH SCHOOL
STUDENTS’ ENGLISH SPEAKING FLUENCY
Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching
Code: 8140111
Supervisor: Assoc, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Hien
BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO
TRƢỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN
ĐƢỜNG TIỂU LINH
NHỮNG YẾU TỐ ẢNH HƢỞNG ĐẾN SỰ LƢU LOÁT KHI
NÓI TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH THPT Ở GIA LAI
Ngành: Lý luận và phƣơng pháp dạy học bộ môn Tiếng Anh
Mã số: 8140111
Ngƣời hƣớng dẫn: PGS. TS. Nguyễn Thị Thu Hiền
i
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I, DUONG TIEU LINH, declare that this thesis is my own work and
has been generated by me as the result of my own original research. The
thesis title is “Factors Affecting Gia Lai High School Students’ English
Speaking Fluency”.
This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree at any
university.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my thesis
deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and
research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the
librarian for the care or reproduction of the thesis.
Quy Nhon, 2022
Duong Tieu Linh
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my thesis supervisor
Assoc. Prof. Nguyen Thi Thu Hien for her invaluable instructions, helpful
suggestions, critical comments, various sources of reference and precious
corrections on my writing. This research work would not be possible without
her stimulation inspiration and cooperation.
I also would like to express my sincere thanks to the lecturers of the
Faculty of Foreign Languages of Quy Nhon University for their wonderful
and meaningful lectures and profound background knowledge, which played
an integral role in my completion of this thesis.
I am very grateful to the English teachers and students at four Upper
Secondary School in Gia Lai who have enthusiastically participated in my
research. But for their participation, my thesis could not be completed.
Also, I extend my thanks to all my colleagues at Y Don Upper
Secondary School for their continuous encouragement and support during the
course.
Finally, I wish to thank all my beloved family who always encourage
and support me in the process of doing this thesis.
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ABSTRACT
In terms of English language learning, speaking is known as one of the
most important skills to be developed and improved continually as means of
effective communication. However, in fact, a majority of Gia Lai high school
students find it difficult to express themselves in spoken English fluently.
Therefore, this research was conducted with the aims to investigate prominent
factors affecting fluency of Gia Lai high school students in speaking skills.
The study used mixed research methods with two data collection instruments
namely survey questionnaire and semi-structured interview. The official
participants taking part in the survey questionnaire included 150 eleventh
grade students from four high schools in Gia Lai province. The semistructured interviews were carried out with participation of 8 out of 150
students chosen randomly. The findings revealed four main factors affecting
students’ fluency. Automation was the most influential one, and then
followed by performance conditions, teacher’s correction and feedback and
affective factors.
The study also investigated the different levels of the
impacts of those factors in terms of subfactors on oral fluency of the students.
Moreover, the research proposed a number of implications, focusing on
aiding the students to improve their speaking fluency.
Keywords: English speaking skills, speaking fluency, prominently affecting
factors, high school students, Gia Lai.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................. iv
LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................... vii
LIST OF FIGURES........................................................................................ viii
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................... 1
1.1. Rationale ............................................................................................... 1
1.2. Aim and objectives of the study............................................................ 3
1.3. Research questions ................................................................................ 3
1.4. Scope of the study ................................................................................. 3
1.5. Method of the study .............................................................................. 3
1.6. Significance of the study ....................................................................... 4
1.7. Organization of the sudy ....................................................................... 4
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................... 6
2.1. Speaking skills ...................................................................................... 6
2.2. Speaking fluency ................................................................................... 7
2.3. Factors affecting speaking fluency ....................................................... 9
2.3.1. Affective factors .............................................................................. 9
2.3.2. Performance conditions ................................................................ 11
2.3.3. Automation.................................................................................... 13
2.3.4. Teacher’s Corrections and Feedback during speaking activities ......... 14
2.3.5. Topical knowledge ........................................................................ 15
2.4. Review of Previous Studies Related to the Topic............................... 15
v
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ............................................. 19
3.1. Research method ................................................................................. 19
3.2. Participants .......................................................................................... 19
3.3. Instruments .......................................................................................... 20
3.3.1. Questionnaire ................................................................................ 21
3.3.2. Semi-structured interview ............................................................. 23
3.4. Data collection procedures .................................................................. 23
3.5. Data Analysis Method ......................................................................... 24
3.5.1. Coding ........................................................................................... 24
3.5.2. Reliability and Validity ................................................................. 25
CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ........................................... 30
4.1. Gia Lai high school students’ perception of the importance of
speaking skills ................................................................................................. 30
4.2. Gia Lai high school students’ evaluation of their English speaking
fluency ........................................................................................................ 32
4.3. Factors affecting students’ speaking fluency ...................................... 34
4.3.1. Automation.................................................................................... 36
4.3.2. Performance conditions ................................................................ 38
4.3.3. Teacher’s feedback and correction ............................................... 40
4.3.4. Affective factors ............................................................................ 41
4.4. The levels of impacts of these factors on Gia Lai high school
students’ speaking fluency ......................................................................... 44
4.4.1 The levels of impact of automation, performance conditions,
affective factors, and teacher’s feedback ................................................ 44
4.4.2. The levels of impacts of detailed factors ...................................... 45
CHAP TER 5 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS................................. 49
5.1. A Summary of the Key Findings ........................................................ 49
5.2. Recommendations ............................................................................... 50
vi
5.3. Limitations and Suggestions for Further Studies ................................ 53
REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 54
APPENDICES
vii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1. The information of the students participants for the survey. ......... 20
Table 3.2. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient ......................................................... 26
Table 3.3. Reliability test of all 21 Likert scale questions .............................. 27
Table 3.4. Item-total Statistics ........................................................................ 27
Table 4.1. The students’ perception of the importance of speaking skills ..... 31
Table 4. 2. Students’ self-evaluation of their speaking skills ......................... 33
Table 4.3. Factors affecting students’ speaking fluency ................................. 34
Table 4.4. Automation affecting students’ speaking fluency ......................... 36
Table 4.5. Performance conditions affecting students’ speaking fluency ...... 38
Table 4.6. Teacher’s correction affecting students’ speaking fluency ........... 40
Table 4.7. Affective factors affecting students’ speaking fluency ................. 42
Table 4.8. The levels of impacts of these factors on Gia Lai high school
students’ speaking fluency in terms of automation, performance
conditions, affective factors, and teacher’s feedback ................... 44
Table 4.9. The levels of impacts of these factors on Gia Lai high school
students’ speaking fluency in terms of the subfactors .................. 45
viii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 4. 1. Students’ evaluation of the importance of speaking skills .......... 31
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This chapter starts with the rationale that provides the reasons for the
researcher to carry out the study. Furthermore, the aims and specific objectives of
the research, the research questions, the method of the research, the significance and
the scope of the research are also stated. The organization of the study is then
provided in the last section of the chapter.
1.1. Rationale
In the race of globalization and modernization of society, being capable
of using English has become one of the most vital factors connecting people
from different regions, cultures, religions, and nations. Many people are
expected to be verbally competent to communicate fluently in English.
Accordingly, the primary objective of any English language teaching should
be to provide learners with the ability to communicate effectively in English
(Davies & Pearse, 1998) or, in other words, to achieve communication target.
During the process of teaching English, I realize that one of the four
skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) that most English learners
wish to master as soon as possible is speaking, which Ur (1996) emphasizes
to be the most important to make learners become English speakers. Thus,
speaking skill is a means of thinking, academic learning (Goh, 2007) and a
crucial component of communication (Shumin, 2002). Similarly, according to
Anggryadi (2014), many speakers believe that making speaking a success is
the primary goal of learning English as a foreign language.
Despite the fact that the English learners, particularly Vietnamese high
school students are aware of such great importance of speaking skill, they are
always struggling to speak or give any utterances in English. In fact, it is clear
that a great number of high school students frequently have difficulties in
speaking, especially, speaking fluency. Many students even burst into tears or
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cannot say anything or express their ideas during their speaking performance
(Khong, 2019). As a result, their achievements in speaking English at school
are usually limited compared to other skills such as reading, listening or
writing (Khong, 2019). This is also a big problem faced by high school
students in the mountainous areas.
In reality, up to now, it is undeniable that many studies as to the factors
causing this speaking problem have been conducted in the world in general
and in Vietnam in particular. For example, MacIntyre, Clément, Sezgin, and
Noels (1998) explored the effect of self- confidence on oral performance.
Park and Lee (2005) studied the links between anxiety, self- confidence, and
speaking performance in second language learners. Tanveer (2007)
investigates the elements that cause language anxiety in twenty language
learners learning to speak and the influence of anxiety on communication in
the target language, and his findings are equivalent to those of Park and Lee
(2005). Furthermore, Bozorgian (2012) did a study to evaluate the
relationship between listening skill and other speaking talents. Besides, in
Vietnam, Khong (2019) investigated the internal and environmental factors
that impact students' fluency development at a secondary school.
However, those studies only concentrate on elements or groups of
factors that impact learners' oral fluency separately or jointly in various
circumstances. Therefore, there is a shortage of research on factors affecting
speaking fluency for high school students in Vietnam, particularly in
mountainous regions where English has lately been taken into account by
learners. For this reason, I conducted a study on the topic "Factors affecting
Gia Lai high school students’ English speaking fluency", which may address
the gap that decides which aspects are much more significant in order to
develop learners’ speaking fluency and, as a result, to find the most appropriate
teaching methods to help improve high school students' English speaking skills
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in general.
1.2. Aim and objectives of the study
This study aims to find out factors affecting high school students’
English speaking fluency in Gia Lai province. After investigating the factors,
it also offers some solutions to improving students’ Engish speaking ability
and speaking fluency.
To fulfill these aims, the specific objectives of the study include:
- Investigating what factors affecting Gia Lai high school
students’ English speaking fluency.
- Finding out to what extent these factors affect Gia Lai high
school students’ English speaking fluency.
1.3. Research questions
In order to reach the above aims and specific objectives, the research is
expected to answer the following questions:
1. What are factors affecting Gia Lai high school students’ English
speaking fluency?
2. To what extent do these factors affect Gia Lai high school students’
English speaking fluency ?
1.4. Scope of the study
This research was carried out with participation of 150 eleventh grade
students from four high schools in Gia Lai province in the second semester of
the school year 2021-2022. The researcher did not analyze factors affecting
all aspects of speaking skills but only focused on factors perceived to
influence their speaking fluency through the descriptive study with two main
instruments, consisting of the questionnaire and interview.
1.5. Method of the study
The current research was designed as a descriptive study using both
quantitative and qualitative methods to find the answers for the research
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questions. Due to the safety during the Covid-19 pandemic, data was
collected through a set of the survey questionnaire which was delivered online
to the eleventh-grade students from four classes at four high schools in Gia
Lai province via Google form. Besides, in order to collect more information
to reinforce the findings found from the survey questionnaire and to make the
study more reliable, the informal interviews with 8 out of 150 students from
these high schools were also carried out. Finally, based on the study's
findings, comments, recommendations, and conclusions were provided.
1.6. Significance of the study
By doing this study, the researcher hopes that the high school students
will be assisted in improving their speaking ability in general and speaking
fluency in particular. Moreover, the research aims to serve as a beneficial
resource for high school students to be more aware of the importance and
necessity of fluent English speaking. Besides, through the findings of the
study, the students may select the most appropriate methods for themselves
for their speaking enhancement and English teachers can adapt and develop
the best curriculum for their own students with a major aim of bettering their
students’ speaking fluency. The findings of the study might be also utilized as
a starting point for additional research on relevant topics.
1.7. Organization of the study
The study is divided into the chapters as follows:
Chapter 1 – Introduction – presents rationale, aim, objectives, the
research questions, the scope, significance and organization of the study.
Chapter 2 – Literature review – presents the concepts relevant to the
speaking skills, speaking fluency, factors affecting English speaking skills
and a review of previous studies related to the topic.
Chapter 3 – Research methodology – presents research method,
participants, instruments, data collection procedures and data analysis
5
method.
Chapter 4 – Findings and discussion –focuses on presenting,
analyzing and discussing the results obtained from the survey questionnaire
and interviews. Besides, the chapter also presents some discussions and
interpretations of the findings of the study.
Chapter 5 – Conclusion and implications- is a review of the study,
and points out implications for the improvement, its limitations and
suggestions for future research.
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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter reviews theoretical background as for definitions of
speaking skills, speaking fluency and factors affecting speaking fluency.
Additionally, the review of the previous studies related to the speaking
fluency is also indicated as the last part in this chapter.
2.1. Definitions of speaking skills
There are many definitions of speaking that have been proposed by
some experts in language learning. According to Spratt, Pulverness &
Williams (2005, p.34), speaking is a productive skill, like writing, it involves
using the organ of speech to express meanings to the other people. Speaking
is an important skill as it is considered the bridge that connects people talking
the same language. Thus, it helps people express their thoughts, ideas,
feelings and emotions to others. EI-Basel (2008, p. 74) argues that speaking
skills have been found a fundamental skill necessary for a person’s success in
life. Speaking skills cover a wide range, from engaging in simple
conversation to formal public speaking. Speaking skills play a vital role in
communication process and an active part in their daily life or a tool of
learning (Dorgham, 2011, p. 1). Accordingly, developing speaking skill helps
in creating an effective connection among the individuals’ society. Besides,
Brown (2001, p. 9) argues that speaking is not a single skill but an interactive
process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and
processing information.
Additionally, the term of speaking is defined in other ways. According
to Chaney “speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through
the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts.”
Widdowson (1978) specifies that speaking has two meanings including
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how language is used to convey meanings and how effective the language use
is regarding the achievement of the purpose of communication.
Richards (2009, p. 19) states that “in speaking we tend to be getting
something done, exploring ideas, working out some aspects of the world, or
simply being together.”
Based on those theories above, it can be concluded that speaking is the
active, productive skill that is used to express ideas in the form of speech
sounds of the language. It can be said that speaking is a skill that commonly
used in daily life between speakers and listeners in performing the idea,
feelings or thoughts. Especially, Harmer (2001, p. 15) also points out that
speaking includes two categories: accuracy and fluency. This means that
developing speaking skill involves not only the correct use of vocabulary,
grammar, pronunciation but also having the ability to speak spontaneously.
2.2. Speaking fluency
It's crucial to define what the term " speaking fluency" means before
diving into research of factors affecting speaking fluency. One of the most
crucial factors which students need to enhance in the process of learning to
speak English is speaking fluency. Mastering speaking skill in general and
developing oral fluency in particular are regarded as the goals of high school
students because these advantages help them become more confident in
communication.
In fact, the definition of fluency has the Latin origin meaning as
“flow”. It can be the same as other language define about fluency as flow or
fluidity as stated by Kopponen and Riggenbach (2000, cited in Jamatlou,
2011).
This term is also related to "communication" (Harmer, 2007, p. 142). In
a conversation, for example, a student may make a grammatical error yet still
be able to speak fluently (Crowther et al.,2015). Then, the student can
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communicate
without
searching
for
words,
allowing
his
or
her
communication to be comprehended quickly. In fact, speaking fluency has
been defined as the “automaticity and speed of speech production” (Brand &
Götz, 2011, p. 256). However, automaticity and speed of speech production
may not always make a speech comprehensible, comprehensibility being “a
measure of listeners’’ perceived ease or difficulty of understanding L2
speech” (Crowther et al., 2015, p. 81)
Richards (2009, p.14) mentions brave definition about fluency,
“natural language use occurring when a speaker engages in meaningful
interaction and maintains comprehensible and ongoing communication
despite limitations in his or her communicative competence”. And nowadays,
the definition of fluency itself closer to simple definition of the term in
applied linguistics also seem to share at least one feature resembling
“fluidity”.
Fillmore (cited in Richards, 1990, p. 75) identifies four abilities that
might be subsumed under the term fluency as follows “the ability to fill time
with talk, the ability to talk in coherent, reasoned and semantically dense
sentences” showing “a mastery of these mantic and syntactic resources of the
language”; “the ability to have appropriate things to say in a wide range of
contexts” and the ability to be creative and imaginative in language use.
The more recent study about fluency (Jamatlou, 2011) shows that
fluency might be rapid, smooth, accurate, lucid, and efficient translation of
thought or communicative intention into language under the temporal
constraints of on-line processing. This earlier concept of fluency has been
acceptable by most of the teachers and researchers since they have to realize
that fluency is different in nature from other components of oral proficiency
such as range of vocabulary and complexity of syntax which are associated
with linguistic knowledge of accuracy.
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In simple words, according to Riddel (2001, p. 118) "fluency is the
ability to talk freely without too much stopping or hesitating". The good
English speaker should be able to use English language fluently with no
difficulties. Brown (1994) stated that “fluent speakers can participate in any
conversation with a high degree of fluency”. He explains that their speech
should be accepted and well understood by native speakers. Students who do
not care about making mistakes/errors and who have an idea in their minds of
what they want to communicate, and they say it with whatever words and
language feel the most natural. They make frequent mistakes, sometimes in
every sentence; their grammar can be a mixture of English and their native
language. They either do not know or do not care if they are making errors or
mistakes. In this case, these learners have high fluency, but low accuracy.
In the context of language teaching and learning, fluency is defined as
the ability to speak communicatively, fluently and accurately. Fluency usually
refers to express oral language freely without interruption. In teaching and
learning process, if the teacher wants to check students’ fluency, the teacher
allows students to express themselves freely without interruption. The aim is
to help students speak fluently and with ease. The teacher does not correct
immediately whereas the idea being that too much correction interferes with
the flow of conversation (Pollard, 2008, p. 16).
To sum up, there are various definitions mentioned above. In this study,
English speaking fluency is regarded as an ability to speak English without or
with scarcity of hesitation, repetition or breaking in a sentence or in a
conversation.
2.3. Factors affecting speaking fluency
2.3.1. Affective factors
One of the most important influences on language learning success or
failure is probably the affective side of the learner (Oxford, 1990).
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The affective factors relate to moods, feeling, and attitudes towards
language learning (Meng & Wang, 2006) especially towards learning
speaking fluency which is researched in this study. Krashen (1985) views that
affective variables are one of the most important factors which may impede
students from learning. Therefore, there is a so called “affective filter” or a
mental block” that correlates negatively with learning. When this block or
filter is high, learning will be low and vice versa. Thus, the emotional aspect
of the learner is undoubtedly one of the most important impacts on language
acquisition success or failure (Oxford, 1990; Dornyei and Ryan, 2015).
Besides, according to Krashen (1982), three out of many categories belonging
to affective factors which have been proven to be associated strongly with
second language learning success in research over the previous decade are
motivation, confidence, and anxiety. However, within the scope of this study,
overall, the affective factors are regarded as anxiety, motivation and fear of
making mistakes, which are the primary factors influencing high school
students’ speaking fluency.
2.3.1.1. Anxiety
Anxiety is a feeling of tension, apprehension
and nervousness
associated with the situation of learning a foreign language (Horwitz et all
cited in Nascente, 2001). Furthermore, Nascente writes that among other
affective variables, anxiety stands out as one of the main blocking factors for
effective language learning. The fact that anxiety plays an important role in
students’ learning is also shared by other researchers like Horwitz (1991) as
cited in Sylvia and Tiono (2004). He believes that anxiety about speaking a
certain language can affect students’ performance. It can influence the quality
of oral language production and make individuals appear less fluent than they
really are. Additionally, too much anxiety leads to low willingness to
communicate fluently (Wu & Lin, 2014).
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