THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

GRADUATE PAPER

A SURVEY ON ENGLISH-SPEAKING COMPETENCE ACTIVITIES OF
ENGLISH-MAJORED SOPHOMORES AT THU DAU MOT
UNIVERSITY

Student name: Phạm Thị Ph°¡ng Nhi
Student code: 1722202010236
Class: D17AVGD02
Course: 2017 - 2021
Major: English Language
Lecturer: Nguyễn Hoàng Minh Đức (MA)

Binh Duong, December 2020

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THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

GRADUATE PAPER

A SURVEY ON ENGLISH-SPEAKING COMPETENCE ACTIVITIES OF
ENGLISH-MAJORED SOPHOMORES AT THU DAU MOT
UNIVERSITY

Student name: Phạm Thị Ph°¡ng Nhi
Student code: 1722202010236
Class: D17AVGD02
Course: 2017 - 2021
Major: English Language
Lecturer: Nguyễn Hoàng Minh Đức (MA)

Binh Duong, December 2020

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

Student full name:

Phạm Thị Phương Nhi

Student ID:

1722202010236

Title of paper:

"A survey on English-speaking competence activities of
English-majored sophomores at Thu Dau Mot
University"


I hereby confirm that I am the sole author of the paper presented. Where the work
of others has been consulted, this is duly acknowledged in the paper’s bibliography. I
have also not consulted any other unnamed online sources. All verbatim or referential
use of the sources named in the bibliography has been specifically indicated in the text.

Binh Duong, 13/12/2020
The writer

Phạm Thị Phương Nhi

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
During the process of writing the topic, the writer encountered diverse problems,
but fortunately, the writer has received a lot of help in selecting topics, searching
documents, conducting survey, etc ...
Firsly, the writer would like to thank the instructor, Ms. Nguyen Hoang Minh
Duc, who took the time to guide the writer carefully, specifically in the case of busy
teaching. From the first step of selecting a topic to the final revision of the report, she
has provided many insightful and detailed pieces of advice to help the writer open up
many of the writer's research ideas, as well as giving valuable comments in the process
of writing reports on the writer's topic.
In addition, the writer would like to thank the teachers of Thu Dau Mot University
in general and the Faculty of Foreign Languages in particular for creating a healthy

learning environment, teaching knowledge so that the writer has the opportunity to learn,
practice valuable training, improve knowledge, skills and implement this research
project.
Lastly, without the support of the English language sophomores during the
survey, the writer could not finish the research. Therefore, the writer would like to
express the gratitude to all of them.
Sincerely thanks!
Pham Thi Phuong Nhi

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ABSTRACT
The English-speaking competence is one of the most important language skills,
especially in the future learning and working environment of each student, especially
students specializing in the English language. However, the speaking competence of
English-majored sophomores is difficult. To recognize the difficulties, the student's
English competence is self-evaluated by the students and the methods that student
applies to improve their ability. The author has surveyed the students, especially the
English-majored sophomores of Thu Dau Mot University to get relatively accurate
figures on this issue through survey questions.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...........................................................................................ii
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................. iii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION, MOTIVATION AND PURPOSE ....................... 1
1. Rationale for research............................................................................................ 1
2. Research Question .................................................................................................. 1
3. Research purpose ................................................................................................... 1
4. The significance of the research ............................................................................ 1
5.Background information about the research: Context and subjects ................. 2
5.1. Context ............................................................................................................. 2
6. Subjects ................................................................................................................... 3
7. The limitations of the research.............................................................................. 3
CHAPTER II: OVERVIEW OF PREVIOUS WORK ............................................... 4
CHAPTER III : LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................. 6
3.1. Definition of speaking ......................................................................................... 6
3.2. Definition of Speaking Competence .................................................................. 6
3.3. Factors affecting speaking competence ............................................................. 6
3.4. The importance of English-speaking competence to students ........................ 7
CHAPTER IV: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................. 8
4.1. Research object.................................................................................................... 8
4.2. The participants .................................................................................................. 8
4.3. The data collection instrument .......................................................................... 8
4.3.1. Document research: .................................................................................... 8
4.3.2. Questionnaires:............................................................................................ 8
4.4. The data categorization procedure .................................................................... 9
4.5. The data analysis procedure .............................................................................. 9
CHAPTER V. PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION ..................... 10

5.1. Students’ sel-evaluation about the students’ English-speaking compentence
.................................................................................................................................... 10
5.2. The Activities to improve English-speaking competence. ............................. 14
5.2.1. IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES .......................................................................... 14
5.2.2. EXTRA ACTIVITIES ............................................................................... 19
CHAPTER VI: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION .............................. 20
6.1. Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 20

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6.1.1. Students’ self-evaluation about the students’ English-speaking
competence. ........................................................................................................... 20
6.1.2. Methods of developing English-speaking competence............................ 20
6.2. Recommendation ............................................................................................... 20
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 21
APPENDIX 1 ................................................................................................................ 23
APPENDIX 2 ................................................................................................................ 27

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Student’s self-evaluation about the difficulty of speaking English .......... 10
Table 2. Student’s opinion about student’s current speaking competence. ........... 11
Table 3. Students' opinions about difficulties students often have in speaking

English ........................................................................................................................... 12
Table 4. The factors that influence English-speaking ability ................................... 13
Table 5. Current speaking activities inside English-speaking class. ....................... 14
Table 6. Current while-speaking activities inside English-speaking class .............. 15
Table 7. Students’ opinions about post-speaking activities inside English-speaking
class. ............................................................................................................................... 17
Table 8. Current pre-speaking activities.................................................................... 18
Table 9. Activities to improve students’ English-speaking competence outside the
classroom. ...................................................................................................................... 19

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION, MOTIVATION AND PURPOSE
1. Rationale for research
Today, English is growing rapidly and widely used all over the world. English is
spoken by more than 400 million people worldwide. Learning English is more and more
important in Vietnam these days. The open-door economic policy and Vietnam’s joining
World Trade Organization (WTO) help Vietnam’s economy, culture, and education to
develop. The proficiency of English brings opportunities for employment in international
companies. People are rushing to learn English to get good jobs as a result.
Speaking competence is playing a very important role. As the above fact, the
number of people who need to communicate in English is considerably increasing. They
are recognizing that English is not a scientific subject, but a tool to earn a living. This
recognition helps speaking competence get more attention in the curriculum in
universities.
Thu Dau Mot University is one of the universities in Binh Duong province with
The English Language Program at Thu Dau Mot University equips students with the

knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to meet the requirements of working in an
English-speaking environment at home and abroad. However, the English students at
Thu Dau Mot University still have many limitations in using this language, especially
the limitation of the speaking competence of students.
The desire to find out what the students really do to improve their speaking
competence and how the teachers actually teach speaking competence in the speaking
classes makes the writer conduct this research.
2. Research Question
The main questions to be answered in this study are:
-What is the general situation of the English-speaking competence of English-majored
sophomores at Thu Dau Mot university?
-What activities do students do to improve their English-speaking competence?
3. Research purpose
This study is to discover students’ self-perception of students’ English-speaking
competence and the current English-speaking competence activities applied inside and
ouside the classrooms.
4. The significance of the research
This study will help the writer have a clearer, more realistic overview of Englishspeaking competence at TDM University. This will support future research as
background information.

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5.Background information about the research: Context and subjects
5.1. Context
Thu Dau Mot University

The school's precursor is Binh Duong Pedagogy College - a prestigious
pedagogical training institution of Binh Duong province, providing a team of
professional teachers, teaching expertise, and dedication to the younger generation.
June 24, 2009, Thu Dau Mot University (TDM university) was established under
Decision No. 900 / QD-TTG of the Prime Minister. The mission of the University is to
train high-quality human resources for socio-economic development and international
integration of Binh Duong province, the Southeast region - the southern key economic
region, and to become a consultancy center research in regional.
Over 10 years of establishment and development, the University has shaped itself
as a multidisciplinary and multi-field educational institution. It is developed by an
advanced university model. With the philosophy of "Aspiration - Responsibility Innovation", Thu Dau Mot University has affirmed the position of a high-quality
scientific research and training unit, which is a representative of the intellectual power
of Binh Duong province.
English Language Program
The English Language Program at Thu Dau Mot University equips students with
the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes to meet the requirements of working in an
English-speaking environment at home and abroad.
The training content consists of 120 credits, of which:
+ General education knowledge: helping students develop political thinking, criticalcreative thinking, physical skills, teamwork skills, and scientific research methods.
+ Basic knowledge: providing basic knowledge of the English language such as
Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, Phonetics, Phonetics, Morphology, Syntax,
Semantics, Drafting skills. speeches and presentations.
+ Specialized knowledge: providing intensive English language knowledge about
business communication, translation, and interpretation.
+ Internships with diverse extracurricular activities help students be confident, creative
and acquire the necessary skills to be able to adapt to a dynamic and challenging working
environment.
According to the above training content, Speaking is in the series of the Basic knowledge
of the English program.
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6. Subjects
The participants are 130 sophomores from random English-majored classes at
TDM University.
7. The limitations of the research
First, this is small-scale research with only 130 students. The number of
participants can not represent the whole quantity of students who are studying Englishspeaking competence at Thu Dau Mot University.
Second, the participants may have psychological variables that affect the answers
in the questionnaires. The writer may not get totally precise feedback from the
participants in case they have something in their minds that distracts them from full
attention to the questions.

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CHAPTER II: OVERVIEW OF PREVIOUS WORK
English is now a very popular language in the world and is applied in almost every
country, including Vietnam. With the strong development of Vietnam today, English is
becoming more and more widely used, whether you work in any job, any profession.
Among the 4 skills of Listening - Speaking - Reading - Writing, speaking is considered
an important skill and is mainly applied in daily life to serve the daily communication

when going to school, going to work and socializing. However, not everyone can have a
good level of speaking. In fact, speaking is a difficult skill and few people speak fluently,
especially students in the first years of university. Recognizing that importance, many
studies have been done to improve the Speaking competence of students in schools.
The first study is the project " Cai thien ky nang tieng anh tại lop su pham tieng
anh k46 " carried out Ha Van Thuy and Luong Van Van. They studied the learning and
English communication situation of group 1 of the monk class. It is English k46. In this
topic, the author has analyzed the strengths such as the great passion of students for
foreign languages and their desire to improve their foreign language skills. On the other
hand, the author surveyed students of this class through a few questions to find out their
weaknesses. From the causes that affect the students' foreign language proficiency, the
authors have proposed a number of measures to overcome the weaknesses of the
students. The researcher separated the class into small groups depending on the student's
ability to study, the level of learning and understanding, and electing group leader to help
students self-promote the best of their ability. The team members with equal ability made
students feel a lot more confident and learn more effectively.
The second study is the research " Lam the nao de cai thien ky nang noi tieng anh
cho sinh vien" by Ho Minh Thu. The author has given some facts about the speaking
skills of students, but it is not really clear. Above all, the topic is thien ky nang noi tieng anh cho sinh vien" but the author has not really explored and
delved into the main subject of the topic. The author only proposed some
recommendations for teachers and students.
The third study is the topic " Mot so bien phap giup hoc sinh cai thien ky nang
noi tieng anh" by Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc. This study has pointed out the real situation
affecting students' speaking skills, helping the writer to better understand one of the
causes that adversely affect students' speaking competence. In addition, the author has
proposed a number of methods to improve student speaking competence and conduct
surveys in several classes and bring expected results.
These researches have partly helped the writer understand the current situation of
teaching and learning Speaking in Vietnam and get several activities to improve English

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speaking competence. The writer could not find any particular study of Speaking
Competence at Thu Dau Mot university, though.
Summary
This section has briefly reviewed the previous researches relating to speaking
competence. The next section will introduce the key terms of the research.

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CHAPTER III : LITERATURE REVIEW
In this section, the writer gives the definitions of speaking and speaking
competence, factors affecting speaking competence and the importance of Englishspeaking competence.
3.1. Definition of speaking
According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, speaking is the action of
conveying information or expressing one’s feelings in speech. Also, Brown and Yule
(1989, 14) stated in their book service, etc=. Most people spend their everyday life in communicating with others. What
is more, simultaneous use of different abilities developed at the different rates=.

Moreover, Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that
involves producing and receiving and processing information (Brown, 1994; Burns &
Joyce, 1997). Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs,
including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical
environment, and the purposes for speaking. It is often spontaneous, open-ended, and
evolving. However, speech is not always unpredictable.
3.2. Definition of Speaking Competence
For Chomsky’s "Language" substitutes "competence" defined as a fluent native
speaker’s knowledge (largely tacit) of grammaticality 4 of whether or not putative
sentences are part of his language, according to structural relationships.
Speaking competence is regarded as the measure of knowing a language
(John,1982). Therefore, language competence means the ability or knowledge to do
something.
In addition, Hymes (1972) defined an individual’s communication competence as
the ability to use language effectively in actual communication.
3.3. Factors affecting speaking competence
Hymes (1971) believes that L2 learners need to know not only the linguistic
knowledge, but also the culturally acceptable ways of interacting with others in different
situations and relationships. His theory of communicative competence consists of the
interaction of grammatical, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, and probabilistic language
components. According to Hymes's theory, Canale and Swain (1980) suggest that
communicative competence consist of grammatical competence, discourse competence,
sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence which reflect the use of linguistic
system and the functional aspects of communication, respectively.
However, the writer focuses only on the linguistic knowledge in this study, for
this study is small and cannot cover all the above factors.
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3.4. The importance of English-speaking competence to students
To improve speaking competence, students should understand that English
Speaking is so important in life because of the following reasons. Firstly, in
communication, the ability to speak English well will help students feel confident in
front of everyone. With speaking competence, the opponent will easily catch the content
which they want to say, and it will be easier for them to communicate. Next, with English
speaking competence, they will be able to communicate in the language that all people
in the world use, which will help them easily and quickly adapt to a new life and establish
relationships with new people globally. Finally, Vietnam is a developing country, so
many foreign companies are investing in Vietnam. Therefore, there are thousands of
opportunities to work in a professional environment with an extremely attractive salary,
but this requires them to have a good level of English in order to have the opportunity to
apply for the position better. Therefore, English-speaking competence is essential in
their work, study, and daily life.
Summary
This section has briefly reviewed the theoretical background relating to the topic
to help people better understand the terminology used in this topic. The next section will
describe the methodology of the research.

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CHAPTER IV: METHODOLOGY

This section will describe clearly the methodologies used in the study such as
research object, the participants, the data collection instrument.
4.1. Research object
The writer focused on examining the level of speaking competence of current
sophomores based on students’ self-perceptions and researching current activities the
students is applying to improve speaking competence.
4.2. The participants
The target population is the sophomores of 5 random sophomore classes at Thu
Dau Mot University.
4.3. The data collection instrument
To approach and exploit the topic effectively and accurately, the writer has
applied the following specific method.
4.3.1. Document research:
In this paper, the writer has studied documents from various methods such as
eBooks on the Internet, books, and other research documents in the library at TDM
university.
4.3.2. Questionnaires:
The writer applies Google Drive to share an online questionnaire with students.
Through the online questionnaire on google drive, students who are asked will select the
most appropriate answers and fill the questionnaire.
As to the questionnaires, there is one questionnaire: a questionnaire for students.
The format of the questionnaires is designed to be clear and appeal to facilitate
participation and increase cooperation.
The questionnaire for students is written in both English and Vietnamese. There
are eight closed questions and no open questions in the questionnaire. The content of the
questionnaire consists of two main parts: the self-perception of English-speaking
competence (1 question); Methods of developing English-speaking competence which
has two sub-parts: In class activity (2 questions) and Extra activity (2 questions). The
writer took IELTS Speaking Band Descriptors as the basis to set up the questions in the
self-perception part. The questionnaires are kept anonymous so that the participants feel

free, to tell the truth.
How was the research carried out?
For student participants, the writer has applied the following steps to retrieve data.
First, the writer asked and searched for contact information of English-majored
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sophomores. Secondly, the writer contacted them, sent an online questionnaire, and
asked them to help the writer to conduct the survey. Because the questionnaire was
written in Vietnamese, the question did not cause any difficulties to the students, so they
did not need much guidance. These students helped send emails to their classmates to
help the writer to complete the survey better.
4.4. The data categorization procedure
The data is divided into 2 main parts: Student’s self-evaluation about the Englishspeaking competence and students’ activities to improve English speaking competence.
4.5. The data analysis procedure
The writer is still a student, and she does not have any special software to analyse
the collected data to have a better analysis. The writer simply uses percentages to analyse
the data, though. First, the writer presents the data in tables and then analysis the results
of students.
Summary
This section has just presented the methodology employed in the research. The
next section will present the results of the research and then have a discussion of these
results.

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CHAPTER V. PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
This section presents the data collected from the participants’ responses to the
questionnaires first, and then the researcher analyses and discusses the data in each
question.
The data will be presented using tables with percentages and charts showing
percentages.
As mentioned before, the target population is the sophomores of 5 random
English-majored sophomore class. However, after the survey, the writer has just received
130 responses from the students.
5.1. Students’ sel-evaluation about the students’ English-speaking compentence
QUESTION NO.1: How difficult is speaking English?
Student’s
SELFEVALUATION
Not at all difficult
1.5%
10.8%
Slightly difficult
46.9%
Moderately difficult
31.5%
Quite difficult
Extremely difficult
9.2%
Table 1. Student’s self-evaluation about the difficulty of speaking English
The data in the table show that most of the students (46.9%) assess that English

speaking is moderately difficult, while only 9.2% of the students think it is extremely
difficult. The percentage of students who think English speaking is quite difficult and
slightly difficult accounts for 31.5% and 10.8% of the students, respectively. The special
thing is only 2 students, i.e. 1.5%, think it is not at all difficult to study speaking. In
summary, the data show that the percentage of students who find it is not at all difficult
to study speaking is quite low, while moderate difficulty makes up a large part of the
student's choice and most students give the reason that they lack vocabulary, grammar
and lack of confidence when practicing speaking English.
QUESTION NO.2: What is your English-speaking level? (for student)
The question contains five different aspects of English-speaking competence for
surveying sophomores at Thu Dau Mot university.
Very
Bad Normal Good Excellent
bad
3%
37% 56%
4%
0%
I am willing to speaking at length.

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I use a range of connectives and
2%
27% 58%

13% 0%
discourse markers during my speech.
I have a wide vocabulary resource to
9%
39% 48%
3%
1%
discuss topics at length.
I use a wide range of simple and complex
4%
18% 64%
13% 1%
structures during my speech.
I use a wide range of pronunciation
5%
32% 52%
9%
2%
features during my speech.
Table 2. Student’s opinion about student’s current speaking competence.
In the first part of the question, the length of the speech is focused. The above
data show that students are willing to speak at length when receiving a topic from the
teacher. The figures show that 56% of the students think they are at the while only 4% of students think they are accounted for a relative percentage of 37%. Think they are For English-majored, a student who is willing to read a long paragraph, this is
very normal. But the survey shows that the ability to say a long post of a senior
sophomore at Thu Dau Mot University is not good.
The second part of the question is about the ability to use connectives. This aspect

has58% of students choose the However, the In this third part, vocabulary knowledge is focused. For students, the data show
that the percentage of students who assess their ability to have a large difference. Only
3% of students say that they have a wide vocabulary to speak at a only 39% of students assess themselves with of students think that their level is It is undeniable that vocabulary plays a particularly important role in a language.
It can be said that learning English is like building a house, then learning vocabulary is
the foundation of that house. Without extensive vocabulary, it will be difficult for
students to create any conversation. Therefore, students should make every effort to
acquire the target language not only in the classroom but also in outside society. As
Troike (1976) asserts: that vocabulary is most important for understanding and
recognizing things, facts, actions, or concepts. Obviously, vocabulary is essential to
practice listening, writing and especially speaking.
In the fourth part, the ability to use a variety of sentence structures is mentioned.
For an English-majored, the use of sentence structures must be at a higher level, it differs
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from that in high school. When the writer conducts a survey of English-majored
sophomores, the writer poses a question to investigate the ability to use simple and
complex sentences during their speech of English-majored sophomores at Thu Dau Mot
University. From the above data, most of the students rate themselves at the level of 64%. At the

In the fifth part, pronunciation is considered. Pronunciation is the prerequisite for
speaking competence. Let us imagine that if you do not know the pronunciation, you do
not know how to read the word and how to say it. So how can you hear foreigners
speaking especially when you are an English-majored student. The above data show that
although the students evaluate themselves at 32% and 5% respectively. Meanwhile, the a small number of 9% and 2%, and the rest are at normal levels.
Pronunciation is an important knowledge that helps students have good speaking
skills. If students want listeners to understand them, they must have good pronunciation.
Fraser (1999) thinks that pronunciation is the most important because, with good
pronunciation, the listener can understand despite other errors, but with bad
pronunciation, the listener may not understand even if the speaker is fluent.
QUESTION NO.3: What difficulties do you often have when speaking
English?
Students'
opinions
Lack of vocabulary
88.5 %
Lack of grammar structures
61.5%
Mispronunciation.
66.9%
Lack of confidence
69.2%
Lack of interest for the topic.
36.2%
Not enough preparation time.
23.1%
Other…………………………………………

0%
Table 3. Students' opinions about difficulties students often have in speaking English
The reasons why students find it difficult to study speaking are not much different.
Specifically, the percentage of the students who assess the biggest difficulty for them
was the lack of vocabulary, accounting for 88.5% with 115 students choosing. The next
difficulties such as lack of grammatical structure, incorrect pronunciation errors, and
especially lack of confidence, also account for 61.5%, 66.9%, and 69.2% respectively.
Meanwhile, the lack of interesting topics and not enough time to prepare an account for
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