HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY – (HUFLIT)
----o0o----

DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

THE DIFFICULTIES
IN ENGLISH PRESENTATION
FACED BY HUFLIT’S STUDENTS
AND SOLUTIONS

Instructor: Ms. Nguyễn Thị Ái Loan (M.A.)
Student: Nguyễn Huỳnh Thảo Ngân
Student’s number: 15DH710221
Class: TA1504
HO CHI MINH CITY, May 27th, 2019


NAME: Nguyễn Huỳnh Thảo Ngân
STUDENT ID: 15DH710221
EMAIL ADD:
DATE SUBMITTED: May 27th, 2019
WORD COUNT: 11853

Declaration
I certify that the attached material is my original work. No other person’s work or ideas
have been used without acknowledgement. Except where I have clearly stated that I
have used some of this material elsewhere, I have not presented this for assessment in
another course or unit at this or any other institution.
Name/signature

Date: May 27th,
2019

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENT……………………………………………………..iii-v
LIST OF FIGURES ...…………………………………………………………vi
ABSTRACT ..…………………………………………………………………..ix
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of The Problem ………………………………..….……….1
1.2 Problem Identification …………………………………………………..2
1.3 Research Objective ………………………………………………………2
1.4 Scope of The Research ……………………………………....………......3
1.5 Research Organization ………………………………………………….3
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Definition of Oral Presentation Skill ……………………..………..……5
2.2 Types of Oral Presentation ……………………………………..…..….. 6
2.3 The Benefits of English Oral Presentation …………………..…………8
2.3.1 The Advantages of Oral Presentation Skill …………..……...…8
2.3.2 The Advantages of Presentation in English…………………….9
2.4 The Difficulties in Oral Presentation……………………………………11
2.4.1 Internal Difficulties in Oral Presentation ……………...………..11
2.4.1.1 Anxiety ……………………………………………………11
2.4.1.2 The Lack of Self – Confidence ……………………..…..13
2.4.1.3 The English Speaking Proficiency ……………………..14
2.4.2 External Difficulties in Oral Presentation ……………………..15

2.4.2.1 The Audience …………………………………………….15
2.4.2.2 The Lack of Motivation ………………………………....16

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2.5 Chapter Conclusion………………………………………………….....17
CHAPTER 3: MENTHODOLOGY
3.1 Methods …………………………………………………..….…...….19
3.1.1 Quantitative Methods …………………….……….……….19
3.1.2 Qualitative Methods ……………………….……………….19
3.2 Research Setting …………………………………………………..…20
3.3 Subject Description …………………………………...……...……...20
3.4 Materials and Procedure …………………………………..………..21
3.4.1 Questionnaire ………………………………...……………21
3.4.2 Interview ……………………………………………...……22
3.5 Statistical Treatment …………………………………………………22
CHAPTER 4: RESULT …..…………………………………….………….23-36
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION
5.1 Internal Factors ………….……………………………………………37
5.2 External Factors ………………………………………………………39
5.3 Chapter Conclusion …………………………………………………..40
CHAPTER 6: SOLUTION
6.1 The Solutions to Cope with Internal Factors ……………………….41
6.2 The Solutions to Cope with External Factors …………...……...…..42
CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION
7.1 Conclusion …………………………………………..……………...…44
7.2 Limitation of The Study ………………………...……………………45

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7.3 Recommendation for Further Research …...………………………..46
REFERENCES ……………………………………………………….……..47-51
APPENDIX …………………………………….…………………………….52-56

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LIST OF TABLE, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS
LIST OF TABLE
Table 2.2.1: Type and purpose of oral presentation, according to Randall P.
Whatley (2014) …………………………………………………………………….7

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 4.1. The University Years of Participants ………………………………23
Figure 4.2. The English Proficiency of Participants ……………………………25
Figure 4.3. The Frequency of Making English Presentation …………………..27
Figure 4.4.1. Being Afraid of Making Mistakes …………………………………29
Figure 4.4.2. The Shyness …………………...……………………………………30
Figure 4.4.3. The Lack of Appropriate Vocabulary and Expressions …………31
Figure 4.4.4. Making Grammar Mistakes during Presentation ………………..32
Figure 4.4.5. Interruption from the Audience …………………………………..33
Figure 4.4.6. Presentation Topics ……………………………………..…………34
Figure 4.4.7. Lack of Preparation Time …………………………………...…….36


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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
EFL ......................................................................... English as Foreign Language
ESL ........................................................................... English as Second Language
HUFLIT ........................................................... Ho Chi Minh City University of
....................................................... Foreign Language – Information Technology

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to Ms. Nguyen
Thi Ai Loan for the dedicated instruction. It is my pleasure to be supervised by her,
without her careful guidance, this research could not be completed.
With no less sincerity, the researcher would like to send my thanks to 120
participants from HUFLIT for their enthusiastic cooperation in the research.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents, who have been given me a huge
support and care to complete this study.

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ABSTRACT
Oral presentation in English has long been an essential soft skill for
Vietnamese undergraduate in particular and people in the working age in general. It
could be explained by the rapid speed of Vietnam integration into the globalization
trend, more and more labor force from different neighbor countries come to Vietnam
to look for career opportunities. Besides major knowledge, they equip a good
background of English as well as soft skills, include presentation which is considered
as an important key to success. Acknowledge not only is the important proficiencies
needed of English oral presentation for higher education as well as careers, but also
the barriers students have to encounter while presenting. Thus, this research is aimed
to figure out the main factors that cause the difficulties in English presentation faced
by students who learn English as their foreign language. Furthermore, the researcher
aspires to suggest the solutions to cope with this issue. To achieve the purpose of this
research, the researcher employed questionnaire and interview tools to 110
participants who are students of Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Language
– Information Technology. Structured questionnaire of 27 questions and semistructured interview were applied to collect data for answering two main questions
namely the difficulties in English presentation and the solutions. The findings
demonstrated that there were five factors that impact on the English oral presentation
quality of HUFLIT’s students; whereas, the outside effect were considered seriously.
Moreover, based on the results, the researcher provided the effective solutions to
handle with those difficulties. The study concludes by the recommendation for further
research in the future, and a hope that the findings would clarify the barriers, so that
the lecturers could have a better understanding the difficulties and prepared
appropriate lessons to well train the students in English oral presentation skills.

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of The Problem
The twenty-first century is the age of development and integrate, thus every
citizen has the responsibility to contribute both his (or her) mental strength and
physical strength in order to help the country becomes more and more prosperous.
Because of that mission, the education focuses highly on teaching students, especially
undergraduates to be comprehensive students with profound knowledge and soft
skills. However, according to a report made by Diễn đàn Doanh Nghiệp Việt Nam in
June, 2010 (cited in Anh Tu, 2018) shows that the citizen at the age of twenty to
twenty-four, who lack of soft skills is about 78%, and we cannot doubt that it is a
remarkable figure. Thus, nowadays in most of universities in Vietnam, soft skill
courses

become

an

important

part

of

a

study

program.


Although there are abundant of soft skills that students must equip for themselves,
oral presentation skill is one of the most essential soft skills, which is known as the
universal key to unlock the bright future careers. Hence, most of Vietnamese
universities have

been changing

the traditional teaching

method, from

“Instructor/Teacher Centered Methods”, which is known as the instructors are all
active, and the students or trainees become passive listeners into “Learner – Centered
Methods” that the students become more active in the class by doing discussions,
making inquiries, and giving presentations in class. The new teaching method focuses
most on oral presentation skill, and uses it as an effective assessment tool. Through
oral presentation, students can demonstrate their integrated skills such as reading,
searching

–

analyzing and synthesis the information,

public speaking,

communication, etc. Thus, oral presentation is a “the most transferable of all the
student’s skills, and a critical part of their professional development” (Joan, V.E &
Lucinda, B., 2004).


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In addition, as Ludwig Wittgenstein once said “The limits of my language are
the limits of my world.” In the other word, language is a powerful tool and grate
bridge that helps the world becomes smaller and pulls humanity closer together. Since
the twentieth century, in the context of globalization, English becomes the
international language, which is spoken worldwide. Accordingly, the combination of
English and oral presentation skill as a proficiency will probably provide students an
effective key to open more opportunities in the careers and relationships
development. Acknowledging the essential of oral presentation in general, and
English oral presentation in particular, almost courses in Vietnamese universities
require students to give the oral presentations in English as an important part of
evaluating their learning process.

1.2 Problem Identification
It is obvious that most of Vietnamese students find it difficult to conduct a
presentation in front of the class. In addition, the bulk of presentations are required to
performed in English, which is not the students’ mother tongue. The popular
challenges encountered by students can be basically mentioned as the lack of
confidence when speaking in front of many people as well as the lack of ability to
understanding and using English fluently.

1.3 Research Objective
The aim of this study is to dig deeply as well as to identify the difficulties in
English presentation skill encountered by students at HUFLIT by investigating their
perceptions. Together with, in this research the writer figures out some effective
solutions for the issue (the difficulties in conducting the English oral presentations).

The study is expected to provide an insight into the challenges and practical methods
to help students of HUFLIT break the barriers of presenting orally in English as well
as improve their presentation skill.

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1.4 Scope of The Research
This study is conducted in Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Languages
- Information Technology (HUFLIT) in which students are taught English actively
and effectively. So as to aware of the factors that cause difficulties in English
presentation skill, and the ways to combat with this issue, this research focuses on
finding:
- “What are the difficulties in English presentation skill faced by HUFLIT’s
student?”
- “What are the solutions to cope with those difficulties?”

1.5 Research Organization
The research is divided into six chapters
Chapter one: Introduction
In this chapter, the overview of the problem, especially the reason why
the research need to be conducted is introduced, along with the organization of the
study.
Chapter two: Literature Review
This chapter provides definitions of terms appearing in the research,
basic as well as detailed information of the whole problem. Moreover, a brief review
of other previous researches paper is presented in this chapter.
Chapter three: Methodology

In this chapter, the writer explains the ways the research was carried
on and the tools used to collect as well as analysis gathered data.
Chapter four: Findings
This chapter shows the explanations and analysis of the investigated
results.

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Chapter five: Discussion
In this chapter, the research gives the further discussion about the
findings gathered from chapter four.
Chapter six: Solution
This chapter gives some recommendations to deal with the problem.
Chapter seven: Conclusion
This last part is the conclude of the study.

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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter includes the theoretical background of the whole study. In this
part, the notion and types of oral presentation skill, the benefits of English oral
presentation, together with factors affiliated to the cause of difficulties in English
oral presentation would be present thoroughly through the view of other previous

researches. Resulting from that, the gap which need to be filled in this research
would be emerged.

2.1 Definition of Oral Presentation Skill
Oral presentation skill is an utmost soft skill in modern life which help either
undergraduate students or people who study English as their second language
improve language proficient in an integrated and comprehensive way. Because of
that reason, oral presentation skill has been taken a great deal of concern from
worldwide researchers. First of all, in order to recognize correctly and deeply
understand the situation of the issue, it is essential to wrap your mind around the
definition of oral presentation. There are numerous different definitions of oral
presentation from other researchers.
Morita (2000, cited in Nowreyah A. Al-Nouh, Muneera M. Abdul-Kareem &
Hanan A. Taqi1, 2015, p.137) viewed presentations as a challenging and
complicated “interaction and mental processes” and states that there are “more
research to be conducted.”
According to Horwitz et al. (1986, cited in Abu El Enein, 2011, p.8),
“academic oral presentation is an activity through which the presenters communicate
with the audience.”, he also figures out it as a tool to improve the oral communication
for EFL students who use English as a Foreign Language.

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Moreover, Levin and Topping (2006) defined that neither memorizing nor
reading a manuscript, oral presentation means the well-prepare speech transmitted
from the speaker to the audience.
Joughin (2007, cited in Nowreyah A. Al-Nouh, Muneera M. Abdul-Kareem &

Hanan A. Taqi1, 2015, p.136) developed a more specific idea of oral presentation
skill in which oral presentation can be recognized in three aspects: “presentation as a
transmission of the ideas of others to a passive audience with anxiety at a low level,
presentation as an imparting of the material studied from which students seek to make
their own meanings from the ideas of others; and presentation as a position to be
disputed and defended by persuading the audience.”
In addition, Zitouni (2013) adapted a brief definition that consider oral
presentation as “an extension of oral communication skill. It is where the presenter
shows their knowledge on a particular subject.”
In agreement with all remarks above, the researcher summarize and give a
definition of oral presentation in soft skill aspect as well as in the context of EFL.
Oral presentation is a form of public speaking which takes significant amount of time
to prepare and practice. In EFL setting, oral presentation skill is an effective tool for
EFL learners to improve their language competent because it is the combination of
reading comprehensive, writing and speaking skills.

2.2 Types of Oral Presentation
Oral presentation can be used in many different purposes in order to deliver
messages to audiences. According to Chivers and Shoolbred (2007, p.2), “the style,
content and structure” of the presentation are influenced by the purpose of each
speech. They also emphasize the significance of understanding the presentation’s aim
or the types of oral presentation so that a presenter can develop the presentation in a
correct way. There are some researches classifying oral presentation into categories
based on difference factors.

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Mister Randall P. Whatley (2014), who is the president of Cypress Media
Group, classified oral presentation into five types, namely informative presentation,
instructional presentation, arousing presentation, persuasive presentation, and
decision-making presentation. Moreover, he also emphasized a purpose and a specific
organizational structured of each type, the table below lists the information of
presentation

types

mentioned

above.

Table 2.2.1: Type and purpose of oral presentation, according to Randall P. Whatley
(2014)

Type of presentation Purpose
Informative
presentation

Give descriptions and definitions to explain an issue that the
audience wants to understand. To help the complicated topic
becomes more straightforward.
Give a specific guide or recommendation to solve an

Instructional

issue/case study.

presentation


The audience can well understand the topic and gain some
new skills after the presentation.

Arousing
presentation

Arouse audiences’ Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Emotion
Quotient (EQ) of problems.
Make the listeners think about the ways to solve an issue.

Persuasive

Presenting in a logical point of view to convince or change

presentation

audience’s awareness to accept the presenter’s suggestions.
Presenting in a consistent way and strong enthusiasm to

Decision-making

persuade the listeners accept and carry out the presenter’s

presentation

plans.

It is obvious that the main key Mister Randall P. Whatley used to categorize
oral presentation is based on its delivery purposes. Unlike Randall P. Whatley, El-


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Issa and Redha (2010, cited in Chikh, M.K., & Dich, Y., 2016) have another method
to classify the oral presentation, which is focus on the student’s language proficiency
level, namely controlled oral presentation, guided oral presentation and free oral
presentation. The first type (controlled oral presentation), which is for those who are
just beginning to learn foreign language, or for elementary ones, allows student to
read their prepared documents, together with simple topics as well as grammar and
vocabulary related to their language ability. The main aim of controlled oral
presentation is “to gain confidence in taking the floor, to maximize their classroom
participation in a meaningful way, and to practice the target language”. Besides, the
second type (guided oral presentation) is applied to the lower-intermediated or
intermediate level, so students are asked to use a higher level of language to perform
their presentation and to present in communicative language rather than read what
was written. Moreover, they are also encouraged to prepare the presentation associate
with some support devices such as PowerPoint or handout. The third type is
commonly used for students whose language competence from upper-intermediate to
advance levels, students are not only present the topic, but also cope with the
questions from audience.

2.3 The Benefits of English Oral Presentation
2.3.1 The Advantages of Oral Presentation Skill
According to Meloni and Thompson (1980, cited in Jane King, 2002), as long
as oral presentation is appropriately taught, it will become an effective tool for ESL
and (or) EFL students to cope with their school subjects as well as future jobs.
Similarly, Emden and Becker (2014) stated that the ability to present an issue well

will bring a huge value to many aspects of students’ lives, “it will bring them success
in academic work, job interviews and their future working life.” Hence, in other
words, the students who have a good oral presentation skill will have more
opportunities to gain their success and fulfill their ideal career. To be more precise,
Ramos Álvarez and Luque (2010, cited in Gallardo del Puerto, F. & Martínez Adrián,

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M., 2015) clarifies the advantages of oral presentation in four statements. The first
advantage is implied the development of essential skills related to “investigating and
solving problems, learning autonomously” and the way how to confidently speak out
ideas and collaborate with others. The second one is the memorization ability, which
is believed that can be improve well while the content of lesson prepared by students
themselves. The study of Ramos Álvarez and Luque also demonstrates that the more
presentation the learns join during class, the higher responsibility they will get. Last
but not least, “presenting practical or theoretical information in front of a public
audience is a professional competence most learners will need to use in their future
careers”. Therefore, oral presentation helps undergraduate students develop
comprehensively. It brings more than one chance for academic achievement and
promotion at work, above all, although it is the technology-driven society, we can
deny the value of both verbal communication and non-verbal communication in daily
life, and practice oral presentation is one of the ways to practice communication
skills.

2.3.2 The Advantages of Presentation in English
There is no doubt that in today connection era, communication and interaction
between people is pretty necessary, and language, especially English is a powerful

tool to pull humans closer. As Tran (2009) wrote “We are now in a communicative
stage, a time when we emphasize evaluation of language use rather than language
from”. Furthermore, Philipson (2009, cited in Gallardo del Puerto, F. & Martínez
Adrián, M., 2015, p.92) once demonstrated “globalization and internationalization of
universities cannot be separated from the use of English.”. Till now, learn to present
a case in English is considered better than learn grammar mechanically. It is believed
that oral presentation is one of the effective tools to teach and learn foreign languages,
because it is the combination of four main skills in any language, especially in
English. Zitouni (2013, p.11) demonstrated that there are four benefits of English oral
presentation in EFL classes:

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“1. Oral presentation is making a relation between language study and language use.
2. It helps students to collect, inquire, organize, and construct information.
3. Its aim is to allow the anatomy between students.
4. In oral presentation, students use all the four skills in natural integrated way”
Accordingly, oral presentation requires the students to ingrate not only four
language skills but also other soft skills to prepare and perform the perfect speech.
Firstly, during the preparation process, learners should investigate in documents in
English from papers to real life references, then select and analysis information from
it in order to have a general knowledge of assigned topics. This step helps students
improve their ability in reading, listening, as well as gathering and analyzing data.
Secondly, while presenting, students do a public speaking in English and learn how
to interact with audience verbally, and non-verbally. Finally, after presentation,
students discuss or negotiate with their peers to clarify the problem.
In addition, a study by Mohammad, O.F.A.H., Amirul, I., & Mohammad, A.R.

(2016, p.142) affirmed the advantages of oral presentation in English in opportunities
for future careers:
1. Presentation is general and group presentation in particular provides students
chances to work with others and express or negotiate their ideas in English
which is seemed helpful skill for occupations.
2. Employers of any discipline look for good verbal and non-verbal
communication candidates, so that the presentation skill becomes a vital asset
in future.

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In spite of the abundant benefits from oral presentation, especially in English,
students still consider it as a big challenge to deal with. Therefore, in the next section,
the factors which were studied to affect the quality of the presentation would be
discussed.

2.4 The Difficulties in Oral Presentation
2.4.1 Internal Difficulties in Oral Presentation
2.4.1.1 Anxiety
In the process of using foreign language as English, anxiety is considered as
one of the biggest difficulties coming from the learner themselves. Spielberger (1983)
once defined anxiety as “the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness
and worry associated with an arousal of the automatic nervous system” (cited in
Chandran, S.K., Munohsamy, T., & Rahman, M., 2015, p.3). In more specific context,
which is involved in anxiety of oral presentation, Hazila Kadir (2014) narrowed the
definition into “an uncomfortable feeling in the mind usually caused by fear or
expectation that something bad will happen. In this kind of circumstance, it is

common to see the ESL learners will experience the unwanted feelings naturally
when having to do oral presentations in front of others’ presence”. Those notions lead
to a general identification that anxiety is a natural and unexpected feeling, appearing
when we fall out of our comfort zone. Moreover, it could make foreign language
learners tend to avoid oral practice activities, presentation in particular.
Although most psychologists believe that it is possible to control the fear of
making oral presentation in front of audience, there are many researches show the
significant number of that anxiety. According to the study of Spijck (2011, cited in
Farhan. R., 2017, p.97-98), about 80 % people admitted that they “experienced public
speaking anxiety” regardless of its size. He also added that “every four out of ten
people rank public speaking fear as one of their apex three fears”. Moreover, in the
ELF context, the fear of conducting oral presentation in English, which is not the
students’ mother tongue, is higher than the ordinary one. In other word, in case

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making a speech fear might be worse related to foreign languages. Farhan Raja, who
do a study about “Anxiety Level in Students of Public Speaking: Causes and
Remedies”, demonstrated the result that about 38 out of 50 undergraduate students
(more than 75%) fear of speaking in front of the class (Farhan Raja, 2017). Similarly,
Bao Dat and Brian Tomlinson (2004) investigated Vietnamese students’ perception
of speaking English in class, which is agreed by 143 out of 300 ELF students (about
47,6%) that they fell highly anxious for presenting in English. All these numbers
approved individual’s level of anxiety has a huge impact on students’ English oral
presentation.
Students usually find oral presentation conducting is a difficult task due to
inner fear. Thus, some studies, on the other hand, gave the expressions as well as the

solutions to handle the anxiety. Beatty (1988, cited in Chandran, S.K., Munohsamy,
T., & Rahman, M., 2015, p.3) showed that “trembling knees, shaking voice, speaking
quickly or slowly, or some might even have a flat voice when one’s nervous symptom
occurs”. In addition, Mulac and Sherman (1974, cited in Jane King, 2002, p.404) gave
some anxious evidences including “heavy breathing, lack of eye contact or extraneous
eye movement, rigidity or tension, fidgeting or motionless arms and hands”;
furthermore, with anxiety, people can be identified with “sweaty palms, accelerated
heart rate, and memory loss”. Acknowledge the behavior of students who have fear
of presenting in English in front of audience, researchers found effectives tactics to
minimize students’ presentation anxiety (King Jane, 2002; Chen Yusi, 2015;
Chandran, S.K., Munohsamy, T., & Rahman, M., 2015).
It is clear that many students find it difficult to make a presentation in English
because of their anxiety. Inner fear is considered as a big obstacle on the way to
improve English skills as well as oral communication skills, which brings many good
opportunities away from students. It is crucial to find out that way to overcome the
English oral presentation anxiety from the root.

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2.4.1.2 The Lack of Self - Confidence
Lack of confidence was believed the second factors from students themselves
that causes the difficulty when they conduct an oral presentation in English. In a
related research investigated “The correlation between general self – confidence and
academic achievement in the oral presentation course”, Al-Hebaish (2012) identified
that “where there is self- confidence, there will be good communication”. In other
word, self-confidence is considered as a crucial element to build up an effective
communication art which includes oral presentation. On the other hand, Yashima,

Zenuk-Nishide, & Shimizu (2014, cited in Al-Hebaish, 2012, p.61) believed that self
– confidence is a key to determine students are willing to join oral activities in
language courses.
According to Trung Hieu (2011), Vietnamese students tend to afraid of being
laugh by their peers because of making mistake, thus they avoid presenting in English
in class. Self – confidence helps people access to every aspect of life effortlessly;
however, owing to the traditional English - teaching method, students become passive
and dependent on teachers which reduce their self – confidence. A study conducted
by Bao Dat and Brian Tomlinson (2004) reported that 46.6 % Vietnamese students
believe that “mistakes bring shame” because they do not familiar with the new
teaching methods which consider learner as the centered role, so students limit the
times speaking in English, and afraid of make English oral presentation also. Not only
do students scare of losing their face in front of peers but they also find it too shy and
hard to present in a foreign language as English. According to Baldwin (2011, cited
in Juhana, 2012, p.101), the feeling of shyness could make one’s mind go blank and
they would “forget what to say”. It explains the reason why the lack of self –
confidence become a dangerous barrier which ELF students found it phobic and
difficult to overcome.
In terms of solution to be more confident, Al-Hebaish (2012) suggested
creating an excited atmosphere as well as encouraging students attend to oral

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presentation positively without worrying about being criticized or laughed at. In
other word, the harmonious atmosphere is a key method to reduce students’
shyness. In addition, there are a number of studies have been conducted to figure
out more effective solutions to build up students’ confidence, in the context of

EFL. According to Chinmony (2017, cited in Juhana, 2012, p.101), one of the
strategies help students presenting confidently is convince them to ignore the
failure or success. Juhana (2012) adds that the “Emotional bonds between students
and teachers should be build” as a bridge in which teachers can share with students
to

understand

their

fear

thoroughly.

In short, self-confidence is an important characteristic that help student success in
English oral presentation, and social life as general. It is also the inner barrier that
students have to overcome while presenting in front of audience.

2.4.1.3 The English Speaking Proficiency
Oral presentation skill is an integrated skill which combines almost four basic
skills in learning languages. However, speaking is the essential skill during the oral
presentation. Besides, in the context of Vietnamese students studying English as their
foreign language, find that speaking is one of the most difficult skill. According to
EF Education First survey of 1.3 million people from 88 countries and territories,
Vietnam ranked 41th out of 88 countries whose English is not mother tongue; and
ranked 7th out of 21 Asian countries in the 2018 global English Proficiency Index
(Dantri, 2018). It is obvious that the English proficiency of Vietnamese students is
moderate; however, in today society, with the fast development and high connection
between territories, requiring students have better English skills in general, and
especially English speaking proficiency. In fact, many employers complained about

graduates poor English skills ability (Vietnamnet, 2016). Moreover, today employers
tend to appreciate the ability to give a formal presentation of their candidates
(Pittenger, Miller, & Mott, 2004, cited in Miles. R., 2014, p.104). Therefore, speaking
proficiency of undergraduate students is seemed more necessary somehow. However,

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Vietnamese students tend to be scared of joining verbal activities during English
course. It can be explained by the traditional method in teaching English which
focuses much on the grammar and writing skill, leads students to be afraid of
performing English orally. In other word, “it could be a result of the traditional
teacher-centered approaches in secondary school, in which the focus is on teaching
grammar and memorizing vocabulary instead of language use” (Nowreyah A. AlNouh, Muneera M. Abdul-Kareem & Hanan A. Taqi1, 2015). Besides, Vietnamese
students often focus on grammar outrageously, they try their best to avoid every
smallest grammar error so that they cannot even speak fluently during the
presentation. This makes the audience feel uncomfortable, and the presenter easily
gets confused and forgets what to speak. According to the survey on Vietnamese
students’ perception of English teaching and learning method of Dat Bao and
Tomlinson, B. (2004), one of the interviewee stated that "speaking a little but
correctly is more important than verbalizing a lot but wrongly, an attitude that came
from many of her teachers in the past who had laid much emphasis on perfection”. It
can be seen that this thought is very popular in the English or other languages learning
community, and it makes learners avoid the opportunities for English
communication, and presentation in particular.
The poor of English speaking proficiency is a big challenge for students in
conducting an English oral presentation. In other word, if undergraduate students’
speaking skill is improved, they can easily access to verbal activities in English,

especially overcome on of their difficulties in giving presentation in English.

2.4.2 External Difficulties in Oral Presentation
2.4.2.1 The Audience
In a context of oral presentation, audience is a necessary element which is
believed in supporting as well as evaluate the performance. The audience attention is
a big factor that affect directly to the presenters’ psychology as well as the quality of
the performance. In fact, a good and effective presentation is during the presenting

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time, the presenters not only present the prepared documents or their knowledge, but
they are also asked to interact with audience. It is believed that the interaction,
question and answer part, or gestures such as eye contact with the audience will help
bring the audience closer to the presentation content, thereby achieving the goal of
transmitting the information more easily. However, this is also one of the common
difficulties students have to face with, because they cannot control the audience’s
behavior or they fear of standing in front of the crowd to present opinions. Not all
audiences cooperate with presenters during the performance, or not everyone listens
intently, the audience usually tend to work separately, make a noise, or even ridicule,
make fun of the presenters.
Stephen E. Lucas, who is a professor of communication art, wrote a book about
presentation art. In his book, there is a chapter for analyzing audience in presentation
in which demonstrate the important role of audience to oral presentation. According
to Mister Stephen E. Lucas, the best way to learn from peers is “take the classroom
audience as seriously as a lawyer, a politician, a minister, or an advertiser takes an
audience.” (Lucas, S. E., 2015, p.99). He adds, the identification of audience’

demographic traits is the very first stage, and observation or conservation should be
the way used to learn about the audience. Analyzing audience before or at the pretty
soon of present performance is an effective way to reduce stress, as well as
unexpected situation. In short, the audience is an indispensable part of a complete
presentation, but also an outside factor that causes many obstacles and difficulties for
the presenter.

2.4.2.2 The Lack of Motivation
Motivation has a huge impact on the process as well as the quality of final
result of the students’ presentation. It is considered as a backbone of learning process
and a bridge between teachers and students. In general, motivation is defined as a
“theoretical construct used to explain the initiation, direction, intensity, persistence,
and quality of behavior, especially goal-directed behavior” (Maehr & Meyer, 1997,

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