ABSTRACT
This thesis was conducted to find the difficulties in speaking with foreign
suppliers of Purchasing Department staff at RRMC.
To suit the target of the present study, the author uses two main research
methods respectively questionnaires and interview questions. Nearly 6 Purchasing
Department staff at RRMC participated in the questionnaires.
The data and results were showing that Purchasing Department staff does
recognize the importance of using English in the workplace. However, they still
face some difficulties in speaking English with their suppliers.
Hopefully, this study will become a good source for business staff while using
English to speak and negotiate with their foreign suppliers and use for further
studies.

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Working with this thesis has been hard but deserved. There are many people
who have accompanied and supported me during this time.
First of all, I owe the deepest thanks to my supervisor. My conscientious and
thoughtful supervisor Nguyen Khac Nghia has encouraged and supported my ideas
from beginning to end. He has constantly checked all numerous drafts of my work
and it has been an amazing chance to learn from his open-mindedness.
Secondly, I am thankful to all staff and managers in Purchasing Department at
RRMC who have made this study possible.
Moreover, I would like to acknowledge all the authors of the books,
magazines, and other materials listed in the reference part for my ideas that have
been reflected and developed in the study. I am in my classmate’s debt for their
encouragement during my study.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my family and my close friends who
got my back to support and cheer me to successfully complete this thesis.

ii


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Diagram 2.1. Summary from chapter 2...............................................................13
Table 4.1: Staff’s working years...........................................................................20
Table 4.2. Years of learning English of staff.........................................................20
Table 4.3. Staff’s attitude towards the importance of speaking English............21
Table 4.4. The ability to speak English of staff....................................................21
Table 4.5. The general opinion of staff about difficulty in English speaking.....21
Figure 4.6. Aspects of difficulties affect speaking with foreign suppliers of
Purchasing Department staff................................................................................22
Difficulties in pronunciation of staff when speaking with foreign suppliers.....23
Figure 4.7. Difficulties in pronunciation of staff when speaking with foreign
suppliers (%)..........................................................................................................23
Figure 4.8. Difficulties in vocabulary of staff when speaking with foreign
suppliers (%)..........................................................................................................24
Figures 4.9. Difficulties in knowledge of staff when speaking with foreign
suppliers (%)..........................................................................................................25
Figure 4.10. Solutions to improve speaking skills of Purchasing Department
staff (%).................................................................................................................. 26

iii


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
No.
1


Abbreviations
JSC

English meaning
Join Stock Company

2

RRMC

Red

WTO

Company
World Trade Organization

Hồng
Tổ chức Thương mại

PD
SLA

Purchasing Department
Second Language Acquisition

Thế giới
Phịng mua hàng
Sự tiếp thu ngơn ngữ


TOEIC

thứ hai
Test of English for International Bài kiểm tra tiếng Anh

IELTS

Communication
giao tiếp quốc tế
International English Language Hệ thống Kiểm tra Ngôn

HR
KPI

Testing System
Human Resource
Key Performance Indicator

US-UK

quả công việc
United Stated – United Kingdom Mỹ-Anh

3
4
5
7
8
9
10

11

River

Vietnamese meaning
Công ty Cổ phần

Manufacturing Công ty sản xuất Sông

iv

ngữ Tiếng Anh Quốc tế
Nhân sự
Chỉ số đo lường hiệu


LIST OF TABLES AND DIAGRAMS
No
1
2
3
4

List
Diagram 2.1
Table 4.1
Table 4.2
Table 4.3

5

6

Table 4.4
Table 4.5

7

Figure 4.6

8

Figure 4.7

9

Figure 4.8

10

Figures 4.9

11

Figure 4.10

Content
Page
Summary from chapter 2
13
Staff’s working years

20
Years of learning English of staff
20
Staff’s attitude towards the importance of speaking
21
English
The ability to speak English of staff
21
The general opinion of staff about the difficulty in
21
English speaking
Aspects of difficulties affect speaking English with
22
foreign suppliers of Purchasing Department staff
Difficulties in pronunciation of staff when speaking
23
with foreign suppliers
Difficulties in vocabulary of staff when speaking
24
with foreign suppliers
Difficulties in knowledge of staff when speaking
25
with foreign suppliers
Solutions to improve speaking skills of Purchasing
26
Department staff

v



CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
1.1. Rationale of the study
English is the dominant business language and it has become almost a
necessity for people who want to enter a global workforce, research from all over
the world shows that cross-border business communication is most often conducted
in English. English also considered as a means to promote mutual understanding
and cooperation between Vietnam and other countries, especially since Vietnam
became an official member of WTO. Therefore, there has been an increasing
number of people desiring to know English with the hope of keeping up with the
latest modern technology in the world.
In this globalization, all of the companies will hire a candidate who has
excellent English skills. Speaking English opens up thousand of new opportunities.
Being able to communicate with foreign clients or business partners will provide
you a more challenging position in your career. Moreover, being able to use English
in your researches will give you unlimited access to knowledge.
Today, English is used in every aspect of life. Adopting a global language
policy is not easy at all especially in the business world. Many employees may feel
at a disadvantage if their English isn’t as good as others, team dynamics and
performance also can suffer. In order to survive and thrive in a global economy,
companies and employees must overcome language barriers and English will
always be the common ground, at least for now.
In Vietnam, there are still many employees who can’t speak English properly
due to condition, context, workload especially staff in Purchase Department at Red
River Manufacturing JSC when they communicate with foreign customers.
Purchasing staffs need to be good at negotiating, networking and dealing with
numbers, as well as dealing with other factors such as scarcity, risk management
and quality evaluation, negotiate price, purchase agreement, payment and delivery
date. Purchase Department staffs frequently speaking and negotiate with customers
in and outside the country in English. However, their communication suffers from
complex jobs are assigned, and intercultural misunderstandings significantly. It


1


slows down productivity and undermines the capacity of employees to develop their
skills.
All of the above reasons have inspired me to do the research on “Difficulties
in speaking with foreign suppliers: the case of Purchasing Department staff in
Red River Manufacturing Joint Stock Company” with the hope to make a small
contribution to the quality of changing speaking skills of Purchasing Department
staff at Red River Manufacturing Joint Stock Company.
After reading and watching by many means and aspect of life, I realize that
there are three main difficulties almost every employees or learner face when
speaking English. The first one is the fear of committing mistakes. Most students or
workers hesitate to speak English because of what others may think if they find a
mistake. They can laugh or insult them, they prefer to keep quiet or speak as little as
possible. The second one is the non-availability of words to express feelings. A nonnative speaker of English wants to say something but doesn’t get words to express
them in English. The third is the difference in syntax. The arrangement of words in
the mother tongue is different from the syntax of English. People can’t translate a
sentence from their mother tongue to English in the same manner.
There are many studies about the difficulty in speaking English. Lawtie study
pointed out that, emotional state affects learners speaking English skills. These
emotions are unconfident, shy, nervous. Emotional become an important factor
when speaking with other people. While Hinkel (2005) stated that problems occur
when communication is possible because they don’t understand the meaning of a
word or can’t express their meaning. This also prevents communications between
people from successful.
Several causes of difficulty in practicing speaking skills such as pronunciation,
semantic errors, lack of vocabulary, lack of interest or lack of environment for
practice have been shown in Mustafa Mubarak Pathan’s (2014) research studies.

While in Samira Al Hosni (2014) research, she lists three main difficulties when
speaking English, they are linguistic difficulties, mother tongue, inhibition. Students
have an inadequate vocabulary and weak sentence building skills. The findings also
showed that the main factors that contributed to the existence of these difficulties

2


are teacher’s perceptions and tacit belief of teaching speaking, teaching strategies
and assessment regulations.
Besides studies on English speaking which were done by foreigners, there
were also have a number of studies of researchers in Viet Nam about the speaking
ability.
Cao Dinh Duc (2018) “a study on some problems in using spoken language at
the workplace of fourth-year students in the English Department, Thuong Mai
University and suggested solutions”. The results indicated that oral communication
is important and the most used forms of it are persuading customers, informal workrelated discussion.
The research of Nguyen Hoang Tuan and Tran Ngoc Mai (2015) “The factors
affecting student’s speaking performance at Le Thanh Hien School” has revealed a
lot of problems that the students have to deal and factors that affecting students
speaking performance of listening ability, motivation to speak, teacher’s feedback
during speaking activities, the pressure to perform and time for preparation.
These studies above have pointed out the problems of using English speaking
skills of students. They are typical subjects who regularly using English. This is a
comparative study that covers neither universities nor high schools or even
employees. This study also takes place in a company where I was an internship
within a month. It explores old problems – English speaking skills, but with a new
subject – the Purchasing Department staff at a company, based on the literature
reviews from the relating previous studies and data analysis.
1.2. Aims of the study

Based on the reality in how Purchasing Department staff at RRMC use and
what their difficulties they have to face while using English, this study is conducted
with the aim to identify common difficulties in speaking English when speaking
with foreign suppliers of Purchasing Department staff at RRMC.
1.3. Research Subjects
This research is designed with the participation of six staff including four staff
and two managers at Purchasing Department at RRMC. All of the staff are different
in English speaking levels, they are willing to complete questionnaires. Moreover,

3


the director also feels comfortable to share information and takes part in the
interview question.
This research is carried out by answering two following research question:
1. What are the difficulties in speaking English with foreign suppliers of
Purchasing Department staff at RRMC?
2. What are the solutions to improve speaking skill?
1.4. Scope of the study
Due to the limitation of time and knowledge, this thesis only focuses on
analyzing and emphasizing the main difficulties in speaking English with foreign
suppliers, the case in Purchasing Department staff at RRMC. This thesis is also
expected to be a helpful reference to people who are weak in speaking and motivate
them to confident speaking when communicating with others. I do hope that this
study will be a useful document for readers or employees to find out the biggest
challenges while speaking English at the workplace.
1.5. Research methodology
A questionnaire was designed based on what Purchasing Department staff
need to do while speaking with foreign suppliers in RRMC and to discover
problems they encountered. The questionnaire was sent to 6 Purchasing Department

staff. They were requested to provide samples of difficulties in speaking with
foreign suppliers for a study. A contribution of 6 samples in English was thus
collected. It was decided that 6 sample of respondents should be classified and
analyzed.
Apart from the questionnaire, also 6 staff (concluded 2 managers) representing
the main Purchasing Department were selected to provide further information in
interviews question to gather more details on certain issues derived from the
questionnaires.
1.6. Organization of the study
My graduation paper is divided into five main chapters as follow:
Chapter 1: Overview of the study. This chapter provides an introduction
which includes the reason for conducting the study, the aims, the subject research,
scope of the study and research methodology.

4


Chapter 2: Literature review. This presents a review of the literature with
theoretical and fundamental principles.
Chapter 3: Methodology of the research. It explains detailed about the
research strategy, research methods, research approach, research process, data
collections and data analysis.
Chapter 4: Main findings and discussion. It is the main part of the study,
based on the results of research and investigation. Point out the collected data after
applying the research method to the investigation.
Chapter 5: Recommendations and suggestions. The final chapter provides
some implications, limitations and recommendations for further research.
Besides, the study also consists of other parts: abstract, acknowledgement,
table of content, list of abbreviations, list of figures and conclusion, references,
appendices.


5


CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Definitions of speaking skill
According to Brown (1994) and Burns & Joyce (1997), speaking is an
interactive process that involves producing, receiving and processing information.
Its meaning is dependent on the context where it occurs, also the participants
themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes
for speaking.
Speaking requires that learners not only know how to produce specific points
of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary but also understand
when, why, and in what ways to produce language. Speech has its own skills,
structures, and it different from written language (Burns & Joyce, 1997; Carter &
McCarthy, 1995; Cohen, 1996).
Bygate (1998: 23) has a definition of speaking based on interactional skills
which involve making the decision about communication. This is considered a topdown view of speaking. Adopting this view, Eckard & Kearny (1981), Florez (1999)
and Howarth (2001) define speaking as a two–way process involving a true
communication of ideas, information or feelings. This top-down view considers the
spoken the product of cooperation between two or more interactants in shared time,
and a shared physical context. Thus, proponents of this view suggest that rather than
teaching learners to make well-formed sentences and then putting these to use in
discourse we should encourage learners to join in spoken the discourse from the
beginning and after that they will acquire the smaller units (Nunan, 1989, 32).
Chaney (1998) has the definition of speaking is that speaking is "the process
of sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety
of contexts". Speaking is a essential part of second language learning. However for
many years, learn English speaking has been undervalued and English language
teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or

memorization of dialogues. However, today's world requires that the goal of
learning speaking should improve learners communicative skills, only in that way,
they can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules
appropriate in each communicative circumstance and in the workplaces.

6


2.2. Characteristics of speaking skill
The first characteristic of speaking skills fluency. According to Hughes (2002),
fluency is the learners’ ability to speak in an understandable way in order not to
break down communication because listeners may lose their interest. Hedge (2000)
stated that fluency is the ability to answer coherently by connecting the words,
pronouncing the sounds clearly, and using stress and intonation properly.
Accuracy is the second characteristic of speaking skill. Learners should pay
enough attention to the exactness of language form when speaking such as focusing
on grammatical structures, vocabulary, and pronunciation (Mazouzi, 2013). In
Thornbury (2005), learners’ correct use of grammatical structures requires the
complexity of the utterances and the well-structured clauses. Learners sometimes
apply similar words or expressions in various contexts that do not mean similar
things. Therefore, learners should use words and expressions correctly.
The third is vocabulary. Vocabulary is crucial for successful second language
use because without vocabulary, we will be unable to use the structure for
comprehensible communication. It can be said that success in communication,
which is the power of words. Vocabulary means the most important thing in a
language especially in speaking; furthermore, knowing many vocabularies make it
easier to express ideas, feeling and thoughts both in oral form. In spoken language,
the vocabulary tends to be familiar and every day (Turk, 2003:87). It means that in
speaking, the vocabulary used must be familiar and used in every day conversation
in order to understand the spoken discourse.

Complexity also a characteristic of speaking skill. According to Halliday
(1985:87), it is wrong that written language is highly organized, structured, and
complex while spoken is disorganized and simple. Nunan (2004:86) said that what
made speaking difficult were related to the type of information that had to be
conveyed and was concerned with the scale of the task and relationships among the
different elements involved. The complexity of written language is static, while
spoken is dynamic and intricate.
Last but not least, pronunciation is the main thing when mentioning speaking
features. Thornbury (2005) stated that pronunciation is the lowest level of

7


knowledge which learners typically pay attention to. Pronunciation refers to the
customary utterance of words. From that statement, the author can be concluded
that pronunciation is the way for learners to produce the utterance of words clearly
when they are speaking (Kline, 2001:69). Moreover, pronunciation includes all
those aspects of speech that make for an easily intelligible flow of speech, including
segmental articulation, rhythm, intonation and phrasing, and even gesture, body
language and eye contact (Fraser, 2001:6) which contribute to the development of
speaking.
2.3. Types of speaking
There are three main types of speaking: demonstrative speaking, informative
speaking and persuasive speaking according to “Clella Jaffe's Public Speaking:
Concepts and Skills for a Diverse Society 5th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomas
Wadsworth, 2007”,
In demonstrative speaking, science demonstrations and role-playing are types
of demonstrative speaking. Demonstrative speaking requires to speak clearly and
concisely to describe actions. The main purpose behind demonstrative speaking is
that the audience members leave with the knowledge about how to do something.

With informative speaking, the speaker is trying to explain a concept to the
audience members. In this type of speaking, the information is crucial. The speaker
doesn’t try to get others to agree with him/her or to show them how to do something
for themselves.
While persuasive speaking tends to be the most glitzy. Politicians, lawyers and
clergy members usually use persuasive speaking. Persuasive speaking requires
nuances of language that will convince the audience members of a certain
viewpoint. In this pursuasive type, speaker has a stake in the outcome of the speech.
Politicians may want votes or a groundswell of support for a pet project, while
clergy members are trying to win others over to their faith. The persuasive speaker
usually uses emotional appeals and strong language in speeches.
2.4. Purpose of speaking
It was argued that the purpose of speaking can be either transactional or
interactional. Apparently, there are some differences between the spoken language

8


used in both transactional and interactional discourse. Analyzing speaking purposes
more precisely, according to Kingen (2000:218), he combines both the transactional
and interpersonal purposes of speaking into personal, descriptive, narrative,
instructive, questioning, etc.
In transactional discourse, language is used primarily for communicating
information. Language serving this purpose is 'message' oriented rather than
'listener' oriented (Nunan, 1989: 27). Clearly, in this type of interaction, accurate
and coherent communication of the message is important, as well as confirmation
that the message has been understood. Speaking turns serving this purpose tend to
be long and involve some prior organization of content or type of information that
will be given (Basturkmen, 2002: 26)
However, some conversations are interactional with the purpose of

establishing a relationship. This kind is sometimes called the interpersonal use of
language. It plays an important social role in oiling the wheels of social intercourse
(Yule, 1989: 169). Apparently, the language used in the interactional model is
listener oriented. Speakers' talk in this type tends to be limited to quite short turns
(Dornyei & Thurrell, 1994: 43 and Richards, 1990: 54-55). However, in spite of the
distinctions between the two types, in most circumstances, interactional language is
combined with transactional language. This helps to ease the transactional tasks to
be done by keeping good social relations with others. In other words, speakers do
one thing by doing another (Brazil, 1995:29). So both purposes can be viewed as
two dimensions of spoken interaction.
2.5. Difficulties in speaking
2.5.1. Difficulty in pronunciation
In recent years, Ozkan, Bada, and Genc (2011) asserted the importance of
pronunciation in speaking skill because people compete with limited time while
speaking to recall words, and also need to take care of their pronunciation.
Pronunciation plays a crucial role while speaking. Some of the students revealed
that they have difficulties in their way of speaking, mistakes while speaking.
Many people will not be able to make the sounds, lack of word stress
especially the first stage, and constant correction may discourage them. According

9


to Ngo, a Vietnamese lecturer at Harvard University claimed that Vietnamese
speakers usually meet difficulties with English word stress while speaking about
pronunciation. Riviera-Castillo and Pickering (2004), Astruc and Prieto (2006),
stated that learners are exceptional in positioning the word only in phrase-final
position, making it difficult to tease apart word stress from boundary-induced
effects. Heidi Altmann (2006) investigated the influence of native language stress
properties on the second language acquisition of primary word stress. Learners with

predictable stress in their native language did poorly in perceiving the location of
stress while in production they were native-like.
According to (Honey, p. 241), Vietnamese speakers are not able to vocalize
stress by the tone in English words due to syllabic tone, sometimes they
mispronounced words. In Rodman and Fromkin (1978:159) research, they made
reference to the struggle between those that words should be pronounced according
to their spelling and those who felt words should be spelled according to their
pronunciation. They indicated that at that time /h/ sound was not pronounced in
honest, hour, habit, hospital, etc.
Moreover, pronunciation is even difficult due to learners be affected by accent
specific Vietnamese accent. Although Vietnamese and English share certain sounds,
there are multiple consonants sounds specific to each language. That’s the reason
why many learners feel hard to speak English. Nguyen et al. (2001) concluded that
during the elementary school years, there seemed to be a strong trend of
maintaining Vietnamese oral skills while gaining strong English skills. Young and
Tran (1999) reported a study aims at Vietnamese accent affected how learners
speaking English even though their family shifts abroad. It seemed that the longer
they stay in the United States, the more parents encouraged children to retain
Vietnamese. They usually speak English with a Vietnamese accent even though they
live abroad.
2.5.2. Difficulty in vocabulary
Vocabulary is an individual word or a set of words that have a specific
meaning. Kamil and Hiebert (2005) state that vocabulary is the knowledge of the
meanings of words. Accomplishing accuracy in terms of vocabulary refers to the

10


appropriate selection of words during speaking. According to Wilkins (1972) wrote
that “while without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary

nothing can be conveyed”. It has the same importance in speaking.
In Hosni’s (2014) research, he investigated speaking difficulty by observing
grade 5 learners in the elementary schools in Oman. The learners in her study were
struggling to find accurate vocabulary to speak English. Alcindor (2001) shows that
the learners whose familiar with mother tongues are different and low English
proficiency than learners are not familiar, and he coined the term Limited English
Proficiency to describe those learners in his research. It is known that learners who
have different mother tongues than mother language or other languages have limited
mother language proficiency.
Moreover, in Al-Kadi, 2015 and

Saleh & Zakaria (2013) study, the

researchers found that learners encounter difficulties in learning slang, idioms
which hard to remember and convey into English. Tran (2013) explored the
competence of figurative idioms of language learners and their perceptions of idiom
learning context in Vietnam. The results revealed that the subjects have poor
idiomatic competence. His efforts also uncovered the paradox between students’
situation of using and learning idioms and their desires to learn. Al-Khwaldeh,
Jaradat, Al-momani, & Bani-Khair (2016) examined students’ perceptions of the
importance of learning idioms, their most frequently used idiom-learning strategies,
and the difficulties they faced when trying to learn idioms. The results also
illustrated that students encounter difficulties when learning idioms or slang.
2.5.3. Difficulty in knowledge
Knowledge is familiarity or understanding of someone or something, such as
facts, information, descriptions, or skills, which is acquired through experience or
education by perceiving, discovering, learning or according to Nonaka and Takeuchi
(1995) definition about knowledge is “justified true belief”. Knowledge also said to
be related to the capacity of acknowledgment in human beings.
Due to a large amount of knowledge outside, many people feel overwhelmed

and obstacles when communicating with other people. Besides the countless
knowledge, English learners feel frustrated and misunderstanding about cultural
differences.

11


Some learners have admitted that the countless knowledge is hard to identify
which to chose to learn in. The knowledge of someone can have an immediate
impact on comprehension and speaking, especially when the information is closely
related to what one already knows (Cook & O'Brien, 2014). When a speaker knows
more about a topic, would result in more activation of related knowledge compared
to a speaker who knows less, and this contributes to differences in comprehension
between high and low knowledge speaker (McNamara & O'Reilly, 2009). As Nunan
(1999) states, learners encounter difficulty when speaking English due to the lack of
necessary knowledge and cannot provide the correct form.
Knowledge also influenced by cultural differences. Frequently culture
becomes the main obstacle to effective knowledge (McDermott & O’Dell, 2001).
The researchers argue that firms which knowledge sharing is set into their culture
did not change their culture to tie their knowledge management initiatives. In fact,
they modified their approach to knowledge management to match their culture.
These have been done by presenting the knowledge management by matching the
organization's style, and boosting peers and supervisors to exercise pressure to
share.
2.5.4. Other difficulties
Besides those difficulties, both the psychological and linguistic difficulties
cause learners a lot of obstacles in speaking.
According to MacIntyre, Clément, Dörnyei, and Noels (1998), learners
willingness to communicate was determined partly by their self-confidence. After
the research, they reached a conclusion that self-confidence affected significantly

learners speaking performance. It is commonly understood that a student’s lack of
confidence usually occurs when students realize that they do not understand other
speakers. In result, they would rather keep silent while others talking showing that
the students are lack of confidence.
Another difficulty is the lack of grammar usage. Grammar are sentences which
are structured and formatted. According to Celce-Murcia (2001s), grammar
becomes difficult because learners do not learn structures one at a time. Even the
learners appear to have controlled a particular structure; it is not uncommon to find
backsliding occurring with the introduction of a new form to the learners’
interlanguage.

12


From chapter 2, the author will create a diagram to show the main
information related to the research as follow:
Lack of word
stress
Affected by
Vietnamese
accent

Pronunciation

Mispronounce

Slang, idioms,
dialect

Vocabulary


Familiar with
mother-tongue

Countless
knowledge

Difficulties in
speaking

Knowledge

Cultural
differences

Lack of
grammar usage

Lack of
confidence

Others

Diagram 2.1. Summary from chapter 2

13


From the diagram above, we can see that there are three main difficulties in
speaking English: pronunciation, vocabulary and knowledge.

The first difficulty is pronunciation. English learners usually meet difficulties
with English word stress while speaking about pronunciation. They are not able to
vocalize stress by the tone in English words due to their syllabic tone. They speak
English without any stress for fear of getting the word meaning wrong. In addition,
they apply Vietnamese pronunciation rules and be affected by the Vietnamese
accent therefore they stress each syllable the same. English is callled a stress-timed
language, the rhythm is measured by the beats in between stressed syllables.
However, English learners usually substituting a consonant sound from their native
language, they don’t move their mouth through the right shape in order to
pronounce the sound the way it is in English.
The second difficulty is vocabulary. Vocabulary plays a crucial role in
speaking, however, many learners feel hard to learn new vocabulary. They often
find difficulties when trying to express what they want to say, they lack the
appropriate vocabulary, and sometimes they use words incorrectly which do not
carry the same meaning in all contexts. Moreover, sometimes native-speakers speak
slang or dialects which made listeners feel hard to understand. In some cases,
learners need to convey information related to Vietnamese cultures or Vietnamese
customs but they don’t know how to exactly explain this to make suppliers
understand due to lack of vocabulary.
In addition, knowledge also affects the way people speak. Due to the giant
amount of knowledge in the modern world, many people feel overwhelmed and
have difficulty when communicating with other people. They feel that the sources
of knowledge are countless, they don’t know which sources are the most accurate to
chose to learn. Moreover, due to the slow update information of learners, they
convey knowledge without a coherent arrangement, makes listeners difficult to
understand. Moreover, they feel hard to approach the global knowledge, cultural
differences knowledge leading to a decrease in understanding the demand of
listeners.

14



Besides, there are lack of confidence or lack of grammar usage affect
speaking skills. When speaking with other people, English learners worry about
making mistakes in front of people. They speak hesitantly or lack confidence about
what they want to speak. Lack of confidence and anxiety prevent them from
speaking English fluently.

15


CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY OF THE RESEARCH
3.1. Research strategy
The research held with respect to this thesis was an applied one, but not new.
Rather, numerous pieces of previous academic research exist regarding the
difficulties in speaking, not only for Purchasing Department staff at RRMC in
specific but also for other employees in other workplaces. As such, the research
took the form of new research but on an existing research subject.
3.2. Research method
Due to the limited of people in a specific area - Purchasing Department at
RRMC, the researcher will use questionnaire and interviews to dig more
information about the difficulties purchase staff encounter while speaking with
foreign suppliers.
3.2.1. Participants
The participants were 6 Purchasing Department staff at RRMC. They were
chosen for the reason that they are PD staff at RRMC. For the second purpose of
this study, 6 participants were selected as to find out difficulties they have to face
while speaking with foreign suppliers. Following being asked about what
difficulties they experienced in speaking English with suppliers, the solutions were
given and examined as well.

3.2.2. Questionnaires
This study is taken from respondents by answering the questionnaire. The
questionnaire is chosen as a data collection method for the study and designed for
Purchasing Department staff at RRMC.
The questionnaire contains 10 questions and divided into two parts. Part one
included 5 questions about general information of participants. Part two consists of
5 questions about speaking skills of participants.
In general, the questionnaire may be the most useful tool for researchers to
collect data effectively.

16


3.2.3. Interviews
The interview will have two main questions related to difficulties in some
realistic situations participants face while working with foreign customers and
suggested solutions.
This is a face-to-face interview question type. The interview conducted with
the participation of Purchasing Department staff. After the interview, the researcher
will collect information and analyze the data based on the results.
3.3. Research approach
The research approach that was followed for the purposes of fiding the
difficulties in speaking of Purchasing staff at RRMC. It was the inductive one.
According to this approach, the researcher begin with specific observation from
staff work in Purchasing Department who have difficulty in speaking English. This
approach which are used to produce generalized theories and conclusions drawn
from the research. The reasons for occupying the inductive approach was that it
takes into account the context where the research effort is astir, while it is also
most appropriate for small samples that produce data to support the study.
3.4. Research process

The researcher came in touch with the staff and asked them to participate in
the research. The researcher would give them questionnaires and some questions in
the interview section. The respondents were willing to participate in the research
and the interviews were conducted. The discussions took place at the offices of
the executives and lasted approximately 10 to 20 minutes. During the interviews,
the researcher were mainly kept notes, in order to analyze the gathered data.
During the conduction of the interview, respondents were free to express their
opinions about the topics and suggested methods to improve problems in speaking
also support further studty. It also should be noted that the conversations flowed
smoothly and happily between the researcher and the participants.
3.5. Data collection and tools
For the purposes of this research, in depth interviews were used. As far as
data collection tools were concerned, the conduction of the research involved the

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use of semi-structured questionnaire, which also was used as an interview guide
for the researcher.
First, the questionnaires will be sent to Purchasing Department staff at RRMC.
All of the questions were written in English. Two-part of the questionnaires consists
of both closed and open questions. Some certain questions were prepared, for the
researcher to guide the interview towards the satisfaction of research objectives,
moreover, the additional questions were made encountered during the interviews.
Second, the interviews were used in this study. Interviews were conducted
with 6 staff (included 2 managers) in Purchasing Department at RRMC. All the
questions were made in English. The researcher uses the dept interviews because it
is personal and unstructured interviews, whose aim is to identify participant’s
feelings, and opinions regarding subject about the difficulties staff encounter while
speaking with foreign suppliers specific in Purchasing Department at RRMC. The

main advantage of personal interviews is that they involve personal and direct
contact between interviewers and interviewees, as well as eliminate non-response
rates.
Some sample questions that the author would used in the semi-structured
questionnaire were the following:
Question 1: How many years have you been worked at RRMC?
Question 2: How long have you been learning English?
Question 3: How do you think English speaking skills is important in the
workplace specifically in the Purchasing Department?
Question 4: How do you evaluate your speaking ability?
Question 5: Do you have difficulty in speaking English with foreign suppliers?
Question 6: What aspects of difficulties do you encounter when speaking
English with suppliers?
Question 7: When you speak English with foreign suppliers, what difficulties
related to pronunciation do you have?
Question 8: When you speak English with foreign suppliers, what difficulties
related to vocabulary do you have?
Question 9: When you speak English with foreign suppliers, what difficulties
related to knowledge do you have?
Question 10: What are suggestions to improve your speaking skill?

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(A detailed form of the questionnaires and the interview guide are presented in
Appendixes 1 and Appendixes 2 respectively)
3.6. Data analysis methods
Data analysis is a process of cleaning, transforming, and modeling data to
discover helpful information for business decision-making about the gloss, venues,
etc. According to Shamoo and Resnik (2003), he defined data analysis is “provide a

way of drawing inductive inferences from data and distinguishing the signal from
the noise present in the data”. The purpose of data analysis is to draw useful
information from data and taking the decision based upon the data analysis. When
the data collection is completed, the data analysis is started.
In terms of obtaining data in the questionnaires, the results were collected,
quantified and analyzed according to percentage.
In terms of interviews, the answers data will be synthesized in the form of
comparative statistics. Then the data would be illustrated in charts and tables for a
clear description of the findings and to confirm the results from the survey
questionnaires.
Lastly, all the data collected from participants were grouped under two main
parts as mentioned in the first part of the research. In specifically, the result of the
questionnaires which include the difficulties in speaking English of Purchasing
Department staff at RRMC and suggest solutions while the interviews support to
double-check the information and have a deeper overview of the current situation.

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CHAPTER 4: MAIN FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1. Results
4.1.1. Results from questionnaires
4.1.1.1. The reality of speaking English among Purchasing staff
The presented and analyzed data was taken from the survey questionnaire for
Purchasing Department staff at RRMC
•

Years of working

The table shows the years of working at RRMC of Purchasing staff

Years of working

Less than 1 1-3 years

Percentage (%)

year
32,2

34

3-5 years

More than 5

17

years
16,7

Table 4.1: Staff’s working years
The total number of employees chosen in the studying was 6 Purchasing
Department staff of which 4 staff and 2 managers. The majority belonged to the
groups of 24 - 37.
According to table 4.1, 32,3% of staff have been working in PD at RRMC
less than 1 years, 34% of them have been working from 1 to 3 years, the rest of the
staff have been working from 3 to 5 years and more than 5 years, made up for 17%
and 16,7% respectively. It is thought that RRMC company has a stable purchaser
staff even though the enterprise has been established for more than 12 years.
•


Years of learning English

The employees’ profile plays a crucial role in the current situation of speaking
English of Purchasing staff.
Years of learning Less than 3-5 years

5-7 years

More than 7

English
1 year
years
Percentage (%)
0
35
55
10
Table 4.2. Years of learning English of staff
As can be seen from the table above, most of the staff learned English for 5 to
7 years (55%). 35% of staff spent from 3 to 5 years study English. 10% had the
experience of more than 7 years in learning English. Surprisingly, there was no staff
who learned English for less than 1 year because all staff had to learn English as a
compulsory subject in high schools, colleges, university before.

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