CLT in Vietnam & difficulties when using this approach in teaching speaking.

cultures, values & lives of students and provides them with knowledge of the cultural

values & daily lives of the people with whom they are likely to interact”.

Accordingly, the curriculum is renewed by the Ministry of Education &

Training (MOET) & is applied for all grades & school types nation-wide from grade

6 to grade 12, with a weekly class time of 135 minutes, split into three lessons of 45

minutes each. A set of textbooks was written by teachers & lectures nationwide.

Although a new textbook was introduced in 2002 for Grade 6, the new curriculum

was not approved & institutionalized until 2006. (Le & Barnard, 2009:23). The

textbook is theme-based & skill-based with the adoption of the “two currently

popular teaching approach: the learner-centred approach & the communicative

approach. A focus is on task-based teaching as the leading methodology” (Hoang et

al, 2006:12). Hoang et al (2006) said “ learners are responsible for their learning &

cooperatively”.

Alike many other Asian countries, when adopting CLT in the curriculum

renovation, Vietnam had to face a lot of obstacles. First of all, it was the uninterest of

students in achieving communicative competence or working in groups, being more

motivated to pass examination, according to a study of the implementation of CLT

by teachers in Vietnamese universities & language centres, conducted by Bock

(2000:25-26). Similar to schools in Japan, although teachers are asked to teach 4

skills & 3 linguistic aspects (grammar, lexis & phonetics), students are only tested in

terms of phonetics, grammar, vocabulary & reading comprehension. Le (2009:23)

also said that “ the Ministry has institutionalized multiple-choice tests as the only

testing method for standardized high-stake tests. In these tests, pupils are tested in

terms of phonetics, grammar, vocabulary & reading comprehension. Speaking &

listening are not tested”. That’s the reason why speaking skill is ignored by students

and, sometimes, teachers. Students don’t have motivation to learn speaking because

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the aim of their language study is to pass exams, not to acquire communicative

competence.

Another factor against applying CLT is large class-sizes of mixed-level

students (between 40 and 105). It is the reason which maintains the traditional

teacher-centred approach to learning & prevents the implementation of any teamwork

approach in Vietnamese classrooms (Pham, 2010:26). Consequently, Vietnamese

teachers have no choice but have to adopt low level teaching strategies such as

lecturing. Teachers become the only ones talking & instructing. If teachers use CLT,

the low or uneven participation of students can take place. This is one of the

difficulties that Ur (1996:20) mentions.

Curricula also cause problems when teaching speaking. Biggs (1995:41) states

that curricula in Asian schools are designed in a particular quantitative format which

sees “any topic important as every other topic, so that everything is taught & the

student is grossly overload”. Pham (2010:27) says that Vietnamese teachers just have

enough time to go through all materials but not to investigate students’ deep

understanding. Therefore, what students can do at the end of each semester is to try

to memorize what is covered in the curricular or what teachers say in class so that

they can pass the exams. As I’ve mentioned above, coursebooks play an important

role in teaching & learning. When looking at English book 10,11, we can find those

things in speaking sections that teachers find it difficult to apply. These tasks may be

so easy that there’s nothing to say or so difficult that teachers don’t know how to

teach. As a result, teachers have to design a new task in order to suit student’s level.

Another problem is students’ inhibition. Vietnam is one of the countries

influenced by Confucian philosophy. According to the Confucian philosophy,

teachers should always know better than students. They are considered the main

sources enriching people’s knowledge. Confucian students only need to receive

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knowledge from teachers as a truth rather than try to think independently, contradict

teacher’s knowledge & draw their own conclusions (Ruby & Ladd, 1999).

From an early age, Vietnamese children are taught to respect their teachers

and to be kind to their classmates. For a long time, students are familiar with teachercentred method. Teacher is supposed to be the only provider of knowledge.

Everything he says is the truth. Students don’t dare to ask questions, to participate in

speaking activities.

Moreover, an important aspect, particular in Asian culture, is the preservation

of “face” as Asians consider “face” as” a person’s social & professional position,

reputation & self-image” (Gto & Mok, 1995). In schools, one is seen as losing face

when he is unable to answer teacher’s or friends’ questions or even when he is just

challenged on a point to confirm his knowledge (Burns, 1991). Because of this

culture, students rarely state their own idea for fear of losing face, of their answer is

incorrect or displeasing the teacher.

These difficulties explain why applying CLT in speaking in Vietnamese high

schools is so difficult. Some suggested solutions will be given to help teachers

overcome these hardships.

III.

Objectives

This research is conducted to evaluate the efficiency of applying CLT in

teaching speaking in Vietnamese High Schools. Simultaneously, researcher wants to

find out the obstacles of teaching speaking so that solutions can be given to help

teachers overcome.

IV.

Significance

As a High School teacher of English, researcher wants to carry out this

research. It contributes a lot to my teaching career, help researcher and other teachers

deal with the problems in teaching speaking and then we can make our lessons better.

V.

Methodology

In order to carry out this research, secondary research has been conducted by

VI.



doing library research and literature reviews.

Suggested solutions

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To improve the weaknesses as I’ve mentioned above, the ideal solution would

be to reduce class size, upgrade the library system, develop & libraries & redesign

curricula. (Pham, 2010:27). It may take years but it seems completely feasible to do

these changes.

If students don’t talk or say anything because of their culture, their shyness,

teachers can break this cultural barrier by creating and establishing their own

classroom culture where speaking out loud in English is the norm. One way to do this

is to distinguish their classroom from other classroom by arranging the classroom

desks difficultly, in groups instead of in lines or by decorating the walls in English

language and culture posters. From day one, teach students classroom language &

keep on teaching it & encourage students to ask for things to ask questions in

English. Giving positive feedback also helps to encourage & relax shy students to

speak more. Another way to get students motivated to speak more is to allocate a

percentage of their final grade to speaking skills & let the student know they are

being assessed continually on their speaking practice in class throughout the term.

Another reason for students’ silence may be that the class activities are boring

or at the wrong level. In fact, some communicative speaking activities are not as

interesting or as communicative as we think they are. In some tasks, all that students

are just required to do is answer “yes” or “no” which they do quickly and sit in

silence. For this problem, teachers have a lot of choices to do: omit the lesson,

replace the textbook lesson with one of the teacher’s own, add something to what in

the book if the lesson is rather boring, or adapt the lesson, using the same basic

material but doing it in his or her own style – as Harmer(1998: 111) quotes Neville

Grant’ suggestions in Making the Most of Your Textbook

VII.

Conclusion

Speaking is really vital in learning a language. It is the passport for everyone

to be successful to enter the world workforce. Having and mastering communicative

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competence can help students feel more confident in their future careers. I hope that

with this paper, teachers are able to find a suitable teaching method for their own.

Therefore, teaching and learning English is not a pressure for both teachers and

students. They can feel confident when learning a language, especially English.



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