FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCE AT LE THANH HIEN HIGH SCHOOL

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Spoken language production is often considered one of the most difficult aspects of language Learning. At Le Thanh Hien High School, the students are not good at English. They can pass exams easily but they find it difficult to use English to communicate. To help the students improve their speaking skills, it is necessary to find ways to help them overcome their problems. Moreover, the teachers need to know the factors that affect their students’ speaking performance so that they can deal with these factors to help the students improve their speaking performance.

            From the observation, the researcher concluded that there are soe problem faced by the students such as; they were not given enough time to prepare for a speaking task before the task was performed and to perform their task, not all students active in group discussion,  they tended to use first language when they discussed in groups, while the students were making performances, the other students in class did not  listen attentively, students looked very nervous when they spoke in front of the class, they did not remember the structures and vocabulary to speak naturally, whenever the students made mistakes, the teacher stopped them and corrected the mistakes, the students had to do a lot of things in a forty-five minute period. They were always in a hurry because they were given limited time for every task.

            As the suggestion for the teachers, they should first improve the performance conditions by giving their students time to prepare for a speaking task, teaching the students how to use mind map to generate ideas and giving students enough time to perform their tasks. Secondly, they should help their students overcome inhibition and shyness by having friendly, helpful and cooperative behaviors to make students feel comfortable when speaking in the class, reminding students not to worry about making mistakes and giving them clear instructions and sufficient guidance. Thirdly, the teacher should personalize and simplify the topics in the textbook to make them easier, more interesting and relevant to their lives.

Source:            FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCE AT LE  THANH HIEN HIGH SCHOOL

by Nguyen Hoang Tuan & Tran Ngoc Mai