A STUDY OF USING AUTHENTIC MATERIALS IN IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF MEDICINE AND PHARMACY IN VIETNAM

Education

Speaking is regarded as the most important skill that needs to be acquired by students in learning English for communication. In reality, to that end, however, many students experience difficulties in using English to communicate. The purpose of this study is to investigate the current situation of using authentic materials in improving speaking competency of the students at Thai Nguyen University of Medicine and Pharmacy (TUMP) with the main aim to propose some solutions for increasing the efficiency of using real language in developing students' English speaking skill. In order to do that, a discriptive method with two questionaires were carried out at TUMP. 294 subjects of the study were chosen at random from second-year students in nursing, pharmacy and medicine and 8 subject teachers who have much experience in teaching English at TUMP were included in this study. The results of the study showed that a majority of students have positive attitude toward authentic materials and they are of almost importance in speaking classes. It helps to bring contact in the classroom. However, it is concluded that a large number of students don’t use authentic materials ouside classroom. The study also has some suggestions in order to help both teacher and students in improving students’ speaking competency, such as dealing with students’ confidence, fear of guilt, or psychological inhibitions, chanllenge of large and mixed ability classes, barriers of cultural differences and teachers’ creation in designing extracurricular activities as well as resources for students to actively explore and practice speaking skill.

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