Difficulties of freshmen of high-quality programs in speaking English at University of Engineering and Technology, VNU

Abstract

In order to standardize as well as enhance Vietnamese learners’ competence of foreign languages, Vietnam National University in Hanoi has implemented stricter requirements regarding foreign languages to undergraduates. In other words, students choosing English as their foreign language can only graduate when they have one of international certificates like IELTS or TOEFL or the local VSTEP at various levels corresponding to their major’s specific requirements. All these certificates require test takers to participate in exams with four skills, namely speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Speaking has always been a challenging skill to non-English majored students at Vietnam National University in Hanoi. In order to help students overcome this challenge, this study is going to investigate difficulties freshmen at University of Engineering and Technology have encountered in speaking English. This study also lays the foundation to more in-depth studies to help students better prepared when they sit for various exams to get international certificates of English proficiency or VSTEP in the future.