INSIGHTS INTO ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ COMPETENCE OF USING COLLOQUIALISM IN COMMUNICATION

Abstract

The study aimed at assessing English major students’ frequency and competence of using colloquial speech features in their speaking classes at the School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University. The study was conducted with the participation of the fourth-year English major students at the School of Foreign Languages. Survey research was used in this study with the instruments including questionnaires and interview transcripts. The findings of this study showed that the main features of colloquial English speech were used with very low frequency by most of the surveyed students. This implied that most of them were incompetent to use colloquial English effectively with the exploitation of its main features in their speech, so the nature of their communication seemed not guaranteed. The factors influencing students’ acquisition of English colloquialism came from both sides: the learner and the teacher. Then, some teaching and learning activities in the correlation with colloquial English style were suggested by the end of the study.