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61NNA2-Group2-Nguyễn Hải Dương-Report
61NNA2-Group2-Nguyễn Hải Dương-Report
PRACTICUM REPORT
Topic: Learning Foreign Languages
ID Number: 61133531
Group: 02
Class: 61.NNA-2
Acknowledgement ..............................................................................................................3
I. Introduction: ...................................................................................................................4
II. The project: ...................................................................................................................5
1. Overview of the topic: ..................................................................................................5
2. Description of the project: ............................................................................................ 5
3. Results / Findings .........................................................................................................6
a. Personal information: ................................................................................................ 6
b. Time: .........................................................................................................................9
c. Benefits:...................................................................................................................10
d. Difficulties: .............................................................................................................11
e. Methods: ..................................................................................................................12
f. Recommendations: ..................................................................................................13
III. Personal opinion: .......................................................................................................15
1. About the topic: ..........................................................................................................15
a. Benefits:...................................................................................................................15
b. Challenges / difficulties: .........................................................................................15
c. Recommendations: ..................................................................................................15
2. About the project: .......................................................................................................15
a. Benefits:...................................................................................................................15
b. Challenges / difficulties: .........................................................................................16
c. Recommendations ...................................................................................................16
IV. Conclusion: .................................................................................................................16
References .........................................................................................................................17
Appendices ........................................................................................................................18
List of charts
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Acknowledgement
Firstly, I would like to present my gratitude to Mr. Le Hoang Duy Thuan for being such a
great help. Apart from the advice and guidance that he has been generously giving us, he
has been providing a quick presence to listen to our problems with enthusiastic energy. If
it weren’t for him, the project would have turned out to be a disaster.
Secondly, I want to thank all of the interviewees for their participation. Time can be a pretty
big deal as most of you are students. Moreover, without you, there would have been no
survey at all. I truly appreciate all of your contributions to our survey and the kindness you
have shown us.
Finally, I’m grateful for my teammates. We’ve been through the planning stage, the
troublesome interviews, the enormous data collecting, the group presentation, and now we
can proudly cross the finishing line together. We were sympathetic to each other and
assisted as much as possible. With the absence of my teammates, I do not think I could pull
off such an amazing and meaningful project like this.
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I. Introduction:
Learning foreign languages has always been crucial. Roger
Bacon, the 13th Century English philosopher, wrote,
"Knowledge of languages is the doorway to wisdom.". It
still applies to today's situation. Nowadays, we all have to
learn a second language at school. This essential affects
our work and life profoundly. For example, many
advanced academic insights are in foreign languages.
When traveling, the language barrier is zero. Moreover, if
you speak the language of the country you’re visiting, the
locals will give you a warm welcome and treat you more
nicely. Knowing many languages also gives us an
Picture 1. Roger Bacon advantage when we find jobs.
Corresponding with its numerous advantages, learning foreign languages is composed of
countless aspects including benefits, difficulties, methods, advice from the priors... Plus,
different circumstances create diverse points of view and methods. It would be unwise for
us to only take in opinions of those in the same environment as us, while the struggle of
learning foreign languages also happens to a lot of people around the globe.
Therefore, we saw this assignment as an opportunity for us to explore the kaleidoscope of
foreigners' perspectives and their ways of learning languages. It is necessary for us to
upgrade our network of information and broaden our view if we want to excel in the
linguistic field especially when we are the students of the Foreign Languages Faculty. This
project will be a tremendous contributing factor to our navigation to explore our suitable
ways of learning languages.
The objective of this project is to gather information from foreigners through real-time
interviews. Foreigners' answers are about their experience of learning foreign languages.
The designed questionnaire covers time, benefits, difficulties, methods, and
recommendations. In this report, I include the processed data. Charts will give a clear
illustration, and there will be an analysis below each of them. Moreover, you will find the
team's experience and assignment. Additionally, my reflection about both the project and
the topic is at the bottom.
Even though the project was challenging, the benefits are undeniable. We comprehended
more about the process of studying languages. Furthermore, the experience of chatting with
foreigners assists our English skills, teamwork ability, cultural knowledge, and many
others.
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II. The project:
1. Overview of the topic:
After launching the project, our group started picking the topic to design the questionnaire
around. A thorough consideration led us to pick “Learning foreign languages” as our topic
for various reasons. We found that as students of the faculty of foreign languages, the topic
is beneficial for us in many ways. Moreover, it is seen as a familiar topic for anyone,
especially for students. Therefore, we rate this subject regarding the level of difficulty as
extremely easy and it will help us find many participants effortlessly. However, since the
aspects of the topic is countless and there is a limited number of questions, we decided to
convey only major aspects including benefits, difficulties, methods and recommendations.
The specific questionnaire is included at the bottom of the paper.
2. Description of the project:
Time Member Mission
Find at least 7 native speakers on Internet to interview
Week 5 - 9 Each member
Assist each other through the group chat
Each member Process data
Quynh Prepare Introduction (Presentation)
Week 10 - 11 Duong & Hao Prepare Statistics and PowerPoint (Presentation)
Ngan Prepare Benefits and Challenges (Presentation)
Thien Prepare Suggestion and Conclusion (Presentation)
Week 5 - 9
Having designed the suitable questionnaire, each member was required to find seven
foreigners to videotape or record an interview depending on their and the interviewee’s
comfort. The duration for this stage was five weeks at maximum.
Advantages
During the process of interviewing people, we are confident because our group are made
of skillful students. Furthermore, our team is equipped with fair socializing skills. That’s
why we identified as a strong team of conversationalists. To add, the appearance of the
group can be a great support to meeting people online. Another point worth mentioning is
that Thien was a member of an international summer camp. She was willing to provide a
contact list of camp attendees. We figured we could offer them more chances to interact
with foreigners through the interview. Because of that list, we were able to have nearly
zero obstacles in finding foreigners
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Disadvantages
Despite our strong suits, some problems were still inevitable. For instance, English-
speaking countries are situated in inconvenient time zones to Vietnam. The late interviews
can lead to exhaustion and lack of spirit for students the following day. Besides, a
considerable amount of people turned us down since we were mistaken for online scams.
The project was also influenced by poor Wi-Fi connections. In addition, low-quality
electronics such as earphones and computer sound systems affected the fineness of some
interviews. In cases these things happen, we created a group chat for everybody to consult
and ask for directions. Because of our exchange, we managed to get through numerous
difficulties.
Week 10 - 11
After five long weeks, we finally gathered enough information to analyze. Each of the
members was required to process their own interviewees’ data. Having finished, the leader
divided different tasks for each member to prepare for the presentation. Quynh had to take
care of the introduction. I and Hao were in charge of the data charts and PowerPoint. Ngan
was responsible for benefits & challenges, and Thien prepared the suggestions &
conclusions. We then had some mock presentations to ensure the real one to go well.
3. Results / Findings:
a. Personal information:
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Chart 2. Nationality of the Interviewees
According to the Nationality bar chart, we mostly interviewed Filipinos with 11 people.
Moreover, we managed to contact native speakers from English-speaking countries.
Therefore, the second most interviewees are composed of 8 Americans. Then comes 7
Malaysian, 6 Indonesian, 4 British, 4 Peruvian, etc. Plus, these are people from all six
continents in the world, including even Oceania represented by 1 Australian and Africa
represented by 1 Moroccan.
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Chart 4. Occupation of the Interviewees
The vast majority of participants are students from the international camp. In addition, from
the chart, we can observe a spectrum of jobs comprising 7 teachers, 2 nurses, 2 computer
programmers to even 1 freelancer, 1 intern, and even 1 unemployed at the time of the
interview.
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b. Time:
9
c. Benefits:
11
e. Methods:
Chart 12. Interviewees’ opinions on the best place to learn foreign languages
Concerning the place of study, "School" reaches the highest position at 26 opinions. The
second place belongs to "Online learning platform" comprising of 12 votes. Following that,
"Home" is picked by 8 people while 5 opinions mentioned "The language center".
"Entertainment media", "Work place", and "Daily conversation" respectively have 3 votes,
2 votes, and 1 vote.
Chart 13. Interviewees’ opinions on the best environment to learn foreign languages
The best environment is the most controversial matter. Various segments have almost equal
proportions. "The school", "A group of friends", "A quiet atmosphere", and "Entertainment
media" all take up around 12% to 20% of the total opinions. The least favorite one is
"Language-only environment" with 7.1%. "With native speakers and foreigners" are seen
as the most beneficial environment. Its proportion is 26.8%
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Chart 14. Interviewees’ opinions on ways to learn foreign languages effectively
The most popular method is to "Learn from entertainment media" with 50 opinions. 14
opinions encouraged to "Practice with friends and native speakers" and "Practice a lot" is
composed of 13 opinions. 11 foreigners recommended to "Learn on online platforms".
Another tip is "Focus on vocabulary and look up in the dictionary" with 6 opinions. Lastly,
"Try not to be afraid to speak", "Participate in activities related to that language", and
"Learn from school" all consist of 4 opinions
f. Recommendations:
Chart 15. Interviewees’ opinions on whether some people are able to learn languages
better than the others
Facing the question “Are some people able to learn languages better than the others?”, the
majority responded with “Yes” while 28.6% of the opinions disagreed.
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Chart 16. Interviewees’ evidence for their choices
Evidence supporting the choices is diverse. Most people agree that the ability to learn
languages is gifted. Other explanations include preference, study method, diligence,
environment, and the studying age. One fascinating point is that 4 opinions chose the
influence of the mother tongue. For example, advanced languages such as Arabic could
help people deal with easier ones such as English, French, … effortlessly.
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b. Challenges / difficulties:
By contrast, this project also consists of some negative sides. The extensive requirements
create an overloading crisis along with schoolwork. Moreover, interviewees usually cancel
appointments abruptly and without notice. Not only does the project affects us, but the
school's reputation is also damaged. For instance, one foreigner can be bombarded with
thousands of texts from students of our school. To make matters worse, many people even
publicly wrote warnings on their profiles to drive Nha Trang University's students away.
c. Recommendations
As the root of the problem is the excessive requirement of the course, I suggest that the
key solution should be reducing the number of interviewees. If there are fewer targets,
students will have more time to focus on other courses and foreigners will be less
bothered. At long last, the teachers made a sensible decision to reduce the number of
interviewees from 10 to 7 for each student. Furthermore, the list of recommended
applications and websites is proposed to be renewed. Some of the recommendations do
not work efficiently or are out of service for quite some time now
IV. Conclusion:
In short, the interview project about learning foreign languages has been a delightful and
beneficial experience. It enhanced our English communication skills. Additionally, we
have learned to work better as a team, manage time more sufficiently, and socialize with
people from other cultures. Along the way, although we encountered some issues, we
have successfully pushed through them. Even when the ending of the assignment is near,
remarkable things like the knowledge the interviewees brought us and the new
relationships we built will be here to stay. Plus, through this project, we witnessed the
importance of learning languages. Hence, it didn’t only help us pass this course, but it
also equipped us with practical material for what the future has in store.
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References
1. Correas, S. (2019, July 24). Why Knowledge of Languages is Our Doorway to
Wisdom. ICS-Digital. https://www.ics-digital.com/knowledge-language-doorway-
wisdom/
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Appendices
QUESTIONNAIRE
2. In process of learning the 2nd language, what is the toughest in four skills?
☐ Listening ☐ Speaking ☐ Reading ☐ Writing
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IV. Ways to learn
1. Where do you learn the 2nd language?
………….…………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………….
2. In what kind of environment do you learn the foreign language best?
………….…………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………..
3. Based on your experience, what do you do to learn the foreign language effectively?
………….…………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………….
V. Recommendations
1. Do you think that some people are able to learn languages better than the others?
Why?
………….…………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………….
2. What advice do you have for someone starting to learn a 2nd language?
………….…………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………
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