1 | International Journal of Scientific and Management Research 5(8) 1-9

International Journal of Scientific and Management Research

Volume 3 Issue 8 (March) 2023
ISSN: 2581-6888
Page: 1-9

Current State of Using English by University Students in Social

Communication.
Nguyen Thi Thuy Dung - Faculty of Basic Science, Tan Trao University
Tran Thi Thuy Lan – Office of Science Management and International Affairs

Abstract
Currently, the demand for learning foreign languages is very high, increasing sharply compared
to previous years. But students are very busy not only studying subjects but also having to work
part-time, so it is difficult to spend time learning foreign languages.
Language learning requires an investment of time, with clear goals. Learning to pass an exam is
different from learning to communicate. The most important thing is method and determination.
English is essential if students without English will be left behind. Especially when learning
English, students need to communicate to become a professional skill in the future. However,
learning English well and communicating in English are two different categories. Students can
learn to read and write very well, but they do not communicate well. Therefore, the paper will
present (1) Overview of communicative English, (2) Current status of students' use of
communicative English, (3) Solutions to improve students' English communication ability.

Keywords: Using, communicative English, college student

OVERVIEW OF ENGLISH COMMUNICATION

The term communication has been defined at different levels. Communication is a dynamic
interactive process that involves the effective transmission of facts, ideas, thoughts, feelings, and
values. It is not passive and does not happen by accident; We actively and consciously
participate in communication to develop the information and understanding necessary for
effective team functioning. It is dynamic because it involves many forces and activities
interacting over a period of time. The word "process" suggests that communication exists as a
flow through a sequence or series of steps. The term "process" also indicates a condition of flow
and change. The relationships of those involved in communication are constantly evolving and
evolving.
Communication can also be understood as the exchange of meaning and understanding.
Meaning is the center of communication and the transmission of meaning is the central goal of
communication. Communication begins when the sender sends a message signal, that is
perceived by the receiver, who assigns meaning to them and responds to them when necessary.
Communication can only be completed if the message sent by the sender is correctly decoded at
end of the receiver and understood. Also, communication can be considered effective only if the
receiver's response matches the meaning the sender wants to convey.
Communication: The process of expressing ideas, thoughts, feelings, expressions, emotions,
language, knowledge, etc. This process may include transactions, exchanges and shares.
Communication is the basis of human existence. From the cry of a child any human's first
communication. Communication is present on the Home page. It lasts until social (people with
whom we live and share our experiences on a daily basis). It is also tool that frame our culture.
Culture in the state of development becomes an integral part of religion. The media is also
responsible for domestic management and control. Every aspect of being human is dependent on
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communication. Or is it political? economic, sociological, or technical things such as the
development of science and the development and use of technology. Especially, in the current
context, communication is of great importance. We live in the world of information technology.
Communication is the nerve center of information technology and IT support services. The
process of evolution from prehistoric times to modern times when humans have provided proof
of its existence through communication. Since the beginning of human civilization, The being
has understood the necessity and importance of communication. Now let's understand tact in
communication.
By the second half of the 20th century, after the world had witnessed a series of failures in
English language teaching methods, the concepts of communicative language teaching and
English language teaching were born as a result of efforts to find more effective solutions or
pathways. Communicative language teaching is based on the concept of "communicative
language". Therefore, before we understand what communicative English teaches, we need to
have a thorough understanding of the underlying concepts, including the concepts of
"communicative language competence" and "communicative English". Because according to
Sandra J. Savigon: "Communicative language teaching (KLT) refers to the processes and
objectives in the curriculum. The core teaching concept of communicative language teaching is
communicative competence, the term In the early 1970s entered the debate on language use and
learning a foreign or second language (Sandra Savignon).
So, What is Communicative Language Teaching?
When asked what methodology they use in their classes, perhaps the majority of language
instructors today will name "communicative" as their method of choice. The definitions given
when asked for a more in-depth explanation of what they mean by "communicative," however,
differ greatly. Does communicative language teaching, or CLT, entail the instruction of
conversation, the exclusion of grammar from a course, or a focus on open-ended debate
activities as the course's primary components? What do you mean when you talk about training
communicative language?
The principles of communicative language teaching can be thought of as a set of guidelines for
the objectives of language instruction, the process by which language is learned, the types of
classroom activities that best promote language learning, and the roles of teachers and students.
According to Sandra J. Savignon's model, learning occurs through practice and experience in a
growing variety of communicative situations and events. As a result, learners will progressively
broaden their communicative competence, which includes grammatical competence,
conversational competence, societal competence, and strategic competence. Although the
relative importance of the components depends on the overall degree of communicative
competence, each component is critical. Furthermore, all of the components are always in close
proximity. They cannot be created or measured in isolation. Furthermore, when a component
improves, it interacts with other components to improve total communicative competence.
The important issue in teaching communicative languages is engaging learners in the
communication process in order to build their communicative competence. Furthermore, the
process of building communicative competence must take place in situations and contexts that
are meaningful to learners. What about English grammar? Many of us may wonder if it is
necessary to teach or acquire grammar when learning English for communication. Linguists
have verified in numerous documents that grammar is essential in learning and communicating
in English. This issue focuses on three major topics: General language rules (including
grammar) cannot be excluded from the process of teaching communicative English; teaching
English communication is more than just teaching listening and speaking face-to-face; and
teaching communicative English is more than just teaching hearing and speaking face-to-face.
Teaching communicative language, or communicative English in particular entails more than
just face-to-face hearing and speaking. The principles of communicative language teaching are
asserted to apply uniformly to reading and writing. This is important in Vietnam because many
people believe that learning English communication means learning both hearing and speaking,
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or that teaching communicative English means teaching both listening and speaking. It is not
essential to abandon all familiar traditional learning materials. Textbooks and workbooks are
two examples of traditional learning tools. "Materials intended to encourage communication can
be used as memorization, revision, translation, or grammar exercises. A teacher who only has a
manual with a translated grammar technique, on the other hand, can definitely teach
communicative competence. "Teaching interactive language does not detract from the
importance of meta language. The learner's meta language consciousness is merely an
understanding of grammatical, conversational, and socially appropriate language rules.
However, grammatical structures must be taught in the framework of meaningful conversation
when teaching communicative languages. On the one hand, the above major issues confirm that
teaching communicative English develops learners' communication capacity. At the same time,
it highlights one of the most fundamental and widespread misconceptions in Vietnam today:
learning communicative English does not require learning grammar, or learning communicative
English is synonymous with hearing and speaking. Furthermore, many classes conflate teaching
English pronunciation or spelling with teaching English communication, which is a big error. Of
course, when vocabulary and grammar are the primary focus of an English learning setting in
Vietnam, standard pronunciation and communication skills often develop much more slowly. As
a result, you will require intensive instruction in proper pronunciation as well as exercise in
English communication.
According to Mazouzi (2013), learning activities should be planned with two equally important
characteristics in mind: fluency and correctness of speech. Because these are two critical
components of communicatively teaching foreign languages. Students' communication skills can
be improved through practical exercises in class. As a result, they must comprehend how the
linguistic system works. The primary characteristic of speaking activity is fluency, which is the
major goal that teachers want their students to accomplish when they are taught speaking skills.
According to Thornbury (2005), fluency is the ability to explain a problem in an understandable
manner without interfering with the current communication process, causing the listener to get
bored and unable to continue listening. Fluency, according to Hedge (2000), is the capacity to
react in a cohesive and coherent manner by mixing words and phrases, clearly pronouncing
sounds, and applying stress and intonation when speaking.
Speaking accuracy is the second most essential characteristic. If learners want to talk fluently,
they must pay attention to grammatical structure, vocabulary, and pronunciation while speaking.
As a result, when training students to speak, teachers should emphasize both accuracy and
fluency of speech. According to Thornbury (2005), proper grammatical structure utilization
while speaking necessitates learners paying attention to the length and complexity of sentences,
as well as the whole structure of clauses. To attain lexical correctness, students must select
words that are appropriate for the situation. The same word or phrase has various meanings in
different situations. To avoid misleading listeners, learners should understand how to use words
and idioms properly. Thornbury (2005) stated that pronunciation is another aspect that learners
must consider when speaking. To be able to speak English properly, students must understand
phoneme rules as well as the pronunciation of various words in English. Furthermore, meta-
segmentation characteristics such as stress, intonation, and rhythm must be understood. These
characteristics assist learners in speaking English fluently and effectively.
Large corporations and international businesses have increased their investments in Vietnam
since it joined the WTO in an effort to grow the market. English turns into a useful tool for
employees to assert their competence prior to these chances.
THE STATE OF STUDENTS' ENGLISH COMMUNICATION
The reality demonstrates that young people have a wealth of possibilities in global environments
due to their quick grasp and quick thinking, but more than half of graduates continue to slog
through the job search process and miss out on the chance. because despite learning a foreign
language in school, their proficiency in English is still restricted. Thus, it is clear that
universities want to increase their student's ability to perform both domestically and abroad.
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Therefore, it is clear from the shared vision and objective that colleges are very interested in
increasing students' proficiency in foreign languages in the current competitive and integrated
context.
According to a survey of students who satisfy the requirements of English skills after
graduation, approximately 49.3% meet the requirements of users, 18.9% do not, and 31.8%
require additional training. This demonstrates that more than half of the students who graduate
do not satisfy the English proficiency requirements. This is a concerning situation because many
students graduate but are still lacking in foreign languages and required skills, resulting in a
higher unemployment rate after graduation. The peculiarity of Vietnamese university students in
general is that they are well-taught in grammar while still in school. However, because there are
few chances to practice, poor listening and speaking skills lead to frustration when applied in
real life. This will be most noticeable when you are in circumstances where you must
communicate with foreigners. To successfully learn foreign languages, students must focus on
listening and speaking skills and spend more time practicing.
In actuality, students struggle to communicate. In reality, learning a foreign language is similar
to a child learning his or her mother tongue: listening, imitating, and speaking, followed by
learning to write and read. However, the process of young people learning foreign languages is
the reverse, with an emphasis on grammar and a lack of practice, resulting in limited
communication ability. Many students have excellent reading comprehension skills, and can
answer emails and write documents easily, but when they meet foreigners, they falter and are
unable to communicate effectively. This is a common situation for most students, and it causes
you to miss out on many chances to perform in an international setting. Another fact is that
students who master English grammar, graduate with good grades, and have very good English
skills, apply to a well-known foreign-invested company but are quickly eliminated in the face-
to-face interview with the manager because they are unable to communicate fluently despite
having a lot of good ideas but cannot present them. This makes it difficult for students to find
employment that matches their interests, even if they have a good degree.
SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING THE ENGLISH COMMUNICATION
ENVIRONMENT FOR UNIVERSAL STUDENTS
English has emerged as a crucial language and a means of bringing success to everyone in the
age of integration, particularly young people. In order not to get lost in the process of
globalization, investing time in learning English communication is an important thing that
students need to pay more attention to. In order not to miss the opportunity for themselves, and
to gain the upper hand after graduation, students must be really active in learning a foreign
language because of ingrained concepts and learning methods. The first is to get rid of shyness
and avoidance of having to use English. The second piece of advice is to let go of deep-rooted
learning by yourself, that is, students should not passively absorb knowledge from teachers and
schools, but increase their own practice time. Listening - Speech reflexes while learning. Young
people who are not afraid to take the initiative to communicate in English improve quickly.
Most young people today choose to learn to communicate to balance their listening, speaking
and reading skills. Therefore, to be competent communicator, learners must learn to control their
emotions. Negative emotional states lead to communication failures, in contrast to positive
emotions, the speaker can communicate successfully. Grammatical competence includes
knowledge of grammatical rules, sentence structure, vocabulary, and the phonological system.
This skill enables learners to grasp structure and express themselves fluently. Discourse skills
help to solve coherence and coherence problems in different types of texts. This ability is the
mastery of combining meaning and grammatical forms to create meaningful written or spoken
texts by using linkage methods to connect discursive forms (such as pronouns, conjunctions,
equivalence structures) and semantic linkage rules. Sociolinguistic competence is the rational
processing of semantics (e.g. attitudes, speech acts, etc.) and linguistic form (e.g. vocabulary,
nonverbal discourse, intonation). In other words, this skill helps to create appropriate utterances
for listeners with different communication purposes and communication rules in different
contexts.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research is funded by Tan Trao University in Tuyen Quang, Viet Nam.

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