THE EFFECT OF PROJECT WORK ON THE FLUENCY AND NATURALNESS IN SPOKEN ENGLISH OF VIETNAMESE STUDENTS – JOB HUNTERS TO-BE

The purpose of this innovation was to examine the effect of project work on the fluency and naturalness in spoken English of Vietnamese students, job hunters to-be. The innovation was implemented in 12 weeks from 2 February to 27 April 2020 with 40 senior non – English major students in UNETI split into 2 groups as an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group was given project work to do besides their normal textbook to promote real communication in classroom through task-based activities. On the way to get the selected projects done, students had a real need for communication and an authentic communicative context to practice the target language. The innovation in the end got the expected outcome since the findings from the tests, observations and interviews indicated that project work could help students improve their fluency and naturalness in spoken English. This bottom-up innovation was based on a combination of the problem solving model and social interaction model and considered as an imminent change. After identifying the problem of students’ poor competence in spoken English, the researcher cum the innovator and change agent proposed project work as a type of treatment to the perceived problem. A researcher’s colleague played the role of an implementer and adopter; 20 students in the experimental group were clients and adopters.