Improving EFL Vietnamese learners’ speaking ability through the 4/3/2 technique

The Reading and Writing section contained five 
parts of reading and three parts of listening and lasted for 70 minutes. The Listening 
section contained five parts and lasted for about 30 minutes. In the pre-test, the 
participants were asked to talk about a topic for two minutes. They had one minute to 
prepare for their talk. After that, both groups followed the usual English program at the 
university for three months. During the treatment, the experimental group was asked to 
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do the 4/3/2 activities once a week while this technique was not introduced to the control 
class. Finally, the two groups did the post-test, which was similar to the pre-test in terms 
of topic familiarity, difficulty and time allowance. 
3.4. Results 
The participants’ speaking speed was measured by calculating the number of 
words spoken per minute and their speaking accuracy was measured by calculating the 
number of errors per 100 words. The per-100-word calculation was used instead of the 
per-minute calculation because otherwise it might not be fair for students who talked 
more in a minute. A student who made fewer errors in a minute was not necessarily 
better than someone who committed more mistakes within this time. It might have been 
possible that they did not say anything at all and thus made no errors. 
 Regarding the participants’ speaking speed, the data revealed that the treatment 
group outperformed the control group on the post-test (see Table 1). The average speed 
at which the control class spoke was 62.3 words per minute (wpm) while the treatment 
class spoke at the average speed of 80.5 wpm. An examination of the speeds reached by 
the treatment group showed that only one participant spoke at the speed of under 60 wpm 
and 14 participants spoke at the speeds of over 80 wpm. The slowest speed was 59 wpm 
and the fastest speed was 107 wpm. Meanwhile, 13 out of 41 participants in the control 
group spoke at the speeds of under 60 wpm and only two reached the speeds of over 80 
wpm. The slowest speed was 27 wpm and the fastest speed was 82 wpm. 
Tab. 1: Means and standard deviations of post-test speaking speeds for both groups 
 Control group Treatment group 
Number of students 41 42 
Mean 62.3 80.5 
SD 9.7 11.4 
The results also indicated that the treatment group significantly increased their 
speaking speed while the control group just gained a slight increase (see Table 2). 
Tab. 2: Means and standard deviations of speed increases for both groups 
 Control group Treatment group 
Number of students 41 42 
Mean 8.8 26.6 
SD 2.4 9.4 
p<0.05 
As it can be seen from Table 2, the treatment group made an average increase of 
26.6 wpm whereas the control group increased their average speed by 8.8 wpm. The one 
way ANOVA test results showed that there was a significant difference between the 
treatment group’s improvement and the control group’s improvement. These results were 
reinforced by the fact that the two groups had similar average scores on the general 
English test and on the pre-test (see Table 3). 
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Tab. 3: Means and standard deviations of speeds on pre-test and scores 
on general English test for both groups 
 Control group Treatment group 
Number of students 41 42 
Speeds on pre-test Mean 53.4 53.9 
SD 9.9 10.1 
Scores on general English test Mean 62.4 62.0 
SD 21.3 22.2 
The data in Table 3 indicated that the two groups were at similar levels of English 
proficiency and speaking rates at the beginning of the experiment. This eliminates the 
possibility that the increases they made were thanks to their starting level of English, or 
that the control group did not do as well as the treatment group because of the ceiling 
effects. 
Regarding speaking accuracy, it was found that the treatment group and control 
group both made a slight increase from the pre-test to the post-test (see Table 4). The 
data showed that on the pre-test, the treatment group made 17.9 errors per 100 words and 
the control group made 18.3 errors per 100 words. This means that at the beginning of 
the experiment, the two groups did not noticeably differ in terms of error vulnerability. 
On the post-test, the treatment group reduced their error number to 14.1 and the control 
group made it to 15.4. The one way ANOVA test indicated that there was no significant 
difference between the improvement made by the treatment group and that made by the 
control group. However, the result was pedagogically meaningful because it proved that 
the development of fluency does not necessarily have to be accompanied by a decrease in 
accuracy. 
Tab. 4: Means and standard deviations of pre-test 
and post-test accuracy scores for both groups 
 Control group Treatment group 
Number of students 41 42 
Pre-test accuracy Mean 18.3 17.9 
SD 3.5 3.7 
Post-test accuracy Mean 15.4 14.1 
SD 2.8 2.7 
Accuracy improvement Mean 2.9 3.8 
SD 0.5 0.6 
4. Discussion 
This study set out with the aim of exploring the benefits of the 4/3/2 technique in 
EFL speaking ability development. Previous studies in this issue have reported positive 
effects of the technique in increasing learners’ speaking fluency and accuracy (Maurice, 
1987; Nation, 1989; Arevart & Nation, 1991). However, in those studies, the 
improvement was measured by comparing the participants’ performance in their first talk 
with that in their third talk. This research looks at the issue from a different angle. The 
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measurement was done outside the treatment and through the use of pre-test and post-
test. 
It was found that the treatment group outperformed the control group in terms of 
speaking speed. While the control group increased their average speed by 8.8 wpm, the 
treatment group increased their average speed by 26.6 wpm. The difference was 
statistically significant. In addition, on the post-test, compared with the control group, 
more students in the treatment group reached the speed of over 80 wpm and fewer 
remained their speed at lower than 60 wpm. These results were reinforced by the fact that 
on the pre-test, the two groups gained similar scores on speaking performance and 
English proficiency. These findings are in line with those of previous studies by Nation 
(1989) and Yang (2014). 
Another obvious finding that emerged from the study is that the treatment group 
made a slight increase in speaking accuracy. Even though the control group also 
improved their accuracy, the fact that their increase was smaller than that of the treatment 
group indicated that the 4/3/2 technique did have an impact on the participants’ ability to 
access the language they needed to deliver the talk. This result collaborates Nation 
(1989)’s finding and confirms that fluency and accuracy do not have to be in a trade-off 
relationship. 
There are possible explanations for the improvement that the treatment group 
gained. First, the change of audience over the three talking times might have freed the 
speakers from the burden of having to think of new ideas to keep the audience interested. 
Therefore, they had a chance to focus on communicating the message in a smoother and 
faster manner. This, in turns, provided the participants an opportunity to adjust and 
modify their talk, thus reduce the number of errors they made each time talking. Second, 
the topic remained the same, which allowed the participants to develop their confidence 
in their ability to deliver the talk, hence facilitated their speaking accuracy. Third, the 
time was gradually reduced, forcing the participants to speak faster to finish their talk in 
the given time. This might have enhanced their speaking fluency. 
5. Conclusion 
The purpose of the current study was to examine the impacts of the 4/3/2 
technique in EFL speaking ability development. An experiment among 83 university 
English majors was carried out in a period of three months. A pre-test and a post-test 
were utilized to measure the participants’ speaking performance. The study has identified 
two major findings. First, the treatment class improved their speaking speed to a much 
larger extent than the control class. Second, they also gained a slightly bigger increase in 
accuracy. 
An issue that was not addressed in this study was whether the participants’ 
speaking performance improved during the treatment. Due to time and personnel 
limitations, the students’ talks in the experimental lessons were not taken into 
consideration. It is therefore recommended that in further research, participants’ 
performance while taking part in the 4/3/2 activities are recorded and analyzed. Another 
limitation of this study is that the participants’ speaking fluency was evaluated only by 
looking at accuracy and speed. It did not take into account such criteria as the number of 
false starts, hesitations, and repetitions. Future work can examine these aspects to obtain 
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deeper insights into the nature of speaking fluency development. A further study could 
also assess the what, apart from the how, to see if this technique facilitates learners’ 
ability to control the content of their talk. 
Overall, this study strengthens the idea that speaking ability can be developed 
through the use of the 4/3/2 technique. The findings are consistent with those in previous 
studies and broaden our view of the relationship between fluency and accuracy in 
language performance. The study’s results suggest that those English language teachers 
who wish to help learners develop their speaking ability should consider carrying 4/3/2 
activities, and that an increase in speed does not have to go hand in hand with a decrease 
in accuracy. 
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TÓM TẮT 
PHÁT TRIỂN KHẢ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH 
CHO NGƯỜI HỌC VIỆT NAM BẰNG KỸ THUẬT 4/3/2 
Các nghiên cứu trước đây đã báo cáo hiệu quả của các phương pháp mà giáo 
viên sử dụng trong quá trình dạy Kỹ năng Nói nói chung tại các lớp học tiếng Anh ở 
Việt Nam. Tuy nhiên, chưa có nhiều nhà khoa học và giáo viên tiếng Anh ở Việt Nam 
quan tâm đến việc sử dụng các kỹ thuật để giúp học sinh nâng cao độ lưu loát trong khi 
nói tiếng Anh. Nghiên cứu này xem xét kỹ thuật 4/3/2 trong các lớp học tiếng Anh. Số 
liệu được thu thập thông qua thực nghiệm đối với sinh viên chuyên ngữ năm thứ nhất. 
Kết quả cho thấy nhóm thực nghiệm vượt trội so với nhóm đối chứng cả về độ chính 
xác và độ lưu loát. Nghiên cứu đã góp phần làm nổi bật lợi ích của kỹ thuật 4/3/2 và 
đưa ra nhận định rằng độ chính xác và độ lưu loát trong ngôn ngữ không cần thiết phải 
tỷ lệ nghịch với nhau.