SOME TECHNIQUES TO ATTRACT INTERESTS AND INVOLVEMENT OF THE 9TH GRADERS IN a SPEAKING LESSON AT NGHI XUAN SECONDARY SCHOOL IN NGHE AN

i MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY PHAN THANH XUAN SOME TECHNIQUES TO ATTRACT INTERESTS AND INVOLVEMENT OF THE 9TH GRADERS IN A SPEAKING LESSON AT NGHI XUAN SECONDARY SCHOOL IN NGHE AN Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Code: 60.14.01.11 MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION Supervisor: Assoc.Prof: NGO DINH PHUONG VINH, 2017 i Acknowledgements This work would not have been possible without the support of Mr Ngo Dinh Phuong, my supervisor, for her guidance, great suggestions and advice in each step of the study Who have been supportive of my career goals and who worked actively to provide me with the protected academic time to pursue those goals Without her precious comments, academic instructions and wholehearted help, my research would have never been accomplished Also,I am really grateful to all teachers in Foreign Language department, Vinh University for their useful lectures and suggestions Besides, I would especially like to thank all teachers and students in Nghi Xuan secondary school for their enthusiasm in finishing the survey questionnaires Last but not least, I am grateful to my family and friends who have given me much encouragement during the time I carried out this paper ii ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to investigate the students ‘attitudes toward a speaking lesson and suggest some effective techniques for teaching speaking skill The research was carried out at Nghi Xuan secondary school over 160 tenth grade students divided into two groups The experimental group was taught in the lessons using suggested techniques The control group was taught in the lessons used current techniques Data for the research was collected from reference, questionnaires, and interviews Finding from these instruments reveals that using interesting techniques can increase students ‘motivation in speaking lesson It is recommended that teachers should use many techniques to motivate students in learning iii Table of Contents MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING i VINH UNIVERSITY i MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION i Acknowledgements i Table of Contents iii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Reason of study Aims of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study Research questions Design of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW I Speaking skill: A general view Definition of speaking skill Types of speaking Features of a successful speaking activity II Teaching speaking The importance of speaking skill Why don’t students feel much interested in speaking skill? Factors to attract students’ involvements in English speaking lessons .10 Activities to promote students’ speaking 11 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLY 14 I Real situation 14 II Survey questionnaires 16 Participants 16 Aims of the survey questionnaires 16 Structure of the survey questionnaires 17 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 18 I Data and analysis 18 Table 1: Students’ English learning time 18 Table 1: The most favourite lesson to students’ view 19 Chart 2: Students’ opinions toward speaking lessons 20 iv Table 4: Effectiveness of adopted techniques in pre-speaking .21 Table 9: Students’ and teachers’ opinions about students’ difficultieswhen speaking in class .22 II Findings and discussion 22 III Some suggested techniques to attract interests and involvement of the 9th graders in a speaking lesson at Nghi Xuan school in Nghe An 24 Making sentence 24 Face to face activity 25 Hot seat activity 28 Pictures description 29 Discussing 31 Teaching through songs 32 Comparing pictures 33 Explaining the words 35 Role play 36 10 Speaking in topic 38 11 Telling story 39 12 Debate 40 13 Talk show 41 Part III: Conclusion 50 Attachment 51 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Reason of study English has become a vital and mandatory communication language in Vietnam since the opening of its doors to the world in 1986 Many Englishspeaking foreigners from across Asia, Australia, America and Europe started coming to invest in Vietnam This has motivated the people of Vietnam to learn English to facilitate efficient and effective communication among their counterparts The importance of English was immediately acknowledged by the Vietnamese government and as a result the English language programs were made compulsory beginning with the secondary schools and subsequently the high schools and finally university The teaching of English in secondary and high schools strongly focus mainly on grammar, sentence structures and vocabulary In such a teaching format, conversational English was not taken into consideration In addition, English learning and teaching is purely examination-based Examinations were mainly grammar-focused As a result, the teachers and academicians teach only the bare necessity which is required to pass the examination and is not linked to the learning needs of individual students This has caused students to become de-motivated because English is just another subject at school, not part of their life Many students eventually fail to see the importance and pride in being able to speak fluent English Today, of the four English basic skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), it is thought that speaking seems to play the most important role: knowing-language-people are considered “speaker” of that language as if speaking included all four kinds of knowing Classroom activities that help to develop learners ability in expressing themselves would play an important part in a language course The goal of teaching speaking, surely, is to improve the oral production of the students Along with international integration trend, students should improve and promote their communication skill so that they can express themselves and learn to follow the social and cultural rules appropriating in each communicative circumstances In order to that, language-teaching activities in the classroom should aim at maximizing individual language use Teachers’ role is not only to create a warm and friendly classroom but also to provide students with effective and plentiful activities Only by such way can those activities encourage students to speak and attract them to speaking lessons These factors mentioned above have aroused my ambition to carry out the study of “some techniques to attract interests and involvements of th graders in a speaking lesson at Nghi Xuan secondary school in Nghe An province” Aims of the study The study is carried out to research: * Firstly, the study studies the different aspects of speaking skill that serves as overview, the features and characteristics of teaching speaking skill * Secondly, the study surveys the real situation of teaching Englishspeaking skill in 9th form in Nghi Xuan secondary school * The last also the most important aim is to suggest some effective techniques that can be applied in Nghi Xuan secondary school to attract students’ interest sand involvements in speaking lessons Scope of the study * Actually, attracting students’ interests and involvements needs to be done in teaching all four basic skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) However, it is impractical to overspread such a large scope I a graduation paper Thus, the study limits itself to: * Finding out the reality of teaching English speaking skill for th form students in Nghi Xuan secondary schools * Offering appropriate techniques to attract 9th graders in Nghi Xuan secondary school in speaking lessons Methods of the study  First, a survey is conducted for three th classes in Nghi Xuan secondary school with a point of view to find out their difficulties they encounter and what are their favorite activities in learning speaking skill  Second, reference books about speaking and methodology are reviewed to get background knowledge of what speaking is, successful and interesting techniques in teaching speaking  Third, more information needed for the findings of the survey will be gathered from formal and informal interview with the surveyed teachers and students Research questions 5.1 What are students’ attitudes toward used current techniques in speaking lesson? 5.2 How may these techniques interest students’ in speaking activities? Design of the study The study consists of five chapters Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter shows reasons to choose the study, the aims, scope, methods, and design of the study Chapter 2: Literature review This chapter aims to answer the questions related to speaking that introduces the speaking skill and its features Chapter 3: Methodology The real situation of teaching speaking skill in Nghi Xuan secondary school and a study on how speaking lessons are thought by students in Nghi xuan secondary school in Nghe An Chapter 4: Finding and discussion The analysis and the findings obtain from survey questionnaires made to 9th form students of Nghi Xuan secondary school “Suggested techniques to attract students ‘interests and involvement in a speaking lesson” mention techniques and a sample lesson of using different activities in each part of a speaking lesson to attract secondary students to a speaking lesson” Chapter 5: Conclusion summarizes the discussed parts in the paper and somesuggestions for further study As a result, Chapter I has mentioned the content of the study In the next part, the author will present the focus of the study including her literature review on the understanding of speaking skill and the survey questionnaires for students of Nghi xuan secondary school which help examine the real situation of teaching and learning speaking CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW I Speaking skill: A general view Speaking skill is the art of communications and one of four productive skill, that must mastered in learning foreign languages Good speaking skill is the act of generating words that can be understood by listeners A good speakers is clear and informative Definition of speaking skill Speaking is the skill that students will be judged most in real life situations It is an important part of everyday interaction and most often the first impression of a person is based on his or her ability to speak fluently and comprehensively However, speaking is in many ways an undervalued skill This, perhaps, is because we can almost all speak, and so have the low opinion of it Speaking is often thought of as a popular form of expressions Speaking, on the contrary, is a skill which deserves attention a bit as much as literacy skill Our learners often need to speak with confidence in order to carry out many of their basic transactions “Speaking”, as Harris (1977:81) says, “is a complex skill requiring the simultaneous use of different abilities developed at the different rates” John (1982) believes that speaking ability is regarded the measure of knowing a language The learners define speaking as the most important skill they can acquire They assess their progress in term of their accomplishment in spoken communication Besides, Bygate observes: speaking is the skill by which learners are most frequently judged and through which they make or lose friends It is the medium through which much of language is learnt and which for many is particularly conductive for learning” Bygate emphasizes the importance of speaking, not 45 - Teacher divides class into small group - Teacher shows a picture for students to see - Teacher calls some students to describe the pictures by asking some questions such as: where / what / what color - Teacher gives each group10 minutes to draw the picture without looking because the picture is already hidden - After finishing, students have to describe their picture in front of the class Teacher will gives comments and corrects it The second type - Teacher divides class into small group then describes a pictureorally - Teacher calls some representative of group to come to recreate the picture correctly including name of objects in correct position - After finishing, students have to describe their picture in front of the class Teacher will gives comments and corrects it • Example given: The type : Unit 3: A trip to the countryside Teacher divides class into groups then calls them to describe the pictures 46 “ This is a living room There is a table On the table, there is a lamp, a book, and a vase of flowers There is a ball under the table There is a cat next to a sofa On the sofa, there are two pillow………”  After describing the picture, teacher hides the pictures and two groups have to draw the pictures The group which draws more correctly will be the winne For instance teacher describes:Unit 3: A trip to the countryside “ This is my grandparents’ house It’s a big house with a big garden on the right of the house In the garden, my grandpa grows many vegetables and flowers They are very nice On the left of the house, there is a pond My grandma raise a lot of ducks and chicken near the pond In front of the house, there is a small yard with some grass There is a swing in the yard and we often play swing there The house is yellow and beautiful.” Any group finishes the picture in a shortest time and as same as thedescription of teacher will be the winner Each group re-describes their drawing by their own words and teacher givesthem mark depending on their exact rate of drawing and presentation 1.6 Using poems • Objectives: Creating a comfortable and funny learning environment forstudents Students will learn many new expressions from literature field • Procedures: - Teacher finds short and understandable poems related to the topic or lesson students are going to study or let students prepare it themselves - At the beginning of speaking lesson, teacher shows the poem on the poster and let students read it in few minutes 47 - After that teacher asks students about content and theme of the poem they have read • Example given:Unit 5: The media - Teacher can give handouts to students or display the poem “Chirstmas” on theblackboard - Teacher can ask students some questions as below: What is the poem about? What is the name of this poem? When is the Christmas day? 48 What people often at Christmas? Teacher can let students freely express their feeling about the poem •Example given 2:Unit 6: The environment - Teacher distributes the handout of the poem “ what can you do” - Teacher raises some questions for students: a What is the poem about? b What problem of the environment is now? c What should we to protect environment? - Teacher asks student to learn by heart the song at home 16 Using films 49 • Objectives: Creating a comfortable and funny learning environment forstudents Students can summarize the content of the film that they have just watching • Procedures: - Teacher finds a short film and show on the TV for student to watch - After watching film, teacher ask students some questions about that film - After watching the film, students have to summarize the content of the film and present before class for the next lesson • Example given:Unit 9: Natural disaster: - Teacher can let students watch a famous film about disaster “Titanic” - The content of this film: “After winning a trip on the RMS Titanic during a dockside card game, American Jack Dawson spots the society girl Rose DeWitt Bukater who is on her way to Philadelphia to marry her rich snob fiancé Caledon Hockley Rose feels helplessly trapped by her situation and makes her way to the aft deck and thinks of suicide until she is rescued by Jack Cal is therefore obliged to invite Jack to dine at their first-class table where he suffers through the slights of his snobbish hosts In return, he spirits Rose off to third-class for an evening of dancing, giving her the time of her life Deciding to forsake her intended future all together, Rose asks Jack, who has made his living making sketches on the streets of Paris, to draw her in the nude wearing the invaluable blue diamond Cal has given her Cal finds out and has Jack locked away Soon afterwards, the ship hits an iceberg and Rose must find Jack while both must run from Cal even as the ship sinks deeper into the freezing water 50 Part III: Conclusion In conclusion, this graduation paper has been carried out with the aim to investigate the current English teaching and learning situation in Nghi Xuan secondary school so that effective and various techniques for attracting interests and involvements of 9th graders in speaking lessons should be pointed out in order to make lesson more interesting and make students more active and willing to speak Some related background knowledge as: what is speaking, types of speaking, characteristics of a successful speaking activity… were presented in Chapter I Especially, in order to research the opinion of teachers and students on the reality of teaching and learning English in general as well as speaking lesson in particular, the survey which were carried out with the wish to find out the most effective techniques to apply in each step of a speaking lesson have been clearly introduced in Chapter II In Chapter III, some suggested techniques to attract students, interests and involvements into speaking lessons were demonstrated However, beside the strong points, weak points are unavoidable Due to limitations of time and knowledge, the study cannot cover all stages and grades at secondary school Moreover, my graduation paper only concerns a very small part of teaching speaking with the main purpose is to improve students , speaking skill and their interests to speaking lessons Therefore, the author would like to receive both critical and lenient review from the readers Finally, I hope that in the near future, many other activities for attracting students, interests and involvements into writing/reading/listening lessons will be studied to help learners in studying English well 51 Attachment Appendix 1: The survey questionnaires (For students) Dear 9th grade students, This survey questionnaire aims at finding out your attitude and your expectations towards speaking lessons Your answers will be used for researching purposes of my graduation paper entitled “how to attract secondary students’ interests and involvements in speaking lessons?” Thank you for your cooperation in completing this survey questionnaire How long have you been learning English? □ 1-2 years □ 3-6 years □ More than years Which English lesson does you like most? □ Speaking □ Listening □ Reading □ Writing What you think about speaking lessons? □ Very interesting □ Interesting □ Not very interesting □ Not interesting 52 What your teachers often in while-speaking? Its frequency and its effectiveness? Techniques Frequency Effectiveness Frequently Sometimes Never Effective Normal Not very effective Grid Word-cue Drill Picture description Role play Discussion Game Doing exercise 53 What difficulties you have when speaking in class? □ I don’t have enough words to express what I want to say □ I am shy □ I am afraid of making mistakes □The lessons are too difficult for me □ My friends don’t cooperate with me □ I don’t understand what people say to me □ I am not interested in speaking Other difficulties: ………………………………………… Thank you very much for your assistance and wish you a happy summer holiday! 54 Appendix 2: Model lesson Unit 2: Clothing (9th grade English textbook) UNIT: Lesson CLOTHING SECTION: - SPEAK I/Objectives:By the end of the lesson, students will be able to ask and respond to questions personal references II/ Language contents: -Vocabulary: - baggy pants, casual clothes, school uniform, favorite clothes, sleeveless sweater, faded jeans, plaid skirt, plain suit - Grammar structure: - The present perfect - The passive form ( review) III/Teaching methods and techniques: - Matching, Gap fill, Predict dialogue, answer the question - Jumbled words; open predictions Hangman, interview IV/Teaching aids: text-book, , picture cards, V/Time: VI/Procedures: Check up: Answer the questions: - What you usually wear on the weekend? - Who used to wear Ao Dai by tradition? 55 Warm up Word square: Divide class into two groups Ss from each team go to the board and circle the words they have found the write them down in the column of their team Answer: A T P L A I N C R G H T Z L Sweater, jeans, P I O I K O Y skirt, striped, baggy, plain L H U E U J R A S H S W E A Blouse, … I A E H I N G Suit, … D H M O B A G T S T R I P E Plaid, short, pants, F I W T J E A shirt U K B S K I R Ss finds nouns and T: Stick The Poster on the board: adjectives about clothing in the word square The team which has more words will win the game B P A N T S G D N T D W M V E J Y J S B F O X L R S L O T E 56 NEW LESSON: Instruction Activity 1: • SECTION – SPEAK Content Answer key: Ask Ss to look at the a) a colorful T- shirt ['sli:vlis] pictures a sleeveless sweater: ['swetə] and match b) them with the phrases: c) a striped shirt Pair work d) a plain suit e) a faded jeans f) a short – sleeved blouse g) a baggy pants - Ask Ss to remember h) a plaid skirt the phrases on page i) blue shorts 14, 15 in 30 seconds • Check the Kim’s game: Then let their books - Divide the class into four group closed - Ss from each group take turn to go to the - Group with the most board write as many words as they can words wins the game Activity 2: The form of the survey many look like this Questions Name Items Ask Ss to work in of groups of or 10 Ss clothes each to read and write 1) what you two more questions usually wear on the for the last section of weekend? the 2) why you survey Student’s wear about wear these clothes? 3) What is your favorite type of Note 57 clothing? Why? 4) Is it comfortable to wear uniform? 5) What color is it ? 6) What type of clothing you usually wear on the Tet holiday? 7) What would you Activity 3: Ask Ss to interview their friends wear to a party ? Activity 3: - After Ss have finished their task ask them to report the result of their survey in their group The survey should begin as follow: Three people said that they liked their uniform Two people said that they usually wore colorful T-shirt on the weekend HOMEWORK: Chi said she loved baggy pants - Ask Ss to make a list of types of clothing that most of students in the class like wearing on different special cases Exercise in the workbook Write about your clothes Prepare for the next lesson 58 List of references I.Books Brumfit, C.J (1983) Communicative Methodology in languageteaching Cambridge University Press Burns, A & Joyce, H (1997) Focus on speaking Sydney; National Center for English Language Research Bygate, Martin CN Candlind & HG Widdouson (1987) Speaking Hong Kong: Oxford University Press Doff, Adrian (1988) Teach English A training course for teachers Teachers’ workbook Great Britain: Cambridge University Press Forseth, Ron., Forseth, Carol., Hung, Ta Tien., Do Nguyen Van., (1994) Methodology handbook for English Teachers in Viet Nam-Viet NamEnglish Language Institude/America Mcdonough, Jo & Shaw, Christopher Materials and Methods in ELT Ateachers’ guide Oxford UK &Cambridge USA Nunan, Cavid Language Teaching Methodology Textbook forteachers Sydney: National Center for English Language Teaching andResearch Play games with English Riddell, David (2001) Teaching English as a foreign/second language Great Britain: Hodder &Stoughton Ltd 10 Rivers, W.M (1981) Teaching foreign language skills (2nd ed.) Chicago: University of Chicago Press 11 Ur Penny (1996) A course in language teaching Practice andTheory Great Britain: Cambridge University Press 59 II Websites http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk http://www.nclrc.org http://www.iteslj.org http://www.englishcfl.edu.vn http://www.teachingenglishgames.com http://songsforteaching.com http://www.sing365.com ... techniques to attract students ? ?interests and involvement in a speaking lesson? ?? mention techniques and a sample lesson of using different activities in each part of a speaking lesson to attract. .. students in Nghi xuan secondary school in Nghe An Chapter 4: Finding and discussion The analysis and the findings obtain from survey questionnaires made to 9th form students of Nghi Xuan secondary school. .. suggested techniques to attract interests and involvement of the 9th graders in a speaking lesson at Nghi Xuan school in Nghe An 24 Making sentence 24 Face to face activity