(SKKN 2022) some techniques to improve speaking skill for 12th graders to prepare better for IELTS exam

TABLE OF CONTENTS I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 The aims of the study 1.3 The objectives of the study .1 1.4 The method of the study 1.5 The new factors of the study II THE CONTENT OF THE STUDY 2.1 The theoretical background 2.2 The statement of the problems .6 2.3 The solutions to the problems 2.4 The effectiveness of the methods 12 III CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 15 3.1 conclusion .15 3.2 Suggestion 15 REFERENCE 17 I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale There is no doubt that English as the international language which is used by many people around the world It is said that English serves well for many people as a bridge into the world of higher educational, science, international trade, politics, tourism or any other venture which interest them Besides, English is the essential part that has to be mastered by Vietnamese people to face the globalization era and develop social quality of life In Vietnam, English is used as the second language for communication As we know, English is a tool to communicate and interact each other Through English, people can express what they think and know what other people are thinking In English, there are four skills such as speaking, listening, writing and reading Those skills are important components when people want to master English well One of the crucial skills in English is speaking Speaking is different with other skill because speaking is the main base in doing daily activity as a vehicle for interaction and communication To access the English level of students’, besides the traditional exams at school, students now can take part in many other exams with the international certificates such as TOEFL, IELTS, SAT…These exams are examined by the global system Among them, IELTS is the most popular test for those looking to migrate to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK It is globally recognized by more than 11,000 employers, universities, schools and immigration bodies including 3,400 institutions in the USA Recently, IELTS exam has increasingly become popular among Vietnamese students because they can use the results for their university entrance The question is that teachers need to help students be familiar with the form as well as criteria of each skill in IELTS exam In this study, I just would like to focus on speaking skill, basing on some my own experience I have conducted on “Some techniques to improve speaking skill for 12th graders to prepare better for IELTS exam” Hopefully, this study may be helpful for my students as well as my colleagues 1.2 The aims of the study In this study, the researcher only focuses on the teacher’s techniques and how teacher’s techniques are applied in teaching speaking skill to help students prepare better for IELTS exam 1.3 The objectives of the study The objectives of the study are mostly 12 th graders at Nga Son high school who are tending to take part in IELTS exam so that they can win a place at university 1.4 The method of the study To analyze the result of the study, the writes used the descriptive method with the data from some questionnaire and interview students From the result, the author will come to the conclusion whether the method is effective or not 1.5 The new factors of the study The new factors of the study are the approaches to a very new exam to the students, especially in a rural area First, most of the students in my school are not familiar with the format of IELTS exam In addition, they have had few chances to practice speaking Therefore, the strategies given by the teachers are totally new and helpful to them II THE CONTENT OF THE STUDY 2.1 The theoretical background 2.1.1 Definition of Speaking In terms of definition, speaking is a skill which is used by someone to connect in daily life, whether at school or outside the school Speaking is an activity involving or more people in which the participants are both the listeners and the speakers having to act what they listen and make their contribution at high speed, Brown (2004: 140) Smith (2006) added up that speaking is the productive skill in the oral mode It likes the other skills, is more complicated than it seems at first and involves more than just pronouncing words While Chaney (in Kayi, 2006) confirmed that speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts Based on the explanations above it can be concluded that speaking is an interactive process between teacher and students where the teacher gives the knowledge to the students in order to produce language as a skill In other words, when people speak, they not only think about the use of right sounds or patterns but also the choice of words in order to communicate with other persons so they can convey the right meaning Regarding to the above statements, the researcher tries to conclude that speaking is ancrucial component in language because speaking is primarily speech Unlike reading, writing, and listening activities, speaking requires some degree of real time exposure to an audience English speaking ability is an ability or skill that the learners have to communicate, to convey meaning, and to have a meaningful conversation in English Besides, speaking is a means to communicate or interact each other through the use verbal and nonverbal symbols In other words, speaking is not only about communication or interaction but speaking is process to delivered meaning clearly and understandable 2.1.2 Types of Speaking The successful speaking of people can be distinguished by talking a lot, participation is even, motivation is high, and language is one of the acceptable levels There are five basic types of speaking or oral production Brown (2004: 141) They are: 2.1.2.1 Imitative A very limited portion of classroom speaking time may legitimately be spent generating “human tape recorder” speech, where, for example, learners practice an intonation contour or try to pinpoint a certain vowel sound Imitation of thin kind is carried out not for the purpose of meaningful interaction, but for focusing on some particular element of language form 2.1.2.2 Intensive Intensive speaking goes one step beyond imitative to include any speaking performance that is designed to practice some phonological or grammatical aspect of language Intensive speaking can be self-initiated, or it can even form part of some pair work activity, where learners are “going over” certain forms of language 2.1.2.3 Responsive Responsive performance includes interaction and test comprehension but at the somewhat limited level of very short conversation, standard greeting and small talk, simple request and comments This is a kind of short replies to teacher or student initiated questions or comments, giving instructions indirections Those replies are usually sufficient and meaningful 2.1.2.4 Transactional (dialogue) Transactional language, carried out for the purpose of conveying or exchanging specific information, is an extended from of responsive language For example conversation, conversation could readily be part of group work activity as well 2.1.2.5 Interpersonal (dialogue) These conversations are a little trickier for learners because they can involve some or all of the following factors: 1) A casual register 2) Colloquial language 3) Emotionally charged language 4) Slang 5) Ellipsis 6) Sarcasm 7) A covert “agenda” 2.1.2.6 Criteria of Good Speaking Skill in IELTS exam IELTS Speaking test format The total duration of the IELTS speaking test is 11-14 minutes The test is divided into three parts as follows: IELTS speaking part Duration Format Part to minutes Introduction, identity check, Questions & Answers Part to minutes minute planning time for 1-2 minutes speech Part to minutes Discussion IELTS speaking questions The questions in all the three sections vary to provide you opportunity to show the range of your language on a variety of topics and in varying lengths of response Question types and common IELTS speaking topics Part In this part, the examiner will ask questions related to your life This section includes familiar topics and the questions are factual in nature You are expected to answer giving more information related to the topic For example, give reasons for your choice and actions Take care not to over-stretch your responses Common topics in this section are related to: family, friends, work/study, holidays, lifestyle, habits, likes & dislikes, hobbies & interests, etc Part In this part, you are given a topic, or a task card, and you need to give a talk, or a monologue, for to minutes Before beginning to speak, you are given one minute to plan your speech Make sure you utilise this one minute judiciously and plan what you want to talk about Topics in these task cards usually focus on familiar or personal areas, such as your experience of something, such as vacation, memorable incident / event / person, meeting an ideal person, milestone life event, etc Part In this part, the examiner will ask you questions which are more abstract in nature These questions are thematically and broadly linked to the topic given in part You are expected to respond on the basis of your knowledge and experience Example of how the topic could be linked to task card: Task 2: Your favourite holiday destination Task 3: Why are holidays important? How can tourism help a country's economy? Etc Make sure the length of the answers is longer than those in part This is also your last chance to display the range of your language; make the most of this opportunity to give evidence of your language proficiency (Table adapted from: British Council Take IELTS ) IELTS speaking assessment criteria: There are four key assessment criteria for IELTS Speaking:  Fluency & Coherence (FC) Fluency (F): Fluency describes the ease with which you are able to speak at length without noticeable hesitation, pauses or repetition In order to be fluent,                  you should sound natural and be able to convey the right expression so that the listener can easily comprehend your message Coherence (C): This refers to the logical development of ideas; their linking within and between sentences while speaking The examiners look for ease with which your listener can understand and follow your ideas This is dependent on how you link your ideas with appropriate words and phrases Key factors that contribute to higher scores in Fluency & Coherence are: the ability to keep going and talking about the topic without much hesitation, repetition or self-correction understanding the topic and producing logical ideas connected with it, while developing your points using a range of linking words and other strategies used for presenting your ideas self-correction should be done but limited in frequency hesitation can be content related (looking for ideas) but language related hesitation should be minimized avoiding the repetition of certain words or phrases, often used as ‘fillers’ for fluency e.g like, you know, etc Lexical Resource (LR) This refers to the range of vocabulary used by a candidate In order to score high, it is recommended that you use a wide range of vocabulary, including less common phrases and idiomatic language, in a natural way Key factors that contribute to higher scores are: appropriate and natural use of uncommon words in context the ability to paraphrase (saying the same thing in different words) using a range of words and expressions to avoid repetition accurate use of phrasal verbs, figurative language and idiomatic expressions accurate use of collocations E.g go shopping and not shopping Making the right word choice for the right connotation E.g slim conveys a positive meaning, whereas skinny may be used negatively Grammatical range and accuracy (GRA) This means that it is important to use a variety of grammatical structures accurately, in order to score high in IELTS Speaking ’Playing it safe’ by producing accurate sentences but with only a limited range will not be enough to get you a high score You may need to demonstrate you can use a good mix of various grammatical structures accurately like: using a balanced combination of simple, compound and complex sentences using a range of tenses including perfect, future forms and narratives using modals for different functions using referencing and connectors to link two or more ideas            using subordinating and relative clauses using comparative and superlative adjectives using active and passive voice appropriately using conditionals to speculate, talk about past events that cannot be changed or hypothetical (imaginary) events Pronunciation (P) Pronunciation is not to be confused with ‘accent’ At the IELTS test, you are not expected to speak in any particular accent You should rather speak in a way that you are clearly understood, without your listener having to focus on every word that you utter Various features of pronunciation include are: correct individual sounds (phonemes) strong and weak sounds in sentences stress - at word and sentence level intonation - to convey the right emotion linking sounds and contractions for fluency chunking - combination of pause and stress, for emphasis Each contributes 25% of your total IELTS speaking score You will be awarded bands 0-9 in full and halves E.g 6, 6.5, 7, 7.5… This is calculated as an average of your scores in all four assessment criteria, to the nearest score 2.2 The statement of the problems The first problem that students face in class is embarrassment When they want to say anything in the classroom, they are sometimes hesitant They are terrified of being judged if they make a mistake They feel embarrassed by the fact that the other pupils are paying attention to them Students' lack of confidence, as well as a lack of speaking opportunities outside of the classroom, may also prevent them from speaking well They didn't want to look foolish in front of the class, so they didn't say anything to avoid making a mistake The second problem is that pupils complain that they don't know what to say and are not really motivated to so Because of their limited vocabulary, the students felt they didn't know how to construct English sentences Furthermore, students take too much time before producing English sentences Usually they start with words, before they converse the entire sentence they try to organize into sentences and phrases They also used incorrect sentence structure and pronunciation on a regular basis The research also revealed that learners frequently encountered difficulties due to a lack of target language knowledge The students delayed their English productions as they wanted to make precise pronunciations of English words When speaking, some of them admitted to being unsure of their word choice and grammar.The third difficulty with the speaking class is the low level of involvement Because only one student speaks at a time in a large class, each student will have very little time to speak because the other students will be trying to hear him or her In the speaking class, some students dominate the entire class, while others talk very little or never.Finally, when some students share the same mother tongue, they try to use it in speaking class because it is very easy for them 2.3 The solutions to the problems        There are a wide range of techniques to teach speaking skill in an ESL class Among them, I conveyed the most effective ones applied in my class 2.3.1 Role Play Role play exercises give students the opportunity to assume the role of a person or act out a given situation These roles can be performed by individual students, in pairs, or in groups which can play out a more complex scenario Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles In role-play activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and what they think or feel For example, unit 3: ways of socializing, teacher could supply students lots of useful expressions in order that the students can use them for the roleplay later To meet new friends To make friends To get to know someone To build relationships with people Build a connection with someone To network (v.) (at a party or an event) = to meet people for work reasons To mingle (v.) (at a party or an event) = to chat informally to people Students were divided into small groups of three or five members Each group would make a role play about how to start a conversation about different topics such as: weather, study, family, films, food, hobbies…The situation might be set in an appropriate place such as at school or at a restaurant…                          2.3.2 Interviews Students can carry out interviews on selected topics with various people It is a good idea that the teacher delivers a rubric to students so that they know what type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own interview questions After interviews, each student can represent his or her study to the class Moreover, students can interview each other and "introduce" his or her partner to the class This practice is really useful for the first part of IELTS exam For example, in unit 1: Home life, students interviewed their partners about their family, they could design lots of questions to ask as follow: Who were the oldest members of your family that you knew personally? Do you know their whole names? Birthdates? Did your parents talk about any of their ancestors when you were growing up? Did anyone who wasn't related to you live with you when you were a child? Where did you grow up? For how long did your family live in the area(s)? How many siblings did you have? What were their names and ages? What were your siblings like? Did other family members live in the area? If so, who? Did you live on a farm? If so, what kind of crops did you grow? Did you keep livestock or other animals? Did you have any pets? What was your house or apartment like? How many rooms were in it? What kinds of amenities did your home have? (indoor plumbing, electricity or gas, phone, television) Do any items or rooms from the house stand out in your mind as favorites? In unit 6: Future Jobs, students may interview some of following questions: Teacher may hold a job fair so that students can practice speaking in big groups; Tell me about yourself? What you know about the Company? What you know about the vacancy? What attracts you to the job? What are the main responsibilities in your current / last job? What you enjoy the most and least about your current / last job? What are your strengths and what are your weaknesses? How would your last Manager describe you? How would your best friend describe you? How you spend your spare time?       labor saving (adj) wipe sth out (v) space shuttle [speɪs'∫ʌtl] (n) depression [di'pre∫n] (n) economic depression [i:kə'nɑ:mɪkdɪ'pre∫n] (n) corporation [,kɔpə'rei∫n] (n) 2.3.4 Board games Board games were regarded as tools that exposed pupils to various chances to practice speaking the target language naturally Pupils were connected to real-life situations that provided meaningful learning opportunities through board games, thus stimulating them to develop their creativity and thinking into a wider area Pictures and words provided on the cards in board games enabled pupils to develop ideas for their speech content and pupils gained experience using the language naturally for their daily communication For example, this board game includes typical job interview questions that students have to answer plus 20 vocabulary cards 11 I usually play this in groups of or at the end of a lesson on job interview skills I ask the students to think of a job they would like to apply for before starting the game so that they can give specific answers Cut out the vocabulary cards and place face down in a pile next to the board When a student lands on a 'vocab card' square they must pick up a card and either give the definition or use it in a sentence related to job applications You need (er group) board + set of 20 cards + die + a counter for each student 12 2.3.5 Cartoon Story Maker Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody previously, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates Story telling encourages creative thinking It also helps students express ideas in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the characters and setting a story has to have In this case, the story was presented using the cartoon story maker software 13      This software is totally downloaded free on the official website and it is very easy to use Here are the steps to create a cartoon story using Cartoon Story Maker: As you start this software, you will find various tools, options, and a story editor section on the main interface Simply produce a new project and start placing related elements onto the editor It offers a few preloaded cartoon characters to start with These characters are separated into major characters, supporting characters, and minor characters If you don’t enjoy these characters, you can add cartoon characters as images in the imported foregrounds field Just drag and drop the cartoons to the editor to create a cartoon story Background and imported backgrounds sections are also provided to choose from preloaded backgrounds or add your own background images, respectively You can add the dialogues to your cartoon story using provided text bubbles A title of the scene can also be added It provides essential picture and text editing tools including enlarge object, shrink object, rotate, flip, bring forward, send behind, text color, text size, typographical emphasis, accented letters, etc 14  A dialogue sound can be added to the scene as an audio bubble You can import the sound in MP3 format or record the sound using a microphone This activity is very useful for students to practice pronunciation In addition, students are inspired to be much more creative 2.4 The effectiveness of the methods After a year of applying these techniques in teaching speaking, the writer has obtained some positive results are as follows: The marks of the tests are very different We can look at the categories of the tables before and after the study below: The result of the 1st test before doing the research Class Students 3.0- 4.0 SL TL 4.0-5.0 SL TL 5.0- 6.0 SL 12A 20 15 75% 25% nd The result of the test after doing the research Class Students Good SL TL Credit SL TL 6.0-8.0 TL SL TL 0% 0% Passing SL TL Fail SL TL 12A 20 25% 40% 25% 10% It is clear that the number of students getting the high score after the techniques is much higher that that before the method Hence, after applying the solution and carrying out some survey I realized that:  Most of the students are more confident than before  Their English speaking has also improved a lot  More and more students are signing up to join the IELTS exam The data were obtained from the distribution of the questionnaire to the students It was designed to help the writer to get more information about students’ responses toward the implementation of the method the data obtained can be seen in the following tables and description: Table 1Speaking techniques are very useful for students ANSWER Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree Total STUDENTS 30 20 0 50 PERCENTAGE 60% 40% 0 100% Based on the table above, it shows that the method is useful for all the students which can be seen that 30 students (60%) strongly agree, and 20 15 students (40%) agree while none of them disagree or strongly disagree with the statement Thus, it can be concluded that all of students (50 students) agreed that speaking techniques are very useful Table Speaking techniques encourage students’ willingness to take part in IELTS exam ANSWER Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree Total STUDENTS 40 10 0 50 PERCENTAGE 80% 20% 0 100% This table shows that 40 students (80%) strongly agree that the techniques encourage students‟ willingness to take part in IELTS exam and 10 students (20%) agree with the statement On the other hand, none of them disagree or strongly disagree with the statement So, all of students believed that the method encourages their willingness to practice speaking English Moreover, based on the writer’s observation, they enjoyed speaking English during the lesson III CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 3.1 Conclusion Based on the result of the study, I can come to some conclusions as follow: First, the techniques improve the students’ speaking ability The students’ ability in speaking has improved after they learned the lessons Board game is one of the most effective activities of speaking class It helped the students to present or share their own ideas among them interactively Secondly, based on the result of questionnaires, the majority of the students had positive responses toward the implementation of the study in learning speaking The students claim that this study is very useful for them, such as encourages their willingness to practice speaking English, to increase their speaking ability and to use vocabulary in English properly, also the activity in speaking class encourages the students to be more motivated and spirited to practice speaking English with their fellow students, and besides that the students can share knowledge each other during speaking activity Yet, the students still have some problems in speaking: The most common problem faced by the students in the speaking lesson is lack of self-confidence With the enthusiasm and liability, I wish to contribute my effort for my students and education sector I hope that all English teachers keep creating useful and meaningful activities in English Speaking class to make it to be an exciting, familiar and adventure playground for all students Furthermore, after leaving school they will be able to IELTS test effectively 16 I look forward to comments from friends and colleagues to perfect the project and improve the quality of teaching and learning English 3.2 Suggestion Based on the research and conclusion above, the researcher offered the constructive recommendation that related on English teaching, are follows: 3.2.1 For the teacher: Teacher is center figure that was expected know how to apply the suitable technique in teaching especially speaking It is crucial because technique in teaching learning process may impact the result of student achievement learning As the teacher is supposed to be creative, active, helpful, friendly, and humble so that he/she can control the learning activity well 3.2.2 For the students: Students are expected to be more dynamic, inspired and confident Students have to pay attention and understand well when teacher is explaining the material in front of them 3.2.3 For the other researcher: This research about teacher’s techniques in teaching speaking skill to help students prepare better for IELTS exam It is expected for the other researcher that the result of this research can be used as additional references for the next researches 3.2.4 For the reader: The researcher believes that this study is far from being perfect, so the researcher will accept good suggestion and constructive critics to make this paper perfect The researcher also hoped that this study will be useful and contribute some valuable things to the researcher herself and all readers in general Sincerely thank you for your reading and assessment! Confirmation of school leader Nga Son, may 29th, 2022 I am sure that this initiative is my own writing experience, not copying others’ content Done by Phạm Thị Yến 17 REFERENCE English textbook,12, Hanoi national publisher, 2010 Brown (2004: 140) Essential Speaking Skills: A Handbook for Language Teachers London: Continuum, Inc Smith (2006) Teaching by Principles: An Interactive approach to Language Pedagogy Second Edition California: Logman While Chaney (in Kayi, 2006) Teaching the Spoken Language Beijing: People Education Press https://www.britishcouncil.vn/ 18 DANH MỤC SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM ĐÃ ĐƯỢC HỘI ĐỒNG SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM NGÀNH GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO HUYỆN, TỈNH VÀ CÁC CẤP CAO HƠN XẾP LOẠI TỪ C TRỞ LÊN Họ tên tác giả: Phạm Thị Yến Chức vụ đơn vị công tác: Giáo viên Trường THT Nga Sơn TT Tên đề tài SKKN Phương pháp sửa lỗi sai Phương pháp luyện tập theo cặp theo nhóm Exploiting some reading comprehension strategies to enhance reading skill of 11th form students Applying some effective reading strategies to improve reading comprehension skill of twelve grade-students Cấp đánh giá xếp loại (Ngành GD cấp huyện/tỉnh; Tỉnh ) Cấp Tỉnh Kết đánh giá xếp loại (A, B, C) Năm học đánh giá xếp loại C 2006 - 2007 Cấp Tỉnh C 2009 - 2010 Cấp Tỉnh C 2016 - 2017 Cấp Tỉnh C 2019 - 2020 19 APENDIX ACTUAL SPEAKING TEST NO     Part 1: questions Let’s talk about your home town or village: what kind of place is it? what’s the most interesting part of your town/village? what kind of jobs the people in your town/village do? would you say it’s a good place to live? (why?) Part 2: candidate task card Describe something you own which is very important to you You should say:     where you got it from how long you have had it what you use it for; and explain why it is important to you You will have to talk about the topic for to minutes You have one minute to think about what you're going to say You can make some notes to help you if you wish Part 3: Discussion Let’s consider first of all how people’s values have changed  What kind of things give status to people in your country?  Have things changed since your parents’ time? Finally, let’s talk about the role of advertising  Do you think advertising influences what people buy? 20 APENDIX ACTUAL SPEAKING TEST NO     Part 1: Questions Let’s talk about your work or studies: Are you a student or you work? What is your place of work like? What you like about your job? Is there anything you don’t like about your job? Part 2: Candidate task card Describe a special event or festival that you liked Say:     what the event was where it was what happened and say why you liked it You will have to talk about the topic for to minutes You have one minute to think about what you're going to say You can make some notes to help you if you wish Part 3: Discussion We have been talking about a special event or festival that you liked  Why you think celebrations are important in society?  Do you think celebrations are experienced differently by the different generations?  Let’s talk now about international events  Do you think International events help to promote cooperation and collaboration between countries?  Do you think international sporting events are more popular with the older or younger generation?  Do you think we will see changes in the future to international events? And if so, what sort of changes might we see? 21 APENDIX Picture drawing of life in the future Role play about sports- unit 12 22 23 Board game about sports 24 25 ... of Good Speaking Skill in IELTS exam IELTS Speaking test format The total duration of the IELTS speaking test is 11-14 minutes The test is divided into three parts as follows: IELTS speaking. .. have conducted on ? ?Some techniques to improve speaking skill for 12th graders to prepare better for IELTS exam? ?? Hopefully, this study may be helpful for my students as well as my colleagues 1.2... the form as well as criteria of each skill in IELTS exam In this study, I just would like to focus on speaking skill, basing on some my own experience I have conducted on ? ?Some techniques to improve