An investigation into teaching english grammar for high school students in the northern mountainous districts of quang nam province in the direction of competence development

THE UNIVERSITY OF DANANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ QUẾ HƯƠNG Đ AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHING ENGLISH ại GRAMMAR FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN THE NORTHERN MOUNTAINOUS DISTRICTS OF QUANG NAM họ PROVINCE IN THE DIRECTION OF COMPETENCE c DEVELOPMENT Đ g ẵn N MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATIONAL STUDIES (A SUMMARY) Da Nang, 2022 This thesis has been completed at University of Foreign Language Studies, The University of Da Nang Supervisor: Huynh Ngoc Mai Kha, Ph.D ại Đ Examiner 1: Nguyen Quang Ngoan, Assoc Prof., Ph.D c họ Examiner 2: Nguyen Thi Quynh Hoa, Assoc Prof., Ph.D Đ The thesis was be orally defended at the Examining Committee N Time: 11/08/2022 g ẵn Venue: University of Foreign Language Studies -The University of Da Nang This thesis is available for the purpose of reference at: - The University of DaNang – The Center for Learning Information Resources and Communication - Center for Information Technology and Learning Resources, University of Foreign Language Studies -The University of Da Nang Chapter One INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE In this era of globalization and integration, English has increasingly proved its significance as an international language which can connect different cultures and bridge the gap among countries In that context, English teaching and learning plays an important role at school education systems While the improvement of four basic skills is considered more important and receives more Đ attention from language researchers, the significance of grammar ại acquisition is overshadowed despite the fact that it is an essential part họ of communicative process Moreover, grammar points account for over 50% content of the standardized tests such as tests at high c schools and Entrance examination Đ This is worse when it comes to English study at high schools in the northern mountainous districts of Quang Nam province where N both teachers and students have difficulties in teaching and learning g ẵn English grammar In fact, most of students in the northern mountainous districts are indigenous people and so they find it difficult to acquire English Hence, students are confused when facing English grammar rules or applying the grammar points in communication Furthermore, the emphasis on teaching grammatical forms and written language was probably the norm in Vietnamese education system heretofore However, Gochen Jin (2008) indicated that it is widely accepted that the focus of English teaching should be on communicative proficiency rather than on mere mastery of structures Therefore, how to not only achieve the grammar points in standardized tests but also acquire English communicative competence will be the core problem in teaching and learning English for teachers and high school students Last but not least, in response to urgent needs of current situation, Vietnam is undertaking radical and comprehensive reform of education and training, including the renovation of the general education programs in the direction of developing learners’ qualities and competences The new curriculum promulgated at the end of 2018 in the MoEt’s Circular 32 has been carried out for Grade and Đ Grade since 2021 The strategies and requirements are to provide ại the learning outcomes for learners, therefore, teachers and họ stakeholders have to interact with students through the curriculum to achieve the standard levels in Vietnamese Language Proficiency c Framework English is responsible for language communicative Đ competency’s development in the new curriculum The aforementioned reasons have given me the urge to carry N out this research paper entitled “An investigation into teaching g ẵn English grammar for high school students in the northern mountainous districts of Quang Nam province in the direction of competence development” with a case study to improve the effectiveness of teaching English grammar in general, or rather teaching English grammar for high school students in particular in the direction of competency development 1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 1.2.1 Aims This study is conducted with an aim to investigate the efficiency of applying the Communicative Language Teaching approach to teaching English grammar with a view to enhancing high school students’ communicative competence in the mountainous districts of Quang Nam province 1.2.2 Objectives To achieve the above aims of the study, the following objectives are set: - to explore what the levels of high school students’ English proficiency in the mountainous districts of Quang Nam province; - work out the models of teaching English grammar with CLT approach; Đ - figure out how the application of CLT approach positively ại influences students’ language proficiency (grammar in specific) and họ learning attitude 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS c In order to reach the aforementioned objectives, the research Đ seeks to give answers to the following research questions: What grammatical errors have high school students in the g ẵn English proficiency test? N northern mountainous districts of Quang Nam province made in How has CLT approach been applied as an intervention solution to the problem in question 1? What progress in students’ language proficiency has been recognized after the application of CLT approach? 1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY This study is essential for teachers and high school students in the northern mountainous districts of Quang Nam province to have an overview of high school student’s English communicative competence Moreover, the recommended teaching grammar models in this research will help teachers and students overcome challenges in the delivery and acquisition of English grammar for high school students so that they could get better results in the standard tests and improve their language communicative competence 1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY In this study, the researcher focuses on English grammar instruction for 120 students in Grade 11 of three high schools in the northern mountainous districts (Tay Giang, Dong Giang and Nam Giang) of Quang Nam province They started learning English when they are in Grade Đ The interfere time is so limited; therefore, some recommended ại lessons of English 11 including Relative clauses, Tag questions, semester họ Cleft sentences and Passive voice will be demonstrated in the second c Speaking and Writing skills with format of B1 test are used to Đ assess student’s competence 1.6 ORGANISATION OF THE THESIS N This research paper consists of five chapters as follows: g ẵn Chapter One – “Introduction”, presents the rationale for choosing the area for study, aims and objectives, research questions, scope of the study The organization is also included to serve as a design for the study, making an orientation for the following chapters Chapter Two – “Literature Review and Theoretical Background”, lays the foundation of the study by making an overall and brief overview of theoretical background for the research Chapter Three - “Research Design and Methodology”, consists of the methods and procedure of the study From aims and objectives as discussed above, the research design, method, data collection and analysis for carrying out the study Chapter Four – “Findings and Discussion”, presents the results obtained from the tests, questionnaires, interview, experiment and class observation Finally, the discussion of research questions is presented Chapter Five – “Conclusion”, presents the summary of the findings, implications, limitations of the study and recommendations for further studies ại Đ c họ Đ g ẵn N Chapter Two LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 REVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDIES A variety of researchers have studied teaching and learning English grammar in history of education in Vietnam and other nations Đ Li Zhong-guo & Song Min-yan (2007) made a comparison ại between Traditional English Grammar Teaching and Communicative Language Teaching They found that in order to improve the họ students’ ability and gain better teaching results, the two kinds of teaching approaches should not be used respectively There is no c illustration for CLT making learner’s competence development Đ In Vietnam, Nguyen Thi Bach Yen (2010) carried out a study on using games in teaching and learning grammar lessons in tenth- N graders The result focused on the effectiveness of games which g ẵn makes students interested in the lessons There is no mention of language competence development Cam.T.H Khuong (2015) analyzed teaching English grammar communicatively in Vietnam; however, this study stopped at its theories, principles and implications Therefore, there is no real reference applied in English classes Furthermore, although Pham Vu Phi Ho & Nguyen The Binh (2014) investigated evidence for the effects of the application of communicative grammar teaching, the research gave the results on students’ achievement of grammatical competence and oral performance Hence, it didn’t include in student’s qualities and competence development as new general education curriculum’s requirement Based on previous studies, the researcher recognizes that English grammar instruction is considered in many aspects, however, the studies have just emphasized the role of teaching and learning English grammar in general Therefore, I decide to carry out this research to discuss extents in which CLT that can be practically implemented in mountainous areas with almost disadvantaged Đ students of Quang Nam province in the context of helping learners ại not only meet the requirement of standard tests but also improve language communicative competence họ 2.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.2.1 Definition of Grammar c 2.2.3 Approaches to Teaching Grammar Đ 2.2.4 Communicative Language Teaching Approach 2.2.5 Teaching English grammar communicatively 2.3 SUMMARY g ẵn the MoET N 2.2.6 The new English curriculum in general education of In brief, the prior research presents several studies related to communicative grammar teaching It can be seen that CLT has been a great concern for many methodologists and linguistics all around the world Since grammar is essential for daily communication as well as other skills, CLT need to be used more in classes so that students have more chances to practice Chapter Three RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY 3.1 OVERVIEW This chapter deals with justifications for methodology of the study Firstly, the research design, participants and research procedure are presented, followed by the description of the sample The data collection and analysis process are stated at the final part 3.2 RESEARCH DESIGN This study collects information from students’ proficiency Đ tests to explore students’ communicative competence This paper ại also collects data from questionnaires, interview and observation họ after attending grammar classes with CLT approach Therefore, the study is designed by qualitative and quantitative methods c 3.3 PARTICIPANTS participants will be recruited Đ To serve the purpose of the present study, a group of N It consists of 120 students from above schools (40 students g ẵn from To Huu High School, 40 students from Tay Giang High School and 40 students of Quang Trung High School) Three schools are located in the mountainous districts of Quang Nam province and 98,2% of the participants are Cotu ethnic people They started to learn English when they were in Grade The participants have the same level of English proficiency as other students in this area They are both male and female, who have been learning English during the time the study take place Their role will be attending the classes with demo lessons, taking the tests and answering the questionnaires on how effective the demo lessons are “Tiếng Anh 11” of Educational Publishers is used to teach grammar lessons 10 participants to understand Besides, unnecessary and ambiguous words are not used Moreover, interview questions are clear enough for participants to understand and give their answers Observation Direct class observation combined with field notes after each lesson confirm and further verify data and findings on tests, questionnaires and interview Moreover, results from class observation reflect the effectiveness of competency-based language Đ teaching approach on English grammar teaching ại 3.4.2 Description of the samples họ Tests Participants took the test (P1) at level B1 at the beginning of c the second semester and two tests which are the beginning test (P1) Đ and the other test at the same level (P2) after they joined the demo lessons in the classrooms The first test was carried out to identify N the students’ communicative competence During the second g ẵn semester, they experienced the grammar lessons with CLT approach and took the second tests after that to figure out their progress Since the interfere time is short, the tests focus on two output skills such as writing and speaking and are based on format of B1 test of Cambridge Experiment The author designed and applied grammar lessons from textbook (“English 11” of Educational Publishers) which is used to teach English at these schools in the second semester The lessons with CLT approach includes the following grammar points: Relative clauses, Passive voice, Tag questions and Cleft sentences 11 Questionnaire and interview The questionnaire and interview were designed to investigate the effectiveness of teaching English grammar with competencybased language teaching approach Questionnaire included 12 questions Informants were requested to rate each item according to their assessment of the agreement on a 5-point scale, ranking from strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree to strongly disagree Then, the author chose 25 students randomly from schools to join an interview There were interview questions to explore more and Đ ensure the questionnaire result ại To ensure the reliability and validity of these two họ questionnaires, the questionnaires items were tested as follows Ten participants were randomly chosen They, then were asked to tell in c their own words what specific items mean Through this process, the Đ researcher could identify items that may not have a clear meaning to the respondent participants, and could adjust them accordingly N Observation g ẵn The class observation was carried out in three classes – 11/1 (To Huu High School), 11C1 (Tay Giang High School) and 11C1 (Quang Trung High School) The researcher taught and observed students at Tay Giang High School Furthermore, English teachers at To Huu High School and Quang Trung High School delivered lesson in these schools with the same lesson plans and the author observed and took notes 3.4.3 Data analysis Among aforementioned methods, the result of tests and questionnaire act as the chief methods of gathering data, whereas interview and Field notes served as the supplement to any other 12 confirmation of the findings To be more detailed, data collected from questionnaires, interview and test were put into table and transformed into percentage This aims at finding which problems in English grammar instruction were solved thanks to demo lessons with CLT approach Then, the results were visualized through bar chart for the sake of analyzing and retrieving data Field notes were considered carefully after each lesson to analyze the attitude, students’ participation and their performance in Đ the demo lessons ại 3.4.4 Research procedure họ This study was carried out as follows: Step 1: Researched about topics such as communicative communication methods, c grammar, communicative language Đ teaching and the new general education program Step 2: Designed tests (Pre-test and Post-tests), Step 3: Analyzed Pre-test results g ẵn N questionnaire, interview questions and field notes Step 4: Designed demo lesson plans, applied them in classes and observed to take notes Step 5: Do survey by questionnaire and interview Step 6: Analyzed results from questionnaire, interview and observation 3.5 RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY For the validity and reliability of the instruments to be used, the researcher discussed the issue at stake with some experienced E.F.L teacher trainers and inspectors They were asked to judge the appropriateness and relevance of each instrument item for the 13 overall purpose of the study This led to the reformulation of some items for clarity and conciseness sake The population of researching is also clearly defined The research has enough participants and that they are representative of the population The results obtained from the data collecting process are precise, stable and reproducible Research method is planned carefully and the research conditions are standardized to keep the circumstances as consistent Đ as possible to reduce the influence of external factors that might ại create variation in the results c họ Đ g ẵn N 14 Chapter four FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 FINDINGS 4.1.1 Analysis on Pre-Test and Post-Tests results 4.1.1.1 Pre-test and Post-Test (P1) results 4.1.1.1.1 Result of Speaking Tests 4.1.1.1.2 Result of Writing Tests 4.1.1.2 Pre-test and Post-Test (P2) results Đ 4.1.1.2.1 Result of Speaking Tests ại 4.1.1.2.2 Result of Writing Tests 4.1.1.3 Analysis on two Post-tests results (P1 and P2) họ 4.1.1.3.1 Result of Speaking Tests c 4.1.1.3.2 Result of Writing Tests Đ 4.1.2 Analysis on Survey Questionnaires 4.1.3 Analysis on the result of Interview At the end of the second-term, an interview was conducted to N directly collect students’ opinions about demo lessons 25 students at g ẵn different levels were chosen to join the five-question interview 4.1.3.1 The interest in the lessons 4.1.3.2 The favorite lessons 4.1.3.3 The benefits from CLT grammar lessons 4.1.3.4 The problems that students facing when taking part in communicative grammar lessons 4.1.3.5 The students’ cooperation in the future 4.1.4 Analysis on the results of Observation Results of Observation were from author’s class and author’s colleague’s classes where the demo lessons were applied The field 15 notes indicate as follows: 4.1.4.1 Teachers Teachers usually prepare handouts and worksheet form so that students can fill in the blanks and answer the questions to summarize the main content of the lesson and report the results Moreover, teaching aids are prepared according to each activity Especially, PowerPoint software is also used to make the lesson more interesting and attractive The lessons are conducted in 3P (Presentation, Practice, Đ Production) process with Warm-up in the opening In the ại Presentation part, teachers elicit the content of the lesson in many họ ways to help students acquire new knowledge themselves based on the teacher’s questions and leading In Practice and Production, c teachers organize variety of communicative activities such as Đ discussion, making conversation, picture description, storytelling, playing games, doing survey and reporting including four basic skills N (reading, speaking, listening and writing) g ẵn Teachers give instruction clearly before each activity and check student’s understanding to make sure they know what they are going to Furthermore, the teachers also go around to control students’ activities and offer helps In addition, after each assignment, teachers let participants peer-correction before receiving teachers’ feedback However, there are two problems that teachers face during class Firstly, some activities designed in class are time-consuming, which makes the lessons overtime Secondly, teacher’s controlling is not large enough so some students are not involved in the activities 16 4.1.4.2 Students Most of the students in class are fascinated to experience the lessons because they smile a lots and their faces are not stressful Moreover, their involvement in the lesson is over ¾ of the students in class Most of them take part in each activity with energetic and enthusiastic spirit Many of students show their potential in language competence and communicative skills through discussion, presentation and group-work Đ In addition, the later lessons are, the more confident students ại feel so they become more and more willing to take part in the c họ activities in classroom Nevertheless, few of students still meet some difficulties in achieving the grammar points in CLT lessons Firstly, it takes them a lot of time at the beginning to understand and focus on the lessons Secondly, some activities are difficult, which may be challenge to go on with them so some of learners are bored and uncooperative during the class 4.2 DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS 4.2.1 The level in English communicative competence of High school students in the northern mountainous districts of Quang Nam province Since the assessment of tests is based on the format of B1 test, the other criteria are included in the result analysis beside grammar points Furthermore, the most important reason is that the aim of this study is helping students not only achieve English grammar but also improve their language proficiency, and develop communicative competence and meet the requirement of the new general education program Đ g ẵn N 17 Table 4.9 Grammar mistakes on Pre-speaking test Part Word Grammar Mistakes Tenses of Singular/plural Passive Cleft Tag Relative voice sentences questions clauses 90 79 88 91 Articles order 82 99 86 97 ại Occurrence Đ speech 83 Table 4.10 Result of Pre-speaking test on other criteria họ Criteria Not so good Good Vocabulary 102 Discourse management 113 c 85% Pronunciation 98 81.7% Interactive communication 92 76.7% 94.2% Mostly good 11.7% 3.3% 4.2% 1.7% 20 16.7% 1.7% 19.2% 4.2% Passive Cleft Relative voice sentences clauses 78 95 Đ 14 23 N Table 4.11 Grammar mistakes on Pre-writing test Mistakes 99 Word Word Singular/ order of class plural 93 88 90 Articles 96 g Occurrence Tenses ẵn Grammar 86 18 Table 4.12 Result of Pre-writing test on other criteria Criteria Not so good Content 113 Đ communicative achievement 97 88 Mostly good 94.2% 4.2% 1.7% 91.7% 5.8% 2.5% 80.8% 21 17.5% 1.7% 22 18.3% 10 8.3% họ vocabulary ại organization 110 Good 73.3% c Đ g ẵn N 19 According to Table 4.9 and Table 4.11, the number of grammar mistakes occurring in Speaking and Writing Test is high with diverse areas although they have learnt English since they were in grade The results from Table 4.10 and Table 4.12 reveal that students are unable to write and speak English fluently Your vocabulary is poor (85% Not so good in Speaking Test and 73.3% in Writing Test) and there are a lot of drawbacks in their pronunciation (81.7% of Not so good) It is hard for them to organize the ideas in a discourse or an essay Moreover, most of them are shy and lack of Đ confident so they find it difficult to express their ideas and interact ại with the judge and their partners Some of them keep silent or say họ fragment of words Furthermore, their language proficiency is so limited that 94,2% of participants can not fulfil their writing test c They show a low level of communicative English competence two reasons Firstly, they are instructed English in a Đ because of traditional way so the English achievement is not effective Secondly, N they live and study in a remote area where there are not enough study g ẵn conditions as well as communicative environment Therefore, they not have many opportunities to practice and use English regularly 4.2.2 The application of Teaching English Grammar with CLT approach in class The grammar lessons in the second semester with CLT approach are applied as an intervention solution to above problems The author designs seven lessons (Appendix 2) in Relative clauses (Defining relative clauses – Non-defining relative clauses; Relative pronouns with prepositions; Reducing relative clauses; The omission of relative pronouns); Cleft sentences; Tag questions and Structures “It is said that …”/ “People say that …” These lessons are chosen 20 because they are in the syllabus of standardized educational program and they are related to the grammar mistakes in student’s Pre-test Each lesson is organized in three main steps (Presentation – Practice – Production) with various activities to make as many as chances for students to experience and enjoy the lessons 4.2.2.1 Description of applied CLT grammar lesson in Unit (Defining-relative clauses and Non-defining relative clauses)4.2.2.2 Description of applied CLT grammar lesson in Unit 10 (Relative pronouns with prepositions) Đ 4.2.2.3 Description of applied CLT grammar lesson in Unit ại 11 (Relative clauses replaced by participles and to infinitives) họ 4.2.2.4 Description of applied CLT grammar lesson in Unit 12 (Revision of Relative clauses - Omission of relative pronouns) c 4.2.2.5 Description of applied CLT grammar lesson in Unit Đ 13 (Cleft sentences) 4.2.2.6 Description of applied CLT grammar lesson in Unit N 15 (Tag questions) g ẵn 4.2.2.7 Description of applied CLT grammar lesson in Unit 16 (“It is said that …”/ “People say that …”) As mentioned in the findings of Observation and Questionnaire, CLT approach in demo English grammar lessons brings positive outcomes Although both teachers and students face to some obstacles during lessons, it is unquestionable that this approach is beneficial for students to acquire English Students not only feel interested in the lessons but also have chances and motivation to practice and improve their language competence and personal skills 21 4.2.3 The students’ progress after experiencing the models of teaching English grammar with competency-based language teaching approach According to the analyzed test results, a decrease in the grammar mistakes is seen in the post-tests Moreover, the proportion of “Good” and “Mostly good” after experiencing demo lessons climbs dramatically while there is a significant fall in “Not so good” item Students are not shy anymore and feel more confident Furthermore, participants not only achieve the grammar points easily Đ but also improve their previous drawbacks naturally Last but not ại least, the information from the test results indicates the agreement họ that students make a real progress step by step in language competence after joining the lessons with competency-based c language teaching approach Đ g ẵn N 22 Chapter five CONCLUSION 5.1 Summary of the development of the study According to the key findings, the study summarizes these following main points: - Firstly, the evaluation of pre-test results shows that English communicative competence of High school students in mountainous districts of Quang Nam province is considered not being so good and need to be improved since they made so many mistakes in grammar Đ points and other criteria in the proficiency test ại - Secondly, the results of the questionnaire, interview and họ observation reflect the CLT approach’s benefits and students’ positive attitude toward the application CLT in teaching grammar c lessons for high school students in the mountainous districts of Đ Quang Nam province - Finally, the findings from post-tests indicate the students’ N progress in communicative competence after attending grammar g ẵn lessons with CLT approach Therefore, communicative activities in class play an important role to help students enhance their language competence Without any shadow of a doubt, suggested lessons utilized in this study facilitates opportunities for participants to develop their English communicative competence 5.2 Implications 5.2.1 Implication for Teachers The results of this thesis is advisable for English teachers that learners always need a reason to study a language and communicative environment is play an indispensable to help student achieve their goal in acquiring English journey Therefore, teachers 23 should design and organize English lessons in competency-based language teaching approach with various activities such as roleplaying, discussing, debating, reporting and so on Moreover, it is essential to update knowledge and integrate communicative assignments for language classes, especially during grammar lessons to make them more lively and attractive Hopefully, the demo lessons as presented in this paper are some of relevance to the on-going endeavor for bridging the gap between learners in disadvantages areas and the international language Đ 5.2.2 Implications for Students ại The major findings of this study imply several things that are họ beneficial for students to get better outcomes in learning English The method used in this research helps learners not only be eager to learn c but also refine four basic skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking) Đ and develop their communicative language competence Students had better cultivate themselves language proficiency and communicative N competence through the process of learning English Although g ẵn students have some difficulties at the beginning, they will recognize that they understand the lessons easily and make a progress lesson by lesson 5.3 Limitations Unfortunately, it is plausible that a number of limitations might have influenced the results obtained Firstly, the period of time for interfering research is short so students not have lots of chances experiencing lessons with communicative activities, which is the reason for the test result’s limitation The second issue is related to the number of participants This study is just carried out with the involvement of 120 students at three high schools in the mountainous 24 districts so the author has not explored on the whole all students’ competence Finally, reference materials for competency-based language teaching is limit, which makes it difficult to build theoretical background and design class activities 5.4 Recommendations Teachers should go on utilizing and integrating communicative activities in English class regularly to create communicative environment for learn practice and develop their language competence Đ Students should be encouraged to take advantages of these ại lessons to cultivate their English proficiency, language skills and as họ well as other competences It would be better if the next studies focus on approaches to c enhance students’ communicative competence through other Đ language skills in different areas g ẵn N ... 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