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MAJOR DIFFICULTIES IN APPLYING CLT ACTIVITIES TO THE LANGUAGE TEACHING AT HAI PHONG UNIVERSITY Do Thi Kiem* ABSTRACT Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been widely regarded as an advanced teach[.]
MAJOR DIFFICULTIES IN APPLYING CLT ACTIVITIES TO THE LANGUAGE TEACHING AT HAI PHONG UNIVERSITY Do Thi Kiem* ABSTRACT Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been widely regarded as an advanced teaching approach in the language teaching Therefore, CLT has been applied in many educational institutions and other language teaching contexts However, how effective it is to both the teachers and the students and whether there are any difficulties in using it in teaching and leaming are still debatable Using questionnaire survey, the author of this research attempts to find out the major difficulties the teachers of English at Hai Phong University (HPU) have in applying CLT activities in their teaching practice with a view to making appropriate recommendations to improve the language teaching and learning quality Key words: CLT, difficulties, approach K H O KHAN CHINH KHI AP DUNG H O ^ T D Q N G DAY HOC GIAO TIEP TRONG GIANG DAY NGOAI N G C TAI TRlTOfNG D>^ H O C HAI PHONG TOM TAT Dgy hpc theo dudng hudng giao tiep di dupe cdng nhan rdng rai li mgt phuang phip tiln tien, hiiu qui dgy hpc ndi chung va dgy ngdn ngCr ndi rieng Do vay, phuang phap dugc ap dung rong rai tai cae ca sd dio tao vi mdi trudng day ngdn ngii Tuy nhien, edn nhieu tranh luan ve miic dp hieu qui cua phuang phip niy vi nhiing khd khan ma ci ngudi dgy vi ngudi hpc thudng gap qui trinh ap dung phuang phap niy vio boat ddng day vi hpc Ap dung phuang phip khio sat, tic gii tim hiiu nhiing khd khan ehinh giing vien tilng Anh, tmdng Dai hpe Hii Phong (DHHP) thudng gap ip dung hogt ddng dgy hpe theo dudng hudng giao tiep tiong giing day, tii tie gii mgnh dan dua nhiing dl xuat dl ning eao ehat lupng day va hpctiengAnh eho sinh viln trudng DHHP Td'khoa: dgy hpe theo dudng hudng giao tiep, khd khan, phuang phap ' ThS Khoa Ngo^i ngu 50 TRUONGDAIHOCHAIPHONG LITERATURE REVIEW INTRODUCTION Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is gaining its considerable popularity in education in general and in language teaching in particular It has been widely regarded as an advanced teaching approach with numerous benefits to both teachers and students Therefore, it has been applied in many educational mstitutions and language teaching contexts However, how to use CLT effectively in language classes and which difficulties the teachers meet in the application of CLT in their class are an open question for both language teachers and researchers As a teacher of English at HPU, the author of this article has attempted to apply a variety of CLT activities m her language classes and faced such difficulties as students' low raotivation in study, their poor language background, their retusal to work in pairs and groups, big class size, lack of modem teaching equipment and the confusion of the author herself when designing and organizing CLT activities With a view to investigating the problems her colleagues face in their teaching and making a minor contribution to the improvement of the CLT application in their own language teaching context, the author conducted a mmor survey within the small group of teachers of English at FLD, HPU The research aimed at answermg the following two What major difficulties the teachers of English at FLD, HPU face when using CLT activities in their language teaching? What should be done to make the application of CLT activities at HPU more practical and effective? 2.1 Definitions and characteristics of Communicative Language Teaching Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which is an approach to the teaehmg of second and foreign languages, emphasizes interaction and problem - solving skills as both the means and the ultimate goal of leaming a language It is also referred to as "Communicative Approach" Historically, CLT has been seen as a response to the Audio-Lingual Method (ALM), and as an extension or development of the NotionalFunctional Syllabus CLT makes use of real-life situations that necessitate communication The teacher sets up a situation that students are likely to encounter in real Hfe Unlike the audio-lmgual method of language teaching, which relies on repetition and drills, the communieative approach can leave students in suspense as to the outcome of a class exercise, which will vary according to then reactions and responses The real-life simulations changefiroraday to day Students'raotivationto leara coraesfi-omtheir desire to communicate in meaningfiil ways about meaningfiil topics CLT tends to emphasize activities such as role play, pair work and group work It switched tiaditional language teachmg's emphasis on grammar and the teacher-centered classroom to that ofthe active use of authentic language in learning and acquisition CLT is interested in givmg students the skills to be able to eoramimicate under various circumstances As sueh, it places less emphasis on the leaming of specific gramraatical mles and more on obtaining native-speaker-like fluency and pronunciation Students are assessed on their level of communicative competence rather than on their explicit knowledge TAP c m KHOA HOC, S6 21, thdng 03/2017 | 51 InaCLT class, learners are given opportunities to negotiate meaning in class A CLT class is leamer-eentered Farfi-ombemg a transmitter of knowledge, the teacher is a facilitator Far from having rainimal teaeher-student interaction, a communieative classroom holds such interaction to be indispensable Characterized by high participation, the CLT classroom becomes a place for students to engage in meaningful language use Authentic materials, fiinctional tasks, and group and pair work are significant aspects of CLT Actually, CLT is more of an approach or philosophy than a highly stmctured methodology David Nunan (1999) famously listed five key elements to the communicative approach: An emphasis on leaming to comraimicate through interaction in the tgrget language The introduction of authentic texts into the learnmg situation The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on the language but also on the leaming process itself An enhancement of the learner's own personal experiences as important contributing elements to elassroora leaming An atterapt to link elassroora language leaming with language activation outside the classroom 2.2 Changes in the role of teacher and students Teachers in eomraunicative classes will find themselves talking less and listening raore - becoming active facilitators of their students' leaming (Larsen-Freeraan, 1986) The teacher sets up the exercise, but because the students' performance is the goal, the teacher must step back and observe, sometimes acting 52 I TRUONGDAIHOCHAIPHONG as a referee or a monitor A classroom during a eomraunicative activity is far fi-om quiet, however The students most ofthe speaking, andfi^equentlythe scene of a classroom during a communicative exercise is active, with students leaving their seats to complete a task Because of the increased responsibility to participate, students may find they gain confidence in usmg the target language in general Students areraoreresponsible managers of their own leaming (Larsen-Freeraan, 1986) Communicative language teaching emphasizes "self-dueetion for the learners" (Oxford, 1990, p 10) As tiie teacher will not be around to guide them the whole time, especially not when the leamers speak the language outside the classroom, they are expected to take on a greater degree of responsibility for their own learning According to Oxford, "this is essential to the active development of the new language" (1990, p.4) The learner should enter into situations where communication takes place as much as possible to increase his or her eoramunicative proficiency Teachers no longer rely on activities that require repetition, accuracy and the meraorization of sentences and grammatical pattems; instead, they require the learners to negotiate meaning and to interact meaningfiilly in the new language Leamers have to participate in elassroora activities based on a cooperative rather than individualistic approach to leaming; they need to listen to then peers in order to cany out group work suceessfiilly The teacher adopts different roles On the one hand she is a "facilitator, a guide and a helper" and on the other hand a "coordinator, an idea-person and a co-coraraunicator" (Oxford, 1990, p 10) She talks less and listens more to the students' output In addition to that, the teacher also identifies the students' leaming stiategies and helps the students to improve them if necessary and shows them how to work independently Instructional tasks become less important and fade into the background That does not mean that they are not used at all, but with less significance of language, focusing on the formation of correct examples of language and practising language out of context METHODOLOGY 3.1 Participants Twelve teachers chosen randomly fi-om different divisions in FLD, HPU took part in the survey Six of them teach the four language skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing Three work on such theoretical subjects as teaching methodology, English literature, phonetics ete The rest working in the Division of ESP teach basic English and ESP for nonEnglish majors all around HPU Their average age ranges fi-om 27 to 50 and they have been teaching EngHsh for 4-27 years Most of the 2.3 Typical CLT activities Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) participants have attempted to use CLT activities emphasizes activities such as role play, pair in their classes All of them gave detailed work and group work, all of which share the descriptions of their experience in using CLT theory in their classes following features: 3.2 Data collection instruments, procedure showing the desue to comraimicate; and preliminary results serving the communicative purpose; Survey questionnaire was employed to focusing on fluency not on the content; collect the information for the study using variety of language; A questionnaire consisting of both open and These changes give the teacher more scope for variety and creativity and she gives up her status as aperson of authority in a teaeher-leamer hierarchy It is the teacher's responsibility to be creative and prepare appropriate materials at home The teacher ean also assume other roles, for exaraple the needs analyst, the counselor or the group process manager (Richards & Rodgers, 2001) having no or little teachers' intervention close questions was designed in sueh a way that it was easy for the participants to give authentic information and the researcher to analyze it as follows: afterwards The participants were asked to give Task - completion activities: puzzles, games, their fiill names jn order that the researcher eould map reading cite them in her analysis and the information Information gathering activities: survey, could be raore reliable, interview The questionnaire was delivered to the Information - tiansfer activities: questions participants and retumed afterwards The and answers completed survey questioruiaires were processed Fluency activities: information gap, jig-saw, thoroughly by means of both quantitative and qualitative data analysis opinion sharing, reasoning gap There may be a wide range of CLT activities Accuracy activities: reflecting classroom use Apart fi-om the survey, the author also bad TAP CHi KHOA HOC, s a 21, t h a n g 03/2017 | 53 many informal talks to the twelve participants about tiie topic of using CLT in teaching English at HPU with a view to gathering extia information about the situation The results fiora the survey questionnaire revealed that the difficulties the participants faced could be put into sueh three major groups as those caused by the students, by the teachers and by the schooling system The next section discusses these difficulties in detail RESULTS 4.1 Difficulties caused by students Students were the most often mentioned as a source of difficulties in applying CLT They had the following problems: Their English competence is very low They refiise to participate in leaming activities in class They have no or little motivation for being a fluent speaker Seven of the twelve participants referred to students' reluctance and even refusal to class participation Informal talks with these participants revealed that they blamed this for the students' anxiety, laziness, and unfarnilianty with coramuiucative lessons They said that the students tended to feel like working as a whole instead of working in pairs and groups and that they were afi-aid of raaking mistakes and losing face with even theh group mates and pair partners When being put in pairs and groups, raany students did nothing but laze around Thus, raost ofthe teachers have found it hard to use group work and discussions in their lessons Six of the twelve teachers reported a lack of student raotivation for language fluency Most students seem to be concerned with passing exams,raanyof which not test eomraunicative competence This seemed serious m the case of the teachers working on basic English and ESP because the tests for non-English majors put more emphasis on grammar rules and reading skills Another reason is that most jobs in Vietnam not require fluency in English Even if they pass the exams with good results, it is because they want to get a pay rise in their present job or to get a better job, but that does not often seem to include real language fluency Laziness and apathy were also mentioned as components of this problem It appears that many students are too lazy in class and show no interest in the leaming activities even if they are put in sueh pairs and groups They tend to use Vietnamese while taking part in leaming activities Eleven of the twelve participants mentioned the students' low English competence At first, these teachers were optimistic that the student's English was good enough for them to organize CLT activities in class Then they discovered that the students could not understand the instmetions in English let alone use the target language to take part in these activities The Nine among the 12 teachers raentioned the obvious reason for the students' poor language problems of students using Vietnamese in all ability is that they just focused on domg grammar kinds of leaming activities in class This difficulty and reading exercises at high school in order to once again was said to have resulted from the pass the national exam mstead of developing students' laziness, apathy, fears of making sueh practical language skills as listening, mistakes and their poor English competence speakuig, reading and writing and that for many They find communication easier in Vietnamese students English was not their major subject at than in English, thus they tend to speak their high school mother tongue instead ofthe target language 54 I TRUONGDAIHOCHAIPHONG 4.2 Difficulties caused by teachers The participants blamed themselves for the difficulties in applying CLT theory in their classes Their biggest problems were the lack of CLTti-ainingand time to develop CLT materials and activities for their lessons It is sad that all of the participants reported that they had sufficient knowledge of CLT, but six of thera stated that they had not been updated and tiained very often That's why they were puzzled and confused to design and organize CLT activities in their classes Informal talks with these teachers also showed that they had not been to workshops on CLT for a long tune, even one participant with teaching experience of years confessed that he had never been to such a workshop or conference on CLT and that what he was doing now in his class was based on what he had learned at university students Eleven of the twelve participants reported this difficulty, which seeraed worse to teachers working on basic English and ESP with big closes and the fixed seating arrangement in small classrooms where it was impossible to rearrange the desks With so many students in big class learning in a smaU classroom, it was very difficult for the teachers to monitor pair work and group work activities The second problem was related to the lack of teaching equipment Mostly, classrooms were equipped with lights and ceiling fans only There were only overhead projectors in FLD and the teachers had to take it in tum to use them Thus, the teachers' use of modem teaching aids in their lessons was not a daily practice, which prevented the CLT activities from being successfully applied in their work 4.3 Bifficulties caused by the schooling system The final problems was the grammarbased syllabus and exams mentioned by seven participants While the teachers were encouraged to apply CLT theory in their classes with a view to boosting students' communieative skills, the syllabuses and exams of raany subjects were designed in such a way that they focused on and tested students' grammar knowledge or the knowledge of their field That was why the students were not interested in the CLT activities in class Instead, they focused on leaming in their own way with a view to passing the exams, which usually resulted in repeated failures The traditional schooling system was also regarded by the participants as a big source of difficulties for language teachers to use CLT activities in their classes Most of the teachers taking part in the survey agreed on the three major problems fi-om the existing seboolmg system as foflows From the analysis on the difficulties the teachers at FLD, HPU had in the application of CLT theory in their teaching practice, the author would like to raake the recommendations as follows The first problem was the big classes with the average class size ranging fi-om 35 to 60 Firstiy, students should be helped to overcome their psychological problems such Nine of the twelve participants reported that they had too little time to develop CLT materials because they had to overwork to fiilfiU the teaching tasks given by the university authorities Five participants also mentioned lack of CLT materials and three referred to the fact that they had few opportunities to learn how to use CLT and there were few people with expertise and experience of CLT to ask for help CONCLUSION TAP c m KHOA HOC, S6 21, t h a n g 03/2017 | 55 as shyness and fears, so that they feel safe and that should be redesigned so that they are in line interested in their EngHsh lessons They should with the CLT approach which is what we need to also releara about their role as leamers in a CLT enhance students' communicative competence class, where they are expected to actively take One more important recommendation related to part in leaming activities instead of taking in the the management and arrangement of our existing knowledge given by the lecturers By doing this, education system is that classes should be rauch the students are self-motivated in then leaming smaller than those now and classrooms should process be redesigned with raore flexibly arranged Secondly, teachers who are eager to use desks and seats so that they ean be rearranged CLT theory in their teaching should first have in the raost effective way for both teachers and opportunities to be upgraded with the up-to-date students knowledge of CLT and trained how to design CLT raaterials and hold CLT activities Then they should have chances to refiise to overwork so that they can devote tirae and efforts to designing interesting learning activities for students and doing further ttaining The author strongly suggests that the Management Board of HPU recruit at least 10 more teachers of English to solve the problems of the existing staff overworking and doing insufficient research and having too little further training Finally, it is the training eurriculums and tests In conclusion, this minor research has attempted to find out the biggest difficulties the teachers of English at FLD, HPU have in applying CLT theory in their teaching In order for CLT approach to be implemented effectively Ul the language lessons, a lot of things need to be done as mentioned in the aforementioned recommendations The results of this research also implies that there should be fiirther studies on how these changed ean be made m FLD, HPU in order to enhance the language teaching and leaming qualities REFERENCES ! Larsen - Freeraan, D (1968), Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching, Oxford University Press OUP, 2"'' edition Nunan, D (1999), Second Language Teaching & Learning, Heinle & Heinle Publisher Nunan, D (2012), Learner-centered English Language Education, Routledge Oxford, R (1990), Oxford's strategy classification system, Heinle & Heinle Publisher Oxford, R (1990), Language Learning Strategies: What every teacher should know, Heinle & Heinle Publisher Richard, J C & Rogers, T S (2001), Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press CUP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLT https://www.teaehingenglish.org.uk/artiele/comraunicative-approaeh Ngdy nhqn bdi: 20/01/2017 Ngdy PB ddnh gid: 10/02/2017 Ngdy duyit ddng: 11/02/2017 56 I TRUONGDAIHOCHAIPHONG ... to designing interesting learning activities for students and doing further ttaining The author strongly suggests that the Management Board of HPU recruit at least 10 more teachers of English to