STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ******************* ĐỖ THỊ MAI HƯƠNG USING WARM–UP ACTIVIT[.]
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ******************* ĐỖ THỊ MAI HƯƠNG USING WARM–UP ACTIVITIES TO RAISE THE INTEREST IN SPEAKING CLASSES OF THE 11TH GRADERS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT NGUYEN DUC THUAN HIGH SCHOOL (Sử dụng hoạt động khởi động để tạo hứng thú học nói cho học sinh lớp 11: Một nghiên cứu hành động trường THPT Nguyễn Đức Thuận) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HÀ NỘI – 2016 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ******************* ĐỖ THỊ MAI HƯƠNG USING WARM–UP ACTIVITIES TO RAISE THE INTEREST IN SPEAKING CLASSES OF THE 11TH GRADERS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT NGUYEN DUC THUAN HIGH SCHOOL (Sử dụng hoạt động khởi động để tạo hứng thú học nói cho học sinh lớp 11: Một nghiên cứu hành động trường THPT Nguyễn Đức Thuận) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Assoc.Prof Nguyễn Văn Độ HÀ NỘI – 2016 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and effort and that has not been submitted anywhere for any award I certify that the thesis “Using warm-up activities to raise the interest in speaking classes of the 11th graders: An action research project at Nguyen Duc Thuan High School” is the result of my own study and that it has not been submitted to any other university or institution wholly or partially : Hanoi, 2016 ĐỖ THỊ MAI HƯƠNG i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to Assoc.Prof Nguyen Van Do, my honorable supervisor for his great guidance and encouragement without which the study would not be completed His patience and the amount of time he spent on revising manuscripts with muddled up contents have been truly appreciated Besides, his sense of thoughtful criticism and recognition of the work have played a crucial role to the progress and completion of this study I also take this opportunity to express my thankfulness to all of my course instructors and lecturers of University of Foreign Languages and International Studies - Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their valuable advice and suggestions throughout my study In addition, I am appreciative of the English teachers and my students of class 11A and 11C at Nguyen Duc Thuan High School for their wholehearted cooperation in involving in the lessons and participating in questionnaires which gave great help to form a significant part of this study Last but not least, my heartfelt gratitude goes to all those who have kindly advised and helped me towards the completion of my study report ii ABSTRACT In the globalization age today, English assumes as a more and more important part as a means of international communication than ever Therefore, in some recent years, the focus of teaching has been promoting oral skills in order to respond to the students‟ needs for effective communication However, due to some objective and subjective reasons, teaching and learning English in general and teaching and learning speaking in particular does not come up to the study aims How to teach and learn speaking effectively is still a challenging question to both teachers and students at many high schools in Vietnam It is also the question that has inspired me to investigate the use of warm-up activities to motivate 11th grade students to speak in speaking lessons In attempt to increase students‟ motivation in English speaking activities at Nguyen Duc Thuan High School, the reseaerchers aims to find out the students‟ attitude towards warm-up activities as well as their effectiveness in enhancing students‟ interest in speaking skill, and the suggestions for teachers to apply warm-up activities at Nguyen Duc Thuan High School To find the answers to these questions, an action research project was carried out through several steps, using a combination of two data collection instruments: class observation, students‟ pre-task survvey questionnaire and post-task survey questionnaire The result showed that the students‟ interest increased significantly when warm-up activities were implemented It is hoped that this thesis will be found of value to those who have great interest in using warm-up activities in speaking lessons iii TABLE OF CONTENT STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii LIST OF APPENDICES viiii LIST OF TABLES ix LIST OF CHARTS x PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Aims and significance of the study Scope of the study Method and procedure Organization of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Speaking skill 1.1 Definition of speaking 1.2 Significance of speaking 1.3 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity Overview of current teaching and learning ESL learning situation in Vietnam 2.1 Current teaching and learning ESL learning situation in Vietnam 2.2 Problems of teaching and learning speaking skill in Vietnam Warm-up activities 10 2.1 Definition of warm-up activities 10 2.2 Principles of Warm-up Activity 11 iv 2.3 Significance of warm- up activities 12 Related studies 12 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 15 2.1 Action research 15 2.2 The action research procedure 16 2.3 Setting of the study 17 2.4 Participants 17 2.5 Data collection methods 18 2.5.1 Survey questionnaires 18 2.5.2 Observation 18 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS OF DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 20 3.1 Data collected from pre-task survey questionnaire 20 3.1.1 Students raise their great awareness of the importance of speaking skill 20 3.1.2 Students show their low interest in speaking skill 21 3.1.3 Students passively participate in speaking activities 23 3.1.4 Warm–up activities were not often organized in speaking lessons in grade 10: 24 3.2 Data collected from post-task survey questionnaire and observation 25 3.2.1 Students’ attitude towards warm–up activities 25 3.2.1.1 Students show great excitement during warm–up activities 25 3.2.1.2 Warm–up activities help increase students’ motivation during speaking activities 27 3.2.2 Students’ high involnement in warm–up activities and speaking lessons 28 3.2.2.1 Warm–up activities foster students’ participation in the lesson 28 3.2.2.2 Warm–up activities motivate students to involve in speaking activities within the lesson 29 v 3.2.2.3 Warm–up activities boost the students’ interest in speaking in general 30 3.2.3 Students highly value the use of warm–up activities in speaking lessons 31 3.2.4 Students' preferences for the use of warm-up activities 32 3.2.4.1 Students' preference for the use of warm-up activities 32 3.2.4.2 Students' expectation for the use of warm-up activities 33 PART C: CONCLUSION 34 Recapitulation 34 Recommendations 35 Limitation and suggestion for further study 35 REFERENCES 37 APPENDIX I I APPENDIX II VIII APPENDIX III IX APPENDIX IV XI vi EFL LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS English as a foreign language ESL English as a second language vii APPENDIX I: LIST OF APPENDICES SAMPLE GAMES USED IN WARM-UP ACTIVITIES IN SPEAKING LESSONS APPENDIX II: PRE-TASK SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE APPENDIX III: POST-TASK SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE APPENDIX IV: OBSERVATION SHEET viii if the teacher does not organize right and positive activities, the speaking a language will become more and more boring According to Byrne (1991), while listening and reading are regarded as receptive skills, speaking and writing are productive skill Speaking not only helps students to communicate well and exchange information and culture with others but also promote the integration of speaking, listening, reading and writing in the ways that reflect natural language use From these points, it is apparent that speaking skill is one of the most necessary skills in language teaching program It suits the development rules of human beings as one can speak before he can read and write That is the reason why speaking skill should be taught in the language room 1.3 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity There have been many arguments about what a successful speaking activity is These following characteristics of a successful speaking activity which introduced by Ur (1996, p 120) are accepted: The first characteristic is that learners talk a lot It is very important for teachers to know how to get students talk in the target language as much as possible in the time of the activity A speaking activity cannot be considered to be successful if most of the class time is taken up with the teacher talk or pauses and very few chances are for students‟ talk when carrying out it The second one is high motivation It is one of the most important criteria to evaluate a speaking activity How to create high motivation to students in class and to make the classroom dynamic is the matter that teachers should pay much attention to when conducting an activity because it is these factors that lead students to study effectively To achieve these, activities used in class must be interesting, i.e they are in favor of the students, right for students‟ interests, and they must be carried out in group work, pair work or class work Teachers of English, therefore, should be more careful and wholehearted when planning lessons The third one is even participation It means that classroom discussion attracts equal contribution of all students Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority of talkative participants All get a chance to speak, and contributions are fairly evenly distributed Indeed, uneven partipation may badly affect the improvement of speaking ability of the students because some worse students have a few practices and day by day they may loose their confidence Last but not least, it is necessary for teachers to remember that language of speaking activities must be at the acceptable level In other words, their language should be relevant to students‟ degree, easily comprehensible to students and of an acceptable level of language accuracy Obviously, if the language is too difficult, students will be afraid and pressed when they try to speak English or they may not enjoy these activities Overview of current teaching and learning ESL learning situation in Vietnam 2.1 Current teaching and learning ESL learning situation in Vietnam For some recent years, English has played more and more important part in Vietnam; therefore, it has been taught in Vietnamese high schools as a compulsory subject So far, there have been remarkable changes in the way of teaching and learning English However, English teaching in general and teaching speaking in particular still is far from satisfactory It is claimed that most schools in the system still pay more attention to English grammar, reading and vocabulary (Luu, 2011) As a consequence, listening and speaking skills not seem to be paid much attention in teachers‟ lesson plans Thus, English teaching and learning in Vietnam has strongly remained grammar/examination focused Indeed, most English exams are composed in order to test students‟ knowledge of grammatical structures and vocabulary more than students‟ all rounded skills (Luu, 2011) ... use of warm-up acivities in speaking lessons in order to raise the student'' interest in speaking class Scope of the study The study focuses specifically on using warm-up activities in teaching speaking. .. towards speaking lessons before and after the use of warm-up activities for speaking learning? 2.2 Significance of the study The study highlights the importance of students‟ interest to the speaking. .. Obviously, there are a lot of warm-up activities, which are really useful for teachers The main reasons above lead me to my choice of the subject: ? ?Using warm-up activities to raise the interest in speaking