Output file VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THU HƢƠNG TWELFTH GRADERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF COMMUNICATIVE AND[.]
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THU HƢƠNG TWELFTH GRADERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF COMMUNICATIVE AND NON-COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES IN EFL CLASSROOMS IN BAC LY HIGH SCHOOL (Nhận thức học sinh lớp 12 hoạt động giao tiếp phi giao tiếp trường Trung học phổ thông Bắc Lý) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 HANOI – 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THU HƢƠNG TWELFTH GRADERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF COMMUNICATIVE AND NON-COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES IN EFL CLASSROOMS IN BAC LY HIGH SCHOOL (Nhận thức học sinh lớp 12 hoạt động giao tiếp phi giao tiếp trường Trung học phổ thông Bắc Lý) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Dr Tô Thị Thu Hƣơng HANOI - 2011 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS page DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS vii PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Aims and Objectives of the study Research Questions Scope of the study Methods of the study Significance of the study Structure of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Theoretical background of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) 1.1.1 Definitions of CLT 1.1.2 Characteristics of communicative language teaching 1.2 Communicative and non-communicative activities in language teaching and learning process 1.2.1 Definition of communicative and non-communicative activities 1.2.2 Characteristics of communicative and non-communicative activities 1.2.3 Roles of communicative activities in language teaching and learning 10 1.2.4 The roles of teachers in communicative activities 11 1.2.5 Types of communicative activities 12 v 1.3 Students’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities 14 1.4 Summary 15 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Research approach 17 2.2 Research setting 17 2.3 Subjects 17 2.4 The Textbook English 12 19 2.5 Data collection instruments 20 2.6 Procedures of data collection 21 2.7 Procedures of data analysis 22 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Students’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities 23 3.1.1 Students‟ preference of communicative and non-communicative activities 23 3.1.2 Students‟ opinions of the usefulness of these activities 27 3.2 Students’ perceived difficulties in practicing communicative activities 29 3.2.1 Low English proficiency 29 3.2.2 Traditional learning styles and habits 30 3.2.3 Little motivation for communicative competence 31 3.2.4 EFL settings 31 CHAPTER 4: IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 4.1 To MOET, DOET 33 4.2 To teachers 34 4.3 To students 37 PART C: CONCLUSION 38 REFERENCES 40 APPENDICES I vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT = Communicative Language Teaching DOET = Department of Education and Training ELT = English Language Teaching L2 = Second Language MOET = Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training SLA = Second Language Acquisition vii LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS page Table 1: Students‟ enjoyment of non-communicative activities 24 Table 2: Students‟ enjoyment of communicative activities 24 Table 3: Students‟ opinions of the usefulness of non-communicative activities 28 Table 4: Students‟ opinions of the usefulness of communicative activities 28 Chart 1: Students‟ difficulties in practicing communicative activities 30 PART A- THE INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study The field of second or foreign language teaching has undergone many paradigmatic shifts and methodological trends over the last few decades We have seen the Audiolingual Method, Cognitive-based Approaches, the Total Physical Response, the Natural Approach, Communicative Language Teaching and many others Within the debate on English teaching methodology, the study of Vietnamese students‟ response to CLT, especially classroom activities deserves particular attention Do they enjoy activities involving communication and real use of language? Do they agree that real language activities emphasizing language content are more effective than non-communicative activities that stress formal correction? Do they believe that such activities are helpful to them as language learners? Do they face with any difficulties in practicing these activities? According to Kumaravadivelu (1991, p 107) "the more we know about the learner's personal approaches and personal concepts, the better and more productive our interactions will be." We as teachers should be aware of our students' perceptions and beliefs about language learning in order to facilitate desired learning outcomes in the classroom As suggested by Bada and Okan (2000), there is a need for closer cooperation between students and teachers It is important to remember that learners already critically evaluate what they (Breen, 1989) Teachers can use different strategies to build learners choices into their lessons Teachers and students can have a dialogue and negotiate alternatives, which would definitely lead to more learner involvement and could, therefore, lead to more positive attitudes towards language learning As teachers, at every single moment, we should observe our students' reactions and consider their attitudes and preferences in order to promote a more inclusive climate that will enhance learning In order to deepen our understanding of how students react to communicative and noncommunicative activities, Barkhuisen (1998:86) has called for “teachers to discover their learners‟ feelings and beliefs about their language learning experiences and consequently to review and possibly change their teaching process” Moreover, Vietnamese high school syllabi now keep promoting CLT in an attempt to enable the students to use the target language for communicative purposes instead of mastering its grammatical rules and structures Vietnamese twelfth graders in upper secondary school had five-year experience studying English “communicatively” as English is among the compulsory subjects at secondary schools However, the fact is that after those years of learning English, not many pupils have a clear cut purpose of learning English in their mind and they are likely passively motivated to learn English basing on the textbooks and teachers‟ method of delivery Consequently, most of pupils find themselves unable to use English for day-to-day communication after having passed the English national examination as a requirement for the General Education Diploma In brief, all of the reasons mentioned above have inspired the present study on: “Twelfth graders’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in EFL classrooms in Bac Ly high school” as the title for the thesis in the hope that I can contribute a small part in helping my students and my colleagues to improve their learning and teaching English Aims and objectives of the study With the above-presented rationales, the specific aims and objectives of the study are the followings Firstly, the study carries out an investigation into twelfth grade students‟ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in terms of preference and usefulness Secondly, through the investigation the research will find out the difficulties the students encounter in practicing communicative activities Thirdly, the study will provide possible solutions to these difficulties, thereby improving the quality of English language education in the context of an urban high school Research Questions What are twelfth graders’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in the EFL classrooms? What are students’ perceived difficulties in practicing communicative activities? What are the possible solutions to these difficulties? Scope of the study Due to time constraint, the study limits itself to the investigation on twelfth graders‟ perceptions of non-communicative and communicative activities in EFL classroom in the context of an urban high school, Bac Ly high school Therefore, subjects of the study were teachers of English and students in the twelfth form at Bac Ly high school in Ha Nam province Within the scope of the study, the following issues were addressed: - Students‟ preference of communicative and non-communicative activities (Research question 1) - Students‟ opinions of the usefulness of communicative and non-communicative activities (Research question 1) - Students‟ difficulties in participating in communicative activities (Research question 2) - Implications and recommendations for overcoming these difficulties (Research question 3) Methods of study In this study, a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods were utilized A questionnaire survey was conducted on a sample of students to find answers to research questions and Furthermore, in order to address the limitations of the questionnaire in exploring students‟ perceptions, and to find out their constraints and possible solutions (research questions 3), student semi-structured interviews and teacher group discussions were conducted following the analysis of the questionnaire data Questionnaire data were analyzed quantitatively for descriptive statistics while the interview and discussion data were processed qualitatively following an “interpretive model” (Hatch 2002) for recommended solutions The answers to three research questions provided a picture of students‟ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities as well as their difficulties in doing communicative activities in EFL classrooms and possible solutions Significance of the study English is used more and more to communicative throughout the world MOET have provided a series of new textbooks in order to develop students‟ communicative competence It is said that the textbooks are more useful than the older version, but most of students hardly communicate in English after graduating from high schools and that teachers and authors should adapt and revise these books In such a circumstance, the findings will hopefully aid teachers in their choice of classroom activities and in deciding how learning activities should be arranged and implemented in the classroom while waiting for MOET to make some changes in these books Although the study is intended to investigate students‟ perceptions of noncommunicative and communicative activities in EFL classrooms in an urban high school, which is not researched adequately in the context of Ha Nam-based high schools, the outcome of the study can contribute significantly to our understanding of the issue in high schools with a similar context As such, this study will serve as a reference material not only for teachers of English in Bac Ly high school but also for teachers elsewhere who wish to continually improve the quality of teaching and learning English Structure of the Thesis This paper is divided into three main parts: Part A is the INTRODUCTION In this part, the rationales of the study, the aims, research questions, the scope of the study, methods of the study and also its design are presented Part B is the DEVELOPMENT which includes chapters Chapter I, Literature Review, deals with a theoretical background about the definitions of CLT and its characteristics; definitions, characteristics, roles, types of communicative and non-communicative activities in the process of learning and teaching; the roles of the teacher in communicative and non-communicative types of communicative activities, and previous studies on students‟ perceptions about classroom activities Chapter II, Research Methodology, describes the situation where the study was conducted and the informants involved in the study It includes the teachers of English, the students, and the textbook The data collection instruments, procedures of data collection and data analysis were also presented in this chapter Chapter III, Results and Discussion, presents and discusses the results finding out the students‟ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities and their difficulties in participating in communicative activities Chapter IV, Implications and Recommendations, presents some pedagogical implications of the study and suggestions for overcoming difficulties in practicing communicative activities in the way, which helps students develop their communicative competence in Bac Ly high school activities in which students practice and develop language functions and encourage learners to develop their confidence These characteristics will be the principles for teachers to choose appropriate techniques as well as activities in class to improve the students‟ communicative competence All learning activities should be selected according to how well they engage the students in meaningful and authentic language use rather than only mechanical practice of language patterns to achieve accuracy in language forms 1.2 Communicative and non-communicative activities in language teaching and learning process 1.2.1 Definition of communicative activities and non-communicative activities The goal of language teaching has undergone remarkable changes in recent years Recently, CLT has become predominant with the goal of learning a language for the sake of being bale to use it for communication in real life Along this line, in the language classrooms, both teachers and students try their best to control over the language that students use by organizing it into manageable portions to be developed though communicative and non-communicative activities Then, the question “what are communicative and non-communicative activities?” should be taken into consideration Harmer (1991:50) defines: “Communicative activities are those which exhibit the characteristics at the communicative end of the continuum Students are somehow involved in activities that give them both the desire to communicate and a purpose that involves them in a varied use of the language Such activities are vital in the classroom since here the students can their best to use the language as individuals, arriving at a degree of language autonomy” Non-communicative activities are defined by Snider (2005) as classroom activities that not require the kind of unpredictable exchanges communicative activities produce, including activities that require the learner to comprehend the stimulus without focusing on meaning and drills Nunan (1987) typifies non-communicative activities in terms of grammatical focus, error correction, the extensive use of drill and controlled practice, and interaction which are pseudo-communicative, rather than genuinely communicative Littlewood (1981) attempt to reconcile non-communicative and communicative activities by suggesting that such things as drills, question-and-answer practice and controlled practice have a valid place in the language class as pre-communicative activities which provide learners with the necessary prerequisite skills for more communicative language work 1.2.2 Characteristics of communicative and non-communicative activities Communicative activities are designed to encourage the purposeful and meaningful interaction between students in a language lesson It is, therefore, important for teachers to be fully aware of their characteristics so that they can use them effectively According to Mulling, Sylvia S (1997), activities which are truly communicative meet almost all of the five following criteria: The information transfer principle, whereby some information must be transferred from a sender to a receiver The information gap principle, which requires that the receiver does not already possess the information he or she receives The jigsaw principle, whereby students begin with different pieces of information and finish with the same information The task dependency principle, which requires to create whenever students practice at the levels of controlled and semi-controlled communication before they are ready to perform the activity at the level of free communication The correction for content principle, which argues that during communication the students‟ language production should be judged on its communicative efficacy in relation to a specific task In addition to that, Harmer (1981) lists six distinctive characteristics of communicative activities when they are contrasted with non-communicative ones They are presented in the following way: Non-communicative activities Communicative activities No desire to communicate A desire to communicate No communicative purpose A communicative purpose Form not content Content not form One language item Variety of language Teacher intervention No teacher intervention Materials control No materials control 10 As can be seen from the above table, in communicative activities, students must have a desire to communicate, and there must be some communicative purpose to their communication This implies that the students‟ attention will be focused on the content of what they are saying, rather than the form They will use a wide variety of language, and the teacher will not intervene like telling students they have made mistakes in their English, correct their pronunciation, etc in a communicative activity it is not expected the materials which the students were using would control their language (e.g restrict it to the use of one grammatical form, etc.) These characteristics can apply at one end of a continuum At the other end of the continuum lie non-communicative activities There will be no desire to communicate, nor will students have a communicative purpose Where students are involved in repetition or substitution drills, for example, they will be motivated not by a desire to achieve a communicative objective, but by the need to attain accuracy The emphasis will be on the form of the language, not the content, the teacher will intervene too ensure accuracy, and the materials used will often be designed to concentrate on a particular item of language In summary, it is of great importance to distinguish the characteristics of these two kinds so that teachers and students of a language can make the best use of communicative and non-communicative activities in the process of learning and teaching In addition, language learning can then be judged not according to whether it is communicative, but according to the balance of activities that students are involved 1.2.3 The roles of communicative and non-communicative activities in language teaching and learning Communicative activities are considered as the most useful forms of foreign language practice in the classroom Thanks to them, learners are provided with many opportunities to practice the language they have learnt in a communicative way According to Littlewood (1981), communicative activities are indispensable in the process of language teaching and learning for the following roles Firstly, communicative activities provide “whole-task practice” With such advantage, language teachers should design various activities in order to suit the learners‟ level of ability Secondly, communicative activities provide motivation The learner‟s ultimate objective is to participate in communication with others They will be motivated to learn if they can see how their 11 classroom learning is related to this objective and helps them to achieve it with increasing success Thirdly, they can provide natural learning Language learning takes place inside the learner and it also consists of many aspects that sometimes they are beyond the teachers‟ pedagogical control Finally, communicative activities can create a context which supports learning They provide opportunities to promote relationship among learners and between learners and teachers The role of non-communicative activities is to give the learners fluent control over linguistic forms, so that the lower-level processes will be capable of unfolding automatically in response to higher-level decisions based on meanings Although the activities may emphasize the links between forms and meanings, the main criterion for success is whether the learner produces acceptable language On other words, they provide learners with a fluent command of the linguistic system, without actually requiring them to use this system for communicative purposes Accordingly, the learners‟ purpose is to produce language which is acceptable rather than to communicate meanings effectively In short, with these most important roles, communicative and non-communicative activities contribute a crucial part to the success of language teaching and learning Moreover, they develop a basic of language structures and a pattern of language interaction within the classroom, which is as close as possible to that used by competent performers in normal life Therefore, students feel comfortable and confident, feel free to take risks and have sufficient opportunities to speak 1.2.4 The roles of teachers in communicative and non-communicative activities Littlewood (1981) states three roles of teachers in communicative activities Firstly, teachers function as providers of advice and necessary language items in case students find themselves unable to cope with the situation Secondly, the teacher plays the role of observer While learners are performing, the teacher can monitor their strengths and weaknesses Teachers can also encourage students to get over their difficulties by seeking other ways to express their ideas Thirdly, sometimes the teacher can exercise an immediate influence over the language used Through non-communicative activities, the teacher isolates specific elements of knowledge or skill that compose communicative ability, and provides the learners with 12 opportunities to practice them separately The learners are thus being trained in the partskills of communication rather than practicing the total skill to be acquired To conclude, the teachers in communicative activities will find themselves talking less and listen more; however, this does not mean that once an activity is in progress, the teacher should become a passive observer In con-communicative activities, teacher plays a crucial role in controlling classroom activities Although his function becomes less dominant than before, his role is not less important 1.2.5 Types of communicative activities According to Celce-Murcia (1991) “there are as many activities and materials available as there are creative teachers”; therefore, communicative activities can be applied in the teaching of any skill, at any level, and because of the large variety of classroom activities and exercise types, description of typical classroom procedures used in a lesson basing on CLT principles is not feasible There is one framework which receives the most agreement of the majority of practitioners is the methodological framework on communicative activities given by Littlewood (1981:85) depicted in the following figure: Pre-communicative activities : Structural activities Quasi-communicative activities Communicative activities: Functional communication activities Social interaction activities The pre-communicative activities are preparatory steps towards communicative activities in which the teachers should analyze all the communicative abilities and let the students practice them one by one The aim is for learners to practice using language they will need when actually communicating The pre-communicative activities are sub-divided into structural activities and quasi-communicative activities The first type mainly concerns structural activities These are much like the grammar exercises in which the teacher shows the students how to use grammatical rules in their communication which includes pronunciation, vocabulary and structure practice by using audio-visual ways of teaching, asking students to substitution exercises, repetition exercises, etc The second type is 13 quasi-communication activities which are intended to help learners relate the forms and structures they are studying to the use of the language like communicative function, specific meaning, and social context Some quasi- communicative activities include (1) Situational dialogues; (2) Open-ended dialogues; (3) Timetable, map, food list, shopping list, etc It can be concluded that the pre-communicative activities have the intention of making students practice using acceptable language fluency, without being concerned to communicate meanings effectively The most remarkable consideration should be taken to communicative activities These kinds of activities require learners to integrate his knowledge and skills of the precommunicative activities into full activities of communicative meanings Littlewood (1981) divides communicative activities into functional communication activities and social interaction activities For the functional communication activities, the main purpose is that learners should use the language they know in order to get meaning across as effectively as possible Success is measured primarily according to whether they cope with communicative demands of the immediate situation Some examples of these activities are questions and answers, interviews based on a text, information-gap activities, role-play, etc In addition, the social interaction activities place emphasis on social as well as functional aspects of communication Learners must not only aim to convey meanings effectively but also pay greater attention to the social contexts in which the interactions take place Success is now measured not only in terms of the functional effectiveness of the language but also in terms of the acceptability of the forms that are used In the early stages of learning, acceptability may mean little more than a reasonable degree of accuracy in pronunciation and grammar Later, it will increasingly come to include producing language appropriate to specific kind of social situations because of the limitation of the classroom; simulation and role-playing are now important techniques for creating a wider variety of social situations and relationships There is no clear dividing in reality between these different categories and subcategories: they present differences of emphasis and orientation rather than distinct divisions Similarly, it would be arbitrary if we tried to specify how much attention must be paid to communicative function before an activity can be called functional communicative, or how significant social meaning must become before it falls into the 14 social interaction subcategory In any case, in the last resort these distinctions depend on the varying orientations of individual learners 1.3 Students’ perceptions of non-communicative and communicative activities Lindsay & Norman (1999) state that perception is the process by which organisms interpret and organize sensation to produce a meaningful experience of the world In practice, sensation and perception are virtually impossible to separate, because they are part of one continuous process Thus, perception in humans describes the process whereby sensory stimulation is translated into organized experience The results from previous studies on learners‟ views about classroom activities have suggested that the dominant trend among learners is a preference for traditional activities like pronunciation practice, error correction, and teacher‟s instruction In some studies, the learners enjoyed communicative activities but were reluctant to abandon traditional activities Nevertheless, in a study by Green (1993) learners express a preference for communicative activities More positive results can be found in Spratt‟s (1999) study at Hong Kong University who reported that students in this study generally rated communicative activities higher than learners in other studies of the kind and that teachers in the studies underestimated the learners‟ preferences for the communicative activities (p.143) Barkhuisen (1998) surveyed perceptions of around 600 students in a high school in South Africa about the enjoyment and usefulness of 15 classroom activities and again reported learners‟ resistance to participating in communicative-type activities and their preference for more „traditional‟ classroom work (p.95) The two communicative activities „class discussion‟ and „class debates‟ which were acknowledged to bring enjoyment were, however, ranked low in their usefulness Oksana (2006), in her study of the perceptions of university students about classroom activities, found that students from both Australia and Ukraine greatly valued the traditional activities like doing grammar exercises and having their errors corrected At the same time, they also favored communicative activities such as discussing various topics and making dialogs Until now, few studies about students‟ perceptions of classroom activities, even teachers‟ perceptions, have been carried out in Vietnam In a recent study of Vietnamese learners by Tomlinson & Dat (2004), 69.7% of the student respondents said that they 15 enjoyed group work but claimed that some factors like „linguistic limitations‟ , „performance anxiety‟, and „classroom atmosphere that doesn‟t stimulate discussion‟ inhibited them from taking active roles in class and student-centred activities (p 208: 211) Lewis and McCook (2002) and Phan Le Ha (2004) asking teachers from Vietnam about their teaching practice in university and secondary classrooms found that both communicative activities and traditional activities were highly valued in Vietnamese classrooms In general, previous studies on learners‟ perceptions of classroom activities showed that non-communicative activities were preferred by students, especially those at lower levels, appreciated more „traditional‟ activities In some research, the students at higher proficiency level enjoyed communicative activities, but the reasons often accounted for enjoyableness rather than usefulness 1.4 Summary In this chapter, the researcher tried to provide a brief description of the theoretical knowledge relating to the study Included are CLT and its characteristics Most of the linguistics agree that CLT is directly connected to developing communicative competence and its characteristics will be the principles for teachers to choose appropriate techniques as well as activities in class to improve the students‟ communicative competence This chapter also included a discussion of communicative and non-communicative activities in language teaching and learning Definitions, characteristics, roles are discussed in order that distinguishing the characteristics and roles of these activities can make the best use of communicative and non-communicative activities in the process of learning and teaching The role of the teacher in communicative and non-communicative activities is also mentioned in order to point out teacher‟s importance in organizing classroom activities Moreover, types of communicative activities are grouped according to the classification of Littlewood (1981) Other previous studies on students‟ perceptions about classroom activities which have suggested that the dominant trend among learners is a preference for non-communicative activities In this study, the combination of Harmer‟s (1981) six distinctive characteristics and Littlewood‟s (1981) classification of classroom activities is used as the methodological framework for data analysis Harmer‟s (1981) six distinctive characteristics of 16 communicative and non-communicative activities are used as criteria to distinguish these two kinds of activities In addition, Littlewood‟s (1981) classification of classroom activities is taken as a gauge for communicative classroom procedures, which is the continuum of pre-communicative and communicative activities Furthermore, the term “non-communicative activities” of Harmer‟s (1981) is considered as “pre-communicative activities” in Littlewood‟s (1981) 17 CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY In this chapter, the writer provides some information about research approach, the basic settings for the study The following section describes in details how the data for the research were collected and analyzed to answer the three questions set for this research, namely: What are twelfth graders’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in the EFL classrooms? What are students’ perceived difficulties in practicing communicative activities? What are the possible solutions to these difficulties? 2.1 Research Approach As this research aims to find out twelfth graders‟ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities and their perceived difficulties in practicing communicative activities, it employed mixed methods for data collection and analysis Data collected by means of questionnaire, semi-structured interview and group discussions were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively Questionnaire data were analyzed quantitatively for descriptive statistics while the interview and discussion data were processed qualitatively Within the scope of this study, such a combination of both research paradigms was believed to gain more in-depth data The researcher chose questionnaire because it is one of the most popular instruments It is quite easy to prepare and it can be used with a large number of subjects What is more, the information collected is not very difficult to tabulate and to analyze (Brown, 1995) It helped “seek facts or causes of social phenomena without regard to the subjective states of the individuals” (Nunan, 1989:4) Moreover, thanks to the large number of participants in the study, that was, 200 twelfth grade students, the information acquired was believed to be relatively “reliable and generalisable” (Nunan, 1989:4) Following are interviews with students and group discussions among teachers in order to address the limitations of the questionnaire in exploring students‟ perceptions, as pointed above, and to find out if there is a mismatch between teachers and students‟ views of classroom activities 2.2 Research setting 18 The study was carried out in Bac Ly high school, Ha Nam during the second term of the school year 2010 – 2011 The school, which is located in remote area in Ly Nhan District of Ha Nam province, consists of sixty five teachers and twenty - nine classes with more than 1,200 students in the school year There are ten 12th grade classes in Bac Ly High School in the school year 2010 – 2011 Because of living in remote area, the students here often lack of proper learning materials when they were at primary and secondary schools Most their entrance marks were very low; their knowledge is really at the medium level Teachers have to work harder than their colleagues at other upper secondary schools in the province to help their students study effectively, because their students are struggling to catch up with general knowledge of most subjects English here is one of the compulsory subjects The students study English in order to pass the examinations and some students like learning English to use it in the future 2.3 Subjects 2.3.1 Selection of subjects: As stated in Cohen et al (2007:92), “the quality of a piece of research stands or falls by the suitability of the sampling strategy that has been adopted”, it is of great importance to decide on the key factors of sampling before conducting any kind of data collection The very first factor to be considered was the sample size As Bechhofer and Paterson (2000) stated “in order to find out characteristics of that whole population, it was not necessary to measure the whole population but a relatively small one [sample]”, the researcher chose to deliver questionnaires to 200 out of 450 students and interview 15 students and teachers of English This number of subjects guaranteed the representativeness of the whole population The second factor to be taken account of was the sampling strategy Random Sampling was found to be the most suitable one for the situation of the study The key characteristic of this strategy is the equal and independent chance of being selected of each member of the population (Cohen et al., 2007, p.100) Therefore, random sampling provides “a degree of generalizability” (Cohen et al., 2000, p.99) which substantially contributed to the precise findings of the study 2.3.2 Students 19 In order to get information to fulfill the aims of the study, survey questionnaire for learners was designed The questionnaire was administered to 200 students (97 girls and 103 boys) of grade 12 at the school Their ages vary from 17 to 19 All of students started learning English at grade They all had basic knowledge about English and began to learn the new English textbook for at least years Therefore, this period would be the most suitable time for the study 2.3.3 Teachers There are eight teachers of English at Bac Ly high school Their ages range between twenty-five and fifty years old Most of them have at least year experience of teaching English in high school and responsible for their teaching All of them have got the University Bachelor of Art‟s Degree in English As rural teachers, they have few opportunities to upgrade their teaching and not have a lot of teaching facilities and materials to help their work Despite all these disadvantages, they are helpful, friendly and dedicated teachers They all have a great desire to acquire knowledge of how to teach English well and are always willing to help their students tackle with difficulties in learning 2.4 The Textbook English 12 High school teachers have been using the textbook - English 12 for three years There are many changes in this new textbook in comparison with the old version This textbook has five lessons focusing on four skills such as Reading, Speaking, Listening and Writing and Language Focus of grammar and pronunciation There are 16 units in the textbook and they consist of two kinds of practicing activities: non-communicative and communicative activities Although the new textbook is claimed to be more communicative, more interesting, and more motivating to the students than the old one, it provides more non-communicative activities than communicative ones as Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh (2007) says, “The limitations lie in the predominance of mechanical practice and a corresponding inadequacy of communicative practice” There are often three tasks in one lesson; however, two-thirds of tasks are usually non-communicative activities which ask students to listen and answer questions, choose the correct answers, fill in the blank with right words, decide True/ False statement, choose the best answer, etc The other, 20 often in task 3, is pair or group work to discuss some given questions, and then report to the class 2.5 Research instruments: 2.5.1 Survey Questionnaire To make sure that students understand the items in the questionnaire, students' native language (Vietnamese) was used The questionnaire consisted of three parts (See Appendix 1) Part A was about the students‟ background, English proficiency and their opinion Tải FULL (54 trang): https://bit.ly/3QE5DSq of teaching methods in class Dự phòng: fb.com/TaiHo123doc.net Part B was composed of 20 items asking about communicative (10 items) and noncommunicative (10 items) activities These questions related to student-student and student-teacher interactions, grammar activities, grammar instructions, teachers‟ error corrections and students‟ obedience to the teacher Items involving communicative activities included student-to-student interaction with little or no monitoring of student output by the teacher (items 9, 12 and 16); student–teacher interaction with the teacher monitoring and sometimes responding to student output (items and 13); role play (item 10); classroom discussion (items and 20) and the use of songs in the classroom (items and 18) Singing and listening to songs were included in the communicative group because such activities tend to focus on the meaning rather than the grammatical form of what is being sung or listened to, and because singing and listening to songs are real use of language Non-communicative items emphasizing formal correctness included pronunciation practice (item 1); practice exercise and workbook type drill (items and 19); audio-lingual style substitution drills (items and 8); dictionary work on a list of words before reading a selection containing the words (item 17); explicit grammar instruction conducted entirely in English (item 15); explicit grammar instruction conducted in Vietnamese with examples in English (item 14); teacher correction of errors in the students‟ journals (item 11); and students‟ obedience to the teacher (items 2) Part C invited students to choose their difficulties in communicative activities in their classes 2.5.2 Semi-structured Interviews 21 This interview was conducted to help the researcher gain an in-depth understanding of the students‟ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities and their perceived difficulties in using communicative activities in the classroom 15 students were randomly chosen from the sample for interview In this partially structured interview, the researcher posed a few predetermined questions but had considerable flexibility concerning follow-up questions pertinent to their learning experience, then listened to their response for clues to which question to ask next, or whether it was important to probe for additional information (Maykut and Morehouse, 1994) While formulating interview questions, the researcher made sure that the questions were clear, precise and motivating (Denzin, 1989) All the interviews were audio taped and transcribed verbatim Tải FULL (54 trang): https://bit.ly/3QE5DSq Dự phòng: fb.com/TaiHo123doc.net Group discussions were organized among eight teachers of English to help the 2.5.3 Group Discussions researcher find out if there was a significant difference between students‟ preferences and instructors‟ perceptions of those preferences in language learning and students‟ difficulties in practicing these communicative activities In this group discussion, the researcher raised some questions about their perceptions of students‟ preferences, evaluation of usefulness of classroom activities and perceived difficulties their students may face in practicing communicative activities In addition, the group also discussed some recommendations of how to overcome these difficulties All the discussions were audio taped and transcribed verbatim 2.6 Procedures of data collection: To make it easy for the researcher to carry out the study, the procedure of data collection was planned as follows: In the beginning of the second semester, the researcher issued questionnaire to 200 students and received the 200 answered questionnaires back at the same day The respondents were also required to indicate their position in the class list in order to guarantee that the chosen samples truly reflected the random sampling procedure All students returned the questionnaire Information from the questionnaire was then summarized and presented in the form of statistic information (tables and charts) for 22 analysis to make implications and recommendations on the most applicable ways to develop communicative competence for students After analyzing the questionnaire, the researcher chose randomly 15 students in the sample for interviews After that, group discussions with eight teachers of English were made to ensure validity and reliability of the collected data All interviews and group discussions were audio taped and transcribed The transcripts of discussions were later given to the subjects for verification 2.7 Procedures of data analysis: The data collected were both quantitative and qualitative ones as they could throw light on the insights of each other (Wallace, 1998, p.38) to help answer the three research questions set for the study For qualitative analysis, text rendering was used For quantitative analysis, tables, percentage, charts were produced Interpretations were then made with regards to the research questions The framework for analysis of collected data, thus, is made up of three themes They are: - The students‟ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities Students‟ preference of communicative and non-communicative activities Students‟ opinions of the usefulness of these activities - Students‟ perceived difficulties in practicing communicative activities Low English proficiency Little motivation for communicative competence Traditional learning styles and habits EFL settings - Possible solutions to help students overcome these difficulties, thereby improving the quality of English language education By reading through the completed questionnaire and the interview and discussion transcripts over and over again, I discovered the students‟ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities and identified difficulties that students had encountered in taking part in communicative activities 6816015 ... communicative and non -communicative activities in the process of learning and teaching; the roles of the teacher in communicative and non -communicative types of communicative activities, and previous... and roles of these activities can make the best use of communicative and non -communicative activities in the process of learning and teaching The role of the teacher in communicative and non -communicative. .. language teaching and learning process 1.2.1 Definition of communicative and non -communicative activities 1.2.2 Characteristics of communicative and non -communicative activities 1.2.3 Roles of communicative