Skkn the problems in teaching english speaking skills to the minority students at nghe an ethnic boarding high school and some suggested solutions

Part a introduction a study on the problems in teaching english speaking skills to the minority students at NGHE AN ethnic boarding high school and some suggested solutions SUBJECT ENGLISH skkn NGHE A[.]

a study on the problems in teaching english speaking skills to the minority students at NGHE AN ethnic boarding high school and some suggested solutions SUBJECT: ENGLISH skkn NGHE AN EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT TEACHING EXPERIENCE a study on the problems in teaching english speaking skills to the minority students at NGHE AN ethnic boarding high school and some suggested solutions SUBJECT: ENGLISH Tác giả: Lê Sa Tổ môn: Văn – Ngoại Ngữ Năm học: 2020 - 2021 skkn TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .3 PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims and Significance of the study .2 Research questions: .2 Scope of the study .2 Method of the study .3 Design of the study PART II CONTENT I Theoretical background .4 1.1.1 Definition of Communicative Language Teaching .4 1.1.2 Characteristics of Communicative Language Teaching 1.1.3 The Teachers’ and Students’ roles in Communicative Language Teaching 1.2 Speaking Skills 1.2.1 Definitions of speaking 1.2.1 The characteristics of speaking .7 1.2.2 The role of speaking in language teaching and learning .8 1.2.3 Approaches to the teaching of speaking 1.2.4 Problems with speaking activities .11 II The study 11 2.1 Research setting 11 2.1.1 An overview of the research site 11 2.1.2 Description of the teachers of English in Nghe An Ethnic Boarding High School 12 2.1.3 The students at Nghe An Ethnic Boarding High School .12 2.1.4 The current situation of English teaching and learning at Nghe An Ethnic Boarding High School .12 2.2 Methodology study 13 2.2.1 Participants 13 2.2.2 Research instruments 14 skkn 2.2.3 Data analysis .14 2.3 Presentation of the statistical results 14 2.3.1 Data analysis of teachers’ survey questionnaire 14 2.3.1.1 Methodology 14 2.3.1.2 The findings 15 2.3.2 Data analysis of students’ survey questionnaire 22 III Findings and Suggested solutions 31 3.1 Findings 31 3.1.1 Problems from the teachers 31 3.1.2 Problems from the students 33 3.1.3 Other problems 34 3.2 Suggested solutions 35 3.2.1 Improving CLT knowledge for teachers .35 3.2.2 Using suitable techniques for error correction in English speaking lessons 36 3.2.3 Implementing some kinds of communicative activities 36 3.2.4 Providing more interesting topics to encourage students’ participation 37 3.2.5 Providing more opportunities to practise speaking English 38 3.2.6 Helping students to be confident 38 3.2.7 Building a habit of speaking English for students in the class 38 3.2.8 Training students to become efficient speakers 39 3.2.9 Making good use of emotional factors 39 3.2.10 Equipping teaching facilities .40 PART III: CONCLUSION 41 Summary of the study .41 Limitations of the study 41 Suggestions for further studies 41 REFERENCES 43 skkn LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT: Communicative Language Teaching SLL: Second Language Learning ELT: English Language Teaching NEBHS: Nghe An Ethnic Boarding High School MOET: Ministry of Education and Training skkn PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale In Vietnam, in the recent years, the teaching and learning of English have been gaining significance firstly because it is an international language; secondly it is also seen as a means to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between Vietnam and other countries, especially since Vietnam became an official member of WTO There have been an increasing number of people desiring to know English with the hope of keeping up with the latest modern technology in the world English has now been taught not only at all universities and colleges, but also at almost every senior high school and it is considered as a compulsory subject at secondary school To meet the demand of learners of English, teachers of English in Vietnam have been trying to find out the most suitable and effective method of teaching English They have always tried to catch up with the world’s latest frameworks of English Language Teaching As in other countries, teachers of English in Vietnam are now using Communicative Approach to teach English to learners of all levels They hope to provide learners with a means of communication, namely English which is vital for them to be successful in their job and to fulfill their social demands in the time of globalization At Nghe An Ethnic Boarding High School, where the author studies, English is a compulsory subject in the curriculum and it is considered as a major subject for the high school examination It is taught with the purpose that students have some basic knowledge of English in order to communicate and to use it as a key to science and technology However, there still exist many difficulties facing English language teachers in Vietnam in general and English language teachers at Nghe An Ethnic Boarding High School in particular in teaching speaking skills to students The teachers of English at Nghe An Ethnic Boarding High School find it difficult to teach speaking successfully In the teaching situations, the students usually keep quiet in speaking lessons; they mind speaking English There are many students who have good knowledge of grammar which works wonderfully at reading and writing exercises but they can not express themselves in English What is more, in real-life situations, students find it hard to communicate with English speaking people; it is hard for them to response spontaneously and naturally Certainly, there are many reasons for this If those difficulties are not found out and no solutions can be given, the speaking classes cannot be skkn successful and students will be fed up with learning English if they find it worthless to study the subject All of the above reasons have inspired the author to the research on “The problems in Teaching English Speaking Skills to the Minority students at Nghe An Ethnic Boarding High School and some Suggested Solutions” with the hope to make a small contribution to the quality of teaching and learning speaking skills at Nghe An Ethnic Boarding High School Aims and Significance of the study This study is aimed at finding out the areas of difficulties in teaching English speaking skills to the minority students at NEBHS Also, it is expected that some solutions to overcome difficulties encountered will be suggested To be more specific, in realizing this study, the objectives are: - Investigating the current situation of teaching and learning of speaking skills at Nghe An Ethnic Boarding High School - Investigating the areas of difficulties and obstacles that the teachers at NEBHS have encountered when teaching the speaking skills - Suggesting some solutions with the hope of helping English language teachers at NEBHS improve the quality of their teaching, this later helps improve students’ learning quality Research questions: In order to achieve the above aims, the research questions are as follows: (i)What are the current methods and techniques of teaching speaking skills used at Nghe An Ethnic Boarding High School? (ii) What are problems experienced by the teachers in teaching English speaking skills at Nghe An Ethnic Boarding High School? (iii) What are feasible solutions to overcome those difficulties? Scope of the study The study focuses on the difficulties that the English language teachers have met when teaching speaking skills to the minority students at NEBHS and some suggested solutions which help them improve the quality of their teaching The study of difficulties, some suggested solutions to other skills and levels would be beyond the scope of the study skkn Method of the study In order to realize the aims of the study, quantitative method was used Two survey questionnaires were used to collect information and evidence for the study: - The first survey questionnaire is carried out on 140 students at NEBHS - The second survey questionnaire is carried out on English language teachers of NEBHS All comments, remarks and recommendations given in the study were based on the data analysis Design of the study This study consists of three parts: Introduction, Content and Conclusion  Part I: Introduction  Part II: Content The development comprises three chapters: I : Theoretical Background II : The study III: Data analysis and Discussion of the findings Part C: Conclusion skkn PART II CONTENT I Theoretical background 1.1 Communicative Language Teaching 1.1.1 Definition of Communicative Language Teaching Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) appears in the 1960s and 1970s and was thought as a resolution against the Audio- lingual Method It is an outcome of more attention to learners’ effective and appropriate use of language learnt It is pointed out by Brindley (1986: 11) that “The 1970’s and 1980’s could be regarded as the era of Communicative Language Teaching” Communicative Language Teaching also marks the beginning of a major innovation within language teaching because of its superior principles which are widely accepted nowadays So far, several researchers have done the work on CLT and different authors view CLT differently However, it is difficult to define it in a satisfactory way There is a variety of definitions about CLT and each of them developed her / his own ideas regarding CLT As for Nunan (1989: 194), Communicative Language Teaching means: CLT views language as a system for the expression of meaning Activities involve oral communication, carrying out meaning tasks and using language, which is meaningful to the learners Objectives reflect the needs of the learners; they include functional skills as well as linguistic objectives The learner’s role is as a negotiator and integrator The teacher’s role is as a facilitator of the communication process Materials promote communicative language use; they are task- based and authentic It is thought that the definition contains aspects that are common to many other definitions The definition above, as with any definitions of the language teaching method (Penny Cook, 1989), represents a particular view of understanding and explaining language acquisition It is socially constructed and must be seen as a product of social, cultural, economic, and political forces Williams (1995) summarizes the CLT classroom as one in which there is an emphasis on the use of authentic language and unpredictable input Negotiation of meaning between students and teachers should be essential in the implementation of tasks with resulting comprehensible input Risk talking which leads to successful communication is also very important In his viewpoint, Williams emphasizes the lack of focus on the direct instruction of language rules and error correction A major emphasis is on learner autonomy skkn According to Bock (2000) CLT is tailored to get at meaning and learners negotiate meaning in class Meaning is considered as what is communicated The negotiation of meaning can be implicated through pair work, group work in problem- solving tasks He also states: “Authentic materials, functional tasks, and groups and pair work are significant aspects of CLT” 1.1.2 Characteristics of Communicative Language Teaching The theory of language in CLT shows that language is used as a means of communication Characteristics of CLT are given by Richards and Rodgers( 2001) as follows: Language is a system for the expression of meaning The primary function of language is to allow interaction and communication The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural features, but categories of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified in discourse Thus, the objective of language teaching is to develop “communicative competence” Richards and Rodgers (2001 : 155) show that CLT aims to “ make communicative competence the goal of language teaching” And communicative competence is defined by Hymes( 1972 : 7): “ Communicative competence as speaker needs to know to communicate effectively in culturally significant setting.” Another characteristic of CLT is the introduction of authentic material (Dublin, 1995; Larsen- Freeman, 1986; Long and Crooks, 1992; Nunan, 1990; Widdwson, 1996) In CLT, it is considered desirable to give learners the opportunity to response to genuine communicative needs in realistic L2 situations so that they develop strategies for understanding language as actually used by native speakers (Canale and Swain, 1980) 1.1.3 The Teachers’ and Students’ roles in Communicative Language Teaching Teacher roles: As Communicative Language Teaching is learner- centered, the teachers, though, are still the people to set up activities and give instructions to students, they step back to listen and monitor the class rather than talking much skkn .. .NGHE AN EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT TEACHING EXPERIENCE a study on the problems in teaching english speaking skills to the minority students at NGHE AN ethnic boarding high school and some. .. have inspired the author to the research on ? ?The problems in Teaching English Speaking Skills to the Minority students at Nghe An Ethnic Boarding High School and some Suggested Solutions? ?? with the. .. language teachers in Vietnam in general and English language teachers at Nghe An Ethnic Boarding High School in particular in teaching speaking skills to students The teachers of English at Nghe