The impact of communicative language learning activities on students’ attitude towards learning english

Microsoft Word 124 Nguyen Thu Huong doc Tuyển tập Hội nghị Khoa học thường niên năm 2019 ISBN 978 604 82 2981 8 652 THE IMPACT OF COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE LEARNING ACTIVITIES ON STUDENTS’ ATTITUDE TOWAR[.]

Tuyển tập Hội nghị Khoa học thường niên năm 2019 ISBN: 978-604-82-2981-8 THE IMPACT OF COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE LEARNING ACTIVITIES ON STUDENTS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS LEARNING ENGLISH Nguyen Thu Huong Thuyloi University, email: Huongthu@tlu.edu.vn INTRODUCTION The author is currently an English teacher at Thuyloi University (TLU) The participants in this study were non-English major students from different parts of Vietnam Most them had limited English capability, as they didn’t spend much time learning it From the author’s teaching experience, it can be seen that students (especially freshmen) often struggle adapting to the new learning methods in university The new learning style is fastpaced and requires students to be more autonomous during lessons This has caused a lot of difficulties for both teachers and students as modern English teaching focuses on learners’ overall competencies and how learners can use English confidently in a communicative setting Participants of this study were 20 students majoring in engineering or economics at TLU These learners had different levels of English proficiency and were expected to use English in a simple way after completing the course The author decided to conduct this research to evaluate students’ attitude toward English learning, specifically the application of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) What the author did with her particular class was assigning students with a set of activities under the CLT approach, namely topic-based presentations and role-play conversations Through these tasks, students got to actively prepare and practice listening and speaking skills Then the author would use her choice of data collection tools to determine how these CLT tasks affected learners COMMUNICATIVE TEACHING (CLT) LANGUAGE 2.1 The definition of Communicative Language Teaching CLT is defined as a language teaching approach that emphasizes the communication of meaning rather than the practice of grammatical forms in isolation According to Larsen-Freeman (2000: 121), the main goal of the CLT is "to communicate the goals of language teaching and to communicate the interdependence of language and communication." Nunan and Lamb (1996) described the traditional approach as students following what teachers tell them to and learning English by repetition and memorization Most of the time teacher is the one who has to take the central and active role to keep the class going It can be seen that traditional learning is not completely bad, but it does not bring much effectiveness to learners besides making them "memorize" English The CLT method, on the other hand, considers the use of English for communication purposes as the ultimate goal; the teacher then becomes a facilitator and learners become "negotiator and interactor" Learners will use meaningful tasks as well as authentic materials to practice their communicative skills 2.2 Research method The author chose qualitative as her research method as it was the best method to get a detailed answer to the research question "How CLT activitiesaffect students’ 652 Tuyển tập Hội nghị Khoa học thường niên năm 2019 ISBN: 978-604-82-2981-8 attitude in English class?" All students were informed of the research at the beginning of the course and were free to choose whether or not to participate After obtaining these students' consent, the next steps of the study were conducted and necessary data were then collected by means of three instruments: individual interview, group interview and observation Individual interview In the first session, participants were individually interviewed to provide researcher with information regarding their learning (habits, interests, course expectations, etc.) The information from these interviews could tell the researcher a lot about individuals’ English level and attitude towards English learning Observation The main data collecting instrument used in the process of applying CLT was observing and recording students’ behaviors Observation method gave researcher the chance to actively gather information during classes Comments such as "Student A constantly asked her friends about the instruction of the task"; "Student B were afraid to speak English to their classmates"; "Student C gave a confident presentation with a wide range of vocabulary" etc were briefly written down in a note These observational comments would later be triangulated with data from individual and group interviews to make more accurate conclusions Group interview At the end of the course, the researcher dedicated a whole session interviewing participants in groups which they worked in during their projects Here the researcher asked participants questions to see whether students understood the research and how they engaged with it The benefits of group interview were that it would save researcher a lot of time but still be able to gather really rich data 3.1 Different levels of understanding of CLT approach Through analyzing the data, it can be seen that there were differences in the students’ understanding of the CLT activities Specifically, a student answered the interview question about how she understood the application of CLT to her English class: "This innovation is intended to help students improve listening and speaking skills because I had to practice speaking and listening a lot I prepared the presentation with the help of my friends in the group I gave a presentation on the second topic, Food, and I talked about my favorite one – fried chicken I also shared how I usually make this at home” Apparently, this student knew what to and she accomplished it Being able to recite the learning process shows that she understood and remembered what the teacher taught her in class While some students appeared to understand the innovation, many failed to describe it For example, student number 11, in her presentation on topic “Travel”, showed the whole class a series of slides of tourist destinations in Vietnam without describing them and sharing her travel experience When being interviewed, she said: "I didn't know what to speak about I thought that I need to describe as many tourist destinations as possible.” These findings also matched the observational data It was notable that certain students really paid attention and kept asking the teacher for clarification during lessons, while some appeared to be quite confused or didn’t really listen Failure to follow teacher's instructions might prevent them from thoroughly understanding or even misunderstanding the assignment From triangulating the data, the author found that only one third of the class understood exactly what these CLT activities were about FINDINGS 3.2 Different levels of engagement in the CLT tasks Here are the author’s main findings drawn from the process of collecting and triangulating research information: From the observational note, some students got extremely excited to work in group and give presentation in front of the class It was 653 Tuyển tập Hội nghị Khoa học thường niên năm 2019 ISBN: 978-604-82-2981-8 observed that they usually jotted down necessary instructions and tips and discussed with group members as soon as assignment was given Student number loved discussing the planning of the assignment with his peers and instructing other people in the group Number also volunteered to be the first to give presentation Another student having the same positive attitude towards this CLT activities - student number 12, said: "I think the idea of presenting and later discussing in English is very interesting I often meet up with my group in the library to better prepare the assignments” However, several other students had a neutral attitude and low level of participation in the lesson Specifically, student number 11 said: "I had no idea on how to give a presentation, so I went online to download a series of landscapes photos and put together a PowerPoint” Some students showed great excitement and couldn't wait to get started like numbers and 9, saying in the group interview: "we learned how to give a presentation before so we want to quickly prepare this English presentation This was a rare opportunity for us to practice English speaking in front of the crowd” Differently, there were students who didn’t engage in the innovation, as described by student number 4: "There were times that some of my group members were not very excited They often sit quietly in group discussion.” 3.3 Different levels of confidence Throughout the innovation, participants showed different levels of confidence About half of the students was confident of participating in CLT activities Student number said: “I’m not good at English, but the whole idea of speaking in front of other people is fun” It was true that even though his speaking was not the most fluent or accurate one, he managed to finish his task confidently and received a lot of support from class members Still, there were students who seemed to be quite timid in both class presentations and role-play task These students often had to look at paper or slide to speak, they gave little or no responds during lessons To explain this problem, student number 19 said: “I am very scared of English I didn’t know what I had to with these exercises I was afraid I might something wrong and look stupid to the whole class” Obviously, fear from making mistakes affected leaners and it prevented them from practicing communicative skills Similar to number 19, student number 15 said: "It is very intimidating for me to speak in front of the crowd I had never given a presentation before, even in Vietnamese” Obviously, the lack of necessary skills and training also greatly affected the students’ confidence in this study CONCLUSION The objective of this study was to study the impact of CLT approach on the language learning attitude of TLU students This study revealed a number of key findings, namely that students showed different levels of understanding, different levels of engagement and different levels of confidence in the research These results gave author a detailed view of the student's attitude when an innovation, in this case, a series of activities under the CLT approach, was applied to the English class It was absolutely necessary for the author to conduct this research Being able to work closely with students and bring new improvement into the class benefited the author as a teacher, while collecting and analyzing data gained the author experience in conducting research REFERENCES [1] Larsen-Freeman, D (2000) Techniques and principles in language teaching Oxford University [2] Nunan, D & Lamb, C (1996) Changing views on the nature of language and learning: traditionalism and CLT, The selfdirected teacher: managing the learning process Cambridge University Press, New York, 114–115 654 ... Obviously, the lack of necessary skills and training also greatly affected the students’ confidence in this study CONCLUSION The objective of this study was to study the impact of CLT approach on the language. .. levels of confidence About half of the students was confident of participating in CLT activities Student number said: “I’m not good at English, but the whole idea of speaking in front of other... from these interviews could tell the researcher a lot about individuals’ English level and attitude towards English learning Observation The main data collecting instrument used in the process of