Using pể interaction activities to enhance english speaking skills for grade 10 students at dong son 1 high school

HONG DUC UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES NGUYỄN THỊ MAI ANH USING PEER INTERACTION ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS FOR GRADE -10 STUDENTS AT DONG SON HIGH SCHOOL Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Arts in English Language Teacher Education THANH HOA, 2022 i HONG DUC UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES USING PEER INTERACTION ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS FOR GRADE -10 STUDENTS AT DONG SON HIGH SCHOOL Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Arts in English Language Teacher Education Student: Nguyễn Thị Mai Anh Student ID No.: 1867010003 Class: K21A – ELTE Supervisor: M.A Đỗ Thị Loan THANH HOA, 2022 ii DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “Using Peer Interaction Activities to enhance English Speaking skill for grade -10 students at Dong Son high school” is the result of my own research for the Graduation Thesis at Hong Duc University, and this thesis has not been submitted for any other degrees Thanh Hoa, June 2022 Student Nguyen Thi Mai Anh iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During my study and graduation practice, I always received the care, guidance and dedicated help of teachers in the Faculty of Foreign Languages, along with the encouragement and help of friends and colleagues First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the Rector of Hong Duc University, the Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages, who wholeheartedly supported me during my study at the school In particular, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Ms Do Thi Loan, for her devotion, patience, invaluable support, helpful guidance and effort to respond to my job promptly Her constant encouragement has made me well in research She spent a lot of time reading, sharing, and criticizing my work, to make constructive comments On this occasion, I would like to express my gratitude to the teachers and students of grade 10 of Dong Son High School for creating favorable conditions for me during the internship period as well as completing this thesis Finally, I would also like to express my deep gratitude to my family, relatives, friends and colleagues who have supported and encouraged me to complete this graduation thesis Thanh Hoa, June 2022 Student Nguyen Thi Mai Anh iv ABSTRACT Although speaking is recognized as a crucial part of second language teaching, it has been undervalued by English teachers in Vietnamese classrooms Many teachers are still using traditional techniques such as repetition drills and memorization of dialogues The use of communicative activities, in spite of having been known to teachers in Vietnam, has been really limited due to many reasons, such as teachers’ low proficiency, class size, limited teaching facilities, and tight teaching schedules There have been a few research studies that investigated effectiveness of communicative activities in the classroom in some part of the world However, very few studies have been conducted in Vietnam about how teachers and students perceived about these activities in high schools Especially, no research has been carried out in Dong Son High School This study is aimed at describing whether or not and to what extent Peer Interaction activities improve speaking skill of the grade-tenth students at Dong Son high school as well as propose some suggestions to increase the effectiveness of using Peer Interaction activities to enhance English speaking skill for grade-10 students at Dong Son high school The participants included English teacher and grade -10 students at Dong Son high school The data were collected through the students' pre-test and post-test and the teacher's interview The results showed that peer interaction activities applied created a joyful and exciting classroom atmosphere which provided the students with more opportunities to obtain knowledge with pleasure and helped the students enjoy speaking lessons more In addition, the study also indicated that most of the students had positive attitudes toward this new technique Some pedagogical implications, limitations and suggestions for further studies were included in this study v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT Communication Language Teaching EFL/SL English Foreign Languages/ Second Language ZPD The Zone of Proximal Development SLA Second Language Acquisition ESL English as a Second Language L2 Second Language LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS 1, Tables: Table 3.1 Methods of learning English Speaking skills of students at Dong Son High School Table 3.2 Time allotted for speaking activities Table 3.3 Activities of teaching English through peer interaction Table 3.4 Topics and objectives for learning Speaking Skills by each topic in the program (extracted from 10th grade English textbooks) Table 3.5 Some of activities that can be applied to each lesson Table 3.6 Test results before experiment Table 3.7 Test results after the end of the experiment Table 3.8 Results of post-experiment questionnaire analysis of the application of peer interaction activities to the process of teaching Speaking skills at Dong Son High School vi 2, Charts: Chart 3.1 Favourite skills Chart 3.2 Dislike skills Chart 3.3 The importance of Speaking Skills Chart 3.4 Students' interest in learning English Speaking Skills Chart 3.5 Out-of-hours English speaking practice time Chart 3.6 Difficulty in learning English Speaking Skills Chart 3.7 Methods of using to teach Speaking Skills Chart 3.8 Students' interest in learning English Speaking Skills through peer interaction activities Chart 3.9 Time to use peer interaction activities to teach English Speaking Skills Chart 3.10 Test scores before and after the experiment vii TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS iv TABLE OF CONTENT vi PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study The aims of the study .2 Research questions Scope of the study Methods of the study .3 Significance of the study The organization of the study .4 PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Speaking skills .5 1.1.1 Definitions 1.1.2 The role of speaking in language teaching and learning 1.1.3 Approaches to teach speaking 1.1.4 Elements of speaking 10 1.1.5 Problems with Speaking Activities and Solutions 12 1.1.5.1 Problems .12 1.1.5.2 Solutions 12 1.2 Interactionism .13 1.2.1 Definitions .13 1.2.2 The Interactionist Perspective 14 1.2.3 Interaction in Second Language Learning .16 1.2.3.1 Role of interaction in Second Language Learning .16 acquisition, while nativists believe inborn factors are more dominant .16 viii 1.2.3.2 Types of Interaction 17 a Learner-content Interaction 17 b Learner-instructor Interaction 18 c Learner-learner Interaction (Peer Interaction) .19 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 27 2.1 General information about Dong Son High School .27 2.2 The Survey 27 2.2.1 Participants and Setting 27 2.2.2 Data collection instruments .27 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 29 3.1 Findings .29 3.1.1 The current situation of teaching and learning English Speaking Skills and using peer interaction activities in teaching English at Dong Son High School 29 3.1.1.1 Students’ awareness in learning English and English skills 29 3.1.1.2 Form and time of learning English Speaking Skills .31 3.1.1.3 Difficulty learning English Speaking Skills 33 3.1.1.4 The current situation of teaching English Speaking Skills at Dong Son High School .33 3.1.1.5 The current situation of using peer interaction activities in teaching English at Dong Son High School 35 3.1.2 Procedures in Organizing a Peer Interaction Activity .37 3.1.2.1 Pre – Activity Stage 37 a Developing goals to be achieved according to each lesson topic 37 c Preparation steps 46 d Experimental steps 46 e Test results before experiment .47 3.1.2.3 Conclusion Stage 47 a Processing and evaluating experimental results 47 b Test results after the end of the experiment 48 3.1.3 Compare and Analyze .48 ix 3.1.4 The Reality of the Students’ Attitude towards Peer Interaction Activities after participating in the survey 50 3.2 Discussion 51 3.3 Recommendations 52 PART III: CONCLUSION 54 3.1 Summary of the study .54 3.2 Limitations of the study 54 3.3 Suggestions for further study 54 REFERENCES 56 APPENDIX 59 x