An investigation into classroom activities used for improving first year efl students oral interaction in speaking classes at hue university college of foreign languages

TABLE OF CONTENTS CONTENTS Page STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKOWLEDGEMENTS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS ABSTRACT CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Knowledge 1.2 Aim of the research 10 1.3 The scope of the research 10 1.4 The structure of the research 10 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 12 2.1 The overview of the chapter 12 2.2 Interaction 12 2.2.1 Definitions 12 2.2.2The significance of interaction to learning 13 2.3 The aspects of classroom interaction 13 2.3.1 Definitions 13 2.3.2 The importance of classroom interaction in language learning 14 2.3.3 Types of classroom interaction 14 2.3.4 Forms of the oral interaction 15 2.3.4.1 Teachers- learners interaction 15 2.3.4.2 Learners-learners interaction 15 2.3.4.2.1 Definitions of learners- learners interaction 15 2.3.4.2.2 The significance of oral interaction between the learners 16 2.3.4.2.3 Factors influencing students‘ oral interaction 16 2.4 Related theories on communicative classroom activities 17 2.4.1 What are communicative activities? 17 2.4.1.1 Characteristics of communicative activities 18 2.4.1.2 Types of communicative activities 19 2.4.1.3 Oral communicative activities 19 2.4.2 Communicative activities for improving students‘ oral interaction 20 2.4.2.1 Cooperative learning activities (Group work and pair work) 21 2.4.2.2 Task works 22 2.5 Previous studies on classroom activities and oral interaction 23 2.5.1 Related foreign authors studies 24 2.5.2 Related Vietnamese authors studies 24 2.6 The nature of teaching speaking in Vietnam 25 2.6.1 Definition 25 2.6.2 Aims of teaching speaking 25 2.6.3 The state of teaching speaking English in Vietnam 26 2.6.3.1 Teachers’ problems 26 2.6.3.2 Student’s motivation 26 2.6.3.3 Physical constraints 27 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 28 3.1 Research methodologies 28 Research instruments 29 3.2.1 Questionnaires 29 3.2.2 Class observation 29 3.2.3 In- depth interview 30 3.3 Participants 31 3.4 Research Procedures 31 3.5 Data analysis 32 3.6 Conclusion 32 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 33 4.1 Overview 33 Students‘ attitudes to oral interaction 33 4.2.1 The role of English learning 33 4.2.2 Students‘ self-evaluation on their English language 34 4.2.3 Student‘s view on oral interaction 34 4.2.3.1 The effect of raising oral interaction 35 4.2.3.2 Oral interaction in relation to language skills 36 4.2.4 The state of oral interaction in HUEFL speaking class 37 4.3 Communicative classroom activities used in speaking classes 38 4.3.1 Current communicative classroom activities 38 4.3.2 Organizing communicative classroom activities 41 4.3.2.1 Organizing a speaking class 41 3.2.3 The role of English speaking teachers in a classroom activity 44 3.2.3.1 Teachers‘ actions in group time 44 3.2.3.2 Teachers‘ actions to encourage students 44 4 Teachers and students view these communicative activities in terms of effectiveness 45 4.4.1 Students views 45 4.4.1.1 General advantages of these activities about increasing oral interaction 45 4.4.1.2 The positivity of group learning 46 4.4.2 Teacher views 49 4.4.2.1 Teachers’ evaluation on students’ oral interaction skill 49 4.4.2.2 Teachers’ general views on current classroom activities 50 4.5 Improving current communicative activities 51 4.5.1 Students‘ feelings on improving current activities 51 4.5.1.1 An evaluation on level of difficulty of given communicative activities 51 4.5.1.2 The necessity of developing given activities and adding new activities 53 4.5.2 Teachers‘ feelings on improving classroom activities 54 4.5.2.1 Teachers’ evaluation on the level of difficulty of given activities 54 4.5.2.1 The necessity of new activities 55 4.5.3 Teachers and students‘ suggestions for improving the communicative activities 56 4.5.3.1 From students 56 4.5.3.2 From teachers 57 4.5.4 Conclusion 57 4.6 Conclusion of the finding chapter 58 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 60 5.1 Overview 60 5.2 The main findings 60 5.3 Implications and suggestions 61 5.3.1 For students 61 5.3.2 For teachers 62 5.3.3 For policy- makers 63 5.4 Limitations of the study 63 5.5 Recommendations for the future research 64 REFERENCES 65 APPENDIX i APPENDIX v APPENDIX vii LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: Students' interest in language skills 33 Table 4.2: Oral interaction in relation to language skills 36 Table 4.3: Current activities used in speaking class (HUEFL) 38 Table 4.4: Observation on classroom activities 40 Table 4.5: Teachers‘ action for encouraging students learning 44 Table 4.6: General advantages of classroom activities on oral interaction 46 Table 4.7: The positivity of group learning 47 LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4.1: Students' self evaluation on their speaking 34 Chart 4.2: The necessity of interaction 35 Chart 4.3: Students‘ interaction habits 36 Chart 4.4: The state of first year students‘ oral interaction 37 Chart 4.5: Organizing a speaking class 41 Chart 4.6: Grouping 42 Chart 4.7: Group sizing 43 Chart 4.8: The level of difficulty 51 Chart 4.9: Students feeling on developing classroom activities 53 ABSTRACT The primary aim of learning a language is for learners to be able to use it in oral communication Oral interaction between the learners is a key to reach that goal Classroom is a basic communication environment which manifests real society Communicative classroom activities should be pedagogically meaningful which would enable students to develop oral interaction Although many studies have been conducted on the use of communicative classroom activities in the English for foreign language setting, few studies have explored the effectiveness of oral interaction in the Vietnamese context This thesis seeks to explore the classroom activities that teachers can use for improving student‘s oral interaction The study is conducted at Hue University College of Foreign Languages with the students and teachers of English as s foreign language Questionnaires and interviews were used as the main methods for data collecting Moreover, class observations were also conducted Based on the findings, effective classroom activities were given They are the current activities which added more practically, usefully, funnily and attractively The finding could be a significant contribution to English teaching in EFL classroom contexts CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Knowledge In the domain of teaching English, the methods of communicative language teaching (CLT) have become the basic mainstay since 1970s CLT has served as a major source of influence on language teaching practice round the world As Li (1998) comments, CLT has extended in scope and has been used by different educators in different ways There is a large area of studies and practices of this approach Larsen- Freeman (1986) for example, studied the attributes of CLT and he indicates the most obvious attribute of CLT is that ―almost everything that is done with a communicative intent‘‘ (p 132) In CLT, meaning is given prime importance, which is achieved through interaction between reader and writer, and through negotiation between speaker and listener Pham (2007) researched about CLT in term of its meanings to Vietnam classroom context The aim of communicative language teaching (Richards and Rodgers, 2001) is the acquisition of communicative competence via student engagement in meaningful use of language at discourse level To achieve this, the teacher facilitates communicative activities by managing the classroom environment, providing resources and acting as a communicator David (1978, p.65) maintains that a communicative approach should focus on oral skills before written ones To help English for foreign language (EFL) learners become fluent or to acquire oral skills, language teachers should encourage their students to be successful in learning to speak in classroom English has been a basic school subject as a foreign language of Vietnam educational system for many years Vietnamese learners study only for exams English textbooks designed for senior and junior students tend to focus on reading and grammar points Therefore, English teachers thus design the activities which improve students‘ vocabularies and grammars Not much real communication conducted in the class In my compulsory education at secondary and upper secondary, I had never had a real English conversation or discussion with teachers or other classmates The teachers only used the translation method for teaching; my oral skills such as pronunciation thus couldn‘t develop Discussing about English language teaching in Vietnam, Sullivan (2000) assumes that most classrooms have been teacher-centered or teacher-fronted This is also supported by Kennett and Knight (1999), who hold that teaching methods [in Vietnam] were outdated, relying almost entirely on strict teacher-centered methods and rote learning Vietnamese people have recognized that they shouldn‘t study only for exams, but they also learn for communication In recent years, Vietnamese teachers have witnessed the significant changes in the English teaching method, from traditional grammar- translation method to the communicative language teaching (CLT) CLT enables students to improve and develop their communicative competence, especially their speaking skills It is believed that speaking or oral communication is the foundation to language acquisition As a result, English teachers tend to promote students‘ oral communication and their oral interactions by designing new classroom activities Thanks to increasing students‘ interaction, their oral communication has been improved and they thus, may be fluent in speaking According to Brown (2001), interaction is at the heart of communicative competence When a learner interacts with another learner, he/she develops oral skills naturally Krashen and Terrell (1988) emphasize the role of interaction in second language acquisition in their cooperative research ―The Natural ApproachLanguage Acquisition in the classroom‖ They show that acquisition requires meaningful interactions in the target language- natural communication in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding As a second language teacher, I have recognized the significances of increasing oral interaction among learners I am thus motivated to conduct this study which seeks to explore the types of classroom activities used and how can they be improved Finally, communicative activities are designed to be lively, interactive When people are comfortable they are likely to learn more An active, cooperative class is a class where a great deal of learning social, cultural, and linguistic is evident 5.3.3 For policy- makers Besides the main factors of teacher and student, policy- makers can play important role in deciding the success of classroom activities Class size in HUCFL should be smaller For example, the ideal class size is 20 students The fewer students in a class, the more chances students can have to interact orally Besides, in a small size class, teachers will be easier to control and organize the class As a result, speaking will be improved remarkably A different suggestion for policy- makers is about class time In reality, the time for a speaking class is too short and it needed lasting There are twice a week of attending speaking class and 50 minutes for each of them They are not enough for students to improve their oral skills naturally In sum, there are two main kinds of suggestions such as class time and class size for policy makers to organize and manage the class effectively Undoubtedly, students may increase their oral skills such as interaction or communication thanks to appropriate class size The policy- makers thus should meet the need of the teaching and learning for their best results 5.4 Limitations of the study Obviously, there have some limitations of the study which came from variety of reasons First of all, this is the small scale study Particularly, the questionnaire of the study was conducted with the students only And only EFL teachers were interviewed Therefore, the findings may not be generalized The research outcomes might be more convincing if there had some more participants Secondly, the answers form the participants seemed to be similar and they were not diverse enough Finally, the limitations may come from the lack of research experience of the author 63 5.5 Recommendations for the future research Future research projects should be carried out in a larger scale with a larger number of participants Moreover, future researchers can also investigate the same issue sin different contexts of Vietnam Future researcher should focus not only on the oral interaction among the learners but also teacher- student‘s interaction for their developing students‘ speaking skill Last but not least, future researchers can look at other factors of improving students‘ oral interaction 64 REFERENCES Angelo, T.A (1993) A Teacher's Dozen: Fourteen 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PERSONAL INFORMATION Your Age : ……………………………………………………………………………………… Your Class: ……………………………………………………………………………………… Your College: ……………………………………………………………………………………… PART I STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES ON ORAL INTERACTION In your opinion, how important is the role of English learning? (tick on your answer)  Very important  Important Normal  Not much important Invaluable Which skill you like most?  Listening  Reading Speaking  Writing How you evaluate your oral skill? (tick on your answer)  Very good  Good Average  Not good  Weak In your opinion, how necessary is the role of interaction in second language learning? A Very necessary B Necessary C Very little D Not at all In the speaking class, you often interact: A Interact with your teacher B Interact with your peers C Do projects on your own D Interact with anyone that you can Other opinion: …………………………………………………………………………… You can learn best by interacting with: A Teacher B Peers C The good students D Students who have the same level of proficiency as yours i E Weak students In your point of view, which skill can be developed if you interact with others classmates? (You can choose more than answer) A Listening B Reading C Speaking D Writing Please explain (why that skill is improved?): ……………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………… How often you have an opportunity to practice speaking freely? A In every speaking class B One time two weeks C One time a week D One time a month PART II: CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES IN SPEAKING CLASS AT HUEFL How often are the following activities used in your speaking lessons? A Discussion B Role- play C Information- gap D Presentation E Drill dialogue 10 What does your teacher to encourage you in speaking classes? (You can choose more than one option) Â She chooses interesting speaking topics B She organizes speaking games C She chooses speaking topics related to students‘ need D She forms smaller groups for you to discuss in 11 How is your speaking class organized? A In groups B In pairs C In rows D Others 12 How is a group formed? A At random B According to teacher‘s appointment C According to students‘ interests D According to students‘ ability 13 If you are asked to work in groups, how many people you work with? ii A 3-4 B 5-6 C 7-8 D > 14 What does your teacher when you work in group? A Sit on her chair and observe B Go around only C Go around and give the advice D Go out of class PART III TEACHERS AND STUDENTS VIEW THESE COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES IN TERM OF EFFECTIVENESS 15 The oral interaction with your classmates may help you: (You can choose more than answer) A Enhance your learning C Feel comfortable in learning C Become confident in communication D Use English in a natural way E Correct your own mistakes 16 What are the advantages of grouping in speaking classes? A Pronunciation is improved: B Vocabulary is enriched: C Be confident, active: D Deep lesson acquisition: E Know how to cooperate with each others: gly agree F Work independently from teacher : G Be creative: iii PART IV: TEACHERS AND CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES STUDENTS’ VIEWS ON IMPROVING 17 How is your feeling about developing these classroom activities? A Very useful B Useful C Very little D Not at all 18 How these usual classroom activities are appropriate to your level? A Difficult B Easy C Appropriate D Unknown The end iv APPENDIX CLASS OBSERVATION SHEET Year: Class size: Unit: Room No: Date: Period: Teacher in charge: Group No: Observation pattern The communicative activities in speaking class According to Liao (2000b) and Kagan (1992), there are nine following communicative activities for speaking class Frequency Classroom Activity Always Usually Sometimes Discussion Information gap Problem- solving Games Presentation Role- play Dialogue Talking about yourself Interview v Rarely Never Interaction pattern in class Interaction pattern Yes No Teacher- Student interaction Student- student interaction Student- teacher interaction Student- content interaction After starting the activity, the teacher: Teacher‘s action Yes She seats on her chair She goes around and observes every group She gives the advices She guides and explains for students She goes out of class vi No APPENDIX Themes for students’ interview Students‘ perception on developing oral interaction in class Students‘ self evaluation on their own and classmates oral interaction Students‘ views on the communicative classroom activities for speaking class Students‘ suggestions for more effective classroom activities which can develop their oral interaction Themes for teachers’ interview Teachers‘ evaluation on real oral interaction among the students in HUEFL Teachers‘ opinions on classroom activities can improve students‘ oral interaction Teachers‘ views on the communicative classroom activities for speaking class Teachers‘ suggestions for more effective classroom activities vii