An investigation into teaching english grammar to young learners at some primary schools in thua thien hue province

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES - - NGUYEN THI MY NHUNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHING ENGLISH GRAMMAR TO YOUNG LEARNERS AT SOME PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN THUA THIEN HUE PROVINCE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING HUE, 2014 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES - - NGUYEN THI MY NHUNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHING ENGLISH GRAMMAR TO YOUNG LEARNERS AT SOME PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN THUA THIEN HUE PROVINCE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.14.01.11 SUPERVISOR: ASSOC.PROF DR TRUONG VIEN HUE, 2014 i BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ - - NGUYỄN THỊ MỸ NHUNG NGHIÊN CỨU DẠY NGỮ PHÁP TIẾNG ANH CHO TRẺ EM TẠI MỘT SỐ TRƯỜNG TIỂU HỌC Ở TỈNH THỪA THIÊN HUẾ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.14.01.11 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS.TS TRƯƠNG VIÊN HUẾ, 2014 ii STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine The data and findings discussed in thesis are true, used with permission from associates and have not been published elsewhere Author Nguyễn Thị Mỹ Nhung iii ABSTRACT This study focused on how grammar has been taught at some primary schools in Thu Thien Hue province The researcher provides us with the understanding of teachers‟ perceptions regarding teaching English grammar to children, and the necessity, approaches, methods, practice of teaching as well as the difficulties of teachers In order to obtain reliable results both qualitative and quantitative methods were used Major data collection tools included questionnaires, interview checklist and class observation sheet The findings from both quantitative and qualitative data showed that most teachers had rather positive attitude towards teaching English grammar to children in their schools, approaches, methods and techniques teachers have been applied, a number of problems that faced EFL teachers, involving in teaching methods, classroom facilities and lack of support and time constraints Another finding is that encouragements for administrators such as facilities and training were suggested by teachers to improve teaching condition It is recommended from the findings that teachers should apply technology in teaching Moreover, a combination of various methods, techniques in teaching process should be taken into consideration In another aspect of teaching grammar there are some certain difficulties teachers encountered, including short attention span, crowded classes and others but these troubles can be solved by teachers Importantly, the study suggests possible ways to enhance the effectiveness of teaching English to young learners iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study would not have been possible without the assistance of following people, and my heartfelt thanks go out to them All above, I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Assoc.Prof.Dr Truong Vien, for his precious knowledge and experience, the enthusiastic and helpful instructions and for his expert guidance and patience throughout every stage of the development of this research I am grateful thankful to all teachers as well as pupils at Phu Tan, Thuan An, Duong No, Phu Cat, Kim Long, Phu Binh, Truong An, Phu Thuan, Thuan Thanh, Thuan Loc, An Cuu and Hue Star primary schools in Thua Thien Hue Province who enthusiastically spent their time on my interview and questionnaires to be conducted Last but not least, I would like to express my deep thanks to my family and friends for their tireless support and belief in me to complete this research Hue, August, 2014 v TABLE OF CONTENT Page Statement of authorship III Abstract IV Acknowledgements V Table of content VI List of abbreviations IX List of tables and charts X CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Back ground of the study .1 1.2 Rationale of the study 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Aims of the study 1.5 Research questions .3 1.6 Significance of the study 1.7 Organization of the study .4 CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Review of previous studies 2.2.1 Teaching English as a Foreign Language to young learners 2.2.2 Teaching English grammar to young learners .7 2.3 Young learners 11 2.3.1 Definition .11 2.3.2 Characteristics of young learners .11 2.3.3 How children learn language .13 2.3.4 Helpful ideas for teaching English to children 13 2.4 Grammar 14 2.4.1 Some views of grammar 14 2.4.2 Overview of grammar teaching approaches and methods 14 2.4.3 Procedures for teaching grammar 18 vi 2.4.4 The process of teaching grammar to young learners 26 2.5 Chapter summary .27 CHAPTER RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 28 3.1 Introduction 28 3.2 Research approach .28 3.3 Participants 28 3.4 Instruments and procedures of data collection 29 3.4.1 Questionnaire survey 30 3.4.2 Interviews 32 3.4.3 Class observation 32 3.5 Data analysis 33 CHAPTER FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 34 4.1 Introduction 34 4.2 Data quantitative analysis teachers from questionnaires 34 4.2.1 The necessity of teaching English grammar to young learners 35 4.2.2 Approaches and methods in teaching English grammar .38 4.2.3 Practice of teaching grammar 42 4.2.4 Difficulties teachers often encounter when teaching English grammar to young learners 50 4.3 Data analysis from teachers‟ interviews 51 4.3.1 The necessity of teaching English grammar to young learners 52 4.3.2 Approaches and methods in teaching English grammar .54 4.3.3 Practice of teaching grammar 56 4.3.4 Difficulties teachers often encounter when teaching English grammar to young learners 57 4.4 Data analysis from pupils‟ interviews 58 4.4.1 The necessity of teaching English grammar to young learners 58 4.4.2 Practise in teaching English grammar 59 4.5 Data analysis from class observation 61 4.6 Chapter summary .63 vii CHAPTER CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 64 5.1 Introduction 64 5.2 Summary of findings 64 5.2.1 What perceptions English teachers hold about teaching English grammar to young learners in some primary schools in Thua Thien Hue province? .64 5.2.2 How has grammar been taught in English classes to young learners? 65 5.3 Implications 66 5.3.1 For teachers 66 5.3.2 For administrators 68 5.4 Limitation of the study .69 5.5 Recommendation for future research 69 REFERENCES 70 Appendix Questionnaire (For teachers) 76 Appendix Teacher interview questions 81 Appendix Bảng câu hỏi (dành cho học sinh) 83 Appendix Observation sheet 84 Appendix The realibility of the Questionnaire-pilot .85 Appendix The realibility of the questionnaire 87 Appendix Lesson – Present simple negative 89 Appendix Lesson – There is / There are 90 Appendix 92 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL English as a foreign language YLs Young Learners TEYL Teaching English to Young Learners SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences ix 13 Common procedure of grammatical structure teaching is Presentation, Practice and Production or (Noticing, 5 5 Structuring and Proceduralizing) 14 Only one structure/grammar point should be taught to children for a period 15 Teachers should teach both Vietnamese equivalent and English meaning of each grammar point 16 Teachers should use Vietnamese only during teaching grammar process Options Statements Strongly disagree Strongly Disagree Undecided Agree agree 17 Form, usage and meaning are features of language on which teachers focus in the process of teaching grammar *Others: …………………………………………………………………………………………………… ……… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… *Your current practice of teaching grammar 18 ………I often mix inductive and deductive teaching grammar approaches 19 5 I am using a various number of practice activities for grammar teaching, including awareness, controlled drills, meaningful drills, guided, meaningful practice, (structure-based) free sentence composition, discourse (structure-based) composition and free discourse 78 20 I often use exercises and test papers as useful, necessary and effective methods to help children understand a grammar 5 5 point 21 I am teaching grammar through text from course books, authentic sources such as magazines, newspapers, comics, books, songs, the internet and others 22 I often use dramas, kits, poems, and storytelling for 23 grammar teaching process I often use songs and chants, songs and chants charts for grammar teaching 24 I often use actions to accompany songs and poems or with puppets to teach a grammar point for children Options Statements Strongly Strongly disagree Disagree Undecided 25 Agree agree I often use classroom instructions (used repeatedly and with gestures) during 5 5 teaching grammar process 26 I often use playing activities or games 27 for grammar teaching I have various activities (e.g pair work, group work, and others) during my teaching process 28 I often use many repetitions of a grammar meaningful point 3in different, contexts for grammar teaching process 79 29 I am applying technologies for teaching (such as Interactive White Board, LCD screens, CDs, DVDs, computer, visual 5 5 5 aids and others) *Teachers found it difficult 30 - to get enough reference books and teaching facilities 31 - to correct the mistakes and help every student to identify his/her weak and strong sides considering the learning grammar process 32 - to teach multi-level classes 33 - to teach young learners because they have short attention and concentration span 34 - to teach children because they lack linguistic knowledge to express themselves - to teach young learners because they 35 are easy to be excited and tend to be make noise *Others: …………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………….………………………………………………… *Suggestions to improve the teaching grammar to young learners ……………………………… THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION! 80 APPENDIX TEACHER INTERVIEW QUESTIONS These questions are designed to collect information for my research of “An Investigation into Teaching English Grammar to Young Learners at Some Primary Schools in Thua Thien Hue Province” Your answers will be very helpful and valuable to this research The data collected will be kept confidential and used only for the purpose of the current research Thank you very much for your kind cooperation In your opinion, is it important to teach grammar? Teaching primary school students and teaching secondary school students are mostly the same? Which children‟s characteristics help you facilitate your grammar teaching? How often you use song and chant, game, story, play activities, role play, booklets and others for teaching grammar to young leaners? Do those activities help children learn grammar effectively? What challenges you meet during your lessons when using those activities to teach to pupils? What have you done to overcome these difficulties? What are strong and weak points of children when they learn grammar? What strategies you have to make your teaching to children better in the future? In your opinion, is there the best method of teaching grammar for children? (The Grammar-Translation Method, The Direct Method, Audio-lingual Method, Total Physical Response, Communicative Language Teaching, Task-based Language Teaching) According to you, testing grammar is important? Why or why not? 81 10 Do you often carry out the common procedure of grammatical structure teaching (Presentation, Practice and Production or Noticing, Structuring and Proceduralizing)? If not, how does the order change? 11 Which stage of teaching grammar you often spend the most of time on? (Presentation, Practice and Production) 12 Do you often apply information technology for grammar teaching? 82 APPENDIX BẢNG CÂU HỎI (dành cho học sinh) Các câu hỏi thiết kế nhằm mục đích thu thập thơng tin cho nghiên cứu “NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC DẠY NGỮ PHÁP TIẾNG ANH CHO TRẺ EM TẠI MỘT SỐ TRƯỜNG TIỂU HỌC Ở HUẾ” Những ý kiến em hữu ích có giá trị cho nghiên cứu Thông tin thu thập sẻ lưu trử sử dụng cho nghiên cứu Cám ơn em nhiều Học ngữ pháp có giúp em việc đọc, viết nói tiếng Anh khơng? Tại sao? Em cảm thấy học ngữ pháp tiếng Anh qua hát, câu chuyện, trò chơi, hoạt động, diễn kịch, thiết kế sách… Các phương pháp học có giúp em học ngữ pháp tốt khơng? Tại sao? Có khó cho em tiết tiếng Anh học điểm ngữ pháp (hoặc cấu trúc) hay khơng? Em có gặp khó khăn việc học một cấu trúc (chẳng hạn nghĩa, cách dùng, cấu tạo …) cấu trúc đó? Khi giáo viên sửa lỗi cho em, em có thấy lo lắng khơng? Các hoạt động lớp học tiếng Anh mà em thấy thích (ví dụ hoat động theo nhóm, theo cặp đơi, cá nhân …)? Ở trường em có phịng học tiếng Anh riêng khơng? Trong phịng học co trang bi tivi, máy tính, máy chiếu … khơng? 83 APPENDIX OBSERVATION SHEET Teacher’s name:………………………………………Class: Lesson:…………………………………………………………………Date: Time: Teaching Grammar studies Approaches/Stages grammar process Techniques Difficulties Grammatical items Correction Participation Organization Observation feed back Good points Bad points 84 Solutions APPENDIX THE REALIBILITY OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE-PILOT Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha N of Items 753 Necessity of teaching 35 Scale Mean if Scale Variance if Item Deleted Item Deleted Corrected Item-Total Cronbach's Alpha if Correlation Item Deleted 127.63 114.861 165 751 129.00 116.138 050 758 Affect reading ability 128.13 119.430 -.097 766 Learn to talk 128.33 112.437 187 751 Set fundamental 127.43 118.185 -.028 758 Two approaches 127.23 113.357 354 745 GTM 127.53 112.740 308 745 DM 127.43 114.392 245 748 ALM 127.33 116.092 085 754 TPR 127.53 113.568 222 748 CLT 127.17 113.592 283 746 TBLT 127.37 113.689 323 746 PPP 127.30 113.045 211 749 Teach one structure 128.07 105.857 335 742 127.40 113.145 191 750 129.20 121.821 -.194 772 grammar Teaching YLs& older are not the same Both V equivalence E meaning Teach Vietnamese meaning only 85 Focus on form, usage and 127.33 106.437 652 729 127.20 115.200 261 748 Using practice activities 127.23 114.944 260 748 Using exercises and test 127.40 114.662 167 751 Teaching through texts 127.47 114.533 107 755 Using drama, role play 127.53 109.016 382 740 Using songs and chants 127.27 102.340 756 720 Using song with actions 127.17 109.730 426 739 Using class instruction 127.57 108.323 381 739 Using games 127.20 106.993 713 729 Using various activities 126.93 114.271 248 748 Using repetitions 127.10 119.334 -.104 759 Applying technology 127.37 120.723 -.168 765 Not get enough references 127.53 101.637 678 721 Correct mistakes and identify 128.20 108.786 287 745 Teach multi-level 128.03 113.137 086 762 Short attention 127.63 113.275 193 750 Lack language knowledge 127.70 105.941 462 734 Easy to be excited 127.37 104.033 604 727 meaning Mixing inductive and deductive 86 APPENDIX THE REALIBILITY OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha N of Items 773 Necessity of teaching 35 Scale Mean if Item Scale Variance if Corrected Item- Cronbach's Alpha if Deleted Item Deleted Total Correlation Item Deleted 129.07 117.099 099 756 129.00 116.138 105 758 Affect reading ability 129.57 120.806 -.107 769 Learn to talk 129.77 112.392 236 751 Set fundamental 128.87 119.016 -.010 760 Two approaches 128.67 113.540 426 745 GTM 128.97 113.551 327 747 DM 128.87 114.740 300 749 ALM 128.77 117.082 092 757 TPR 128.97 115.206 193 753 CLT 128.60 114.731 281 750 TBLT 128.80 113.683 409 746 PPP 128.73 114.754 181 754 Teach one structure 129.50 106.397 354 744 128.83 113.730 216 752 130.63 122.240 -.165 773 128.77 107.702 640 733 grammar Teaching YLs &older are not the same Both V equivalence E meaning Teach Vietnamese only Focus form, usage and meaning 87 Mixing inductive and 128.63 115.757 312 750 Using practice activities 128.67 116.506 222 752 Using exercises and test 128.83 115.730 169 754 Teaching through texts 128.90 117.403 033 762 Using drama, role play 128.97 110.792 349 745 Using songs and chants 128.70 104.217 712 726 Using song with actions 128.60 110.800 427 742 Using class instruction 129.00 110.552 330 746 Using games 128.63 108.309 696 733 Using various activities 128.37 115.964 207 752 Use repetition 128.53 120.878 -.134 763 Applying technology 128.80 121.545 -.152 767 Not get enough references 128.97 102.447 689 724 129.63 108.861 325 746 Teach multi-level 129.47 114.878 067 767 Short attention 129.07 113.720 225 751 Lack language knowledge 129.13 106.395 489 736 Easy to be excited 128.80 105.269 595 731 deductive Correct mistakes and identify 88 APPENDIX Lesson – Present Simple Negative  Activity in use This lesson is devoted to the use of a negative in present simple tense At the beginning of the lesson, we will the rule of formation of negative sentences That is something what pupils already known Pupils will choose their representatives at the board who complete the sentences with the correct verb form and not All the pupils will check the accuracy together in the form of debate When teacher will make sure that pupils are familiar with that, we can go on the next activity  Activity in use This activity is the last one of this lesson is for pupils much more exciting than the previous one They will go to the board and spun two rotating wheels They make negative sentences from the words This activity was very motivating and enjoyable If someone does not say the sentence correctly, other pupils help a lot 89 APPENDIX Lesson – There is / There are  Activity in use In this lesson we will be practicing grammar very important structure “there is/there are” The picture appears on the board Teacher will try to choose a picture which is as pleasant for children as possible It is a picture of a sea coast with some objects that children can find funny, especially on the seacoast They start to laugh straight away it has appeared on the board and started to name objects individually It was the best introduction into the grammar structure “there is/there are” First we review the vocabulary needed I point at objects on the board and pupils say them in English Pupils were familiar with almost all of the words During this activity we practiced a plural that is necessary After the vocabulary review pupils were given one minute to remember all the things in the picture Teacher then turn on the stopwatch at the bottom of the slide This is one of the things that teacher will differently next time Pupils constantly monitor the stopwatch and not concentrate at the picture as they should Then teacher present the picture of man who is thinking about something about what is in the picture Teacher reads aloud what he says and explains that they are also going to remember the picture and say what is there In order to describe the picture properly they need to use the grammar structure “there is/there are”, as every English speaking person will use it Through examples on the board we review when they use they use “there is” and when they use “there are” Then teacher asks pupils to divide into two 90 groups, they are probably used to it, so there is no problem They divide immediately Each group said one sentences about the picture Children are talking in groups together about the picture and if somebody´s idea is wrong, they agree what is right If the group says the correct sentence, it gets a point  Activity in use Pupils will choose one representative who went to the board He reads the sentence with some missing words in the beginning The pupils vote if “there is” or “there are” is right for the sentence The winning structure is added to the empty box and immediately assess by the “board” Pupils have immediate feedback if they a right or a bad decision 91 APPENDIX 92