Suggestions for organizing speaking activities in high school

HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INFORMA nON TECHNOLOGY - DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES GRADUATION PAPERS SUGGESTIONS FOR ORGAr~IZING SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN HIGH SCHOOL Advisor: Mrs Vo Thi Van Nga Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Class: SA01-01 Student's code: 0171300 IIwlllI~i1~li~lijijilli 101000460 Ho Chi Minh City July, 2005 , - j '-" " - In completing this graduation papers, I have received a lot of precious advice as well as valuable help and encouragement from my professors, family and friends First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to HUFLIT University, especially to the professors and teachers in the Department of Foreign Languages, who gave me opportunity doing this graduation papers I also sincerely send my thankfulness to Mr Vu Quoc Anh, M.A., a Vice Dean of Department of Foreign Languages, for his concern and encouragement I also would like to send my thanks to Ms Bui thi Thanh Truc, M.A., for her very kind concern to my work I am extremely grateful to my adviser- Ms Vo Thi Van Nga for her useful advice and instructions Ms Van Nga is always patient, responsible and sympathetic to me I really appreciated her encouragement, ideas as well as comments I would like to express my special gratitude to her lowe a genuine thank to my family members who always care for me and my work during the time I carried out this research They are my great source of encouragement and motivation Next, my thanks should be sent to the vice-principal of Le Qui Don high school dir her support and to forty three students in class 10 C at this high school for their significant participation ACKNOWLE DG EMENT Chapter I: INTRODUCTI ON Chapter II: LITERATURE REVIEW A WHY SHOULD TEACHER (T) ENCOURAGE STUDENTS (SS) TO DO SPEAKI NG ACTIVITI ES? Rehearsal Feedback Engagement B CHARACTERISTICS OF A SUCCESSFUL SPEAKING ACTiVITy Much learners' talk High motivation Acceptable level of language accuracy Even participation C THE CLASS SEATING D TEACHER'S E IDENTIFYING ARRANGEMENT ROLE AND TEACHER'S THE TEACHER'S AND CLASS GROUPINGS CORRECTION GOAL: ACCURACY OR FLUENCY? 10 •••••• 14 Considering the activities that can be applied for those four types: Accuracy work with the whole class Accuracy work in pairs Fluency work with the whole class Fluency work in groups F FACTORS THAT AFFECT SS' SPEAKING 19 Chapter III: METH OD 21 l Overview 0' Subject i Materials Procedures Y; » Statistical treatments 't> } j Chapter IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION A STUDENTS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS ENGLISH SPEAKING ACTiViTy 24 Students' attitude towards speaking English Students' enthusiasm Students' self-evaluation B THE STUDY OF SPEAKING ACTIVITY IN ClASS Students' frequency of speaking English Students' favorite types of speaking activities Time and activities Students' ideas 31 25 C STUDENTS' EXPECTATIONS FOR ENGLISH SPEAKING ACTIVITIES ORGAN IZATION D.STUDENTS' 34 OPINIONS TOWARDS THE ENGLISH EXPERIMENTAL TEXTBOOK Chapter 40 v: RECOMMEN DATION A IN-ClASS SPEAKING ACTIVITIES ORGANIZATION 46 Requirements for the organizer - the teacher Activities in classroom 2.1 Pair work and group work 2.2 Accuracy work with the whole c1ass/ group work 2.3 Fluency work with the whole class Fluency work with the group work B OUT -OF-ClASS ACTIVITI ES 55 English speaking clubs in high school Extra-curriculum activities Chapter VI: CONCLUSION 59 Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga CHAPTER I Communication is an important the general trend of global integration exchanging information, nowadays, far and the most, the need of relations among nations becomes so urgent Those activities in various forms with different in period activity considered a must in social life In of international technology, purposes.lnternational integration scientific oral communication language is a significant to exchange tool and learn from each latest progress No one can deny the important the speedy development occurred of Information role of "oral communication" Along with Technology that internet is more concrete, is one of the quickest means to help people understand and get closer to each other more easily For the significant features of international language, English has become an official subject in school at all levels In addition, English is also a compulsory subject for important exams (graduation exams and entrance exams) A few months ago, when reading an article- an educational research, with the title "Foreign language in school- Why cannot students speak foreign language while they have learnt it for 10 years:" ( page 7, Thanh Nien Newspaper Oct, 27th, published on Wed, Moreover, one month's practice 2004), I paid much attention 301, to this problem in high school showed me much The 11 form Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga class I worked in was an outstanding one in the school I had expected them to be good at English as well as English speaking However, the reality was quite contrary I also had chances to work in a few classes from form 10 to form 12, some of them are what we call "selected classes" but the number of students who could produce English speaking fairly well was just 'a few Most of them weren't used to speaking in English and they had many difficulties in their speaking skill The fact is that they are good at grammar, reading comprehension or writing, but not speaking Last year, J read mx friend's research which showed thaLeven students in Engl isfLDepartment.did-not-speak -Engl ish-very-well ,~'s a waste of time and chances JIlat after ten_years studying English, students still I I can't speak English well Recently, I have heard about an English experimental textbook which has been put into teaching for the 10 form students in Le Qui Don high school I wanted to find that if it was interested by students or not For these above reasons, I would like to learn the actual state of those students about English speaking after one year's studying this experimental textbook Furthermore, seeking the answer for the question "How to organize English speaking activities successfully in high school?" is my last goal in carrying out this graduation papers This graduation papers begins with the introduction about the theme and this is expanded in the following chapters by a detailed analysis It then goes on to show the method J used to research Basing on the finding from questionnaires collection, I will discuss and draw out the conclusion The final chapter makes Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga recommendations for speaking activities organizations and suggests possible ways to improve students' speaking skill At right the beginnings, difficult to be accomplished this theme and I decided some people warned me that this theme was quite because of its impossibility to conduct it Doing graduation me; moreover, my lack of experience However, I was keen on papers is quite new to may cause the imperfect to the content, form or the way the ideas are dealt with I am sincerely looking forward to receiving all of the supervisors' precious comments that would be really necessary and valuable for my later development Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga CHAPTER II A Why should teacher (T) encourage students (5s) to speaking activities? According to Harmer (1998:87), there are three basic reasons why teacher should encourage students to speaking activities They are: Rehearsal: T can get 5s to have a free discussion, giving them a chance to rehearse having discussion out side the classroom By this way, 5s can "get the feel" of what communicating in the foreign language is really like Feedback: Both T and 5s can get the feedback from the speaking activities where 5s are trying to use all and any languages they know T can see how the 5s are doing and what language problems they are having 5s can recognize their speaking ability and what they need to to improve it, and also they become confident and satisfied, thus willing to study further Engagement: Good speaking participate activities can and should be motivated If all the 5s fully, and if the T sets up the activities properly and can then give sympathetic and useful feedback, 5s will get great satisfaction addition, many speaking activities themselves from it In are enjoyable so that 5s would be motivated Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga Communication communicate aim is to show communicative Teacher Encouraging purposes the Students Teacher teaches or how to multiple-choice should be able to teach that English Students to correct, in class for meaningful can be used for how to grammar how to read successfully, their Students how to communicate English Teacher should exploit the multiple communication available Students in English is also encouraging them to speak English Teacher's in class exercises is also a form of speaking language practice; in situations that are it is also a way for oral production activities and Students can benefit from it That's through why Wills (1981:1) real use than through states that language real use than is much better through pattern learnt drills and exercises B Characteristics of a successful speaking activity: Harmer (1998:87) stated that good speaking activities should be motivated, while Ur (2002:120) made a fairly detailed category of the characteristics for a successful speaking activity as follows: Much learners' talk: It is obvious that Ss themselves should talk as much as possible during the speaking activity High motivation: Students should be highly motivated in the speaking activity That means when they are interested in the topic they are eager and willing to speak because they have something now to say about it Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga A IN-CLASS SPEAKING ACTIVITIES ORGANIZATION: The activities in this term go with the functions, patterns, structures of speaking that are taught in each unit Students can study many expressions from the controlled knowledge in speaking section of the textbook In other to gain the effectiveness in teaching and progress in studying, the research has given out these points: Requirements a for the organizer - the teacher: First of all, the teacher should try to create a friendly atmosphere for all students so that they could feel relaxed, comfortable and more confident to join themselves in I had some chances to observe some special classes that were decorated in lively and colorful way with the students' "products" Not only children like to study in a multicolored classroom, but also the adolescents or high school students There is a big board at the wall in the end of the classroom and two smaller ones stuck in two sides of the room The students can make some decoration on them, besides sticking the important information or documents on There also could be the places for the teacher to stick some visual aids which are so familiar with the language classes a I have a suggestion of organizing competitions among members in class Their names will be written down; besides, there are many columns in where the students stick the three signals that stand for good results, average results, and weak results The students are very creative and dynamic, so they surely create many extraordinary Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page 46 Advisor: Ms Va Thi Van Nga private signals for their own, they can use some highlight memo papers or small pictures to decorate their tables Names oX ell ell oX ell ell ~ ~ ~ oX ell ell N ~ oX ell ell oX ell ell ~ M ~ ~ oX ell ell '" ~ "" Kim Ngan v v v v v v v v v v v v v HaiNarn Minh QUYPIl Thien Duy I'htloe Due V Due Phuong v Board illustrated The boards which help the students look back their study period, are places for them to show their personality through the way they decorate things on, remind them, encourage those boards bring a refreshing them the importance and exciting atmosphere here is that to the class, Student: Nguyen Thi Huang Giang Page 47 Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga • 3,d step: the teacher categorized listens and notes down the errors which are into terms: pronunciation and words-using errors or syntactic ones • th step: the teacher records comments on a representative sample of those errors and making a personal response Besides, the following strategies also work well: • The teacher notes down each individual's main errors on separate cards and giving these to the students for correction • The teacher records the activity (on video or cassette), asking students to listen and see if they can identify and correct their own errors and correct their own mistakes and their peers' • The teacher makes a note of "key errors", those relating to a recent teaching point or those made by several students At the end, the teacher goes through these errors with the class • The teacher notes down examples of errors, using them as materials for an activity in the next class •: Time management adequate impossible is also a problem time for teaching and practicing to concern There should be speaking skill It is obviously to require more than 90 minutes for teaching and practicing speaking skill per lesson However, this amount of time can be arranged more reasonably so that the teacher could have at least 45 minutes per week for speaking skill, instead of 90 minutes for twice a month Speaking skill is expected to study and practice frequently Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page 49 Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga I think it is not much helpful to teach "speaking" section right after "Iead- o in" one Speaking skill is described as a productive skill that helps the students apply what knowledge they have learned (e.g main details and content of reading texts, new structures and vocabulary .), combined with the new expressions are functions of speaking in order to carry out speaking activities In this way, the students would bear the knowledge in their minds longer because they have chances to review through speaking activities In other words, it is necessary that the speaking section should be put after lead-in, reading, listening, and writing section Activities in classroom: Pair work and group work are suitable for a large class (from 35 to 45 students) because students have the same opportunities to practice speaking 2.1 Pair work and group work: The activities will go from the accuracy works to fluency works a Accuracy work for pair works and group works: : Activity: controlled conversation Students work in pairs practicing the dialogue in text book Although this is traditional, where it is effective This activity should be carried out in laboratory room students can observe pictures through the application lively dialogues, pictures, or illustrated of Power Point The teacher has to prepare the activities carefully The time will be saved so that students have more time to practice Beside the dialogue, controlled conversation also includes some other ones: Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page 50 Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga A.l giving key words for alternatives A.2 using a picture A.3 using a map AA Using tables with information A.S Asking the students to talk about themselves A.6 Practising in games b Points to remember: - Teacher should divide students into pairs in the most convenient way for saving time - Teacher has to make sure that students understand exactly what task they have to do; therefore, teacher should give illustrations clearly and properly - The activities should be simple; this allows most pairs to it quickly without lots of difficulties - Teacher is the one who decides when to stop the activities - The class should not be too noisy - Teacher remembers to check errors, and then gives feedback Teacher should encourage students to tell how they feel after finishing some activities, to ask teacher questions, or to demand some change Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page 51 Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga 2.2 Accuracy work with the whole class/ group work: a Activities: Drills Students who practice chance drills not have to think much Drills give them to get their tongue round with structures and vocabulary Drills are suitable for introducing! teaching new patterns, structures Moreover, students seem to be more confident practicing this one In this case, teacher can divide the class into or groups a.l Practicing drills in chorus a.2 making drills more lively - In this case, teacher cannot chorus work However, students can choose their answers This makes them feel comfortable and vividly - Teacher shows visual aids to each student's answer b Points to remember: - The aim of drills is to help students use language more accurately, so teacher needs to correct his students' errors For class work or group work, teacher should stand at the front of the class, use eye contact to students, and make sure the students get enough practice - The task should be considered enough 2.3 Fluency work with the whole class a Activities: a.l Conversation a.2 Discussion a.3 Games Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page 52 Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga - Guessing games Twenty questions "Who am I?" "Where I live?" "What's my line?" - Memory games: Can you remember the picture? Can you remember the story? - Story-telling: Students can choose the story they wi II tell, they should keep the stories exciting Students have time to prepare at home, then use an outline and tell stories b Points to remember: Teacher's job is to help students to interact to speak to each other by asking a question or contributing an idea, as well as to encourage students to join in Teacher should manage students' participation everyone has chances so that everyone must join, to speak, and the most dominant student does not disable other weaker students in the activities The students' ideas, comments, expected to be concerned feelings (During whole class) are in a friendly way by teacher Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page 53 Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga Fluency work with the group work a Activities: a.1 Discussion a.2 Interpretation activities a.3 Student looks at a picture, and then tells the others in group what he/she thinks about the picture (e.g., the possible meanings, the situations .) A.3 explaining the situation A.4 Problem-solving activities A.5 Finding the similarities and differences A.6 Quiz, Puzzle b Points to remember: - As the aim of these activities is to get students involved in, make them interested in, encourage them to speak English freely and make the best use of what they have learnt It is very important for the teacher to choose activities carefully for group work - Group work should last from 10 to 15 minutes, instead of almost the time of the lesson Teacher is the one to be responsible appropriate time Teacher for cutting group work at an should not correct errors right away because would cost lot of time What the teacher it should is to note down some serious errors and refer to it in another lesson Teacher is also advised not to interfere to group work unless there are some things seriously wrong - Teacher has to make sure that every student can understand what to Students may expect to be explained the aim of the activities they are joining Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page 54 Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga B OUT-OF-ClASS ACTIVITIES: English speaking clubs in high school English speaking clubs is not only a place where students practice speaking English, but also where they can exchange knowledge, experience, advantages, and disadvantages in studying this subject First of all, English speaking clubs are assumed to provide students with friendly, comfortable atmosphere so that they could feel relaxed and encouraged to practice speaking English English speaking clubs should keep the frequency In organization For example: one or twice a month The activities there must be flexible, interesting enough and meaningful that could attract as many students as possible It would be very boring and monotonous to organize discussion activity all the time, as some clubs now Students are expected to have fun activities, learn famous English songs, join some competitions (ex: quiz, eloquence, games ) All those activities take an important role, that is to make students more and more interested in English The participants in the English speaking clubs of course contain teachers and students; in addition, students all expect to have native teachers or friends as their frequent guests Teacher should bear in mind that many native speakers is better than a few Teacher had better manage to have native speakers for every group (about to 10 students) I once saw a native speaker who was nearly exhausted after being asked (mostly the similar questions) and answered by about 50 students during an hour Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page 55 Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga Role-playing can be done there by each group They prepare the play for a time and then play it in their English club, maybe for fun, maybe for competition Eloquence competition is possible to be carried out there The topics are suggested to be interesting, helpful and meaningful which can be related to some certain occasions (Women' day, Tat holiday, summer vacation, Christmas .) or some latest events (Sea games, Green summer campaign for volunteers ) Students have time to prepare for the competition Interesting videos are expected much by the students clubs can provide them with documentary English speaking videos in English to widen their knowledge about the wide world as well as improve their listening skill Besides interesting documentary videos, suitable, meaningful and high- value films can also be shown Afterwards, students have some available hand outs to discuss what video they have just seen Extra-curriculum activities: Teacher may organize short field trips to students once or twice a semester The suggested destinations are parks, museums, farms, protected forests, beaches In spite of taking a short trip (to a certain park or museum in the city, for example) or a long trip (to a certain forest or a beach), each student has to his/ her duties o Before the trip, students work individually, in pairs or groups (this depends on the requirement) preparing for some certain required assignments given by their teacher before the trip Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page 56 Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga For example: v' Discussing the advantages and disadvantages of internet towards teenagers nowadays / Let state your opinion about the person that you want to be in the future / How you think about friendship and please tell a friendship memory that impressed you most a During the trip, students carry out their assignments individually, in pairs or groups They also can prepare to take role-playing a After the trip, students are required to write "the result composition" about the trip (what they learn from the trip? What impressed them most? ) and expected to present those in front of class in later lessons •: Note for teacher: - Students will not be allowed to join the trip if he (or she) has not finished his (or her) duties And this can affect badly to his (or her) end of semester result - These trips should be combined speaking practising) by two aims: studying (English aim and students' personality education aim I expect that students should learn something meaningful and necessary for their personality development - On the other hand, I am hopeful that these trips would help enhance the relationships between teacher and students, among students themselves with each other, and maybe between teacher and students' Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page 57 l Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga parents, between students and their parents (in case students' parents want to join long trips) - All of the activities or assignments (pre-, while, and post ones) are both in English and should help students review the knowledge they have learnt and of course, should be interesting enough - Teacher(s) must prepare carefully for the assignments, activities and what knowledge to provide the students in the trip, as well as the trip - The expense for the trip is raised from the class fund, students' parents, and it should not cost too much o To control the teenage students better, besides the adequate teachers who go to the trip, students' number of parents may join also, if it is a long trip (for about or three days) Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page 58 Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga CHAPTER VI The reality that many high school students don't speak English very well, even students at Universities was my motivation to this research The urban students are considered better at speaking than the rural ones because they can contact modern media regularly as well as benefit much from excellent learning conditions By observing classes at Foreign Language Centers where students have to pay much for their studying, I have recognized studying English with native teachers; that it is a great opportunity however, whether your speaking skill is improved or not, it mostly depends on the learners What the native teachers have are native voice and accents as well as so many interesting activities As far as I am concerned, there are not many such activities existing in English classes in high schools and students aren't interested in those activities much Moreover, they don't have enough time to practice speaking and they aren't encouraged speak English much Those evidences to had lead to current reality This is much worse for rural students who can not benefit from excellent learning conditions Though I know it seems impossible for high school students to be good at speaking English, I believe that there must be some ways to motivate them, to make them interested in speaking I would like to study about speaking activities that can be used by rural students I believe if they practice and are guided to Student: Nguyen Thi Huang Giang Page 59 - Advisor: Ms Vo Thi Van Nga speak properly by their skillful teachers, they would shorten the distance of speaking skill between them and urban students The findings reasonable showed opinions, activities permanently us the students' ideas, and need of speaking recommendations to as well as their organize speaking in their classes This also pointed out some shortcomings in the current speaking activities so that the teacher may take notice of organizing effective activities However, questionnaires this study has existed some limitations and shortcomings have not covered detailed questions for what activities organized in their class Another important aspect was not mentioned that is how oral test id organized research in the subjects' in the questionnaires, classroom would be more sufficient if the high school teachers' comments were investigated those teachers' in the questionnaires ideas would certainly contribute partly had limited the authentic content the ideas, reports, much to this research On the in this research One pity thing that obstacles the completion of is studying expressed quite adequately In addition, What may be found from other hand, a small amount of subjects (43 students) participating the research The about the language teacher's roles This is in the book "The teacher is many things" Doing this research has given me a great opportunity to study various types of activities for class interactions and communications Although much effort has been make to finish this research, the mistakes and shortcomings are certainly unavoidable I truthfully expect to receive as many comments as possible in order to make it better Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang Page 60 BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brown, H.D (1994) Teaching bv Principles an Interactive Approach to language Pedagogy, the USA: Prentice Hall Regends Bygate, M (1987) Speaking, The UK: Oxford University Press Byrne, D (1987) Techniques for Classroom Interaction, The UK: Group UK limited House, Burnt Mill, Harlow Doff, A (1988) Teach English, USA: the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge Harmer, J (1998) How to teach English, England: Addison Wesley Longman Limited Hegde, T (2000) Teaching and Learning in the Language Class, The UK: Oxford University Press Ladousse,G.P (1987) Role Play, The UK: Oxford University Press Lynch, T (1996) Communications in the Language Classroom, The UK: Oxford University Press Watcym-Jones, P (Illustrated by Hogarth, B.) 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