Applying speaking games effectively to students of the eleventh form

l 0" , /, ====~===r==== = -c:== 3.3.3 The post-game activity -~ -~- - 24 • ABSTRACT Recently, the application of new teaching method - Communicative Approach- by using language games has been paid attention by both Vietnamese high schools teachers and students However because of many different reasons, it is not popular Vietnamese teachers still tend to teach English by traditional way One of the important skills when learning English is speaking, but it does not receive much consideration from teachers and students Therefore, students not have opportunities to improve their speaking skill • The aim of this study is to make clear the important role of speaking games in teaching English and suggest some effective way~to design these games for eleventh-form students Playing language games like speaking activities is a good way to encourage students to learn English speaking in high schools in particular and learn English in general A mini-test was done on a real eleventhform class which consists of fifty-one students at Trung Vuong High school to check their abilities before applying games An experimental game for unit was carried out in this class In order to know high school teachers' and students' opinions about using speaking games in teaching and learning English, two questionnaires were designed, one for teachers and another for eleventh-form students of four classes The most important result indicates that all students like to speak English through playing games than they are pointed to so Most of teachers show that they really want to use language games in their classes by this way because of many positive influences The study ends up with some comparisons and I • discussions of the experiment and the results of two questionnaires on teachers' and students' attitudes towards teaching and learning English by applying games like speaking games It is hoped that this paper would be useful for high school teachers and their students, especially for students who will be teachers of English in the future Besides some limitations of my research, I am sure that it is hard to avoid some mistakes All the comments and advice!;, from the teaching staff and everyone will be welcomed I would like to appreciate them with all my respects - I chapter 1: NTROOLCfI(}.J an ~ foreign countries, many people are seen doing the crosswords in newspapers everywhere such as on a bus, in a coffee shop, at a subway station or even in the park with all their interest People told me that it was an interesting and relaxing way to make their brain work and learn something new - Truly, people all like to learn things inan enjoyable way because there is a belief that people can best what they enjoy doing It is particularly true concerning language learning Among the activities that encourage students to learn and enable them to acquire the language easily and quickly, language games seem to be the most popular and effective because they have been proved to stimulate students to work, help to gain confidence, bring about a healthy competitive environment, etc.; and most of all make it great to learn Playing language games is, however, not popular in most schools in Vietnam It is because of the wrong conception that games are nothing but rewards for students being working hard, or even worse, a choice to occupy free time Other reasons include the size of classes, time allocation, material, etc It is not easy to change the way of thinking and overcome the obstacles Recently, however, there have been many changes and experiments made in the education system, in general, and in language teaching and learning, in particular It has been realized that learning a language is to communicate not to grammar work and take examinations There have been changes in the Chapter I : Introduction syllabus and new course books have been written and put into practice By which I mean the prospect is great and so it is high time to think of ways to get over difficulties and improve the situations The purpose of this study is to analyze the important role of language games in teaching speaking Suggestions are also given, hopefully to encourage Vietnamese high school teachers to apply games in classes Within the limit of a graduation paper, however, I just focus on analyzing teachers' and students' attitude towards the issues An experimental game is done on the eleventh form students at Trung Vuong high school where I spent my onemonth internship The data are collected randomly from the mentioned population in order to increase the reliability of the research Though being limited by the small involved population, tested time and my little experience, it is my hope that this paper can make a humble contribution to the English teaching and learning in high schools The paper consists of six chapters The first chapter is the Introduction which includes the background, objective, scope and organization of the research The second chapter is the Literature Review, an over view of the Communicative Approach and language games The next chapter shows the Methodology as well as the results of the investigation by questionnaires and doing the experiment It also covers the description of the subjects and the material of this study Chapter Discussion presents the findings, explanation and discussion from the results Some suggestions for playing speaking games effectively are introduced in chapter five The last chapter is the Conclusion I ~ 6'T- here U 2: LlfERATURE REVIEW is no doubt t~t English has been the most popular language in the world In Vietnam, particularly,-Englishjs c.onsidered the key to success It guarantees young people good jQQ.sd~romotion, and opportunities to develop themselves._Accordingly, \ : :' :_- teaching English has become an important and promising job Teachers of English in Vietnam, due to the many difficulties related to the country's political and economic situations, have not been able to apply the modem method in teaching English Joanna Baker and Heather Westrup (2000, 3) state that there is no single way to learn English, there are many effective methods of learning and teaching languages Till now, Communicative Approach is considered better than any others such as Grammar Translation or Direct Method 2.1 Definition of Communicative Approach 2.1.1 Communicative Approach - A brief definition Communicative Approach was first known in the mid 1970s It is a way of making sure that students learn language for many different purposes beyond the classroom (Marilyn Levis, Nov 1995) In classrooms, this method is known as a way of teaching with various activities, which focus on the role of students According to Marilyn Lewis, (1995) students learn how to use language to communicate with other people rather than speaking and writing just for practicing the language She also agrees that learning to use the language form appropriately is an important part of the communicative competence Students have chances to practice, to use them freely because in the Communicative - -~~ Chapter : Literature review • Approach, each student has a choice of what he or she will say and how he or she will say (Diane Larsen_ Freeman, 1986) 2.1.2 Aciivities Communicative Approach is stated as a way of getting students to communicate with each other in English (Adrian Doff, 1988) Through communicative activities, some of the main features of real communication are established In Adrian Doffs point of view, there are some "simple communicative activities that teachers can use in their own classes" such as "guessing games," "information gaps' exercise," "activities in which students exchange personal information," "discussion" or "role play," and communicative games I would like to tell more about each kind of activities to prove that they focus on the interaction among learners Guessing games: Teachers demonstrate a guessmg game by using a picture The rule of these games is very simple Students' duty is to guess what the picture that their - teacher has is In order to get some information about the picture, -students will ask their teacher "Yes-No questions", and they will try to draw it The picture is finally showed to the class 'Information' exercises: This kind of communicative activity is designed for pair work The two students in each pair are given different information They take tum to find out their friend's information by asking questions Chapter : Literature review Exchanging personal information: Students will tell each other about their lives, their hobbies, their experiences, etc This activity is like a free talk which encourages students to say what they think Discussion: Students are asked to work in pairs or groups on given topics Students, then, discuss briefly with their teacher what answers they gave and show the reasons of their choices Role-plav: Adrian Doff (1988) indicates: Role-play is always of bringing situations from real life into the classroom When we role-play, we ask students to imagine ( Adrian Doff, 1988) A role or a situation or both a role and a situation are imagined 2.1.3 Roles o/teachers Although in the Communicative Approach, teachers are not the center, they play remarkable roles in making things work well Teachers are less dominant in the classroom does not mean teachers work freely or no teaching In a communicative class, many roles of teachers are fulfilled A teacher is not only an actor/actress but also an organizer, an advisor, a facilitator and a co- communicator of his or her students' learning (Freeman, 1986) First, a teacher_ an orgamzer_ creates or chooses the right types of activities for students The teacher, then, reasonably divide the class into pairs or Chapter : Literature review • groups to exploit students' abilities (Diane Larsen- Freeman, 1985) If the class is in good organization, students' learning will be easier and better Second, as a facilitator, a teacher manages the activities of the class He or she takes the responsibility to establish and control the situations In communicative activities, like playing games, a teacher is needed as a person who controls the playing of the games, explain the games' rules George P McCallum mentions: How much teachers actually participates in the game, he or she always remain on charge and keep the situation under control This is especially true when playing some of the physical active games and certainly when working with younger people (George P McCallum, 1980, xi) Third, Littlewood (1981) points out that during the classroom activities, a teacher has to move from pairs to pairs or from groups to groups to observe the students' performance When a teacher acts as an advisor, he helps his students by answering their questions, offering advice, etc Last but not least, when being a co-communicator, a teacher engages in the communicative activities along with the students (Littlewood, 1981) That means he or she sometimes takes part in the activities to encourage students to work 2.1.4 Roles of students In Communicative Approach, students are the center In other words, students' role is dominant in class According to Freeman, (1986) all of the students are communicators They communicate with their friends, their teachers so they, in fact, learn to communicate by communicating (Diane Laser- Freeman, 1985) Chapter : Literature review These authors also show that students are actively engaged in negotiating the meaning while trying to make themselves understand even when their knowledge of the target language is incomplete Students' roles are emphasized: "All of the class should be involved in one way or another." (George P McCallum, 1980, xi) Students' involvement plays an important part in the success of the activities in the class 2.2 The necessity of Communicative Approach in teaching languages Professor Lewis Wobert (1995) emphasizes: "If you know how something works, you can begin to work out how to interfere with it" It means you can anything that you are instructed how to and given opportunities to try Communicative Approach will help you this In communicative classes, teachers aim to get students to practice, to get accustomed to the language by communicative activities Teachers want their students to learn how to use the language communicatively through communicative activities (Diane Larsen- Free, 1986) The importance of these activities is indicated: "Communicative activities would make the teaching of listening, speaking, reading, writing more effective." (Tran Nguyen Song Khanh, 2002) Once again, William Littlewood agrees that communicative activities is an important part of the learning process Some contributions of communicative activities are emphasized Firstly, they provide "whole_task practice." In Communicative activities, students have chances to practice all skills such as speaking, listening, writing or reading Because teachers not dominate the class much and cannot control all students' language, students have time to use the language functions in anyway to express their ideas William Littlewood (1981) points out that those Chapter : Suggestion What teachers have to base on to designed games? The answer is the equipment and materials available The equipment in the class includes computers, overhead projectors, board, etc Teachers should know what are in hand to use, if not, teachers have to spend more time using the common ways with charts and flash cards Moreover, material is not a "must" but a necessity in designing language games since it guarantees the logic and the science of games Teachers can, of course, create new games base on the model Another thing to consider is the time available for a game Once again, I want to state the limitation of time in teaching English in high school Because of the short of time, games have to be brief and easy to understand Games are best set up by demonstration rather than by lengthy explanation (Jill Hadfield, 1990, vi) Teachers should arrange the playing time reasonably We have to focus on practical considerations which teachers should know when they want to choose the right games for certain class There are always some others factors worth considering, such as the physical space teachers have to work with, cultural consideration, the noise and so on They all contribute to the success 5.2 Should and shouldn't when applying games It is quite hard to choose the perfect game for the perfect occasion If you have chosen a game like this but it turns out to be a dud, you simply face up to the fact that today is not the day for particular game (George P.McCallum, 1980) What can we at that time? That is easy to understand, you have to "as soon as possible change activities" (George P McCallum, 1980) 40 Chapter : Suggestion Besides, if some individual students not feel like playing game, teachers should not force them because nothing can be done well under the force and without interest George P McCallum also agrees: "Let him be an observer that day No one should be forced to play games" (George P McCallum, 1980) He indicates that, therefore, every student should be made to feel he or she has some part in the game, even though for the moment it is a passive role Another question is "Is it good for teachers to repeat a popular game for many times?" George P McCallum's answer is that there is nothing wrong with playing a successful game on a later occasion but it is preferable to allow a decent interval of time before re-introducing it Still better is the use of different games the next time though it could be a variation of the one that students have especially enjoy If they have to play the same kind of language games too often, they will feel bored easily and of course, we cannot have good result in both teaching and learning In other words, repeating a game in many times will detract from the effectiveness of learning English Teachers should use various games in order to bring something new to the class and make students interested in learning English much more 5.3 Some suggestions for the problems while applying language games in high schools As presented in chapter two, teachers of English, especially those who work in high schools, face a lot of problems attempting to use games as parts of the lessons First, the size of the class is considered a constant headache of schools in Vietnam No wonder how it distracts teaching and learning How to control a class of about forty students is, as it were, the very first question to solve 41 Chapter : Suggestion whenever a pair/group activity is used In fact, the number of students in each class has been more or less reduced to a more reasonable number nowadays Instead of crowded classes of forty of fifty, many classes of thirty or thirty-five have been found Although the ideal model of class has not been popular; hopefully, with the preferential policy on education made recently by the government, the situation would soon be better What we can now to support ourselves is to choose games that are easy to control, and interested to play Besides, we can also designate some good and enthusiastic students as group leaders They, on one hand, help to control the activity, and on the other hand, encourage other students in the group to participate As far as I am concerned both as a student and an observer, they will be happy to help and put much effort into the job because the feeling of being in power is much approved among students of this age Time is the next problem to think about It is true that teachers cannot change the time allocation, but they should be creative and flexible enough to use games as an alternative to some traditional tasks or exercises It can be a ten or fifteen-minute game after each part of a lesson or in the consolidation Since it is emphasized not to consider playing games a temporary activity, it should be frequently applied in schools And practice makes perfect! The more they play, I believe, the better they become; not only in the language competence, but also in the work related to organization and management It is also somewhat a good idea to design games similar to the game show on television Games on television are usually loved or at least familiar to students Thus, if language games designed following the same structures are more likely to be a success For one thing, students feel like they are on TV and 42 Chapter : Suggestion watched and supported by the audience For another thing, time is saved because they know the rule well, so there is no need to re-explain The third suggestion is for the source of games There is no doubt that designing games is hard and time-consuming work Besides, teachers in Vietnam are so busy with teaching that they spend rather little time for preparation Recently, however, there have been more and more game books available in the market They can be found in big bookstores like Xuan Thu on Dong Khoi Street, Phuong Nam on Le Duan Street, and Fahasa on Nguyen Hue Street etc They sure are expensive, but I think every school can afford to supply its library with such these precious and useful books Another source is from the Internet Thanks to the modem technology, Internet service helps us with all kinds of information for free This is an endless source of pictures, books and ideas Or as mentioned earlier, there are game shows on television you can copy They are all easy to play and a lot of fun The fourth problem _noise_ is known as a 'must' in playing games But if it goes too far and becomes a trouble, there should be ways to put it under control Teachers can be very flexible and creative, to my point of view; however, penalties appear to be quite effective If they know that the way they control the noise within their group will partly decide the final score or whether they will have the next game; they will behave themselves It is more important the role of teachers that they can deal and solve possible quarrels because quarrel can seriously break the students' positive attitude towards playing games As for the last trouble_ students' attitude towards language games_ it is teachers' job to make them familiar with working on games Language games 43 Chapter : Suggestion should be applied frequently and effectively to change the thought that they are just for fun It is important to make students understand that every game is designed purposely to have them practice and learn certain things, and thus, is never a waste of time I strongly believe that students will soon realize that they owe these games the motivation of speaking in the target language as well as the excitement of learning it 44 Chapter : CO'CWSION (]There U has been a gradual but great change in the Vietnamese education system in order to meet the needs of a society in the time of integrating and developing In addition to the improvement of facilities, course books; a new teaching method is one of the main factors that help to bring Vietnam closer to the quality of education and training in the area Teachers should realize how important their role is in producing a qualified generation who can survive the competitive society Concerning language teaching and learning, students taught by the old methods have been proved not to be able to communicate effectively and, as a result, face difficulties in their jobs Among activities used in the new method _Communicative Approach_playing games seems to be one of the most interesting and effective one That is the reason why this paper focuses on analyzing the aspects of applying games in high schools' language teaching Two questionnaires and an experiment are used to collect the data Through the analysis of the questionnaires' results, we can see that both teachers and students understand the usefulness and excitement of games in language practice They are, however, still doubtful about the possibility and effectiveness of the activity Then, a experimental game is used in the effort of trying to overcome the problems ever emerged and, at the same time, prove to teachers and students that 45 Chapter : Conclusion playing games is truly an effective, exciting and enjoyable way of practicing languages By comparing the results of the two mini tests done, before and after the game, remarkable improvement is realized in the students' speaking skill, enthusiasm and learning attitude Finally, some recommendations are given on how to choose and design games when to use them effectively Ways to overcome problems usually seen in game application are also suggested Within the scope of a graduation paper and my little experience as a trainee teacher, there are still limitations and deficiencies Further researches on the topic are, therefore, invited and welcome I highly appreciate more experiments on the theory raised so that the reliability of the findings and conclusions can be improved In conclusion, it is my wish that game application, together with other communicative activities, can be applied widely in Vietnam and students of languages, in general, and English, in particular, can be trained to become competent in communicating and confident in life 46 APPEf\V1X QUESTIONNAIRE (for teachers) Please answer these questions by making a cross in the box you choose: Do you usually save time for speaking in class? DYes DNo How long is saved for speaking in class? ~o D 15 minutes D minutes D 10 minutes D minutes you use language games as speaking activities? DYes tI\ DNo D Sometimes Are your students interested in playing speaking games? DYes ~ DNo D Sometimes / Are speaking games used effectively? DYes DNo D Sometimes What your students oenefit from playing speaking games? ~ / D Retain lessons longer D Gain confidence D Gain accuracy D Be motivated in using the language D Gain fluency D Enjoy learning 17 Is it difficult and time-taking to design speaking games for speaking? DYes DNo Are there books and materials available for designing speaking games? DYes No What woulClyou like to in 10 minutes for consolidation? ~ o Giving a mini-test Giving speaking games o Expanding the lesson Others _ 10 In your opinion, should teachers offer speaking games often in class? DYes *** JZ No Thanks a lot/or your co-operation! *** APPe-V1X2 QUESTIONNAIRE (for students) Please answer these questions by making a cross in the box you choose Do your teachers usually save time for speaking in class? How long? DYes DNo D Sometimes Do you want more time for speaking? DYes ~ DNo Do you like learning speaking by playing language games? DYes ~ow >( DNo you think playing language games helps you to improve your English? dow D Remember lessons longer D Enjoy learning D Be more confident D All of them often you have language games in class? D Usually D Rarely D Sometimes D Never o you think language games should be of yours lessons? 0.) DYes D No re the language games given interesting enough? DYes DNa , G What problems you face when playing language games? o Shortage of time o Noise o None of them *** Others Thanks a lot for your co-operation! _ *** APPENDIX BIBLIOGRAPHY Baker, & West/up, R(2000) The English language teachers' handbook Continuum Byrne, D (1987) Techniques for classroom interaction London: Longman Doff, A (1988) Teach English-A training course for teachers Great Britain: Cambridge University Press Gebhard, G (1996) Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language University of Michigan Hadfield, J (1996) Intermediate communication games Addison Wesley Longman Ltd Harmer, (ed.) (1990) The practice of English language teaching 1ih edition Hong Kong: Longman group Ltd Hanner, (1998) How to teach English Addition Wesley Longman Limited Jones, (ed.) (1997) Communication Grammar practice 4th edition Cambridge University Press , Lam, C T (2001) Language games III improving speaking skill of Vietnamese tenth-form students 10 Larsen, D & Freeman (1986) Techniques and principles in language teaching Hong Kong: Oxford University Press 11 Le Nguyen, T H (2002) Games to consolidate vocabulary III the reading texts to tenth-form students 12 Lewis, M (1995) Training English teachers Zealand: University of Auckland ill Viet Nam New • X 13 Littlewood, W (1981) Communicative Language Teaching Cambridge University Press 14.Lynch, T (1996) Communication in the language classroom Oxford University Press 15.Malamah, A & Thomas (1987) Classroom interaction Oxford University Press k16.McCallum, G P(l980) 101 words games Oxford University Press 17.Pullia, E.V.&Young, J D (1968) A teacher is many things USA: Indiana University Press 18 Rinvolucri, M (1984) Grammar Games Cambridge University Press 19 Simmons, C Public speaking made simple New England Publishing Associates, Inc 20 Tran Nguyen, S K (2002) Application of the communicative Approach in using the textbook English ten 21 Willis, J (ed.) (1998) Teaching English through English 19th edition Malaysia: Longman