The effects of communicative grammar teaching on efl students communicative competence le ngoc bao tran; nguyen huy cuong supervisor

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY - LE NGOC BAO TRAN THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNICATIVE GRAMMAR TEACHING ON EFL STUDENTS’ COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE Tai Lieu Chat Luong MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL Ho Chi Minh City, 2021 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY - LE NGOC BAO TRAN THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNICATIVE GRAMMAR TEACHING ON EFL STUDENTS’ COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE Major: TEACHING ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGES Major code: 140 111 MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL Supervisor: Dr NGUYEN HUY CUONG Ho Chi Minh City, 2021 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that this thesis entitled “The effects of communicative grammar teaching on EFL students‟ communicative competence” is my own work Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains any material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma No other person‟s work has been used without due acknowledge in the main text of the thesis This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution Ho Chi Minh City, 2021 LE NGOC BAO TRAN i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my special thanks to all the following people for helping me complete the thesis: Firstly, I am very grateful to my supervisor, Dr Nguyen Huy Cuong, who spent his precious time on giving me conscientious assistance, useful advice, insightful and constructive comments, and encouragement This thesis would not have been finished without his great support Secondly, I would like to thank all lectures and staff at Open University, Ho Chi Minh City, who instructed me and provided me with applicable information and knowledge Thirdly, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Ton Duc Thang High School in Ninh Thuan Province, the principal, the English teaching staff and the students in the academic year of 2019-2020 who willingly and enthusiastically supported me to complete this thesis Finally, words cannot reveal my appreciation to my family: my father, my mother, my sister, and my husband Without their endless love and encouragement, I could never overcome the difficulties in my life to complete my thesis ii ABSTRACT There are many studies which were conducted to explore the effectiveness of communicative grammar teaching on EFL students‟ communicative competence; however, few studies have targeted the written aspect of communication Basing on the findings of previous studies, this study was carried out to investigate the effects of communicative grammar teaching on EFL students‟ written communicative competence at Ton Duc Thang high school, Ninh Thuan province as well as to ascertain their attitudes towards this instructional approach The quantitative method was employed The samples of the study were 66 students of grade 10, who were divided into two groups, i.e the experimental group and the control group The control group learned grammar with GTM whereas the experimental group learned grammar with the CLT intervention The research instruments used in this study were a pre-test, a post-test and a questionnaire The research findings revealed that communicative grammar teaching had a positive impact on EFL students‟ written communicative competence, and most participants had positive attitudes towards communicative grammar teaching For further details, results from the tests showed that students in the experimental group achieved considerable progress in written communicative competence compared to those in the control group, while responses from the questionnaire indicated that the students were interested in taking part in the communicative grammar lessons Key words: Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), communicative grammar teaching, communicative competence, written communicative competence iii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES & FIGURES viii ABBREVIATIONS ix Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study .1 1.2 The aims and research questions of the study 1.3 Significance of the study Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definition of grammar and communicative grammar teaching 2.1.1 Definition of grammar 2.1.2 Definition of communicative grammar teaching 2.2 Communicative competence 2.2.1 Communicative competence 2.2.2 Written communicative competence .7 2.2.3 The role of grammar in communicative competence 2.3 Approaches to grammar teaching 2.3.1 Approaches to grammar teaching 2.3.2 Two different trends of grammar teaching: GTM vs CLT 2.4 Benefits of communicative grammar teaching .9 2.5 Communicative activities in grammar teaching 2.5.1 Types of communicative activities 2.5.2 Benefits of communicative activities 10 2.5.3 Integrating communicative activities in grammar teaching 10 iv 2.6 Procedures for communicative grammar teaching 11 2.6.1 The presentation stage 11 2.6.2 The practice stage 11 2.6.4 Feedback and correction 12 2.7 Conceptual framework of the study 13 2.8 Previous studies .14 2.9 Summary of the literature 17 Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHODOLODY 18 3.1 Research design .18 3.2 Research site and participants .19 3.2.1 Research site 19 3.2.2 Participants 19 3.3 Materials 20 3.3.1 Description of the text book “Tiếng Anh 10” .20 3.3.2 Grammar points taught in the experiment 20 3.4 Instruments 22 3.4.1 3.4.1.1 The pre-test and post-test 22 3.4.1.2 Marking scales for the pre-test and post-test 24 3.4.2 3.5 Tests 22 Questionnaire .25 Procedure .26 3.5.1 Experimental procedure .26 3.5.2 Grammar teaching procedures 28 3.6 3.5.2.1 Grammar teaching procedures for the control group 28 3.5.2.2 Grammar teaching procedures for the experimental group 28 Methods of data analysis 30 3.6.1 Validity and reliability of the instruments 30 3.6.2 Data analysis methodology 33 3.7 Ethics 33 3.8 Chapter summary 34 Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 35 4.1 Data analysis of the tests .35 4.1.1 Normality of the pre-test and post-test 35 v 4.1.2 4.2 Research question .37 4.2.1 Comparison of the pre-test and post-test 37 4.2.1.1 Pre-test and post-test of the control group 37 4.2.1.2 Pre-test and post-test of the experimental group 38 4.2.2 4.3 Pre-test analysis .36 Comparison of the post-test 39 Research question .39 4.3.1 Students’ demographic information 40 4.3.2 Students’ attitudes towards communicative grammar teaching .41 4.4 4.3.2.1 On grammar lessons 41 4.3.2.2 On effects of communicative grammar teaching 44 Discussion .48 4.4.1 The effects of communicative grammar teaching on high school EFL students’ written communicative competence 48 4.4.2 4.5 The attitudes of high school students towards communicative grammar teaching.49 Chapter summary 50 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 51 5.1 Main findings of the study 51 5.2 Pedagogical implications and suggestions 52 5.2.1 Implications for school administrations 52 5.2.2 Implications for teachers of English 53 5.2.3 Implications for textbook designers 54 5.2.4 Implications for testing system 54 5.3 Limitations .55 5.4 Recommendations for further research 56 5.5 Chapter summary 56 References 57 Appendix 63 Appendix 64 Appendix 67 Appendix 4A 70 Appendix 4B 73 Appendix 5A 76 vi Appendix 5B 80 Appendix 6A 83 Appendix 6B 85 Appendix 87 vii LIST OF TABLES & FIGURES Page Table 3.1.Grammar points of the second semester in English 10 21 Table 3.2 Specifications of the pretest and the posttest 23 Table 3.3 The scoring rubric for letter-writing tasks 24 Table 3.4 Time allocation for the study 27 Table 3.5 Teaching techniques between the control group and the experimental group 29 Table 3.6 Item total statistics of the questionnaire 32 Table 4.1 Shapiro-Wilk test of normality 35 Table 4.2 Independent sample t-test of the pre-test 36 Table 4.3 Paired samples t-test of the control group .37 Table 4.4 Paired samples t-test of the experimental group 38 Table 4.5 Independent sample t-test of the post-test .39 Table 4.6.Distribution of students by gender 40 Table 4.7.Students‟ responses to grammar lessons 41 Table 4.8 Students‟ response to the effects of communicative grammar teaching 44 Table 4.9 Qualitative data from question 11 and 12 .46 Figure 2.1 Conceptual framework of the study 14 Figure 4.1 Years of learning English 40 viii Appendix 5A SAMPLE LESSON PLAN (EXPERIMENTAL GROUP) Topic: Conditional sentences Type (Unit 10) Teaching time: 45 minutes Description of class: I - School: Ton Duc Thang High School - Number of students: 33 OBJECTIVES: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to: - become knowledgeable about the form and usage of the structure in order to understand the text II use the correct structure when writing paragraphs or carrying out speaking activities APPROACH AND TEACHING AIDS: III - Communicative Language Teaching - Lesson plan, blackboard, chalk, PowerPoint and other teaching aids TEACHING PROCEDURES: A Greeting B New lesson Teacher’s activities Content Students’ activities Unit 10: CONDITIONAL SENTENCES TYPE WARM-UP (5 mins) 76 - T shows the picture on the screen and ask: - Ss look at the picture and answer the question What will happen if you eat too much? Possible answer: If I eat too much, I will get fat - T draws Ss‟ attention to another example - Ss look at the picture and answer the question If you don’t understand something what will you do? If I don’t understand something, I may/might ask the teacher LEAD-IN (1 min) - T leads Ss to the new structure CONDITIONAL SENTENCES TYPE - Ss listen and answer if possible WHILE-TEACHING Presentation (15 mins) - T gets the whole class to read the text and answer the following questions - Ss read the text and answer the questions What does ecotourism mean? What are some ecotourism activities in Australia? What does the travel agent offer to Mr 77 and Mrs Collins if they book early and pay two months before departure? - T turns Ss‟ attention to conditional sentences type by saying: There are different ways to explore the nature, but in the passage Mr and Mrs Collins have chosen an ecotourism trip to Australia In order to help them save expenses for the trip, the travel agent suggest that if they book early and pay two months before departure, they’ll get a two per cent discount - T writes the sentence on the board and introduces when to use conditional sentences type Then T guides Ss to find the rules based on two more sentences written on the board by filling in the table Examples: If they book early and pay two months before departure, they will get a two per cent discount If I have enough time this evening, I will watch the match If the weather is warm, we may/might go to the park - Ss fill in the table Practice (10 mins) Activity 1: grammar drills If – clause Main clause ……… tense ………….+ Vbare-inf Conditional sentences Type are used to talk about present or future activities or events that are real or very probable - Ss exercise and exchange the answers - T has Ss to complete exercise on page 50 78 (Student‟s book) - T asks Ss to exchange the answers with their partners Activity 2: oral communication - T asks Ss to complete the sentence orally by giving Ss prompts Production (10mins) Examples: If you throw plastic bags into the - Ss practice sea, the fish………………………… I will be surprised if you………………………… If I fail the exam, my sister……………………… I will go out with you tonight if I……………………………… - T lets Ss play a game called Who is the first? - Ss play a game - T gives Ss a handout and asks Ss to complete these sentences in the handout by interviewing at least students in the class The person who finishes first is the winner - T spends minutes to give feedback on some students‟ answers CONSOLIDATION (3 mins) - Ss answer - T asks the whole class about the subject today HOMEWORK (1 min) Homework: - T writes homework on the board + Do exercises (p.50) and 1(p.56) (Student‟s book) - Ss look at the board and write down the homework + Prepare for the next lesson: Conditional sentences Type 79 Appendix 5B SAMPLE LESSON PLAN (CONTROL GROUP) Topic: Conditional sentences Type (Unit 10) Teaching time: 45 minutes Description of class: I - School: Ton Duc Thang High School - Number of students: 33 OBJECTIVES: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to: II - remember the form, meaning and uses of conditional sentences type - know how to write a sentence with conditional sentences type APPROACH AND TEACHING AIDS: III - Grammar Translation Method - Lesson plan, blackboard, chalk, and other teaching aids TEACHING PROCEDURES: A Greeting B New lesson Teacher’s activities Students’ activities Content Unit 7: CONDITIONAL SENTENCES TYPE WARM-UP (5 mins) - T lets Ss play a game called “Bingo” - Ss play a game Often watch swim like likes never watches often watches will can brushes LEAD-IN (1 min) - T introduce the name of the structure CONDITIONAL SENTENCES TYPE - Ss listen 80 WHILE-TEACHING Presentation (10 mins) - T gives some examples of conditional sentences type on the board Examples: - T explains the rules to Ss through the examples - T asks Ss when to use conditional sentences type If I eat too much, I will get fat If I have enough time this evening, I will watch the match If the weather is warm, we may/might go to the park If you don’t understand something, you can ask the teacher If – clause Main clause Present tense Will/may/might/can - Ss listen and take note Conditional sentences Type are used - Ss answer to talk about present or future activities or events that are real or very probable Practice (15 mins) - Ss exercises and exchange the answers - T has Ss to complete exercise and on page 50 (Student‟s book) - T asks Ss to exchange the answers with their partners - T requires Ss to practice more grammar exercises on the delivered handout The handout - Ss practice Reinforcement (10mins) - T asks Ss to work in pairs and translate the sentences into English - T asks Ss to write down the answers on the Nếu Ben dạy sớm, anh đón xe buýt Bạn đến Hanoi trước 5p.m bạn rời khỏi Chúng ta bơi thời tiết tốt Học sinh không hiểu họ - Ss translate the sentences into English 81 board không ý lớp - T corrects the answers CONSOLIDATION (3 mins) - Ss answer - T asks the whole class about the subject today HOMEWORK (1 min) Homework: - T writes homework on the board + Do exercises 1/ page 56 (Student‟s book) - Ss look at the board and write down the homework + Prepare for the next lesson: Conditional sentences Type 82 Appendix 6A TEST SCORES OF THE CONTROL GROUP N Name Pre-test Post-test S1 7.5 S2 3.5 S3 5.5 S4 5 S5 S6 5 S7 5.5 S8 4.5 4.5 S9 4.5 10 S10 6.5 11 S11 5 12 S12 6.5 13 S13 4.5 4.5 14 S14 6.5 6.5 15 S15 4.5 16 S16 5.5 5.5 17 S17 4.5 18 S18 6.5 6.5 19 S19 5.5 20 S20 4.5 21 S21 3 22 S22 5 23 S23 4.5 24 S24 6.5 25 S25 3.5 26 S26 5.5 83 27 S27 6.5 28 S28 4 29 S29 3.5 30 S30 5.5 31 S31 6.5 32 S32 5.5 33 S33 3.5 3.5 84 Appendix 6B TEST SCORES OF THE EXPERIMENTAL GROUP N Name Pre-test Post-test S34 4.5 S35 6.5 S36 6.5 7.5 S37 5.5 S38 S39 S40 4.5 S41 6.5 S42 7.5 10 S43 7.5 8.5 11 S44 4.5 5.5 12 S45 5.5 6.5 13 S46 5.5 14 S47 3.5 15 S48 7.5 16 S49 6.5 17 S50 18 S51 5.5 6.5 19 S52 20 S53 4.5 21 S54 7.5 22 S55 5.5 6.5 23 S56 4.5 24 S57 6.5 25 S58 4.5 85 26 S59 4.5 5.5 27 S60 7.5 28 S61 3.5 4.5 29 S62 5.5 6.5 30 S63 31 S64 5.5 6.5 32 S65 33 S66 86 Appendix INFORMED CONSENT Informed Consent to Participate in a Research Study Title of Research Project: THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNICATIVE GRAMMAR TEACHING ON EFL STUDENTS‟ COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE Name of Principal Investigator: LÊ NGỌC BẢO TRÂN Email of Principal Investigator: tranlnb.188t@ou.edu.vn Phone # of Principal Investigator: 0358606392 A PURPOSE AND BACKGROUND Lê Ngọc Bảo Trân is conducting research on The effects of communicative grammar teaching on EFL students‟ communicative competence The purpose of your participation in this research is to help the researcher to investigate the effects of communicative grammar teaching on EFL students‟ written communicative competence at the high school in Ninh Thuan province as well as to ascertain their attitudes towards this instructional approach You were selected as a possible participant in this study because I am in charge of your English class B PROCEDURES If you agree to participate in this research study, the following will occur: The study takes place in the second semester of the academic year 2019-2020 and lasts for 10 weeks (from 6th May 2020 to 7th July 2020) with grammar lessons involving three main grammar points, i.e comparative and superlative adjectives, relative clauses (defining and non-defining clauses with „who‟, „that‟, „which‟ and „whose‟), conditional sentences type and 2, from the main course book namely “Tiếng Anh 10” The questionnaire is distributed at the end of the course – one day after you complete the post-test and take place within 20 minutes 87 C RISKS Be relieved because your participation does not affect your studying results, especially the scores D CONFIDENTIALITY The records from this study will be kept as confidential as possible No individual identities will be used in any reports or publications resulting from the study All questionnaires will be stored separately from any names or other direct identification of participants Research information will be kept in locked files at all times Only research personnel will have access to the files and only those with an essential need to see names or other identifying information will have access to that particular file E BENEFITS OF PARTICIPATION There will be no direct benefit to you from participating in this research study The anticipated benefit of your participation in this study is making a valuable contribution to the success of this study F VOLUNTARY PARTICIPATION Your decision whether or not to participate in this study is voluntary and will not affect your relationship with the Institution If you choose to participate in this study, you can withdraw your consent and discontinue participation at any time without prejudice G QUESTIONS If you have any questions about the study, please contact with me by calling 0358606392 88 CONSENT YOU ARE MAKING A DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO PARTICIPATE IN A RESEARCH STUDY YOUR SIGNATURE BELOW INDICATES THAT YOU HAVE DECIDED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE STUDY AFTER READING ALL OF THE INFORMATION ABOVE AND YOU UNDERSTAND THE INFORMATION IN THIS FORM, HAVE HAD ANY QUESTIONS ANSWERED AND HAVE RECEIVED A COPY OF THIS FORM FOR YOU TO KEEP Signature Research Participant Signature Interviewer 89