Skkn some effective warm up activities to motivate 11th grade students in learning english at nghi son high school

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING NGHI SON LOWER AND UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL - INNOVATION SOME EFFECTIVE WARM UP ACTIVITIES TO MOTIVATE 11th GRADE STUDENTS IN LEARNING ENGLISH AT NGHI SƠN HIGH SCHOOL Written by: Trinh Thi Thu Hoai Function: Teacher Subject: English THANH HÓA NĂM 2022 skkn TABLE OF CONTENTS Pages INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale and context of the study Aims of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study 2 CONTENT OF THE STUDY 2.1 Theoretical background 2.1.1 Definition 2.1.2 The importance of warm-up 2.1.3 Useful strategies when implementing warming up activities 2.2 Reality 2.2.1 To the teachers 2.2.2 To the students 2.3 Solution to the problems 2.4 Effect of innovation 15 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 16 3.1 Conclusion 16 3.2 Recommendation 17 skkn INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale and context of the study It is undeniable that English language plays a crucial role in our lives as it helps in communication It is supposed to be the main language for studying any subject all over the world English is critical for students as it broadens their minds, develops emotional skills, improve the quality of life by providing job opportunities Additionally, the use of English as an International language is becoming popular with time because it is the only means for communication in many countries Therefore, learning and teaching English as a second language is paid more and more attention Over the last two decades, the needs for English language ability in Vietnam have significantly changed with the rapidly increasing demands of globalization in many fields such as the environment, economy and culture English has been regarded as an essential foreign language, especially for the Vietnamese young generation Particularly, it is compulsory in the curriculum of almost all schools and universities Awkwardly, the concern of students in English is not the same as how well they realize the crucial role of being good at English Students seem reluctant to learn English as a required discipline in their school The reasons for the ignorance to English of students were originated from inadequate learning condition and traditional teaching methods It is believed that an ESL class will not be successful if the students not feel interested at the very beginning of a class Hence, a teacher is always supposed to start a lesson in a way which keeps his or her students engaged Accordingly, many different types of warm-up activities such as songs, games and discussion questions can be used to catch students’ attention in class Many researchers state that to improve students’ learning and to get the best from them, it is a must to start a class with a good warm-up session In addition, many school children complain that they feel bored doing same thing again and again from the beginning to end of a class As they not feel involved in class, they cannot progress much in learning a language Unluckily, many teachers not pay attention whether students feel interested and motivated to work with the activities they provide in classes It is needed to find out how to keep students’ interest in learning Using warm up activities can be one useful way to bring difference in class activity and to make the students curious, focus their attention, provide them purpose and motivation This helps to create positivity around the lesson, motivate students with their participation and creating a positive attitude towards learning Games can also create a positive memory and experience of learning for students in the classroom All the above reasons and factors have inspired the author to choose the study entitled “Some effective warm up activities to motivate 11 th grade skkn students in learning English at Nghi Son high school” Hopefully, the study may result in some benefits for English learners as well as English teachers 1.2 Aims of the study This study has been carried out with an aim to raise both teachers and students’ awareness of the importance of warm up activities at Nghi Sơn lower and upper secondary school It is hoped that the findings from this study could arouse learners’ interest and enable them to select and use games for warmups which are suitable for them The researcher is interested to know whether and how often warm up activity is used in 11 grades Also, the study attempts to find out how effectively warm up is used in the above the mentioned classes 1.3 Scope of the study The research was conducted among the 11th grade students of three classes (11A1, 11A5, 11A6) at Nghi Son Lower and Upper Secondary School The implementation took place in accademic year 2021-2022 and was determinedly observed, reviewed and evaluated by the teacher researchers 1.4 Methods of the study To carried out the study, the following methods and procedures were employed: - Investigating methods Analytic and synthetic methods Comparative and contrastive methods Observating methods Firstly, the writer reviewed the theories related to the matter in concern in order to shade up a framework for the analysis and then collected information asociated with the warm-up activities from different sources: refernces, internet and books Secondaly, the author created on the observation to realize the problem in teaching and learning English Then, the instructor applied all the practices in teaching warm up and examine the results after that CONTENT OF THE STUDY 2.1 Theoretical background 2.1.1 Definition In terms of definition, a warm-up stage is a preliminary stage which helps the students feel relaxed and sets a positive mood for learning (Wikipedia) According to Robertson (2000) “warm up is a short activity for the beginning of lesson” [1] He claims that warmups are different types of activities which help the students begin to think in English, review previously introduced materials and become interested in the lesson So, a warm-up activity is used to start a class with an interesting task The concept of warm up, author is based on reference [] skkn to help the students be comfortable in classroom setting and to help them start thinking in English Hoang (2000) additionally has defined the main characteristics of a warm-up activity [2] He comprises that a warm-up activity needs to be fascinating to motivate the students for performing English It will not be the main part of the lesson as a warm-up activity is a short activity Warm up can be used to give the students a chance to revise previously studied language It is commonly agreed that warm up activity must be related with the lesson topic He mentions that it is not necessary that warm-up activity be connected to the lesson as the main purpose of using warm-up activity is making the students ready to work in English Smith (2008) suggests some principles to design a warm-up activity [3] He suggests that a warm-up activity should take place at the beginning of the class It will help the teachers catch the students’ attention It must be interesting so that students get motivated from the very beginning It is usually a short activity as it is a preparatory stage of other stages of a lesson Warm up activity must be related with the lesson topic so that in other stages students can get involved in different activities easily to develop their language skill Following is the diagram that displays some of the principles of warm up activity taken from Smith (2008) [3] 2.1.2 The importance of warm-up activities The importance of having warming up activities was mentioned at the beginning of this paper, but a question remains: What is a warming up activity? Many researchers considers that warm up activities are designed to attract students' attention, to help them put aside distracting thoughts, and to get them ready to focus individually and as groups on whatever activities that follow They will cause people to stop whatever they are doing or thinking and refocus their attention We could say a warming up activity is a motivating starting point that will lead students to become animated to work efficiently in the language class For the purpose of the study, it was the activity used to encourage students' involvement and permeate the development of the whole lesson, so we avoided looking at them as isolated activities These kinds of activities might also be called zealous, enthusiastic or suggestive activities How these activities can be included in the process of a class will be the next focus in our discussion 2.1.3 Useful strategies when implementing warming up activities For the purpose of the project, the writer considered some specific aspects related to warm up activities which could make students' learning more stimulating They were as follows: - Breaking the monotony of learning - Making the tasks more interesting - Increasing the involvement of the students The principles of warm up, author is based on reference [] The principles of warm up, author is based on reference [] skkn Diagram 1 shows some of the principles that a teacher must consider when preparing a warm-up activity It emerged as a result of our reflections upon our conceptual framework and the implementation process we designed Diagram 1: features of warm-up activity The principles contained in this diagram make us realize that warm up activities are not only processes to begin the class, but tools that help us catch students' attention If you start with an exciting and interesting activity you can be sure the other steps can be developed easily This warm-up must also be short because it is like a preparation for the other class stages That is why it must be related with the topic and centered in communicative aspects which could involve activities that emphasize the practice of different skills Learning English highly depends on pupils' positive attitude toward the class Consequently, learning must be stimulating and enjoyable through breaking what might cause monotony in this process and strengthening what makes tasks more interesting, as well as what increases students' involvement The use of warming up activities implies features as the ones previously described to get students' attention, to make them interested in what is going on, to focus on language items and to increase learners' expectations by consciously arranging the conditions in a way that they put the learner in a more positive or optimistic mood 2.2 Reality skkn 2.2.1 To the students In general, the Vietnamese students’ ability to use English is still weak; most students can study English at university, but the ability to speak it with foreigners seems impossible for most students if they are not majoring in the English language The English level of graduates has not met the needs of the job Most students can read and understand some documents, but many of them cannot communicate, write, and speak well The English proficiency of most students does not meet the requirements The testing forms are somewhat different but reflect the general picture of ineffective teaching and learning of English in the education system in Vietnam These problems have resulted from the following reasons: First and foremost, in Vietnam, the results of teaching and studying English is evaluated in grammar and reading comprehension Therefore, the whole education system has not really invested effectively to teach this language focusing on important skills, such as listening, speaking and writing Besides, teachers of English seem only to take the test, so they not invest in other skills, especially listening and speaking Even, many teachers in the schools cannot speak fluently with foreigners in English These causes also influence the quality of English teachers which may affect learners’ abilities Also, class sizes in Vietnam are large (often over 30 students per class), and there is no assistive technology, so it is difficult to teach language skills effectively Passive students mainly learn to get points for passing English subjects, not to use practical language skills Thus, teachers not have the motivation to improve their qualifications and teaching methods 2.2.2 To the teachers Regarding teachers, some people believe that warm up is useful and needed for learning to be fun They basically use it in the first class of a new course to give the students a chance to be familiar with each other They ignore the other benefits of using a warm-up activity in classroom For example: it can motivate the students to participate in class activities, activate the students’ background knowledge, help the teachers introduce a new topic in interesting way or help get the students’ attention However, teachers use common techniques such as questioning, reviewing materials from the previous class, chatting with students as warm up activity whereas they can use jokes, songs, funny videos, games, stories, or pictures to make the class more interesting On the first day of the survey, a survey was delivered to the teachers to make sense of their awareness of the importance of warm up activities in the classroom + Teachers’ attitude toward the importance of warm up activities at ESL classrooms skkn More important Equally important Less important Chart 1: The importance of warm up activities Moreover,11th grade students at Nghi Son Lower and Upper Secondary School are quite bad at English They often feel bored during lesson, hence, they have no motivation to acquire language Consequently, the results of English tests are not highly expected Consequently, teachers are supposed to give some strategies to stimulate the students’ interest, and warm up is among the most effective ways 2.3 Solutions to the problems Beginning a class with a warm-up activity is a good way to grow curiosity and interest among the learners and motivate them to give their attention in further activities to know more Teachers can use the following games to warm up the lessons in five or seven minutes a Using video and songs Short videos increase student engagement, which in turn helps boost achievement If students are interested in the material, they will process and remember it better They offer the flexibility to pause, rewind, or skip throughout the video to have class discussions or review particular areas This is an excellent way for students to familiarize with the topic Teachers can make use of YouTube sources for songs and short clips For example, unit 4: volunteer work, teachers can show a video and ask students some questions: - What are the people doing? - How meaningful is volunteer work? - How often you involve in volunteer work? Afterwards, students may be led to the lesson officially skkn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClrFW2Y2Bv8[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZol5vMDhe4 [5] The song about renewable energy is used in unit 11: Sources of energy Example, the link is on the reference [] Example, the link is on the reference [] skkn b Hot Chair Game This is a very lively activity and can be adapted to different class sizes It is also excellent for revising vocabulary - First, split your class into different teams - Sit the students facing the board - Then take an empty chair - one for each team - and put it at the front of the class, facing the team members These chairs are the 'hot seats' - Then get one member from each team to come up and sit in that chair, so they are facing their team-mates and have their back to the board - As the teacher, have a list of vocabulary items that you want to use in this game - Take the first word from that list and write it clearly on the board - The aim of the game is for the students in the teams to describe that word, using synonyms, antonyms, definitions etc to their teammate who is in the hot seat - that person cannot see the word - The student in the hot seat listens to their teammates and tries to guess the word - The first hot seat student to say the word wins a point for their team - Then change the students over, with a new member of each team taking their place in their team's hot seat - Then write the next word… One student from each team comes up and sits in the chair skkn e Free- time Mime (used for warmup of unit 13: Hobbies) Here is a fun hobby miming and true or false game to help students practice vocabulary related to hobbies and free-time activities First, students take it in turns to pick up a card and mime the hobby or freetime activity on the card for the other students to guess The first student to correctly guess the hobby or free-time activity wins and keeps the card The student with the most cards at the end of the game is the winner 13 skkn Afterwards, students play a true or false game using the cards Students take it in turns to pick up a card and make a personal statement about the hobby or freetime activity on the card, e.g 'I love listening to music in the car' The other students in the group then ask the student questions to determine if he or she is lying or telling the truth The students then each guess whether the statement is true or false and the answer is revealed Students score one point for each correct guess The student with the most points at the end of the game wins 14 skkn 2.4 Effect of innovation To conclude, using warm up activity can be an effective way to start a class with an interesting activity, to help the students set a positive mood for learning and to keep them engaged in class The study result has shown that in a language classroom warm up activity can be used for many purposes One of the reasons of using warm up is to establish a good relationship between students and teachers and to set a positive learning environment for the students to make them comfortable in classroom Then, warm up can be used to motivate the students so that they become interested to learn Moreover, teachers can use warm up to get students’ attention at the beginning of the class Also, the use of warm up also can be a good exercise for the students to recall their background knowledge Besides, teachers can discuss the lesson objectives in the warm-up session so that students get a clear goal to give higher effort to learn We can look at the following table to make comparison the result of the test before and after applying the method The result of the students before the application of the new method Good achievement Class Not achievement Credit Total SL TL SL TL SL TL 11A1 39 15 38.5% 12.8% 19 48.7% 11A5 38 0% 20 52.7% 18 47.3% 11A6 40 0% 22 55% 18 45% The result of the students after the application of the new method Good achievement Class 11A1 Not achievement Credit Total 39 SL TL SL TL SL TL 17 43.6% 18 46.2% 10.2% 15 skkn 11A5 38 18.4% 25 65.8% 15.8% 11A6 40 20% 25 62.5% 17.5% Based on the result of the test, we can see that the number of students getting credit and good achievement is much higher than that of the first test And the percentage of students not achieving is lower at about 10 percent Hence, the method is effective for students in general In addition, the data were obtained from the distribution of the questionnaire to the students It was designed to help the writer to get more information about students‟ responses toward the implementation of the method the data obtained can be seen in the following tables and description: ANSWER STUDENTS PERCENTAGE Strongly agree 80 80% Agree 20 20% Disagree 0 Strongly disagree 0 100 100% Total Table 1: Warm-up activities encourages students to be more confident and ready to participate into many classroom activities This table shows that 80 students (80%) strongly agree that the method helps students to be more active in the class and 20 students (20%) agree with the statement On the other hand, none of them disagree or strongly disagree with the statement So, all of students believed that word wall platform enhances their ability to memorize vocabulary better Moreover, based on the writer’s observation, they enjoyed English lesson more In the study, it was revealed that with the web, both students and teachers could easily share the contents they designed during the teaching process Pointing out that the platform is a user-friendly application, it is stated that many materials can be easily accessed, content is developed, and content can be shared In addition, the advantage that the prepared materials can be stored and used again and again when needed stands out It has been found in this study that the web offers the opportunity to be used as a measurement tool in the teaching process and to be 16 skkn effective in evaluating the student It has also been emphasized that quizzes can be made on the subject Hence, it creates an interesting learning environment Especially in the online education process, the distance between the teacher and the learner makes this opportunity even more valuable In addition, these tools are economical, strengthen the communication network with students, and easy file sharing with students can be seen as other opportunities CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 3.1 CONCLUSION Based on the outcome of the research, it is concluded that the new methodology of using warm up activities has a positive impact toward students’ learning ability The result of the data analysis suggested that the students’ ability in terms of using language has increased from the pretest to posttest The result of posttest in experimental class was higher than in control class The mean score of the students in experimental class is also higher than before The strategies made students more energetic and creative in shared their ideas by using warm-ups It revealed that the treatment by the strategies has a beneficial effect for students’ interest in learning English 3.2 RECOMMENDATION The researcher gave some suggestions were as follow: While warm up activity has lot of benefits, many teachers neglect it to use Instead of directly starting the class with the main activity, teacher can use warm up activity to make the class interesting The students not give attention in class when they find it boring Warm up activity can bring variety in class and hold the students’ attention Teachers in observed classes reviewed previous class lesson, chatted with the students in informal tone, elicited information through questioning etc as warm up activity There are different things like jokes, games, puzzles, songs, video clips which can be used as warm up activity Teachers can use jokes, games, puzzles, songs or video clips to bring a change in classroom environment Students can get a chance to communicate and share their ideas with each other in warm up session on those classes where teachers provide them individual work and students not have any option to interact with each other It is necessary to tell the students why they are doing certain tasks A warm up session can be a good time to discuss the lesson objective so that students get a valid reason to perform any activity 17 skkn Nghi Son, April, 20th, 2022 Confirmation of the principal I certify that this research paper is the result of my own study Author Trinh Thi Thu Hoai 18 skkn REFERENCES [1] Robertson (2000), Second Language Learning Theories, New York: Oxford University Press [2] Hoang (2000) Teaching English to children Hanoi National University [3] Smith (2008), Teaching languages to young learners, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZol5vMDhe4 [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClrFW2Y2Bv8 Vietnamese: Hoàng Văn Vân (Ed.) (2009) Tiếng Anh 11 Hà Nội: Nhà Xuất Bản Giáo Dục Teacher’s book, textbooks written by the Ministry of Education 19 skkn APENDIX HOBBIES & FREE TIME ACTIVITIES Write the names under the correct pictures 10 13 14 17 18 21 22 CANOEING FOOTBALL JUGGLING GARDENING YOGA SKATING BINDING TABLE TENNIS SKIING SAILING DIVING JOGGING PHOTOGRAPHY POTTERY BOWLING WEIGHTLIFTING FENCING COOKING READING CARDS BADMINTON SEWING PARACHUTING DARTS HANG GLIDING KNITTING CYCLING FISHING CAMPING SWIMMING BILLIARDS PAINTING 11 12 15 16 19 20 23 24 20 skkn 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 KEY: BADMINTON PHOTOGRAPHY GARDENING KNITTING SKATING CAMPING SAILING FOOTBALL PAINTING 10 DIVING 11 HANG GLIDING 12 POTTERY 13 BINDING 14 FENCING 15 CANOEING 16 BILLIARDS 17 SEWING 18 BOWLING 19 DARTS 20 FISHING 21 CYCLING 22 READING 23 JUGGLING 24 SKIING 25 WEIGHT LIFTING 26 JOGGING 27 PARACHUTING 28 COOKING 29 CARDS 30 SWIMMING 31 TABLE TENNIS 32 YOGA 21 skkn UNIT 4: VOLUNTEER WORK 22 skkn UNIT 11: CELEBRATIONS 23 skkn 24 skkn UNIT 15: SPACE CONQUER 25 skkn UNIT 16: WONDERS OF THE WORLD 26 skkn DANH MỤC SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM ĐÃ ĐƯỢC HỘI ĐỒNG SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM NGÀNH GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO HUYỆN, TỈNH VÀ CÁC CẤP CAO HƠN XẾP LOẠI TỪ C TRỞ LÊN Họ tên tác giả: Chức vụ đơn vị công tác: TT Trịnh Thị Thu Hoài THCS THPT Nghi Sơn Cấp đánh giá xếp loại Tên đề tài SKKN (Ngành GD cấp huyện/tỉnh; Tỉnh ) Sử dụng trò chơi ngơn ngữ làm tăng hiệu học nói cho học sinh lớp 10 trường THCS THPT Nghi Sơn Kết đánh giá xếp loại (A, B, C) - Giám Đốc Sở GD & ĐT Thanh Hóa - Quyết định số: 988/QĐ-SGD & ĐT ngày 03/11/2015 Năm học đánh giá xếp loại 2014 - 2015 C 27 skkn