Towards adapting speaking activities in tiếng anh 10 to increase students participation in english speaking classes

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY TRINH THI THU HOAI TOWARDS ADAPTING SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN “TIỀNG ANH 10° - TO INCREASE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN ENGLISH SPEAKING

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

TRINH THI THU HOAI

TOWARDS ADAPTING SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN

‘TIENG ANH 10’ —- TO INCREASE STUDENTS’

PARTICIPATION IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSES

(NGHIEN CUU THIET CHINH MOT SO HOAT DONG NOI TRONG SACH “TIENG ANH 10” NHAM TANG CUONG SU THAM GIA CUA

HOCSINH TRONG GIO HOC TIENG ANH)

MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

TRINH THI THU HOAI

TOWARDS ADAPTING SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN

“TIỀNG ANH 10° - TO INCREASE STUDENTS’

PARTICIPATION IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSES (NGHIEN CUU THIET CHINH MOT SO HOAT BONG NOI TRONG SACH

“TIENG ANH 10” NHAM TANG CUONG SU THAM GIA CUA HOC SINH

TRONG GIO HOC TIENG ANA)

FIELD: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH

LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 601410

MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION Supervisor: NGO HU'U HOANG, PhD

I amalso grateful to all lecturers at Department of English, Vinh University

for their useful lectures and guidance during my study

I truly wish to thank all the colleagues and the students at Tinh Gia 3 High

School for their assistance and co-operation in giving me valuable information Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge my debt to my family, whose patient love enabled me to complete this work

II

ABSTRACT

This study was carried out with an attempt to investigate the teachers’ speaking activities adaptation of “Tiéng Anh 10” to increase students’ participation

at Tinh Gia 3 High School (TG3HS) It focuses on the reality of teaching speaking,

sections in “Tiéng Anh 10” , the reasons why teachers should adapt speaking activities, teachers’ perception on what speaking activities needs adapting The paper also finds out the effectiveness of teachers’ adapted speaking tasks in “Tiếng,

Anh 10”

In this study, quasi- experimental method was utilized to collect data,

teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards adapting speaking activities in “Tiếng Anh

10” and the practicality of teachers' adaptation The data in this research were collected from 6 EFL teachers and 90 students at TG3HS Data collection instruments such as students’ questionnaires, teachers’ interviews and classroom observations and textbook analysis

The findings of the research indicates that a majority of EFL teachers and students encountered many difficulties from “Tiéng Anh 10” such as students’ low participation and limited vocabulary, large class-size and mixed ability, unsuitable

and less communicative tasks, too difficult tasks and shortage of teachers’

experience in teaching speaking Besides, the finding results reveal that teachers’

perception on adapting “Tiéng Anh 10” was positive

The research also conducts a pilot teaching and gets a feasible result Hence, together with the research results, the implications and conclusion of the research were worked out to increase the effectiveness of teaching speaking sections in

“Tiéng Anh 10” at Tinh Gia 3 high school

II

Contents

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1 Iie 21c T

2 Previous Studies Related to the 'Toppic -

3 Alias ofthe Sfudfy 5 Sccc+sentetererrererrer 4 iesearch CXesfIOns . ¿+ 2 2 c2 xxx se, 5 Scope of the StUcÏy - eeeeeeeseseeeescseeeeeneeeeee 6 Sipmificarce of the Study .- -

7 CYgarnzation of the SfucÌy . -5: c5 PART B: DEVELOPMENT - << << << se Chapter 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 What is “Students” Partieipation”?

1.2 Factors affecting Studentsˆ Participafion

1.3 Background of Speaking

1.3.1 The Nature of Language SkIlls

1.3.2 The Importance of Teaching English Speaking

1.3.3 Teaching Speaking «s-

1.3.4 Speaking Activities

1.3.5 Problems with English Speaking and Speaking

Activities

-1-

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12

14

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14

15

19

19

21

21

23 24

1.3.6

1.4

1.4.1

1.4.2

1.4.3

Chapter 2:

2.1

2.1.1

2.1.2

2.1.3

2.2

2.3

2.4

2.4.1

2.4.2

2.4.3

2.4.4

2.4.5

2.5

CHAPTER 3:

3.1

3.2

3.2.1

3.2.2

3.2.3

Ways of Organizing Speaking Activities

Material Adaptation

Definition

The Purpose of Adapfation

Techniques of Adaptation Research setting

Brief Introduction of Tinh Gia 3 High School

Students and their English Background Knowledge

General Description of the Curriculum of Textbook ‘Tiéng Anh 10°

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Results of Students’ Participation from Pre- Students’ Self Evaluation of their Participation in Speaking Lessons

Students’ Motivation in Learning Speaking English

Students’ Learning Styles

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35

35

45

49

49 51

Factors Prevent Students from Participating in Speaking

in the English Class . . Students’ Attitude toward Speaking Skill, Speaking Topics and Activities in “Tiếng Anh 10"

Students’ Opinion about the Way their Teachers Teach

Students’ Evaluation on their Teacher’s Adaptation

Students' Evaluation towards their Current Speaking

Teachers’ Satisfaction with Students’ Participation in Speaking Class cà cà Teachers’ Perception on the Factors Affecting Students’ Partieipation in Speaking Lessons

Teachers’ Perception on Which Parts of Speaking

Activities in “Tiéng Anh 10” Need Adapting to Increase Students’ Participation in Speaking Lessons

Teachers’ Reasons for Adapting Speaking Tasks of

“Tiéng Anh 10” .ccceceeeececeeeeeeeeesseeeeeeeeeeeess Teachers’ Frequency of Adapting the Speaking Activities in “Tiéng Anh 10” - Teachers’ Opinions of Speaking Activities Should be Adapted to Apply in “Tiếng Anh 10” Results from the End of Experiment Observations

Observations in Control Group Observations in Experimental Group

3.5

3.6

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

Students’ Participation in Experimental and Control

Group in Three Lessons at the End of the Intervention

Comparison of Students’ Participation before and at the End of the Experiment .

Followeup Student Interviews

Results of Document Analysis

TMPLICATIONS AND CƠNCTLLSIƠN

Implicafions . cà se Conclusion .sĂc c2 SSSàsse Limitations of The Study . -

Suggested Further Study

100 102

LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

e.g: Exempli gratia (for example)

etc: et cetera

MCET: Ministry of Education and Training

STT: Student Talking Time

TIT: Teacher Talking Time

TG3HS: Tinh Gia 3 high school

Chart 3.1:

Chart 3.2:

Chart 3.3:

Chart 3.4:

Chart 3.5:

Chart 3.6:

Chart 3.7:

Chart 3.8:

Chart 3.9:

Chart 3.10:

Chart 3.11:

Chart 3.12:

Table 1:

Table 2:

Table 3.1:

Table 3.2:

Table 3.3:

Table 3.4:

Table 3.5:

Table 3.6:

Table 3.7:

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Students’ self - evaluation of their participation in speaking

Students’ interests in speaking lessons

Reasons for students’ low interests

Students’ assessment on speaking topies in “Tiéng Anh 10”

Level of difficult of speaking tasks in “Tiéng Anh 10”

Students’ evaluation on their teacher’s adaptation

Students’ evaluation towards their current speaking lessons

Teachers’ perception on which parts of speaking activities in “Tiéng Anh 10” need adapting to increase students’ participation 1n speaking ÏesSOfs sec TIT and STT of experimental group in adaptation 1

The four —-rmmcro sKIÏÏs -‹- << << cc + <2 Students° learning styles in both øgroups

Students’ opinion about the way their teachers teach speaking

TIT and STT of control group at the end of experiment

Students’ participation in experimental and control group in three lessons at the end of the Infervention

TIT and SIT in the two classes before and at the end of

Page

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38

2 8

60

87

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 RATIONALE

English is seen as a means of access to scientific and technological development and as the language for international commumnication For young people, English is an effective tool for further study as well as better job

opportunities English has therefore, been most widely taught not only at all

universities and colleges, but also at almost every senior high school and it is considered as a compulsory subject at secondary school

However, teaching speaking skills to students in Vietnamese classrooms is still a matter of much concem by language teachers due to current teaching materials, characteristics of learners as well as teachers’ proficiency and classroom methodology

At Tinh Gia 3 high school, the 10th graders have three periods of English

every week with “Tiéng Anh 10”, which consists of sixteen units combining fours skills with grammatical structures and language funtions introduced in meaningful contexts All of the units are designed to aim at encouraging students to learn not only grammar structures but also all the four- language skills: reading, speaking,

listening, and writing The English textbooks for general education in which the

exercises are primarily task-based Although the new text books have shown a great deal of improvement as compared with the old series of grammar-based,

it seers that not all activities or tasks in the books, especially in speaking part are suitable to the different teaching and learning contexts of different localities

within Vietnam Beside communicative tasks, some tasks are not very

communicative Others are very difficult for students to interact or participate well

during their learning,

After 6 years teaching “Tiéng Anh 10” text book at Tinh Gia 3 high school, I

find out that speaking is considered the most challenging to teach and still remains

neglected due to students’ low level proficiency, time constraints and low

motivation Therefore, it is difficult to teach speaking successfully because of the class size, the students’ language level, and additionally, students are not acquainted with CLT Moreover, a majority of the teachers were trained under the strong influence of the Grammur-Translation method which impedes them from teaching, speaking successfully even the textbook follows the communicative approach

With 7 year — experience in teaching English at high school, the author realizes that the English lessons with speaking activities adapted or designed by

teachers always motivate students and get them involved in speaking effectively

Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to adapt some speaking activities in “Tiéng

Anh 10” to increase students’ participation As Cunningsworth [11] said, even the

"best" course book requires adaptation

From the reasons above, the study “Towards adapting speaking activities in

‘TIENG ANH 10’ to increase students’ participation in English class” is carried

out with the hope to increase students’ involvement in learning speaking

2 PREVIOUS STUDIES RELATED TO THE TOPIC

Because of being a very important skill to master a foreign language, speaking, has received a lot of attention from a number of experienced experts as well as methodologists in the world and in Vietnam particular These research works also outline some activities to increase learners’ participation in speaking lessons that

help the author a lot to do this research

Christine Kuramoto’s [23] action research was about improving Motivation in Oral Communication Classroom in three third-year high-school classes in Japan Because of three practical reasons: a large number of students, one researcher and

limited time, the method chosen for data collected consisted self-report questionnaires for students at the beginning and at the end of the term and

immediate feedback after each new activity The result showed that the students’ motivation did increase in her classroom although it was different from class to class and student to student The improvement was in attitudes, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation She suggested that Gardner’s [16] attitude/motivation test

battery questionnaire was recommended as a practical and enlightening tool to measure students’ motivation

Another research by Trinh Thi Anh Hing [42] investigating the effects of pair

work and group work activities to increase motivation for non- English major second year students was conducted at Hanoi University of Technology The problem found out was that group activities could not motivate students unless they

Were introduced and monitored by the teacher, then an action plan was implemented

And with the new plan, the researcher could totally enhance the motivation among

her learners

The research conducted by Neuyén Thi Thu Linh [30] was about some techniques to increase students’ participation in classroom activities and oral activities in particular of second-year students at Thai Nguyen University of technology She mentioned some factors effecting the students’ low participation

coming from students themselves, teachers and classroom Then, she recommended

one effective technique- group work and showed some ways to get students into working in group to increase their involvement as well as participation in speaking lessons

Neuyén Thi Tuyét Mai [31] carried out a research on implementing tasked- based teaching, to increase motivation for grade 10 students at Ngo Quyen upper secondary school An action research was planned and implemented with such data collection instruments as classroom observation, questionnaire and document

analysis The results showed that in order to make the speaking lessons more

motivating to students, the teacher should prepare the tasks carefully detecting vocabulary and phrases, allocating time, considering skills and techniques to be employed

The research conducted by Doan Thi Lé Nhung [12] was about using differentiated instructions to increase learners’ participation in multi- level classes

at Phuong Dong University In this thesis, she mentioned three major factors of learners’ low participation They are the activities themselves uninteresting and

-10-unsuitable instruction for speaking activities She applied differentiated instructions strategies in the action plan suggested by Tomlinson [40] which were aimed at modifying the content, process and products and learning environment on the basic

of learners’ readiness, interests, etc to improve their participation The evaluation showed that the action plan was successful when applying differentiated instructions to increase students’ participation in speaking classes

Tn summary, it can be seen from the above review that researchers focused on,

modifying speaking activities to increase students’ participation and motivation in speaking class Furthermore, their research subjects were mainly students at the tertiary level, not high school students However, there are not many researchers have conducted research on adaptation of "Tiéng Anh 10" yet Therefore, the

author has decided to conduct the research with the aim of adapting some difficult

speaking activities in “Tiéng Anh 10” to increase students’ participation in speaking

lessons and help improve teaching and learning English at Tinh Gia 3 high school

3 AIMS OF THE STUDY

The main purpose of this study is to increase students’ participation in speaking lessons at Tinh Gia 3 high school To achieve this aim, firstly, the study attempts to find out the reasons why teachers at Tinh Gia 3 high school should adapt speaking activities in “Tiéng Anh 10” from both teachers and students viewpoints Secondly, the research points out what speaking activities in “Tiếng Anh 10”should

be adapted Finally, it determines the effect of the adapted activities in increasing students’ participation in speaking lessons at Tinh Gia 3 high school

4, RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

Tn relation to the above-mentioned aims, this research tries to seek the answers to the following questions:

1 Why should teachers adapt speaking activities in “Tiéng Anh 10”?

2 What speaking activities in “Tiéng Anh 10” should be adapted to increase

students’ involvement?

-ll-3 To what extent do the adapted speaking activities in ‘Tiéng Anh 10’ increase students’ participation in speaking classes at Tinh Gia 3 high school?

5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Adaptation is a complex issue for teachers, especially teachers of English Due to the time limit and research condition, this study does not cover all aspects of

textbook adaptation teachers meet in teaching English The study will focus on

teachers’ adaptation of some difficult speaking activities in “Tiéng Anh 10’ at Tinh

Gia 3 high schools in Thanh Héa As the result, the samples of the study were restricted to 6 EFL teachers and 90 students at 10” format Tinh Gia 3 high school

6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The result of this research will bring about meaningful suggestions and pedagogical implications which are very beneficial for my professional development After having conducted this research, I myself can develop knowedge, skills and experience to improve my teaching quality Furthermore, the study also helps teachers at TG3HS overcome difficulties mentioned previously and improve English language communication for students through speaking lessons

7 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The research consists of three parts as follows:

First, the Introduction presents the background of the research including the rationale, the previous studies related to the study, the aims of the research, the research questions, the scope of the study, the research significance and the overall organization of the study

The Development is divided into 3 chapters

Chapter 1: Theoretical Background, describes fundamental and theoretical

concepts which are relevant to the study Additionally, this chapter focuses on the theory about textbook adaptation including definition of adaptation, reasons for adapting, principles of adapting textbook Furthermore, it gives out an overview of the curriculum and the ‘Tiéng Anh 10° textbook Finally, the brief overview of

-12-Tinh Gia 3 high school and current situation of teaching English speaking at -12-Tinh Gia 3 high school will be presented

Chapter 2: Methodology, describes the research method, participants, data collection instruments, and data collection procedures

Chapter 3: Includes the findings and discussion about the results of the

Finally, the Conclusion summaries the study, pedagogical implications, limitations, and suggestions for further study

-13-PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 What is “students’ participation”?

There are several views on student participation Howard, Short, & Clark [21, 8-24] stated that participation is the student’s active engagement in the classroom to promote effective learning (Howard, Short, & Clark, 1996) The student’s activities may include reciting in class, having conversations with the

instructor or their classmates, doing written outputs, and sharing ideas with

others (Howard, Short, & Clark, 1996, Howard & Henney [22, 384405] It means a participative learner is one that is not passive As Fraser [15, 221- 227] defines student participation as the extent to which students are encouraged to participate rather than be passive listeners Similarly, Sylvelyn, Judith & Paulin [39] define participation as students who actively engage in classroom discussions,

rather than be passive learners who simply take in knowledge They affirm that

in a classroonybased leaming, participation can be a positive feedback given

by students to either the lesson or the teacher which can lead to possible ways in the development of an improved classroom learning experience

Teachers of large classes have found that students’ participation can be

identified in terms of three kinds of interaction: students to their teacher, students to students and students to material The interaction between students themselves is established when they are working in groups The kind of interaction between

students and material can be understood as students’ success in completing assigned

reading activities In term of the interaction between students to their teacher,

students who maintain good interaction with their teacher always participate in the class discussion They become involved in what is happening in the classroom by asking more question, share personal ideas, opinion and experience with their classmates Thus, participation can be understood in more ways than just come to

class on time, take notes what teachers say and write down on the blackboard, and

“14

stay in the class all the time and get to know the teacher Students who are active and attentive that means they work on the problem with the teacher during the class, laugh at jokes, respond to the teacher’s questions, often show great desire to learn

and become good students

1.2 Factors affecting students’ participation

1.2.1 Students factors

There are some factors from students affecting their participation such as: their learning style, their attitudes and motivation, their language levels and habits as well as gender differences

e Students’ learning style:

Willing (1985), cited in Nunan [33, 93] classified learners’ styles into four groups:

> Concrete learners: They preferred leaming by games, films and videos talking in pairs and learning though the use of cassettes

> Analytical learners: These learners liked studying grammar, studying

English book, finding their own mistakes and learning through reading newspapers

> Commamicative learners: They liked to learn by observing and listening to native speakers, talking to friends in English and leammng English

whenever possible

>» Authority-oriented learners: They liked the teacher to explain everything,

writing everything in their notebooks, having their own textbooks, leaming,

to read, studying grammar, and learning English words by seeing them Hanmer [19] emphasizes the importance of understanding that there are different individuals in our class if we are to plan appropriate kinds of activities for them Different individuals may have different learning styles, prefer different kinds of work and expect different degrees of care and attention from the teacher

We can see that if the teacher neglects these differences among students, only one or two groups of students can benefit from the activities organized by the

-15-teacher while others do not This is one reason for the fact that when one activity is

in progress, not all students participate in actively

e Students’ attitudes and motivation

Attitude and motivation are considered key factors leading to students’ success

in learning, second language Motivation refers to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the good of leaming, the language plus favorable attitudes toward learning the language That is, motivation to leam a second language is seen as referring to the extent to which the individual work or strives to learn the language because of a desire to do so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity

Harmer divides motivation into extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation Extrinsic motivation is caused by such outside factors as the need to pass an exam, the hope of financial reward, or the possibility for future travel In contrast,

intrinsic motivation is caused by inside factors like the enjoyment of the learning

process itself or by a desire to make them feel better

Clearly, motivation plays an important role in the success of language leaming,

in general but we may wonder how much or to what extent motivation accounts for students’ participation in oral activities We may not give the exact answer but we can conclude with certainty that the degree of motivation is directly proportional to the level of involverrent in oral tasks In general, the more motivated students are, the more actively they will participate in oral activities

In order to raise students’ motivation we have to understand motivation

According to Harmer they can derive from the society we live in, significant others like parents, the teacher and the method Among these sources, the teacher and the method may be of the most important

Downs [13, 8-13] also points out some conditions that help increase students’ motivation He says that motivation increase when students feel acknowledged and understood, when students are confident they can succeed, when language has a communicative purpose and when students take responsibility for their own learning,

-16-Obviously, the degree of motivation is directly proportional to the level of involvement in speaking tasks In detail, the more motivated students are, the more actively they will participate in oral activities

e Students’ language levels:

For students’ language levels, Harmer [15] mentions that in a class where students’ language levels are different, teachers may have some difficulties in choosing a suitable teaching method, language and activities used in class Harmer also claims that some techniques and exercises are suitable for some students but less appropriate for others The limitation in the students’ language level can directly after their participation however much they like the activities We, therefore, should choose the topics as well as the kinds of activities of their levels to encourage their participation

Tn addition, for a long time students have formed a habit of learning subjects

in Vietnamese passively They are hardly willing to speak out their ideas in class

unless they are called This habit may have a negative effect when they are learning

a foreign language which needs their frequent practice Besides, even for English, many schools and learners only focus on written exams while developing learners’ communicative abilities is not emphasized

To conclude, those are the main factors originating from students’ side that may affect students’ participation in classroom activities in general and oral ones in particular

1.2.2 Teacher factors

e Teachers’ teaching methods:

The first mentioned is teacher’s teaching methods including teacher-centered and learner- centered methods In more recent time, concerning developing learners’ communicative competence Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has captured pedagogues’ attention due to its salient characteristics including a desire to communicative, a communicative purpose, content not form, variety of language,

no teacher intervention or learner-centeredness, and no material control Listing out

-17-these methods does not mean that we can choose a method to be perfectly applied to

a certain class to increase students’ involvement However, it helps us understand

the strengths and shortcomings of these methods In order to have suitable method, the teacher should take some of the following factors into consideration including

learmers, teaching purposes and other available classroom conditions This method can be one or a combination of those above mentioned methods Choosing an inappropniate or not being flexible in applying methods to a certain class may have negative effects on students’ participation

e Teacher’s knowledge:

A good teacher of English is a person who is supposed to have language ability, specialist knowledge and general knowledge of an English speaking country

Tn the study: What Makes a Good Teacher, Breach [2, 30-37] points out that most

students believe that the teacher is a fountain of knowledge and their main

responsibility is to pass on that knowledge to students Breach compares the teacher with a teapot and the students with empty cups waiting for the knowledge from the teacher to be poured down in To discuss teachers’ knowledge, we are going to focus on language ability, specialist knowledge and general knowledge of English- speaking countries A good teacher is not a fluent, accurate English speaker but they understand the difficulties their students often face

e Teacher’s characteristics:

Besides the knowledge, teachers’ characteristics may have a great effect on students’ participation Teacher who always manage to create an exciting class are thought to have a “special gift” for the teaching job Actually, the thing called

‘special gift’ is his characteristics and qualities

Barry [1] lists out some characteristics a teacher should have that help motivate students to participate in classroom activities These are being natural, being warm, pleasant, approachable and tolerant

In conclusion, students’ participation can be affected by teachers’ factors including teaching methods, teachers’ knowledge and characteristics

-18-Besides these factors mentioned above, some classroom factors including classroomitself, classroom structure, and classroom atmosphere and other factors as

the place of examinations and tests also have effect on students’ participation in classroom speaking activities This is very important work as it provides us with basic theory to find out techniques to overcome those factors and increase students’ participation

Suy

Tt is not easy to study all the affective factors affecting students’ participation

in oral activities It can be also affected by different affective factors originating from students, teachers and other classroom related factors In this study, we have pointed some major factors that may affect learners’ participation in classroom speaking activities This is very important work as it provides with basic theory to find out techniques to overcome those factors and increase students’ participation

1.3 Background of speaking

1.3.1 The nature of language skills

Based on the purpose of analysis and instruction, language is divided into different skill areas On the teaching point of view, language skills consist mainly of four macro-skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, Those four skills have supportive relationship

Byme [9] divides the four language skills into two groups The group of productive skills consists of speaking and writing The group of receptive skills includes listening and writing They are also divided according to the manners by which they are formed The skills which are related to articulate organs are called oral skills which include listening and speaking, The ones in connection with

manual script are named literacy skills which consist of reading and writing All

these four are represented in table 1

Table 1: The four —macro skills

Of the four skills, speaking plays an essential role Byrne [10, 9] proves that this oral skill in communication is complementary If one man is good at speaking skill, other skills will be much supported

Many language learners considerer speaking, ability is the measure of knowing a language As for them, fluency is the ability to converse with others much more than the ability to read, write or comprehend oral language They regard speaking as the most important skill they can acquire and they access their progress in terms of their accomplishments on spoken communication Bygate [8] considers speaking as an undervalued skill in many ways; he also comments that speaking is a skill that deserves attention every bit as much as literacy skill in both first and second language Learners often need to be able to speak with confidence in order to carry out many of their most basic transaction Bygate highly appreciates speaking skill by stating that speaking is the medium through with much language is learnt Brown [6] defines

“speaking as an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information” In Brown and Yule’ [5] opinion, spoken language consists of short, fragmentary utterances in arange of pronunciation Different linguists have different concepts of speaking but they are all agree that

if leamers do not learn how to speak or do not get any opportunities to speak in the language classroom, they may soon get demotivated and lose interest in learning On the contrary, if the right activities are taught in right way, speaking in class can be a lot of fun, raising general leamer participation as Well as motivation, making the English language classrooma fun and dynamic place to be

To sum up, it is undeniable that speaking is the key to communication To increase students’ participation in English class, it is necessary to try to change

traditional lessons into new lessons or adapted speaking lessons with foster students’ interaction It is teacher’s responsibility to provide opportunities for participation and interaction (Brown, 1994) Methodologists suggest that teacher can increase the level

of participation if they can provide activities that can facilitate learner’s participation, maximize their practice time, encourage them to voice ideas and feelings, and then increase their motivation in oral activities By considering what good speakers do, what speaking tasks can be used in class and what specific needs learners report, teachers can help learners improve their speaking and overall oral competency

1.3.2 The importance of teaching English speaking,

It is observed that many Vietnamese teachers of English are good at teaching vocabulary and grammar in order to translate texts and to to prepare students for examinations Howevver, organizating lessons to practice speaking English can be a

big challenge for both teachers and students Many teachers worldwide have to

teach mainly grammar and vocabulary because tense areas are tested in examinations This means that speaking is a neglected language skill in many classrooms Students may have a good knowlege of grammar and a wide range of vocabulary, they can use this knowledge to pass the examiantions, but they find it

difficult to speak English in the real-life situations

A classroom is not only a place where we learn about the rules of language It

is also a place where students can practice using the language in a supportive environment As a result, we, teachers have to try to speed up this process This means that teachers have to introduce new language and help students practice it

often

Teachers need to use lots of interesting ways to motivate students to speak and improve their speaking ability Teachers not only gie them new words (vocabulary) and tell them how to put words together correctly (grammar) but also give them opportunities to use and practice the language they have learnt Also, providing

1.3.3 Teaching speaking,

-21-a) The role of the teacher and leamer in teaching and learning speaking

e The role of the teacher

According to Breen and Candlin [3], the teacher has three main roles in a speaking class The first is to act as a facilitator of the communicative process, the second is to act as a participant, and the third is to act as an observer

e The role of the students

The aim of teaching speaking is to enable learners to communicate effectively and successfully in real life So in Nunan’s [36] view, to meet this aim, the learners have to take some roles such as: the passive recipient of outside stimulation, the integrator and negotiator capable of giving as well as taking, a listener and

performer little controlling over the content of leaming, and they should be involved

ina process of personal growth and in a social activities Especially, they must take responsibility for their own learning developing autonomy and skills in learning how to learn

b) Principle for teaching speaking,

Thankfully, language teaching methods have changed somewhat since the nineteenth century This is particularly true of the last twenty- five years, which have seen a change of focus from “language structure” to “language use” In the area of speaking, researchers have put increasing emphasis on “natural speech” That is to say there has been a shift in focus from the product of speaking to the process involved This has led us to a fresh view of the students’ free expressions as

the goal of teaching speaking,

The governing principle for the processes involved is to give students more and more opportunities to use language as they wish, they try to express their own ideas so that they become aware that they have learnt something usefull to them personally, and thus they are encouraged to go no learning (Byme [8]) The best speech is creative However, teacher may help students’ progress through several steps First, the teachers present new language to the students, then they must practice the new language in a controlled way Finally, students can try to use

language they have leamt in free or creative speech For the purposes of this, teaching spoken language should start from the early stage of leaming,

Burns [7] has suggested some general principles for the teaching of speaking, namely:

+ Speaking involves an understanding of the way in which context influences the choices of language made

+ Speaking involves an understanding that spoken texts differ from written texts in their grammatical patterns and discourse strategies

+ Speaking activities should focus on whole text in contexts, rather than one sentence level grammatical construction in isolation

+ Speaking activities aim to develop the confidence, desire and ability to use the target language not only accurately but also appropriately and effectively for the purpose of communication

+ Leaming and practicing vocabulary, grammntical structures and pronunciation should be related to contexts and lead to the use of whole the texts + Spoken discourse types or texts can be analyzed with the learners for their typical structures and grammatical patterns

1.3.4 Speaking activities

Characteristics of a successful English speaking activity

According to Ur [43, 120], a successful speaking activity consists of the

- Also discussing the features of speaking activities, Nunan (1998) suggested that the features of “good” activities should:

- Get all students to participate actively

- Not make students feel embarrassed

- Not muke students feel stressful

- Enable students to use their own language even when they are not in the classroom

- Be practical to daily life

- Mobilize the ability for the desire of speaking and interacting from students

themselves

- Enable students to work in groups and discuss to find out the solution to their common task

1.3.5 Problems with English speaking and speaking activities

a) Problems with English speaking

Everything has bad and good sides Speaking also has its own problems According to Brown (1994: 256), the characteristics of spoken language can make oral performance easy as well as in soe cases difficult There are following problems with speaking:

e© Reduced forms

Contraction, elisions, reduced vowel, etc all form special problems in teaching

spoken English Students don’t learn colloquial contraction can sometimes develop

a stilted, bookish quality of speaking that in tum stigmatize them

¢ Colloquial language

Colloquialism appears in monogues and dialogues If leamers are only exposed to standard English and/ or ‘textbook’ language, they somtimes have difficulty in understanding and producing words, idioms and phrases of colloquial language

e Stress, rhythmand intonation

This is the most important characteristic of English pronunciation because the stress-+timed rhythm of spoken English and its intonation patterns convey important massages But the fact that the learners of English often find it difficut to pronounce English words, to stress the right syllables, to follow the tress-timed rhythm and intonation patterns of spoken English

e Affective factors

Tn the process of leaming speaking, students often encounter the risk of saying

out things that may be wrong, stupid and incomprehensible At those times, they

tend to be anxious because they do ot want to be judged by other learners

e Interaction

The greatest difficulty that the students face in learning to speak originates

from the interactive nature of most communication Engaged in the process of negotiation of meaning with any discourse constraints, learners have to do the complex task of choosing what to say, how to say, when to say, Learners are also affected by thier interlocutors’ performance

b) Problems with English speaking activities

Classroom activities that develop learners’ ability to express themselves through speech is an important component of a language course where CLT is

applied However, it is more difficult to design and adminster such activities than to

do so for listening, reading or writing Teachers often come across the problems that

Ur [43,121] lists out:

e Inhibition:

Unlike reading, writing and listenig actiities, speaking requires some degree of real time exposure to an audience Learners are often inhibition about trying to say

things in a foreign language In the classroom: worried about nuaking mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that thier speech

attracts

e Nothing to say:

Even if they are not inhibited, you often hear learners complain that they can not think of anything to say, or that they have no motive to express themselve

beyond the guilty feeling

e Lows or uneven participation:

Only one participate can talk at a time if he or she is to heard; and in a large group this means that each one will have only very little talking time This problem

is compounded by the tendency of some learmers to dominate, while others speak very little or not at all

e Mbther-tongue use:

Tn classes all, or a number of the learners share the same mother tongue for

many reasons: Firstly, they may tend to use it because it is easier Secondly, they feel unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language and lastly because they feels less ‘exposed’ if they are speaking thier mother tongue If they are talking in a small group it can be quite difficult to get some class-particularly the less disciplined or motivated ones to keep to the target language

Through two sections above, we can know most of the difficulties that

students often encounter in learning English speaking skill Basing on these views,

an action research is to caried out on adapting some English speaking activities for the ‘Tieng Anh 10’ to reduce these difficulties

1.3.6 Ways of organizing speaking activities

Little Wood [25] and Brown [4] say that communicative language teaching nukes use of real-life situations that necessitate communication The teacher sets up

a situation that students are likely to encounter in real-life As a result,

communication teaching and learning are normally implemented through pair-work,

group work, helping both teachers and students a lot in teaching and learmng process

It is undeniable that the way of organizing pair-work and group work are very

important The time that students spend in English lesson is usually quite short,

especially in a clas If they are only allowed to talk to the teacher, most studentss will not have many opportunities to speak much

Group- work and pair work, in term of classroom management, provide a context in which many of the recent curricular initatives can be more easily implemented (Long [26,207-228]) In fact, students in cooperative classroom implerrent tasks more accurately, obtain more information and perform better than other students working alone In addition, in language learning, when students dicuss issues with each other, they will really use the target language and interact in that language In most respect, pair-work and group work are seen as flourishing as Peak [37] states that it would be difficult to find one single area of social work that

is not the suject of group-work service somewhere in Europe

Acccording to Brown [5], in some setting group-work is inreasingly the method of choice Pair-work and group work seem to be extremely attractive idea because it can increase the amount of student talking time and maximize

opportunities for the students to speak A pair-work is defined as two being

interacting with each other in doing a task together and they will work on it cooperatively (Harris [20, 71-74]) Moreover, a group should not be too large as a whole class because that will be the sane as lock step that will defeat the purpose of group- work: letting students speak more Thus, in pair and group learning activities students work togerther and help each other to complete the tasks This also helps teachers to overcome the difficulties of the large classes and make the atmosphere

in group more friendly,creating such a good environment where students can interact Only when interacting in the setting like that they are likely to show freely

their social and personal output They do not limit themselves in the structures and

the vocabularies in the leaming context (Nolasco and Arthur [32])

-27-In brief, pair-work and group work are really vital for students to be helped with motivation and willingness to interact with each other to fufill the communicative tasks successfully Group work is particularly a very effective activity for teaching English to students Even those who have no prior experience with this type of task in classroom can quickly learn to use it According to Peak (1991), group- work is a great way to increase students’ participation and motivate them toward a more active approach to work and group-work in organizing and implementing the adapted speaking, activities show in action plans for teachin time

Masuhara [28] points out that materials adaptation involve changing existing materials in some forms so that they become suitable for specific purposes, learners, teachers or situations’ Similarly, from Tomlinson’s [41] point of view, materials adaptation means to ‘make changes to materials in order to improve them or to make them more suitable for a particular type of learners Adaptation can include reducing, adding, omitting, modifying and supplement’ Another author, Ellis, M [14, 47] considered adaptation the process of “retaining, rejecting, re-ordering and

modification”

According to Madsen and Bowen [27], adaptation is the action of employing

“one or more of a number of techniques: supplementing, expanding, personalizing, simplifying, modernizing, localizing, or modifying cultural/ situational content” Materials adaptation means matching materials with the learner’s needs, the teacher’s demands and administration’s purpose

1.4.2 The purpose of adaptation:

There are always sound practical reasons for adapting materials in order to make them as accessible and useful to learners as possible However, reasons for

adaptation have varied and changed as the field has developed and views on

language acquisition and teaching practice have become better informed by research and experience There are two most frequently cited purposes for adaptation:

> to make the material more suitable for the circumstances in which it is being

used, i.e to mould it to the needs and interests of learners, the teachers’ own

capabilities and such constraints as time, or as Me Donough and Shaw [29,85] put it: “to maximize the appropriateness of teaching materials in context, by changing some of the internal characteristics of a course book to better suit our particular circumstances”

> to compensate for any intrinsic deficiencies in the materials, such as

linguistic inaccuracies, out-of-datedness, lack of authenticity @Vadsen and Bowen 1978) or lack of variety

Look deeper into McDonough and Shaw’s definition of purpose we see that maximizing the appropriateness of teaching materials (by, e.g, modifying them in such a way that they seem more relevant to learners’ interests and needs) is important because it can stimulate motivation, and increased motivation is in tum likely to lead to a classroom atmosphere more conductive to learning, In fact, when teachers make changes to a course book “to better suit our particular purposes” what teachers are really trying to do is to improve students’ participation to increase the effectiveness of the leaming experience

1.4.3 Techniques of Adaptation

Adapting textbook is the work that needs every teacher's professional knowledge, skills and appropriate techniques to regulate teaching and learning stages McDonough and Shaw [29: 88-97] suggested the following techniques to

adapt textbooks

Adding

The notion of addition is, on its face, a very obvious and straightforward idea,

implying that materials are supplemented by putting more into them, while taking into account the practical effect on time allocation We certainly can add in this simple quantitative way by the technique of "extending" For example, adding a second passage parallel to the one provided is helpful in reinforcing the key

linguistic features-tenses, sentence structure, vocabulary, cohesive device-of the first text

Adding technique by extending is to supply more to the original material This

means that the techniques are being applied within methodological framework of the original materials We can also add in a qualitative way by the technique of

"expanding" Adding technique by expanding is to add to the methodology by moving outside it and developing it in new directions, for instance by putting a different language skill or a new component This can be thought of as a change in the overall system

Deleting or omitting

Deletion is clearly the opposite process to addition, and as such needs no

further clarification as a term However, although material is taken out rather than

supplemented, as a technique it can be thought of as "the other side of the same coin" The technique is used to omit material or reduce the length of material as subtracting from it For instance, the teacher leaves out lengthy and difficult tasks which are unproductive or inappropriate for a particular group of students

Addition and deletion often work together, of course Material may be taken out and then replaced with something else

Modification is, at one level, a very general term in the language applying to any kind of change In order to introduce further possibilities for adaptation, we shall restrict its meaning here to an intemal change in the approach or focus of an exercise or other piece of material It is rather important and frequently used procedure which, like all other techniques, can be applied to any aspect of ‘content’

Modification can be sub-divided under two related headings The first of these is re-

writing, When some of the linguistic content needs modification The second is re- structuring, Which applies to the classroom management The teacher may rewrite material, exercises, to make it more appropriate, more “communicative”, more demanding, more accessible to their students To re-structuring, for many teachers who are required to follow a course book rather strictly, changes in the structuring

of the class are sometimes the only kind of adaptation that is realistically possible

In short, modification refers essentially to a "modality change" to a change in

the nature or focus of an exercise, a text, or a classroomactivity

The technique of simplification is one type of modification, namely a "re- writing" activity Many elements of a language course can be simplified, including the instructions and explanations that accompany exercises and activities, and even the visual layout of material so that it becomes easier to see how different parts fit together For instance, teachers can simplify gap-filling activities by rewriting each filing sentence to make easier for students to understand Teachers can reword or leave out difficult words or expressions, etc Simplification has a number of further implications Firstly, it is possible that any linguistic change, lexical or grammatical, will have a corresponding stylistic effect, and will therefore change the meaning or intention of the original text Secondly, some teaching situations require attention to the simplification of the content when the complexity of the subject-matter is regarded as being too advanced Thirdly, simplification can refer not only to content, but also to the ways in which content is presented We may decide not to make any

changes to the original text

-31-technique, the teacher can separate items of content from each other as well as regroup them and put them together

In conclusion, adaptation is a very practical activity carried out mainly by teachers Teachers may select any feature of the materials that would like to be changed researchers refers as much as possible techniques mentioned above, draw

up some which are not suitable for their own teaching situation In this study, the suggestions for how to adapt some difficult speaking activities in “Tiéng Anh 10” to get students more involved in speaking activities and increase their participation in speaking lessons

-32-CHAPTER 2

METHODOLOGY First, this chapter briefly describes the situation where the study was

conducted and the informants involved in the study It includes an overview of Tinh

Gia 3 High School, students and their English background knowledge, general

description of the curriculum of textbook ‘Tiéng Anh 10’

Then the method, the participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedures are also discussed in detail

2.1 Research setting

2.1.1 Brief introduction of Tinh Gia 3 High school

Tinh Gia 3 high school is located in Tinh Gia district which is in the rural area

of Thanh Hoa It has three grades: 10, 11, and 12, in each of which the number of students is nearly the same

As in every high school, English is one of the compulsory subjects in Tinh Gia

3 high school which is taught in every three forty-five periods per week As for

classroom arrangement, the class size is averagely 42 -45, therefore, it is difficult to

carry out a communicative task in such a mixed —ability large class The school also has a room with an overhead projector and a computer with is occasionally used by teachers of all subjects in teaching festivals that are held twice an academic year Conceming the teaching staff, there are nearly ninety teachers of all subjects, nine of whom are teachers of English whose ages range from 30 to 52 One of them graduated from the English Department of Hong Duc University, Thanh Hoa Three

of them graduated from Russia Department and she got English as the 2™ Degree

The rest were from Vinh University, Nghe An They all have at least seven years of teaching experience However, during their teaching process, the teachers mostly speak their mother tongue a habit, even in speaking classes This results in the fact that they face difficulties in pronunciation and expressing themselves in the target

language

2.1.2 Students and their English background knowledge

-33-Students of Tinh Gia 3 high school come from many parts of Tinh Gia district Tinh Gia 3 high school is located in Hai Yén village It is one of the poorest villages

of Tinh Gia Although learning English at lower secondary schools and high schools

has been considered an official subject among Maths, Literature, Chemistry, Physics, and others, it is not appreciated at lower secondary schools at Tinh Gia because English is not included in any entrance or final exams Therefore, teachers and students’ attitudes towards teaching and learning English are negative They

consider English a minor subject at school As a result, students do not pay attention

to leaming English They learn it very badly Thus, it is difficult for teachers at Tinh

Gia 3 high school to teach them English because the textbook ‘Tiéng Anh 10’ at

high schools now written based on the English textbooks at lower secondary schools Teachers have no time to re-teach all the English knowledge students have learned at lower secondary schools, especially speaking skill They have to follow

the syllabus Day by day, both teachers and students feel tired and bored when having to teach and learning English So it is essential to find out the way to reduce

these difficulties and improve students’ speaking English ability

2.1.3 General description of the curriculum of textbook “Tiếng Anh 10°

a) Overall Design

The textbool “Tiéng Anh 10” is designed to foster a more comumnicative approach, learner-centered leaming, an emphasis on oral skills, and language for real-life communication This intention is explicitly presented in the following objectives of the “ Tiéng Anh 10”:

- To formulate and develop a fundamental and systematic knowledge of English hence leamers can use English as a means of communication at the basic level

- To enable the students to develop their communicative skills in the target

- To have an appropriate, systematic and basic knowledge of English for upper secondary school learners

- To create a communicative environment or set for students to acquire English by using it through activities in class

- To broaden learners’ general understanding of and positive attitudes toward the language, countries, people and cultures of some English countries, thus enrich

thier knowledge and pride of their own culture and language

The textbook is theme-based designed in which language and the skills are

structured round a certain topic or theme The theme provides a context i which language is used so as to help students be able to use the appropriate language structures in different communicative situations

The topic and vocabulary are recycled in guided group discussion (1e speaking practice) before students listen to a lecture or tape (ie listening comprehesion) A writing task taking the form of narrative, letters or reports

concludes the theme-based activities Thus, all four major language skills together with note-taking, analytical and interpretive skills, etc can be practiced

b) The methodology underpinning the text book

The need to use English in actual communicative context is beginning to emerge as educators realize that the traditional learning and teaching styles do not help learners comunmicate with foreigners, both native or non-native speakers of English The shift toward a new way of learning with more opportunities to use the target language, not only in classroom but also in reality has brought a livelier

atmosphere to learning and teaching English in high secondary schools

The textbook “Tiếng Anh 10’ based on two popular approaches in comtemporary English teaching Grammatical phenomenon is considered important

to the development of communicative skills, learner-centered approach and communicative approach The two oriented methods of teaching Engish is considered by task-based teaching The new method considered learners as the center of ther teaching-learning process; promote students’ ability, positiveness, activeness and creativy It is directed toward communicative competence through skills Communicative competence is a means of achieving communicative goal