The use of warm-up activities in speaking lessons in Yen Lang High School a case study = Việc sử dụng các hoạt động tiền dạy nói trong giờ dạy nói ở THPT Yên Lã

Post-graduate Department --- Hoàng Thị Dự The use of Warm-up activities in speaking lessons in Yen Lang high school: A case study Việc sử dụng các hoạt động tiền dạy nói trong giờ dạy

Post-graduate Department

-

Hoàng Thị Dự

The use of Warm-up activities in speaking

lessons in Yen Lang high school: A case study

(Việc sử dụng các hoạt động tiền dạy nói trong giờ dạy nói ở

THPT YêN lãNG, điển cứu)

MA Minor thesis

Hanoi- 2009

-

Hoàng Thị Dự

The use of Warm-up activities in speaking

lessons in Yen Lang high school: A case study

(Việc sử dụng các hoạt động tiền dạy nói trong giờ dạy nói ở

THPT YêN lãNG, điển cứu)

MA Minor thesis

Supervisor: Ms Phùng Hà Thanh, M.Ed

Hanoi- 2009

Table of contents

Declaration i

Acknowledgements……… ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents iv

List of abbreviations and tables vi

Introduction 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Methodology 2

5 Significance of the study 2

6 Structure of the study 3

Chapter 1: Literature Review 4

1.1 Aspects of speaking 4

1.1.1 Purpose of speaking 4

1.1.2 Participants in speaking 4

1.1.3 Medium of speaking 5

1.1.4 Differences between speaking and writing 5

1.2 Teaching of speaking in different approaches 6

1.2.1 Teaching of speaking in the Grammar translation method 6

1.2.2 Teaching of speaking in the Direct method 7

1.2.3 Teaching of speaking in the Audio-lingual method 8

1.2.4 Teaching of speaking in Communicative language teaching 9

1.3 Warm- up activities in speaking 11

1.3.1 Definitions of warm- up activities 11

1.3.2 Purposes of teaching warm-up activities 11

1.3.2.1 Motivating learners in learning 11

1.3.2.2 Introducing the topic of the lesson 11

1.3.2.3 Getting students’ attention 12

1.3.2.4 Providing some useful languages 12

1.3.3 Some common warm-up activities 12

1.3.4 Evaluation of warm- up activities in speaking lessons 14

Chapter 2: Methodology 17

2.1 Setting of the study 17

2.2 The sampling 18

2.2.1 The teachers 18

2.2.2 The students 18

2.3 Data collection 20

2.3.1 Data collection instrument 20

2.3.2 Data-collection procedure 21

2.4 Data analysis procedure 22

Chapter 3: Study results 23

3.1 Research question 1 23

3.1.1 Teachers’ frequency of using warm-up activities 23

3.1.2 Teachers’ frequent purposes of using warm-up activities 25

3.2 Research question 2: Teachers’ perception of the importance of warm-up activities 27 3.3 Research question 3: Teachers’ difficulties when employing warm-up activities 29

3.3.1 Teachers’ difficulties when preparing warm-up activities 29

3.3.2 Teachers’ difficulties while practising warm-up activities 30

3.3.3 Teachers’ difficulties when evaluating the use of warm-up activities 31

3.4 Research question 4: Teachers’ satisfaction of their employment of warm-up activities 32

3.5 Research question 5: Students’ satisfaction of their teachers’ employment of warm-up activities 32

Conclusion 34

1 Major findings 34

2 Pedagogical implications from the findings 36

3 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research 36

References 38

Appendices 40

List of abbreviations and tables

Table 1.1: Differences between speaking and writing

Table 1.2 : Common approaches to teaching speaking

Table 2.1: Number of students in each group

Table 3.1: Teachers’ frequency of using WAS and their years of teaching experience Table 3.2: Teachers’ frequency of using WAS (Information from teachers)

Table 3.3: Teachers’ frequency of using WAS (Information from students)

Table 3.4: Teachers’ frequent purposes of using WAS

Table 3.5: Teachers’ perception of the importance of warm-up activities

Table 3.6: Teachers’ difficulties when preparing warm-up activities

Table 3.7: Teachers’ difficulties while practising warm-up activities

Table 3.8: Teachers’ difficulties when evaluating the use of WAS

Table 3.9: Teachers’ satisfaction with their used WAS

Table 3.10: Students’ satisfaction with teachers’ WAS

Introduction

1 Rationale

Today with the development of economy and relationship between nations there is an increasing demand for foreign language learning, especially speaking skill People need oral communication in daily life more than written words Therefore, the teaching of speaking has recently been paid more attention to learners It is no doubt that the ability to use verbal communication in a second language effectively contributes to the success of learners at school time as well as later in their lives

Actually, the teaching of speaking has undergone substantial changes due to the changes in language teaching approach For Vietnamese learners, speaking skills have been fostered through repeating after the teacher, the use of dictation, rote-learning of text, reading aloud and the like Consequently, although students know vocabulary and grammar, a lot of them cannot use the language they learn in oral communication Students of Yen Lang high school (Me Linh, Ha Noi) encounter the same problem when they practise speaking The situation has been better since communicative language teaching was adopted Communicative competence in speaking has been focused on in order to meet the demand of the society in the new context

However, teaching speaking in a classroom environment faces certain difficulties For example, students often experience lack of knowledge, words and expressions needed for speaking or motivation to speak They even suffer from shyness or lack of confidence Thus, arousing students’ interest as well as providing them some language preparation is an essential part to prepare for students to speak In spite of not being a main task warm-up activities contribute to the success of speaking lessons

The importance of warm-up activities in learning English has been confirmed in many studies For example, it has been found out that pre-reading techniques have great impact on the students’ motivation to read (To, 2007) and brainstorming before speaking tasks encourages better learning (Cullen, 2008) However, practicing warm up activities in a school

which has adopted communicative method for only four years like YL high school is still a new technique and requires great efforts from teachers To see how the teachers in YL high school use warm-up activities in speaking lessons encourages the author to carry out this study

2 Aims of the study

The study aims at investigating the use of warm up activities in speaking lesson in YL high school The study is carried out to answer the following questions:

1 How are warm-up activities employed in term of frequency and purpose?

2 How do teachers perceive warm-up activities in term of importance?

3 What are the difficulties teachers often encounter when preparing and conducting warm-up activities?

4 How satisfied do teachers feel with their employment of warm-up activities?

5 How satisfied do students feel with the employed warm-up activities?

3 Scope of the study

The study focuses only on examining the use of warm-up activities in speaking lessons The participants are all teachers of English and 315 students among 1350 students in

YL high school The study was carried when the school students were studying the second term of the year 2008-2009

4 Methodology

This study is a primary research based mainly on survey questionnaires Two sets

of questionnaires were designed The first one was administered to all teachers of English and the other was delivered to students of six classes in YL high school to examine the use of warm-up activities in speaking lessons Data collected from survey questionnaires was analyzed quantitavely

5 Significance of the study

The result of the study will be used for the author’s personal growth in teaching job In addition, the findings of the study can provide teachers with descriptive information about the use of warm-up activities in speaking lessons in YL high school The information might be useful for teachers who want to enhance their use of warm-up activities in speaking lessons in order to encourage students to speak

6 Structure of the study

The study consists of five parts including introduction, chapter one, chapter two, chapter three and conclusion The first part introduces the rationale, the aim, the scope, the methodology, the significance and the structure of the study Chapter one presents aspects of speaking, the teaching of speaking in different approaches and warm-up activities in speaking lessons Chapter two presents the setting, the sampling, data collection and data analysis procedure Chapter three presents the results of the study and discussion on the results The last part of the study offers major findings, pedagogical implication, limitations of the study and suggestions for further research

Chapter 1: Literature review

1.1 Aspects of speaking

1.1.1 Purposes of speaking

Speaking is to interact with other people in expressing themselves and forming social relationships through speech (Bygate, 1987) The main purpose of speaking is to communicate with other people By speaking we can express our thoughts, our ideas that we like other people to understand (Fulcher, 2003) According to Nunan, communication in speaking can be expressed into two ways: information routine and interaction routine In information routine, only speakers provide information For example, speakers tell a story, describe something or give a set of instruction In interaction routine both speakers and listeners participate in the conversation (Nunan, 1999) For example, speakers and listeners interact at the party, in an interview or in a discussion

1.1.2 Participants in speaking

Participants in spoken communication play roles as speakers and listeners The speaker has to plan and organize the message and to control the language being used in the communication (Fulcher, 2003) When we speak, we usually need to be in the same place and time as the listener Despite this restriction, speaking does have the advantage that the speaker receives instant feedback from the listener The speaker can probably see immediately if the listener is bored or does not understand something Then he can modify or correct himself or improve what he has already said (Bygate, 1987)

On the other hand, the listener in oral communication can give immediate reaction to what is spoken According to Bygate, the listener is “in front of us and able to put us right if

we make mistakes He can also generally show his agreement and understanding or incomprehension and disagreement” (Bygate, 1987:12)

Thus, the speaker and the listener are the people who can directly use spoken language

to communicate with each others They can adjust a message immediately so that understanding can be improved

1.1.3 Medium of speaking

The spoken language is the medium of speaking and the outer manifestation of the spoken language is sound (Fulcher, 2003) The spoken language has to be planned and articulated with considerable speech The speaker must decide what to say, be able to articulate the words and create physical sounds that carry meaning

In addition to languages, speakers’ voices such as pitch, rhythm, stress and intonation can also contribute to conveying messages Therefore, in order to speak a foreign language, learners need knowledge of the language they wish to speak, for example, pronunciation of sound, rules of speech, rules of grammar and the like (Fulcher, 2003)

In speaking, the speaker can also use body languages or facial expressions to convey messages or to express his feeling if he or she is in front of the listener This is the reason why the speaker has more ways to convey messages than the writer who often use written language

to express meanings and ideas

1.1.4 Differences between speaking and writing

People can communicate with others by using a verbal language which can be in form

of speaking or writing However, there are differences between two types of communication

- Writers cannot receive immediate feedback from readers

- Readers can reread if they do not understand

language to convey messages

- Speakers use less formal language and may make mistakes

- Speakers use pause and intonation

- Writers use more formal language with correct grammar

- Writers use punctuation

Table 1.1: Differences between speaking and writing

(Fulcher (2003) and Bygate (1987))

It is obviously that writing is not speech written down on the paper and speaking is not speaking out a book Each way of conveying messages has its own characteristics and advantages based on which we can choose to communicate by speaking or by writing

1.2 Teaching of speaking in different approaches

Second language teaching and learning have undergone a lot of changes since grammar translation method came to throne to time when CLT becomes a favorable method today The change of methods reflects the change of the concepts of what language proficiency is and purposes for which we teach and learn a language The teaching of speaking has also been influenced by the concept and practice of each method

1.2.1 Teaching of speaking in the Grammar translation method

In the Grammar translation method, there exists no form of speaking practice as the purpose of language teaching is to teach reading and writing This approach mainly focuses on grammatical rules and helps learners read and appreciate foreign language literature Thus, both teachers and learners do not pay attention to speaking or pronunciation The principle characteristics of this method according to Richard and Rodger (1986:13) are as follow:

- The goal of foreign language study is to read its literature It hence views language learning as memorizing rules and facts in order to understand and manipulate the morphology and syntax of the foreign language

- Vocabulary is taught through bilingual word list, dictionary study and memorization

- Accuracy is emphasized Grammar is taught inductively

- The students’ mother tongue is the medium of instruction

- Reading and writing are the major focus; little or no systematic attention is paid to speaking or listening

Learners who are taught in this way have no motivation or chance to practice speaking They may not be able to pronounce a word even though they know the meaning Thus, a lot

of learners cannot use the foreign language they learn for speaking

1.2.2 Teaching of speaking in the Direct method

In the direct method, speaking is gradually formed Speaking is fostered through repeating after teachers and the use of target language in the classroom (Fulcher, 2003) This approach was developed initially in reaction to the grammar translation method in an attempt

to integrate more use of the target language in instruction Richards and Rodger (1986:19) described the principles and procedure of the method as follows:

- Classroom instruction is conducted exclusively in the target language

- Oral communication skills are built up in graded progression organized around question and answer exchange between teachers and students in small, intensive classes

- New teaching point is introduced orally

- Both speech and listening comprehension are taught

- Correct pronunciation and grammar are emphasized

This method helps students to expose to the target language situation but their speaking abilities are not intentionally developed As the language used in teaching and learning is the target language, students who are taught in this way are presented and must present their

thought in the target language However, they are trying to express themselves in the target language with insufficient knowledge about the language because all statements they learn relate to the classroom Thus, students’ can hardly use spoken language to communicate as speaking outside the classroom is not considered

1.2.3 Teaching of speaking in the Audio-lingual method

In the Audio-lingual method, speaking is intentionally developed; especially, like pronunciation is highly emphasized The process of learning speaking is formed by habit formation through repetition, imitation and drills in term of stimulus response (Stern, 1983) Followings are Rivers’ summarization of the principles of the method:

native The principle of language learning is habit formation New material is presented in form of a dialogue The method fosters dependence on imitation, memorization of set phrases and over-learning

- There is an abundant use of language laboratories, tapes and visual aids

- Great importance is given to precise native-like pronunciation The use of the mother tongue by the teacher is permitted, but discouraged among the students

- Structural patterns are taught using repetitive drills

- Grammar is taught inductively Vocabularies are strictly limited and learned in context

- Skills are sequenced: Listening, speaking, reading and writing are developed in order

- Successful responses are reinforced; great care is taken to prevent learner errors There is a tendency to focus on the manipulation of the target language and to disregard contents and meanings (Rivers, 1981:19)

It is obvious that audio-lingual method emphasizes the importance of habit formation

in learning language Learning speaking is in form of repetition, role- play and drills; students are to repeat and insist on accurate reproduction of the items Thus, one of the most successful points of this method is to develop students’ accurate pronunciation and fluency However,

one of the disadvantages of the method is “students’ master of sentence patterns rather than creative or communicative use of the language” (Brumfit and Roberts, 1983:121) In other words, when speaking students only response automatically what they have learnt and remembered they cannot use the language communicatively

1.2.4 Teaching of speaking in Communicative language teaching

In CLT, teaching of speaking is paid more attention than ever as speaking is realized as

the most highly prized language skills in learning FL (Lado 1961, quoted in Fulcher 2003) Speaking is taught through doing communicative tasks and interaction The learner’s role is as

a negotiator and an integrator The teacher’s role is as a facilitator for communication process Richards summarizes the principles of communicative language teaching as follows:

- The goal of language learning is communicative competence Learners learn it

through using it to communicate

- Authentic and meaningful communication should be a goal of classroom activities

- Fluency and accuracy are important dimensions of communication

- Communication involves the integration of different language skills

- Learning is gradual process that involves trial and error (Richards, 1983)

Students who are taught in this way are exposed to a lot of target languages in use In doing communicative activities, students interact in role playing, arguing and debating and use language in different situations Although learning and teaching occur in classroom environment authentic materials, well- designed activities with real- life topics arouse students feeling that they are performing social interaction (Byrne, 1987)

In summery, speaking is perceived differently due to the purposes of teaching and learning languages at different times The table following summarizes how speaking is taught

Interactional Learning

Theory Behaviorism Behaviorism Behaviorism

Cognitivism Constructivism

- Encourage students’ native like pronunciation and imitation of language use in class

- Encourage integration of four language skills in learning language communicatively Focus on forms and meaning

- Fluency and accuracy in speaking was focused by repetition, role- play and drills

- Speaking is learnt meaningfully and communicatively though doing communicative tasks and interaction Teaching

approach

product Teaching

Drills and tasks given in variant situations

Authentic and meaningful tasks

Table 1.2 : Common approaches to teaching speaking

(Synthesized from Richards & Rodgers, 1986)

If in grammar translation method, there is no place for speaking, speaking in CLT is the main focus People gradually realize that speaking is the first step to confirm who know or does not know language and “people who know language are referred to as speakers of that language” (Ur, 1996) Thus, a lot of foreign language learners take up speaking Teachers are

also aware of their responsibility to stimulate students’ speaking abilities They have adopted many techniques in teaching and using warm- up activities is one of among these techniques

1.3 Warm- up activities in speaking

1.3.1 Definitions of warm- up activities

Various definitions refer to warm- up activities as preparing activities Rankin (1989) defined warm- up activities as something to prepare for an activity or event Doff (1998) pointed out that warm-up activities involve activities organized before students do the main tasks of the lesson

Actually, warm-up activities are used to start many activities In learning foreign language it is also used in speaking, reading, listening or writing Thus, warm-up activities for speaking lesson are activities organized to prepare for students before they perform speaking tasks

1.3.2 Purposes of teaching warm-up activities

Warm-up activities prepare students to start new lessons straightforwardly Followings are practical purposes of warm-up activities used in speaking lessons

1.3.2.1 Motivating learners in learning

The primary purpose of warm up activities in learning is to motivate learners (Saricoban, 2008) Many researchers and methodologists have come to the view that motivation is important for the success of the learners, especially for language learners For example, Brown concluded that “without motivation we certainly fail to make necessary effort but a learner will be successful with proper motivation” (Brown, 1990:161) If learners are highly motivated, they are eager to participate in classroom activities and volunteer to perform them

1.3.2.2 Introducing the topic of the lesson

Introducing the topic of the lesson is one of the most important activities since the topic lets students know what they are going to learn and talk about afterward (Levis and Hill,

1992) Knowing the topic of the lesson also activates students’ existing knowledge of vocabulary and knowledge of social situations about that topic (Moore, 1992) In fact, the topic of the lesson is frequently introduced while students practise WAS and before they do the main speaking tasks of the speaking lessons

1.3.2.3 Getting students’ attention

Another purpose of warm up activities is getting students’ attention At the beginning

of the lesson students tend to be distracted by unfinished activities at break time Getting students’ attention at the first minute of the speaking lesson will help the lesson go on smoothly It also saves waste time reminding students of the noise or stopping them from doing other activities (Moore, 1992) Therefore, an exciting warm-up activity will attract students’ attention and focus them on doing the tasks

1.3.2.4 Providing some useful languages

It is necessary to provide students with some useful words or expressions before asking them to do speaking tasks (Doff, 1998) Words or expression may be new or known to students If they are new they will enrich students’ knowledge, and if they are known they will improve students’ accuracy in speaking because input frequency creates output accuracy (Ellis, 1994) Therefore, providing some language for students before they practice speaking should be included in warm-up activities

In short, warm-up activities are designed to motivate and get students' attention, to help them put aside distractive thoughts, and to focus them on activities follow Based on the topic

of the lesson and students’ levels teachers can organize a warm-up activity that is appropriate with the topic of the speaking lesson and of students’ interest

1.3.3 Some common warm-up activities

Suggestions on techniques to start speaking lessons have been mentioned in many books by Levis and Hill (1986), Byrne (1986), Ur (1996) and the like Teachers can adopt among various kinds of these activities or they can design the activities themselves

Followings are some common warm-up activities that can be used in speaking lessons

1.3.3.1 Using games

Using games in warm-up activities can meet teacher’s purpose in attracting students’ attentions and motivating them to learn (Dornyei, 2001) Students are always interested in playing games and they are eager to take part in game activities In fact, since game is a contest of amusement there are a lot of activities which teachers can organize for students to compete with each others Teachers can introduce the topic of the lesson using game like crosswords or hangman, or making students more motivated with games in which a group of students competes with others like nought and cross, or help (Rankin, 1989) Thus using a game in a warm-up activity helps teachers draw students’ great attention as well as motivate students to learn

1.3.3.2 Using story

Teachers can also use short story or anecdote to introduce the topic and to provide some necessary words or expressions By telling or having students read a story teachers can also introduce the topic of the lesson as well as provide them some useful languages (Rankin, 1989) Students will feel it easier while performing speaking tasks A strip story or an unfinished story is an example of this kind of activities

1.3.3.3 Using visual aids

Using visual aids are attractive way of drawing students’ attention Visual aids such as pictures, photographs, real objects or charts can also provide students with cues of the topic as well as motivate them to speak (Byrne, 1986) Rankin pointed out some principles of using visual aids as follows Firstly, visual-aids should be big enough for all of the students to see without straining to see Secondly, it should be simple understand and relevant to students, for example, instead of writing complete sentence teachers should write key words or phrase on aids Lastly, it should be interesting and attractive with balance color (Rankin, 1989)

1.3.3.4 Brainstorming words or expressions

Brainstorming can be used effectively as a warm- up activity in speaking lessons although it is often used in teaching writing (Cullen, 2008) The purpose of brainstorming activities is to generate as many ideas as possible within a specified length of time Each idea produced does not need to be usable Instead, initial ideas can be viewed as a starting point for more workable ideas since the principle of brainstorming is that you need lots of ideas to get good ideas Activities such as free-association and word-mapping can be used to generate

students’ ideas for speaking tasks (Dawson, 2006)

1.3.3.5 Using questions

Teachers can give questions leading students to the main points of the lesson The questions are related to and focus on the topic of the lesson By answering these questions students understand what they are going to talk about afterward This technique requires no supplementary materials but it should be well-repaired by teachers to avoid boredom and motivate students to do speaking tasks (Levis and Hill, 1992)

1.3.3.6 Having students read a small passage

Giving students a small passage before asking them to present speaking tasks is also one kind of warm-up activities This kind of activity seems like giving students a story to read The difference lies in the fact that the content of story is often thrilling enough to attract students’ curiosity but the content of the passage mentioned here aims at providing students with some information and some words and expressions that may be useful for speaking (Ur, 1996) Actually, teachers can adopt WAS available in many books or they can design the activities themselves The only things should be taken in consideration are the relevance of the activity with students levels and the appropriateness of the activity with the topic of the lesson

1.3.4 Evaluation of warm- up activities in speaking lessons

Researchers, have shown positive effects of WAS on speaking lessons in their studies Firstly, WAS could help to increase students’ motivation To (2004) pointed out in the last

part of her study that students often showed their interest in activities like games or visual aids Therefore, using these activities would arouse students’ interest as well as enhance students’ motivation in learning WAS like brainstorming was found out to be a motivational technique in the way it offers students opportunities to activate their existing knowledge as well as exchanging information with others (Cullen, 2008) When students are motivated they are eager to participate in the tasks following that

Secondly, WAS were used to focus students on the lessons (Dawson, 2006) Dawson concluded from his study that many teachers claimed their students for disturbing noise and neglecting attitude at the beginning of the lesson However, participating in an exciting activity, the students paid closer attention and seemed to be more excited than before In this way, a warm-up activity can play a role as an ice-breaking activity that eliminates boring atmosphere and focuses students on the lesson

Thirdly, using warm-up activities could help the whole pace of the tasks go on much faster (Cullen, 2008) Cullen concluded in his study on the use of brainstorming before speaking task that students who did a brainstorming warm-up activity followed by the speaking task progressed faster compare to those did only the speaking task Because of organization of knowledge and introduction of contextual cues of a brainstorming activity, it helps students be familiar with words or expression in the speaking tasks Having knowledge about what they are going to speak students will get faster progression

Fourthly, warm-up activity has a strong positive effect on the atmosphere of the classroom and behavior of the students (Dawson, 2006) Participating in warm-up activities students may have a feeling that they were playing not working Stress and tension among students can be reduced Therefore, students do not feel being forced but feel more encouraged

to learn

It is obviously that that WAS play a crucial role in the whole process of teaching speaking for the fact that good beginning make good ending If the lesson starts smoothly, both the teacher and his students can find it easy to progress along the speaking lesson However, if students feel bored or too excited with the activity it will cause difficulties for the teacher to control the class Therefore, WAS should be well-designed and organized by the

teacher in order to activate positive effects as well as make the teacher and his students feel more comfortable to continue doing speaking tasks

Chapter 2: Methodology

This chapter is to present the methodology of the current research including the

participants, the data collection instrument and procedure of the study

2.1 Setting of the study

The study was conducted in YL high school located in Me Linh district, Ha Noi The school has thirty one classes consisting of 1350 students English is a compulsory subject and

is the only foreign language being taught here

The English syllabus for high school students

The objectives of the English language teaching syllabus for high school students are

to provide students with knowledge of English language and to enable them to use English to communicate at a basic level The teaching approach which has been adopted and encouraged

to use is CLT Materials used for teaching and learning English are textbooks and listening disks The textbook for each school year consists of sixteen units and the order of language teaching skills in each unit is reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus Students often have three English classes a week Each class lasts 45 minutes Totally, there are 105 teaching periods in a school year including revisions and tests In each speaking lesson, students often have to do three tasks The first two tasks are guided tasks and the last one is a free task which is the speaking production of students Although course assessment is based mainly on written tests, the teaching and learning of speaking have received great attention from both teachers and students due to their awareness of the increasing demand for oral communication in foreign languages

The teachers

There are seven teachers of English in YL high school One teacher comes from Nghe

An province and the others are from different areas in Me Linh district, Ha Noi The teachers’ ages range from 27 to 38 Six of the teachers are females and the other is a male All of the

teachers graduated from CFL and most of them have been teaching English in YL high school since they graduated Although the teachers used to teach English using the Grammar translation method, they have been much more concerned with CLT since it was adopted

The students

The school students are from different areas of Me Linh district Their ages range from

15 to 19 All of them have learnt English since they were at secondary school However, their English are at different levels Apart from being a compulsory subject, students learn English for different purposes For example, some students learn English to take an entrance to their favorite Universities Some students learn English for amusement such as listening to music or reading newspapers and some students learn English for their interests

2.2.2 The students

The second group of participants was 315 students from seven groups of three classes

in the school Seven groups chosen were the groups taught by seven teachers The researcher employed the purposive sampling procedure The first purpose for which the researcher selected these groups of students was that these groups were representative for all groups of students in the school Secondly, the researcher could make comparison between the results obtained from the teachers and results gained from their students about the frequency of using

of WAS in speaking lessons Therefore, the researcher selected seven groups of participants based on following criteria:

- For each teacher, one group is selected

- For each class, at least two groups are selected

- Teachers who teach more groups in one class will have a greater chance to be chosen The procedure of selecting participants for the study is as follows: Firstly, the researcher listed all the teachers and all the groups taught by them Secondly, the groups taught by each teacher were arranged according to number from small to big Thirdly, she chose two groups of class 12 first Two teachers who taught more groups were chosen For example, teacher A teaches groups 12A3, 12A5, 12A8; teacher B teaches 12A7, 12A9, 12A11

so group 12A3 and 12A7 are chosen Then she continued choosing the groups in class 11 and class 10 The teachers who were not selected in class 12 were chosen in the following classes Two groups of class 12 and two groups of class 10 were chosen meanwhile three groups of the class 11 were chosen to participate in the study The specific number of students from each group is as follows:

2.3 Data collection

2.3.1 Data collection instrument

The research instrument used in the study was survey questionnaires Two sets of questionnaires were designed and administered to two groups of participants Followings are description of the two sets of questionnaires

Description of survey questionnaires for teachers

At the beginning of the questionnaires participants were asked to give their background information including their age, their years of teaching and their hometown No specific names of the participants were required

The main part had twenty four items that belonged to five parts in the survey questionnaires

Part A had one question that aimed at examining the teachers’ frequency of using WAS Five levels of use were designed correspond to five numbers from one to five, in which number 1 for “never”, number 2 for “occasionally”, number 3 for “sometimes” , number 4 for

“usually” and number 5 for “always” Participants were divided into three groups: high level, moderate level and low level of using WAS To be specific the teacher who “usually” and

“always” used WAS belong to the high group of WAS use The teachers who “sometimes” used WAS belongs to the moderate group of WAS use The teachers who “occasionally” and

“never” used WAS belong to the low group of WAS use

Part B had one question consists of ten items that examined teachers’ frequent purposes of using warm-up activities Five levels of use were also given similar to part A

Part C had five items that aimed at answering the second research question about teachers’ perception of the importance of warm-up activities In this part four levels of importance were given correspond to numbers from 1 to 4 In which number 1 is for “not important at all”, number 2 is for “not very important”, number 3 is for “important” and number 4 is for “very important”

Part D was designed to answer the third research question about teachers’ difficulties when practising WAS in speaking lessons This part was divided into sub-three parts

consisting of seven items The design of the answers for each item was similar to the part A and part B of the questionnaires

Part E aimed at examining teachers’ satisfaction with their employed warm-up activities Four levels of satisfaction were given correspond to four number from one to four Number 1 is for “not satisfied at all”, number 2 is for “not very satisfied”, number 3 is for

“satisfied” and number 4 for “completely satisfied”

Although the questionnaire was designed in English, the researcher has tried to use simple words and edit its format so that the respondents would find it easy and comfortable while doing the questionnaires

Survey questionnaires for students

At the beginning of the questionnaires participants were asked to give background information like their ages, their hometown and their years of leaning English The main part had only two questions The first question aimed at answering the first research question and confirming the result obtained from the questionnaires for teacher about the frequency of using WAS The second question aimed at answering the sixth research question about students’ satisfaction with WAS used in speaking lessons These two questions were designed based on a scale similar to the questionnaires for teachers

2.3.2 Data-collection procedure

The questionnaires were administered to all teachers of English and seven classes of students at different times The researcher delivered the questionnaire to teachers at break time meanwhile the delivery of the questionnaires to students was when they were studying in the classroom The researcher had to get previous permission of the teacher in charge at administering time and the agreement of the whole class before she delivered the questionnaires to the students Fortunately, none of the students were absent when the researcher delivered the questionnaires to them On average, the administration of the survey questionnaires for teacher took thirty minutes and the survey questionnaires for students took about ten minutes The administration of the two sets of questionnaires lasted three weeks