Using short activities and game in the post speaking stage to increase grade 11 A4 students interets at Chan Mong hight school, Phu Tho Province

FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT ---NGUYEN THI THANH HUONG USING SHORT ACTIVITIES AND GAMES IN THE POST- SPEAKING STAGE TO INCREASE GRADE 11A4 STUDENTS’ INTERETS AT CHAN MONG HIGH CHOOL, PHU

FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT

-NGUYEN THI THANH HUONG

USING SHORT ACTIVITIES AND GAMES IN THE POST- SPEAKING STAGE TO INCREASE GRADE 11A4

STUDENTS’ INTERETS

AT CHAN MONG HIGH CHOOL, PHU THO PROVINCE

THE GRADUATION PAPER Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

Phu Tho, 2015

HUNG VUONG UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT

-NGUYỄN THỊ THANH HƯỜNG

USING SHORT ACTIVITIES AND GAMES IN THE POST- SPEAKING STAGE TO INCREASE GRADE 11A4

STUDENTS’ INTERETS

AT CHAN MONG HIGH CHOOL, PHU THO PROVINCE

(Sử dụng các hoạt động và trò chơi ngắn ở phần cuối bài dạy kỹ năng nói nhằm tăng hứng thú học tập cho sinh lớp

11A4 trường THPT Chân Mộng, tỉnh Phú Thọ)

THE GRADUATION PAPERField: English Language Teaching Methodology

SUPERVISOR: HOANG THI VAN YEN, MA

Phú Thọ, 2015

Secondly, I would like to thank all the lectures, teachers, and staff at HungVuong University, especially those in Department of Foreign Languages who havecreated favorable conditions for me to study and write the graduation paper.

Finally, I would like to express my great appreciation to my family, my dearfriends for their support and encouragement throughout this study

Viet Tri, April 2014

Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong

7 Scope of the study 4

1.5.3 Solutions to the problems with speaking activities 10

1.6.1 The role of short activities and games in language teaching and

2.3 Description of the experimental teaching speaking lessons 19

2.4.1 The results and analysis from teachers’ questionnaire survey 212.4.2 The results and analysis from students’ questionnaire survey

Chapter 3- Recommendations and suggestions for using short activities

and games in the post- speaking stage

35

3.1 Some recommendations for using short activities and games in the

post- speaking stage

3.2 Some suggested short activities and games to increase students’

interests in the post- speaking stage

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: The teachers’ attitude toward speaking skill 21Table 2.2: The teachers’ attitude toward the post- speaking stage 21Table 2.3: Teachers’ spending time on the post- speaking stage 23Table 2.4: Difficulties of teaching the post- speaking stage 23Table 2.5: The frequency of using short activities or games in the post-

the post- speaking stage

28

Table 2.12: The Level of the Students’ familiarity with each short activity or

game

28

Table 2.13: Students’ opinions about the goals of using short activities and

games in the post- speaking stage

29

Table 2.14: Students’ interest in the experimental teaching lessons 30Table 2.15: Students’ attitude toward the short activities and games 30Table 2.16: The benefits of using short activities and games in the post–

speaking stage

31

Table 2.17: Students’ views about the effectiveness of the short activities

and games used in the post- speaking stage

32

Table 2.18: The degree of students’ interest with each short activity or game 33Table 2.19: Students’ opinions about whether teacher should use shortactivities and games in the post- speaking or not.

33

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Nowdays, English is considered as international language, which is spoken

by millions of people all over the world The needs to use English to communicateverbally are essential and increase more and more Speaking skill plays animportant role in communication However, teaching speaking skill in High school

in general and in grade 11A4 at Chan Mong High school in particular seem to havesome obstacles

This graduation paper studies the real situation of using some short activitiesand games to increase grade 11A4 students’ interest at Chan Mong High school.The target of this study is to investigate the current situation of the post- peakingstage at Chan Mong High school and to study the effects of using short activitiesand games and then make some suggestions and implications to intergrade shortactivities and games into the post- speaking stage of speaking lesson This study isconducted on 6 English teachers and 36 students in grade 11A4 at Chan Mong Highschool, all needed data was collected through a series of questionnaire surveysbefore and after the experimental teaching speaking lessons It is hoped that thisthesis will be useful for teachers and students at Chan Mong High school in learningand teaching the post- speaking stage

PART1 A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

English nowadays has become a required subject of all study levels inVietnam Among four language skills, speaking is regarded as the most importantone for face-to-face communication However, there is a fact that both the teachersand the students have not paid enough attention to speaking skill In a speakinglesson, teachers often focus more on the pre- and the while- speaking stages than thepost- speaking stage As a result, the students’ interests are reduced at the end of thelesson

Additionally, motivation is perhaps the key that leads to consecutive success

in the learning process, especially in second language achievement So, maintainingthe students’ interest during the lesson is very important If the students do not havemotivation, they cannot get the best result from learning Usually, the students havemore interest at the beginning of the lesson After doing many exercises and takingpart in speaking activities in the pre- speaking and while- speaking stage, thestudents often feel tired, even bored in the post- speaking stage Therefore,motivation in the post- speaking stage is very important for speaking lessons

Short activities and games are supposed to increase the students’ interest inthe post-speaking stage But in fact, many teachers still do not highly appreciate theimportance of short activities and games in the post- speaking In addition, they lackeffective ways to motivate the language learners However, this study does not aim

at measuring students’ motivation in learning speaking but helps increase theirinterests in speaking lessons through short activities and games in the post-speaking stage

These above reasons have motivated the author to conduct this study with thehope that this study will provide teachers of English in general and teachers at ChanMong High School in particular a better understanding of using short activities andgames in the post-speaking stage In addition, the study is carried out with the hope

to make a little contribution to the quality of teaching and learning speaking at ChanMong High School

2 Previous studies

2.1 In the world

Nunan (1991) conducts the research about the issues in studying speakingskill of today's students and suggests the existing methods to enhance speakingskills of elementary level students It also discovers the reasons of unwillingness tocommunicate and the ways to overcome the language barrier

The study by Wright and Buck (1990) shows that learning process does notonly happen between students and teachers but also between students and students

In the classroom, the teacher must create the situation that can encouragecommunication Games are some of the techniques that can be applied in teachingspeaking because they are possible activities that give students feeling of freedom toexpress themselves Games are also useful to encourage students to interact witheach other orally

Kayi (2006) studies activities to enhance speaking in a second language inUniversity of Nevada The author recommends a lot of activities that can be used toimprove students’ interest in speaking lessons He suggested that using of differentactivities in teaching and learning foreign language is the most effective way tomotivate students to speak

2.2 In Viet Nam

Luu (2010) investigates factors affecting motivation in speaking English ofthe grade 10 students She considers some aspects such as types of motivationpossessed by grade 10 students at high school, factors affecting students’ motivation

in speaking English, activities and techniques applied by teachers and students,some suggested solutions for teachers to encourage students speaking and toovercome the difficulties they face with in teaching speaking

Pham (2009) investigate the ways to organize activities and create Englishenvironment in classroom for the learners The study also finds out how we canachieve the goal of effectiveness when applying language games in teaching andlearning English In addition, the writer also suggests some activities and games thatcan be used in teaching speaking English speaking skill effectively

Nguyen (2011) suggests that teachers should be more active in usingclassroom activities to help students recover lexical language items Some of the

most common speaking activities are games According to the writer, some gamesare highly motivating, competitive, and fun They also bring a relaxed atmosphereand create more opportunities for students to practise With games, students willenjoy themselves, be stimulated and get involved in speaking As the result, theycan learn new lexical language items faster and remember better.

3 Research purpose

For the reasons mentioned above, the thesis has been done with the aims to:

Investigate the real situation of teaching speaking skill at Chan Mong Highschool

Study the effects of using short activities and games in the post- speakingstage at Chan Mong High school

Make some suggestions and implications to integrate short activities andgames into post-speaking stage of speaking lesson

4 Research questions

The study aims to answer the following questions:

 What are the teachers and students’ attitudes towards the post- speakingstage and speaking skill in Chan Mong High school?

 How do short activities and games in the post- speaking stage work inEnglish speaking classes at Chan Mong High school?

5 Methodology

5.1 Research Methods

To carry out the study, the following methods have been used:

Investigating methods: The aim of this method is to study the real situation

of teaching speaking skill and the post- speaking at Chan Mong High school

Experimental methods: The aim of this method is to measure theeffectiveness of the short activities and games in the post- speaking stage

Analytic and synthetic methods: This method is used to analyze andsynthesize the data collected from the questionnaire surveys

Comparative and contrastive methods: The aim of this method is to compareand contrast the data collected from the questionnaire surveys

5.2 Research Procedure

Firstly, the author reviews the theories related to the study in order to build

up a theoretical background for the analysis.

Secondly, the author studies the real situation of teaching and learning thepost- speaking stage at Chan Mong high school by using questionnaires survey forboth the teachers and students there

Thirdly, the author uses short activities and games to teach speaking lessons

at Chan Mong High School to evaluate the effectiveness of short activities andgames

Finally, the author conducts the second survey to investigate the effects ofshort activities and games in the post-speaking stage of speaking lesson

6 The significance of the study

By investigating the attitudes of the teachers and the students in Chan MongHigh school towards speaking skill in general and in the post- speaking stage inparticular, the author gains an insight into the real situation of teaching speaking.Then, the author makes an effort to integrate short activities and games intospeaking lessons at Chan Mong High School with the hope to increase students’interests in speaking lesson The study, therefore, is expected to make a littlecontribution to the quality of teaching and learning speaking skill at Chan MongHigh school

7 The Scope of the study

The study focuses on using of short activities and games in the speaking stage to increase grade 11A4 students’ interest at Chan Mong High school,Phu Tho Province

post-8 Structure of the study

The thesis consists of three main parts:

PART A: INTRODUCTION

PART B: MAJOR CONTENT

Chapter 1: Literature review

Chapter 2: Methodology

Chapter 3- Recommendations and suggestions for using short activities andgames in the post- speaking stage

PART C: CONCLUSION

PART B: MAJOR CONTENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 The nature of spoken language

Spoken language is language produced by clear sounds, as opposed towritten language Many languages have no written form, only have spoken form.Oral language or vocal language is produced with the vocal tract, as opposed to signlanguage, which is produced with the hands and face

In spoken language, much of the meaning is determined by the context Thiscontrasts with written language, in which most of the meaning is provided by thetext Spoken language tends to convey subjective information, including therelationship between the speaker and the audience, whereas written language tends

to convey objective information

According to Vanderkevent (1990) there are three components of speaking:

1.1.1 The speakers

Speakers are those who produce sound They express opinions or feelings tothe hearers So if there are no speakers, no opinions or the feelings will be stated

1.1.2 The listeners

Listeners are those who receive the speaker’s opinions or feeling If there are

no listeners, speakers will express their opinions by writing

of the target language in the classroom, and in particular, a greater emphasis onorality

According to Kayi (2006), communicative language teaching is based onreal-life situations that require communication By using this method in ESLclasses, students will have the opportunity to communicate with each other in the

target language Teachers should create a classroom environment where studentshave real-life communication, authentic activities, and meaningful tasks thatpromote oral language He also recommends some types of classroom activities thatcan be used in teaching speaking such as discussion, role plays, simulations,information gap, brainstorming, storytelling, interviews, story completion,reporting, playing cards, picture narrating, picture describing He says that theability to communicate in a second language clearly and efficiently contributes tothe success of the learner in school and success later in every phase of life.Therefore, it is essential that language teacher should pay great attention to teachingspeaking by providing a rich environment where meaningful communication takesplace With this aim, various speaking activities such as those listed above cancontribute a great deal to developing students’ basic interactive skills Theseactivities will make students more active in the learning process and at the sametime make their learning more meaningful and fun for them.

1.3 Stages of teaching speaking

According to Brown (2009), a perfect teaching speaking lesson has to followthree following stages:

1.3.1 Pre- speaking stage

Pre- speaking begins before students actually speak Pre- speaking activitiesinvolve thought, reflection then provide opportunities for students to plan andorganize for speaking

Pre - speaking has some purposes such as choosing speaking topic,determining purpose, audience and format

1.3.2 While- speaking stage

While- speaking engages students in interactions with peers and otheraudiences Students who have been provided with supportive, environments andopportunities to prepare for their informal and formal speaking experiences aremore likely to have the confidence to “go public” with their ideas and information

Some purposes for while- speaking are to express personal feelings, ideas orviewpoints; to tell a story; to entertain or amuse; to describe; to inform or explain;

to request; to inquire or question; to classify thinking; to explore and experimentwith a variety of ideas and to converse and discuss

1.3.3 Post- speaking stage

Post- speaking is a time for reflection and setting goals Following speakingexperiences, both formal and informal, it is important to have students reflect upontheir performance Their reflection should include the teacher, who can help themset personal goals for improving their speaking skill abilities

1.4 Motivation

1.4.1 Definition

There are many definitions of motivation and one of them is: “Motivation isthe process whereby goal-directed activity is instigated and sustained” (Schunk etal., 2004)

Motivation is considered as a process rather than a product As a process, we

do not observe motivation directly but rather we infer it from actions Motivationleads people to achieve a goal Motivation is what drives people to “behave” in acertain way of taking a particular action Simply, it can be understood thatmotivation is your “WHY”

1.4.2 Motivation in classroom setting

Motivating students at every level, from kindergarten to college, takes acombination of factors within the classroom setting According to Dornyei (1998),there are some factors motivating students to achieve good result in learning processare teacher’s attitude, teaching approach, interactive activities and home situation

Teacher’s Attitude

Teacher’s attitude makes a difference in motivating students Students willquickly sense when a teacher is disconnected with what she's teaching or when shereally doesn't care for or isn't connected with the students

Teaching Approach

Lectures and a recitation sometimes make students bored and lack ofmotivation However, when the students become part of the learning process,learning can become more enjoyable and adaptable with different styles Studentswill get a lot motivation if teachers help them “see” what they're learning in adifferent context When students connect better with what they're learning, they canbecome more motivated

Interactive Activities

Using interactive activities such as having students act out plays on the topic

or writing scripts can become motivating factors for positive classroomparticipation Also, the use of puzzles, games or special speakers are factors that canaffect classroom motivation Encouraging students to set goals in the classroom canalso provide motivation

Home Situation

Home situations affect student motivation in the classroom If students comefrom homes where they are loved and encouraged, the students will approachclassroom work with eagerness and with a willingness to learn If the students donot have a positive home environment or if the home situation doesn't provideappropriate levels of nutrition and/or sleep, students attend school with adisadvantage and a lack of motivation because of physical or emotional problems

1.5 Speaking activities

1.5.1 Factors of a successful speaking activity

Speaking in a second or foreign language has often been viewed as the mostdemanding of the four skills When attempting to speak, learners must concentrate

on their thoughts and encode their ideas in vocabulary and syntactic structures ofthe target language According to Kathleen and Savage (1993), depending on theformality and importance of the speech situations as well as their own personallinguistic propensities, the learners may also attend to monitor their output(speaking skill)

Sharing this idea, Ur (1996) indicates the four following prerequisites of asuccessful speaking activity in the classroom:

Learners talk a lot: during speaking skill activities, learners should have

chances to talk a lot to develop their oral skill

Participants are even: all learners are involved in the activities and their

distribution for speaking chance are the same

Motivation is high: all the leaners are interested in talking and positively

participate in speaking activities

Language is of an appropriate level: this means that the language used by

teachers and learners to express their ideas and thoughts is understandable to others

Thus, from the factors mentioned above, it can be inferred that teachersshould take the factors into consideration when teaching speaking skill.

1.5.2 Problems with speaking activities

Speaking is a productive skill It is done by using the voice to point out themeaning to other people Speaking activities includes many aspects such as:vocabulary, grammar, interaction, body language, etc The differences in thecategories above lead to different types of speaking that we produce

In learning speaking skill, the students often face some problems The problemsfrequently state are lack of confidence, nothing to say, low or uneven participationand mother- tongue use Ur (1996) has discussed the four common problems above

The first problem is lack of confidence Unlike the other skills such asreading, listening, and writing, speaking requires some degree of real- timeexposure to an audience Some often feel stressed when having to speak in a foreignlanguage in front of the whole class: worried about making mistakes, fearful ofcriticism or losing face, or simply shy

The second problem is that students sometimes think they have nothing tosay on a particular topic In reality, they may be bored or feel that the topic isunrelated to anything they know Students often lack confidence in speaking andfeel they have insufficient language skills to express exactly what they want to say.They have no knowledge of the target topic and enough vocabulary to talk As aresult, they are not motivated to speak

The third problem is low or uneven participation This problem makesdifficulties for more reserved students to express themselves freely Active studentstend to create an environment in the English speaking language class where moreshy students are quite happy to sit back and watch the lesson instead ofparticipating In the other words, in a large group, some members tend to dominate,while others speak very little or not at all

In addition, mother- tongue use is also a popular problem occurs in speakinglessons Students who often use their mother tongue are fearful of making mistakesand need to be encouraged to speak English In classes where all the learners sharethe same mother- tongue, they may tend to use it because it is easier; because they

feel unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language, and because they feelless “exposed” if they are speaking their mother- tongue.

In speaking, students may be shy and afraid to take part in the conversationbecause of these problems In order for the learners to develop their communicativeskills, it is advised that the language teachers should help the learners to overcomethese problems with speaking activities

1.5.3 Solutions to the problems with speaking activities

Teaching English as a second language means being able to solve problemsstudents may have in acquiring certain language skills In order to solve the problem

of learning and teaching speaking skill, Ur (1996) offers the following solutions:

Group work: Group work increases the amount of time available for oral

practice and allows more than one student to benefit from speaking time Working

in groups also lowers the inhibitions of shy students who are not comfortablespeaking in front of the whole class

Easy language: Simple language makes it easier for students to speak for

longer without hesitation and gives them a sense of accomplishment Essentialvocabulary can be pre-taught or reviewed before the activity enabling students tofill-out their speech with more interesting sentences and rich language

Interesting topic: Choosing a topic according to the interests of the class

ensures student motivation If the material and task instructions are presentedclearly and enthusiastically, students will be more likely to meet the challenge setfor them

Clear guidelines: Stating clearly what is expected from each student is

essential in ensuring that everyone in the group contributes towards the discussion.Appointing a leader to each group to regulate participation is a way to make surethat dominant students leave discussion opportunities open to more reservedstudents Feedback exposes the results of the discussion and motivates each student

to follow the guidelines

English monitors: Teacher might appoint one of the groups as the monitor

because a monitor can be appointed to each group to remind students not to speaktheir mother tongue A lack of classroom management and discipline will encouragestudents easily comeback to use mother tongue as soon as they have problems

Therefore, the best way to keep students speaking the target language is that theteacher should be there as much as possible, reminding them and modeling thelanguage use and there is no substitute for nagging.

In short, teachers should take mentioned ways into consideration and base oncertain situations of each group to find out their own method to enhance speakingskill for their students

1.6 Short activities and games

1.6.1 The role of short activities and games in language teaching and learning process

Short activities and games (or communicative activities) really play animportant part in language teaching and learning Their role in language teachingand learning has been confirmed by many researchers Rodgers (2001) holds that

“communicative activities enable learners to achieve communicative objectives ofthe curriculum and engage them in communication” In addition, Krashen (1982)assumes that language is best taught when it is being used to transmit messages, notwhen it is taught explicitly So using communicative activities provides studentswith opportunities to convey messages in authentic communication Actually,communicative activities are a necessary part in language teaching and learningbecause they have a lot of advantages

Firstly, short activities and games encourage students’ interest because theyensure that communication is purposeful rather than artificial A variety ofcommunicative activities provides learners with something meaningful to do andgives them freedom to choose the meaning they want to express They bring theirbackgrounds and experiences to class and make their own decisions, creating moreinterest and excitement and thus facilitate and stimulate learning process

Secondly, short activities and games offer opportunities to develop listening,speaking, reading and writing as well as to obtain intercultural and interactionalcompetence in English Communicative activities can also help develop cognitiveability such as analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing information

In addition, through communicative activities the students are encouraged toparticipate with their classmates actively Short activities and games are oftenconducted with pair work and group work in which students talk to many partners

and interact with them This brings learners a feeling of security because they feeleasier to speak.

Finally, short activities and games such as working in groups, in pairs orsinging etc create a relatively safe environment for making mistakes a long withrelaxed atmosphere, for there is little error correction or distract attention.Moreover, students have a lot of fun when they learn with communicative activities.This reduces their stress and anxiety about their performance

In conclusion, short activities and games can both bring about proficiencyand greatly improve communicative competence

1.6.2 Principles of using short activities and games in speaking class

Besides some principles that Ur (1996) has discusses, there are some things thatteachers should remember when using short activities and games:

Good preparation: Careful prepared short activities or games is one key to

maintain the control of the class and the interest of the students To have a goodpreparation, teachers should know for sure the purpose of using the activities orgames, how to carry out it and how it is carried out the most effectively for theactivities and games

Simple activities and games: It means they last short time and easy for

students to understand

Good class organization: Teacher should divide class into small groups or

teams and must be sure that there is a balance in the level students in each group

In short, teachers should understand and pay attention to these principlesbefore using short activities and games in speaking class

1.6.3 Common types of short activities and games used for the post- speaking stage

There are various short activities and games that can be used for the speaking stage However, John and Dougill (1987) introduced some activities such

post-as Discussion, Role Play, Information Gap, Storytelling, Interviews, Reporting,

Playing Cards and Picture Description because of their typical characters and

usefulness

1.6.3.1 Discussion

Discussion can be used when students are required to share ideas or findssolutions to an issue or a problem Before the discussion, the teacher should set the

purpose of the discussion clearly to get the student’ attention, do not let studentsspend their time on chatting with each other about irrelevant things For example, inagree/disagree discussion, the teacher can form groups of students and providecontroversial topics Then each group works on their topic for a given time period,and presents their opinions to the class It is essential that the speaking should beequally divided among group members At the end, the class decides on the winninggroup who defended the idea in the best way.

For efficient group discussions, it is not good to form large groups becausequiet students may avoid contributing in large groups The teachers should noticethat in class or group discussions, the students should always be encouraged to askquestions, paraphrase ideas, express support, check for clarification, and so on

1.6.3.2 Role play

Role play consist of Scripted role play that the interpreting depends on the text book dialogue and Unscripted role play which the students can decide what

language to use and how the conversation should develop freely Role Play is useful

in teaching speaking because it gives students an opportunity to practicecommunicating in different social context and in different social roles It also allowsstudents to be creative and to put themselves in another person’s position In RolePlay, students are assigned roles and put into situations that they may eventuallyencounter outside the classroom

The aim of using role play in teaching speaking is to encourage studentsthinking and creativity, let students develop and practice new language andbehavioral skills in a relatively non-threatening setting, and can create themotivation and involvement necessary for learning to occur

1.6.3.3 Information gap

An information gap activity takes place between students, not between astudent and a teacher, though a teacher can certainly demonstrate the activity Thetwo students will be asking each other questions to which they don’t know theanswer; these questions are called referential questions (a question to which theperson asking does not know the answer)

The goal of the activity is for the students to discover certain information,whether about the other person or related to a specific activity These activities help

move the students from working in a more structured environment into a morecommunicative environment; they are expected to use lots of the target language,and in the process discovering where they have gaps Knowing where these gaps aregives them a direction in which to improve.

1.6.3.4 Storytelling

Storytelling involves having students retell stories or text selections that theyhave listened to or read It encourages students to actively speak up, improve theirvocabulary, and train their pronunciation and fluency It allows the students tocommunicate well using a foreign language they are learning It also helps studentsexpress ideas in the format or beginning, development, and ending, including thecharacters and setting of a story

1.6.3.5 Interviews

Interview is an effective technique in teaching speaking Student can conductinterview on selected topics with various people Moreover, students can intervieweach other and “introduce” his or her partner to the class

Interview poses a number of advantages Conducting interviews withpartners gives students a chance to practice their speaking ability not only in classbut also outside and help them become socialized Moreover, interviews in pairs or

in groups not only contribute an atmosphere of healthy competition in a stressful situation but also provide immediate feedback for the learners

non-1.6.3.6 Reporting

Students are asked to watch a specific program on a specific channel Then,the students could be asked to report back what they have seen and express theirviews concerning what was presented in the program Or the teachers can ask thestudents to read a newspaper or magazine and, in class, they report to their friendswhat they find as the most interesting news Students can also retell his/ her specialactivities which they have experienced to their friends

1.6.3.7 Playing cards

In this game, students should form groups of four Each suit will represent atopic For instance:

Diamonds: Earning money

Hearts: Love and relationships

Spades: An unforgettable memory

Clubs: Best teacher

Each student in a group will choose a card Then, each student will write 4-5questions about that topic to ask the other people in the group For example, if the

topic "Diamonds: Earning Money" is selected, here are some possible questions:

How is money important in your life? Why?

What is the easiest way of earning money?

What do you think about lottery?

However, the teacher should state at the very beginning of the activity thatstudents are not allowed to prepare Yes- No questions, because by saying Yes or Nostudents get little practice in spoken language production Rather, students askopen-ended questions to each other so that they reply in complete sentences

1.6.3.8 Picture description

In this activity, teacher provides an interesting picture for the class or each

group of students and asks them questions about it For example: What is in the

picture? Who is in the picture? What they are doing? According Kayi (2006), in

picture describing activity, students can form groups and each group is given adifferent picture Students discuss the picture with their groups, then arepresentative describes the picture to the whole class This activity fosters thecreativity and imagination of the learners as well as their public speaking skills

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

In the previous chapter, the researcher has given the literature review aboutthe nature of spoken language, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), stages

of teaching speaking, motivation, speaking activities and some short activities andgames used for post- speaking stage In this chapter, the researcher provides anoverview about the subject of the study, the description of the questionnaire surveyswhich consists of three questionnaires: one for the teachers and two for the students,and then analyzes the data

2.1 Overview of the survey

2.1.1 Aims of the survey

In order to meet the need of the learners, English teachers are largelychallenged by the matter how to make speaking lessons more effective.Communicative ability is main goal of teaching and learning speaking skill at Highschools in general and in Chan Mong High school in particular However, this aim

is not always achieved To deeply understand the reasons why, the research wouldlike to investigate the teachers and students’ attitudes in Chan Mong High schooltowards the speaking skill as well as the post-speaking stage, and how the shortactivities and games in the post- speaking stage work in English speaking classes ofEnglish at Chan Mong High school

2.1.2 Participants and setting

The study is carried out in the second semester of the school year 2014- 2015

at Chan Mong High school, Doan Hung District, Phu Tho Province The subjects ofthe study consist of two groups: six English teachers and thirty six students of 11A4class at Chan Mong High school

listening, speaking, reading, writing and two language aspects: grammar andvocabulary However, there is a fact that the teacher pays more attention to teachingreading and grammar They find it hard to make their students communicate more

in English They do not know how to improve the motivation of students inspeaking English All of them have ever used short activities and games in teachingspeaking but not regularly They often use these activities and games in the pre-orwhile- speaking stage rather than in the post- speaking stage Therefore, students’interest sometimes decreases at the end of speaking lessons

2.1.2.2 The students

The participants of the survey are thirty six students of 11A4 class at ChanMong High school They almost come from the countryside of Doan Hung District,Phu Tho Province They are both males and females aged from sixteenth toseventeenth Most of them have been learning English for four years at Secondaryschool and first year at High school

2.2 Description of the questionnaire surveys

Reason for choosing questionnaire surveys:

In order to have information and data for the study, the researcher hasdesigned the questionnaire surveys The researcher chooses the questionnairesurveys because of some following reasons:

According to Rodgers (2001), questionnaires are “useful ways of gatheringinformation about effective dimension of teaching and learning, such as beliefs,attitude, motivation, preference and permit the researcher to collect a large amount

of relative information quickly”

Another advantage of it is the data is easy to collect because all participantsanswered the same questions Most importantly, the questionnaires give participants

an opportunity to express their opinions and feelings without fearing or beingembarrassed The teachers and the students are free to give impartial answersbecause the confidentiality is ensured by not mentioning students and teachers’name This is very important since it supplies some exact and valuable informationfor this study

The last reason for this choice is that questionnaire survey is money saving.The collector only spends little money on the preparation

In conclusion, the author chooses to use questionnaire surveys because theyare easy to conduct, they do not cost much money and effort, still considerable dataand various ideas can be collected rather quickly.

2.2.1 Teacher’s survey

The questionnaire survey for teachers consists of seven questions wasdesigned to elicit their views on the following aspects (Appendix 1):

Teachers’ attitude toward speaking skill and the post- speaking stage

Reality of teaching the post- speaking stage in the speaking lesson

Difficulties in teaching speaking in High school

Frequency of using short activities and games the post- speaking stage

Teachers’attitude toward the effect of games or short activities in the speaking stage

post-Teachers’attitude in using short activities and games in the post speaking stage

Students’ questionnaire survey number 1(before the experimental teaching):

The survey questionnaire number 1 is given before the experimental teaching Thereare seven questions(Appendix 2) which focus on the following areas:

Students’ attitude toward speaking skill, speaking lesson and the speaking stage

post-The reasons why students are less interested in the speaking lesson

Students’ frequency of taking part in the short activities or games in thepost- speaking stage

Degree of students’ familiarity with the type of short activities and games.Students’ opinions about the goals of using short activities and games in thepost- speaking stage

Students’ questionnaire number 2 (after the experimental teaching): This

survey questionnaire was distributed after the researcher’s experimental teaching.There are six questions(Appendix 3) which focus on:

Students’ attitudes towards the speaking lesson after experimental teaching

in which and the short activities and games are used in the post- speaking stage

The effectiveness of using short activities and games in the post- speakingstage

Students’ opinions about the effectiveness of the short activities and gamesused in the post- speaking stage

The degree of students’ interest with each type of short activities and games.Students’ opinions whether teacher should use short activities and games inthe post- speaking stage or not

2.3 Description of the experimental teaching speaking lessons

During six weeks, the researcher has carried out six experimental speakinglessons in grade 11A4 at Chan Mong High school They are speaking lessons of thefollowing Units:

Unit 1: Friendship Speaking: Talk about famous friend.

Unit 6: Competitions Speaking: Talk about a competition or contest.

Unit 7: World population Speaking: Talk about problem of overpopulation and offering solution.

Unit 8: Celebration Speaking: Talk about celebration of Tet and festivals’ activities.

Unit 12: The Asian Games Speaking: Talk about sport results.

Unit 15: Space Conquest Speaking: Talk about historical events in the space conquest.

In the first experimental teaching speaking lesson (Unit 1: Friendship), the

author uses the activity Storytelling and the topic “Love at first sight” After the

teacher gives the topic to the class, the first student will start the story with the firstsentence Other students will take turn to continue the story by adding a sentence.This activity will encourage students’ creativeness and make a lot of fun

In the second lesson (Unit 6: Competition), the author uses Reporting activity and the topic “Talk about the game Road to Mount Olympia” Teacher

divides student into groups, each group has 8 to 10 students and gives the firstsentence The first student in the group repeats the sentence of the teacher and addsone more sentence The second student repeats the teacher’s and student’s sentenceand adds one more sentence The third student repeats the teacher’s, the first and thesecond students’ sentence and adds one more sentence This process will continue

to the last student

In the third lesson (Unit 7: World population), the author makes use of

Discussion activity and the topic “The problems of overpopulation and their solution” The teacher asks students to work in two big groups, one group discusses

the problems and the other discusses the solutions Students work in groups in 3minutes, then two groups will take turn to talk about the problems and give thesolutions for each problem The group who can give the points immediately willbecome the winner

In the fourth lesson (Unit 8: Celebration), the researcher measures the

effectiveness of Picture description activity in the topic “Talk about Tet holiday of

Viet Nam” In this activity, the teacher divides students into two big groups and

gives each group a picture about the theme Each group will choose one memberwho is asked to go to the board His duties are to listen to the teammates’description to draw the picture on the board Other members in the group try todescribe the picture for their member to draw The group who can draw the picturewhich is the most similar to the original picture will become the winner

In the next one (Unit 12: The Asian Games), the speaking activity that the

author conducts is Interview The students are asked to interview a famous athlete

of Viet Nam To carry this activity, teacher asks a student go to the front of the classand asks him to picks a famous athlete who he wants to talk about Then the otherstudents in the class will interview him as that famous person

In the last one (Unit 15: Space Conquest), Role Play is used with the topic

“Talk about the important events in space exploration” In this activity, teacher asks

a student come to the board to play the detective He must turn his back to theboard The teacher writes a word/ sentence or shows a picture to the board and asksother students in class to play the witnesses to suggest for the detective Thewitnesses have to use body language, the other sentences or the

synonyms/antonyms, etc of the picture/word/ sentence to explain for the detective.The detective has to guess what the picture/ word/sentence is.

2.4 Data collection and analysis

2.4.1 The results and data analysis from teachers’ questionnaire

Question 1: Please state the importance of speaking skill:

Number 1: Very important Number 3: Not very important

Number 2: Rather important Number 4: Not important at all

According to the results of the survey, the researcher realizes that eachteacher has their own attitude toward speaking skill

Table2.1: The teachers’ attitude toward speaking skill (%)

Very important

Rather important

Not very important

Question 2: How important is the post- speaking stage to learning and teaching speaking lessons?

A Very important C Not very important

B Rather important D Not important at al

The data collected from the survey also tell clearly about the attitude ofteachers in the post- speaking stage We can see the difference from the following table:

Table 2.2: The teachers’ attitude toward the post- speaking stage (%)

There is a half of the teachers (50%) think that the post- speaking stage is notvery important, 33.3% of the teachers think the post- speaking rather important and

16.7% consider it is very important skill No one thinks that speaking skill is notimportant at all This demonstrates that most of English teacher at Chan Mong Highschool pay attention to the other stages rather than to the post- speaking stage.

Question 3: How much time do you usually spend on post- speaking stage?

A 6- 7 minutes C 2- 3 minutes

B 4- 5 minutes D You are always lack of time for teaching this stage

Because of their different attitudes toward the post- speaking stage, theteachers spend various amounts of time on this stage

Table 2.3: Teachers’ spending time on the post- speaking stage (%)

You are lack of time for teaching this stage 16.7%

From the table, most of the teachers (50%) spend from two to three minutesfor teaching the post- speaking stage; the others give four to five minutes (33.3%)and 16.7% say that they are always lack of time for this stage

Question 4: What are your difficulties when you teach the post- speaking stage?

A Students are lazy and passive

B Students are lack of knowledge of related topics

C Large class size

D Others (please specify)

………

………

……

When being asked difficulties of teaching the post- speaking stage, majority

of the teachers said that they have difficulties:

Table2.4: Difficulties of teaching the post- speaking stage (%)

Students are lack of knowledge 16.7%

Others 16.7%

The teachers stated that students are lazy and passive (50%) as well as lack

of knowledge are the main problems (16.7%) 16.7% of the teachers say that largeclass size is also main difficulty and the rest (16.7%) give other reasons that theEnglish textbook provide too much knowledge in a lesson If they cover allknowledge in the textbook in one period, they will be lack of time for the post-speaking stage

Question 5: How often do you use short activities or games for teaching the speaking stage?

post-A Always B Sometimes C Rarely D Never

In general, all of the English teachers at Chan Mong High school say thatthey have ever applied short activities and games in the post- speaking stage.However, they apply them in different degrees of frequency

Table2.5: The frequency of using short activities or games

in the post- speaking stage (%)

Question 6: What short activities or games do you use for your speaking class in the post- speaking stage?

The survey also provides an important data about kinds of short activities orgames used by the teachers in the post- speaking stage

Table 2.6: Kinds of short activities or games used in the post- speaking (%)

Short activities or games

Always (%)

Sometimes (%)

Rarely (%)

Never (%)

We can be seen from the table clearly that “Guessing game” and “picture

description” are always used (guessing game 66.6%, picture describing 50%) For

the moment, “Playing card” is rarely used (66.7%) The percent of the teachers have never applied some activities such as “Reporting” (66.7), “Information

Gap”(50%), “Playing card” (33.3%), “Interview” (33.3%) and “Slap the board”

(16.7%) is too high These results show that these short activities and games aren’tpopular activities for many teachers at Chan Mong High school

Question 7: Short activities and games should be used to increase students’ interest

in the post- speaking stage Do you agree or disagree with this idea? Why?

Question 7 shows the teachers’ opinions on using short activities and games

in the post speaking stage According to the survey, the teachers’ opinions towardsusing short activities and games are very supportive: 100% of the teachers agreethat short activities and games should be used to increase students’ interest in thepost-speaking stage They offer many reasons for this opinion Firstly, their studentsare often only interested at the beginning of the lesson Students’ interest is oftenreduced at the end of the lesson Secondly, using short activities and games willhelp students summarize the main points of the lesson in interesting ways Thespeaking class still keeps its active atmosphere until the end of the lesson Inaddition, when their students finish one lesson in happy atmosphere, they will startthe next lesson better

2.4.2 The results and data analysis from students’ questionnaire number 1

Question 1: Please state the importance of speaking skill:

Number 1: Very important Number 3: Not very important

Number 2: Rather important Number 4: Not important at all

It is the same to the data getting from teachers’ questionnaire, the surveyresult from students’ questionnaire number 1 shows that the students also havedifferent attitudes toward the speaking skill:

Table2.7: The students’ attitude toward speaking skill (%)

Very important

Important Not very

Question 2: How do you like learning speaking lesson?

A Very much B Much C Not much D Not at all

Because of the less awareness of the importance of speaking skill, thestudents’ interest of grade 11A4 at Chan Mong High school in speaking lesson isnot very high:

Table 2.8: Students’ attitude toward speaking lesson (%)

The number of the students who really like speaking lesson is very low(16.7%) Most of them are not very much interested in the speaking lesson (41.7%)

It means that they lack motivation in learning speaking As a result, they are notwilling to make efforts in speaking activities That is the current situation oflearning speaking skill at High school

Question 3: What do you think about the post- speaking stage?

A Easy B Rather difficult C Difficult D Very difficult

Like their teachers, students have different views about the post- speakingstage:

Table 2.9: The students’ views toward the post- speaking stage (%)

Students’ views toward the post- speaking stage Data

in another words, they are not interested in this stage

Question 4: What are your difficulties when learning the post- speaking stage?

A Being afraid of making mistakes C Low motivation

B Low level of English of proficiency D Poor teaching equipment

In fact, there are many reasons why the students are less interested in thespeaking lesson However, there are four main groups of reasons:

Table 2.10: The reasons which make students less interested in class (%)

Being afraid of making mistake 61.1%

Low level of English of proficiency 19.4%

Most of students (61.1%) in the class think that they talk less in speakinglesson because they are afraid of making mistake There are 19.4% of students thinkthat the low level of English of proficiency is one of four main reasons why theytalk less in class It is a quite popular problem in High school students This reasonmakes students unconfident when speaking To get the proficiency, the speakersshould have enough vocabulary to express their idea and make the listenersunderstand Another reason is low motivation (13.9%) Some factors motivating