Học tiếng Anh cùng người nổi tiếng: Jay Chou

NGUYN TRUNG HOÀ TI SAO NGI VIT NÓI TING ANH KHÔNG HAY? VÀ NHNG K NNG HC TING ANH CN BIT HÀ NI 2007 Không hc không bit! Hc ri s bit Nguyn Trung Hoà nguyentrunghoa@gmail.com TI SAO NGI VIT NÓI TING ANH KHÔNG HAY? VÀ NHNG K NNG HC TING ANH CN BIT Không hc không bit! Hc ri s bit Nguyn Trung Hoà nguyentrunghoa@gmail.com Có ln nghe đâu đó câu hi “Vì sao dân Vit mình nói ting Anh không hay, rt khô?” Tôi cng mun bình lon đôi chút v vn đ này. Mt mt, bo dân mình nói ting Anh nghe c chui quá, sai, vì vn còn n và d nghe hn khi dòng ting Anh nh Anh-Tàu, Anh-Thái, Anh-Trung ông, Anh-n, Anh-Phi . Nhng mt khác, bo dân mình nói ting Anh hay thì cng sai luôn, nghe ngang phè, ch đc cái d nghe. Ting Vit c bn là âm đn, đc bit ging Bc khá thun, không có các ging nng và âm tit đc trng (accent), nên hc các ngoi ng khác không b nh hng nhiu v accent. Tuy nhiên, ting Vit nói không có trng âm và ng điu (vì đã có đ 5 thanh ri, ng điu làm gì na), nên hc các ting ca châu Âu thng cng nói ngang ngang và đu đu nh ting Vit, nhng cng nh th mà d nghe (nu nói chm và rõ tng ch). Tuy nhiên, tìm hiu nguyên nhân v mt môi trng nh trên cng ch đc gì vì “tri sinh ra th”. Tôi xin đa ra mt s kinh nghim bn thân trong khi luyn ging nói. Làm gì, ngi ta cng d mc mt s đim vng mc dn đn sai lm (pitfalls), khin vic thc hin khó thành công theo ý mun. Nói ting Anh cng không là ngoi l. Trc ht, có nhng đim d mc cn tránh khi hc nói ting Anh nh sau: 1. “ch ngi đáy ging” Ngi ta thng khá thin cn nu cha đi sâu vào mt vn đ nht đnh, đc bit khi mi bt đu hc hay tp luyn mt cái gì đó. S thin cn “ch ngi đáy ging” này dn đn các h qu là: a. t mc tiêu không cao: Trc khi làm gì ta cng phi đt ra mc tiêu rõ ràng đ giúp cho vic thc hin có đnh hng (ngi phng Tây gi đó là phng pháp Backcasting). Nhng thông thng khi ngi ta kém (do mi bt đu hc) nên hay b mc bnh “ch ngi đáy ging”, không bit th nào mi là đt yêu cu, cha nói th nào mi là gii thì gn nh không có khái nim. Khi ngi ta mi hc ting Anh, nu thy mt ngi nói chuyn đc vi ngi nc ngoài đã thy là kinh lm, và ch mong đc nh th là tho mãn lm ri. Ri khi bt đu tm to có chút cn bn, thì li thn tng nhng ngi “phun ting Anh nh gió” (bt lun h nói đúng hay sai). Thông thng, ngi Vit mình cng ch đt mc tiêu đn th là ht, nên khi đã nói ting Anh đc lu loát, “nh gió”, thì thng t tho mãn mình mà không c gng trau di, nâng cp nó lên na. c bit nhng ngi hc chuyên v ting Anh  các trng Ngoi Ng, hay hn na là ngi đc đi nc ngoài thì càng coi thng, vì ngh rng mình có điu kin và môi trng nh th, th nào mà ch gii ting Anh nói chung và nói ting Anh nói riêng. Vi mt suy ngh “u tr” dng vy, nên t l nhng ngi gii ting Anh cng nh nói ting Anh hay  ngi Vit là rt khiêm tn, không ngoi l nhng ngi có điu kin đi hc bng ting Anh, k c Vit Kiu. Không hc không bit! Hc ri s bit Nguyn Trung Hoà nguyentrunghoa@gmail.com Vì vy, đ có th đt mt kt qu cao trong hc ting Anh ln nói ting Anh, ta cn phi đt mc tiêu rt cao. Riêng v chuyn nói, thì ta phi ly mc trn là các chính khách M hay Anh (nhng ngi có tài hùng VnDoc - Tải tài liệu, văn pháp luật, biểu mẫu miễn phí Học tiếng Anh người tiếng JAY CHOU CONTENTS: The Reading / Tapescript Synonym Match and Phrase Match Listening Gap Fill Choose the Correct Word Spelling Put the Text Back Together Scrambled Sentences Discussion Student Survey 10 Writing 11 Homework 12 Answers 13 VnDoc - Tải tài liệu, văn pháp luật, biểu mẫu miễn phí THE READING / TAPESCRIPT Jay Chou is a Taiwanese singer, songwriter, actor, and movie director He has won three World Music Awards and is a big star throughout Asia He is a trained classical musician who has successfully crossed over into pop, and combines Western and Chinese styles He has sold more than 25 million albums and has a successful movie career Chou has a growing influence on Chinese culture Chou was born in 1979 and grew up in Taiwan He started learning the piano when he was four He loved music and recorded sounds and songs on the tape recorder he carried everywhere He studied piano and cello at high school and began to write the music and lyrics to pop songs He found it easy to combine classical with pop In 1998, Chou appeared on a TV talent show playing the piano His piano composition impressed a top judge, who offered him a contract to write pop songs He spent the next two years in the studio and learnt the techniques of song production The studio manager encouraged him to become a singer In 2000, he released his debut album ‘Jay’ Chou became an overnight success He releases a new album every year, all of which sell millions He has won more than 350 music awards in Asia He also wrote the official song for the 2008 Beijing Olympics His acting career is also taking off He won a Best Newcomer award for his debut role in ‘Initial D’ in 2005 VnDoc - Tải tài liệu, văn pháp luật, biểu mẫu miễn phí SYNONYM MATCH: Match the words from the article on the left with their synonyms on the right Are your answers the same as other students’? Paragraphs and big a increasing styles b huge growing c words loved d genres lyrics e mix combine f adored Paragraphs and impressed g urged learnt h doing well encouraged i part 10 overnight j had an impact on 11 taking off k instant 12 role l grasped PHRASE MATCH: Match the following phrases from the article He is a trained a of song production combines Western b classical musician Chou has a growing influence c on a TV talent show recorded d and Chinese styles write the music and e success Chou appeared f sounds and songs His piano composition impressed g 2008 Beijing Olympics learnt the techniques h lyrics to pop songs Chou became an overnight i a top judge 10 the official song for the j on Chinese culture VnDoc - Tải tài liệu, văn pháp luật, biểu mẫu miễn phí LISTENING GAP FILL: Jay Chou is a Taiwanese singer, songwriter, actor, _ He has won three World Music Awards and is a big _ Asia He is a trained classical musician who has successfully _ pop, and combines Western and Chinese styles He has sold more than 25 million albums and has a successful movie career Chou has a _ Chinese culture Chou was born in 1979 and grew up in Taiwan He _ piano when he was four He loved music and recorded sounds and _ recorder he carried everywhere He studied piano and cello at high school and began to write the music _ songs He found it _ classical with pop In 1998, Chou _ TV talent show playing the piano His piano composition impressed a top judge, who offered him a _ pop songs He spent the next two years in the studio and learnt the _ song production The studio manager _ to become a singer In 2000, he released his debut album ‘Jay’ Chou became an _ He releases a new album every year, _ millions He has won more than 350 music awards in Asia He also wrote the _ the 2008 Beijing Olympics His acting career is also taking off He won a Best Newcomer award for _ ‘Initial D’ in 2005 VnDoc - Tải tài liệu, văn pháp luật, biểu mẫu miễn phí CHOOSE THE CORRECT WORD: Delete the wrong word in each of the pairs in italics Jay Chou is a Taiwanese singer, songwriter, actor, and movie direction / director He has / had won three World Music Awards and is a big star throughout Asia He is a trained classic / classical musician who has successfully crossed over into pop, and combines Western and Chinese styles He has sold more than 25 million albums and has a successful movie career Chou has a growing / grown influence on Chinese culture Chou was born in 1979 and grown / grew up in Taiwan He started learning the piano when he was four He loved music and recorded sounds and sings / songs on the tape recorder he carried everywhere He studying / studied piano and cello at high school and began to write the music and lyrics to pop songs He found it easy to combine / combination classical with pop In 1998, Chou appeared on a TV talented / talent show playing the piano His piano composition impressed a top judge, who offered him a ... MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY ---  --- TRAN THI HUE EXPLORING THE TEXTBOOK “ENGLISH FOR LIFE” IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING TO ADULT BEGINNERS ( Khai thác giáo trình “English for Life” để dạy nói tiếng Anh cho người lớn ở trình độ sơ cấp) Master Thesis in TESOL Vinh, 2011 1 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY ---  --- TRAN THI HUE EXPLORING THE TEXTBOOK “ENGLISH FOR LIFE” IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING TO ADULT BEGINNERS ( Khai thác giáo trình “English for Life” để dạy nói tiếng Anh cho người lớn ở trình độ sơ cấp) Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching Code: 60.14.10 Master Thesis in TESOL Supervisor: NGUYEN THI VAN LAM, M.A. 2 Vinh, 2011 Statement of Authorship The thesis named “ Exploring the textbook “English for Life” in teaching English speaking to adult beginners” above has been submitted for the degree of Master of Arts. I, the undersigned, hereby declare that: • I am the sole author of this thesis. • I have fully acknowledged and referenced the ideas and work of others, whether published or unpublished, in my thesis. • I have prepared my thesis specifically for the degree of Master of Arts while under supervision at Vinh University • My thesis does not contain work extracted from a thesis, dissertation or research paper previously presented for another degree or diploma at this or any other university. Vinh, 2011 Tran Thi Hue 3 Acknowledgement The study could not have been completed without the help of my teachers and friends during the time of my doing it. First of all, I would like to express my sincere and deep gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Nguyen Thi Van Lam (M.A) for her constant encouragement, delibrate guidance, generous support and invaluable critical feedback during the writing of this study. In particular, I wish to thank Mr Ngo Dinh Phuong and other staff members of Foreign Languages department of Vinh university for their continuous encouragement and support. I also wish to thank all my friends, colleagues and classmates who have kindly given their advice and enthusiastically helped me with useful source materials for the completion of this thesis. Finally, I would also like to thank my parents for their support and encouragement during the process of writing this thesis. 4 Abstract Many language learners regard speaking ability as the measure of knowing a language. These learners define fluency as 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 assess their progress in terms of their accomplishments in spoken communication. However, many English teachers still spend the majority of class time on reading and writing practice almost ignoring speaking and listening skills. It is the fact that teaching and learning conditions in our city have some certain limitations. Students from high schools and universities are aware of the importance of communicating in English in their real life but they are only taught much more about reading and writing to pass 1 PART 1 INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study English as well as other foreign languages has come into its own as a profession in Vietnam, and so far a great many efforts have been made to improve the quality of teaching and learning. Using video in the language classroom is one of these efforts, and it is proving to be advantageous. The advantages of using video in the language classroom have been recognised by many researchers in applied linguistics, some of which are listed as follows, while more details will be discussed later in chapter 2. Firstly, video motivates students; that is, it can maintain their attention longer and at the same time lengthen their retention. Secondly, video enhances the meaning of the messages trying to be conveyed by the speakers through the use of paralinguistic cues; meanwhile, students are able to see body rhythm and speech rhythm in the second language discourses through the use of authentic language and speed of speech in various situations. Video benefits students by providing for real language and cultural information. Thirdly, using video in the classroom allows differentiation of teaching and learning according to students’ abilities, learning styles and personalities. Finally, teaching foreign languages with video may meet students’ needs in their daily life. That is, people want to access to the world of English-language media: they want to be able to view the news, get information from advertisements and from other TV programs, films included – in short, to use these language products like normal consumers. This well is one of students’ major goals in learning English and in all fairness they ought to be able to get a ‘glimpse’ of their goals. 2 I enjoy video and television myself, and my students are interested in them, too. I have tried out video for teaching and found it promising; hence, I would like to use it more. I feel that it is fun and effective, but generally difficult to make the best use of. This question of difficulty is indeed important and provoking; therefore, I would like to carry out the study on ‘designing a listening and speaking syllabus using video for English language non-majors at pre-intermediate level.’ With this study, I mainly aim at building up a suitable syllabus with audio-visual aids to improve students’ listening and speaking skills. Not only does the syllabus consist of ‘what to teach’, but it also discusses ‘how to teach’ - fundamental techniques and video activities in the language classroom will be provided and discussed. 2. The scope of the study The syllabus limits its scope to two communicative skills – listening and speaking, and to its participants of English language non-majors at pre-intermediate level. Among various aspects of language teaching, I choose listening and speaking skills to deal with. Firstly, these two skills are the most demanding to most students, even to those with many years of learning. They require and are worth the biggest efforts, in terms of both teaching and learning. In addition, listening and speaking activities in the classroom derived from the use of video are the most abundant and interesting. The choice of participants will be further discussed in Chapter 3. In fact, it is quite a matter of convenience – for I, as a teacher in the School of Graduate Studies – VNU, mostly deal with such students at this level of English proficiency. Using video in the language 3 classroom proves effective to all students’ level of language proficiency. On the other hand, it has been also pointed out that what determines the difficulty of a teaching material is not just the material itself but also what the students are asked to do with it (Underwood, 1989). Materials to be used as language input for the course mostly involve authentic videos that are all the kinds of programmes Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1. Pragmatic competence To become effective communicators in today’s connected world, it is necessary for language learners to gain true communicative competence. Communicative competence, according to Hymes (1967), includes not only knowledge of linguistic forms but also knowledge of when, how and for whom it is appropriate to use these forms. Likewise, Ellis (1994:696) states that communicative competence “entails both linguistic competence and pragmatic competence”. Pragmatic competence is defined as ‘the ability to use language effectively in order to achieve a specific purpose and to understand language in context’ (Thomas 1983:94). She also distinguishes between pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic competence. Pragmalinguistic competence refers to the appropriate language to accomplish a speech act, whereas sociopragmatic competence refers to the appropriateness of a speech act in a particular context. Increasing attention has been paid to pragmatic competence due to the fact that many learners may have good knowledge of grammar and a wide range of vocabulary but they may still fail in real interaction with native speakers. Moreover, in accordance with Thomas (1983), native speakers often forgive the phonological, syntactic and lexical errors made by L2 speakers but usually interpret pragmatic errors negatively as rudeness, impoliteness or unfriendliness. Over the past few decades, language teaching in the world and in Vietnam has witnessed a shift from the focus on the development of learners’ linguistic competence to the development of learners’ communicative competence. To facilitate this change, there is a need for more studies on learners’ pragmatic competence, including studies on interlanguage pragmatics. This study is carried out in an attempt to understand more about the interlanguage pragmatics of Vietnamese learners of English. 1 1.2. The speech act of refusal to invitation: a face - threatening act Refusals are considered to be a ‘sticking point’ for many non-native speakers (Beebe et al. 1987). Refusals to invitations occur when a speaker directly or indirectly says ‘No’ to an invitation. It is, in fact, a face – threatening act. Face, in Brown and Levinson’s (1987:61) definition, is ‘the public self image that every member wants to claim for himself’, that is the emotional and social sense that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize. Therefore, in interaction, people often cooperate to maintain each other’s face. However, some acts, by their nature, make it difficult to maintain the face of the participants in an interaction. These acts are referred to as face-threatening. Some acts threaten the hearer’s face, others threaten the speaker’s face, still others threaten the face of both the hearer and the speaker. To reduce the risk of possible communication breakdown due to these face-threatening acts, the participants can say something to lessen the threat to the face of the others. This is referred to as a face-saving act. Refusing an invitation contradicts the inviter’s expectation; thus, it is a face - threatening act. It tends to risk the interpersonal relationship of the speakers. To maintain the face of the inviter, the person who refuses the invitation is expected to use many face- saving acts or strategies. Or in other words, it is important for that person to give the impression that he/she still cares about the inviter’s wants, needs or feelings. It requires a high level of pragmatic competence. However, the way people refuse, or the manipulation of the face-saving strategies, varies across languages and cultures. Language learners, due to the limitation in language proficiency and the high requirement of pragmatic competence for this speech act, are at a great risk of offending their interlocutor when carrying out a refusal to an invitation. Beebe et al. (1987:133) claim that ‘the inability to say ‘No’ clearly and [...]... the Internet and find more information about Jay Chou Talk about what you discover with your partner(s) in the next lesson 3 JAY CHOU POSTER: Make a poster showing the different stages of the life of Jay Chou Show your poster to your classmates in the next lesson Did you all find out similar things? 4 MAGAZINE ARTICLE: Write a magazine article about Jay Chou Include an imaginary interview with him... what you wrote to your classmates in the next lesson Give each other feedback on your articles 5 LETTER: Write a letter to Jay Chou Ask him three questions about his life Tell him how important he is in today’s world Read your letter to your partner(s) in your next lesson Your Jay Chou expert” partner(s) will try and answer your questions VnDoc - Tải tài liệu, văn bản pháp luật, biểu mẫu miễn phí ANSWERS... a trained a classical musician 2 combines Western b and Chinese styles 3 Chou has a growing influence c on Chinese culture 4 recorded d sounds and songs 5 write the music and e lyrics to pop songs 6 Chou appeared f on a TV talent show 7 His piano composition impressed g a top judge 8 learnt the techniques h of song production 9 Chou became an overnight i success 10 the official song for the j 2008 Beijing... original partner(s) and share and talk about what you found out Make mini-presentations to other groups on your findings VnDoc - Tải tài liệu, văn bản pháp luật, biểu mẫu miễn phí WRITING: Write about Jay Chou for 10 minutes Show your partner your paper Correct each other’s work