Tài liệu bồi dưỡng học sinh giỏi môn tiếng anh

LỜI NÓI ĐẦU Trong hành trình phát triển giáo dục Việt Nam, hệ thống trường THPT chuyên ngày khẳng định vị quan trọng việc phát hiện, tuyển chọn bồi dưỡng nhân tài, chắp cánh ước mơ bay cao, bay xa tới chân trời tri thức thành công Đối với trường THPT chuyên, công tác học sinh giỏi đặt lên hàng đầu, nhiệm vụ trọng tâm năm học Hội thảo khoa học trường THPT chuyên Khu vực Duyên Hải Đồng Bắc Bộ hoạt động bổ ích diễn vào tháng 11 thường niên Đây dịp gặp gỡ, giao lưu, học hỏi, trao đổi kinh nghiệm giảng dạy, phát hiện, tuyển chọn bồi dưỡng đội tuyển học sinh giỏi Quốc gia, Quốc tế trường THPT chuyên khu vực Năm năm qua, hội thảo khoa học nhận hưởng ứng nhiệt tình trường, bước đầu đem đến hiệu ứng tốt, tác động không nhỏ đến công tác bồi dưỡng học sinh giỏi chất lượng đội tuyển học sinh giỏi quốc gia trường Chuyên Năm 2013 năm thứ 6, hội thảo khoa học Hội trường THPT chuyên Khu vực Duyên hải Đồng Bắc Bộ tổ chức Thái Bình - mảnh đất quê lúa, mang truyền thống yêu nước truyền thống hiếu học Tại hội thảo lần này, chủ trương tập trung vào vấn đề mẻ, thiết thực có ý nghĩa việc bồi dưỡng học sinh giỏi, để quý thầy cô đã, đảm nhiệm công tác tiếp tục trao đổi, học tập, nâng cao lực chuyên môn Tập tài liệu Hội thảo lần thứ VI bao gồm chuyên đề khoa học đạt giải quý thầy cô Hội trường THPT chuyên Khu vực Duyên hải Đồng Bắc Các viết tập trung vào vấn đề trọng tâm hội đồng khoa học trường THPT chuyên Thái Bình thống nội dung hội thảo Nhiều chuyên đề thực công trình khoa học tâm huyết, say mê quý thầy cô, tạo điểm nhấn quan trọng cho diễn đàn, coi tư liệu quý cho trường công tác bồi dưỡng học sinh giỏi Xin chân thành cảm ơn cộng tác quý thầy cô đến từ trường THPT chuyên Khu vực Duyên hải Đồng Bắc Bộ trường THPT chuyên với vai trò quan sát viên Chúng hy vọng, tiếp tục nhận nhiều phản hồi, đóng góp, trao đổi quý thầy cô để chuyên đề khoa học hoàn thiện Thái Bình, tháng 11 năm 2013 TR­êng THPT Chuyªn th¸i b×nh Chuyên đề xếp giải Xuất sắc How to teach speaking skill to English majored students Họ tên: NGÔ THÙY DUNG THPT Chuyên Bắc Ninh PART ONE : INTRODUCTION Undeniably, English is a global language crossing many international boundaries In fact, the English language is so popular, it is spoken in more than a hundred countries and has more than a million words English is considered as the medium of communication in the fields of science, technology, diplomacy, and business, and so on English has an inherent simplicity and flexibility allowing it to be learnt quickly, cementing English as a global language In addition, the political and economic changes have great positive impact on the teaching methods of teachers of English in Vietnam They have realized that students can only improve their language competence through communication It is the need for oral competence in English that has turned the teachers’ emphasis from teaching grammar into teaching communication Therefore, speaking skills nowadays play a much more important role in modern English than ever before In every English class, teachers would like to develop students’ speaking skills by applying the communicative language teaching method known as one of the most effective approaches that help students speak However, in some places in Vietnam, English teaching has been strongly influenced by the traditional methods Teachers as well as students pay much attention to the grammatical items In these classes, teachers mainly focus on explaining the grammatical rules and structures to students who are considered as passive recipients As a result, those students might be structurally competent but communicative incompetent That causes a lot of difficulties in using English in real-life communication To meet the demand of learners of English, teachers of English have been trying to find out the most suitable and effective method of teaching English Speaking Therefore, the Communicative Language Teaching Approach (hereafter CLT) is applied to teach English to learners of all levels They hope that by using this teaching method, they can help their learners improve their English and use it effectively and fluently in communication That is also the idea suggested by many linguists and methodologists such as Nunan (1991) and Das (1985) Nevertheless, there still exist many difficulties facing English Language teachers in Vietnam Many Vietnamese learners can write and read English quite well but they cannot speak fluently and correctly in communication Certainly there are many reasons for this As one teacher of English I realized that although both teachers and learners try their best to reach their goals to teach and study English speaking skills effectively, up to now the results have been still far from satisfaction This has given me the desire to conduct this study to examine the teaching and learning English speaking skill as well as to find techniques and activities to improve the quality of the teaching of speaking skill and motivate the students to talk in English speaking lessons PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT I Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) It is known that the history of language teaching has shown the change on methods, which have reflected recognition of changes in the sort of proficiency learners needs What has changed in a second language teaching is not the way we teach but in the aim of language teaching and learning (Le, 2004) Teaching a second language used to aim at enabling learners to read and appreciate class of literature Therefore, any teachers who were able to reach this aim were thought to be good teachers (Le, 2004) For a long time traditional methods - Grammar translation and Audiolingual were used to teach English that made learners become structure competent and communicative incompetent It is undeniable that most learners of English nowadays desire to be able to communicate with others in the language they learn Parallel with this change in the aims of learning English, methods of teaching had to be changed For a long time, a number of language teaching methodologists have constantly looked for the most appropriate way to teach English effectively As a result, some teaching methods came into being such as: * Grammar-translation method * The Direct method * The Audio-lingual method * The Audio-visual method * Communicative Language Teaching Mackey (1965) remarks that most methods, which have ever developed, still continue to exist in one form or another as each method has its advantages and disadvantage For example, grammar-translation is easy to implement and cheap to administer which makes it still be used in many classroom situations in large classes General speaking, it is hard to say which method is the most effective and appropriate without considering the circumstances in which it is applied The question of which method should be used in Vietnam depends most on the background of English language teaching and learning in the country, sources of materials, teachers' proficiency, learners' needs and facilities for teaching and learning II Using CLT in Teaching Speaking Skill When using communicative activities, it is important to make students feel comfortable and confident, feel free to take risks and have opportunities to speak According to Pica, Young and Doughty (1987), there are two kinds of classroom available to second language learners: Input has been modified or simplified such as a traditional "teacher-fronted" classroom; and authentic students-to-student interaction is emphasized It provides the learners more opportunities for speaking since the learners try to achieve mutual understanding and modify their language according to the demand of the situation Objectives for speaking are often given by the particular program in which the teacher must work In some cases, the syllabus will consist of a list of grammar structures to be taught The teacher needs to be flexible in making best use of what is available for teaching purpose In other words, the teacher must have some freedom in deciding what objectives to meet, what content to cover, and what activities to use In this case, the teacher can go beyond the more specific goals and objectives of the particular program to the speaking needs that the students have in the "real world" There are many speaking activities can be used in classroom such as scrambled sentence, language games, role-plays, problem-solving, discussion, cued story, picture story etc III Speaking skill III.1 Concepts of speaking As mentioned above, speaking is the productive, oral skill Speaking consists of producing systematic verbal utterances to convey meaning (utterances are simply things people say) Speaking is "an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information" (Florenz, 1999, p.1) It is "often spontaneous, open-ended and evolving" (ibid., p.1), but it is not completely unpredictable Speaking is such a fundamental human behavior that we don't stop to analyze it unless there is something noticeable about it For example, if a person is experiencing a speech pathology (if a person stutters or if his speech is impaired due to a stroke or a head injury), we may realize that the speech is atypical Likewise, if someone is a particularly effective or lucid speaker, we may notice that her speech is atypical in a noteworthy sense What we fail to notice on a daily basis, however, are the myriad physical, mental, psychological, social, and cultural factors that must all work together when we speak It is even a more impressive feat when we hear someone speaking effectively in a second or foreign language According to Brown and Yule's opinions (1983), spoken language consists of short fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation However, speaking is a skill, which deserves attention as much as literacy skills in both first and second language because our learners often need to speak with confidence in order to carry out a lot of their most basic transactions (Bygate, 1991) Furthermore, speaking is known with two main types of conversation called dialogue and monologue Brown and Yule (1983) point out the ability to give uninterrupted oral presentation (monologue) is rather different from interacting with one or more other speakers for transactional and international purposes It is much more difficult to extemporize on a given subject to a group of listeners That explains why speaking skill generally has to be learnt and practised carefully before giving a presentation A comprehensive discussion of the nature of speaking is provided by Bygate (1987), who shows that in order to be able to speak a foreign language, it is obviously necessary to have micro-linguistic skills, that is, to understand some grammar, vocabulary and the rules governing how words are put together to form sentences However, these motor-perceptive skills, as Bygate calls them, are not sufficient since while producing sentences, we often have to adapt them to the circumstances He then presents the second set of speaking skills: the interaction skills, which involve using knowledge and basic motor-perception skills in deciding what to say and how to say it, while maintaining the intended relation with others III.2 Characteristics of speaking As for Bygate M (1987), in most speaking the person to whom we are speaking is in front of us and able to put right if we make mistakes He/ She can also generally show agreement and understanding - or incomprehension and disagreement Unlike readers or writers, speakers may need patience and imagination, too While talking, speakers need to take notice of the other and allows listeners chance to speak it It means that we take turns to speak Brown (1983) and her colleagues point out that a listener helps speakers improve their performance as a speaker because being a listener gives learner models to utilize when acting as a speaker In addition, being a hearer first helps the learner appreciate the difficulties inherent in the task It is clear that giving speakers experience in hearer's role is more helpful than simple practice in task in which a speaker is having real difficulties in appreciating what a particular task required Speaking has the following characteristics: Firstly, its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking It is often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving However, speech is not always unpredictable Language functions (or patterns) that tend to recur in certain discourse situations can be identified and charted Secondly, speaking requires that learners not only know how to produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary ("linguistic competence"), but also that they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce language ("sociolinguistics competence") Thirdly, speech has its own skills, structures, and conversations different from written language A good speaker synthesizes this array of skills and knowledge to succeed in a given speech act Finally, Bygate (1987) considers speaking as an undervalued skill in many ways The reason is that almost all people can speak, and so take speaking skill too much for granted He also asserts that speaking skill deserves attention every bit as much as literacy skills Learners often need to be able to speak with confidence in order to carry out many of their most basic transactions Bygate also highly appreciates speaking by stating that speaking is the medium through which much language is learnt In conclusion, it is undeniable that speaking is key to communication By considering what good speakers do, what speaking tasks can be used in class, and what specific need learners report, teachers can help learners improve their speaking and overall oral competency III.3 The development approach of speaking skill Byrne (1991, p 22-31) points out that there are three phases to develop learner’s oral ability, which are as follows: Phase 1: The Presentation Phase (when you introduce something new to be learned) In this phase, teachers are centre It means that they work as information provider, since they know English, select materials to teach and present the material in such a way that the meaning of the new language is as intelligible and memorable as possible while the learners are motionless As far as we know, oral materials are written mainly in two forms in every course- book They are dialogues and prose And obviously these two forms must be presented in different ways According two Byrne (1991, p.22) 10 different steps are used to present a dialogue They are the following: - Establish setting by using pictures At this phase English should be used as much as possible - Draw out learners’ experience related to situation - Explain some key words - Set listening task by asking key information of the dialogue - Ask learners listen without looking at the books - Allow learners to have a look at their book when necessary for them - Ask the learners to listen and repeat - Ask learners to pick up difficulties (good chance for them to speak) and explain difficulties - Ask them to practice (role-play) - Ask them to dramatize the dialogue It is known that this procedure is perfect and logically arranged However, it is dependent on learner’s competence so some steps can be left out It is quite hard for Vietnamese learners to conduct the step 10 because they are generally shy and time is limited other steps are used to present a prose Byrne (1991, p.26) suggests that teachers should use the following steps to present a prose - Introduce the topic by asking to look at the picture or asking them about the related thing - Introduce the text New words and structures are given - Provide relevant practice - Set the reading task: make questions - Ask the learners to read the passage in silence and find the answer - Explain difficulties they still have - Do silent reading again because the learners need to go on with the step - Get the learners to talk about what they have to learn based on the previous answers Phase 2: The Practice Phase (when you allow the learners to work under your direction) Unlike the presentation phase, this phase learners have to most of talking Teachers provide maximum amount of practice Practice is usually in the forms of activities to improve fluency of speaking At this phase, pair work or group work is used Phase 3: The Production Phase (when you give learners opportunities to work on their own) At this phase learners need chances to speak English freely A real chance to speak English takes place when the learner is able to use English naturally for themselves, not for their teachers Group work plays an important part in making learners practice speaking here Doing group work, all learners can have chance to participate in talks Time can be saved and learners seem more confident Byrne (1988, p.2) concludes that in order to improve speaking ability of learners These three phases should be followed orderly But in fact, they might not be applied as expected due to time limitation, types of learners and materials in use IV Some suggested classroom techniques and activities for teachers to motivate English majored students Below are the most commonly used techniques and activities to motivate reticent students to communicate in English speaking lessons However, before putting into use, teachers of English need to take a serious consideration into what is appropriate for particular subjects in particular situations The effectiveness of these techniques and activities varied from contexts to contexts IV.1 Some suggested techniques in teaching speaking IV.1.1 Teaching speaking strategies Many people believe that effective teachers teach students speaking strategies which they can use to help themselves expand their knowledge of the language and their confidence in using it According to Burkart (1998), speaking strategies including: using minimal response, recognizing scripts and using language to talk about language • Using minimal responses Language learners who lack confidence in their ability to participate successfully in oral interaction often listen in silence while others the talking One way to encourage such learners to begin to participate is to help them build up a stock of minimal responses that they can use in different types of exchanges Such responses can be especially useful for beginners Minimal responses are idiomatic phrases that conversation participants use to indicate understanding, agreement, doubt, etc They are very useful for unconfident students who often listen in silence while others the talking They can build a stock of minimal responses that they can use in different situations Possessing a stock of minimal responses enables students to focus on what the other participants are saying as they not have to plan responses * Recognizing scripts Some communication situations are associated with a predictable set of spoken exchanges – a script Greetings, apologies, compliments, invitations, and other functions which are influenced by social and cultural norms often follow certain patterns or scripts In these scripts, the relationship between a speakers’ turn and the one that follows it can often be anticipated Teachers can help students develop speaking ability by making them aware of the scripts for different situations so that they can predict what they will hear and what they will need to say in response Through interactive activities, teachers can give students practice in managing and changing the language that different scripts contain * Using language to talk about language Language learners are often too embarrassed or shy to say anything when they not understand another speaker or when they realize that a conversation partner has not understood them Teachers can help students overcome this reticence by assuring them that misunderstanding and the need for clarification can occur in any types of interaction, whatever the participants’ language skill levels Teachers can also give students strategies and phrases to use for clarification and comprehension check By encouraging students to use clarification phrases in class when misunderstanding occurs and by responding positively when they do, teachers can create an authentic practice environment within the classroom itself As they develop control of various clarification strategies, students will gain confidence in their ability to manage the various communication situations that they may encounter outside the classroom IV.1.2 Base the activities on easy language Generally, the level of language needed for a discussion should be lower than that used in intensive-learning activities in the same class The language required for a discussion should be easily recalled and produced by students so that they can speak fluently In some cases, preteaching or reviewing essential vocabulary and grammatical structures before the activity starts is a good idea IV.1.3 Use language in authentic ways In learning speaking, it is the best if students have frequent chances to hear and read the language as native speakers use it Teachers can give students these chances through teachers’ talk and materials As for teachers, they should try to use the language as naturally as possible It is advisable that teachers should: speak at normal rate; use vocabulary and structures that students are familiar with; state the same idea in different ways to aid comprehension HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KHU VỰC DUYÊN HẢI - ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC LẦN THỨ VI Using Jigsaw, students are assigned to five- or six –member heterogeneous study teams Academic materials are presented to the students Each student is responsible for learning a portion of the material After that, expert groups are formed Students with the same topic/material meet to study and help each other learn the topic/ material Then students return to their home teams and teach other members what they have learned Following home team meetings and discussions, students take quizzes individually on the learning materials The following are the steps in implementing Jigsaw in class Divide students into 5- or 6-person jigsaw groups The groups should be diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, race, and ability Appoint one student from each group as the leader Initially, this person should be the most mature student in the group Divide the day's lesson into 5-6 segments/ materials of discussion Assign each student to learn one segment/ material, making sure students have direct access only to their own segment/ material Give students time to learn their segment/ material in detail Form temporary "expert groups" by having one student from each jigsaw group join other students assigned to the same segment Give students in these expert groups time to discuss the main points of their segment and to rehearse the presentations they will make to their jigsaw group Bring the students back into their jigsaw groups Ask each student to present her or his segment to the group Encourage others in the group to ask questions for clarification Trường THPT Chuyên Thái Bình 54 HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KHU VỰC DUYÊN HẢI - ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC LẦN THỨ VI Float from group to group, observing the process If any group is having trouble (e.g., a member is dominating or disruptive), make an appropriate intervention 10 At the end of the session, give a quiz on the material so that students quickly come to realize that these sessions are not just fun and games but really count Implementation of Jigsaw technique in a speaking class In this part I would like to share my experience in implementing Jigsaw technique in speaking class Because my school does not have a camcorder for me to record the lesson, I am going to give a description of two lessons in which the technique is used From my experience this technique works well with both difficult and easy topics 2.1 Lesson The first lesson is about causes of environmental pollution including water, land, air, noise and radioactive pollution This topic is rather challenging to students as they lack related knowledge and vocabulary I prepare a handout of the topic in which I give the causes of five above types of pollution, then I cut it into segments: water, land, air, noise and radioactive pollution The class is divided into groups (Jigsaw groups), each consists of members Following are the main activities during the lesson: - Warm-up: I show students a video clip of water pollution, how chemicals can contaminate water, then I lead to the topic of the lesson: Causes of different types of pollution - Pre-teaching of new language To make sure that students know how to talk about the causes of a problem and to understand the material that I am going to give them, I teach them some phrases expressing causes, and important key words in the material - Activity of Jigsaw groups A segment of the material is handed out to each student in the group (E.g Student A: subtopic-water pollution, Student B: subtopic-air pollution…) Trường THPT Chuyên Thái Bình 55 HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KHU VỰC DUYÊN HẢI - ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC LẦN THỨ VI Then I set a five-minute time limit for the students to study their segment Make sure that the students in the group not exchange their information with each other - Activity of Expert groups After minutes, students with the same subtopics gather in a temporary group called expert group Another 15-minute time limit is given to expert groups to discuss the main points of their subtopic, and let them rehearse what they will present to their Jigsaw groups Students can correct each other’s mistakes to make it the best (For students of advanced level, I encourage them to find other causes they know about the subtopic) - Back to the Jigsaw groups Students are asked to get back to their Jigsaw groups, and present their segments (what they have discussed in expert groups) to the whole group This stage may take about 15-30 minutes To make it more challenging, I ask each student to present in a set time limit - Closing activity I ask questions to check students’ understanding of the causes of environmental pollution 2.2 Lesson The second lesson is about an easier topic: describing people focusing on physical appearance Basically, I follow the same steps as in lesson 1, but in this lesson instead of preparing the material on the types of pollution, I provide each student in the Jigsaw group with a picture of a different person New vocabulary needed to describe physical appearance is also taught to facilitate students’ later speaking In the Jigsaw group, each member studies his picture to give a description of the person After that they gather in the expert group to discuss and get more description from the other students Finally, when returning to the Jigsaw group, they show their picture and describe it to the group As a closing activity, I display Trường THPT Chuyên Thái Bình 56 HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KHU VỰC DUYÊN HẢI - ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC LẦN THỨ VI pictures of some famous people and ask some to describe This time students volunteer to give their answer I find that they are now more confident in their speaking as they know how to describe a person Findings from the lessons From what has happened in the lessons, I could identify the strengths and weaknesses of the technique What I like most about this technique is that it creates an interesting, cooperative and motivating atmosphere for students to learn They participate actively into the learning, since everyone has to exchange the information in expert groups and then present it in their home team, makes them more productive, and creates better interactions among the members Although some mistakes occur ‘here and there’, they feel excited as well, they also help each other when they find any difficulties in their presentation This technique can be viewed as a typical example of the learner-centered teaching approach, where students speak most of the time of the lesson, and the teacher is only a facilitator and conductor Apart from the strengths, there are also some weaknesses recognized Some of the better students may dominate in completing the assignment Moreover, time management also places a real pressure on the teacher because many students had difficulty in sharing time and materials Regardless of the difficulties in implementing Jigsaw technique in class, I still believe that this is quite a good suggestion for teachers to make a change in teaching The thing is they should have a careful preparation to pick up suitable materials for their students so as to generate their participation in learning PART C: CONCLUSION In an effort to bring a motivating learning environment for students, my paper focuses on applying Jigsaw technique in teaching speaking skill, in which I give a brief description of how it works, the way I implement the technique in my real class Some strengths and weaknesses are also drawn from the lessons Trường THPT Chuyên Thái Bình 57 HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KHU VỰC DUYÊN HẢI - ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC LẦN THỨ VI It is recommended that further study should be conducted to apply Jigsaw technique in teaching reading and listening skills as well Trường THPT Chuyên Thái Bình 58 HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KHU VỰC DUYÊN HẢI - ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC LẦN THỨ VI PpA HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN VÙNG ĐỒNG BẰNG DUYÊN HẢI BẮC BỘ TÊN ĐỀ TÀI: HOW TO TEACH SPEAKINH SKILLS FOR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS ĐƠN VỊ: TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN BIÊN HÒA HÀ NAM Giáo viên: Nguyễn Thị Anh Thoa Trương Thị Phương Thanh PART A: INTRODUCTION I II Topic: How to teach speaking skills for English majored students Aims: the question is raised to target at the following goals: - Discuss the ways of teaching speaking skills for English majored students Select the best ways to develop speaking competence among gifted students I PART B: CONTENTS Overview of speaking activities Trường THPT Chuyên Thái Bình 59 HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KHU VỰC DUYÊN HẢI - ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC LẦN THỨ VI I What is meant by "teaching speaking"? What is meant by "teaching speaking" is to teach ESL learners to: Produce the English speech sounds and sound patterns • Use word and sentence stress, intonation patterns and the rhythm of the second • language Select appropriate words and sentences according to the proper social setting, • audience, situation and subject matter Organize their thoughts in a meaningful and logical sequence • Use language as a means of expressing values and judgments • Use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, which is • I called as fluency (Nunan, 2003) Characteristics of a successful speaking activity There are many characteristics of a successful speaking activity which are introduced by Ur (1996) as follows: • Learners talk a lot: As much as possible of the period time allotted to the activity is in fact occupied by learner talk This may seem obvious, but often most time is • taken up with the teacher and talk and pauses Participation is even: Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority of talkative participants: all get a chance to speak and contributions are fairly • evenly distributed Motivation is high: Learners are eager to speak because they are interested in the topic and have something new to say about it, or because they want to • contribute to achieving a task objective Language is of an acceptable level: Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other and of an acceptable level of language accuracy In practice, however, few classroom activities succeed in satisfying all the criteria mentioned above Therefore, language teachers should make great efforts to employ a variety of effective techniques to create some of the mentioned-above criteria I Problems with speaking activities According to Ur (1996), there still exist some problems with speaking activities as follows: Trường THPT Chuyên Thái Bình 60 HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KHU VỰC DUYÊN HẢI - ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC LẦN THỨ VI • Inhibition: Unlike reading, writing and listening activities, speaking requires some degree of real-time exposure to an audience Learners are often inhibited about trying to say things in a foreign language in the classroom: worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention • that their speech attracts Nothing to say: Even if they are not inhibited, you often hear learners complain that they cannot think of anything to say: they have no motive to express • themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should be speaking Low or uneven participation: Only one participant can talk at a time if he or she is to be heard, and in a large group this means that each one will have only very little time talking This problem is compounded by the tendency of some • learners to dominate, while others speak very little or not at all Mother-tongue use: In classes where all, or a number of, the learners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use it: because it is easier, because it feels unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language, and because they feel less “exposed” if they are speaking their mother tongue If they are talking in small groups it can be quite difficult to get some classes-particularly the less disciplined or motivated ones- to keep to the target language In order for the learners to develop their communicative skills, it is advised that the language teachers should help the learners to overcome these problems with speaking activities I Principles in teaching speaking in CLT The single most important reason for teaching speaking is to develop oral fluency, that is, the ability to express oneself intelligibly, reasonably, accurately and without undue hesitation Learners of English will want to use speech principally for two reasons The first reason is that they want to give and receive information, that is, for transactional or message-oriented purposes The other is that they want to maintain good social relationships, that is, for interactional purposes focused on sharing personal experiences and opinions Language educators and teachers have made great efforts to find out the main principles of teaching speaking so far Here the author wishes to suggest some main principles which are introduced by Ur (1996) as follows: Trường THPT Chuyên Thái Bình 61 HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KHU VỰC DUYÊN HẢI - ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC LẦN THỨ VI • Take account of the student as a person: It means that the teachers should be sensitive, sympathetic and encouraging They should select material that is • motivating and within the students’ ability Reduce anxiety by moving from easy to less easy: It means that the teachers should provide a familiar, private environment and help students take short • turns Maintain a careful balance between accuracy and fluency: It requires that the teachers should provide practice in pronunciation, word stress, sentence stress and intonation Moreover, the teachers should also provide students with • opportunities for fluent use of speech • teach correct pronunciation and repeatedly use target speech patterns Provide a good model for students to imitate: The teachers should consciously Provide appropriate stimuli for eliciting speech: The teachers can use a wide variety of sources such as: books, radios, audio and video cassettes, etc and well • as pictures, stories, songs • in different ways: individual to whole class, in pair work or group work • it is a good idea that the teachers demonstrate the proposed task themselves Vary classroom interaction modes: The teachers can arrange the class activities Give clear instructions: The teachers should speak loudly, slowly and clearly and Monitor student activity continuously: The teachers should encourage those who find the activity difficult and praise students who perform well or try hard • to fulfill the task Prepare well for class: The teachers should make a checklist of things to obtain and a checklist of things to Handle errors sensitively and effectively: The teachers should ignore performances errors and ignores that are repeated However, it is necessary that the teachers correct errors in language that they recently taught or errors that might shock the listeners (e.g childrens) In addition, errors in structures that need to be used frequently by students should also be corrected (E.g “What means that?” instead of “What does it mean?”) And the teachers should remember that corrections should be made in accuracy phase, not fluency phase II How to teach speaking skills for English majored students Trường THPT Chuyên Thái Bình 62 HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KHU VỰC DUYÊN HẢI - ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC LẦN THỨ VI English majored students are supposed to be good at English and they have more time to learn English at school Besides acquiring good understanding of grammar and vocabulary, they are required to develop four skills, namely, reading, speaking, listening and writing Therefore, how to teach speaking skills for English majored students is one of the difficult questions for teachers As a teacher of English, I would like to share some of my experiences about teaching speaking skills for English majored students Often, to organize a speaking lesson successfully, I always employ all the following procedures Before teaching: While teaching: After teaching: - Select the topics carefully Design the tasks/ activities Select words, phrases and structures related to the topics Raise the topics Carry out the tasks/ activities Vary the tasks and activities to motivate students to speak Take full use of types of activities like pair work and group work Encourage students to speak as much as possible Help students if necessary Ask students to present what they have practised Evaluate Ss’ performance + relevant ideas + pronunciation + fluency + accuracy + coherence and cohesion + speed and voice In this part, I would like to discuss some key points in each procedure that a teacher needs to take into consideration when planning a speaking lesson II Before teaching Trường THPT Chuyên Thái Bình 63 HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KHU VỰC DUYÊN HẢI - ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC LẦN THỨ VI Choosing a topic for speaking is a thing that teachers often find difficult because a good topic must be interesting, realistic to students and easy for the teacher to design the activities to meet the aim that the teacher has set, that is, to promote students’ speaking skills Besides using the topics in the textbook, teachers may think of others in other books or those that are hot these days Below are some suggested topics which I and other teachers in my department have collected for our speaking lessons: What are the qualities of a true friend? Describe one of your close friends Talk about one of your unforgettable experiences Talk about a birthday party that you have held or been invited to Talk about a kind of volunteer work your friends and you usually to help people Talk about a competition or contest you have recently joined or seen What are the benefits that a competition/ contest brings you? What are the causes and consequences of population explosion? Suggest some solutions to the problems of overpopulation Talk about your last Tet holiday 10 What are the causes of animal extinction? 11 What has been done to protect the environment? 12 Name some sources of energy that you know Talk about the advantages and disadvantages of one of these energy sources 13 Talk about your hobby 14 Talk about one of the wonders of the world 15 Talk about the background of one of the people you know well These ones are based mainly on the themes of the textbook; however, I try to choose ones that are easy to students and so will motivate them to talk From the topic, more tasks and activities are designed and individual, pair or group work is decided to benefits the process of practicing speaking English II While teaching This process is now considered the most important one as although the teacher may have prepared for the lesson very carefully, in fact, she cannot guide her students or lead the lesson to its original aim, she still fail, and all her preparation will come to Trường THPT Chuyên Thái Bình 64 HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KHU VỰC DUYÊN HẢI - ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC LẦN THỨ VI nothing Thus, whether students have much chance to practice speaking and they are satisfied after the lesson depend much on how the teacher organized the class, how she guide the students and how she tactfully motivate the students to speak out Below are some activities for teachers to employ in a speaking lesson Discussions After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various reasons The students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups Before the discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose, so that students not spend their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things For example, students can become involved in agree/disagree discussions In this type of discussions, the teacher can form groups of students, preferably or in each group, and provide controversial sentences like “people learn best when they read vs people learn best when they travel” 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 be equally divided among group members At the end, the class decides on the winning group who defended the idea in the best way This activity fosters critical thinking and quick decision making, and students learn how to express and justify themselves in polite ways while disagreeing with the others For efficient group discussions, it is always better not to form large groups, because quiet students may avoid contributing in large groups The group members can be either assigned by the teacher or the students may determine it by themselves, but groups should be rearranged in every discussion activity so that students can work with various people and learn to be open to different ideas Lastly, in class or group discussions, whatever the aim is, the students should always be encouraged to ask questions, paraphrase ideas, express support, check for clarification, and so on Role-Plays One other way of getting students to speak is role-playing Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles In role-play activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and Trường THPT Chuyên Thái Bình 65 HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KHU VỰC DUYÊN HẢI - ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC LẦN THỨ VI what they think or feel Thus, the teacher can tell the student that "You are David, you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and…" (Harmer, 1984) Simulations Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations different than role plays is that they are more elaborate In simulations, students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment For instance, if a student is acting as a singer, she brings a microphone to sing and so on Role plays and simulations have many advantages First, since they are entertaining, they motivate the students Second, as Harmer (1984) suggests, they increase the self-confidence of hesitant students, because in role play and simulation activities, they will have a different role and not have to speak for themselves, which means they not have to take the same responsibility Interviews Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people It is a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own interview questions Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance to practice their speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them becoming socialized After interviews, each student can present his or her study to the class Moreover, students can interview each other and "introduce" his or her partner to the class Information Gap In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs One student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their information Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or collecting information Also, each partner plays an important role because the task cannot be completed if the partners not provide the information the others need These activities are effective because everybody has the opportunity to talk extensively in the target language Brainstorming On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time Depending on the context, either individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners Trường THPT Chuyên Thái Bình 66 HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KHU VỰC DUYÊN HẢI - ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC LẦN THỨ VI generate ideas quickly and freely The good characteristics of brainstorming is that the students are not criticized for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas Story telling Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates Story telling fosters creative thinking It also helps students express ideas in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the characters and setting a story has to have Students also can tell riddles or jokes For instance, at the very beginning of each class session, the teacher may call a few students to tell short riddles or jokes as an opening In this way, not only will the teacher address students’ speaking ability, but also get the attention of the class Story Completion This is a very enjoyable, whole-class, free-speaking activity for which students sit in a circle For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few sentences he or she stops narrating Then, each student starts to narrate from the point where the previous one stopped Each student is supposed to add from four to ten sentences Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so on Reporting Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting news Students can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class II After teaching This step, though is not much emphasized, will still need to be thought of as a way for students to revise what they have done and achieved in the lesson Teacher may ask students to list some key points of the talk that they have made with their partners or come to a conclusion about the topic raised before In this process, teacher also needs to give students some feedbacks about the good and bad points students have during the lesson, especially the ones relating to speaking skill like pronunciation, fluency and accuracy Trường THPT Chuyên Thái Bình 67 HỘI CÁC TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN KHU VỰC DUYÊN HẢI - ĐỒNG BẰNG BẮC BỘ HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC LẦN THỨ VI PART C: CONCLUSION Teaching speaking is a very important part of second language learning The ability to communicate in a second language clearly and efficiently contributes to the success of the learner in school and success later in every phase of life Therefore, it is essential that language teachers pay great attention to teaching speaking Rather than leading students to pure memorization, providing a rich environment where meaningful communication takes place is desired With this aim, various speaking activities such as those listed above can contribute a great deal to students in developing basic interactive skills necessary for life These activities make students more active in the learning process and at the same time make their learning more meaningful and fun for them References data.ulis.vnu.edu.vn/jspui/bitstream/ /Luan%20van%20ban%20chinh.docinf o Ur, P (1996) A course in Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University IIhing Press Trường THPT Chuyên Thái Bình 68 [...]... Competence: Theory and classroom Practice Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Chuyên đề xếp giải A HOW TO TEACH SPEAKING SKILL FOR ENGLISH MAJORED CLASS Họ và tên: Trương Thị Nhung- Lê Thị Cẩm Vân Tổ chuyên môn: Khoa học xã hội Trường: THPT chuyên Nguyễn Tất Thành- Yên Bái Yên Bái, tháng 8 năm 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS Part I Introduction 1 Rationale for choosing the study ? 2 Aims of the study Part II Development... Johnson, K (1982) Communicative Syllabus Design and Methodology Oxford: Pergamon Institute of English Larsen-Freeman, D (1986) Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching Oxford University Press Le Van Canh (2004) Understanding Foreign Language Teaching Methodology National University Publishing House Littlewood, W (1981) Communicative Language Teaching Cambridge University Press Mathews-Aydinli, J &