An exploratory survey of the application of the communicative language teaching in improving the speaking ability of the high school students at the international school

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A-PDF Page ISTRY QE-EDUCATIONDANR (6 RADNENGatermark

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

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AN EXPLORATORY SURVEY OF THE APPLICATION OF THE COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING IN IMPROVING THE SPEAKING ABILITY OF THE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS AT THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC MỦ TP.HCM THƯ VIỆN

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS (TESOL)

Submitted by VO THI THANH THUY

Supervisor: Dr NGUYEN THI KIEU THU

Ho Chi Minh City, September 2011

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ABSTRACT

Since it was first introduced in 1960s, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has become the dominant approach in teaching communicative competence for ESL learners So far, it has been recommended in many countries all over the world However, there are

only few studies that specifically deal with CLT and its implementation in the

Vietnamese context, especially for high school students in speaking skill Hence, this study was designed to explore the application of the communicative language teaching in

improving the speaking ability of the high school students at The International School

(TIS)

This study first presents the problem of the English language teaching of speaking skill at The International School (TIS) A review of existing literature related to communicative competence, as well as how it functions in CLT is presented The techniques and approaches in using CLT are introduced in details The review about the features of teaching English for young learners is also presented Furthermore, this study examines

difficulties the teachers at TIS face in applying CLT in improving oral ability of the students at TIS

Survey and class observation were used for this research Participants for this study were 11 teachers and 248 the high school students at Campus 2 of The International School The main modes of data collection consisted of questionnaire and class observation The results show that CLT is not widely used in teaching English in the classrooms at TIS The reasons of the failure in applying CLT in teaching speaking fall in to the three main categories: From the teacher side, from the student side, and from the administration side

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Statement of Authorship Acknowledgments Abstract Table of contents List of figures List of tables Abbreviations Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 The proble

1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Significance of the stud:

1.4 Rational and overview of the the: 1.5 Background of the study

1.5.1 The recruitment of students a 1.5.2 A review of TIS curriculum

e The MOET English program

e The International Program:

o The contents of The International Progra

o The distribution of English textbooks of The International Program: (See Appendix D for the description of English textbooks

1.5.3 The physical setting of TIS e The Campuses

e The Classroom: e The class size:

1.6 Limitation and Delimitation: 1.7 Organization of the thesis

Chapter 2

Literature Review

2.1 The nature of teaching speaking

2.1.1 What is oral communication

2.1.2 The nature of speaking

2.1.3 The forms of communication — speaking as a central skil

2.2 An overview of traditional language teaching methodologies

2.3 Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

2.3.1 The definition of CLT 2.3.2 Characteristics of CLT 2.3.3 Principles of CLT

2.3.4 Communicative competence:

e Framework of Communicative competenc:

e Components of Communicative Competence

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2.3.6.1 The treatment of oral errors in teaching oral skill

2.3.6.2 Fluency and accuracy _

2.3.6.3 Focus on form and focus 0 on n meaning 2.3.7 Communicative activities

e Methodological framework of CLT: pre-communicative and communicative activities: (Littlewood, 1981)

o Pre-communicative activities (also called Mechanical Practice) = Structural activities = Quasi-communicative activities o Communicative Activities: Meaningful an 33 = Functional Communication Activities: Sharing and processing information e Information gap activities e Jigsaw activities

e Other activity typ: = Social interaction activ:

= Using the foreign language as a teaching mediw

= Basing dialogues and role plays on school experience — involving in the field of simulation -. - 37

2.4 The influence of teachers’ beliefs on their practice 2.5 Teaching speaking through CLT

2.6 Important aspects in teaching speaking for young learne

2.6.1 Features of interesting lessons for young learners 2.6.2 Psychological factors in the classroom:

2.6.3 Learners motivation in the classroom

2.7 Difficulties in applying CLT in improving speaking abilit 2.7.1 Learners identity

2.7.2 Interactive classroom

2.8 Theoretical framework of the stud:

2.9 Summary of chapter 2: (See figure 2.6) Figure 2.6: Summary of Chapter 2Chapter 3

Chapter 3 Methodology

3.1 Research questions: 3.2 The research design:

3.2.1 The research site:

3.2.2 The research population:

e The student participants

e = The teacher participant:

3.2.3 The instruments

3.2.3.1 The questionnaires

o The questionnaire for teachers (See Appendix A) o The questionnaire for students (See Appendix B)

o Delivery procedure of the questionnaires: “

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3.2.3.2 Class observation

e Records from classroom observations

o Description of the observation checklist (See Appendix F) o Description of the observed classes

Chapter 4

Results and Discussion

4.1 Questionnaire for teachers

4.1.1 Characteristics of the teachers

4.1.2 The teachers’ belief of CLT

4.1.3 The practice of CLT in teaching speaking in the classroom 4.1.3.1 Different teaching methods teachers used in the classroo 4.1.3.2 CLT activities teachers used in the classroom

4.1.3.3 Techniques and approaches teachers use in the classroom

4.1.3.4 The features of teaching English for young learners in the classroom 74

4.1.4 Teachers’ difficulties in applying CLT in improving speaking ability

of students at TIS: 76

4.2 Questionnaire for students .80

4.2.1 Characteristics of the students at TIS 80

4.2.2 Students’ perspectives about the teachers’ degree of interest on their psychological status at the age of young ÏearTers - cv 81

4.2.3 Students’ perceived ideas about the techniques and approaches

teachers use in teaching speaking in the classroom

4.3 Comparison between the answers of the teachers and students about the techniques and approaches teachers use in the classroom

4.3.1 The similarities between the ideas of the teachers and students The differences between the ideas of the teachers and student

Analysis from the class observation

4.4.1 Class observation records

4.4.2 Class observation analysis 4.5 Findings and discussioi Chapter 5 Conclusion and Implications 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Implications for teaching 5.2.1 To the teachers 5.2.2 — To the administratioi Reference

APPENDIX A: Questionnaire for teachers APPENDIX B: Questionnaire (for students) APPENDIX C: Description of TIS Curriculum

APPENDIX D: Description of English textbooks of The International Program

APPENDIX X E: Class ob observation description

APPENDIX F: CLASS OBSERVATION CHECKLIS' APPENDIX G: CLASS OBSERVATON RECORDS

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LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 2.1 Processes involved in learning to communicate 16 Figure 2.2 Components of communicative competence .-. . ‹- 23 Figure 2.3 Long’s model of the decision making process prior

to the teacher “feedback MOVE” .c.cceeseseseseseseenescsesesssseeseseeseseseeees 27

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LIST OF TABLES

Page Table 1.1 Distribution of English textbooks for junior high

students in the academic year 2010 - 2011

Table 1.2 Distribution of English textbooks for senior high

students in the academic year 2010 — 201 Ì s5 cscscsrseeresee 8 Table 1.3 The numbers of students in each C[aSS 5-5 cà sec 10 Table 2.1 Framework for notional syÏlabus 5 «+ St sxsvkxeersrrreeeese 40

Table 3.1 Student code in SPSS - Ăn che dreưn 62

Table 4.1 Teacher gender * Teacher age cross tabulation -.‹ «+ 66 Table 4.2 Teachers’ teaching background and professional development 67 TaDI6:4.ã/CLÍT”AWHTGH€SBcceaosrssoareiirnaaiiogpistrsrsgrtos3665156540/0173385020030365w9v85 68 Table 4.4 Where did you learn about CI/T”? . « cv ssekekerevrrrrexee 69 Table 4.5 Highest academic degree of the teachers-Where teacher graduated .70 Table 4.6 Characteristics Of CLT s:sssesssesesesssssssrsrssseseseseesststsessesssssssseeeneneaes 10 Table 4.7 Important factors for students in CLT classroom ‹ ‹-‹ + 71 Table 4.8 Requirements of English teachers in CLT classroom - Tz Table 4.9 Different teaching method teachers use in the classroom - 73 'Table 4.10 Activities teachers use in the caSSfOOim -c-cccscvcxcvvxecey 74 Table 4.11 Techniques and approaches teachers use in teaching oral skill 76 Table 4.12 Subject teachers who correct students’ oral errors

while they are in practice

Table 4.13 Features in teaching speaking for young learners

Table 4.14 Difficulties from the teachers in teaching CLT 80 Table 4.15 Difficulties from the students in CLT -.+5+5cc+c5cc2+c++ 81 Table 4.16 Difficulties from the administration

of the school system in CLLT, «55+ «5+ St setetesererretesseereeerrre 82 Table 4.17 Student characteristics c.ccsssssscsessseseesseseeenenesesesessseseseresensseeeeceseees 84

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Table 4.18 Student purposes of studying English at TS -««-««+ 85 Table 4.19 Students’ ideas on the features of teaching English for young learners86 Table 4.20 Students’ ideas about the teachers’ techniques and

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CLT EFL ESL HCMC EW HCMCOU IC LC MOET RC TIS ABBREVIATIONS

: Communicative Language Teaching

: English as a Foreign Language

: English as a Second Language

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Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 The problem:

Since first introduced in 1960s, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has become the dominant approach in teaching communicative competence for ESL learners So far, it has been recommended in many countries all over the world Many syllabi were designed in the light of the method, and CLT was claimed to be an effective approach to help students gain the communicative competence, especially speaking ability Many studies have been conducted in the field of using CLT to help students get the communicative ability Nunan (1988) summarized what Widdowson (1978) wrote about two aspects of language that “a basic principle underlying all communicative approaches is that learners must learn not only to make grammatically correct, propositional statements about the experimental world, but must also develop the ability to use language to get things done.” In every day life, the use of language to “get things done” is usually expressed through speaking

In such background of ESL all over the world, Viet Nam is also influenced by the development of the ESL world After the open door policy, Vietnamese people became very rich thanks to their business, and with their good finangial status, they quickly recognized that there was no better investment than in education Many schools so called “international schools” have been established to meet the needs of the parents who are concerned about their child’s development in the process of globalization These schools have double programs, Vietnamese and English program at the same time This kind of schools aims to provide an

educational background of international standard for students on the purpose of

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for English teaching and learning in these schools As a result, teaching English communicatively has become one of the most important missions of these schools The International School (TIS henceforth) is the first school of this type whose mission is to prepare knowledge for students to go overseas In pursuing this target, TIS program has been designed and described through the two aspects The first program equips the students with good academic knowledge for their further study The second supplies the students with enough English communicative ability to deal with the English environment in overseas schools It means that they have to gain enough qualification to communicate effectively in an academic surrounding at an overseas English speaking school

TIS seems to be a very good place where CLT can take place thanks to the very good conditions such as the ideal class size of not more than 25 students in each class or the development in using technology in teaching English at TIS Native teachers are also employed to increase the students’ chances of practicing English in real communication Seminars on how to teach speaking communicatively in

the classroom conducted at had been organized by TIS English Department There

are also many policies to help students enhance their communicative competence such as English Speaking Club on every Monday, Good Morning TIS, the English Speaking Time between breaks, field trips, and events in which English is used as

the main language

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is a fact that some students cannot even speak simple English sentences in everyday topics

Another fact is that after going abroad and back to school, some students talk about their stories of failing to use English in English speaking countries Some thank the school about their knowledge when they studied at TIS, but they talk about the big gap between knowledge of English they have learned and the practice of English in the real situation They have to spend some months to get used to the accent of the native speakers Some had to use their gestures to get others to understand them One more fact is that after a short time of studying oversea even some students have to return to Vietnam and give up their study at the foreign countries because they cannot communicate well in English and thus cannot follow the lessons at the schools To TIS administration part, the director blames that the weakness of students’ English speaking ability is from teachers’ teaching quality To teachers’ part, they blame the students and the school policy for this matter

1.2 Aims of the study

From the above facts, the thesis is conducted to investigate the practice of English teaching at TIS It seems that they have difficulties in their teaching methodology, especially in using CLT to teach oral skill for the students Therefore, this thesis aims to investigate the two following aspects:

1 How teachers of English at TIS apply CLT in teaching speaking for high

school students at TIS

2 What difficulties teachers of English face in applying CLT at TIS, which

concerns the ones from the teacher side, from the student side, and from the

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From the findings, suggestions will also be given out to help teachers at TIS to

make the best use of CLT for the students

1.3 Significance of the study

There are many studies in the field of CLT but not many of them focus on the Vietnamese junior and senior high school students, especially about the teaching of oral skills using CLT in an international school With the need to survive in nowadays’ competitions among private schools in Vietnam, this survey is proved to be very important in contributing to TIS in adjusting English teaching techniques and approaches of speaking ability among teachers Besides, the survey also draw out the recommendations for teachers and administrators at TIS in

applying CLT to meet the target of the school and the students’ parents in teaching

and learning English communicatively With this thesis, the researcher hopes to contribute some ideas in developing the speaking skill of students at TIS

1.4, Rational and overview of the thesis

This thesis departs from a study in the field of speaking conducted by Tran Vu Diem Thuy (2010) In her thesis, she proved that TIS students failed in improving their oral skill through many problems She also concluded that many of the teachers at TIS apply CLT in their teaching; however, some of them especially foreign teachers do not understand what CLT means With the problems of the students, she recommended that teachers should apply CLT in their teaching However, she recommended that CLT cannot be applied to all the classes and the teachers should not try to apply the whole CLT unquestioningly to their English

classes because of the differences of the students’ levels, goals, needs, classroom

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Many studies all over the world about using CLT in the classrooms at different levels were also carried out to prove the effectiveness of CLT in certain areas To conduct this thesis, the study from Tanko Nishino (Temple University Japan) (2008) entitled “Japanese Secondary School Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices Regarding Communicative Language Teaching: An Exploratory Survey” was used to be a reference His thesis was also concerned the beliefs and practices of Japanese secondary school teachers in applying CLT The different between this thesis and Nishino’s is that it is a case study of a Vietnamese school that has a more specific problem in using CLT in teaching English

The study was conducted with the teachers of all subjects in the English program at TIS, The investigation was carried out in any classes that teachers applied CLT to improve oral skill for students The main subject of the study was teachers; however, students were also involved to obtain their ideas on how English is

taught in the classroom

The thesis begins with a hypothesis that teachers of English at TIS failed to apply

CLT in improving students’ oral skill Once the hypothesis is confirmed, it also

tries to find out the causes of their failures 1.5 Background of the study

The research is conducted at TIS, therefore, it is very important to know about the background of the school includes the recruitment of the students, the curriculum, the setting of the school

1.5.1 The recruitment of students at TIS:

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examination with the score of 5 out of scale 10 for each subject The standard of entrance examination is based on the MOET English knowledge of the previous level The golden age of the school had been from 2000 to 2007 when the school could select good students who passed the exam, and weak students in English were rejected Nevertheless, after those years, the pressure of the decreased number of students applying to study in TIS made the entrance standard lower All the students who attended the entrance examination may get a chance to enter the school, even though they are not good in English Therefore, the difficulty for teachers in the class is that the class has mix-ability students The class is small but there are two groups of students with distant levels In the same class, the group of low-level students has to study the same syllabus as the one of high-level

1.5.2 A review of TIS curriculum

To carry out the mission of the school, English program is an important part in the school curriculum The English program is divided into two parts The first part is called the “MOET English Program” stipulated by the Ministry of Education (MOET) In this program, students study the textbook series Tieng Anh 6 to 12 designed and published by the Ministry of Education and Training The second part in the English program is the International Program The latter is designed by

TIS staff

e The MOET English program

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The other curriculum at TIS is called the International Program that includes five sub-programs designed by the school They include (1) Basic American English program, (2) US Math and Sciences program, (3) Advanced English program, (4) International Communication program, and (5) Enhancement Programs (See the figure) (See appendix C for the Description of TIS Curriculum)

© The distribution of English textbooks of The International Program: (See Appendix D for the description of English textbooks)

The following tables are about the distribution of English textbooks at the

International School as follows:

- Table 1.1 presents the distribution of English textbooks for junior high school students in academic year 2010 — 2011 This table is adapted from Tran (2010)

Grade Subject Textbook

3 6 IC, RC, EW World Link Intro

Š § 7 IC, RG EW World Link Book 1

2 Ễ 8 IC, RC, EW World Link Book 2

3 9 IC, RC, EW, and World Link Book 3

> TOEIC Bridge Very Easy Toeic

Table 1.1 Distribution of English textbooks for junior high school students in academic year 2010 — 2011 (Adapted from Tran, T 2010)

- Table 1.2 shows the distribution of English textbooks for senior high school students in academic year 2010 — 2011 This table is adapted from Tran

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Grade Class Subject Textbook

LC Building Skills for the Toefl iBT (Toefl Listening) Ic Building Skills for the Toefl iBT (Toefl Speaking) $ 10A RC Building Skills for the Toefl iBT 3| 10 (Toefl Reading) = EW Building Skills for the Toefl iBT 3 (Toefl Writing) 4 Le Boost! Listening 1C Boost! Speaking Ễ 10B RC Boost! Reading EW Boost! Writing

11 11A, 11B TOEFL Building Skills for the Toefl iBT

11C, 11D TOEIC TOEIC Bridge

12 12A TOEFL Building Skills for the Toefl iBT

12B, 12C TOEIC TOEIC Bridge

Table 1.2 Distribution of English textbooks for senior high school students in academic year 2010 ~ 2011 (Adapted from Tran, T 2010)

1.5.3 The physical setting of TIS e The Campuses

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e The Classrooms

The classrooms are well equipped with many kinds of teaching aids such as overhead projectors, LCD screens, marker boards, speakers, and cassette players In addition, a separated room, which is equipped with a smart board, is available for use If teacher can prepare a lesson with Active Board program using this smart board, students can move to that room to study There is also a lab using multimedia for pronunciation courses, English with software such as Lang master, Grammar Booster, Pronunciation, Toefl iBT However, teachers in the classrooms may be “restricted” by the types of chairs and tables They are not freestanding but fixed or too heavy to move From two to three or up to four students have to sit on

a long bench The teachers in the classrooms stand in front of the class and may

walk in between two rows of chairs When the teacher wants to call a student to

give speech in front of the class, it takes a long time for the student to go in the

front because of the small space between chairs The same problem occurs in grouping students Some have to turn around uncomfortably to face their friends in group-work activities In addition, it is equally difficult to manage students in the changing partner activities because of the spaces Therefore, there is not much chance for teachers to organize the activities in which they allow students to move around the classroom

e The class size:

There are not more than 25 students in each class That is the policy of the school In some classes, there are not more than 15 Table 1.3 contains the fấumbers of students in each classroom for the school year 2010 — 2011 counted in the second

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SN GRADE | CLASS | NUMBER OF CODE STUDENTS 1 6 6A 21 2 TA 18 3 8 8A 14 4 8B 13 5 9 9A 14 6 9B 19 1 10 10A 22 8 10B 17 9 11 HA 12 10 11B 14 11 11C 18 12 11D 14 13 12 12A 17 14 12B 21 15 12C 17

Table 1.3: The numbers of students in each class 1.6 Limitation and Delimitations

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_ Secondly, because of the time constraint and lack of permission from most of the teachers in the English Department, observation was not conducted systematically The researcher only conducted some recordings allowed by some teachers Therefore, the analysis about classroom practice of the teachers at TIS could not tely on classroom observation but largely on teachers’ answer in questionnaire In spite of the above restriction, the application of CLT in Vietnam is very limited

because of the constraint of the high school graduation examinations, which focus

on the assessment of English ability through linguistic knowledge only Therefore, this thesis may contribute some suggestions for other schools that have the same model as TIS in improving speaking ability of students using CLT

1.7 Organization of the thesis

Chapter One introduces the statement of the problem, aim of the study, significance of the study, rational and overview of the study, background to the study, limitation and delimitation of the study, and the organization of the thesis Chapter Two deals with the theoretical framework for the study including the nature of teaching speaking, a review of the traditional language teaching methodologies, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), theory of teachers’ belief, techniques and approaches of teaching speaking through CLT, the important aspects in teaching CLT for teenager, and some of the scholars’ ideas about the difficulties teachers face when applying CLT Finally, it is the theoretical framework of the study

Chapter Three describes how the study was carried out, which includes the research question and sub questions with the hypothesis of the study, the research

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design including the research site as well as the instruments consisting of the questionnaires for teachers and students, and the class observation

Chapter Four analyzes the data and presenting the results, including the analysis of

the questionnaires for students and for teachers, comparison between students and

teachers’ responses, and class observation

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Chapter 2 Literature Review

In this chapter, the literature on CLT and other related aspects in teaching speaking for junior and senior students are reviewed to shape up the theoretical framework for the study It consists of (2.1) the nature of speaking, (2.2) an overview of traditional teaching methodology, (2.3) Communicative Language Teaching, (2.4) the influence of teachers’ beliefs on their practice, (2.5) teaching speaking through CLT, (2.6) important aspects in teaching speaking for young learners, (2.7) difficulties in applying CLT in improving speaking ability, and finally (2.8) the theoretical framework of the study

2.1 The nature of teaching speaking 2.1.1 What is oral communication

Donn Byrne (1976, 1986) stated that oral fluency was the main goal in teaching the productive skill Oral fluency was the highest level of oral communication manifested through “the ability to express oneself intelligibly, reasonably accurately and without too much hesitation.” (Byrne - 1976, 1986)

He defined that oral communication was “a two-way process between speaker and listener (or listeners)” and involved “the productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill of understanding (or listening with understanding).” (p.8) According to him, in the process of oral communication, the speaker and the listener both had to involve in the conversation in a two-way interaction and they had their own functions He explained that the speaker had to encode the message he wished to convey in appropriate language, while the listener (no less actively) had to decode (or interpret) the message.”

Another point Byrne pointed out was that in reality the speaker and the listener would not necessarily interpret all the code sending or receiving because of the

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outsider factors such as redundant information Therefore, they often relied on “prosodic features” such as stress or intonation and body language to construct the meaning (Donn Byrne - 1976, 1986)

2.1.2 The nature of speaking

To improve students’ speaking ability effectively, it is important for teachers to understand the nature of speaking Luoma (2004) cited some of the following features of spoken discourse:

- Composed of idea units (conjoined short phrases and clauses)

- May be planned (e.g., a lecture) or unplanned (e.g., a conversation) - Employs more vague or generic words than written language

- Employs fixed phrases, fillers, and hesitation markers - Contains slips and errors reflecting online processing

- Involves reciprocity (i.e., interactions are jointly constructed)

- Shows variation (e.g., between formal and casual speech), reflecting speaker

roles, speaking purpose, and the context

These features were the background for teacher to plan activities for classroom

practice Through these features, the distinction between the three “interactional

functions of speaking” was presented by Brown and Yule (1983) Later, in their framework (after Jones, 1996, and Burns, 1998), they categorized three kinds of talk in speaking: talk as interaction, talk as transaction, and talk as performance According to Richards (2008), each kind of talk was “quite distinct in terms of form and function and requires different teaching approaches.” Therefore, he

suggested the very first step in planning activities for students was to determine

what kinds of speaking skill mentioned above and the second step was to decide appropriate approaches to provide learners opportunity to practice each kind of

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Means, T L (2007) classified the forms of communication into five categories: Speaking, Writing, Reading, Listening, and Nonverbal Communication He defined that a person had two means by which to send messages and two means by which to receive messages Speaking and writing was to send messages, and reading and listening was to receive messages Speaking was “the way you send your message using oral skills.” (Means, 2007) In the classrooms, language syllabuses were usually divided into certain lessons of skills However, in practice, integrated skills were applied Bailey and Savage (1994) stated that speaking required many subsystems; therefore, many people thought that speaking was a central skill

Rivers, W M and Temperley, M S (1987) stated that when selecting learning activities, teacher must always remember that the goal was for the students to be able to interact freely with others To do this effectively, he pointed out, "students must understand how the language works and be able to make interrelated changes for which the system of the language provides mechanism.” They also proposed a schema to help teacher to see the essential processes involved in learning to communicate (see Figure 2.1)

In communication, through productive skills or receptive skills, people can send and receive messages However, speaking is the most important skill for students to carry out their activities and tasks in the classroom because they have to spend most of the time with teachers and other students

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SKILL- USING COGNITION (knowledge) PRODUCTIO! (or pseudo- communication) INTERACTION (or real communication) PERCEPTION (of units, categories, and functions) ABSTRACTION

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2.2 An overview of traditional language teaching methodologies

The change in the field of language teaching, as in other fields, is crucial Based on the context of teaching and learning English, trends of innovation had come into existence The latter methodology tried to persuade to be better than the preceding one in certain aspects However, a certain method never completely negated others Otherwise, it inherited and promoted the appropriate elements of the old ones and innovate new techniques and models for the new one The history of language teaching practice has been lasted for a very long time and contributed to the development of current trend in language education

Followings are the stream of language methodology from classical to present day timeline based on Harmer (2007) and they were developed in the light of various language needs among learners

From the nineteen century, grammar translation method dominated the classrooms with the goals of mastering rules of grammar and vocabulary and later of understand the texts The procedure was that students were given explanations about grammar points, and sentences to exemplify these points Then students had to translate from target language to students’ first language In this procedure, language was treated in sentence level and there was little consideration of the spoken language

Reacting to the restriction of the Grammar Translation Method, The Direct Method arrived in favor of the teacher and students speaking together Objects and pictures were used to relate to grammatical forms and establish meaning Target language was used in the classroom Native teachers were prioritized, and the use of mother tongue language (L1) in classrooms was banned

TRUONG oat HOC MOTH

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In the 1920s and 1930s, with the presence of behaviorism, Direct Method was shifted into the Audio Lingual Method With the stimulus-response-reinforcement

model, Audio Lingual Method aimed to create good habits in language learners

through “constant repetition of correct utterances encouraged and supported by positive reinforcement.”

From the middle of 1960s onwards, the PPP procedure was introduced This procedure grew out of structural situational teaching The main technique was that teacher introduces a situation in which the language to be taught was contextualized The students then practiced the language using different kinds of drills in the meaningful situations

Other four methods, developed in the 1970s and 1980s, were not used in the ‘mainstream’ teaching However, every method had its own truth about successful language learning Communicative Language Learning “reminds us that teachers are in classrooms to facilitate learning and to help students with what they want to say.” Suggestopedia existed “to lower the affective filter” of students In Total

Physical Response, it was very important for getting students to move around in

the lessons In The Silent way, students took responsibility for their own learning; teacher only sat silently in the classroom and gave feedback later

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2.3 Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

2.3.1 The definition of CLT

In the needs for communication among learners, CLT appeared in 1960 with much fame and reputation about teaching communicative competence, especially speaking abilities According to Littlewood (1981), an original definition of CLT as “an approach to teaching based on the view that learning a language means learning how to communicate effectively in the world outside the classroom.” Another general definition was that “CLT can be understood as a set of principles about the goals of language teaching, how learners learn a language, the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the roles of teachers and learners in the classroom” and that CLT set its goals the teaching of communicative competence Littlewood considered that in reality, every learner who studied English seeks to get this goal, communicative ability He also mentioned two main aspects a learner of a foreign language wanted to achieve in learning a language The first aspect was that he could recognize the natural code of the language through its vocabulary, structure, system of grammar, etc The second aspect was that he could use this code to express himself in a wide variety of situations manifesting through the four basic skills that consists of listening, speaking, reading, and writing So the term “communicative competence” could

be used interchangeably with the term “communicative ability” and it concerned

two approaches to language description which could be called “the semantic” and

“the pragmatic” (Widdowson, 1990)

2.3.2 Characteristics of CLT

Brown, H D (2000) summarized the four interconnected characteristics of CLT from the earlier seminal works in CLT teacher education textbooks as follows:

1 Classroom goals are focused on all of the components of communicative competence and not restricted to grammatical or linguistic competence

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2 Language techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningful purposes Organizational language forms are not the central focus but rather aspects of language that enable the

learner accomplish those purposes

3 Fluency and accuracy are seen as complementary principles underlying communicative techniques At times fluency may have to take on more importance than accuracy in order to keep learners meaningfully engaged in language use

4 In the communicative classroom, students ultimately have to use the language productively and receptively, in unrehearsed contexts

With the above nature of CLT, teachers can plan the lessons with communicative elements to help students focus on the use of language in the real situation As for speaking ability, teachers can help students interact with their peers in the class by choosing different communication-based activities appropriate for their age and ability However, teachers need to know the principles of CLT to conduct their teaching in the classroom effectively

2.3.3 Principles of CLT

According to Richards (2006), the principles that teachers needed to know to apply CLT successfully were as follows:

- Make real communication the focus of language teaching

- Provide opportunities for learners to experiment and try out what they know

- Be tolerant of learners’ error as they indicate that the learners is building up his or her communicative competence

- Provide opportunities for learners to develop both accuracy and fluency - Link the different skills such as speaking, reading and listening, together, since they usually occur together in the real world

- Let students induce or discover grammar rules

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Some of the main factors in CLT principles should be focused in details They are treatment of error, fluency and accuracy, and teaching grammar as “focus on form.”

2.3.4 Communicative competence

As Littlewood (1981) had defined, communicative competence was the goal of CLT Brown, H D (2002) (p13) defined that despite any methods teachers use, the twelve principles of current approach to language teaching should be paid attention to, and one of the twelve principles was communicative competence He

wrote

Given that communicative competence is a goal of a language classroom,

instruction needs to point toward all of its components: organizational, pragmatic,

strategic, and psychomotoric Communicative goals are best achieved by giving

due attention to language use and not just usages, to fluency and not just accuracy,

to authentic language and contexts, and’ to students’ eventual need to apply

classroom learning to heretofore unrehearsed contexts in the real world

The competence in English usage and fluency were said to be the very important goal of language learning and teaching

e Framework of Communicative competence

The framework of communicative competence by Hymes (1972) was presented through four questions In Hymes’s view, a person who acquires communicative competence acquires both knowledge and ability for language use (Hymes 1972) The relationship between the linguistic and other communicative systems was reviewed by him through the four questions as a framework for achieving communicative competence:

- Whether (and to what degree) something is formally possible

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“When systemic possibility is a matter of language, the corresponding term is of course grammatically.” In learning a language, a learner needs to recognize and acquire the possibility of a language behavior and “something possible within a formal system is grammatical, cultural, or, on occasion, communicative”

- Whether (and to what degree) something is feasible

In practicing communicative competence, psycholinguistic factors are concerned, and they are “memories limitation, perceptual device, effects of properties such as nesting, embedding, branching, and the like.” The above factors affect the performance and acceptability, which is best described as “feasible.”

- Whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate:

26,

In communicative competence, ‘appropriateness’ “seems to suggest readily the required sense of relation to contextual features.” This is the relation between sentences and situation

- Whether (and to what degree) something is done

The study of communicative competence also based on the occurrences of a cultural behavior because “something may be possible, feasible, and appropriate and not occur.” One can get communicative competence if the cultural behavior occurs

Hymes (1972)

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e¢ Components of Communicative Competence

Based on the above framework, Savignon (2001) interprets communicative competence consisting of four components in her classroom model (1983) (See figure 2.2)

Figure 2.2: Components of Communicative Competence

The four components are as follows: _

- Grammatical competence is the ability to use a rule in the interpretation, expression, or negotiation of meaning

- Discourse competence: the ability to identify and understand the interconnectedness of a series of utterances, written words, and/or phrases to form a text, a meaningful whole by applying bottom-up or top-down processing; the ability to identify and understand text coherence which is ‘the relation of all sentences or utterances in a text to a single global

proposition by using cohesive devices

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- Socio-cultural competence: the ability to understand the social context in which language is used via two main concepts of socio-cultural rules of appropriateness and cultural awareness

- Strategic competence: the ability to use the coping strategies in unfamiliar contexts, with constraints due to imperfect knowledge of rules or limiting factors in their application such as fatigue or distraction

2.3.5 Teachers’ roles versus learners’ roles

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Another viewpoint about teachers’ roles can be found from Gebhard, Jerry G (1996) He wrote, “Language itself cannot ensure the success of the teachers They also need to act in some other roles relating to the creation of Meaningful Interaction in the classroom.” As a needs assessor, he used dialogue journals to learn about the students With this form, he could learn about students’ language learning history, goals, interest, study habits, learning strategies, and language learning styles Besides, to develop communicative competence of the students in the classroom, he also acted as a manager to “foster interaction” in the classroom On the contrary, Littlewood (1981) considered a teacher in CLT has no direct role in the activity He/she could shift his/her role from a guidance or supporter to a facilitator or a co-communicator

The review of the above ideas about teachers’ roles in the classroom has given a broad overview of the flexibility of a teacher in the classroom They give teachers many challenges in the language teaching practice Teachers have to choose the following roles based on the stages of teaching For example, at the pre-stage, teacher can be a presenter, a facilitator, or a resource person At the while-stage, teacher can act as guidance, a supporter, or a co-communicator At the post-stage, teacher can be a tutor or a resource person The roles of an architect, an entertainer and a manager can be played through the process of learning and teaching Those roles can be changed flexibly in the time of practice The complexity of teachers’ roles make CLT difficult for them in practice

2.3.6

2.3.6.1 The treatment of oral errors in teaching oral skill

Mistakes and errors are inevitable in the process of learning Hendrickson (1978) considered “errors are a natural outcome of the development of communication skills and a necessary part of the learning process.” (see also Larsen-Freeman,

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1981) Richards (1984) regarded the making of errors as a device the learner uses to learn The role of the teacher in this learning process is to know when to correct the mistakes and when not to correct them, especially in oral practice Oral communication is affected by many outsider and insider factors; and the teacher needs to have good knowledge in order not to interfere too much in student’s natural process of learning Therefore, teacher needs a framework to treat students’ oral errors effectively The treatment of error is a process, not an event happening randomly in the classroom The model of the decision-making process a language teacher goes through when an oral error occurs was proposed by Long (1977) (See figure 2.3)

In addition, Chaudron (1987) adopted another framework including the following questions that were originally posed by Hendrickson (1978):

- Should learner errors be corrected?

- Ifso, when should learner errors be corrected?

- Which learner errors should be corrected?

- How should learner errors be corrected?

- Who would correct learner errors?

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2.3.6.2 Fluency and accuracy

“One of the goals of CLT is to develop fluency in language use.” (Richards, J C., 2006) In nowadays’ learning circumstance, a language learner always seeks for fluency in speaking a language The term “fluency” is discussed by Fillmore

(1979) cited in Brumfit (1984) as “the ability to fill time with talk”, “the ability to

talk in coherent, reasoned and semantically dense sentences”, “the ability to have appropriate things to say in a wide range of contexts” It is also “the ability to be creative and imaginative in language use.” A fluency activity may include the above four factors of fluency Brumfit (1984) concluded that fluency played an important role in CLT because “by putting students into positions where the demands of the situation force them to use language as fluency as possible (in this sense of fluency), the process of creative construction should be assisted.”

In the contrary with the above notion of fluency, accuracy refers to the usage of the language In CLT, the role of accuracy is not as much as fluency Brumfit

(1984) discussed the less important role of accuracy as follows:

- Fluent language may not also be accurate language -

- The overuse of accuracy will impede successful language development

- Mother tongue use is an accuracy activity, and thus should be limited

- The target language use creates fluency in language work, and thus should be encouraged

- EFL students do not need to pay much attention to the accuracy of their language use because they are not native speakers of English

2.3.6.3 Focus on form and focus on meaning

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encourage learners to focus on (a) linguistic form to be practiced, or (b) meaning to be conveyed.” He stated out, “in every day language use, we normally focus our attention primarily on the meaning of what we say or hear rather than on its linguistic form.” According to him, “in speaking, we make conscious decision about the message we want to convey, but the lower-level choices of structure and vocabulary occur more or less automatically.” (Littlewood, 1981)

The learning of form is somewhat natural because while speaking, there is a need to search for words and structures to express themselves and learner may be aware

of and develop these forms through practice

The choice of teachers about the focus on form and focus on meaning depends on

the goals of the activities In teaching a foreign language, Long and Robinson (1998) asserted that with “small groups of low proficiency learners working on a

problem-solving task,” they may make repeatedly “pervasive and systematic

errors.” The teacher usually “justified in briefly interrupting the work group in order to draw attention to the problem, using pedagogical devices appropriate for students of the age, literacy level, and metalinguistic sophisticated concerned.” He called this process “explicit negative feedback.” (Long and Robinson — 1998)

2.3.7 Communicative activities

According to Littlewood (1981), there was “a movement away from traditional lesson formats where the focus was on mastery of different items of grammar and practice through controlled activities such as memorization of dialogs and drills, towards the use of pair work activities, role plays, group work activities and project work” in CLT Therefore, it is very important for teachers to use communicative activities to facilitate the practice of using the language “in order to communicate specific meanings for specific purposes” (Littlewood, 1981) With this goal, Littlewood asserted the four purposes of communicative activities in

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CLT They include (1) providing ‘whole task practice’, (2) improving motivation, (3) allowing natural learning, and (4) creating a context that supports learning His descriptions of the four purposes are as follows

Firstly, in CLT, the use of communicative activities is very important because “language learning is learning to communicate” (Richard, J C and Rogers, T S., 1986) He also asserted that students “expect to interact with other people, either in the flesh, through pair and group work, or in their writing.” Through

communicative activities, students can practice to communicate with their friends

Learning English turns to imitating real situations to give students chances to practice using English in a certain circumstances They have opportunity to experience the feeling of foreigners who are using their native language in their own life With this idea, the communicative activities need to be well designed to create a real situation for students to integrate in the practice

Secondly, CLT can improve motivation With the practice of the communicative activities in the classroom, there is a relation between the classroom learning and

the objective of communicating the language outside the classroom Therefore, the

language learning makes sense on them and this keeps them motivate in learning the language

Thirdly, communicative activity is an important part of the total learning process because many aspects of the language learning which are beyond teacher’s pedagogical control can take place through natural processes only when the student is involved in using the language for communication

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them They can help to humanize the classroom and “create an environment that support the individual in his effort to learn.”

The purposes of communicative activities are also presented through a diagram about classrooms activities suggested by Jiang (2007) as follows: Classroom Activities Teacher Activities ‘Student Activities giving directions questioning mechanical giving feedback meaningful correcting communicative providing input whole class giving examples demonstration group explanation dialogue with S pair classroom management individual > > fil by Nan Jiang Be s 8

Figure 2.4: Classroom Activities (From Jiang 2007)

The above diagram (Figure 2.4) distinguishes the student and teacher activities in

the classroom Besides, it also draws out a full view about students activities in the

classroom based on the three sides of the dice symbolizing the process of CLT in the classroom Speaking is one aspect of the classroom activities that students involve, even in speaking, listening, reading, or writing classes

e Methodological framework of CLT: pre-communicative and

communicative activities: (Littlewood, 1981)

In teaching practice, teacher chooses to use a method and he needs a framework for that method in practice With the teacher using CLT, the following framework taken form Lilttlewood (1981) can be used in setting up their teaching process