skkn MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPS

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐỒNG NAI TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN LƯƠNG THẾ VINH Mã số: - - SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPS  Người thực hiện: PHAN THỊ NHƯ ANH  Lĩnh vực nghiên cứu: Phương pháp dạy học môn tiếng Anh Sản phẩm đính kèm:  Mô hình  Phần mềm  Phim ảnh  Hiện vật khác Năm học 2016- 2017 SƠ LƯỢC LÝ LỊCH KHOA HỌC - I THÔNG TIN CHUNG VỀ CÁ NHÂN Họ tên: PHAN THỊ NHƯ ANH Ngày tháng năm sinh: 07- 09 - 1982 Giới tính : Nữ Địa chỉ: 100/1c Hà Huy Giáp, P Quyết Thắng, TP Biên Hòa, T Đồng Nai Điện thoại: 0918539309 E-mail: sn10_07@yahoo.com Chức vụ: Giáo viên giảng dạy môn tiếng Anh Đơn vị công tác: Trường THPT chuyên Lương Thế Vinh II TRÌNH ĐỘ ĐÀO TẠO - Học vị (hoặc trình độ chuyên môn, nghiệp vụ) cao nhất: Thạc sĩ - Năm nhận bằng: 2011 - Chuyên ngành đào tạo: Ngôn Ngữ Ứng Dụng III KINH NGHIỆM KHOA HỌC - Số năm có kinh nghiệm lĩnh vực chuyên môn: năm - Các sáng kiến kinh nghiệm có năm gần đây: Không có CONTENTS I INTRODUCTION II RESEARCH QUESTION III IMPLEMENTATION IV LITERATURE REVIEW, FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATION V CONCLUSION I INTRODUCTION As a teacher of Luong The Vinh High School for the Gifted and having taught different classes for the past few years, I can’t help but noticing that the majority of the students of the school just focus on their major subjects This means only students of English classes really have strong motivation to study English while those in other classes such as Math, Physics, Biology or Literature, etc…lack motivation as well as interest in learning the subject There are many reasons accounting for this, but one of them can be narrowed down to the fact that they don’t find the lessons interesting enough From my own observation, the students get fed up with the amount of excessive grammar in each unit Furthermore, although there have been revisions and updating, the lessons in their course books, somehow, lack authenticity, or in other words, fail to stimulate them Having identified the problem, I have tried showing some English clips in my classes The result is quite promising- the students did show more enthusiasm and excitement in engaging in the lessons II RESEARCH QUESTION This mini paper aims to clarify the following identified issue among students of Luong The Vinh High School for The Gifted: - The possibility of using English clips in the classroom as an effective way to motivate students in English class III IMPLEMENTATION Step Define the theme/main topic of each lesson in the course book For example: Unit in English 10 is “Undersea World” Therefore, teachers may search for clips with key words such as: “marine life”, “undersea creatures”, “interesting sea creatures”, etc… Step Search for appropriate clips By “appropriate” I mean the teacher should search for a clip that has a similar content with the topic of the lesson In addition, the language used in the clip should not be too hard for the students’ input Another important thing to be taken into consideration when searching for a clip to show in class is that the teacher is expected to make sure there is no offensive “language” or anything inappropriate for Vietnamese high school students Step Show clips Once the teacher has found the appropriate clip to show in front of the class, he or she should decide the right time to this- whether before the lesson as a warm-up activity, in the middle of the lesson as a listening task, or as a sum-up activity at the end of each unit This depends as whether the teacher wants to use the clip as a catchy introduction to a new lesson, as a part clarifying an important point in a lesson, or as a wrap-up for a lesson In addition, since it’s a known fact that the allocated time for each unit in the textbook is a pressure for both teachers and students, it should be up to the teacher in charge to decide when and how to include video clips in her/his teaching Here is an example of one of the lessons I teach using clips as visual aids: ENGLISH 10 UNIT 4: SPECIAL EDUCATION A Tap Dancer Who Proves Anything Is Possible.mp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp_uj7mom1Q Before showing the clip to the class, the teacher writes a few questions on the board: What is special about this dancer? How old was he when he started tap dancing? How old was he when he figured a problem with a part of his body? What was actually the problem? How many surgeries did he have totally? What we learn from this dancer? After showing the clip for the first time, the teacher write some key new words on the board to help the students understand the clip better New words: - tumor (n) - amputate (v) - chemo (n) = chemotherapy After the students have understood the clip and are able to answer all the given questions, the teacher can lead in the topic of the unit which is teaching children with special needs: SPECIAL EDUCATION IV LITERATURE REVIEW, FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATION The recent years have witnessed a shift in English teaching approaches To be more specific, it has been clearly stated by the Ministry of Education that English teachers should now pay more attention to communicative skills when teaching English as a compulsory subject in schools For the past few years speaking and listening skills have been put into official assessment scale for 10 th graders nationwide At Luong The Vinh High School, 10 graders and 11 graders have oral final exams together with paper-based exams which include listening tasks Therefore, I believe it is high time English teachers put more emphasis on bringing more listening and speaking tasks into the classroom One of the most possible and effective ways, in my own opinion, is to introduce English clips to our students First, I’d like to point out the advantages of using English clips as teaching material in the classroom There is one thing that we can be sure, and that is these clips are “those which have been produced for purposes other than to teach language" (Nunan 1988, p 99) As for me, I usually download short clips from some talk shows hosted by famous people such as Ellen DeGeneres, or sometimes short inspirational clips for some advertising campaigns The point is these clips, since not made for the purpose of teaching, are “authentic”, and are therefore, “natural” in terms of real life and meaningful communication (Rogers, 1988) When it comes to the benefits of using authentic materials in the classroom, according to Philip, Shettlesworth, and Clarke (as cited in Richards, 2001), there are a few that are worth considering: “they [authentic materials] have a positive effect on learner motivation, provide authentic cultural information and exposure to real language, relate more closely to learners ' needs, and support a more creative approach to teaching” In short, what I’ve been trying to prove is that the English clips I use in my classroom, as authentic materials, are really helpful in my teaching I have been showing several clips for my students in different classes and their feedbacks are, to a certain extent, positive The students all agree that with the audio and visual effects, these clips can instantly grab their attention In addition, to make sure that students are engaged in the activity, I try to choose clips of interviews with celebrities or about popular issues everyone knows of (see attached clips for reference) One good point about this new material is that although the students don’t always understand all the words and phrases, they still can have a general idea of what the whole clip is about And this is of no doubt very close to the well-known communicative approach As a result, all of the students show great enthusiasm and engagement Even for those who admit that they can’t understand the whole content of a clip express their eagerness for more clips Besides that, I’d like to emphasize that “positive attitudes towards the self, the native language group, and the target language group enhanced proficiency” (Brown, 2000) When students sit in the classroom, ready for a new lesson or task with positive attitudes, they are likely to experience success, or at least, to produce better performance of their language ability So as to illustrate the points I made above, I’d like to enclose here the result of a survey I conducted among 100 random students I was teaching last year The questionnaire consisted of different questions asking for their opinions about the importance of Speaking and Listening skills as well as about the English clips I showed to them Statement Strongly Disagree Neither Disagree (2) Agree nor (4) Agree Disagree (5) (1) Agree Strongly (3) Speaking and 82 10 71 20 18 82 15 85 10 89 11 45 40 Listening are not as important as Grammar Speaking Listening and skills are difficult to improve I wish that I could speak fluent and accurate English I wish that the teacher could give more speaking and listening tasks in class English speaking 70 14 clips shown in class are too difficult for me to understand I enjoy watching English speaking clips clips English are speaking 22 helpful 78 in improving my listening and speaking skills Other than improving 15 speaking and listening skills, English clips give a lot of useful and interesting information Drawbacks: Nevertheless, it is undeniable that teachers are likely to experience difficulties of using English clips as teaching materials In terms of outside factors, first and foremost, not all classrooms are equipped with suitable devices for showing clips As the case of my school, we have to register the media room in advance whenever we need to use the projector This could be a problem if other teachers also need the media room for their classes on the same date as we choose Also, the fact that students have to move around from their own class to the media room and then back to their classroom for the next subject may take some time off their time for the lesson Secondly, as I earlier mentioned, it may be time-consuming for the teacher to choose a suitable clip to show to the students Searching for a clip that suits the content of a unit in the course book, or one with enough entertaining factors but without exceeding the limit of Asian culture’s norm, or one with interesting message but still within students’ English ability…takes a lot of time Given that a teacher has already a great deal of work to and a number of different classes to teach, this may be an unreasonable request to make That is not to say even when the teacher is willing to go all the way to find the best clips for his or her students, he or she has another obstacle to deal with: the restricted time for each unit It’s a known fact that standardized English tests still put a lot of emphasis on grammar and structures, meaning that the teacher has to make sure the students master all grammar points with enough exercises to practice This leaves little time for activities to improve speaking and listening skills In terms of subjective difficulties, although in the same class, students have various levels of English competence This is definitely something to take into consideration when choosing a clip and showing it in class Sometimes, even with the “right” clip, the teacher should be thoughtful and flexible enough when it comes to using it as a teaching aid On saying this, I mean the teacher may need to pause a clip several times to help with some vocabulary, or to make questions to make sure that all students understand what is going on Definitely, a good teacher should never leave any student feeling lost in this additional activity V CONCLUSION Scarcella (1990) said that “cognitive and interactional patterns” which means “learning style” can affect the ways students “perceive, remember, and think” Scarcella also said that if teachers don’t take into consideration their students’ learning styles to choose compatible ways in their teaching, their students may have to “suffer the consequences” Being well aware of this, teachers all over the world have been trying to put more effort in choosing suitable approaches and teaching styles to help their students achieve the best results out of school Each and every approach and technique has their own effects and drawbacks; therefore, it’s considered a teacher’s responsibility to continue offering more choices for his or her students Using English short clips in classroom as a way to motivate students may not always work for all students or for all classes, however; it’s worth a try 10 REFERENCE Brown, H D 2000 Principles of language learning and teaching 4th ed White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman Nunan D (1988) The learner-centered curriculum Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Richard, J.C (2001) Curriculum development in language teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Scarcella, R (1990) Teaching language minority students in the multicultural classroom: Prentice Hall Regents https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp_uj7mom1Q 11 SỞ GD&ĐT ĐỒNG NAI CỘNG HOÀ XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM Đơn vị: Trường THPT Chuyên Độc lập - Tự - Hạnh phúc Lương Thế Vinh –––––––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––– Biên Hòa, ngày 18 tháng 05 năm 2017 PHIẾU ĐÁNH GIÁ, CHẤM ĐIỂM, XẾP LOẠI SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM Năm học: 2016 -2017 ––––––––––––––––– Tên sáng kiến kinh nghiệm: MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPS Họ tên tác giả: Phan Thị Như Anh Chức vụ: Đơn vị: Trường THPT Chuyên Lương Thế Vinh Họ tên giám khảo 1: Chức vụ: Đơn vị: Số điện thoại giám khảo: * Nhận xét, đánh giá, cho điểm xếp loại sáng kiến kinh nghiệm: Tính Điểm: …………./6,0 Hiệu Điểm: …………./8,0 Khả áp dụng Điểm: …………./6,0 Nhận xét khác (nếu có): Tổng số điểm /20 Xếp loại: GIÁM KHẢO 12 SỞ GD&ĐT ĐỒNG NAI CỘNG HOÀ XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM Đơn vị: Trường THPT Chuyên Độc lập - Tự - Hạnh phúc Lương Thế Vinh –––––––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––– Biên Hòa, ngày 18 tháng 05 năm 2017 PHIẾU ĐÁNH GIÁ, CHẤM ĐIỂM, XẾP LOẠI SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM Năm học: 2016 -2017 ––––––––––––––––– Tên sáng kiến kinh nghiệm: MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPS Họ tên tác giả: Phan Thị Như Anh Chức vụ: Đơn vị: Trường THPT Chuyên Lương Thế Vinh Họ tên giám khảo 2: Chức vụ: Đơn vị: Số điện thoại giám khảo: * Nhận xét, đánh giá, cho điểm xếp loại sáng kiến kinh nghiệm: Tính Điểm: …………./6,0 Hiệu Điểm: …………./8,0 Khả áp dụng Điểm: …………./6,0 Nhận xét khác (nếu có): Tổng số điểm: ./20 Xếp loại: GIÁM KHẢO 13 SỞ GD&ĐT ĐỒNG NAI Đơn vị: Trường THPT Chuyên Lương Thế Vinh ––––––––––– CỘNG HOÀ XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM Độc lập - Tự - Hạnh phúc –––––––––––––––––––––––– Biên Hòa, ngày 18 tháng 05 năm 2017 PHIẾU NHẬN XÉT, ĐÁNH GIÁ SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM Năm học: 2016 -2017 ––––––––––––––––– Tên sáng kiến kinh nghiệm: MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPS Họ tên tác giả: Phan Thị Như Anh Chức vụ: Đơn vị: Trường THPT Chuyên Lương Thế Vinh Lĩnh vực: (Đánh dấu X vào ô tương ứng, ghi rõ tên môn lĩnh vực khác) - Quản lý giáo dục  - Phương pháp dạy học môn:  - Phương pháp giáo dục  - Lĩnh vực khác:  Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm triển khai áp dụng: Tại đơn vị  Trong Ngành  Tính (Đánh dấu X vào ô đây) - Đề giải pháp thay hoàn toàn mới, bảo đảm tính khoa học, đắn  - Đề giải pháp thay phần giải pháp có, bảo đảm tính khoa học, đắn  - Giải pháp gần áp dụng đơn vị khác chưa áp dụng đơn vị mình, tác giả tổ chức thực có hiệu cho đơn vị  Hiệu (Đánh dấu X vào ô đây) - Giải pháp thay hoàn toàn mới, thực toàn ngành có hiệu cao  - Giải pháp thay phần giải pháp có, thực toàn ngành có hiệu cao  - Giải pháp thay hoàn toàn mới, thực đơn vị có hiệu cao  - Giải pháp thay phần giải pháp có, thực đơn vị có hiệu  - Giải pháp gần áp dụng đơn vị khác chưa áp dụng đơn vị mình, tác giả tổ chức thực có hiệu cho đơn vị  Khả áp dụng (Đánh dấu X vào ô dòng đây) - Cung cấp luận khoa học cho việc hoạch định đường lối, sách: Trong Tổ/Phòng/Ban  Trong quan, đơn vị, sở GD&ĐT  Trong ngành  - Đưa giải pháp khuyến nghị có khả ứng dụng thực tiễn, dễ thực dễ vào sống: Trong Tổ/Phòng/Ban  Trong quan, đơn vị, sở GD&ĐT Trong ngành  - Đã áp dụng thực tế đạt hiệu có khả áp dụng đạt hiệu phạm vi rộng: Trong Tổ/Phòng/Ban  Trong quan, đơn vị, sở GD&ĐT  Trong ngành  Xếp loại chung: Xuất sắc  Khá  Đạt  Không xếp loại  Cá nhân viết sáng kiến kinh nghiệm cam kết không chép tài liệu người khác chép lại nội dung sáng kiến kinh nghiệm cũ Tổ trưởng Thủ trưởng đơn vị xác nhận sáng kiến kinh nghiệm tổ chức thực đơn vị, Hội đồng khoa học, sáng kiến đơn vị xem xét, đánh giá, cho điểm, xếp loại theo quy định NGƯỜI THỰC HIỆN SKKN XÁC NHẬN CỦA TỔ CHUYÊN MÔN THỦ TRƯỞNG ĐƠN VỊ 14 ... possibility of using English clips in the classroom as an effective way to motivate students in English class III IMPLEMENTATION Step Define the theme/main topic of each lesson in the course book... into the classroom One of the most possible and effective ways, in my own opinion, is to introduce English clips to our students First, I’d like to point out the advantages of using English clips. .. clips English are speaking 22 helpful 78 in improving my listening and speaking skills Other than improving 15 speaking and listening skills, English clips give a lot of useful and interesting information