Một số biện pháp nhằm cải thiện kỹ năng viết lại câu cho học sinh lớp 10

SCHOOL EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE SOME MEASURES TO IMPROVE HOW TO TRANSFORM SENTENCES ACCURATELY FOR THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS (MỘT SỐ BIỆN PHÁP NHẰM CẢI THIỆN KỸ NĂNG VIẾT LẠI CÂU CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10) Teacher: PHAN THI QUYNH MAI Group: FOREIGN LANGUAGE Thanh Hoa, June 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE PART I: INTRODUCTION Reasons for choosing the topic …………………………………….1 Aims of the study ………………………………………………….1 Scope of the study ………………………………………………….2 Methods of the study ……………………………………………….2 PART II: CONTENTS 1.Theoretical background…………………………………………… 1.1 Communicative language teaching ……………………………….3 1.2 The importance of sentence transformation in communication in particular and in English in general ……………………………… 1.3 Types of sentence transformation in English……………….4 1.3.1 According to their meanings…………………………… 1.3.1.1.Affirmative to negative………………………… 1.3.1.2.Exclamatory sentence to assertive sentence…… 1.3.1.3.Assertive to interrogative ……………………….5 1.3.2.According to their types of sentences…………………… The actual situation ……………………………………………… Patterns of English sentence transformation made by the 10th form students at high school …………………………………… 3.1.Description of subject …………………………………………… 3.2.Data collection and procedure …………………………………….8 3.3.Data analysis …………………………………………………… 3.3.1.Common errors ……………………………………………9 3.3.1.1.Wrong words used ……………………………….9 3.3.1.2.Errors in word order / word choice …………… 10 3.3.1.3.Errors in concord ……………………………… 10 3.3.1.4.Errors in sequence of tenses…………………… 11 3.3.1.5.Faulty Parallelism ……………………………… 11 3.3.1.6.Pronoun errors ………………………………… 11 3.3.1.7.Other errors ………………………………………11 3.3.2.Reasons for making errors ……………………………….12 3.3.2.1.Mother tonguge interference …………………….12 3.3.2.2.Over-generalization of rules …………………… 12 3.3.2.3.Faulty teaching and materials ……………………13 Some suggestions for helping 11th form students to transform sentences effectively ………………………………………………….13 4.1 Suggestions for teachers to improve students’ ability to transform sentences in the classroom in the process of teaching English …………………………………………………………………13 4.2 Practical activities for students to practise transforming sentences accurately …………………………………………………15 4.2.1 Practice with multiple choice questions………………… 15 4.2.2 Practice with sentence transformation exercises………….16 5.2 Reached results ………………………………………………… 18 PART III: CONCLUSION ……………………………………………… 20 PART I: INTRODUCTION Reasons for choosing the topic We are living in a developing society, therefore exchanging information in communication becomes very crucial Particularly, English plays an important part in our socio-economic life of human beings It seems to be the golden key to open relationship between different nations in the world Today people have a lot of opportunities to study English to enlarge and enrich their background knowledge about their surrounding world However, how to master English successfully? We must study many aspects of English, one of which is writing English accurately As we can see it, in our daily life, wirting skills are needed when communicating in both formal and informal contexts for some reasons First of all, writing skills enables us to give information to some people we want to Secondly, writing skills become inportant when we would like to write a letters, a poster, an advertisement, an annoucement or express our ideas about a certain topic and so on Thirdly, one of the compulsory parts in the National General Certificate Examination is writing part which requires students’ competence in both sentence transformation and paragraph writing Nevertheless, few of people apprehend the knowledge of writing skills properly and they not know how to write English accurately At high school, many students always make mistakes related to writing sentences as well as paragraphs in the process of learning English as well as in daily communication For those above, I would like to find out some common errors made by students when they transform sentences and then suggest some solutions to help 10 th form students at high school to avoid them As a result, I am really interested in choosing the topic: “Some suggestions to improve how to transform English sentences accurately for the 10th grade students.” Aims of the study The aims of this study are: • To systematically classify transformation sentences in English ( kinds of transformation sentences) • To help learners to distinguish subtypes of transformation sentences in order to write them accurately • To find out some common errors that students at high school often make when transforming sentences • To mainly give out some suggestions for helping 10 th form students at high school to transform English sentences accurately not only in their classroom but also in daily life Scope of the study The study confines one item of English grammar: Sentences in English I also focus on the classification of sentence transformation with the definition and features of each type Also, in the study, I mainly concentrate on offering some suggestions to improve how to transform English sentences accurately for 10th grade students Method of study To conduct the study, a lot of methods are used However, the main ones are descriptive statistics, observation and analytical method PART II: DEVELOPMENT Theoretical background 1.1.Communicative language teaching There are many methods used in the process of teaching foreign language in general and in grammar in particular Grammar – translation is one of the most popular methods that dominated foreign language teaching from the 1800s to the 1940s and in modified form it continues to be used in several part of the world today Grammar-translation approaches the language first through detailed analysis of its grammar rules, followed by application of these rules to the task of translating sentences and text into and out of the target language The grammar rules are memorized because learners study grammar rules first, which are then practised through translation exercises In other words, grammar is taught deductively In grammar translation method, reading and writing are the major focuses, whereas it pays no systematic attention to speaking and listening However, in fact, students learning grammar very well can be unsuccessful in communication They have difficulties in speaking and writing The most important goal of learning language is to effectively communicate with other people Therefore, the communicative approach have been applied in different nations in different parts of the world Communicative proficiency is more focused than mere mastery of structures According to the American and British proponents, communicative language teaching is an approach, which emphasizes the social interaction activities and the functional communication activities Social interaction activities consist of tasks such as comparing sets of pictures and pointing out the similarities and differences, discovering missing features in a map or a picture, giving introductions on how to something In grammar translation method, accuracy is emphasized and students are expected to attain high standards, Unlike grammar translation method, no text and grammar rules are presented in this approach in this approach Classroom arrangement is non-standard; students are expected to interact with each other rather than with teachers and correction of errors may be absent or infrequent Communicative language teaching requires teachers’ two main roles Teacher plays an important part not only in facilitating the communicatin process among all participants in the classroom but also in acting as an independent participant Teachers have to be organizers of resources, researchers and learners, contributors in terms of appropriate knowledge, abilities and experience; counselors and group process managers 1.2 The importance of sentence transformation in communication in particular and in English in general As can be seen, both speaking anh writing are vital skills in cimmunication However, many people ignore the importance of writing skills Especially, most of students have not focused on learning writing skills As a result, they are not able to express their ideas, thoughts when they write a letter, an e-mail or a paragraph or sometimes they can but not really successfully In 2015, when the National General Certificate Examination was first applied, almost every students are extremely nervous about their writing ability The reason for their nervousness is that they mainly pay attention to Mutiple Choice Questions and not take enough notice of writing sentences and paragraphs Sentence transformation is a good tool to help you speak English better as well as write English more effectively If you are good at paraphrasing, you will be more successful in not only daily communication but also paragraph writing because the use of different structures and vocabulary makes you find it easy to express your opinions and your writing more diverse and more persuasive but not boring The ability to rewrite sentences so that they have the same meaning as the original is often required for many English Exams such as Cambridge's FCE It is also an important skill which can help you improve your understanding of similar English expressions and vocabulary Sentence transformation is a compusory part in the National General Certificate Examination which requires students to rewrite the sentences given without changing its original meanings This part only makes up 5% of the total mark of the test but without it, students can fail the examination or can not get good mark to be admitted to good universities in our country On the other hand, the proficiency of sentence transforming can enable you to choose the best options in Mutiple Choice Questions more correctly and help you gain a stock of English vocabulary and structures, which offer you better opportunity to get better mark in all examinations from semester exams to final exams However, being an effective writer a lot to with how to transfrom a sentence Once the purpose of the sentence transformation exercise has been established, we ourselves should take the following things into account: What types of sentence transformation can be? How to each type successfully? 1.3 Types of sentence transformations in English Transformation is changing the form of a sentence without changing its meaning In the exams, transformation should be done according to the direction given in the question paper In doing transformation a student should have a fairly well knowledge about the kinds of sentence and their formation 1.3.1 According to their meanings: Sentences can be classified into affirmative, negative, interrogative or assertive, imperative and exclamatory sentences They can be transformed into different kinds of sentences without changing the meanings of the sentences 1.3.1.1.Affirmative to negative: An affirmative sentence and a negative sentence can be interchanged Sometimes affirmative sentence can be changed into negative by using opposite words ( before the word, of course “not” is used.) e.g: Remember to lock the door before going to bed ( affirmative) Don’t forget to lock the door before going to bed ( negative) An affirmative sentence can be converted into a negative sentence by removing “too” and replacing by “so that can not / could not ” e.g: He is too weak to walk ( affirmative) He is so weak that he can not walk ( negative) Affirmative and negative sentences can be interchanged using degrees of comparisons ( superlative degree replaced by “no other + + so / as + adjective + as + subject”) e.g: Dhala is the biggest city in Bangladesh ( affirmative) No other city in Bangladesh is as big as Dhala ( negative) 1.3.1.2 Exclamatory sentence to assertive sentence Exclamatory sentence and assertive sentence can be interchanged without changing the meaning of the sentences To convert exclamations into statements, the following changes are made: -All the words such as “ what” or “ how” used at the beginning of the exclamatory sentence” are replaced by “very” -Words “Oh” , “Oh what” , “If only” are replaced by “Subject wish” followed by a full clause -The exclamatory mark must be removed e.g: What a splendid day! It is a very splendid day 1.3.1.3 Assertive to interrogative To interchange the assertive and interrogative sentences, we make the following changes: -the verb or the auxiliary verb is placed before the subject -the negative is put if it is not mentioned in the sentence or left out if it is there - The mark of interrogation is placed at the end of the sentence e.g: He was very gentle Wasn’t he very gentle? 1.3.2 According to their types of sentences When we transform a sentence from a structure to another structure without changing its meaning, it is called transformation Transformation is a method of expressing the same idea, concept or meaning in different grammatical forms Transformation of sentences helps us bring variety in spoken and written language In English, there are mainly three types of sentences: • Simple sentenc • Compound sentence • Complex sentence We can change a simple sentence into a compound sentence or a complex sentence This is usually done by expanding a word or phrase into a clause In the same way, we can change a complex or compound sentence into a simple sentence This is done by reducing a clause into a word or phrase Study the examples given below It is too late to start a new lesson As you can see this sentence has just one clause and therefore it is as simple sentence The number of clauses in a sentence is equal to the number of finite verbs in it Note that to-infinitives and –ing forms are not finite verbs The structure too…to can be replaced by the structure so…that It is so late that we cannot start a new lesson As you can see this sentence has two clauses: one main clause (It is so late) and one subordinate clause (That we cannot start a new lesson.) We have already learned that a sentence containing one main clause and one or more subordinate clauses is called a complex sentence Another example is given below He worked hard that he might pass the examination The above sentence is an example of a complex sentence It has one main clause (He worked hard) and one subordinate clause of purpose (That he might pass the examination) Subordinate clauses of purpose can be reduced to to-infinitives He worked hard to pass the examination (Simple sentence) One more example is given below He ordered that the traitor be jailed (Complex sentence) This sentence, too, can be converted into a simple sentence with the help of a to-infinitive He ordered them to jail the traitor In short, according to the types of sentences, sentence transformation may be classified into subtypes: simple to compound, simple to complex and vice versa THE ACTUAL SITUATION Many students consider speaking as well as writing a language as knowing that language, and thus it is a notion that studying a language is to learn how to speak and write the language Therefore, if students are not learning how to write a language or don’t have chance to write the language in class, sooner or later they will lose their motivation and interest in learning language Conversely, if appropriate activities are properly carried out, these activities can be a fun and may help increase students’ learning motivation and make English class as an interesting place However, not many students know the importance of writing skills as well as writing lesson at school Like these students, the majority of the students at my school, Quang Xuong high school, are not aware of how important the ability of writing English is Most of them are studying English for their written exams or to get good marks, not for their daily communication in foreign language or their further goals in the future They mostly focus on reading, or language focus lessons, but pay little attention to speaking, listening anf writing lessons Their learning motivation is limited and their learning attitude is not good, too As a consquence, students sometimes suffer from psychological tension whenever they are asked to express their opinions in English or may even be “uncooperative”; that is to say, they not listen to teachers or their classmates attentively or they are not ready or willing to participate in writing activities Can you imagine the following situation? When you, an English teacher, organize an activity in class, in which a student does not actively take part in the task, how can the activity be successful? As language environment is concerned, another problem is raised The scale of class is an obsctacle to teachers in general and English ones in particular: the number of students in a class is too great, there are still about 40 to 48 students per class Thus, in a fortyfive –minute lesson, only some students’ papers can be corrected, most students have few opportunites to practice writing English in class Moreover, a large number of students have a bad habit of thinking of the topics in Vietnamese and then trying to translate their ideas into English This habit have a great influence on the ways the students write English while there is a big difference between two languages, Vietnamese and English In addition, most of students in my school who live in the countryside not take any chance to practice, use their English and communicate with other in English in their daily life as they are out of the class Last but not least, some English teachers themselves are concentrating on teaching students how to get high marks in different exams by providing them with vocabulary, structures or grammar exercises day by day but they are not really concerned about teaching communicative skills for their students To have an interesting lesson, teachers have to spend much of their time preparing their lesson, making plan for it, redesigning the tasks to make them more suitable for the levels of their own students, thinking of extra activities to motivate students to be more interested in and more involved in them and even spend some money on , hand-outs or worksheets In short, through observation and reality when teaching English for nearly 10 years and teaching two classes 10C5 and 10C6 at Quang Xuong high school in the school year: 2015– 2016, it can be seen that the students’ inactiveness and uncooperation, the limitation of communicative environment, lack of teachers’ investment lead to the students’ inability of writing English and transforming sentences without changing their meanings To solve these problems, I myself point out some errors that students often make when transforming English sentences and then chiefly offer some measures to improve 10 th grade students’ transforming English sentences as follow PATTERNS OF ENGLISH SENTENCE TRANSFORMATION MADE BY 10TH FORM STUDENTS AT HIGH SCHOOL 3.1.Description of subjects The subjects of this study involved students from two classses: 10C5 and 10C6 at Quang Xuong high school 3.2.Data collection and the procedure To collect the data for this study, I carried out a type of test The test is designed on the basis of knowledge in English text book of the 10 th form Hence, it can be ensured that all the questions of the test are suitable for the level of the students The test consists of 10 sentences focusing on basic grammatical knowledge in th 10 grade textbook Finish each of the following sentences in such a way that it is as similar as possible in meaning to the original sentence The boy didn’t his homework until his father came in It was not The man is interviewing my niece He is a film director The man who ……………………………………………………… He has two brothers, both of them work in television He has………………………………………………………………… This is the most delicious cake I’ve ever tasted I’ve………………………… My father jogs in the park every morning, he is over seventy My father, …………… ……………………………………………… They are producing motorbikes in Vietnam Motorbikes I wasn't there yesterday, so I didn't know who he was If I Unless John apologizes, I will talk to him If People thought that the cover was made of iron The cover 10 Jane was absent from class because of her sickness Because Jane was The purpose of this test is to know how students transform sentences, find out the errors that they usually make, and help students to expose themselves to the target language, the hypothesis about types of trasnformations and this accurately 3.3.Data analysis 3.3.1 Common errors Through the tests and the practice of the students in the classroom, we found out some common errors that they often made when transforming English sentences The most common types of errors were: • Wrong word used • Errors in word order • Errors in concord 3.3.1.1.Wrong word used: + Students always misuse relatives pronouns such as “who, whom , whose, which, that” Example: My father jogs in the park every morning, he is over seventy My father, whom jogs in the park every morning, is over seventy ( Correct: My father, who jogs in the park every morning, is over seventy ) He has two bothers, both of them work in television He has two bothers, both of which work in television (Correct: He has two bothers, both of whom work in television.) + They use wrong auxiliaries Example: Unless John apologizes, I will talk to him • If John don’t apologize, I will talk to him ( Correct: If John doesn’t apologoze, I will talk to him.) + They confuse the use of different kinds of words: adjective, noun, adverb Example: Jane was absent from class because of her sickness Because Jane was sickness, she was absent from class ( Correct: Because Jane was sick, she was absent from class 3.3.1.2.Errors in word order / word choice + They use a nound phrase, but instead of putting adjective before noun, they place adjective after nouns ( as in Vietnamese) Example: The weather was very bad, so they had to cancel theor picnic • Because of the weather bad, they had to cancel their picnic ( Correct : Because of the bad weather, they had to cancel their picnic) + They often put relative pronoun in the wrong position Example: My father jogs in the park every morning, he is over seventy My father jogs in the park every morning who is over seventy ( Correct: My father, who jogs in the park every morning, is over seventy ) 3.3.1.3.Errors in concord Errors in concord are the most common ones Students misunderstand the use of concord between operator and subject or they don’t know the rules of subject –verb agreements Example: If he does not try hard, he can’t pass the examination Unless he try hard, he can’t pass the examination ( Correct: Unless he tries hard, he can’t pass the examination) They are producing motorbikes in Vietnam Motorbikes is being produced in Vietnam (Correct: Motorbikes are being produced in Vietnam) 3.3.1.4 Errors in sequence of tenses They use wrong tenses in compound sentences because they are not aware of sequences of tenses Example: The package was too heavy for Peter to carry • The package was so heavy that Peter can’t carry) ( Correct: The package was so heavy that Peter couldn’t carry ) 3.3.1.5.Faulty Parallelism Faulty parallelism occurs when parts of a sentence that are either in balance or part of a series are not presented with the same ( or parallel) grammatical structure Example: He likes listening to music and watching football He is interested in listening to musich and watch football (Correct: He is interested in listening to musich and watching football.) 3.3.1.6 Pronoun Errors Pronouns ( such as “he”, “they”, their”, “it”) are used to replace nouns, and pronouns must agree in number and person with the noun they are replacing ( the words that pronouns replace are called “antecedents”) In other words, “he” must refer to one male, “she” to one female and “they” must refer to two or more people or things Lack of pronoun agreement occurs when the pronoun does not agree in number or person with its antecedent Pronoun errors also occur when the writer uses a pronoun whose antecedent is missing, iss ambiguous or is too far removed from its antecedent Example: Jane was absent from class because of her sickness Because Jane was sick, he was absent from class ( Correct: Because Jane was sick, she was absent from class.) 3.3.1.7.Other errors Besides common errors as stated above, some other errors that might come up in sentence transformation include the following: -Missing words -Wrong structures -Puntuation ( omitted commas) -Spelling errors ( Misspelling) -Words easily confused Example 1: This is the most delicious cake I’ve ever tasted I’ve never tasted more delicious cake that this ( Correct: I’ve never tasted a more delicious cake than this) Example 2: My father jogs in the park every morning, he is over seventy My father who jogs in the park every morning is over seventy ( Correct: My father, who jogs in the park every morning, is over seventy ) Example: People thought that the cover was made of iron The cover was though to have been made of iron ( Correct: The cover was thought to have been made of iron.) 3.3.2.Reasons for making errors The mentioned above are the main sorts of errors that often occur in students’ sentence transformation In this section, I will analysize the causes of these errors, why certain errors are made The major causes of these errors are: • Mother tongue interference • Overgeneralization of rules • Faulty teaching and materials 3.3.2.1.Mother tongue interference Mother tongue interference affects a lot in using English in general and in transforming sentences in particular For Vietnamese students, they find it difficult to study and master English because of the big differences between Vietnamese and English For example, in Vietnamese, to form a noun phrase ( using adjective to describe a person or thing), we put an adjective after noun Example: Because of the rain heavy, we arrived at the airport late Meanwhile, in English, adjtectives are put before noun Example: Because of the heavy rain, we arrive at the airport late 3.3.2.2.Overgeneralization of rules Together with the effect of mother tongue interference, lack of concord between subject and verb is also one of the main reasons for making errors In English, there is an agreement between subject and verb Furthermore, students always misuse the modal verbs as the ordinary verb or sometimes they use “be” as the operator of modal verb Instead of asking: “Can your sister cook well?”, they ask: “Does your mother can cook well?” What’s more, many students misuse five relative clauses “ who / which/ whom/ whose/ that” It seems to be diffcult for them to master the uses of these They overgeneralize the rules of English They learn the position and functions of those pronouns but in fact, they not understand properly their uses Example: The washing machine is out of order again, this is a big nuisance The washing machine which is out of order again is a big nuisance ( Correct: The washing machine is out of order again, which is a big nuisance.) 3.3.2.3.Faulty teaching and materials Some teachers may teach students grammatical rules deductively with little or even without practical activities Students have few opportunities to use the language that they have learnt in different contexts In the process of teaching writing skills in classroom, teachers not pay much attention to the standards of writing Teachers should set a good example for students Therefore, the way teachers use English influences students’ using English much If teachers not concentrate on using English in general and transfroming sentences in particular properly or letting students write with no or little frequent correction, errors when converting sentences by students would occur Therefore, more activities focus on sentence transformation should be designed and applied in the classroom SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR HELPING 10TH FORM STUDENTS TO TRANSFORM SENTENCES EFFECTIVELY 4.1 Suggestions for teachers to improve students’ ability to transform sentences in the classroom in the process of teaching English To help students’ sentence transforming improve, a teacher’s method of converting sentences into different ways is very important Therefore, teacher must pay attention to it in the classroom The way the teachers ask students questions, the way teachers encourage students to express the same ideas in various ways and the ways teachers use various structures to express the same ideas affect the way the students transform sentences very much The following guidelines may be helpful: • Always have purposes for your questions • Try to use various structures for the same idea target as much as possible • Try to encourage students to use different structures to talk to each other or to write as much as possible • Always pay attention to sentence transformation ( whenever you give a structure / a sentence, ask student to tranform it without changing its meanings) • Try to give students as many sentence transformation exercises as possible Example 1: Period 2: Unit 1: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF - Part A: Reading Objective: Helping students to practice talking about how much time it may take you to something Activity: Converting sentence using structure “It takes / took somebody time to something” into “Somebody spends / spent time doing something” Possible activity: After students finish task ( page 13), teachers ask students: T: Good morning How are you today, Huong? S1: Good morning I’m fine Thank you And you? T: Very well, thanks How far is it from your house to school? S1: Well, it is about kilometers T: Oh, quite far How much time does it take you to get to school? S1: It takes me about 15 minutes to get to school T: Now, Hoa, how much time does Huong spend getting to school? S2: Well, Huong spends 15 minutes getting to school T: That’s right It takes Huong 15 mintues to get to school or I can say: Huong spends 15 minutes getting school After listening to the conversation above, students can understand that there are two structures which can be used to talk about how much time somebody spends doing something (They are: It takes/ took somebody time to something and somebody spends time doing something) Example 2: Period 69: Unit 11: NATIONAL PARKS – Part B: Speaking Objective: Helping students to practice asking for unreal past using conditional sentences type Activity: Asking students some questions In warm-up, teachers may ask students the following questions: T: Good morning How are you today, Hung? S: Good morning I’m fine Thank you And you? T: Very well, thanks What did you yesterday, Hung? S: Well, I stayed at home T: As you know yesterday it rained heavily so you stayed at home What would you have done if it had not rained? S: Well, if it had not rained, I would not have stayed at home, I would have gone shopping with my mother T: Oh What a pity! After finishing this conversation, teacher writes two sentences on the board and elicit the way to transform sentences It rained heavily so I stayed at home If it had not rained heavily, I would not have stayed at home 4.2 Practical activities for students to practice transforming sentences accurately In recent years, the application of leaner-centered teaching has flourished so students have much time and opportunities to work by themselves actively with the guide of teachers Teachers plays the roles of a facilitator of the communication process and an independent participant To enable students to participate in class language activities, visual aids, different situations and some games should be used In the process of teaching English in the school year: 2015 – 2016, I have applied the following activities to two classes: 10C5 and 10C6 and experienced the improvements of students’ transforming sentences 4.2.1 Practice with multiple choice questions One of the best ways to help students understand the meanings and the structures of a particular sentence is by checking their understanding through a variety of multiple choice questions By this way, students will have more opportunities to use the same structure in different contexts or different structures with the same meaning in the same context The first kind of exercise is choosing the best options A, B, C or D to complete the following sentences Example : Period 2: Unit 1: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF - Part A: Reading Objective: Helping students to practice using different structures to talk about how much time it may take you to something Possible activity: You shouldn't spend all your time A study B to study C studying D studied It .him 40 minutes to repair his computer yesterday A.takes B took C.had taken D.take She .an hour everyday practising her English A.takes B gets C spends D has The second kind of exercise is choosing the correct sentence among A, B, C or D which has the same meaning as the given one Example : Period 2: Unit 1: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF - Part A: Reading Objective: Helping students to practice using different structures to talk about how much time it may take you to something Possible activity 1: It took him three hours to his homework A He did his homework in three hours B He spent three hours doing his homework C He did his homework three hours ago D He finished his homework hours ago Possible activity 2: usually / take / me / 10 minutes / school A I usually take me 30 minutes to get to school B I usually take 30 minutes getting to school C It usually takes me 30 minutes to get to school D It usually takes from me 30 minutes for getting to school There are numerous ways of checking students’ understanding of a structure through multiple choice questions As a result, students are gradually familiar with the structures and their meanings so that they can make sure that they can write sentences accurately 4.2.2 Practice with sentence transformation exericises After students gain a stock of vocabulary and structures, teacher can come into another stage; that is, getting students to sentence tranformation exercises Teacher should be an instructor at this stage, they should be very patient to help students overcome their difficulties in transforming sentences because it is not easy for them to convert sentences accurately at once, it takes them so long time to be good at transforming sentences Example : Period 2: Unit 1: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF - Part A: Reading Objective: Helping students to practice using different structures to talk about how much time it may take you to something Possible activity: It took me two hours to my homework I spent………………………… Mr Vy often spends fifteen minutes leading the buffalo to the field It often takes ………………………………………………… Example : Period 85: Unit 13: FILMS ANDS CINEMA - Part E: LANGUAGE FOCUS Objective: Helping students to practice using the structure: “It was not until that ” Possible activity: She did not begin to act in a film until she had finished college It was not It was not until the end of the 1920s that sound was introduced to movies Sound was not Teachers can give students exercises like those above again and again so that they can be familiar with the structure and they can limit the errors they can make ( as listed in section 3.3.1) Teachers should also help students to be aware of the errors they may take Another good way to get students practise this type of exercise is to check students again and again Maybe teachers can use the sentences they had given students before for checking or they can use other sentences using the same structures and familiar meanings for checking The ways to check can be various, depending on the time, the purpose, the numbers of students or the levels of students Teachers can give their students pieces of paper and then let them the exercise in a limited period of time In the end, teachers check students’ answers and let students to correct their paper themselves or let students peer –correct Or teachers can ask students to hand in the papers, correct them and give feedback in the next lesson Another possible classroom activity is students’ working in groups, ask them to work in groups and then a student read the original sentence and another student of the group read the sentence with the same meaning “Practice makes perfect”, teachers should give students as many opportunities to practice transforming as possible Summary: Teachers themselves can not require their students to be good at transforming sentences for a short time As an English saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day”, teachers should be patient enough to make students competent in English In an English lesson, teachers can use different techniques to encourage students to use a variety of structures to express the same idea as much as possible, depending on the objective of the lesson, the topic of the lesson as well as the level of different students in different classes Teachers must take these things into consideration before deciding to choose one of the acivities as described above However, teachers should try to speak mostly in English and ask students different types of structures to express their opinions as much as possible It is one of the best way to improve students’ transforming sentences because it is a good language environment for students Moreover, teachers can combine these activities as above to use them in a lesson Because the time for students to spend practice converting sentences is limited ( time spent on other activities such as speaking, reading, listening, writing), teacher shoud make use of classroom time to help students practice sentence transformation Besides the combination of different techniques, teacher should raise students’ awareness whenever they sentence transformation exercises Let students know the following ruels Here are some tips for doing sentence transformation exercises well - Read the instructions carefully - Are you given a word to include in sentence two? If so, don’t change this word - How many words are you allowed to write to complete sentence two? Sometimes the instructions will tell you that there is a maximum word limit - Read sentences one and two slowly and carefully - Which part of sentence one is tested in sentence two? - What grammar you need to use? - If you don’t know an answer, guess You may be right! - Check your spelling carefully - Check your answers carefully when you finish Reached results After applying the methods as described above to teach English for students in two classes: 10C5 and 10C6 (with 88 students) for nearly a year, I am really amazed by the improvements made by students from classes when they transform English sentences as well as write English in class and in their daily life ( not only writing sentences but also writing paragraphs or essays) In the three first weeks of teaching, I noticed that students had a lot of difficulties transforming and they made a lot of mistakes related to sentences Most of students can not use different types of structures, in addtion to misusing of relative pronouns, misunderstanding the concord between the subject and the verb, the position of the subject and the operator in a question for some reasons such as overgeneralization of rules, the faulty teaching or the mother tongue interference as mentioned above Surprisingly, after not very long time, the students’ ability to transform sentences is obviously enhanced They can transform sentences accurately, use a variety of types from simple type to more difficult types, make fewer errors .needing less assistance from teachers They can make up their own sentences more easily and more successfully whenever they are asked to so Especially, what makes me extremely happy is that they love my subject, English more and more and they take part in classroom activities with their enthusiasm and interest, which results in my effective lesson and the students’ advance in English in general and in their sentences transforming in particular Specific result Content Tested result at the beginning of the school year Tested Tested result at result at the end of the end of the first the school semester year Students’ confidence, initiative and ability to take part in classroom sentence transforming activities 15/ 88 = 16,9 % 27/ 88 = 30,9 % 57 / 88 = 64,7 % Remembering and understanding how to make different types of sentence transformation 12 / 88 = 13,9 % 31 / 88 = 35, % 63 / 88 = 72, 1% Understanding and applying a variety of structures in different contexts 9/ 88 = 10,2 % 25 / 88 = 28, 3% 47/ 88 = 53, % Making errors sentences 73/ 88 = 82,9% 55/ 88 = 62,5% 34/ 88 = 38,6% 5/ 88 = 5,6% 15/ 88 = 17,1% 24 / 88 = 27,3% when transforming Effective transforming in daily life PART III: CONCLUSION Communication in English becomes very popular in our daily life, so how to master English in general well is essential for everyone In the study: “Some suggestions to improve how to transform sentences accurately for the 10 th form students”, the sentence transformations are classified into different types according to their meanings and their types in order to help learners to know how to use each type of sentences properly In addition, I find some common errors usually made by students in the process of learning and indicate the reasons for making them at the same time What’s more, some suggested activities are useful and lively enough for students to practice transforming sentences well It not only checks their language competence and enable to improve their writing abilities Moreover, teachers’ transforming techniques have such a strong effect on students’ transforming sentences That’s why some suggested ideas, activities have been given with the hope that they could help teachers and students deal with the problem concerned I and some of my collegues oursleves find these activies useful, interesting and effective in motivating students and arose students’ interest in learning English Although the study is rather limited, we hope that it will contribute a small part to helping students to learn and master English better at high schools and to be more successful in daily communication Quang Xuong, 5th June, 2016 Teacher: Phan Thi Quynh Mai REFERENCES 1.Ron and Carol Forseth, ( 1960), Methodology Handbook for English Teacher in Vietnam, English Language Institue America 2.Raymond Murphy, William R Smalzer, ( 1997), Grammar in use, Cambridge University Press 3.Randolph Quirk, Sidney Green Baum, ( 1973) , A university Grammar of English , Longman Press 4.A.J Thomson, A.V Martinet, ( 1989) , A Practical English Grammar, Oxford University Press 5.Penny Ur, (1999), A course in English Teaching: Practice and Theory, Cambridge University Presss 6.Penny Ur, Andrew Wright, ( 1990) , Five minutes activities: A resourse book of short activities, Cambridge University Press 7.Antonia C., Problems of Learning English as a Second Language, Singapore University Press for SEAMEO Regional Language Centre, 1981 8.Brown, H.D., Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, Engleword Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1980 9.Cole, P G & Chan L., Teaching Principles and Practice, Prentice Hall of Australia Pty Ltd., 1994 10.Gardner, R., Lambert W (1972), “Attitudes and Motivation in Second Language Learning” in Cole P G & Chan L., Teaching Priciples and Practice, Prentice Hall of Australia Pty Ltd., 1994 ... observation and reality when teaching English for nearly 10 years and teaching two classes 10C5 and 10C6 at Quang Xuong high school in the school year: 2015– 2016, it can be seen that the students’... usually / take / me / 10 minutes / school A I usually take me 30 minutes to get to school B I usually take 30 minutes getting to school C It usually takes me 30 minutes to get to school D It usually... spend getting to school? S2: Well, Huong spends 15 minutes getting to school T: That’s right It takes Huong 15 mintues to get to school or I can say: Huong spends 15 minutes getting school After listening