The effects of meaning activities on young learners speaking activities and attitudes at ho van hue primary school a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master of arts in TESOL

These challenges, regarding children’s sacrifice of meaning for form as usually instructed by the teacher, the school facilities and the burden of achieving high scores on the exams moti

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

-

THE EFFECTS OF MEANING-FOCUSED ACTIVITIES

ON YOUNG LEARNERS’ SPEAKING ACTIVITIES AND ATTITUDES

AT HO VAN HUE PRIMARY SCHOOL

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL

SUPERVISOR: ASSOC PROF DR NGUYEN THANH TUNG

HO CHI MINH CITY, NOVEMBER 2016

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that this thesis entitled “The effects of meaning-focused activities on young learners’ speaking skill at Ho Van Hue Primary School” is my own work

Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains

no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis

by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma

No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution

Ho Chi Minh City, September 15th, 2016

Signature

Nguyen Huynh Doan Thy

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Thanh Tung, my supervisor, for his encouragement and kind support for

my thesis I highly appreciate his valuable insights in his feedback to me and I am

so grateful for all his guidance and confidence in my ability to accomplish the thesis

I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all students at Ho Van Hue Primary School who have been active participants in both Control Group (CG) and Experimental Group (EG)

I am especially grateful to all lecturers as well as my classmates at Ho Chi Minh City Open University

Also, I am so happy and proud of my beloved family including my mother, Mrs Huynh Thi My Le, and my husband, Mr Nguyen Quang Khanh, for their kind support given to me during the time I did the thesis

Data on speaking lessons from a set of eight units in Fun for Movers (Robinson &

Saxby, 2015) were selected carefully by the researcher to form the basis for a teaching program in which meaning-focused activities were employed to teach English speaking to the 4th graders of age 10 An experimental study was carried out with three main instruments of tests, questionnaires and interviews As for the analytical framework, independent samples t-tests for the pretest and posttest were run on SPSS of version 22.0 and descriptive statictics were employed for questionnaires and interviews

The outcomes of the research show that meaning-focused activities have positive effects on young learners’ speaking performance Additionally, from participating in the propgram, the students express their enthusiasm, engagement and motivation when they learn speaking English with this intervention

TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II ABSTRACT III LIST OF TABLES VI LIST OF FIGURES VIII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS IX

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 1

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 4

1.3 AIM AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS 5

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 5

1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY 6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO THE MEANING-FOCUSED APPROACH 7

2.2 A DESCRIPTION OF MEANING-FOCUSED AND FORM-FOCUSED APPROACH TEACHING 9 2.3 THEORY OF ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT 11

2.4 POSITIONING MEANING-FOCUSED ACTIVITIES IN META-COGNITION 15

2.5 PREVIOUS STUDIES ON THE EFFECTS OF MEANING-FOCUSED ACTIVITIES ON YOUNG LEARNERS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCES 22

2.6 CHAPTER SUMMARY 29

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 30

3.1 RESEARCH SITE 30

3.2 PARTICIPANTS 31

3.2.1 Population 31

3.2.2 Sample 32

3.2.3 Experimental group 33

3.2.4 Control group 35

3.3 METHODOLOGY OF DATA COLLECTION 38

3.3.1 Overall approach 38

3.3.2 Data collection process 47

3.4 ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK 49

3.4.1 Tests 49

3.4.2 Questionnaires 51

3.4.3 Interviews 51

3.5 RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF THE INSTRUMENTS 52

3.5.1 Reliability and validity of tests 52

3.5.2 Reliability and validity of questionnaires 53

3.5.3 Reliability and validity of interviews 54

3.6 CHAPTER SUMMARY 56

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS 57

4.1 DATA ANALYSIS 57

4.1.1 Reliability and validity of tests 57

4.1.2 Data analysis of tests 60

4.1.3 Data analysis of the questionnaires and interviews 64

4.2 DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS 77

4.2.1 Discussion of the findings of the first research question “To what extend do meaning-focused activities affect young learners’ speaking ability?” 77

4.2.2 Discussion of the findings of the second research question “What are young learners’ attitudes towards meaning-focused activities in learning speaking?” 79

4.3 CHAPTER SUMMARY 81

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 82

5.1 CONCLUSION 82

5.2 STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF METHODOLOGY 83

5.3 RECOMMENDATIONS 84

5.4 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 85

REFERENCES 86

APPENDICES 94

APPENDIX 1 94

APPENDIX 2 96

APPENDIX 3 98

APPENDIX 4 100

APPENDIX 5 102

APPENDIX 6 104

APPENDIX 7 107

APPENDIX 8 111

APPENDIX 9 112

APPENDIX 10 113

APPENDIX 11 117

APPENDIX 12 120

APPENDIX 13 121

APPENDIX 14 124

APPENDIX 15 128

APPENDIX 16 130

Table 3.3.1a: Components of a Cambridge Test for Young Learners (YLs)

Table 3.3.1b: Three-point Likert scale of the questionnaire

Table 3.3.1c: Schedule of the focus group interview in week 7 on April 15th, 2016 Table 3.3.2: The process of collecting questionnaire, interview and tests

Table 4.1.1.1a: Reliability of pretest for the CG and EG

Table 4.1.1.1b: Reliability of posttest for CG and EG

Table 4.1.1.2a: Inter-reliability of pretest for CG and EG

Table 4.1.1.2b: Mean and SD of pretest for CG and EG

Table 4.1.1.2c.: Inter-reliability of the posttest for the CG and EG

Table 4.1.1.2d.: Mean and SD of the posttest for CG and EG

Table 4.1.2.1a Comparison of mean and Std Deviation of the CG and EG in the pretest

Table 4.1.2.1b Independent-Samples Test of levels between the CG and EG in the pretest

Table 4.1.2.2a: Comparison of mean and std deviation of the CG and EG in the posttest

Table 4.1.2.2b Independent Samples Test of levels between the CG and EG in the posttest

Table 4.1.2.2c Report on the difference of levels between the CG and EG in the posttest

Table 4.1.3.1a Frequency and percentage of students’ general attitudes towards learning English speaking

Table 4.1.3.1b: Students’ perceptions on the benefits of meaning-focused activities

Table 4.1.3.2b: Students’ feelings towards meaning-focused activities in learning English speaking

Table 4.1.3.1c: Desire to learn speaking with meaning-focused activities

Table 4.1.3.2: Three-point Likert scale of the questionnaire

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.2: A model of the Zone of Proximal Development

ZPD Zone of Proximal Development

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study

Within the constraints of the form-focused instruction, the teaching and learning of English speaking has faced some problems refraining fluent speech One

of the most common challenges is that a majority of English teachers tend to use the traditional method in speaking lessons Based on real observations in some primary classes at Ho Van Hue Primary School, the author of this study could identify some common activities in a speaking period: using Vietnamese to explain the new lessons, writing sample structures on the board, asking students to copy sentences in their notebooks, and forcing students to learn model utterances by heart As a consequence, students become passive learners when they learn English speaking with this instruction because they do not have many opportunities to express their ideas freely and share their feelings in pair or group work They tend to be like parrots listening to the teacher’s explanation and repeating after him/her the utterances as required Not only does the teacher talk more than students, but he/she also often interrupts them to correct grammatical mistakes when they practice speaking English A speaking period turns out to be a reading and writing lesson including formal operations in terms of accuracy

The author of this study spent time observing some classes in various levels from grade three to grade five at Ho Van Hue Primary School to draw out the instruction which teachers often used in teaching English speaking The popular approach is summarized in the table on the next page

As can be seen from this table, most of teachers use form-focused instruction

to guide their students to learn English speaking in terms of speaking part one about find the differences, speaking part two about a picture story, speaking part three about odd one out, and speaking part four about personal information Instead of adopting a learner-centred approach and taking their role as coordinators or facilitators, a majority of the teachers at this primary school still use a traditional approach in speaking lessons For example, first, instead of giving time for students

to work in groups to brainstorm what they could see in the pictures, these teachers wrote the sample structures on the board: “In picture A, there is …, but in picture B,

there are…”, or “Here, the boy is laughing, but there, the girl is crying…” Second, the

Table 1.1: Summary of the schedule of real observations from the textbook Fun for

March

4th, 2016

7:30 a.m

– 8:05 a.m

Class 3/1

March

11th,

2016

15:00 p.m – 15:35 p.m

Class 3/2

Class 4/3

4) Unit 9: My

family

(Speaking Part 4)

Form-focused instruction + Meaning-focused instruction

March

25th,

2016

15:35 p.m – 16:05 p.m

Class 4/4

April 1st,

2016

9:35 a.m

– 10:05 a.m

Class 5/1

6) Unit 32: Why

is Sally crying?

(Speaking Part 2)

Form-focused instruction

April 8st,

2016

13:45 p.m – 14:20 p.m

Class 5/2

April

15th,

2016

10:05 a.m – 10:35 a.m

Class 5/3

April

22nd,

2016

15:35 p.m – 16:05 p.m

Class 5/4

teachers often ask their students to listen to their explanations and repeat these structures after them and some representative students are called on to take turns to say the structures aloud in front of the class Third, teachers give them from five to seven minutes to copy down the sample structures into their notebooks The last step is that the teachers let their students to work individually from four to six minutes to practice speaking English and present in front of the class

This way of teaching and learning English speaking leads to lots of problems refraining students from fluent speech Because a period at a primary school lasts only 35 minutes, students are too young to copy the content on the board into their notebooks quickly Furthermore, as the class size in a public school is often over 40 students, they have few chances to focus on practicing speaking English Therefore,

a period of learning English speaking tends to become a kind of doing grammar exercises as required by the teacher

Although current guidelines from such publishers as Cambridge, Oxford and Macmillan encourage teachers to innovate their ways of teaching by applying the new method of communicative language teaching in a speaking lesson, a minority

of Vietnamese teachers follow this recommendation because of the class facilities in public schools The class size is usually more than 40 students per class with different levels from excellent to less able ones This leads to the difficulty for the teacher to divide the class into small groups for them to have more chances to develop their speaking skill inside the classroom Additionally, owing to a 35-minute period at a primary school, the teacher has less time to help his/her students

to practice speaking as compared to a private class in an international school where the class size is smaller with 15-20 students in each room

Apart from her real observations of several English teachers at Ho Van Hue Primary School, the author of this study identifies some more reasons why teachers tend to use the conventional method to teach English speaking and limit group work’s activities In their answers, they pay attention to the safety in the classroom, which means that it is hard for them to manage the class well when students are asked to sit in groups of four or six in a speaking lesson Children are active learners, love talking to one another and are likely to chat irrelevant things, which

makes the class noisier and noisier Another inconvenient thing is that a team leader

in every group prefers to talk the most while the rest seem to be quiet as they only listen to his/her presentation Despite the communicative method, the encouragement of methodological innovations by the principals and the goal of national foreign language project 2020, few teachers have enough confidence to apply new approaches for the fear of classroom management and the burden of completing the syllabus within the fixed amount of short time Another disadvantage of trying to implement creative ways of teaching and learning English speaking in a public school is the anxiety of students’ getting lower scores and this may influence the teacher’s performance at the end of the school year

These challenges, regarding children’s sacrifice of meaning for form as usually instructed by the teacher, the school facilities and the burden of achieving high scores on the exams motivate the researcher to find out an alternative to the currently used method of teaching and learning English speaking at a primary school with the hope of increasing young learners’ speaking ability Based on Flavel’s (1963) theory of Piaget’s cognitive development, meaning-focused activities are proposed as a better way to enhance young learners’ speaking skill

1.2 Statement of the problem

Based on her real observations of different classes at Ho Van Hue Primary School and in accordance with more than five years of teaching experience for children from grade one to grade five, the researcher can draw out some main points for the current instruction and learning of English speaking Even though the aim of the national foreign language project 2020 is to encourage teachers to motivate students to develop their speaking skill via the application of the new method – communicative language teaching – that focuses more on meaning than form, a majority of English teachers tend to use a traditional approach owing to several reasons: the difficulty in applying the new method at a primary school, big class size of 40 students or more, classroom management, and the problem with equal support

Additionally, the intensive program is considered to be overloaded for both teachers and students because they not only learn four periods of the textbook

Family and Friends but they also study extra books, such as Math, Science and Get

it up That the duration of a period in primary classes lasts for only 35 minutes is

another reason forcing teachers to try to complete all tasks required by the school

All the aforementioned main reasons prevent the teacher from having enough time and resources to study an innovative way to teach English speaking to young learners effectively Furthermore, results from the final exams of the previous years and her practical experience of teaching English speaking to primary students of different levels pay the way for the author of this thesis to explore the topic about whether students’ speaking performance is satisfactory as expected from the goal of the school

1.3 Aim and Research questions

This study aims at investigating the influence of meaning-focused activities on young learners’ speaking ability and their attitudes towards this new approach To achieve this goal, it addresses the following two research questions:

1 To what extent do meaning-focused activities affect young learners’ speaking ability?

2 What are young learners’ attitudes towards meaning-focused activities in learning speaking?

1.4 Significance of the study

The study plays an important role in improving young learners’ speaking performance through meaning-focused activities within the context of Ho Van Hue Primary School The positive findings can help teachers to apply this new treatment

to the whole school with the purpose of developing better communication as well as the balance of scores among other skills of listening, reading and writing Also, meaning-focused instruction makes learners become much engaged in the classroom once they express their positive attitudes towards the new methodology Motivation plays a vital role in acquiring a second language as it can make learners feel comfortable to interact as fluently as possible during speaking lessons As such, the significance of this study can be shown clearly with regard to students’ speaking ability, motivation, interaction, and positive attitudes towards meaning-focused activities

1.5 Organization of the study

This study consists of five chapters which are introduction, literature review of meaning-focused activities, methodology, results and discussion of the findings, and conclusions of the study

The first chapter called introduction provides the background of the study, statement of the problem, aim and research questions, significance of the study, and organization of the study The second chapter for literature review deals with historical background to the meaning-focused approach, theory of Zone of Proximal Development, positioning meaning-focused activities in meta-cognition, and previous studies on the effects of meaning-focused activities on young learners’ speaking performance The third chapter for methodology justifies research site, participants, methodology of data collection, analytical framework, and reliability and validity of the instruments The fourth chapter presents research results and discussion of the findings from three sources of data: tests, questionnaires and the interviews The last chapter consists of main conclusions, strengths and weaknesses

of methodology, recommendations and suggestions for further research

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter depicts a theoretical framework of the influence of focused activities on young learners’ speaking performance It consists of four main parts which are historical background to the meaning-focused approach, theory of Zone of Proximal Development, positioning meaning-focused activities in meta-cognition, and previous studies on the effects of meaning-focused activities on young learners’ speaking performance

meaning-2.1 Historical background to the meaning-focused approach

First of all, it is important to refer to the historical background to the focused approach so that the researcher can base herself on it to conduct a study on the effects of meaning-focused activities on young learners’ speaking performance

meaning-As the Grammar Translation Method is shown not to have positive effects on the process of teaching and learning English speaking, the researcher tries intervening with a new method to help her students improve their speaking ability On the one hand, the form-focused instruction helps students master reading and writing skills

in terms of using conscious memorization of grammar rules, learning vocabulary by heart and speaking mainly in mother-tongue; on the other hand, the traditional method refrains speaking English fluently (Asl, 2015) That is to say, there is a mismatch between successful grammatical rules and effective communication Bishop (2000), one of the most famous methodologists, finds out that there is not any direct link between accuracy and fluency in the activitiy of speaking To put

it another way, a person who masters grammatical rules is not able to produce accurate sentences Undoubtedly, children cannot pay attention to two things at the same time to ensure both fluency and accuracy Admittedly, in quantitative and qualitative studies, such famous methodologists as Spada and Lightbown (1993) and Johnson and Swain (1997) point out that that the form-focused instruction is problematic because students achieve high scores in grammar tests but have difficulty in producing easy and smooth speech in conversations Obviously, the most important goal of speaking a foreign language is language fluency rather than accuracy

Under those cicumstances, educators use the form-focused instruction to teach English speaking to learners at different levels for many decades Nonetheless, the

application of the conventional method is shown to be ineffective in developing communicative competence inside and outside the classroom For this reason, other modern methodologists discover the new method called meaning-focused approach aiming at developing learners’ language proficiency (Asl, 2015) While Grammar Translation Method fails in facilitating learners’ ability to use language for communication, the meaning-focused instruction appears to help them achieve their communicative competence in the target language (Richards & Rogers, 2014) Importantly, this way of teaching includes learner-centred tasks which motivate learners to focus on meaning rather than form when they learn English speaking Likewise, the primary function of learning a second language is the goal of creating meaning in speech rather than merely controlling perfectly grammatical structures (Hymes, 1972) In fact, learning with this new instruction, students are encouraged

to use the target language more than 90% and the mother tounge less than 10% The more they practice speaking in English lessons, the better they develop their communication skill For the purpose of enhancing fluent speech in meaning-focused instruction, learners have many benefits in the process of learning English speaking

The appearance of a modern method has remarkably changed the teaching and learning of a foreign language with its ample advantages Particularly, it enables interaction among students in the classroom through the use of communicative tasks which enhance second language acquisition by their negotiation of meaning Pica, Kanagy and Fadolun (1993) claim that “language learning is assisted through the social interaction of their interlocutors, particularly when they negotiate toward mutual comprehension of each other’s message meaning” (p 9) Undoubtedly, children are active learners and learn a second language differently from adults Especially, they learn by doing Hence, pair or group work tends to be more suitable with chidren than individual work When they sit in groups, they have chances to communicate with each other and exchange information An additional advantage is that meaning-focused activities have high impacts on self-confidence and motivation for young learners at a primary school Undoubtedly, from an early stage

of a primary school, children learn to negotiate the meaning of words to express what they want for their own needs inside and beyond the classroom In accordance

with a new treatment of meaning-focused activities, learners are given excellent opportunities to experience speaking in the way of “friendly communication” which enhances the quality of their speech Equally important, the meaning-focused approach is shown to be compatible with young learners aged 7-11 who belong to the third stage of Piaget’s cognitive development (Kowal & Swain, 1997)

As has been noted, the form-focused instruction has been evaluated as not having any positive effects on learners’ speaking performance because it refrains them from speaking a second language fluently in conversations Owing to some obvious limitations of the traditional method of the Grammar Translation Method or form-focused instruction, a number of famous methodologisits have explored the new method called the meaning-focused approach in order to help students become fluent speakers inside and beyond the classroom The birth of a modern way of teaching and learning speaking a foreign language motivates students to become more active, confident and interactive in the activitity of working in pairs or small groups The existence of the meaning-focused approach not only boosts learners’ communicative competence but is also proved to be totally appropriate with young learners aged seven to eleven who belong to the third stage of Piaget’s cognitive development Children at this stage are likely to operate concrete things like meaning instead of form, especially in learning English speaking Additionally, children acquire a second language completely differently from adults who are physically and psychologically grown-up It is hard for them to focus on both form and meaning in oral communication at the same time due to their small age, limitations of cognitive development and knowledge as well as living experience The thing to be remembered is that the meaning-focused approach from the previous years up to the present has been suggested as a better way to teach speaking to young learners owing to its obvious benefits (Scheffler, 2011)

2.2 A description of meaning-focused and form-focused approach teaching

As stated in Kowal and Swain (1997), fluency and accuracy both contribute to learning speaking effectively but these two factors ought to be classified in order While learners complete communicative tasks in terms of meaning, they engage in absorbing form-focused instruction implicitly Equally important, Ellis (1994) suggests that the combination of form and meaning focused input should be taught

simultaneously Learners might be competent in solving grammatical rules but fail into producing oral speeches fluently By the same token, learners are likely to make many morphological, syntactical and phonological errors if they learn English speaking in meaning-focused classes This approach is only appropriate with adults who belong to the fourth stage of Piaget’s cognitive development because they are old enough to acquire complex notions related to formal operations In contrast, it is impossible for young learners aged from seven to eleven to learn these two approaches separately and chronologically As a consequence, meaning-focused instruction is the best choice for children to learn speaking explicitly because of the suitability of ages and cognitive development To put it another way, form-focused instruction is implicitly taught after learners finish their oral tasks to help them speak better in terms of accuracy

In addition to the definition of meaning-focused and form-focused instruction, qualitative and quantitative studies by Doughty (1991), Spa and Lightbown (1993), Ellis (1994) and Kowal and Swain (1997) show that meaning-focused activities are more suitable for young learners aged from seven to eleven than form-focused instruction which underlines the importance of controlling grammatical rules As observed in primary classes at Ho Van Hue Primary School as well as other public schools in different districts in Ho Chi Minh City, children were likely to develop their speaking ability due to focusing on meaning while they produced their oral speeches This new intervention was compatible with both children’s age and Piaget’s cognitive development Furthermore, some form-focused speaking lessons refrain learners speak fluently and made them feel anxious about making grammatical errors In reality, a few less able students who were interrupted by corrective feedback in terms of form were not able to continue talking with each other due to paid much attention on memorizing their mistakes As an illustration, Spada & Lightbown (1993) concluded that form-focused instruction was problematic as students achieved high scores in grammar tests but they were not likely to communicate with one another in conversations effectively As far as I concerned, grammar is necessary but it plays a subsidiary role as compared with meaning in the realm of speaking English fluently

Together with the description of meaning-focused and form-focused instruction as well as the previous studies on the effects of meaning-focused activities on young learners’ speaking performances, the researcher can draw a general methodology of these two ways of teaching and learning English speaking

As shown in a number of researchers in the past decades up to present, second language learners especially adults focus on accuracy as well as meaning when they produce oral speeches For the adolescent, they tend to make accurate sentences when they say something because they are old enough to acquire abstract things like grammatical points However, they still have difficulty in speaking English fluently because they pay much attention on the structures of the sentences It is totally different from the objectives of speaking English fluently As compared with the form-focused instruction, the learners of foreign language focus on meaning when they speak English Fluency is considered to be the top priority for young learners aged from seven to eleven because it is totally suitable with the small age as well as the cognitive development of children at the third stage of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development As shown in Flavel (1963), children at this stage are able to operate concrete things in terms of meaning To put it differently, children focus on meaning instead of form when they present something The meaning-focused instruction motivates students to speak English more and more in terms of fluency

or meaning of the speaking lessons Children feel free to make form mistakes such

as the agreement of subject and verbs, singular or plural noun or the tenses As a consequence, they are eager to interact with each other through the collaborative work including pair work and group work To sum up, the form-focused teaching focuses on the accuracy of the speeches but the meaning-focused instruction pays much attention on the meaning of conversations And children develop speaking English due to the intervention of meaning-focused teaching which is seen as the best choice for young learners aged from seven to eleven

2.3 Theory of Zone of Proximal Development

Coupled with the historical background to the meaning-focused approach is the theory of Zone of Proximal Development Among a variety of methodological theories for teaching children, the theory of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

by Vygotsky (1930) is one of the most notable approaches Generally, this theory

has appeared for many years since 1930s and it has profound effects on Russian, American and Canadian education Additionally, Vyotsky’s theory helps to shape a method of teaching and learning a foreign language for young learners in various countries all over the world In the light of meaning of ZPD, it is defined as “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers”

(Vygotsky, 1930) As an illustration, children aged from seven to eleven are not

likely to be capable of learning by themselves but they learn a language with the support from their adults including teachers and parents In the same fashion, children can know more good things from their capable peers or classmates when they work together in speaking lessons as required by teachers in charge of the class That is to say, the theory of ZPD supports learners in building knowledge and experience through the process of studying in the form of collaborative work Figure 2.2: A model of the Zone of Proximal Development (Nyikos & Hashimoto,

1997, p 506)

As can be seen in Figure 2.2, the circle is divided into three small circles with different colors The yellow circle symbolizes “what I can do”, that is, the background or existing knowledge and experience of each person The next purple circle represents “what I can do with help” and this circle is named Zone of Proximal Development The development of knowledge depends on the help from the others such as older or better people To put it differently, in terms of cognitive

development, Vygotsky states that children’s mental development should not be assessed by what they can do independently – their “actual developmental level” but rather by “what they can do with the assistance of the others – scaffolding” In this case, “what I can do with help” is also called as scaffolding” which is described

as as the role of adults or more knowledgeable peers in guiding children’s learning

or it is “a collaborative form of learning, with assistance from an adult, by which a child can achieve her potential development” (Hammond & Gibbons, 2001, p.8) Equally important, scaffolding plays a crucial part in enhancing cognitive development because it is depicted as “the process that enables a child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted efforts” (Wood, 1996, p 5)

By the same token, scalfolding helps learners to engage in speaking lessons in the form of collaborative work including pair or group work Likewise, the support from capable peers plays an important role in suggesting creative ideas or providing some difficult words or explaining unclear events happening in the sequence of the story Indeed, children have difficulty in telling the picture story because there are lots of things needed for describing the whole story from the beginning to the end logically The connecting ideas among four children creates an interesting story with thrilling events happening through the sequence of the four pictures This friendly cooperation has ample benefits on developing speaking skills through the frequent practice of different parts of a speaking test day after day (Wood, 1976, p 89)

The combination of previous studies and real obseravtions about the benefits

of scaffolding on developing young learners’ speaking performance show that it can improve their communicative competence Additionally, with the support from teachers and peers as the two basic scaffolders, students have positive feelings towards collaborative speaking tasks such as the frequency and percentage of raising their hands, engaging in speaking activities, and brainstorming more imaginative speech For the purpose of deepening the benefits of scaffolding on enhancing learners’ speaking ability, there are some main types of scaffolding to apply in teaching and learning speaking English to children Markedly, scalfolding

is divided into modeling, contingency managing, feeding back, and instructing, questioning and cognitive structuring (Gallimore & Tharp, 1990)

Regarding the first type of scaffolding, modelling is described as the activitiy

in which the teacher explains the lessons to learners through creating a copy of an activity or a situation so that learners can study it before dealing with the real thing Together with modelling, the teacher has to be equipped with the ability to predict possibilities of unexpected events happening inside the classroom to prepare the solutions Contingency managing is defined as the possibility to know something in advance, which is vital for the teacher to manage unexpected situations that may surprise him/her because it is not welcomed to appear during the process of teaching and learning a foreign language Another key point of scaffolding is that the way of feeding back is extremely important in giving advice, criticism or information about how good or useful something or somebody’s work is That is to say, the teacher had better be clever and flexible in giving comments on learners’ oral speech in order not to make them become demotivated or lose face in front of their peers when they are presenting something The best way is to talk about common mistakes focusing on grammar points regardless of individual students after they finish their speech so that their fluency is not interrupted and hence their communicative competence is enhanced One more thing to remember is that young learners should be given clear and simple instructions for them to follow the rules easily and quickly In fact, children are active learners and they do not like listening

to long and detailed information on how to do or use something Henceforth, the way of giving instructions is very essential in engaging learners in speaking lessons

in the realm of the classroom

By the same token, questioning is vital to children because it provides both cognitive and linguistic responses or enhances their potential learning within ZPD (Gallimore & Tharp, 1990) Another thing to remember is that the content of the lessons ought not to be designed complicatedly for the students to understand or do easily That is to say, cognitive structuring must be suitable with cognitive development of young learners aged from seven to eleven In a nutshell, referring to some common types of scaffolding including modeling, contingency managing, feeding back, and instructing, questioning and cognitive structuring, the teacher

should pay much attention on the benefits of them to design appropriate lesson plans for children due to limited knowledge and experience in the process of second language acquisition.

All things considered, the theory of Zone of Proximal Development has been shown to have profound effects on building up people’s knowledge and experience owing to the support from the others It becomes one of the most popular theories of teaching and learning a foreign language for children all over the world What a person can do is defined as the background knowledge and what a person can do with help is described as the ZPD This theory is indicated to have great effects on developing young learners’ communicative competence due to the form of collaborative work Children tend to be more active and confident in working together in pair and group work to complete different speaking activities which are finding the differences between the two pictures, telling the picture story, identifying the odd one out, giving reasons, and answering personal information In

a word, children acquire a foreign language better owing to the support from the two kinds of scaffolders who are the teacher and capable peers inside the classroom

2.4 Positioning meaning-focused activities in meta-cognition

The birth of the meaning-focused instruction helps educators to solve problems related to limitations of the form-focused instruction It gives learners lots of benefits on developing their communicative competence through different kinds of speaking activities A main difference between the meaning-focused and form-focused instruction is the top priority of fluency for the first one and accuracy for the second one While meaning-focused activities aim at motivating students to work in groups, activities focusing on form pay much attention to working personally It is important to realize that collaborative work plays a crucial part in enhancing students’ motivation, interaction as well as confidence in the process of producing speech The support from others including teachers and capable peers are very essential to develop their speaking ability The history of meaning-focused approach and the benefits of the scaffolding both boost students’ speaking skill from what learners can do with the help from the other people For this reason, the stimuli of meaning-focused activities are shown to be suitable with young learners’ age and their cognitive development in the Piaget’s theory (Scheffle, 2011)

Henceforth, “Piaget’s theory is the center which is at the center of cognitive approach and major theoretical foundation in terms of the intelligent development and it explains children’s language learning by using four stages of cognitive development” (Heo, Han, Koch, & Aydin, 2011, p 734) That is to say, human beings from birth to adolescence must pass the four stages of cognitive development and each of them has distinct characteristics referred to in detail as follows The first stage from birth to two years old; children at the sensorimotor stage use their senses and motor abilities such as sucking, grasping, crying, and moving their arms and head to understand the world around them They cannot express their ideas by talking to their parents or relatives what they want because of the natural development of human awareness As a matter of fact, the ability of using the language to communicate with the world around them has not been developed yet because of the age In reality, when they feel hungry, they cry loudly enough for their parents to feed them They are not able to say that “I’m hungry, mom” because they are less than two years old Likewise, it is meaningless for the six-month child

to understand the utterances of their parents “now just a moment” or “I’m warming your milk” They stop screaming for the food only when the bottle of milk appears

in front of their eyes Then, when they are full, they shake their heads to express their feelings instead of saying “I’m full now.” One more example is that when these children see colorful toys in the supermarket, they try their best to touch the favorite one Even some active children jump out of their parents’ hands to grasp the things they want to have in their hands Around one and a half, children begin talking short and simple words They are likely to ask for the things that they really wish by pronouncing one, two or three words After all, children from zero to two years old are likely to use their five senses including touching, hearing, seeing, tasting, and smelling to connect with the world around them It is impossible for them to use the language to communicate with other people owing to the limits of cognitive development for the children in the first stage of Piaget’s theory (Flavel, 1963)

While children in the stage of sensory motor can use senses to explore the things around them, children from two to seven who belong to the preoperational or intuitive stage are able to use symbols and language including pictures, real objects

and spoken words At nursery school, children aged from two to seven develop the language skills to some extent and learn to be aware of the conversation of “mass, weight and volume” besides getting the information of the world due to five senses (Meyer & Dusek, 1979) As an illustration, children can find the difference between 200ml and 500ml beaker of water after watching someone who pours colored water back and forth Although this may be true, there are two containers with different shapes including a round one and a flat one; a child of four can comprehend that the shape is the same in spite of the different shapes (O’Bryan & Boersma, 1971) They

do not have enough capacity to explain why these two different containers have the same weight They only use their intuition to give the final answer to the problem Another interesting example of the ability of intuition is that if a teacher places one ball on the weighing machine and then flattens it, nursery children will immediately predict that two balls will be balanced Given these points, when they are more than two years old, the development of language appears in their mind to some extent but children who are from two to seven years old have limited knowledge as well as experience, so they interact with people or things around them through the intuition Owing to limited knowledge background, the intuition may lead to right or wrong answers because of the subjectivity of paying much attention to using their feelings rather than considering the facts Together with intuition, young learners are able

to use language to describe the shape, weight, and mass of the things in their daily lives, but they can say something in simple words and short sentences In a word, children from two to seven who belong to the second stage of Piaget’s cognitive development can interact with the world around them through their intuition and the use of limited language due to small age and cognitive development

As seen in Flavel (1963), children at this age are able to operate concrete objects through five senses such as hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching and learn a foreign language by doing together with the use of simple language to communicate with the world Undoubtedly, they do not grow up totally physically and psychologically; they do not have enough intelligence to understand some abstract notions like subject, verb and object as well as the function of words or sentences Additionally, they primarily focus on meaning before they start learning

a foreign language That is to say, they pay attention to the meaning of words to

express their ideas when they speak in classroom Teachers as the facilitators should create a comfortable environment in order to encourage them to communicate as much as possible In fact, children cannot be fluent speakers if they are interrupted

by the teacher with grammatical errors The interruption makes them worried about producing correct sentences

Equally important, fluency and accuracy are vital to speaking but they cannot

be implemented at the same time because as stated in Skehan (1998) “form and meaning are said to compete for attentional resources” (p 18) and in Schmidt and Watanabe (2001) “humans especially children have a limited attentional capacity” Furthermore, Willis and Willis (2008) state that “it is extremely difficult to concentrate on what we are going to say and at the same time on how we are going

to say it, in the sense of what words or forms we are going to use” (p 36)

As shown above, there is a difference between accuracy and fluency in terms

of its effects on learners’ speaking performance The key aim of accuracy is for activities focusing on form whereas the main role of fluency is for meaning-focused tasks which help students develop their communicative competence inside and beyond the classroom An additional thing is that students aged from seven to eleven have limited capacity and experience; thus they can only access meaning when they learn English speaking It is really hard for them to focus both on meaning and form when they produce their speech at the same time owing to the limited knowledge and experience together with cognitive development of young learners in the third stage of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development Only when children move to the last stage of Piaget’s cognitive development are they likely to absorb formal operations They concentrate on both form and meaning to produce accurate and fluent speech, but form must be the second priority in the goal of communicative competence To put it another way, grammar is important but it needs teaching implicitly and chronologically after children complete their communicative tasks (Charney & Burk, 1998). On the contrary, any communicative tasks are likely to be a traditional grammar exercise if speakers focus on form much more than on meaning (Ellis, 2003) For the purpose of speaking, it is necessary for the teachers to help students brainstorm and communicate English speaking as fluently as possible

In addition to the suitability of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, the reasearcher would like to explore other factors affecting the second language acquisition of young learners aged from seven to eleven because the participants are ten years old Specifically, Cameron (2001) points out some more special characteristics of young learners which the researcher should consider to design appropriate ways of teaching and learning English speaking The first character is that children are excited to participate in any favorite activities like games because they are active learners and thinkers who solve problems through actions when they interact with the surrounding environment Additionally, children learn a foreign language by doing in accordance with the method of total physical response They tend not to sit still hours after hours as adults learn a second language Therefore, it

is effective for the teacher to design a lesson plan including a variety of interesting activities so that they can engage themelves in completeing the tasks As based on real observations of different classes at Ho Van Hue Primary School, the researcher finds out that when learners dance with music or move their bodies, it is easier for them to remember the content of lessons instead of forcing them to listen, point, repeat and copy down the words on the board into their notebooks That is to say, children learn a foreign language differently from adults One more remarkable feature is that young learners prefer working in pairs or groups to working individually when they sit together to communicate with each other to finish speaking tasks required by the teacher On the positive side, mutual cooperation helps students to form the ability of socialization from the early stages of a human being

The second character is that Cameroon (2001) compares children with “sense makers” who explore the world by asking questions and trying to make sense of other people’s actions and language Children are confident in making any querries

or uncertainties to their teachers or friends whenever they do not understand any issues thoroughly If they are not instructed comprehensibly, they will make mistakes quickly and easily due to ambiguous tasks Correspondingly, children aged from seven to eleven “make sense” with the world around them by combining words or chunks to say what they want regardless of grammar (Willis & Willis, 2007) As stated by Willis and Willis (2007), “when children begin to use their first

language, they communicate without using sentences Taking this observation as a starting point, one might argue that early communication is primarily lexical and that grammar plays a subsidiary function” (p 27) Likewise, Hammond (1988) indicates there is a close relationship between cumulative vocabulary and the variety of meaning-focused input Learners will improve their speaking skill if they have ample chances to practice the meaning of vocabulary repeatedly As reported

in Joe, Nation and Newton (1996), meaning-focused speaking activities have great impacts on the growth of vocabulary items The more lexicons are used in communicative tasks the better speaking performances are achieved with remarkable results

The third character is that there is a strong distinction between the way children and adults acquire a second language While children are only able to focus

on meaning when they learn speaking lessons, adults who can operate with a mode system”, which means that they possess “a fully-fledged implicit grammatical system and a repertoire of hundreds of thousands of ready-made lexical chunks or

“dual-clusters” (Skehan, 1998) According to Piaget (1972), adults who have developed

both physically and psychologically are likely to produce perfect communication, including fluency and accuracy at the same time, as a result of the process of syntactic analysis (Skehan, 1998) The grown-up people combine proper lexical items with the right grammar rules to communicate as fast as possible within the fixed amount of time As compared with adults in the fourth stage of Piaget’s theory, children do not have enough the ability to do a “dual-mode system” Nevertheless, children learn speaking better than adults because they do not take care of grammatical sentences and they do not feel shy or embarrassed when they present in front of the others This big difference shows that meaning-focused activities have strong influence on children’s speaking performance Despite the fact that adults have enough ability to combine meaning and form simultaneously when they speak, they feel embarrassed in case they make mistakes, which restricts fluent speech For either children or adults, the purpose of speaking is to encourage fluency as much as possible Learners ought to focus on meaning rather than on form in speaking lessons (Goh & Burns, 2012)

For the most part, there is a close relationship between meaning-focused activities and communicative competence or, in other words, the treatment of a new way of teaching and learning English speaking is effective in developing students’ speaking performance Significantly, many famous methodologists have invested an enormous time in studying the definition and the role of a communicative task in different contexts of teaching and learning English speaking For instance, Nunan (1991) defines a communicative task as “a piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form” (p 45) Five years later, Joe, Nation and Newton (1996) define fluency as meaning-focused tasks because there is a close relationship between content and communication Young learners speak English easily well when they focus on the content of the speaking test rather than taking a lot of time to think of grammar rules Then, Savignon and Wang (2003) describe meaning-focused instruction as tasks and activities in which participants are primarily concerned with message exchange called information gap tasks related directly to the language content and meaning of dialogues They list several key types such as finding differences between individually held pictures, ordering sentences into stories, or restoring portions or incomplete maps and charts These activities help students to interact with their peers as well as teachers so as to develop their speaking skill beyond the classroom

Fourth, to be fully developed in terms of human cognition and to understand formal operations, children at the final stage of Piaget’s cognitive development aged from eleven to fifteen are able to acquire some notions such as logical, rational and abstract thinking (Piaget, 1952) In other words, secondary school students tend to learn grammar like tenses, word form, and so on They know how to apply the theoretical bases into doing exercises Upper primary school students have enough intelligence to speak perfect sentences including the combination of meaning and form because of the full development of a child at this stage As an inllustration, it

is possible for the teacher to explain to students above eleven years old what the subject, verb and the agreement between them is They not only understand the

rules but also use the theory to do grammar exercises

Based on theoretical framework by Piaget about human cognitive development, a close relation between meaning-focused activities and speaking performance can be identified Regarding the early stages of teaching and learning a second language, Douglas (2004) describes speaking as “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information” (p.81) Its meaning depends on a variation of factors such as contexts, participants, physical environment, and purposes for speaking Speaking is a key to communication and the top priority for learners of English because the success in learning a second language is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation (Sheppard, 1992) Speaking skill is the most important and difficult one for learners to master but it is necessary for people to be good at this skill because it brings success to them Among listening, reading and writing skill, speaking is considered the crucial one for everyone to practice days after days In addition, it can support other language skills such as listening, reading and writing Furthermore, it creates a fun and dynamic classroom atmosphere for young learners

to speak English (Celce-Murcia, 2001)

Furthermore, to be a good one the speaker must focus on meaning of the communication with the listener The more meaningful the text is, the more

successful the conversation is With the long existence of the form-focused

instruction which prevents learners from acquiring a second language in terms of communicative competence, the teacher tends to use a traditional method to teach speaking English to children by just giving the rule, explaining it, giving examples, and asking them to do exercises related to the structure This way of teaching and learning focuses on accuracy and does not have any influence in speaking whose purpose is how to produce efficient oral communication Thus, the teacher ought to apply various techniques to motivate learners’ potential in speaking English One of the most effective interventions is the usage of meaning-focused activities to make students communicate well in English (Richards & Rogers, 2014)

2.5 Previous studies on the effects of meaning-focused activities on young learners’ speaking performances

One of the most popular studies by Tsiplakides and Keramida (2009) showed the influence of the form-focused instruction on learners’ speaking performance

These two researchers conducted a qualitative research study including structured interviews, group discussion and direct observation to find out the effects

semi-of meaning-focused activities on enhancing learners’ speaking performance The participants of the study consisted of a sample of 15 students in the third grade of a lower secondary school in Greece Their age ranged from 13 to 14 years old The findings of the study showed that meaning-focused activities help students feel more confident in communicating with each other and volunteer to present in front

of the class Additionally, the learners’ speaking anxieties including personal and interpersonal ones, their worries about testing as well as pressures on achieving high marks were reduced remarkably Equally important, the researchers proposed some common types of meaning-focused activities Accordingly, project work, a supportive classroom atmosphere, teacher-students’ relations, providing indirect rather than direct correction, and the role of high appreciation should be used during the process of speaking English In other words, the limitations of the form-focused instruction boosted the birth of the meaning-focused instruction including a variety

of interesting activities used for enhancing Greece learners’ speaking performances

By the same token, one year later another descriptive study by Baleghizadeh (2010) explored that the impacts of meaning-focused activities on speaking ability for university students in Tehran The researcher used the main tool of observation

to measure the progress of eleven adult students’ speaking skill at a private language institute in Tehran In particular, all the participants were at the same age

of 22 and are studying different fields at various universities With the intervention

of meaning-focused activities such as reading comprehension, picture story and story-telling task, the students were likely to develop their oral production The findings of the study revealed that the ability of communicative competence was enhanced positively through ten hours of observed instruction, especially with the highest percentage of focus on pronunciation (58.9%) While he found out that learners’s speaking performance was increased owing to the use of the benefits of meaning-focused activities, the researcher justified some typical limitations of the form-focused instruction on refraining speaking fluent and confident English The study by Alibakhshi and Padiz (2011) aimed at investigating the impacts

of communication strategies with meaning-focused activities on English speaking

performance of Iranian language learners aged 18-22 There were 60 male and female language learners receiving the experiment of ten weeks The researchers collected data through three oral production tests with the same speaking tasks of group discussion, story retelling and picture description After analyzing the data via descriptive and inferential statistics (Chi-square test), they found out that there was a significant difference between the control group and experimental group The experimental group had a higher mean of speaking than the control group Moreover, the effects of using meaning-focused activities to teach speaking were shown to be stable even after a long interval In this study, both researchers used the pretest and posttest to measure variances in scores between CG and EG after the treatment of ten weeks The use of one instrument for collecting and analyzing data had some bias The scores of EG in posttest were higher than those of EG in pretest, but perhaps students did not have positive attitudes towards this new treatment The limitation in this study motivated the author of the thesis to implement a study with

a combination of pretest, posttest, questionnaires and interviews to measure learners’ speaking ability as well as their feelings towards this treatment

Together with the one by Alibakhshi and Padiz (2011), the study by Szpotowicz (2012) was carried out to examine the influence of meaning-focused activities on European young learners’ ability to communicate in a foreign language He used the pretest and posttest based on an information gap of A1 level according to Common European Framework of Reference to measure their speaking performance In the Early Language Learning in Europe (ELLiE) study, the students’ fluency of oral production tasks was based on the total number of words

or tokens, the number of different types of words and a number of nouns produced

by the children in the oral tasks (Lindgren & Munoz, 2012) Besides tests, these researchers applied a triangulation method of observation, questionnaire and interview to measure their attitudes towards meaning-focused activities About 180 ten-year-old children from different countries in ELLiE Project participated in the study

This longitudinal, multinational research project was carried out in seven European countries in 2007-2010 The results of tests showed that their interactive skills were better developed from this intervention For example, almost all of them

could respond to questions more quickly and half of them know how to ask questions related to the lesson Furthermore, their positive attitudes towards this new intervention were better through the findings from Smiley questionnaires and interviews From frequent observation, children engaged themselves more in the lesson with smiling faces, raising hands, participting in the focused-classroom activities In a nutshell, the study named ELLiE, Szpotowicz (2012) examined the effects of meaning-focused activities on young learners’ speaking performance using quantitative data collected from the pretest and posttest He also used three more instruments of observation, questionnaire and interview to measure the learners’ attitudes towards the stimuli of the meaning-focused instruction in learning English speaking The results from quantitative and qualitative data showed that the new methodology had a strong influence on the learners’ speaking performance and they expressed their positive feelings and attitudes towards meaning-focused activities in learning speaking English

In the same manner, Copland, Garton, and Burns (2014) conducted a method approach to obtain the quantitative data collected from the survey including the online questionnaires which were completed by 4,459 teachers worldwide Then, the researchers interviewed some key teachers from five different countries in the world for deepening learners’ feelings towards meaning-focused activities in learning English speaking The findings showed that speaking anxieties were reduced obviously and solved with the intervention of the new method which enabled the learners to enhance their oral competency Furthermore, the students engaged themselves in speaking lessons, became motivated to speak better, and loved working in pairs or groups to complete speaking tasks In addition to positive attitudes towards meaning-focused activities, the learners’ speaking performance was improved In a nutshell, the meaning-focused instruction was shown as to have great impacts on learners’ speaking performance in Copland, Garton, and Burns’ (2014) study

mixed-There was a direct link between the new method and speaking skill; hence, according to Konomi (2014), speaking was seen as the most vital skill for young learners in classroom as well as in their daily lives Indeed, it was the key vehicle for young learners to transmit their ideas to communicate with the world around

them In speaking, young learners learnt how to pronounce words correctly, put the right stress and intonations patterns to achieve speaking skill successfully In contrast, activities which focused on form not only were unsuitable for their cognitive development but also had a negative influence on their communicative competence The participants in this study included 24 English teachers in grades from three to six in public elementary schools in Albania They were asked to complete the questionnaire and participanted in in-depth interviews related to speaking activities applied in classrooms Many common types of speaking activities which were widely used by teachers in teaching speaking to Yls in a classroom were choral reading, role play, storytelling, songs, questionnaires, and talking and writing box The findings showed that such meaning-focused activities helped learners feel fun and purposeful, experience an enjoyable atmosphere, and much engage themselves in conversations Thanks to daily practice with such communicative tasks, young learners were able to use the language naturally and develop fluency competence More importantly, they loved to talk and look for chances to communicate meaningfully when they learnt English speaking with meaning-focused activities

In the same fashion, Wang (2014) identified some speaking difficulties in relation to cognitive, linguistic and affective factors which prevented students from speaking fluently and accurately In order to enhance Chinese EFL learners’ oral proficiency, he suggested three effective modes of teaching English speaking and a four-step pedagogical method in which activities were carried out through three stages: pre-speaking, while-speaking, and post-speaking One of the most typical interventions influencing students’ communicative competence was meaning-focused activities which were used mostly in pre-speaking and while-speaking with the aim of encouraging students to talk as much as possible The researcher conducted a questionnaire survey on 100 junior English majors aged 20 at China West Normal University (CWNU) in Sichuan All of the participants came from the countryside, so they did not have good speaking skill like those living in the big city Data collected from 100 questionnaires randomly distributed were then analyzed with descriptive statistics The findings showed that due to limited attentional capacity, it was impossible to focus on speaking fluency and accuracy at

the same time Thus, meaning was the primary choice and language form might be emphasized afterwards (Edwards & Willis, 2005) This researcher proposed three types of speaking tasks which could develop speaking fluency: information-gap tasks, problem-solving tasks and social monologues (Goh, Goh & Burns, 2012) The findings in the study emphasized that learners reduced their anxiety and pressure; thus, they felt free to express their meaning related to their speaking lessons In other words, meaning-focused activities had great impacts on learners’ communicative competence in three stages of a speaking lesson In all, the researchers examined the limitations of the form-focused instruction and the benefits of the meaning-focused instruction on learners’ speaking competency Derakhshan, Khalili and Beheshti (2016) examined the relationship between meaning-focused instruction and students’ speaking ability with the main instrument of a pre and posttest The researchers used a classical experiment on 30 Iranian intermediate students to measure the big difference between pretesting and posttesting The findings showed that there were several ways to improve students’ speaking ability and one of the most important treatments was the focus on meaning which helped them to pay attention to meaning while they were saying something

In addition to the focus on meaning, there were other effective ways to improve speaking skill, such as role play, videos, flashcards, and graphs to improve learners’ communicative competence In order to encourage students to speak confidently and comfortably, the teacher had better create an interesting environment in the classroom to make students engaged in the lessons as well as facilitate opportunities for them to keep doing so outside the classroom

Becker and Roos (2016) conducted a study to explore an approach to creative speaking activities in a young learners’ classroom The researchers aimed at enhancing YLs’ speaking performance through such communicative tasks as meaning-focused activities When children much focused on meaning or content of the certain topics, they were likely to express a lot of ideas and felt free to talk as much as possible without the fear of making linguistic errors Such communicative tasks offered opportunities for enhancing YLs’ oral production in different contexts including inside and outside classroom The researchers used observations and interviews to measure the effects of meaning-focused activities on YLs’ speaking

performance through the fixed amount of the experiment There was a wide range

of activities to boost YLs’ speaking, such as role-play, gap activities, storytelling, and dialogues which helped them produce better speech after conducting the study

In essence, all previous studies by the researchers all over the world showed that the treatment of meaning-focused activities was totally appropriate with the age and physical and cognitive development of young learners aged ten in this thesis The intervention of the new methodology had a strong influences on learners’ speaking ability These previous studies can be summarized into different themes in Table 2.4 on the next page

As can be seen in Table 2.4, the previous studies on the effects of meaning-focused activities on young learners’ speaking ability were divided into five different groups All of the groups had the same purpose of examining the influence of meaning-focused activities on learners’ speaking performance and measuring learners’ attitudes towards meaning-focused activities Henceforth, based on these previous studies, the researcher could find out a research gap to conduct the current study As an illustration, the combination of limitations of form-focused instruction

in the study by Tsiplakides and Keramida (2009) and some advantages of focused activities on adults’ speaking ability in Tehran by Baleghizadeh (2010) made the researcher become curious about conducting an experimental study on the effects of meaning-focused activities on young learners’ speaking performance in a public primary school in Vietnam Instead of using one tool of observation to explore learners’ attitude towards the intervention, the researcher applied the triangulation of tests, questionnaires and interviews to ensure the reliability and validity of the study for eight weeks for 40 students aged ten in grade four

meaning-Table 2.4: Previous studies on meaning-focused activities on young learners’

speaking ability

No Themes Authors

1 The effects of meaning-focused activities

on enhancing learners’ speaking

performance in different countries all over

the world

Tsiplakides & Keramida (2009), Baleghizadeh (2010), Alibakhshi & Padiz (2011), Szpotowicz (2012)

2 The importance of meaning-focused

instruction on teaching English speaking to

children and adults in some countries in the

world

Copland, Garton, & Burns (2014), Al Hosni (2014)

3 Reasons for using meaning-focused

instruction in teaching English speaking to

children aged 7-11

Konomi (2014), Wang (2014)

4 The direct link between meaning-focused

activities and the ability of speaking

English fluently

Derakhshan, Khalili & Beheshti (2016)

5 Suggestion of various meaning-focused

activities in teaching English speaking to

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter justifies the methodology for conducting a study on the influence

of meaning-focused activities on young learners’ speaking performance It comprises four main parts of research site, participants, methodology of data collection, and analytical framework The issues of reliability and validity of the instruments will also be considered

3.1 Research site

The study was conducted at Ho Van Hue Primary School in Ho Chi Minh City The school is famous for a beautiful location, modern facilities, sanitary conditions, and good teachers Due to achieving ample educational medals from the Government, it has been recognized as a national and standardized school in Vietnam The school has 30 teachers who are in charge of Math, Literature, Science, Geography, Music, Art, and Physical Education and 10 teachers of English for the Selective and Intensive English Program There are five grades from grade one to grade five and each grade consists of five classes named class 51, class 52, class 53, class 54, and class 55 Because it is a public school, the total number of students per class is more than 40 students

The school has two different English programs: selective and intensive programs Students only learn English with the maximum of four periods per week including two periods of learning with foreign teachers, using one main textbook

Family and Friends of a special edition for grade four For intensive English

programs, students learn English for eight periods every week including two periods

of learning with foreign teachers and the remaining six periods of learning the same textbook as the selective program However, there are some extra project-based activities such as learning with a series of book by Robinson and Saxby (2010) such

as Fun for Starters, Fun for Movers and Fun for Flyers Due to time and textbook,

the main goal of studying the selective program is that students have chances to learn English at early stages when they study at this primary school Students studying the Intensive English Program have better opportunites to develop their English skills owing to the extended time, learning program as well as Cambridge tests such as Movers, Starters and Flyers according to the standard of the Common