Sample game to motivate 10th form students in speaking lessons

TABLE OF CONTENTS PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale Aims of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW Stages of a CLT speaking lesson………………………………………… Characteristics of a successful speaking activity………………………… Problems with speaking activities……………………………………… Types of language games CHAPTER II: SAMPLE GAMES TO MOTIVATE 10TH-FORM STUDENTS IN SPEAKING LESSONS……………………………………… Warms-up Pre-speaking stage While-speaking stage Post-speaking stage CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS OF THE 10TH-FORM SURVEYED STUDENTS Students’ feelings and attitudes towards language games exploited by the teacher…………………………………………………… Data analysis of the 10th-form surveyed students…………… a At the beginning of the school year (Before using language games) b At the end of the school year (After using language games ) PART C: CONCLUSION REFERENCES PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale In the globalization age today, English is considered as a global means of communication When someone is able to communicate well in English, they not only easily connect with people in many different cultures around the world but they also have greater job opportunities Therefore, in some recent years, the focus of teaching has been promoting oral skills in order to respond to the students' needs for effective communication However, due to some objective and subjective reasons, teaching and learning English in general and teaching and learning speaking in particular does not come up to the study aims Despite teachers' efforts to provide students with opportunities to develop their communicative skills, how to teach and learn speaking effectively is still a challenging question to both teachers and students at many high schools in Vietnam At Đào Duy Từ high school, the situation is the same For most students in groups 10B5 and 10B6 I am allotted to teach in the school year 2017-2018, they find speaking especially important yet most challenging one It has been proved that students in these groups have some problems with speaking activities such as: inhibition, nothing to say, low or uneven participation, mother-tongue use and some students got into a habit of learning “mute English” which is obviously harmful to a language learner It also seems to me that the techniques exploited during a speaking activity such as: simulations, discussions are not really effective Therefore, it is a necessity to find a supplementary technique used in teaching speaking In language teaching, language games have proved themselves not merely as "time filler activities" but as an important factor which can create more chances and interest to motivate students to speak All the above-mentioned reasons and factors have inspired me to write the study with the title "Using language games to motivate the 10-form students in speaking lessons at Đào Duy Từ high school" Aims of the study The study is aimed at providing some suggestions and implications for the improvement of speaking teaching at Đào Duy Từ high school by using language games in addition to other techniques Design of the study This paper is divided into three main parts: Part A is the INTRODUCTION In this part, the rationale, the aims, and also its design are presented Part B is the DEVELOPMENT which includes chapters Chapter I deals with the literature review that is relevant to the purpose of the study: speaking skill and language games Chapter II is by far the most dominant one in which some suggestions on using language games are made and some sample language games exploited during all stages of the lessons are provided Chapter III is the data analysis of the 10th-form surveyed students Part C is the CONCLUSION which includes the summary of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW Stages of a CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) speaking lesson According to Methodology course 1- Teaching The Skills (Hanoi 2002) page 42-43, a CLT speaking lesson should have warm-up and three main stages: pre, while and post Warm- up is often a short and fun game which the teacher can use with his students The purpose of warms up is to prepare them to learn by stimulating their minds This stage prepares students by getting them to think about the topic or situation before they speak about it The pre-speaking stage: Pre-speaking tasks can be brainstorming or discussion tasks, where students collect all their ideas on the topic; vocabulary preparation tasks, where the teacher pre-teaches key vocabulary to help students express their ideas more easily or train students with pronunciation drill so that they can speak English in good stress and intonation and this will help them speak out their ideas in English easily and fluently In this stage, the teacher will have to set up a pre task, organize pair/group work and give clear instructions about the task The while-speaking stage: At this stage the teacher lets students work with each other without interfering with correcting any mistakes in order not to stop students from being influent She/ he just gives assistance when/if necessary At the while-speaking stage, the teacher doesn't have to a lot of teaching because his/her students will be working on the while-task by themselves, individually or in groups In stead, the teacher will have to a lot of monitoring and assisting weaker students who are having difficulty completing the task The post-speaking stage: The post-speaking stage is like "the follow-up stage” After students have practised speaking skill in the while-speaking stage, they an extension speaking activity This helps students take the information from other groups or whatever they have produced in the while-speaking stage, and something meaningful with it At this stage, the teacher gets students to report their work and lets the whole class share what they have got from pair/group work The teacher might give feed back, correct serious mistakes here and give students marks Characteristics of a successful speaking activity There are many characteristics of a successful speaking activity which are introduced by Ur (1996) as follows: • Learners talk a lot: As much as possible of the period time allotted to the activity is in fact occupied by learner talk This may seem obvious, but often most time is taken up with the teacher and talk and pauses • Participation is even: Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority of talkative participants: all get a chance to speak and contributions are fairly evenly distributed • Motivation is high: Learners are eager to speak because they are interested in the topic and have something new to say about it, or because they want to contribute to achieving a task objective • Language is of an acceptable level: Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other and of an acceptable level of language accuracy In practice, however, few classroom activities succeed in satisfying all the criteria mentioned above Therefore, language teachers should make great efforts to employ a variety of effective techniques to create some of the mentioned-above criteria Problems with speaking activities According to Ur (1996), there still exist some problems with speaking activities as follows: Inhibition: Unlike reading, writing and listening activities, speaking requires some degree of real-time exposure to an audience Learners are often inhibited about trying to say things in a foreign language in the classroom: worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts • Nothing to say: Even if they are not inhibited, you often hear learners complain that they cannot think of anything to say: they have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should be speaking • Low or uneven participation: Only one participant can talk at a time if he or she is to be heard, and in a large group this means that each one will have only very little time talking This problem is compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate, while others speak very little or not at all • Mother-tongue use: In classes where all, or a number of, the learners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use it: because it is easier, because it feels unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language, and because they feel less "exposed" if they are speaking their mother tongue If they are talking in small groups it can be quite difficult to get some classes-particularly the less disciplined or motivated ones- to keep to the target language In order for the learners to develop their communicative skills, it is advised that the language teachers should help the learners to overcome these problems with speaking activities Types of language games Classifying language games into categories can be very difficult because categories often overlap Therefore, different linguists use different ways to classify language games According to Hadfiled (1987), "language games can be divided into two further categories: Linguistic games and communicative games Linguistic games focus on accuracy, such as applying the correct antonym On the other hand, communicative games focus on successful exchange of information and ideas, such as two people identifying the differences between their two pictures which are similar to one another but not exactly alike Hadfield (1987) also classifies language games into many more categories as follows: Sorting, ordering or arranging games For example, students have a set of cards with different products of them, and they sort the cards into products found at a grocery store and products found at a department store • Information gap game: In such games, one student has access to the information Which is not held by the other student, and this student must acquire the information to complete the task successfully Information gap games can involve a one-way information gap or a two way information gap • Guessing games: In these games, someone knows something and the others must find out what it is • Matching games: As a name applies, participants need to find a match for a word, picture or card • Labeling games: These are form of matching, in that participants match labels and pictures • Puzzle-solving games: The participants in the game share or pool information in order to solve a problem or a mystery • Role play games: The terms role play, drama and simulation are sometimes used interchangeably but can be differentiated Role play can involve students playing roles that they not play in real life, such as dentists, while simulations can involve students performing roles that they already play in real life or might be likely to play, such as a customer at a restaurant Dramas are normally scripted performances, whereas in role plays and simulations, students come up with their own words, although preparation is often useful CHAPTER II: SAMPLE GAMES TO MOTIVATE 10TH-FORM STUDENTS IN SPEAKING LESSONS Warm-ups A warm up activity is often a short and fun game which the teacher can use with his students The purpose of warms up is to prepare them to learn by stimulating their minds Warm ups should last about five minutes Unit 5: Technology and you Type of games: Matching games Classroom management: Group work Material: Pictures and cards Time: 3-5 minutes Procedure: The teacher divides the class into groups of four or five students The teacher gives each group a set of pictures of modern inventions and slips of paper containing their names Students work in groups and quickly match each modern invention with their name Which group finishes first and has all the correct answers will be the winner The teacher then can ask students what they know about the uses of these modern inventions Cards: Radio Television Air-conditioner Fridge Fax machine Electric cooker Cell phone Washing machine Unit 6: An Excursion Type of games: Puzzle-solving activity Material: A crossword handout Class management: Group work Time: 5-7 minutes Procedure: The teacher gives out a crossword which has horizontal lines and one vertical line The word in the vertical line is made up of letters from the horizontal lines The teacher asks students to work in groups and find the words Each correct word in the horizontal line gets 10 points and the one in the vertical line gets 40 points 10 A natural place below the earth surface or in the mountain Light of the sun C A V E A large natural stream of water S Uusually N forS pleasure H I N E A short journey A temple or sacred tower R in Asian I countries V E R The science that studies the surface of the earth and its associated physical, E X C U R S I O N biological, economic, political features A hill height P of impressive A G O D A P G E O G R A P Y M O U N Unit 13: Films and cinema Type of games: Sorting, arranging games Material: film posters and handout T A I N Class management: Pair work Time: minutes Procedure: The teacher asks students to work in pairs Teacher sticks the following posters on the blackboard or alternatively print these posters and distribute them to students The teacher then gives the handout to the pairs and asks students to match the film with the correct types Film 11 Handout Type Film Science fiction film Cartoon Horror film Detective film Thriller Romantic comedy War film Action film Unit 14: World Cup Type of games: Puzzle-solving activity Material: A slip of charts and cards Class management: Group work Time: 5-7 minutes Procedure: The teacher divides the class into groups of three or four students and give each group a copy of chart and a copy of cards in which clues are given Each group has to work to find out who won the cup The first group to find the correct answer will be the winner Chart Fill in the names of the football teams on the chart and thus find out who won the cup 12 Quarter final Semi-final Final Clues: England lost one goal in the semi-final France scored goals in the quarter final Brazil beat the Netherlands Germany scored one goal less than the team that beat them in the semi-final Spain played England in the quarter-final Italy beat Argentina by twice as many goals in the quarter final The Netherlands lost 0-1 in the quarter final Pre-pre-speaking stage This stage is carried out before students actually speak The pre-speaking activities are aimed at preparing students with everything necessary for speaking They also involve thought and reflection, and provide opportunities for students to plan and organize for speaking Normally, pre-speaking stage often lasts from five to fifteen minutes depending on each lesson Unit 9: Undersea world (speaking task2) Type of games: Labeling games Class management: Whole class Material: pictures Time: minutes 13 Procedure: 14 Procedure: The teacher prepares a set of pictures of sea problems (See the pictures above) Then the teacher gives out one by one and asks students to tell what it is about The students raise their hands to describe the pictures and the teacher will write these ideas on the board Then the teacher states that they are some threats to the health of the oceans They are: Oil is spilled from tankers (picture 1); whales and sharks are still hunted for food, medicine and other products (picture 2); explosives are used to catch fish and other sea animal (picture 3); beaches are filled with plastic bags, pieces of glass and cigarette butts (picture 4) The teacher requires students to discuss the consequences that might occur and offer some possible solutions to these problems Unit 14: World Cup (speaking task 1) Type of games: Role-play Class management: Group work Material: handouts Time: 7-10 minutes Procedure: The teacher asks students to name four national football teams in the photos on page in the textbook They are: The English national football team (photo 1), the French national football team (photo 2), the Italian national football team (photo 3) and the German national football team (photo 4) Then the teacher divides the class into groups namely: The English team's fans, the French team's fans, the Italian team's fans and the German team's fans respectively The teacher will take turns to read the questions to each group and the students in each group are supposed to answer them One point is given for each correct answer And if all the members in one group fail to give correct answer, the other groups can score points by raising their hands to answer the questions The winner is the one that gets the highest point Finally, the teacher can call the representatives from four groups to talk about their favorite teams, using the information they have gained via the quiz They are encouraged to add some further information that they know to the talk World Cup quiz for each national football team Questions for the English team's fans Questions for the German team's fans How many World Cup tournaments How many World Cup tournaments has England participated in up to 2006? has German participated in up to 2006? How many times has England won How many times has Germany won the trophy up to 2006? the trophy up to 2006? Who was the captain of the English Who was the captain of the German team in World Cup 2006? team in World Cup 2006? Who was the top scorer in English Who was the top scorer in German team in World Cup 2006? team in World Cup 2006? Who was the head coach of the Who was the head coach of the English team in World Cup 2006? German team team in World 2006? team's fans Questions for Cup the Italian in World Cup 2006? team in World 2006? team's fans Questions for Cup the French How many World Cup tournaments How many World Cup tournaments has Italy participated in up to 2006? has France participated in up to 2006? How many times has Italy won the How many times has France won the trophy up to 2006? trophy up to 2006? Who was the captain of the Italian Who was the captain of the French team in World Cup 2006? team in World Cup 2006? Who was the top scorer in Italian Who was the top scorer in French team in World Cup 2006? team in World Cup 2006? Who was the head coach of the Who was the head coach of the Italian team in World Cup 2006? team in World Cup 2006? While-speaking stage French team in World Cup 2006? team in World Cup 2006? This stage is the main part of a speaking lesson in which students use language input provided in pre-speaking stage to express personal feelings, ideas, or viewpoints, to converse and discuss or to describe one event, to tell a story, etc Time spent on this stage is nearly twenty to thirty minutes 16 Unit 3: People's background (speaking task 2) Type of games: Role-play Class management: Group work Material: handouts Time: 15-17 minutes Procedure: The teacher asks students to work in pairs: one plays the role of Ms Khanh Chi, an MC in "The road to Olympia", while the other plays the role of an Olympia contestant Teacher distributes the interview form to each pair and asks them to interview the contestants and takes notes the answers The students can change their roles and make another interview Then the teacher asks some students to report what they have gained from the interview, INTERVIEW FORM When were you born? Where were you born? Where you live? Can you tell me about your parents? How many brothers and sisters you have? Which school you go to? How you study/ work at school? Do you join all school activities? What subjects you like best? 10 Have you ever been a monitor? Unit 16: Historical places (speaking task 2) Type of games: Information gap activity Material: Handouts Class management: Pair work Time: 15-20 minutes Procedure: The teacher sets the task: Students are going to work in pairs: ask and answer about two historical places, namely Hue Imperial City and Thong Nhat Conference Hall The teacher distributes each pair two sets of cards above The teacher needs to make sure that students have different cards A This means if one student already has card 1A, the other student will have card 2A The teacher asks students to ask and answer questions about the places in the cards The student with card A will start first and the student with the corresponding card B will answer The teacher should make sure that all the students close their textbooks and students not look at each other's card while talking Then the teacher can call some pairs to perform in front of the class and provides corrective feedback 17 Card 1A Card 1B Ask your partner for the following Tell your partner about Hue Imperial City using the information about Hue Imperial following information City - Recognized by UNESCO? - Listed as a World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 1993 - Location? - 654 km from Hanoi and 1071 km from HCMC - Construction staring and ending? - Construction: started 1805 & completed 1832 - Inside? - Comprises sections: the Royal Citadel, the Imperial Enclosure and the Forbidden Purple City - Visiting hours? - Open daily - Admission? - Admission costs 55,000 VND Card 2B Card 2A Ask your partner for the following Tell your partner about Thong Nhat Conference Information about Thong Nhat Hall using the following information Conference Hall - Other names? - Also Reunification Hall or Presidential Palace - Location? - In District No 1, HCMC, 1730 km south of HN - Construction staring and ending? - Originally built in 1865 & heavily damaged by an air bombardment in Feb 1963 - Any damage during the Reconstruction needed? - Inside? war? - Rebuilt & construction completed in 1963 - Has floors with 100 beautifully decorated rooms and chambers - Visiting hours? - Open daily from 7:30 to 11:00 a.m and 1:00 to 4:00 p.m - Admission? - Admission costs: 10,000 VND 18 Post-speaking stage It is the last step of a speaking lesson so it is time for students' production The activities in this stage are for students to reflect upon their performance Post-speaking stage should last ten to twelve minutes Unit 11: National Parks Type of games: Story telling Class management: Group work Time: 10 minutes Procedure: The teacher divides the class into groups of eight students (two rows of tables) The teacher asks students to work in groups to tell about their imaginary excursion The teacher can begin the story with one clause of the third conditional sentence Then the students in each group one by one add more sentences using the third conditional sentences After the last student in each group finishes the story, all groups are asked to tell their excursion in front of the class The teacher will decide which the most interesting story is For example: The teacher can begin: If yesterday had been Sunday, Student A: If yesterday had been Sunday, I would have gone a picnic to Cửa Lò beach Student B: If I had gone to Cua Lo beach, I would have gone with some of my friend Student C: I had gone with some of my friends, we would have gone there by motorbike Alternatively, it can be made more interesting and amusing by replacing the third conditional sentences with the story using "fortunately" and "unfortunately" For example: The teacher can start: Yesterday it was nice, so I decided to go for a walk Student A: Unfortunately, it began to rain Student B: Fortunately, I had an umbrella Student C: Unfortunately, it was broken Unit 15: Cities Type of games: Guessing gamesClass management: Whole class Material: cards Time:10 minutes 19 Procedure: The teacher prepares a set of cards on which some famous cities in the world are written Students will take turn to choose one card from this set and try to use their knowledge to describe this city so that the other students can guess which the city is To make it more challenging, the students are not allowed to use proper name And the game can be played until time is up For example: The student takes up a card on which "Amsterdam" is written He can use the typical features to talk bout it: It is the city which is famous for tulips and windmills So the other students may find it easy to guess correctly Set of cards BANGKOK TOKYO AMSTERDAM SYDNEY LONDON HA NOI BEIJING PARIS BERLIN MOSCOW KUALA LUMPUR NEW YORK Chapter II has given some applicable and effective games exploited in all stages of a speaking lesson With the aim to exploit language games fully and successfully, some suggestions when running a game are also mentioned It is hoped that it can help to enhance students' motivation in speaking lessons And the result of my study is shown in chapter III which analyses data of the 10th-form surveyed students in groups 10B5 and 10B6 20 CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS OF THE 10TH-FORM SURVEYED STUDENTS Students 'feelings and attitudes towards language games exploited by the teacher The question relates to the students’ attitudes toward language games and is carried out with 48 students in group 10B5 and 45 students in group 10B6 We can see the result through the figure below Figure: The students' attitudes towards language games The pie chart above illustrates vividly the students' attitudes towards language games From the chart, it can be seen that most of the students hold their interest in language games To be more detailed, 90% of the informants show their keenness on language games There exists 2.9 % having no concern about the games and even 7.1 % frankly show their dislike to language games Data analysis of the 10th-form surveyed students a At the beginning of the school year (Before using language games) I had a speaking test to evaluate students’ ability in this skill at the beginning of the school year 2017-2018 in groups: 10B5 and 10B6 The result is presented in the table Table 1: Students’ ability in speaking skill at the beginning of the school year 2017-2018 (%) NO GROUP 10B5 NUMBER OF STUDENTS 40 VERY GOOD EXCELLENT N % 2.5% N % GOOD N 17.5% 16 SUFFICIENT INSUFFICIENT % N % N % 40% 12 30% 10% 21 10B6 48 2.1% 6.2% 10 20.8% 20 41.7% 14 29.2% As can be seen from the table 1, in groups 10B5 the number of the students who are excellent only builds up 2.5%, 17.5% as very good Good and sufficient students account for 40% and 30% respectively 10% is insufficient rate In group 10B6, there are only one excellent student (2.1%) Very good students only make up 6.2% Good and sufficient students account for 20.8% and 41.7% respectively The number of insufficient ones is very high with 29.2% b At the end of the school year (After using language games) I have applied language games to speaking lessons to motivate students in groups 10B5 and 10B6 to speak for months It is proved that using language games in speaking lessons is very clearly effective with the result in the table Table 2: Students’ ability in speaking skill at the end of the school year 20172018(%) NUMBER OF EXCELLENT NO GROUP STUDENTS N 10B5 10B6 40 48 VERY GOOD GOOD SUFFICIENT INSUFFICIENT N % N % N % % 7.5% 12 30% 20 50% 12.5% 10.4% 16.7% 22 45.8% 10 20.8% N % 0% 6.3% At the end of the school year 2017 - 2018, the number of excellent, very good and good students in groups increases Vice-verse, sufficient ones reduces Especially in groups 10B5, there are no insufficient students left and in groups 10B6, the insufficient rate goes down sharply from 29.2% to 6.3% 22 PART C: CONCLUSION This study is done with the purpose of seeking one effective teaching technique to improve students' speaking skill And as there exist many teaching techniques exploited by teachers to teach speaking, the study limits itself to use language games to motivate the 10th-form students to speak The literature review has been made in the hope of demonstrating the scope of the study theoretically in terms of speaking skill and language games Thus, in order to make the study more practical, some suggestions on using language games as well as a variety of language games applied in all stages of a speaking lesson have also been mentioned The data analysis shows that students are very interested in language games and language games are applicable as a motivator in speaking lessons through the result analysis of students’ ability before and after using language games It is hoped that the study will prove worthwhile to those who want to motivate student in speaking classes and who are concerned about the problem like me 23 REFERENCES Nguyen, B (2002) Methodology course 1- Teaching The Skills VNUH Hadfield, J (1987) Elementary Communication Games UK: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ur, P (1996) A course in Language Teaching Cambridge University Press 24 ... using language games) I have applied language games to speaking lessons to motivate students in groups 10B5 and 10B6 to speak for months It is proved that using language games in speaking lessons. .. the information to complete the task successfully Information gap games can involve a one-way information gap or a two way information gap • Guessing games: In these games, someone knows something... and interest to motivate students to speak All the above-mentioned reasons and factors have inspired me to write the study with the title "Using language games to motivate the 10 -form students in