“SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE GRADE 12 STUDENTS SPEAKING SKILL IN ENGLISH CLASSES AT NONG CONG 3 UPPER SECONDARY

TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS PART 1: REASONS FOR TOPIC CHOICE PART 2: CONTENT I THEORETICAL BASIS Students’ psychological characteristics in learning Englis Importance in stimulating participation of students in English lesson Speaking skill II THE REAL STATE OF AFFAIRS Researching method Researching questions Results of the convey III SOLUTIONS Solutions to big classes Pair work Group work Further practice Class activities and games 5.1 Warm-up activities and games 5.2 Class activities 5.3 Pair work 5.4 Group work Suggested Activities and Games in speaking lessons of PAGES 3 4 5 6 7 8 13 14 16 22 43 English Textbook 12 PART 3: CONCLUSION REFERENCES 44 INITIATIVE: “SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE GRADE 12 STUDENTS' SPEAKING SKILL IN ENGLISH CLASSES AT NONG CONG UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL” PART 1: REASONS FOR TOPIC CHOICE In the world of the integration and development with the multilateral relations and information explosion, English remains an important role in comprehensive development for each student However, in fact, I realize my students find it very difficult to express their ideas in English and they even not know how to keep the conversation going on They are usually stressed and passive when being asked to participate in speaking activities More importantly, the topics chosen are quite broad and the way teachers develop them is not very interesting Some topics are beyond students’ enjoyment And some require a deep common knowledge which students usually lack If students have no idea what to say, they may lose confidence and feel uncomfortable and make mistakes Consequently, teaching and learning in the speaking lessons are boring and ineffective Therefore, it is essential that we carry out better methods in order that students have certain abilities of English communication Nowadays, in the process of teaching method improvement, the main purpose is to form and develop the knowledge and skills in using English English 12 gets in close contact with distinct skills: listening, speaking, and reading To practice these skills, each student has to work diligently with his/her partners Consequently, they can speak English more fluently With the aim at developing speaking skill, I am going to present the subject: “SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE GRADE 12 STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL IN ENGLISH CLASSES AT NONG CONG UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL.” This research is to help students simply communicate with the classmates It also helps teachers build the content of a teaching lesson As a result, students will be effectively attracted to English lessons PART 2: CONTENT I THEORETICAL BASIS Students’ psychological characteristics in learning English Students own age characteristics and innate skills which help them in learning language process Teachers must fully understand and take full advantages of them effectively These specific characteristics are: They learn a foreign language naturally as they learn their mother tongue They learn it through encouragement, which depends on each teacher’s methods If they are effectively motivated, they will perform better and more enthusiastically Besides, they learn through their listening and repeating, through cooperation and reciprocation in reliable atmosphere; and through interesting activities from which they gain their aims One of the things that makes teaching a source of endless fascination is the fact that no two classes are ever the same There always exists the complex interpersonal chemistry between teacher and students and between student and student In any given classroom, the factors such as position attitudes and individuals’ personalities will be in constant interaction creating a dynamic, unstable environment that can either facilitate the learning process or seriously impair it The role of expectations of both teachers and learners will be conditioned by individual personality factors such as introversion, cognitive style, prior learning and teaching experiences, and cultural factors Real-life observation also tells us that even if language learners can be shown to be following a common developmental route, they differ greatly in degree of ultimate success which they achieve As a teacher, one should be aware that learners differ in ways that careful thought when making decisions about what to be taught and how to teach Social psychologists have argued consistently that differences in learning outcomes must be due to individual differences between learners, and many proposals have been made concerning the characteristics which supposedly cause these differences Gardner and MacIntyre (1992, 1993) divided what they saw as the most important learners’ traits into two groups, the cognitive and affective Cognitive factors include students’ intelligence, language aptitude and language learning strategies Most discussions have limited affective factors to personality characteristics, language attitudes, motivation and emotional responses to the language learning process or language anxiety Krashen (1985) has suggested the notion of the affective filter This is a representation of the way in which affective factors such as attitudes, anxiety, competitiveness and other emotional responses can help or hinder language learning A learner who has generally negative attitudes towards learning A learner who has generally negative attitudes towards learning English will have a high effective filter and the task for the teacher will be sustantial The precise functioning of this filter highlights the role of the teacher in creating beneficial conditions for language learning The degree to which any of the factors discussed will become significant in a particular learning and teaching situation will depend partly on the reasons why learners are learning English Any individual may be influenced by a variety of motivations which will affect such things as anxiety, attitudes or willingness to try new learning strategies In short, there exist individual differences among learners and these differences play a significant role in language learning For a teacher, the challenge must be how to enable each learner according to his or her individual characteristics and cultural background Importance in stimulating participation of students in English lesson Students’ participation is very necessary for learning process to occur Lack of participation will have negative influence on all the learning process Through interacion in the target language students learn to communicate Hence, speaking skill is quite important Speaking skill Speaking is the productive skill in the oral mode It, like the other skills, is more complicated than it seems at first and involves more than just pronouncing words There are three kinds of speaking situations in which we find ourselves: - Interactive - Partially interactive - Non-interactive Interactive speaking situation include face-to-face conversations and telephone calls, in which we have chance to ask for clarification, repetition or or slower speech from our conversation partner Some speaking situations are partially interactive, such as when giving a speech to a live audience, where the convention is that the audience does not interrupt the speech The speaker nevertheless can see the audience and judge from the expressions on their faces and body language whether or not he or she is being understood Some few speaking situations maybe totally non-interactive, such as when recording a speech for a radio broadcast Here are some of the micro-skills involved in speaking The speaker has to: Pronounce the distinctive sounds of a language clearly enough so that people can distinguish them This includes making tonal distinctions Use stress and rhythmic patterns, and intonation patterns of the language clearly enough so that people can understand what is said Use the correct forms of words This may mean, for example, changes in the tense, case, or gender Put words together in correct word order Use vocabulary appropriately Use the register or language variety that is appropriate to the situation and the relatonship to the conversation partner Make clear to the listener the man sentence constituents, such as subject, verb, object, by whatever means the language uses Make the main ideas stand out from supporting ieas or information Make the discourse hang together so that people can follow what you are saying (Extracted from the LiguaLinks Library, Version 3.5 published on CDROM by SIL International, 1999) II THE REAL STATE OF AFFAIRS Researching method This research is conducted through qualitative methods The data is collected through the questionaire for students, the interviews for teachers and the obeservations for several classes Researching questions - What is the real situation of the participation of students in Dong Hieu school? - What the teachers to attract the participation of students in the English lessons? - What solutions can be effectively applied to English teaching to increase the students’ participation in class? Results of the survey At the beginning of the school year, before applying the new teaching ideas, I conducted a survey and the following are the results In terms of students’ attitude, they show a very negative one to the current teaching method 37% disliked taking too many notes when learning English 72% indicated that they had few opportunities to participate because their classes were too crowded Only 25% said that they liked English speaking lessons The majority of the interviewees are experienced teachers in teaching English They all agreed that the difficulty they regularly met was the big size of classes (30-41 students in each class) Table of how often students participate in different activities Activities Team work ( teams / class) Group work ( 4-5 students / group) Pair work Individually Never 28,7 12,4 1,8 Rarely Occsionally 54,3 16,8 41,5 45,1 43,2 46,3 7,7 Usually 1,2 18,7 92,3 From the above real situation, the participation in English class in Nong Cong upper secondary school is not high and should be paid attention to Only a small number of students are interested in class activities such as pair work, group work, compared with individual activities It proves that the interaction among students is rather limited Consequently, speaking skill is also limited This reality urged me to find some ways to improve my teaching and applying them to my everyday lessons III SOLUTIONS Solutions to big classes Due to objective factors as well as real conditions, teachers often have to teach in crowded classes There are three basic solutions which have been effective The first is the diversification into topics, methods as well as class activities This solution helps decrease the uninterestedness in class The second is to create interesting activities, which brings about good effects on students When the lesson is not too difficult, attractive activities remains attention and enthusiasm The last one is the opportunities to exchange and learn the language from each other Pair work Pair work is needful for speaking practice Each pair should consist of lower and higher level students This method has good effect on lower level students, as they better understand their tasks with their partner’s assistance and they have chance to correct each other’s mistakes Group work To apply it effectively, the ways of organisation and the suitable division are serious issues Students in one group should be in different levels Students discuss the topics freely and express their attitude and feeling with their team Further practice Through further practice, teacher discoves and promotes excellent learners From controlled to free practice teachers encourage students to enlarge the topic and enhance communicative skill This stimlates the desire and ability of creation Carefully designed lesson plans with visual aids such as pictures, real objects or real class situations are motivating Students are really attracted to games like chain game, guesing game, Noughts and crosses, which provide students with a great deal of excitement and enable them speaking natural English To help students feel self-confident and see their improvement in speaking English, teachers should set suitable goals Moreover, teachers need encourage students to speak English and accept trials and errors Teachers should avoid correcting any mistakes, especially when they are speaking English Class activities and games 5.1 Warm-up activities and games Games are activities students for their own sake, for the immediate fun, curiosity or competive ambition aroused by the game This category includes conventional puzzles and competitions, but also activites involving makebelieve such as drama and story telling which people for fun 5.1.1 Word by word Level: high beginner plus Skills: speaking, gramma focus Teacher’s preparation: none Time: to serve as a short warm-up or concluding game, = 15 minutes Objectives: Through a fun, non-threatening activity, students will improve their spoken English through gramma analysis of spoken sentences and will listening carefully to the others Organisation: Group work with circles of approximately 5-6 students Task: Students in turn make a story adding one word only As the sentences go around the circle, if a grammar mistake is made, the student joins a different group/circle Students should discuss briefly, if necessary, the error made Teacher should intervene only if students cannot resolve a grammar dispute Each time a mistake is made, a new sentence can be started Students should try to create a story Teacher’s role: organize the groups, model the activity by bringing a group to the front before the activity begins, circulating among the groups to answer questions 5.1.2 Know it all, knowledge game Level: intermediate advanced Organization: Whole class divided into six groups Materials: Questions Time: 45-90 minutes Instructions: Tell class that they are going to play a knowledge discussion game Divide the class into teams and have them sit and choose a team name While this is happening, put the following on the board for each team: Team name: Category History Geography Entertainment Language Sport/Leisure Science/Nature Point Bonus Instruct that the groups MUST SPEAK ENGLISH ONLY, need to discuss, agree or disagree in order to arrive at one group’s answer To start the game, determine the team order The first team agree on a category and tells the teacher The teacher read the question, all teams should listen and discus, but only the first team should may answer Remind students to agree on a group’s answer If the answer is correct, fill in the point column (1 point) If the answer is wrong, the second team may choose to answer or they may pass If the second team answers correctly, they get the point, if incorrectly , they lose their turn/chance at the next question Each team should have a chance to answer or not answer To score the bonus points (3), a team must first have all the categories regular points (1+2) before they can try a bonus question The team with the most points wins at the end of time Know it all, knowledge game questions(examples) History: 1.What year did man first walk on the moon? (1969) 2.Who was the first black president of South Africa.? (Mandela) 3.What year was Jesus born? (0) 4.What year was Ho hi Minh born? (1890) 5.Who was the British Prime Minister during W.W.W.II? (Church chill) 6.What happen to Julis Caesar? ( assassinated) 7.What year did India become an independent country? (1948) 8.What year was the Russian Revolution? (1017) 9.What was Australia used for by the British in the 18 th and 19th centuries? (prison) 10 What year did the Soviet Union start to break up? (1991) Entertainment: 1.In which country City is Hollywood? (Los Angles) 2.Who started in Forest Gump? (Tom Hanks) 3.Who has been called “Viet Nam ‘s answer to Madonna ( PhuongThanh) 4.In which country did ballet originate? (Italy) 5.Name the Beatles (John, Paul, Ringo, George) 6.How many keys are on a piano? (88) 7.In which century did Shakespeare die? (17th ) 8.Where was Quang Linh born? (Hue) 9.Which movie won the most Oscars in 2004? (The Lord of the Rings) 10 How many Disney lands are there in the world? (4) Language: 1.How you say no in Russian? (nyet) 2.Which modern languages have effected English the most? (French and German) Which word is written the most in English ? (the) Which letter is most used in English? (e) What does C D stand for? (compact disc) What is the past tense of seek? (sought) What is a pale ale? (beer) How you say hello in Spanish? (hola) How you say good bye in Japanese? (Sayonara) 10 How you say the letter A in Greek? (alpha) Sport and leisure: What does “love” mean in tennis? (0) Where will the 2006 World Cup be played? (Germany) Which is the tallest chess piece? (king) What color wine should you drink with beef? (red) What sport is played at Wimbledon? (tennis) Which two winter sports make up a biathlon? (skiing $ shooting) How many countries play in the World Cup? (32) What is the national sport of Canada? (ice hockey) How long is a 1/4 of a basketball game? (12 minutes) 10 What sport did Muhammad Ali play? (boxing) Science and nature: How many colors are in a rainbow? (7) What is the name of the Earth’s galaxy? (Milky Way) What vitamin is called Ascorbic acid? (c) What metals make up white gold? (gold and silver) What is the chemical symbol for salt? (NaCl) How many wisdom teeth people get? (4) How many wings does a flea have? (0) Which is the only animal that can’t jump? (elephant) Which planet is nearest the sun? (Mercury) 10 How many bones are there in human body? 5.2 Class activities: 5.2.1 Find someone who…… Make questions to find students who answer yes to the statements below e.g Takes a shower every morning Do you take a shower every morning? If the answer is yes, write the student’s name in the space below If the person answer yes, find out some information about the subject E.g.: Do you have time in the morning? Try to find one name for each statement, but use one person’s name only twice Number Name Information Family lives in this city Likes to dance Rides a bike to university Smokes Has a brother/ sister in this school 10 Take two tablets a day after meals You will have a test next week Here you are Room 245 We have a bumper crop this year Please faten your seatbelt beofore the plane takes off You’ve passed the red light You have to pay a fine It’s rather cold inside Phong Nha Cave, so you should bring warm clothes What would you like to order? * Key: doctor teacher receptionist farmer air-hostess traffic warden tourist guide waiter Speaking lesson (Unit Life in the Future): a Activity: Discussion b Aim: help students practise saying about the future life c Time: minutes d Preparation: cards e Procedure: - Divide the class into groups - give each group one card with the issue they need to discuss - after minutes, the groups take turns to give their ideas The other groups can add their ideas if they want * Suggested cards: GLOBAL TERRORISM WARMING SPACE EXPLORATION ROBOTS OVERPOPULATION NATURAL DISASTERS 26 Speaking lesson 10 (Unit 10 Endangered Species): a Game: Who Am I? b Aim: help students practise asking and answering Yes-No questions about animals and lead into the lesson c Time: minutes d Preparation: cards with the names of animals such as “elephant”, “panda”, “tiger”,… e Procedure: - divide the class into teams Choose one representative from each group to stand in front of the class - pin the cards to the back of each team’s representative - these two students try to discover their identity by asking the opposite members yes-no questions such as: + Do I live in the forest? + Do I have legs? + Do I eat grass? + Can I fly? + Am I a big animal? …………… - tell students that the answer to these questions is only yes or no - the group with its representative first discovers his/ her identity is the winner * Suggested Cards: ELEPHANT PANDA Speaking lesson 11 (Unit 11 Books): A Game: What can you with….? b Aim: help students practise answering questions quickly and review the previous lesson 27 c Time: minutes d Preparation: some real objects in the classroom and some slowing tickets e Procedure: - Divide the class into teams - the teacher give questions - students in each team take turns to answer - if one student from one team cannot give the answer quickly, that team get a slowing ticket - when the time is over, the team with the more slowing tickets is the loser, and the other is the winner * Sample: Teacher: What can you with a blackboard? Student A: I can write on it Student 1B: I can look at it Student A: I can clean it Student B: I can see it Student 3A: I can draw on it Student 3B: I can …… Teacher: No answer? I’m afraid team B gets a slowing ticket Now another question What can you with a book? Student A: I can read it Student 1B: I can buy it Student A: I can taste it Student B: I can swallow it Student 3A: I can digest it Student 3B: I can chew it ……………………… 10 Speaking lesson 12 (Unit 12 Water Sports ): A Game: Kim’s Game b Aim: help students study and remember names of some water sports c Time: minutes d Preparation: a poster with pictures of water sports e Procedure: - Divide the class into groups - Give each group one piece of paper and one marker 28 - Show the poster to the students within minute and then cover it - Ask groups to remember and write down as many names of given water sports as possible in minute - When the time is over, the group with the most correct names the winner - Ask the class to read out these words in chorus and lead into the lesson * Suggested pictures: WATER POLO WINDSURFING SCUBA-DIVING SWIMMING SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING ROWING 29 CANOEING SNORKELLING 11 Speaking lesson 13 (Unit 13 The 22nd SEA Games ): A Game: Miming b Aim: help students practice names of some sports c Time: minutes d Preparation: cards with pictures of sports e Procedure: - Divide the class into teams - representatives from teams come to the front of the class and take turns to mime the words the teacher shows him/her - the other students from each team have to guess and say the names of sports their own representative mimes If they give one correct answer, they can get point If their answer is wrong, the opposite team has the right to answer - the team with the most points is the winner * Suggested picutures: FOOTBALL RUNNING 30 TENNIS CYCLING BASKETBALL SWIMMING LONG JUMP VOLLEYBALL 31 12 Speaking lesson 14 (Unit 14 International Organizations): A Game: Guessing b Aim: help students remember names of some international organizations and know some information related to them c Time: minutes d Preparation: sets of pictures for each related to international organizations such as UNESCO, WHO, UNICEF, WWF with symbols of these e Procedure: - Divide the class into teams - Ask students to look at the pictures and take turn to guess If one team can guess with the first picture, it will get points With the second picture, it will get points With the third picuture, it will get points With the fourth picture, it will get points With the symbol, it will get mark - The team with the most points will be the winner * Suggested Pictures: SET SET 32 SET 33 SET 34 13 Speaking lesson 15 (Unit 15 Women in Society): A Activity: Brainstorming b Aim: help students remember some things their mothers usually at home 35 c Time: minutes d Preparation: nothing e Procedure: - divide the class into groups - ask students to list as many things their mother usually at home as possible within mintues - the group with the most things is the winner * Suggested answers: cleaning the house, cooking, washing up, washing clothes, going shopping, helping children learn, playing with children, …… 14 Speaking lesson 16 (Unit 16 The Association of Southeast Asian Nations) A Game: Lucky Flag b Aim: help students remember some things their mothers usually at home c Time: minutes d Preparation: pictures of the flags of countries belonging to ASEAN Behind flags are questions related to ASEAN Behind the rest ones are the lucky symbol e Procedure: - Divide the class into teams - teams take turns to choose the flag they like and answer the question behind If they can answer the question, they will get point If they cannot answer, the opposite team has the right to give the answer If they has the lucky symbol, they will get point without having to answer any question - When the time is over, the team with the most points is the winner * Suggested Flags: 36 Question: Which country has the tallest twin buildings in the world? VIETNAM (Answer: Malaysia) Petronas twin tower (88 floors) 37 Question: How many members are there in ASEAN? Name them LAOS (Answer: 10 members They are Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia )  SINGAPORE Question: When was ASEAN founded? 38  THAILAND (Answer: It was founded on 8th August, 1967) Question: Which country in the ASEAN has the same name for its country and its capital?  PHILIPPINES (Answer: Singapore)  MALAYSIA 39 40 ... SIL.org/ lingualinks/ language learning/ speaking skill htm 20 APPENDIX OF INITIATIVE INITIATIVE: “SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE GRADE 12 STUDENTS' SPEAKING SKILLIN ENGLISH CLASSES AT NONG CONG. .. subject: “SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE GRADE 12 STUDENTS SPEAKING SKILL IN ENGLISH CLASSES AT NONG CONG UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL.” This research is to help students simply communicate with... method improvement, the main purpose is to form and develop the knowledge and skills in using English English 12 gets in close contact with distinct skills: listening, speaking, and reading To practice