ENHANCING STUDENTS PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING LESSONS THROUGH ADAPTING SOME SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH 10 AT TINH GIA

PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale Although the English 10,11,12 textbooks to school curriculum have shown a great deal of improvement as compared with the old series of grammar-based, it seems that not all activities or tasks in the books are suitable to the different teaching and learning contexts of different localities within Vietnam When teaching English 10, 11, 12 at Tinh Gia high school, I find that not all activities or tasks in the textbooks are suitable to the different teaching and learning contexts of different localities within Vietnam, especially there are some problems with some activities in the textbook Some are too difficult for students, some are not real communicative, some are too long All these reasons greatly contribute to the de-motivation of students from participating in the lessons at Tinh Gia high school In this case, it is necessary for teachers to adapt the content of the core books to make each activity and unit more suitable and interesting for learners The above mentioned reasons have inspired me to conduct a research titled “ENHANCING STUDENTS' PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING LESSONS THROUGH ADAPTING SOME SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH 10 AT TINH GIA HIGH SCHOOL" Aims of the research • To investigate the reasons why teachers at Tinh Gia high school should adapt some speaking activities in Tieng Anh 10 from both teachers and students’ viewpoints • To determine the effect of the adapted activities in inducing students’ participation in speaking lessons Basing on the findings, some implications will finally be proposed by the writer Scope of the research Adapting some speaking activities in Tieng Anh 10 is focused on and tested in classes at Tinh Gia high school As the result, the samples of the research were restricted 87 students at 10 form at Tinh Gia high school Methods of the research This research adopts both quantitative and qualitative approaches to identify the reasons why teachers should adapt some activities in Tieng Anh 10 to increase students’ participation at Tinh Gia high school Data were collected by means of textbook analysis, experiment and observations PART B : MAIN CONTENTS An overview of adaptation 1.1 What is adaptation? There are several definitions of adaptations by different scholars: Madsen and Bowen (1978: ix) claimed adaptation is an action of employing “one or more of a number of techniques: supplementing, expanding, personalizing, simplifying, modernizing, localizing, or modifying cultural/ situational content” Tomlinson (1998b: xi) refers to “reducing, adding, omitting, modifying and supplementing” 1.2 The purpose of adaptation to make the material more suitable for the circumstances or as Mc Donough and Shaw (1993:85) put it: “to maximize the appropriacy of teaching materials in context, by changing some of the internal characteristics of a coursebook to better suit our particular circumstances” to compensate for any intrinsic deficiencies in the materials, such as linguistic inaccuracies, out-of-datedness, lack of authenticity (Madsen and Bowen 1978) or lack of variety 1.3 Techniques for adaptation • Adding • Deleting: subtracting and abridging • Simplifying • Reordering • Replacing materials 1.4 Levels of adaptation Textbook adaptation can be done at three levels: The first level is macro adaptation The second level of adaptation is adapting a unit The third level is adaptation of specific activities in a unit Research methodology 2.1 Research setting 2.1.1 The setting of the research The research was conducted at Tinh Gia high school The school has 36 classes with over 76 teachers of all subjects Currently there are teachers of English and 1458 students ranged from grade 10 to grade 12 Although most students are aware of the importance of learning, English is not paid much attention by most of the students in school Few students choose English as a subject to take Group A1, D exam Teaching English, especially teaching English speaking has met some difficulties The first is the large size classes There are about 44 students in each class It is difficult for teachers to set up communicative activities, monitor class and give feedback The second is that most students are not familiar with teaching in English They cannot understand lessons if teachers speak English all the time Normally, students have three or four periods of studying English every week It is a limited time for students to practice and develop skills as well as enrich their vocabulary and structure capacity Moreover, English is hardly used to talk outside the classroom All these factors have great effect on the students’ results in learning English especially in learning speaking 2.1.2 Speaking materials For speaking skill, its aim is to develop students’ speaking competence beginning with a range of the specific information to a complete theme A speaking lesson often consists of 3-4 tasks The first task provide learners with language input and help learners develop language specific functions such as expressing opinions, agreements and disagreements, soon The next tasks (task or task 4) require students to connect the first two tasks, add some more information and change it into a complete topic, then talk out with or without the guide of the teacher The textbook also provides students with the language background relating to habit, custom, culture etc that is easy and helpful for students to practise The book has shown a great deal of improvement as compared with the old book of grammar-based textbook; however, it also bears several limitations For example, many of their speaking activities are found non-communicative 2.1.3 Research design This research was a quasi-experimental study, using observations “before” and “at the end” of the experiment, questionnaires for students For this study, two classes of 87 10th grade students at Tinh Gia high school were asked to participate in this experiment One class was employed as an experimental group The other was employed as a control group Each class consisted of 43 students The researcher taught each group lessons using the current textbook Tieng Anh 10 The teacher instructed the control group in the usual fashion The same lessons were taught to the experimental group with adapted activities After the experiment, the degrees of participation of the two groups were compared and then some conclusions were drawn out about the relationship between the use of the adapted speaking activities and the level of the students’ participation in the speaking lessons 2.1.4 Participants The participants in this research were 87 10th grade students from two classes: 10A5 and 10A9 at Tinh Gia2 high school All students must attend English classes a week The control group, group 10A9 included 44 students with 37 student girls and student boys while the experimental group, group 10A5 had 43 students with 29 females and 14 males The two groups seemed to have a relatively similar level of proficiency in English as determined by their previous term exam on English grammar, reading and writing In the researcher’ observation, the levels of participation of the two group in learning English in general and in learning speaking in particular were relatively equal This initial assumption was later justified by the pre-activity observation 2.1.5 Data collection instruments Classroom observations Before the experiment The three other English teachers observed the two classes in speaking periods to be aware of the degrees of the students’ participation before the experiment The degrees of participation were measured in term of their talking time The before experiment classroom observations are vitally important The result decided whether we would have the following research If the present level of participation was unsatisfactory, we would have to find out the way to improve their involvement The data collected from the before experiment classroom observations would be used to compare with the degrees of participation of the control group and experimental group before the interventions 2.1.6 Data collection procedure First, the three other English teachers observed the two classes in three lessons to know the degrees of students’ participation before the experiment After collecting information from the observations, the researcher taught two groups the three same lessons For the control group the three lessons were conducted using intact activities in the textbook For the experimental group, adapted activities were applied During the treatment, the three other English teachers observed and measured the talking time in both groups to get the data for the research Results 3.1 Results from before-experiment-observations Table 1: STT and TTT in control and experimental group before the experiment Control group (10A9) Experimental group (10A5) TTT STT Silence TTT STT Silence 20 14 11 21 14 10 44 % 31% 24 % 47% 31% 22% TTT: Teacher talking time; STT: Student talking time From the all four lessons, it can be seen clearly that the level of participation in classroom speaking activities of two classes was almost the same and quite low Students talking time made up approximately nearly one third of the total time in each class In conclusion, the students’ participation in classroom speaking activities was very poor So it is urgent that teachers find out teaching techniques to increase students’ participation However, in order to have suitable teaching techniques we must understand the reasons of the students’ low involvement 3.2 Results from the end of experiment observations 3.2.1 Observations in control group There was no change in the teacher’ teaching, all original activities in Tieng Anh 10 were applied as usual As a result, the amount of students talking time and teacher talking time was almost the same as that of the observations before the experiment 3.2.2 Observations in experimental group Adaptation • Adapted lesson: Unit 14: THE WORLD CUP: Part B-Speaking: • Adapted activity: Task (Tieng Anh 10, page 145: 146) • Time: This adaptation was delivered on March 13 th, 2018 in class 10A5 at Tinh Gia high school • Reasons for adaptation: The writer of this paper finds that two activities in Unit 14- part  B- speaking aren’t real communicative activities Task was supposed to be an information-gap activity but there is no gap in this activity at all Task looked like a role-play activity, however, in fact, all students have the same information What they have to is to make sentences using the provided information None of them provide a chance for genuine exchange of information or opinions In these two activities, students listen to one another talking about things they already know Students possess the same information Thus there is no reason for asking the questions • Technique of adaptation: modifying Activity (Task 2- page 146):  This activity was redesigned to be an information-gap one The teacher prepared some pairs of cards and asked students to work in pairs to find out the missing information about the World Cup: Set 1: Card 1A: Times Year 1934 Host country Italy Winner Italy Score -1 Runner-up Czechoslovakia 1938 France Italy 4-2 Hungary 1950 Brazil Uruguay -1 Brazil 1938 1950 1954 Switzeland West Germany -2 Hungary Card 1B: Times Year Host country Winner Score Runner-up 1934 1954 Set 2: Card 2A: Times Year Host country Winner Score Runner-up 1958 Sweden 1962 Chile 1966 England 1970 Mexico Brazil 5-2 Sweden Brazil 3-1 Czech England 4-2 West Germany Brazil 4-1 Italy 1958 1962 1966 1970 10 1974 West Germany West Germany 4-1 Netherlands 11 1978 Argentina 12 1982 Spain 13 1986 Mexico Argentina Italy Argentina 3-1 Netherlands 3-1 West Germany 3-2 West Germany 10 1974 11 1978 Card 2B: Times Year Host country Winner Score Runner-up Set 3: Card 3A: Times Year Host country Winner Score Runner-up Card 3B: Times Year Host country 12 1982 13 1986 Winner Score Runner-up Set 4: Card 4A: Times Year Host country 14 1990 Italy 15 1994 The USA 16 1998 France Winner West Germany 1-0 Argentina Brazil France 17 2002 South Korea & Japan Brazil 3-2 Italy 3-0 Brazil 2-0 Germany Times Year Host country Winner Score Runner-up Set 5: Card 5A: 140 1990 15 1994 16 1998 17 2002 Times Year Host country 18 2006 Germany Score Runner-up Card 4B: 19 20 2010 2014 South Brazil Africa Winner Italy Spain Germany Score 1-1 1-0 1-0 Runner-up France Netherlands Argentina In 2006 Italy won the game - in a penalty shoot-out 21 2018 Russia France 4-2 Croatia Card 5B: Times Year Host country Winner Score Runner-up 18 2006 19 2010 10 20 2014 21 2018 • Observation of adaptation: Class description: Class 10A5 Number of students 43 Time 45 Unit Unit14: B Speaking Lesson objective: By the end of the lesson, students will be able  to use the required language to ask and answer about the World Cup Procedure:  Warm-up: The teacher put students in groups of 3-4, gave each group a paper in which there were ten pictures of ten different sports In minute time, students had to put right names of sports in pictures The group had the right answers in the shortest time would be the winners The students in the class participated excitedly in this competitive game Teacher right after introduced the new lesson: Unit 14- Speaking Task 2: Students were asked to work in pairs, the teacher gave each member of one pair a card she had prepared at home Students were told to find out their missing information about the Asian Games in their card Teacher made model interactions with two good students in the class then students worked in pairs They were asked to practise speaking and write down all their missing information Students seemed to be eager to take part in this task They asked their partner and listened carefully to the answers to write down the information they needed After minutes of pair work, teacher called some volunteers to practice their speaking in front of the class At first about ten students raised their hands The teacher gave them another pair of cards to make sure that they did not read again what they had done She created a competitive atmosphere in the pair by promising to give two more marks to the person who could found out his or her all missing information in the 11 shorter time Students became more excited with the task More students raised hands to practice speaking in front of the class Teacher called four pairs to speak and then she got other students to comment on their friends’ speaking He corrected some wrong pronunciation and gave them marks At the end of the lesson, the teacher played the CD/ video for students to listen to a very popular song He asked students the name of the song All students knew it was “The cup of life” by Luis Gómez Escolar, Desmond Child, Draco Rosa It was the official song of the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France The lesson finished in a very warm and exciting atmosphere The experiment result can be illustrated as follow: Table Adaptation Experimental group (minutes) TTT 14 31% STT 22 49% Silence 20% 3.3 Students’ participation in experimental and control group in the lesson at the end of the intervention Table 3: Results of experimental group’s participation: Control group Adaptation (minutes) TTT 20 44% STT 14 31% Silence 11 24% Experimental group 14 22 (minutes) 31% 49% 20% The data from the table shows that students’ talking time in experimental class considerably increased compared to that figure of control group Students in experimental group spoke 8, and more minutes than students in control class during adaptation 1, and respectively In contrast, teacher’s talking time in trial group was significantly reduced in comparison with that number of the control group We can see that in the adapted lesson 1, 12 teacher spoke 20 minutes in control group but in experimental group she just decreased to only 14 minutes and the similar situation also happened in the two following lessons Meanwhile silence did not change much in these two groups This implies that a good impact of adapting activities on students’ participation The observation also reveals that the way the teacher adapted several speaking activities in the textbook in class attracted a large number of students Students were really interested in the games, pictures teachers gave them They were excited in finding missing information which they did not know from their friends to prove to their teacher and friends that they could speak and understand English When adapting task in unit 14 into information-gap activities the teacher gave his students a reason to speak Moreover, he had done it better when creating a real competitive atmosphere between students he rewarded marks for any students who could find out their missing information in the shortest time In this case, marks and praises or positive comment were really useful means for the teacher to encourage students to speak Besides, he was supportive and friendly, which made the students comfortable to join their voice in the lessons This fact implies that there was a high level of students’ participation in this experimental class 13 PART C: CONCLUSION Summary of the research: To bring out the most effective outcomes for the teaching and learning process of speaking skill for grade 10 at Tinh Gia high school the research was carried out It aimed at investigating the reasons why teachers at Tinh Gia high should adapt speaking activities in the textbook English 10 from both teachers and students’ viewpoints The research was carried out at two classes 10A5 and 10A9 at Tinh Gia high school The control group and the experimental group were chosen to carry out the research of adapting speaking activities in English 10 to improve students’ participation in speaking class With the use of instruments such as observation sheets, the researcher has found out three main reasons teachers at Tinh Gia highs school should adapt speaking activities in English 10 The first reason is the requirements of some textbook activities are too challenging compared to low proficiency levels of students at this rural school Second, some activities in the textbook lack of communicativeness and the language used in some model dialogues are not authentic The last cause is that activities in the book are not diversified enough Three reasons above greatly lead to students’ low participation in the speaking class This situation requires teachers at Tinh Gia high school to find out the solutions to improve it One of solutions is adapting inappropriate activities The adapted activities can increase students’ participation at Tinh Gia high school The results of the experiment obtained through observations after each trial lesson confirm the efficiency of the adapting technique in encouraging more students to take part in class activities To be more concrete, by applying games, songs in various communicative speaking activities with proper procedures in the class with teachers’ friendliness and supportiveness, the teacher could activate the students in speaking class to interact more with other students and teacher The teacher talking time reduced and the students talking time increased 14 Implications As shown in this research, the application of adapted activities can be effective in improving students’ participation in English speaking class In the section below, I would like to give a description of some speaking activities used appropriately in adaptations in the three lessons for this research and propose a number of other types of speaking activities that can be used in adaptation process to promote students’ participation in speaking class The researcher believes that these activities will create a communicative and exciting learning environment where students will be motivated to involve in speaking activities in English class 2.1 Information gap Each student has limited information which the other needs They must ask each other question to get the information To be more communicative, the answers should have some degree of ambiguity that needs to be cleaned up with more questions Information gaps can be done with street maps, telling time and events, daily schedule, job interview, spelling, etc 2.2 Problem-solving This works best with small group Present a problem and give groups some time to discuss the best approaches or solutions and come to agreement on a course of action The problem should require a decision with pros and cons and necessitate creative collaborative effort It can be something like deciding upon seven items to take along for a week in the wilderness, or choosing between living in a model hotel in the city or in a cottage by a mountain stream Press learners to explain why they choose their answers 2.3 Role play Role plays are for more communicative than pre-written dialogues, but they are often challenging and may be too difficult for students with low level of proficiency or shy students because they must come up with their own language to fit a particular situation To make a role- play less intimidating, 15 students may be allowed 5-10 minutes to think it first Teachers may allow students to write down their scripts, which is often necessary at lower levels 2.4 Games Students always want to play games Speaking activities become more interesting when they are designed in form of games 16 ... teachers at Tinh Gia high should adapt speaking activities in the textbook English 10 from both teachers and students viewpoints The research was carried out at two classes 10A5 and 10A9 at Tinh Gia. .. reading and writing In the researcher’ observation, the levels of participation of the two group in learning English in general and in learning speaking in particular were relatively equal This initial... of adapting speaking activities in English 10 to improve students participation in speaking class With the use of instruments such as observation sheets, the researcher has found out three main