Teachers'''' use of eliciting techniques in English speaking lessons at Son Tay Upper Secondary school, Hanoi = M.A. Thesis Linguistics : 60 14 10

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES CAO THI ̣ HỒNG PHƢƠNG TEACHERS’ USE OF ELICITING TECHNIQUES IN ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONS AT SON TAY UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL, HANOI (Sử dụng thủ thuâ ̣t gơ ̣i mở giờ da ̣y nói Tiế ng Anh của giáo viên THPT Sơn Tây, Hà Nội) M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY Code: 60 14 10 Cohort: MA 18 HANOI , 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES CAO THI ̣ HỒNG PHƢƠNG TEACHERS’ USE OF ELICITING TECHNIQUES IN ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONS AT SON TAY UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL, HANOI (Sử dụng thủ thuâ ̣t gơ ̣i mở giờ da ̣y nói Tiế ng Anh của giáo viên ta ̣i THPT Sơn Tây, Hà Nội) M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor : Lương Quỳnh Trang( M A) HANOI, 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS… ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENTS LITS OF TABLES AND FIGURES LISTS OF ABBRIVIATIONS PART A: INTRODUCTION Statement of the Problem and the Rationale of the Study Research Aims and Research Questions Scope of the Study Significance of the Study Methodology of the Study Organization of the Study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW Eliciting 1.1 Definitions of Eliciting Types of Eliciting Techniques 1.2 Asking Questions 1.2 Asking Questions Combined with Using Pictures 1.2 Asking Questions Combined with Using Games or Activities 1.2 Asking Questions Combined with Using Texts and Dialogues 1.2 Asking Questions Combined with Using Non-verbal Language 1.3 Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Eliciting Techniques Speaking 2.1 Definition of Speaking 2.2 Characteristics of a Successful Speaking Activity 2.3 Approaches to Speaking Eliciting Techniques and Speaking in Second Language Teaching Phases to Teach Speaking Related Studies Summary CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Research Questions 2.2 Research Approach 2.3 Sampling Method 2.4 Research Setting 2.4.1 An Overview of Son Tay Upper Secondary School, Hanoi 2.4.2 The Teachers 2.4.3 The Students 2.5 Participants 2.6 Instruments 2.6.1 Classroom Observations 2.6.2 Semi – structured Interviews 2.6.3 Questionnaires 2.7 Procedure of Data Collection 2.8 Data Analysis Procedure 2.9 Conclusive Remark CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 3.1 Research Question 3.2 Research Question 3.2.1 The Teachers’ Frequency of Using Elicitation 3.2.2 Stages in which Eliciting Techniques are Employed in Speaking Lessons 3.2.3 The Constraints of Using Eliciting Techniques as Reported by the Teachers 3.3 Summary CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION 4.1 Major Findings of the Research 4.2 Pedagogical Implications of the Research 4.3 Contribution of the Research 4.4 Limitations of the Research 4.5 Suggestions for Further Studies 4.6 Summary REFERENCES APPENDICES APPENDIX OBSERVATION CHECKLIST APPENDIX INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS APPENDIX APPENDIX - FIGURE APPENDIX - FIGURE APPENDIX - FIGURE APPENDIX -FIGURE APPENDIX - FIGURE APPENDIX - FIGURE APPENDIX - TABLE vii LITS OF TABLES AND FIGURES Figure 1: The use of eliciting techniques in English speaking lessons of grade 10- from the student questionnaire Figure 2: The use of eliciting techniques in English speaking lessons of grade 11- from the student questionnaire Figure 3: The use of eliciting techniques in English speaking lessons of grade 12- from the student questionnaire Figure 4: The frequency of using eliciting techniques in speaking lessons of grade 10 Figure 5: The frequency of using eliciting techniques in speaking lessons of grade 11 Figure 6: The frequency of using eliciting techniques in speaking lessons of grade 12 Table 1: Stages in which eliciting techniques are employed in speaking lessons of grade 10, 11, and 12 viii LISTS OF ABBRIVIATIONS ELT: English Language Teaching EFL: English Foreign Language ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies PART A: INTRODUCTION Statement of the Problem and the Rationale of the Study Second Language Acquisition theories acknowledge that the importance of the ability to speak is a key to success in the process of second language learning Pattison (1992) confirms that when people know a language, they mean being able to speak a language The essential role of speaking skill in language learning is undeniable Similarly, most learners of English, especially those who are upper secondary school students, agree that the ability to express themselves freely in English in communication is of great value for their future careers For upper secondary students, the ability to communicate fluently and effectively in English has been of primary significance However, the fact shows that only a small proportion of students can perform communication well in foreign language The majority of them still remain embarrassed when they have a conversation in a foreign language In some particular cases, students fail to speak a single word in English Nevertheless, foreign language teaching, especially ELT in Vietnamese upper secondary schools, has been strongly influenced by the traditional grammar-translation method with its major focus on grammar, reading, and writing A number of English teachers in Son Tay upper secondary school are also profoundly influenced on this method A little or no attention is given to developing students‟ speaking skill As a result, students have little opportunity to develop their communicative competence in English in their classrooms (Nunan, 1991, p 25) Actually, eliciting is of great significance in speaking lessons as a tool of creating and stimulating a communicative language learning environment It is implied that teacher can elicit ideas, feelings, meanings, situations, associations, memories or anything that help provide the key information about a topic, encouraging students to get involved in the communicative process That confirms the reasons why eliciting techniques play a vital role in helping students develop speaking ability Whether or not teachers apply any kinds of eliciting techniques to encourage students to take part in speaking activities is of great concern for all teachers of English in Son Tay upper secondary school Therefore, a thorough understanding of the fact may lay the foundation for the improvement of teaching and learning speaking situation This assumption has led me to undertake the study entitled “teachers‟ use of eliciting techniques in English speaking lessons at Son Tay Upper Secondary School, Hanoi” with the hope of better understanding about the reality, thus some recommendations may be proposed in order to improve the quality of teaching speaking in my school Research Aims and Research Questions The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of eliciting techniques by teachers of English in Son Tay upper secondary school in speaking lessons Specifically, it addressed the following research questions Question What eliciting techniques are used in English speaking lessons for Grade 10, 11 and 12 students at Son Tay Upper Secondary School, Hanoi? Question How are these techniques used to elicit student talk? Scope of the Study The study is limited to the search for teachers‟ use of eliciting techniques in speaking lessons at Son Tay upper secondary school The work involves firstly in the investigation into the reality of which eliciting techniques are used in English speaking lessons of Son Tay upper secondary school Then it identifies the frequency of employing these techniques It finally offers some implications to improve the quality of teaching and learning speaking skill in Son Tay upper secondary school Significance of the Study Conducting this research, the researcher expected to identify the teachers‟ use of elicitation in teaching speaking skill and the most common eliciting techniques teachers tended to employ during their speaking lessons of all three grades of Son Tay upper secondary school, evaluation of how these techniques applied by both the teachers and students as well as mentioning the difficulties the teachers encountered when using these techniques Once completed, the research would serve as a reference for those who want to have a clearer view of the use of eliciting techniques Moreover, the findings could help teachers improve their eliciting techniques as well as classroom management during teaching speaking in order to improve students‟ communicative skill In addition, the findings of the paper could be considered a source of reference for administrators in order to make adjustment to the testing and assessment process Thus it can be of great benefits for both teachers and students in their teaching and learning speaking skills at high school level Methodology of the Study The research instruments, namely questionnaires, observations and interviews were employed to collect data for the research To be specific, a set of questionnaires was distributed to 120 students of classes of all three grades 10, 11, 12 of Son Tay upper secondary school In addition, three teachers were asked for the permission to be observed, and teachers for interviews to get more in-depth information for the study The information collected from questionnaires, observation checklists and interviews was transcribed as the primary source of data for the research The general approach for data analysis was content analysis (Grbich, 2007 The contents were to be sorted into categories based on the two research questions The results from questionnaire, observations were summarized, evaluated and categorized by Microsoft Excel with the detailed checklists from the observation schemes After that teachers‟ interviews were transcribed and categorized into groups The flow of information among the teachers‟ interviews was the basis to compare and draw the conclusions about the similarities and differences in applications of elicitations in speaking lessons among the three grades 10, 11, 12 Additionally, the analyses of observations and interviews also support for the results and discussions of the two research questions Organization of the Study Part A (Introduction) provides a flow of information the rationales, the aims, the significance as well as the methods of the study Part B (Development) Chapter (Literature review) offers the theoretical background of the study, including discussions of key concepts and the related studies Chapter (Methodology) describes the research setting, participants, instruments of data collection as well as the procedure employed to carry out data analysis Chapter (Data analysis and discussion) presents, analyses and discusses the findings that the researcher found out from the data collected according to the two research questions Chapter (Conclusion) summarizes the answers to the two research questions, several pedagogical recommendations concerning the research topic, the limitations of the research APPENDIX Interview Guiding Questions In your opinion, is it necessary to employ elicitation in language teaching? Can you give explanation for your view point? What were your purposes of using elicitation during teaching speaking? In which stages of the lesson did you use elicitation? During speaking lessons, which eliciting techniques were employed and how often did you exploit those techniques? In comparison between grades 10, 11 and 12, are there any differences in the frequency of employing the elicitation? Why did not you choose other techniques to elicit students’ responses? What difficulties did you encounter when using eliciting techniques during the speaking lessons? Are there any differences in the ways these eliciting techniques were employed between grades 10, 11 and 12? Can you point out the reasons? INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS General information Duration: 15 minutes, from 10:10 a.m to 10:25 a.m Facility: Tape recorder Interview transcript Interviewer (Q): I am doing my MA thesis on the teachers’ use of eliciting techniques in speaking lessons at Son Tay upper secondary school; may I ask you some questions? Interviewee (A): Sure Go ahead! Q: in your opinion, is it necessary to employ elicitation in language teaching? Can you give explanation for your view point? A: Elicitation is very important since it helps the teacher achieves numerous purposes at the same time First, by eliciting students’ responses, the teacher can estimate students’ background as well as their academic competence Second, the interaction between teacher and students is created due to the exploitation of questioning and answering process In my humble opinion, elicitation is the key to interaction during the lesson that can turn the teaching and learning process into an interactional knowledge acquisition Third, it helps decrease teacher talking time and at the same time increases that of students Finally, by asking guiding questions, the teacher is able to keep students alert of being questioned, therefore focus their attention during the lesson Q: Did you exploit eliciting techniques during your teaching speaking skill? A: Yes, usually This is the most frequent technique I used to get students’ responses Q: What were your purposes of using elicitation? A: As mentioned above, I used elicitation to estimate my students’ understanding, consisting of students’ ability to get my points and their level of background knowledge Then I wanted to create not only opportunities in which students could raise their voice but also interaction between me and students Q: In which stages did you use elicitation? A: I used elicitation whenever I needed, to introduce a new amount of knowledge, to warm up or to explain new words In short, I use elicitation in all stages of the lesson Q: Which eliciting techniques were most employed in your speaking lessons? A: Regarding the frequency of use, asking questions was mostly exploited, followed by asking questions combined with texts or dialogues Asking questions combined with activities stood at the third position while asking questions combined with pictures was untouched Q: Are there any differences in the ways these eliciting techniques were employed between grades 10, 11 and 12? Can you point out the reasons? Teaching English for 12 graders, we mainly focus on grammar, because at that time, students are under the pressure of passing the national exams and entrance exams to university They not pay much attention to practicing speaking skills Even some teachers consider that spending time practicing speaking skill is a waste of time Some of my colleagues just spend half of the English speaking lessons on the speaking skill and use half of the time teaching language focus and grammar Students seem to be so happy about that Q: what difficulties did you encounter when using eliciting techniques during teaching speaking? A: As I experienced, the biggest difficulty was that there is no assessment are testing on speaking skill in the national exams or entrance to the university, therefore, my students have low motivation in learning speaking skill as well as practicing speaking Q: Any other difficulties? A: Time limitation Eliciting took much time than presenting knowledge directly, especially when I wanted to use games or texts to introduce new knowledge for students I had to spend time not only preparing for what I intended to conduct in class but also giving them instruction and checking their understanding of the rules A very short text also took the students minutes to read through and have the most general idea about that text Q: Do you have any suggestions for teachers who want to exploit other eliciting techniques besides asking questions? A: Asking questions combined with activities or pictures should be used to explain or introduce simple knowledge only Otherwise, students will focus on commenting pictures or playing games only Reading text using in asking questions combined with texts should be short with to sentences and easy to understand with few or without any new word because students are not willing to read such a long text in speaking or listening lesson Nonverbal language should be prepared and practiced at home before being brought in the class Or to be safer, I think teachers should apply other eliciting techniques or direct presentation for difficult knowledge In short, I think teachers and especially teachers should try to work hard on the lesson plan in order to provide comprehensible elicitation in appropriate amount of time In case the lesson plan seems not to work in the class, I think the only solution is to be flexible between exploiting different techniques and direct presentation of knowledge It can help save much time for the main part of the lesson Q: Are there any differences in using these eliciting techniques between grades 10, 11 and 12? Can you point out the reasons? A: Yes, so many differences For examples, I am teaching grade 10 and 12, I use a lot of pictures and games for 10 graders, but for 12 graders, I only use texts and dialogue The reasons are that, students of grade 10 are more interested in talking and discussing the pictures as well as the games than 12 graders On the contrary 12 graders seem to waste their time when the teachers spend time asking them questions according to the pictures or games What they like the teachers to is giving them as many grammar exercises as possible, so that they can practice for their coming exams Q: Thank you so much for sharing valuable opinions In case there is anything unclear, I will contact you later, ok? A: No problem! APPENDIX Questionnaire (for students) My name is Cao Thi Hong Phuong from K18 B at Post-graduate Studies, ULIS, VNU At present, I am conducting my M.A thesis entitled ““Teachers’ use of eliciting techniques in English speaking lessons at Son Tay Upper Secondary School, Hanoi” Your cooperation with sincere answers is crucial to the success of the research Your information will be kept confidential for the study purposes only Thank you for your help * Personal information - Your gender: Male □ Female □ - Age: _ - Class: - Years of learning English: * Please circle the appropriate choice(s) in answering each of the following questions How often you feel reluctant to speak in the English class? (Choose option only) A always B often C sometimes How you find English speaking lessons? (Choose option only) A I like them very much B I like them C It depends C I not like them at all What you think about the teacher’s talking time? (Choose option only) D never A too much B much C all right D too little What eliciting techniques have been used by your teachers in speaking lessons to stimulate you to talk? (More than option is acceptable) Asking questions Asking questions combined with pictures Asking questions combined with games or activities Asking questions combined with texts and dialogues Asking questions combined with non-verbal language Others (be specific) How often has your teacher used these eliciting techniques during the lesson? Please circle the appropriate number to indicate your frequency of using each technique (Choose option only) always usually seldom hardly ever never A Asking questions B Asking questions combined with pictures C Asking questions combined with games or activities D Asking questions combined with texts and dialogues E Asking questions combined with non-verbal language F Others (be specific) In which stage of the lessons have your teachers used these techniques? (More than option is acceptable) TECHNIQUES Warm up Before you While speak Asking questions Asking questions combined with pictures Asking questions combined with games or activities Asking questions combined with texts and dialogues Asking questions combined with nonverbal language Others (be specific) speak you After speak you How you think about each eliciting technique that has been used during English speaking lessons, please evaluate the effectiveness of each technique by circling the appropriate number totally ineffective slightly ineffective moderately effective extremely effective effective Asking questions Asking questions combined with pictures Asking questions combined with games or activities Asking questions combined with texts and dialogues Asking questions combined with non-verbal language Others (be specific) Thank you for your cooperation! APPENDIX - FIGURE The use of eliciting techniques in English speaking lessons of grade 10 100 Asking questions 90 80 Asking questions combined with pictures 70 60 Asking questions combined with games or activities 50 Asking questions combibed with texts 40 30 20 or dialogues Asking questions with non - verbal language 10 Figure 1: The use of eliciting techniques In English speaking lessons of grade 10- from the student questionnaire APPENDIX - FIGURE The use of eliciting techniques In English speaking lessons of grade 11 100 90 80 70 Asking questions 60 Asking questions combined with pictures 50 Asking questions combined with games or activities 40 30 20 Asking questions combined with texts or dialouges Asking pictures combined with non verbal languages 10 Figure 2: The use of eliciting techniques In English speaking lessons of grade 11 APPENDIX - FIGURE The use of eliciting techniques In English speaking lessons of grade 12 90 80 70 60 50 Asking questions Asking questions combined with pictures Asking questions combined with games or activities 40 30 20 10 Asking questions combined with texts or dialogues Asking questions combined with non verbal languages Figure 3: The use of eliciting techniques in English speaking lessons of grade 12 APPENDIX -FIGURE 80 70 60 Asking questions 50 Asking questions combined with pictures 40 Asking questions combined with games/ activities 30 20 Asking questions combined with texts/ dialogues 10 Asking questions with non verbal language Always Usually Seldom Hardly ever Never Figure 4: The frequency of using eliciting techniques in speaking lessons of grade 10 APPENDIX - FIGURE Figure 5: The frequency of using eliciting techniques in speaking lessons of grade 11 APPENDIX - FIGURE The frequency of using eliciting techniques in speaking lessons of grade 12 12 graders’ opinions 120 100 22.5 80 32.5 22.5 10 12.5 22.5 60 40 25 25 20 Hardly ever 55 77.5 Seldom 27.5 55 20 7.5 7.5 Asking questions Never 55 22.5 Asking Asking questions questions combined combined with pictures with games/ activities Usually Always Asking questions combined with texts/ dialogues Asking questions with non verbal language Figure 6: The frequency of teachers' elicitation in English speaking lessons of grade 12 (Reported by the students) APPENDIX - TABLE Stages in which eliciting techniques are employed in speaking lessons of grade 10, 11, and 12 Total number Stages in which eliciting techniques are employed of students’ assessment Eliciting technique Warm up Before While you you speak speak After you speak a 110 120 70 55 120 b 102 34 47 56 114 c 15 103 13 95 d 10 39 70 85 e 32 15 35 a Asking questions b Asking questions combined with pictures c Asking questions combined with games/ activities d Asking questions combined with texts/ dialogues Asking questions combined with non-verbal Table 9: The first-yeare.students’ evaluation of the effectiveness of the student-teachers’ eliciting techniques