An exploratory study on teaching english to children at kindergartens in hanoi

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES O0O NGUYỄN THỊ DUNG AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON TEACHING ENGLISH TO CHILDREN AT KINDERGARTENS IN HANOI (Nghiên cứu thăm dò việc dạy tiếng Anh cho học sinh lứa tuổi mầm non số trường mầm non Hà Nội) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI-2015 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES O0O NGUYỄN THỊ DUNG AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON TEACHING ENGLISH TO CHILDREN AT KINDERGARTENS IN HANOI (Nghiên cứu thăm dò việc dạy tiếng Anh cho học sinh lứa tuổi mầm non số trường mầm non Hà Nội) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Asoc Prof Dr NGUYỄN VĂN ĐỘ HANOI-2015 DECLARATION I declare that my thesis entitled AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON TEACHING ENGLISH TO CHILDREN AT KINDERGARTENS IN HANOI is the result of my own research of the degree of Master of Arts at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi and this thesis fulfills with the requirements of the degree Master of Arts and has not been published anywhere Nguyễn Thị Dung 2015 Supervisor’s signature Assoc Prof Dr NGUYỄN VĂN ĐỘ i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my sincere thankfulness to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Van Do for his whole hearted guidance, valuable suggestions, and critical comments during the course of writing this thesis My thanks also go to all the teachers at VIVA center who were willing to give me information via survey questionnaire Their enthusiasm and helpful feedbacks made the thesis more reliable and useful Finally, I would like to offer my deepest gratitude to my family and close friends for their understanding and support during the time of doing the research ii ABSTRACT This paper reports the results of the survey conducted in VIVA center to find out the difficulties in teaching English perceived by the teachers VIVA center involves thirty teachers who are teaching English at thirty nursery schools in Hanoi The focus is on professional support that the teachers receive to teach English at preschool level The difficulties will be viewed from the questionnaire and observational data The results indicate that Vietnamese nursery teachers lack English teaching methodology for children and classroom management skills All the teachers have not only taken part in any regular training because at this time there are not any colleges or universities training English nursery school teachers in Vietnam, but also have not enrolled any professional training courses from center Besides, the teachers also have difficulty in using teaching facilities and they need more appropriate teaching facilities At the end of the study, suggestions and solutions will be given to help the teachers overcome those challenges iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii APPENDICE vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii LIST OF CHARTS viii LIST OF TABLES ix PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims and objectives of the study Research questions Scope of the study Methods of the study The design of the thesis PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Children learning English as foreign language 1.1.1 Characteristics of children 1.1.2 Children’s stages of development 1.1.2.1 Cognitive development 1.1.2.2 Physical development 1.1.2.3 Social and emotional development 1.1.2.4 Moral development iv 1.1.3 Children learning English as foreign language 10 1.1.4 Children’s learning style 11 1.1.4.1 Visual (spatial) learners (lookers) 11 1.1.4.2 Kinesthetic (movement) learners (movers) 12 1.1.4.3 Verbal (language) learners or auditory learners (listeners) 12 1.1.4.4 Logical learners 12 1.1.5 The importance of learning language (English) in early years 13 1.2 Teaching English as foreign language for children 13 1.2.1 Child language acquisition and language learning 13 1.2.2 Teaching English as foreign language for children 15 12.2.1 Learning outcomes 15 1.2.2.2 Teaching curriculum 16 1.2.2.3 Teaching materials 17 1.2.2.4 Teaching methods 18 1.2.2.4.1 English teaching methods for preschoolers 1.2.2.4.2 Classroom management 18 20 1.2.2.5 Teaching assessment 21 1.2.2.6 Teaching facilities 22 1.3 Teacher’s perception 22 1.4 Previous studies on teaching English to very young leaners 23 1.5 Summary 23 CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 25 2.1 VIVA center 25 2.2 Participants 26 v 2.3 Data collection instruments 26 2.4 Data collection procedure 28 2.5 Data analysis 29 2.6 Summary 29 CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 30 3.1 Results from questionnaire and classroom observations 30 3.1.1 Teachers’ perceptions towards English teaching at preschool level 30 3.1.2 English teaching methods to very young learners 31 3.1.3 Classroom management 34 3.1.4 Teaching facilities 38 3.1.5 Professional training courses for preschool English teachers 40 3.2 Answers to the research questions 41 3.2.1 Research question 1: What are teachers’ perceptions towards English teaching at preschool level? 41 3.2.2 Research question 2: What are the teachers’ difficulties when teaching to nursery children? 42 3.3 Summary 42 PART C: CONCLUSIONS 44 Recapitulation 44 Recommendation 44 Limitations 45 Suggestions for further studies 46 REFERENCES 47 APPENDICE I vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TPR Total Physical Response No Number of teachers L1 First language L2 Second language TEYL Teaching English to young leaners ESL English as a Second Language ELT English language teaching vii LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: Teaching methods Chart 2: Teachers’ using English in the class Chart 3: Number of children Chart 4: Children’s work in the classroom Chart 5: Sitting arrangement Chart 6: Teachers’ self-evaluation about controlling the class Chart 7: Using of teaching facilities Chart 8: Making teaching aids Chart 9: Training courses Chart 10: Observing other classes viii 34 Tricycle Green Wheels on the bus song 35 Stroller Red Look 36 Green Yellow Red 37 Bell 4:Unit Santa Claus andChristmas 38 Christmas N e w tree year Star XIII 39 Present Sing Dance 40 Merry Christmas! Review 29, 30, 31 41 Chung cake Lucky money 42 Peach flower Chung cake Lucky money XIV 43 Fireworks Peach flower Numbers:510 44 Review Unit 45 Banana Mango Eat 6:Unit Nat ure 46 Apple Orange (Pa rt Drink 1) XV 47 Pear I like apples song 48 Mum/Teach 49 Cat Unit Dog 5: XVI 50 Pig Cow 51 Duck Animal sound song 52 Bird Mouse A small bird song XVII 53 Review 54 Chicken Run Walk 55 Monkey Bear The animal sounds song 56 Frog jump XVIII 57 Circle, Square 58 Triangle, Star 59 Review 60 61 Sun Look Uni t Eat 6: Natur e 2)(PART Star , look 62 Sun , Moon Twinkle, twinkle little star song 63 Rainbow Run, Walk Jump 64 Dialogue: What’s your name? My name is… 65 Dialogue: How are you? XX I’m fine… What’s your name? My name is… 66 Review Unit 67 Review Unit 68 69 Review Unit Review Unit 70 Test XXI ... questionnaire is the main tool to collect the data for the study Classroom observation functions as an additional tool to check the information Observation is a way of gathering data by watching... kindergartens in Hanoi Tools for data collection in this study are questionnaire and class observation Data collected from questionnaire is analyzed quantitatively and data from class observation... Supervisor: Asoc Prof Dr NGUYỄN VĂN ĐỘ HANOI- 2015 DECLARATION I declare that my thesis entitled AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON TEACHING ENGLISH TO CHILDREN AT KINDERGARTENS IN HANOI is the result of my own research