Exploring the use of teacher’s questioning and students’ interaction in speaking classes at tran hung dao high school

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHẠM THANH XUÂN MỪNG EXPLORING THE USE OF TEACHER’S QUESTIONING AND STUDENTS’ INTERACTION IN SPEAKING CLASSES AT TRAN HUNG DAO HIGH SCHOOL (NGHIÊN CỨU TÌM HIỂU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÂU HỎI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ TƯƠNG TÁC CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG GIỜ DẠY NÓI TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT TRẦN HƯNG ĐẠO) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi – 2015 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHẠM THANH XUÂN MỪNG EXPLORING THE USE OF TEACHER’S QUESTIONING AND STUDENTS’ INTERACTION IN SPEAKING CLASSES AT TRAN HUNG DAO HIGH SCHOOL (NGHIÊN CỨU TÌM HIỂU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÂU HỎI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ TƯƠNG TÁC CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG GIỜ DẠY NÓI TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT TRẦN HƯNG ĐẠO) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr Vũ Thị Thanh Nhã Hanoi – 2015 DECLARATION I hereby declare that the minor thesis entitled “Exploring the Use of Teacher’s Questioning and Students' Interaction in Speaking classes at Tran Hung Dao High School” is the result of my own work and effort in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Faculty of PostGraduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University The material in this research has not been submitted to any other university or institution wholly and partially Phạm Thanh Xuân Mừng i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would, first of all, like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Vu Thi Thanh Nha for her valuable suggestions, enthusiasm, academic guidance, encouragement and precious advice on the thesis I would like to show my sincere thanks to all my lecturers at the Postgraduate Studies Department, University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their valuable lectures, which laid the foundation for this study My thanks also go to the teachers and students at Tran Hung Dao High School where my study was carried out Last but not least, my heartfelt thanks go to my family for their support and encouragement throughout my study in Nam Dinh ii ABSTRACT This study was conducted with teachers and 132 students of grade 10 at Tran Hung Dao High School with the data collected from the class observations in the classroom settings The study focused on finding out the types of questions the teachers used in English speaking lessons and exploring students' interaction to the teachers' questions The findings of the study showed that the three teachers used three main types of questions, namely display questions, referential questions and yes/no questions in which the display questions were most frequently asked, followed by yes/no questions and referential questions were rarely asked Regarding the purposes of questions, display questions were mainly asked with diagnostic and instructional functions Yes/no questions aimed to function as diagnostic and motivational tools The purpose of referential questions was to motivate students by asking information about students themselves Also, the findings indicated that most of the students‟ responses were very brief, with one to three words and many questions were not answered Longer responses up to nine words could be found in a few instances However, these longer responses accounted for a small percentage Besides, the use of referential questions in the investigated lessons did not seem to be successful and effective The findings revealed that there were not many longer responses when referential questions were asked Next, the way that the teacher asked the students to explain their answers resulted in longer responses However, most of the teachers did not focus on follow-up questions or the ways of giving feedback In brief, the teachers at THD High School were not skillful in using their questioning and need training more in applying this technique in speaking Therefore, this thesis proposes some useful implications to the teachers who want to have more effective questioning in order to promote interaction in their classroom It is also hoped that the results of the thesis will provide useful information and lessons for those who want to research at the schools with similar teaching conditions iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT: Communicative Language Teaching F: Feedback L2: Second Language No: Number No of Qs: Number of Questions No of Rs: Number of Responses S: Student Ss: Students T: Teacher THD: Tran Hung Dao Y/N Question: Yes/No Question iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1: The summary of the class observation data Table 2: Examples of different types of teacher questions Table 3: Types of questions asked by the three teachers Table 4: The length of students’ responses for different types of questions asked by the three teachers v TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF TABLES v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Significance of the study 1.3 Aims, objectives of the study and research questions 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Method of the research Organization of the thesis CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Interaction in class 2.1.1.What is classroom interaction? 2.1.2 The role of classroom interaction in L2 acquisition .7 2.1.3 Interaction Patterns 2.2 Teacher‟s questioning in interaction 2.2.1 Definition of questions 2.2.2 Functions of teachers‟ questions 2.2.3 Types of questions .10 2.2.4 Effects of teacher questions 13 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .15 3.1 The setting of the study 15 3.1.1 An overview of the research site 15 3.1.2 English teachers in Tran Hung Dao High School 15 3.1.3 The syllabus of teaching and learning English 10 in Tran Hung Dao High School 16 3.2 Methods of the study 17 vi 3.2.1 The participants of the study .17 3.2.2 Data collection instruments 19 3.2.3 Procedures 21 3.2.4 Methods of Data analysis 21 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 23 4.1 Findings 23 4.1.1 Types of questions the teachers asked frequently in the investigated lessons .24 4.1.2 Effects of the types of questions teachers asked on the students‟ interaction 27 4.2 Discussion 33 4.2.1 Types of questions the teachers asked frequently in the whole class teaching portion of the lessons 33 4.2.2 Effects of the types of questions teachers asked on the students‟ interaction 34 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 38 5.1 Conclusion 38 5.2 Implications 39 5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further studies 41 REFERENCES 43 APPENDIX : OBSERVATION SHEET I vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study English has been seen as the most important foreign language in Vietnam since the th National Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party in 1986 initiated an overall economic reform known as “Doi moi” Young people realize the need of learning English for a plenty of reasons such as getting jobs in foreign companies, studying abroad, and travelling Nevertheless, according to Van (2006), the quality of teaching and learning foreign languages at both general and tertiary levels in Vietnam is still very low, which is far from meeting the present country‟s demand of socio-economic development “Though the aims of the curriculum at secondary school are to train the four skills and students‟ required language proficiency is upperintermediate level However, their real level is just somewhere between elementary and lower-intermediate Many school leavers cannot read simple texts in English nor communicate with English speaking people in some most common cases Actually the real focus of teaching and learning English in both lower secondary and secondary schools is completing English grammar and vocabulary exercises, in order to pass the final exams (even the entrance exams of many universities and colleges in Vietnam) which mainly consist of grammar and vocabulary tasks only” (Tien, 2013, p.66) This situation is true in my teaching context at Tran Hung Dao High School in Nam Dinh Our students learn English to pass the compulsory exams, so they practise doing exercises relating to the tests such as grammar, vocabulary, reading skills and pronunciation Although teaching methodology has changed from translation method to communicative method, students not focus on speaking and listening skills For them, these skills will be practiced later when they have entered university The consequence is that students cannot communicate despite the fact that they have been learning English for many years This way of students‟ thinking has an influence on teaching and learning speaking in class As a teacher, I Date: 29/4/2015 Course book: English 10 Observer: Pham Thanh Xuan Mung Unit: 14-Speaking Stage Warm up VI Task Task Task VII Date: 29/4/2015 Course book: English 10 Observer: Pham Thanh Xuan Mung Unit: 14-Speaking Stage Task Task IX Task X Date: 12/5/2015 Course book: English 10 Observer: Pham Thanh Xuan Mung Unit: 16-Speaking Stage Warm up Teacher w “mausoleu asked abo T: Where i Ss: The thi T: Yes The you unders mausoleum Ss: Yes T: Have yo Minh maus S1: Yes T: When d Chi Minh m S1: Last va T: Your las T pointed T: Have yo Minh maus S2: Yes T: Tell me something about it I have never been to Ho Chi Minh mausoleum I am eager to visit it Where is it? Is it in Nam DInh? S2: It is in Ha noi T: How many floors are there? S2: T: No I don‟t think so Thank you, sit down, please XI Task Te of wo T: Ss T: Te ab an ab T: thi Ss T: me Ss T: Ss T: T: Ss T: T: Ss T: T: Ss T: T: Ss T: Ss T: Te ex ph T: Ss T: nằ T: sch S: XII To T: Ss T: cô Te an S: củ T: W W An S: lăn T: ma S: lăn T: ma Te to th T: S: Te to sta en as S1 flo Pr the T: S2 pr Pr Te T: im S1 Task XIII T: im S2 T: ev Te un in cit so T: Ss T: T: S: T: thi Ss T: T: S: T: Ss T: me Ss T: the Ss T: fee Ss T: XIV Date: 24/4/2015 Course book: English 10 Observer: Pham Thanh Xuan Mung Unit: 13-Speaking Stage Warmup Teacher lesson T: What know? S1: Silen T: Silent you kno films, si S2: Car T: Carto S3: Dete T: Good S4: War T: War f S5: Acti T: Actio S6: Lov T: Love anything S: Horro T: There you see nhận vể chún Teacher T: Answ wants to with me Who can T: What watch in S: Carto T: How Task XV S: Very T: Thank T: Can y like us? ( Then, t of volun voluntee dialogue After th read vo She was words T: Have about vo S: Terrif T: Terrif S: Thrill T: Thrill Teacher model T: Study Look at people t Ss: T: Yes, t attention third per “agree w We can “absolut raise the Teacher dialogu student T: Listen make up Who, pl Listen to T: What films? S1: I fin T: go on S2: I agr Task XVI very inte T: sit should b textbook person d opinion again W cartoon S1: I fin S2: I them go Teacher model T: Look me the d dialogue Task 3? S: The q of films T: Yes T preferen Teacher writing A: Whic or detec B: It‟s d prefer de While th their dia expande adding S1: whic story film S2: It‟s prefer ca ones T: Why? S2: Beca good fun T: Good S2: love TASK XVII Task Teacher T: Look film you question Ss: T: Work suggesti XVIII Date: 12/5/2015 Course book: English 10 Observer: Pham Thanh Xuan Mung Unit: 16-Speaking Stage Warm-up Tea less T: L Nam S: H T: P Mau ther S1: T: H S2: T: D Ss: Task Tea to d T: W Mau answ ( Te on t S1: T: G Wh S2: ( Te T: A S3: T: G S4: T: W S5: T: T diffe S6: T: T Mak S7: S8: T: W S9: mee T R info S10 Min T: W of “ S11 Min S12 T: G can S13 we v S14 T: G Huy S15 mai S16 10 T: A take Ss: The wor T as th wer Task XX ... ? ?Exploring the Use of Teacher’s Questioning and Students' Interaction in Speaking classes at Tran Hung Dao High School? ?? 1.2 Significance of the study Theoretical significance of the study: The. .. teacher questioning and students' interaction in speaking classes at Tran Hung Dao High School Thus, the objectives of the thesis are: finding out question types used by teachers in speaking classes. .. ? ?Exploring the Use of Teacher’s Questioning and Students' Interaction in Speaking classes at Tran Hung Dao High School? ?? is the result of my own work and effort in partial fulfillment of the requirements