skkntieng anh sáng kiến kinh nghiệm nguyễn hồng hạnh trang học liệu trường thcs phương trung

Necessarily, among the teachers of my school I should work harder and harder so as to master the language and always give my students good lessons, which means that my students always ha[r]

I PROBLEM SITUATION:

Reasons for choosing the theme:

1.1 Rationale of theory:

Nowadays, English is playing a very important role in the global development Therefore, the teaching of English has been improved in method of the communicative, learner-centered approach which is adaptable to give students many opportunities to communicate in English However, at many junior high schools in Vietnam, the teaching of English has not really developed students’ ability, activeness and motivation

1.2 Rationale of practice:

Speaking is a crucial part of language learning The mastery of speaking skill in English is a priority for many language learners Nowadays, many learners even consider the ability to speak the language is the aim of language learning They often evaluate their success in language learning as well as the effectiveness of their English courses on the basic of how well they feel they have improved in the spoken language proficiency Despite its importance, for a long time, teaching speaking has been depreciated Traditional teaching methods have seemed to emphasize the learning of language system (rules of grammar and lists of vocabulary items …) as a goal in its own right and failed to give learners an ability to gain realistic experiences in actually using the language knowledge gained Moreover, very often when people study a language, they accumulate a lot of 'up-in the head' knowledge, but then find that they can't actually use this language to express what they want to There seem to be some difficulties in moving language from 'up-there' knowledge to actively usable language Without experience in using the language, students may tend to be nervous about trying to say something Nowadays things have been different Today's world requires that the goal of learning speaking English should develop students' communication skill so that students can express themselves and use the target language to state opinions, express their feelings and exchange information Many new teaching methods have been introduced and applied to serve the basic need of English learners Among them, communicative approach and learner-centered approach seem to be the most effective ways to teach oral communication Also, we should apply these methods in teaching the four skills and focus on designing speaking activities in appropriate stages of English lessons while teaching other skills so that students always have a lot of chances to practice speaking while learning English

1.3 Urgency:

speak English and say that it is difficult for them to be good at this skill and there is not a real language environment for them to their practice every day Moreover, their awareness of importance of being good at this skill is not really made clear because speaking skill is not usually included in their exams, so they often learn English only for their written exams, not for communication In addition, some teachers of English not still manage to put real interest in their lessons Another reason is because of the lack of necessary equipment for teaching English at many schools in Viet Nam Indeed, the school where I am working as a teacher of English has been famous for its good quality in education for years Most students of my school are well brought up by their parents and they identify a good motivation in their studying, which leads to their better study results for English as well as other subjects at school However, according to the survey carried out at the beginning of this school year at my school, more than 70% of the students reported that they are worried about their English speaking skill They said that they could hardly make a simple conversation in English or express what they thought Importantly, most of them assumed that speaking is very difficult for them to master Therefore, if students not learn how to speak or not get many opportunities to speak in the language classroom, they may soon get de-motivated and lose interest in learning On the other hand, if the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking in class can be a lot of fun, raising general learner motivation and making the English language classroom fun and dynamic

1.4 My ability:

Necessarily, among the teachers of my school I should work harder and harder so as to master the language and always give my students good lessons, which means that my students always have the chance to develop their speaking skill in the language That is the matter I have been absorbed in and that is the reason for my theme

2 Purpose of study:

I would like to give out some of my own experience in improving students’ ability of speaking English

3 Researched knowledge:

Ways to make students more excited about developing their speaking skill and ways to encourage students to feel confident enough to express their ideas in front of the class

4 Researched participants:

Students of my junior high school 5 Ways to conduct the theme: - My real teaching at my school - Surveys

- Time: School year 2015- 2016 - Place: At my junior high school

II PROBLEM SOLUTION:

1 Logical basis:

The goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency. Learners should be able to make themselves understood

To help students develop communicative efficiency in speaking, instructors can use a balanced activities approach that combines language input, structured output, and communicative output

2 Practical basis:

For most learners, the ability to speak a foreign language is synonymous with knowing that language because speech is the basic means of human communication

English learners no longer expect the traditional approach of their teachers based on developing mainly the grammatical competence and using methodology popular in the past

Today, teachers are expected to provide their students with useful active knowledge of the foreign language, not just theory about the language

3 Developing students’ speaking skill while teaching speaking itself: There are many rules teachers of English must remember while teaching speaking so that they can help students improve their speaking skill 3.1 Firstly, teachers must make sure that students feel safe and confident while they express themselves:

communication Teachers should take notes while pairs or groups are talking and address the problems to the class after the activity without embarrassing the student who made the error Teachers can also write the errors on the board and ask who can correct it Teachers should encourage their students to speak whatever they can and focus on what they have got right, not on what they have got wrong Teachers should also help them to develop positive attitudes towards their friends’ errors and to correct themselves Teachers should try to develop for themselves positive strategies of error corrections When students achieve success in oral communication, they will feel confident and secure and they will enjoy learning English Also, they will have confidence to take part in communicative activities later

3.2 Secondly, teachers must pay attention to warm-up activities: Warm-up is also an important part which contributes to the success of a speaking lesson Warm-ups help learners put aside their daily distractions and focus on English Warm-ups also encourage whole-group participation which can build a sense of community within the group and warm-ups can help to arouse students' interest in speaking

Teachers should vary warm-up activities to attract students' attention and interest because if they feel excited about their lessons from the beginning, they will make a good contribution to it In order to give students exciting readiness for their speaking lesson, teachers can different things to arouse students’ interest by using various teaching techniques such as brainstorming, word web, chatting, etc

Before a new lesson I often motivate my students by chatting to them about the topic of interest, giving them preparation tasks or quick warm-up to get them in the right mood for the new lesson Brainstorming is one of the simplest teaching techniques, but it is one of the most effective kinds of motivation because it takes a short time I can write key words on the blackboard and the class is encouraged to think of ideas, words, phrases associated with them

I have taught my grade students English as a selective subject since the beginning of this school year The following slide was designed on my power point lesson plan for one speaking lesson (Grade selective subject - Period 5)

My students were divided into two teams The first team tried to put as many adjectives describing people’s characters as they could around the key word “CHARACTERS” and the second team tried to the similar thing with the key word “APPEARANCE” When the time allowed was over, the team with more correct words was the winner After that, the class was required to predict the topic of the speaking lesson

The possible answer key for the warm-up activity

For Period 15 (Grade selective subject), I used the technique “word web” in order to warm up the speaking lesson This activity could help my students revise the prepositions of place they had learned and could help them get ready for the new lesson with more interest

3.3 Thirdly, students must be well-prepared and well-instructed before they practice speaking English:

do their speaking tasks better, teachers have to provide them with necessary language input and give students clear instructions

The following example is given as an illustration This slide is extracted from my power point lesson plan (Period 15- Grade selective subject). Although I was sure that the students had learned this grammatical knowledge from their previous lessons in Unit (Tiếng Anh 8), I still gave the students the chance to learn this knowledge again Moreover, the “WORDWEB” warm-up activity mentioned above also helped my students to look back the useful prepositions of place This necessary language input could make “DESCRIBING ROOMS IN A HOUSE” speaking task easier for my students

some common speaking activities that I often carry out in my classes to make my speaking lessons more interesting and to motivate my students in practicing speaking English:

3.4.1 Discussions:

In a discussion, students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions Before a discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by their teachers In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose In a discussion, teachers can form groups of or students Then each group works on their topic for a given time period and presents their opinions to the class For efficient group discussions, it is always better not to form large groups because quiet students may avoid contributing their ideas in large groups Generally speaking, in class or group discussions, whatever the aim is, students should always be encouraged to ask questions, paraphrase ideas, express supports, check for clarification, and so on

3.4.2 Role play:

Another way of getting students to speak is role-play Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles In role-play activities, teachers give learners information such as who they are and what they think or how they feel

3.4.3 Information gaps:

In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs One student will have the information that the other partner does not have and the two partners will share their information Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or collecting information… These activities are effective because everybody has the opportunity to talk extensively in the target language The aim of this activity is to get learners to use the language they are learning to interact in realistic and meaningful ways, usually involving exchanges of information and opinions

This is a scene of the activity

different classroom activities) In each of the pairs, one was a nurse and the other was a patient They had to make dialogues to complete their medical records

3.4.4 Brainstorming:

This helps students produce ideas in a limited amount of time The good characteristics of brainstorming is that students are not criticized for their ideas, so students will be open to sharing new ideas Brainstorming is one of the simplest, but the most effective kind of motivation because it is not time-consuming Teacher can write a key word on the blackboard and the class is encouraged to think of ideas, words, phrases associated with them 3.4.5 Storytelling:

Students can briefly summarize a tale or a story they heard from somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates Storytelling fosters creative thinking

3.4.6 Interviews:

Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people It is a good idea that teachers provide a rubric to students so that they know what type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own interview questions

3.4.7 Reporting:

Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting news Students can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class

An example of this is planning a party or an excursion for the whole group In this activity, teachers should allow them a good amount of time to prepare for a presentation in which they attempt to persuade the rest of the class to agree with their arrangements

3.4.9 Picture Narrating:

This activity is based on several sequential pictures Students are asked to tell the story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying attention to the criteria provided by their teachers as a rubric Rubrics can include the vocabulary or structures they need to use while narrating 3.4.10 Picture Describing:

One way to make use of pictures in a speaking activity is to give students just one picture and having them describe what it is in the picture For this activity, students can form groups and each group is given a different picture Students discuss the picture with their groups, then a spokesperson for each group describes the picture to the whole class This activity fosters the creativity and imagination of learners as well as their public speaking skills

3.5 Last but not least, teachers should also pay attention to these points:

The communicative activities listed above can help teachers a lot in promoting their students' speaking skills because they are quite interesting and they give students a reason to speak in different situations and about different topics However, how teachers should run an activity effectively so as to achieve their aims is also a problem

Here I would like to provide you with a basic route-map plan for running a simple EFL activity (English as a Foreign Language):

Activity route map:

Teachers should:

1 Before the lesson: (teachers prepare at home)

- familiarize themselves with the material and the activity - prepare any materials or texts they need

2 In class:

- lead-in and prepare for the activity (this may help to raise motivation or interest, or perhaps to focus on language items that might be useful in the activity

- model the conversation or the talk Typical lead-ins are: showing a picture connected to the topic, asking questions/writing up or reading out a sentence starting a viewpoint, eliciting reactions/

3

- set up the activity: giving instructions, making groupings, organizing the class, ect

- run the activity: Students the activity, maybe in pairs or in groups while teachers monitor and help them

5.

- close the activity and invite feedbacks from learners: Teachers ask some groups to perform in front of the class and give feedbacks

6 Post activity:

- any appropriate follow-on work

Good atmosphere in the class and friendly relationship between teachers and students:

Presenting their opinions and feelings in front of a lot of people in their native language has been a challenge to many people and using another language to convey what they want to say is of course more challenging Therefore, if the teacher does not encourage his students and make them feel good about their teacher and their lessons, the class will become tense and dull and interaction cannot take place in the class effectively

As a teacher in a language class, we should always create a good class atmosphere from the beginning because our students, especially young students, will have no communication if they not feel good about their teachers and their English class

Teacher's and students' involvement:

The main aim of organizing a communicative activity is to get students to speak, then one way to achieve that would be for a teacher to reduce his own contributions Probably the less a teacher speaks, the more space it will allow his students It could be useful to aim to say nothing while the activity is underway, and save any contribution for before and after.

4 Improving students’ speaking while teaching other skills: 4.1 While teaching reading, listening and writing:

and pay more attention to their teaching by asking students for their opinions, suggestions, or by encouraging them to guess new words, by having them contribute what they remember or already know instead of introducing directly the new lesson

Some of the communicative tasks teachers can give students while teaching listening or reading or writing may be as follows:

 Discussing about the text  Summarizing texts

 Reviewing texts

 Using a 'follow-up' speaking task related to the topic

Clearly, teachers can encourage students to share their knowledge with those who not and teachers can help students make full use of every chance to practice speaking And in fact, telling someone about what they have read or listened is a very natural reaction to a text

Speaking activities can be also used as a mean for students to check

their answers with each other after they listen or read a text/ a dialogue/… Students may answer their teachers’ questions directly or discuss the questions in pairs

Furthermore, teachers can encourage students to talk by asking them to summarize what they have read or listened Students take turns to talk in groups and then they may present their ideas in pairs

4.2 Some illustrations of TEACHING SPEAKING by using communicative tasks while teaching reading, listening or writing:

4.2.1. Pre-reading stage:

I designed a discussion activity in the pre-reading stage of Period 30 (Unit 5/B3- Tiếng Anh 7) My students worked in groups of or 5, discussing the following two questions:

- As a Vietnamese student, what you usually at recess? - Do you think American students often the same things or

different things at recess?

4.2.2. Pre-listening stage:

The following is a pre-listening activity designed to give my students the chance to practice speaking English I had prepared a photo of a library and in the pre-listening part of the fifth lesson of Unit

(B3,4-Tiếng Anh 7), I told my students to look at the photo and answer my

question: “Is it a photo of a library?” It was quite easy for my students to give their answer “Yes”

Next, a series of other questions were raised and some individuals of the class gave their answers to the questions when the rest of the class listened and corrected their classmates’ mistakes if necessary

“What are they?” (The answer key: They are the bookshelves.)

“What can you see on the shelves?” (The answer key: I can see many

books.)

“Who are they?” (The answer key: They are the readers.)

Then, the picture of a library (Unit 4/B3- Tiếng Anh 7) was introduced to the class and other questions were raised:

“What is it for number 8?” (The answer key: It is the librarian’s desk.) “Where is it?”

“What is it for number 1?” (The answer key: It is the study area.) “Where is it?”

“What are they for number and number 5?” (The answer key: They are the racks.)

“Where are they?”

This activity helped my students practice speaking something by answering my questions and by student-student correcting their mistakes and helped me present the new vocabulary in an active interaction with the students

Another illustration is a discussion question in the pre-listening activity of lesson of Unit (B4 - Tiếng Anh 7) My students were asked to look at the pictures of the five things that Mrs Robinson buys and my students (in close pairs) answer the question “What does Mrs Robinson buy?” I raised the question so as to check my students’ knowledge for the vocabulary shown in the pictures and gave them the opportunity to talk something

4.2.3. Pre-writing stage:

In fact, almost all writing tasks are often designed in the post-reading, post-listening and post-speaking stages of the lessons in Tiếng Anh and Tiếng Anh The writing skill is taught much more officially in Tiếng Anh and Tiếng Anh 9.

In order to help my students better the writing task “Write lists of things you in different seasons and then write about you, beginning with In the spring, I…………” for Unit 13/B2 (Tiếng Anh 6), my grade students were first encouraged to make dialogues with their partners

Example:

Student B: I usually ride a bike What you in the spring? Student A: I often go fishing What you in the fall?

Student B: I ……… ………

ect

This is the image of my two students making their own dialogue.

4.2.4. Post-reading stage:

For lesson of Unit 1/ B1,2,3 (Period 4- Tiếng Anh 7), I gave my students the chance to retell about Hoa as the post-reading activity The re-telling task was done with the help of the NET on the board

The following is a photo of the board demonstration:

This is a photo of one of my students re-telling about Hoa in front of the class and she got mark for her good presentation.

magazines?” / “They are on the racks in the middle of the library.” / …) and describing this library

4.2.5. Post-listening stage:

“Make your own dialogues, using the given cues” was a post-listening activity of lesson of Unit 13/ B1,2 (Tiếng Anh 7) In this activity, my students worked in open pairs and close pairs Good marks were given to the students with their good demonstration and no bad marks were given in this activity in order to arouse my students’ confidence, motivation and excitement

Before that above-mentioned speaking task, a game (used as a

transitional tool) called MIMING was designed so as to fill in the activity

with more excitement

[ one student was miming playing soccer The rest of the class tried to guess what he was doing Then, this student invited his classmate to play soccer with him, basing on the following suggestion:

] 4.3 Improving students’ speaking skill while teaching “grammar practice” or “language focus”:

Presentation, Practice and Production These three stages convey different purposes Presentation is to present new language in context so

that the meaning is clear, to present the new form in a natural spoken or written text so that students can see its use in discourse, to link the new form to what students already know, to check comprehension, to elicit the form from students where possible and exploit their existing knowledge. And when students learn English this way, some of them would have good command of English especially in the examinations, but when they open their mouth, they always find that they can’t get a proper word to express themselves or sometimes when someone points out some mistakes in their speech they can hardly believe that they have made such silly mistakes Most of my students mention that they are quite sure to have learned the corresponding term but they can’t help making mistakes when they talk That is the question which is going to be focused on Nowadays, most of us realize that in order to teach grammar lessons effectively so that students can not only remember grammar rules but also apply the language in communication, we should resourcefully move as quickly as possible from certain pattern drills to oral interaction because each student really likes talking about his or her own ideas and feelings We should give them a reason to use the structure we teach in conversation Let’s look at some examples:

Above are some examples in which we can use communicative tasks to help students practice English while learning Grammar Giving them as many chances to practice speaking English as possible is the best way to help them improve their speaking skill

4.4 Developing students’ speaking skill while teaching “Presentation-Practice-Production” lessons:

I gave each of them the hand-out and helped them complete their network on their hand-outs first

This is the photo of my students working in close pairs, asking and answering about their plans for this summer vacation.

* RESULTS:

After a period of time of conducting these solutions, to my expectation, I have gained satisfying results I've found that my students have become more confident and active in their speaking lessons Many of them said that they no longer feel their speaking lessons stressful and too difficult Most of them admitted that their speaking skill has been improved a lot day by day

In fact, I usually encourage my students to feel excited and confident in their oral skill; therefore, I usually give them good grades when they their speaking tasks well or quite well and I not discourage them by giving them bad grades when they not fulfill their oral exercises Instead of that, I always give these students positive feedbacks so that they will try their best later However, my students are told that their speaking skill is always assessed during the school year and their constant progress is always positively taken into consideration In addition, their results for the final term oral exams account for 30% of the total results for this language subject.

* THE SATISTICS OF THIS SCHOOL YEAR:

Grade Number of students

Mark and over Under mark 5 total rate total rate 7 45 30 67% 15 33% Grade Number of

students

Mark and over Under mark 5 total rate total rate 6 30 18 60% 12 40% Grade Number of

students

Mark and over Under mark 5 total rate total rate 7 45 30 67% 15 33%

The results of the second term oral exam

Grade Number of students

Mark and over Under mark 5 total rate total rate 7 45 35 78% 10 22% Grade Number of

students

Mark and over Under mark 5 total rate total rate 6 30 21 70% 9 30%

III CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. Conclusion:

Speaking is an important part of second language learning to any learners The ability to communicate in English clearly and efficiently contributes to great success of the learner in school and to far better success later in his life Therefore, it is essential that language teachers pay great attention to helping students develop their speaking skill rather than leading students to pure memorization Teachers should provide students with a rich environment where meaningful communication takes place while teaching any other skill With this aim, various speaking activities can contribute a great deal to students in developing basic interactive skills necessary for life These activities make students more active in the learning process and at the same time make their learning more meaningful and fun for them And remember the English proverb: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”.

Recommendations:

Recommendations to THE EDUCATION AND TRAINING COMMITTEE DIVISION and my school:

- I recommend that THE EDUCATION AND TRAINING

- I suggest that THE MANAGING BOARD of my school buy more and more materials of methodology for the teachers of the school As a result, the teachers should have a better chance to develop their job 2 Recommendations to other teachers:

- Indeed, I know that I am not really full of experience in teaching because the number of years I have involved in this job is still far smaller than many of my colleagues Therefore, I would need useful comments and supplements from experienced teachers so that my initiative ideas would be much better

Sincerely!

Ha Noi, April 5th 2016

The headmaster’s identification:

……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ………

I am sure that I myself have written this experiential initiative. This document is not someone else’s copy.

The writer,

IV REFERENCE BOOKS

 Celce-Murcia M 2001 Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language (3rd ed) USA: Heinle & Heinle.

 Chaney, A.L., and T.L Burk 1998 Teaching Oral Communication in Grades K-8 Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

 Baruah, T.C 1991 The English Teacher's Handbook Delhi: Sterling Publishing House.

 Brown, G and G Yule 1983 Teaching the Spoken Language Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 Harmer, J 1984 The Practice of English Language Teaching London: Longman.

 McDonough, J and C Shaw 2003 Materials and Methods in ELT: a teacher’s guide Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell.

ENTRY



CONTENT PAGE

I Problem situation 1

Reasons for choosing the theme 1

1.1 Rationale of theory 1

1.2 Rationale of practice 1

1.3 Urgency 1

1.4 My ability 2

Purpose of study 2

Researched knowledge 2

Researched participants 2

Ways to conduct the theme 2

Time and place for conducting the theme 2

II Problem solution 3

1. Logical basic 3

2. Practical basic 3

3. While teaching speaking itself 3

4. While teaching other skills 13

* Results 30

* The statistics of this school year 30

III Conclusion and recommendations 31

1. Conclusion 31

2. Recommendations 31

2.1 To my school and the EDUCATION &TRAINING COMMITTEE DIVISION

31

2.2 To other teachers 32

IV Reference books 33

CỦA HỘI ĐỒNG KHOA HỌC CƠ SƠ

……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… Ngày ……tháng ……năm 2016 Chủ tịch hội đồng

(ký tên, đóng dấu)

Ý KIẾN NHẬN XÉT, ĐÁNH GIÁ VÀ XẾP LOẠI CỦA HỘI ĐỒNG KHOA HỌC CẤP TRÊN

……… ……… ……… ……… ……… Ngày ……tháng ……năm 2016 Chủ tịch hội đồng

(ký tên, đóng dấu)

BIÊN BẢN CHẤM VÀ XÉT DUYỆT SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM Tên SKKN: “HOW TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL WHILE TEACHING OTHER SKILLS”

Tác giả: ……… Môn: Tiếng Anh

Đánh giá của Hội đồng chấm (Ghi tóm tắt những đánh giá chính):

……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ………

Tính sáng tạo: ………… / điểm Tính KH, SP : ………… / điểm Tính hiệu quả: ………… / điểm Tính phổ biến, ứng dụng: ………… / điểm

Xếp loại: ……… ( Xếp loại A: Từ 17 đến 20 điểm Xếp loại B: Từ 14 đến < 17 điểm Xếp loại C: Từ 10 đến < 14 điểm Không xếp loại: < 10 điểm)