Organizing experiential activities to motivate the 11th form students in speaking lessons at thong nhat high school

TABLE OF CONTENTS Content I.INTRODUCTION Reason for choosing the study Aims of the study Scope of the study 4.Methods of the study II CONTENT Factors affecting student's speaking 1.1 Human beings 1.2 The environment 1.3 Other factors 2.The reality of the study 2.1 The reality 2.2 The results in researching the reality The methods of organizing experienced activities in learning English speaking skill 3.1.Raising students' awareness of communicating in English 3.2.Using a variety of teaching forms and methods to help students actively participate in speaking activities 3.2.1.Practice speaking skills through practical experiences 3.2.2.Practice speaking skills through self-created experiential activities in the classroom Results III CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS Conclusion Recommendations REFERENCES APPENDIX Page 1 2 2 2 3 3 5 6 12 13 15 15 16 17 18 I INTRODUCTION Reasons for choosing the study Each of us is aware of the great importance of teaching and learning foreign languages in general, and English in particular Learning and using English fluently will contribute significantly in the construction and development of the country In the current strong international integration trend, more than ever, English is considered as the most common language, is a particularly useful means for communication, economic and cultural exchange all over the world For our country, learning English has been focused at all levels of education Specifically, in regular or semester tests, there are all the skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing and Grammar This shows the full awareness and determination of all levels of education managers in equipping the future owners of this key language Using English well in communication is the goal of teaching and learning English throughout all grades Actually, students can master the rules of grammar, but the use of English fluently to communicate is very modest Students are still very afraid to use English in communication, especially high school students - the highest product of general education Of course, for many different objective and subjective reasons, this is the concern of many English teachers High school students communicate well in English is an important prerequisite for communication, exchange and access to success opportunities in the next stage of development In the process of teaching English in reality at high schools, I realize that there are many difficulties and obstacles that prevent students from communicating in English In addition, the students in grade 10 who have just transferred, are more shy and timid than their seniors Most students in grade 12 study differentiation to prepare for graduation exams, so there is not much time to invest in extracurricular activities; Particularly, grade 11 students converge many favorable factors and overcome both of the above problems, so I boldly carry out the study: “Organizing experiential activities to motivate the 11 th form students in speaking lessons at Thong Nhat high school ” to find out positive solutions to create excitement for students to learn English better, especially improve their English speaking skill because excitement gives rise to thirst, makes students work harder and more effectively It helps children love learning how to speak is the most important first step of success With the research of this topic, I want to partly help my school colleagues gradually overcome difficulties so that students can be more active, proactive and bold when communicating in this language Aims of the study With successful research on the topic, this study will help teachers gain the following experiences: How to organize speaking classes effectively Some solutions to create excitement for students to communicate English well not only in the classroom but also in daily life Guiding students to self-study and practice at home Providing some suggestions and implications for the improvement of learning English speaking at Thong Nhat high school by experiential activities Scope of the study The study focuses specifically on teaching and learning English speaking to high school students at Thong Nhat high school So the study limits itself to the teaching and learning English speaking only, and the subjects of the study are 165 students from four classes studying “Tieng Anh 11” textbook at Thong Nhat high school Methods of the study In the process of carrying out this study, I have chosen several methods such as: Audio-visual method: I look for and research documents on the Internet to learn more the teaching methods of Vietnamese teachers as well as foreign teachers At the same time, class observation of colleagues who teach at the same school to learn more Methods of exchange and discussion: My colleagues and I exchange and discuss to learn from each project In addition, I also exchange and learn from colleagues of other schools Experimental method: I conduct teaching based on the specific requirements of some speaking lessons in the classes I am teaching in high school Statistical methods: I deliver the questionaires to test students' interest and speaking ability in speaking class From there, adjust the teaching methods to suit the students Methods of analysis and synthesis: After handing out the survey to check interest and speaking ability of students in speaking class, I conduct analysis and synthesis of the obtained results From that I can adjust teaching methods which is suitable for students II CONTENT FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS'S SPEAKING 1.1 Human beings 1.1.1 The students Students are not confident, embarrassed and lose their temper when they have to speak in English because it is a second language, they are not used every day In English lessons, most of the children are afraid when the teacher asks them to speak English The reason is only because there is no natural speech reflex, so they find it very difficult Others really want to speak but are afraid of making mistakes because they are not confident in their own knowledge and they are afraid that people will see their shortcomings Some children have problems with pronunciation, voice quality, some of them are livid, stuttering, hoarse Hence, they are afraid of being laughed at The more students are afraid to speak, the lower the English speaking test results will be and vice versa, the more confident they are, the better they will speak 1.1.2 The teachers It is undeniable that teachers play an important role, greatly influencing the interest and progress of students If teachers are active, enthusiastic, and flexible, they will attract more students and the achievement will definitely be higher On the contrary, if teachers are too principled and too strict, they will be afraid, or if teachers not know how to sympathize and share with children, making the teacher-student gap not friendly, the level of comprehension will be reduced Your knowledge will be limited In addition, teachers' language ability, voice and teaching methods also have a significant impact on learners' ability to design interesting lessons, be proficient in designing, organizing games, knowing skillfully applying for teaching methods, using diverse and appropriate teaching aids and equipment will attract the active participation of students 1.2 The environment The number of students in a class is also a factor that affects their ability to speak Classes in high schools usually have a large number of students in a large class, the average number of students in each class is about 40 students This is a relatively large number for a language class Students have less opportunity to practice and teachers cannot listen to and correct all students in a classroom Besides, teaching aids also have a significant impact If the teaching aids are poor, there is a lack of practice environment, the classrooms are not designed for teaching foreign languages, are not soundproofed, the tables and chairs are arranged according to the tradition, the teacher sits on the podium opposite the students, only suitable for presentation method, not suitable for interactive teaching method Forms of classroom organization are typical for interactive teaching methods and also typical for the way to teach communicative language in foreign languages will become difficult to carry out 1.3 Other factors According to the traditional teaching method, English is often equated with other subjects such as Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Literature, History, Geography and so on In the national high school graduation exam, English subject is selected The exam is completely written or multiple-choice, so the students only focus on reading and writing skills and almost ignore speaking skills In addition, the difference between the phonetic system of English and Vietnamese also causes great obstacles for English-speaking learners What’s more, the number of syllables of each word in English is very diverse and speakers must remember the stress of polysyllabic words because when saying a word with the wrong stress, the listener may not understand or misinterpret On the other hand, the topic and content of the document play an important role in creating motivation and interest in learning for students If the topic is unfamiliar or the content is too difficult for them to understand, they will find it difficult to express and have little vocabulary to use This will make them discouraged, lack of confidence and class time will become stressful and pressured Therefore, choosing topics and organizing activities to increase students' interest and motivation is the responsibility of each teacher The reality of the study 2.1 The reality There are totally 196 students at Thong Nhat high school in five classes from 11A1 to 11A5 The majority of high school students here enjoy education program in which English is a compulsory subject since they were at primary school This means by the time they go to high school, they have at least or more years experience in English The level of English for the 10th grade students is targeted at pre-intermediate level through a few actually reaches the standard As their primary years were spent with the old text books and the grammar translation method, most students are, to some extent, good at grammar, but bad at listening and speaking the target language They can written exercises on English grammar accurately but they can hardly communicate in English Moreover, students at Thong Nhat high school would prefer to pay much attention to Mathematics, Physics, Chemist, Literature, History and Geography rather than English As a result, they either keep silence all the time or less participates in the speaking activities Furthermore, students at Thong Nhat high school have a worse learning ability than those from many other schools, which is justified by passing the entrance test with the low marks required for admission of the school 2.2 The results in researching the reality I set the objectives of 76 students for my research Most of students are active in real-life, but they seem to be less active in their classes Initially, I found that most of my students had little interest in lessons with speaking because they are afraid and lazy to speak; their motivation of speaking English is very limited Then they have a lack of vocabulary The survey questionnaires are conducted for 76 students in three classes (11A1 and 11A2) I taught in my teaching practice time to investigate their interest in learning English As a result, they did not achieve the outcome that they were expected as follows: Class Numbers 11A1 11A2 40 36 Number of students interested in learning speaking skills 20 22 Percentage% 55% 61.1% THE METHODS OF ORGANIZING EXPERIENCED ACTIVITIES IN LEARNING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL 3.1 Raising students' awareness of communicating in English: To increase students' interest and motivation to speak English, teachers must help students realize the benefits and importance of communicating in English Especially in the context of increasingly developed society, people have a need to communicate more widely, reach out to the world to learn and expand knowledge English is considered as one of the useful means to communicate, economics and cultural exchange with friends in five continents Speaking well in English not only effectively supports to learn skills which are listening, speaking, reading and writing so that students can get high scores in exams but also helps them improve their soft skills in social communication Fluency in English in communication is the opening success for the children's future steps 3.2 Using a variety of teaching forms and methods to help students actively participate in speaking activities In order to help students speak English well in each lesson, the teacher must carefully prepare the data related to that lesson: the format, the topic, placing it in the general context of the lesson The whole lesson, the grammar structure and the practical connection are suitable for the students' level and suitable for the content of the lesson In fact, the time to practice speaking through classroom lessons is not much, each lesson lasts only 45 minutes, while the number of students is large (usually over 40 students), so the opportunity The opportunities for them to practice are quite small, which is especially difficult for students with weak academic ability In order to help them have a lively and effective foreign language environment that can be applied in practice without surprise, getting rid of the language barrier and their inherent shyness, Right from the beginning of the school year, I have set up a plan to give students self-experience so that they can freely present their ideas through speaking topics 3.2.1 Practice speaking skills through practical experiences The vivid visual world always easily inspires positive thinking and thinking as well as helps students be more dynamic and creative in the use of language and presentation style Therefore, with familiar topics, close to daily life, teachers will assign students to actively organize direct experience activities to produce products that are talks on those topics Specifically: - The teacher divides students in the class into groups which is easy for cooperation and exchange as well as convenience in arranging time - The number of members depends on the group to decide (3-8), this helps students be flexible and creative in the organization, not being constrained - Students choose by themselves topics related to the English 11 program they are studying - Report to the teacher about the topic you have chosen - Based on the topic selected by the groups, the teacher limits the time for students to perform The group will plan to organize the experience, film it and send it back to the teacher In the classes mentioned in class, depending on the topic that matches the content of the lesson, the teacher will play the video that the students have made, make comments and suggestions Here are some of the activities the groups did: Group: Lưu Trường An Lê Thị Lan Anh Nguyễn Thị Hồng Hạnh Bùi Thức Hiếu Mai Thị Hoài Hà Xuân Hoàng Topic: Environment ( Unit 10: Nature in danger) In the role of an environmental rescue team, the group organized many meaningful activities: interviewing local people to find out their awareness about the environment, collecting waste, taking water samples in different places in the region to compare pollution In this talk, students use a lot of vocabularies related to the environment and measures for protecting the enviroment Some images are cut out from the clip: Group: Lê Minh Huyền Nguyễn Lê Khánh Huyền Hoàng Ngọc Kiên Ngọ Chu Hà Linh Vũ Thị Khánh Linh Đới Huyền My Nguyễn Quỳnh Nga Topic: Hobbies (Unit 13: Hobbies) 10 Regarding this topic, the group chooses one person to act as the interviewer and conducts interviews with the rest of the members The interview was conducted while the interviewed members were relaxing with their hobbies This is a pretty perfect product, the students are very comfortable to express their speech The style is playful, funny and very natural Some images are cut out from the clip: 11 12 3.2.2.Practice speaking skill through self-created experiential activities in the classroom Besides familiar topics, close to daily life, for topics that are difficult to organize or have no conditions to organize experiential activities, teachers and students together conduct experiential activities in class This activity focuses on topics about the celebration or holiday in Vietnam and in the world, space explorations and the Wonders of the World where both teachers and students have never been to or know very little about For example: Unit 8: Celebrations, each student will choose a celebration or a holiday in Vietnam and in the world Each student will be free to create a "brochure" ("brochure") introduces that celebration or holiday This “Brochure” will include the most iconic image of the celebration or holiday as well as the most concise information that is easy to grasp After that, the class will hold an exhibition for all students in the class to visit and learn Unit 16: The Wonders of the World, each student will choose a wonder of the world Each student will be free to create a "brochure" ("brochure") introduces that wonder This “Brochure” will include the most iconic image of the wonder as well as the most concise information that is easy to grasp After that, the class will hold an exhibition for all students in the class to visit and learn Unit 15: Space conquest, Teacher divides the class into groups Each group will choose a important event in space exploration Each group will be free to create a "brochure" ("brochure") introduces that event This “Brochure” 13 will include the most iconic image of the event as well as the most concise information that is easy to grasp After that, the class will hold an exhibition for all students in the class to visit and learn Then, the presentatives of each group will present in the front of the whole class Some featured images from Unit 16: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (English 12) RESULTS AFTER APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING Above are some experiences that I have accumulated during the teaching process at Thong Nhat High School I'm glad to see my students make so much progress During class, the students participated enthusiastically and enthusiastically Most of the children find it interesting to learn speaking skills, and participate and respond very positively That result is shown in the following table: 14 Number of students interested in Class Numbers learning speaking skills through Percentage% experiential activities 11A1 11A2 40 36 34 32 87,5% 88,9% When making a small comparison between the data collected from pre-task survey questionnaire and post-task questionnaire, it is clear that the numbers of students who are willing to join the speaking classes are surely with language games increase considerably It has approved that the speaking classes are surely more interesting and enjoyable with intergating experiened activites that makes speaking activities less challenging and difficult; therefore, they can help students regain interest in speaking Therefore, it can not be denied that experiential activities bring about a variety of great benefits to the learners III CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS Conclusion Above are some experiential activities that students in my classes have applied and achieved very excited results It may not be enough, but the important thing is how we apply it to each type of post, and to each post content Through the above results, I realize that increasing students' interest in learning speaking skills is very necessary, it needs to be applied and promoted more so that students can achieve higher learning results as well as can communicate fluently in this language In order to help children be interested in all the "Speaking" lessons in the textbook, in my opinion the most important thing for teachers is to choose the right method, how to convey each unit of lesson so that it is suitable for each student, helping them not only understand the lesson but also feel interested in other lessons There are many ways teachers can help children apply and practice language It is important for teachers to choose the appropriate form for each of lesson and each student to achieve the highest efficiency We want students to learn speaking well (Speaking) in a short time, but it is not easy to ensure the right requirements “Teaching” and “Learning” English is a process Whether that process goes up or not depends greatly on the efforts of the teacher Creating excitement for children, designing appropriate activities and applying new teaching methods, that process will surely develop in the right direction and go far and higher Good communication is both a motivator and a "catalyst" to develop the remaining skills such as listening, reading, writing and using grammar 15 Recommendations From my specific teaching sessions, I have learned lessons for myself: First, teachers must regularly learn from their colleagues' experiences, from reference books, and from real life to gain a rich social knowledge base, so that we can apply them effectively practical knowledge results into each topic and lesson content Second, in each "speaking" lesson, teachers should direct students to closely follow the topics the lesson covers, and at the same time combine well the methods in the teaching of other skills (listening, reading, writing), this will help them remember for a long time and not feel “stressed” when communicating in English Third, teachers should spend time suggesting children to communicate, motivate and encourage them to develop their creativity Fourth, encourage children to watch movies, listen to music, read stories and communicate daily in English, so that they can increase their vocabulary, communicate more naturally and react more flexibly Fifth, teachers should have a motivating attitude, encourage students to communicate, avoid blaming them when they say something wrong, and don't interrupt to correct mistakes when they are speaking Finally, listen to students' opinions and feelings after each lesson to adjust and supplement methods to achieve higher results In this topic, I have tried to explore and learn through many sources about methods of teaching speaking skills, thereby offering some solutions to create excitement for students in speaking class However, the study is not free from errors and limitations I look forward to receiving comments from leaders and colleagues for further improvement in teaching results in the coming years It is hoped that the study will prove worthwhile to those who want to motivate students in speaking classes and who are concerned about the problem XÁC NHẬN CỦA THỦ Thanh Hóa, ngày 15 tháng năm 2021 TRƯỞNG ĐƠN VỊ Tôi xin cam đoan SKKN viết, khơng chép nội dung người khác TRẦN THỊ HẰNG 16 REFERENCES Hoang Van Van (2006) "Tieng Anh 10" GD Publisher Hoang Van Van (2006) "Tieng Anh 11" GD Publisher Hoang Van Van (2006) "Tieng Anh 12" GD Publisher Linh, Nguyen Thuy, and Trang, Luong Quynh (2007) Thiết kế giảng lớp 10 Hanoi Publisher Ur, P (1996) A course of Language Teaching Cambridge University Press Richard – Amato, P.A (1988) Making It Happen: Interaction in the second Language Classroom, form Theory to Practice New York: Longman APPENDIX 17 SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE ABOUT SPEAKING LESSON Full name:……………………… Class:11… School:…………………… Please read and give your opinion on the following questions: Tick (√) in the box corresponding to your choice or write another opinion (if any) Question 1: Before entering a new lesson, does the teacher often let the children experience or let them organize an experiential activity to learn about the topic or content related to the lesson? Yes  No Question 2: Are you interested in taking part in the Speaking lesson that intergrate experiential activities?  Very interested Excited Not interested Another idea:………………………………………………………………… Question 3: Does the teacher add or adjust some exercises in the textbook to suit the students' level? Yes  No Question 4: Do teachers often motivate and encourage students to speak English in class or outside? Yes No Question 5: How you feel about the Speaking lesson?  Exciting, engaging, understanding and applicable lessons  Class time is boring, not interesting Another idea:…………………………………………… Thank you for your cooperation! 18 ... ? ?Organizing experiential activities to motivate the 11 th form students in speaking lessons at Thong Nhat high school ” to find out positive solutions to create excitement for students to learn English... learning English speaking at Thong Nhat high school by experiential activities Scope of the study The study focuses specifically on teaching and learning English speaking to high school students at. .. speaking lessons in the classes I am teaching in high school Statistical methods: I deliver the questionaires to test students' interest and speaking ability in speaking class From there, adjust the