Some ways of arousing the grade 3 students’ interest before lesson

THACH THANH EDUCATION AND TRAINING THANH VAN PRIMARY SCHOOL EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE SOME WAYS OF AROUSING THE GRADE STUDENTS’ INTEREST BEFORE EACH LESSON Written by: Doan Thi Tam Tittle: Teacher Place of work: Thanh Van primary school Subject area: English THACH THANH, 2021 TABLE OF CONTENT Content Page INTRODUCTION 1.1 Reasons for choosing topic 1.2 Research purposes 1.3 Research subjects 1.4 Reseach methods THE CONTENT OF EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE 2.1 The theoretical foundations of the initiative 2.2 The reality of the research 2.3 The solution used to solve the problem 2.4 The effectiveness of the experience initiative 16 CONCLUSION 16 REFERENCES 19 APPENDICE 20 3 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Reasons for choosing topic Nowadays, the importance of English cannot be denied and ignored since English is the most common language spoken everywhere It is estimated that the number of people in the world that use English to communicate on a regular basis is more than billion In the context of international exchanges and integration, the expansion of friendly and comprehensive relations and cooperation as well as the need to increase mutual understanding among countries in the region and in the world has become more necessary than ever In that trend, English becomes an indispensable tool on the path of integration and development It is a global language, used anywhere, in any field, and as a tool for accessing knowledge and technology, most scientific conferences are expressed in English Mastering this language helps us to be proactive and confident in our integration with the world It can be said that English is important for the young generation to confidently enter the world In the field of education, the Prime Minister approved the project of teaching and learning foreign languages in the national education system 2008 2020 (issued in September 2008) Accordingly, English has been taught in elementary school from grade upwards, and the target is all Vietnamese students after graduating from universities and colleges must speak English fluently Therefore, teaching English to elementary students, especially for beginners, is an important task for teachers in this subject Grade students who are at playful age and not aware of their study yet They often grasp the lesson quickly, but they are also fast bored with learning How to draw pupils’ attention, help them study English in active mood and practice English effectively and flexibly is a very difficult duty for a teacher A lesson of English learning will be effective if the teacher knows how to make the lesson more lively, interesting and appealing to his students, especially to elementary school students One of the first things a teacher can is doing a "warm-up" activity before beginning the new lesson It will help students to learn English in a comfortable, natural and full of enthusiasm Learning English with pleasure and fun, to understand the content of lessons as well as to increase the long-term interest in learning the language Being of an English teacher for more than 10 years in Thach Thanh, I am very concerned with the excitement and passion in learning English of primary students and help them study more effectively I have made a lot of great effort in renovating the methods of teaching to get started new lessons with variety of warm up activities and I was really successful than expected Therefore, I write the teaching experience titled “Some ways of arousing the grade students’ interest before lesson” to share my experience with collages I hope that this initiative experience will be useful for us, the teachers of English to get some experiences to help us together our teaching better 1.2 Reseach purposes An interesting way of starting a lesson could be using activities called warm-up activities or ice-breakers (Robertson & Acklam, 2000) Teacher could start warm up activity by using some games, asking questions and having discussions which all should be related to the topic or lesson - Create a friendly environment A brief warm up activity can build a relationship between the students and the learning materials (Hasan & Akhand, 2013).Warm up works as an ice breaker; it helps students to be comfortable with the environment and their classmates - Attract student’s attention Walqui (2006) states, “by focusing student’s attention on the main ideas, teacher first prepares the students for engaging them in interactive tasks to practice” (p.169) A five or ten minute warm up attracts the student’s attention toward the lesson and besides being physically in the class it helps them being mentally in the classroom, too - Activate the student’s background knowledge Rumelhart (1980) states, “we comprehend something only when we can relate it to something we already know-only when we can relate the new experience to an existing knowledge structure” (as cited in Carrell, 1983, p.82) Students might forget the things which they have learned from the last class or session Hence, a warm up activity could activate their background knowledge; things they already know or learned - Think in English and focus on the topic Kay (1995) claims that warm ups are different types of activities which help the students begin to think in English, review previously introduced materials and become interested in the lesson (as cited in Velandia, 2008, p 11) A warm up activity could help ESL students to start thinking in second language and forget any distractions and focus on the new topic or lesson - Increase student’s participation Warm-up activities like joke, game, and puzzle establish a positive learning environment and make the students comfortable to participate in the classroom (Joshi, 2006) When a teacher uses warm up, because of its enjoyable and interesting feature, students attends to participate or take place in that activity Students like to be involved in such an amazing warm up activity; it builds a sense of community inside them 1.3 Research subjects - Textbooks for grade of the new programme of the Ministry of Education and Training - Students in grade at Thanh Van primary school - Steps taken in English language classes 1.4 Reseach methodology a Theoretical research method - Analyze textbook content of knowledge part of each lesson - Research references related to the knowledge b Methods of actual investigation Observe and assess the practice of speaking English in classes THE CONTENT OF EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE 2.1 Theoretical foundation of the initiative For the purpose of my project, I considered some specific aspects related to warm up activities which I thought could make students' learning more stimulating They are as follows: - Breaking the monotony of learning: About this one, Dornyei (2001) highlights the importance of the "motivational flow" when talking about the general rhythm and sequence of events in class and suggests starting it with a warmer, which can be a short stimulating game to set the tone - Making the tasks more interesting: The author claims that humans are able to produce concentrated effort if they want to Generating this interest involves a set of characteristics Most of them can be adaptable; thus, they become challenging for students since they have interesting content, novelty, and intriguing, exotic, fantasy and personal elements; they stimulate competition and humor - Increasing the involvement of the students: He considers that it is important to make students active participants and suggests selecting tasks which require mental or bodily involvement of each participant and creating specific rules and personalized assignments for everybody The diagram below shows some of the principles that a teacher must consider when preparing a warm up activity It emerged as a result of our reflections upon our conceptual framework and the implementation process I designed Be short (about minutes) Be related to the topic Be useful to continue the class Go at the begining of the class Principals for warming up activities Be an interesting and enjoyable activity Focus students’ attention Help students begin to work Prepare students for a period of concentration The principles contained in this diagram make us realize that warm up activities are not only processes to begin the class, but tools that help us catch students' attention If you start with an exciting and interesting activity you can be sure the other steps can be developed easily This warm up must also be short because it is like a preparation for the other class stages That is why it has to be related with the topic and centered in communicative aspects which could involve activities that emphasize the practice of different skills 2.2 The reality of the research a advantages Thanh Van primary School is a school located in Thach Thanh, an ethnic district However, Parents and students are aware of the importance of acquiring a foreign language Some students show a special interest in learning English In addition, most teachers in the school have significant contributions devoted to education and they respect students’opinions Besides, they always focus on their students who are considered as the subject of action The school Board always takes care of the school education’s quality, especially the learning quality of students, modern teaching aids are also equipped such as labroom, projector, … Being a young, dynamic and enthusiastic teacher, I always research and innovate my teaching methods, which make my students to learn English without having boredom b disadvantages - Most of students in the mountainous area find learning English quite difficult so they usually feel bored and tired Most of them are not interested in taking part in each part in the lesson Teachers are always busy at school and teaching profile, so they not have enough time to apply educational games in order to motivate the students With such situation, as aprimary school English teacher, I think it is imperative to improve the ability of remembering vocabulary for students and we need to start as soon as possible Besides, warm up activities play an important part in teaching English Both teachers ans students like exciting activities However, teachers have some difficulties in designing and organizing activities to make student more excited about the lessons: - Because of being primary students, their bodies are in a period of change, the organs are not perfect, the endurance is low, so they cannot focus on lessons for a long time in class As a result, they will be rapidly bored with lessons - The students are very interested in the types of exercises and games divided into a group in emulation of other groups to win - Visual images, real objects, actions and gestures always attract attention of students The more they’re practiced, the more they like to learn - Grade students who are English beginners so they write very slowly and lack of the confidence in this subject Realizing students’psychology, curiosity and difficulties I have collected, created and selected the best suitable contents to impart to them Here are the results obtained in the first term test in classes 3A, 3B, 3C in Thanh Van Primary School before I applied the method CLASS 3A 3B 3C TOTAL TOTAL 32 32 34 98 WELL ACHIEVED SL TL 19% 15% 18% 17 17% ACHIEVED SL 19 20 19 58 TL 59% 63% 56% 59% NOT ACHIEVED SL TL 22% 22% 26% 23 24% Through the survey, I found that the quality of the students’ learning is not satisfactory, so that I thought I need to find and apply other ways of teaching for our school students 2.3 The situation used to solve the problem As I know, there are a variety of new ways of teaching English that I can apply in practical class During the time I have done this topic, I chose and used many methods of teaching in order to develop the positive and creativity of the students Furthermore, stimulating curiosity from students into the lesson so that they feel like learning English is very essential to the teacher Thus, I choose some of the teaching methods according to teaching argument below Some teaching methods be used in this topic: - Presentation method - Analysis method - Real practice method - Problem-solving method - Comparision method By researching this topic, I could claim that the topic is not a very new method However, most of teachers are not interested or have some difficulties in designing various activities to interested In this topic I also use some new methods of The Model of New School At the beginning of the lesson, I use the method of watching videos, listening to music, playing games to present the topic of the lesson Moveover, I use the method of brainingstorming for getting ideas from the students Creating an exciting atmosphere at the begining of the lesson is one of the new ways, a new findings I applied because I am alsways interested in teaching and applying according to new methods Innovation is totally essential for the teachers so that I will have many creative lessons 2.3 Solutions used to solve the problem Since motivation is not only a vital but also a highly complex factor determining more or less successful language learning, it is necessary to examine approaches to motivation in learning in order to bring about better insights into it Learners’ motivation can change overtime and effect on their language learning Various studies have found that motivation is strongly related to success in language learning There is an interesting movement towards teaching English with games It creates students’ motivation in learning English 2.3.1 Games a Basic games “ Let’s play basketball” Procedure : - Divide class into two groups : Tom and Jerry - Each team looks at the pictures and choose the best answer - If your team’s answer is right.the ball will go to the goal, your group get score If it’s wrong, the ball will go out of the goal and other team have chance to anwer and get score After finishing the games Which team get more sores is the winner - Illustrating images: Simon says Simon Says is a fun game that helps in exercising listening skills This game is fairly easy, but it can quickly turn into a challenge, especially if playing in a large group - The teacher asks the students to follow orders after the teacher chants the order - Students are only allowed to exercise orders if the teacher says "Simon says:" - Students who not have the words "Simon says:" will be excluded - At the end of the game, students who are disqualified will receive a form of discipline such as singing a song or hopping around the classroom - This game applied to the whole class - Illustrating images: Using visual aids Checking vocabulary - Show the pictures/ objects one by one - Call students say aloud the words - After that, teacher passes the pictures as quickly as possible for students read aloud Lucky number - Dividing the class into teams, each team in turn select each box and answer the teacher's question (What is it ?, What's its name? The correct answer group will be scored - The group that selects the lucky number will be awarded points without answering the question - This group is wrong, the other group has the right to answer and score points - The group that scores higher wins - Illustrating images: Bingo - Each student get a large card with squares containing words Everybody gets the same words but in a different order - Each time the teacher calls out a word, the students search and mark it - Students who are lucky to hit horizontal or vertical or diagonal lines will shout "Bingo" - Teachers give awards to students who win, re-pronounce words - Illustrating images: Racing car Using Networks - Write the key word on the board - Ask students to think of the related words and say in English - Lead in the new lesson by asking some questions Crossword.: - Show the crossword - Divide the class into two teams - Give students a clue about the key word - Tell them to choose the numbers and answer the questions in turn - Note students that they can give the key word before finishing all questions Watching a video clip - Have students watch a video clip about the topic they are going to learn - Ask students what the video clip is about and list the images and activities that they have just seen 10 Matching - This is the most common and very stimulating exercise for student’s brain They can look at English words and images or Vietnamese words to connect - they can discuss with their groups to homework, or it themselves - Illustrating images: 11 Jumbled words Jumbled words 10 - Students will be given or vocabulary words that are not in order(maybe illustrated) - Ask the students remember the vocabulary they have learned so that they can rewrite the letters into meaningful words - Illustrating images: b Solutions details Some activities below will demonstrate about how to adapt a difficult-todo exercise by an easy-to-do exercise c Applicability of the topic Range of the application For this topic, I applied it in many lessons in grade and in these real lessons, I found this topic really useful and easy to apply Beside Thanh Van primary school, this topic can be completely applied into the lessons from other schools not only in Thanh Van but it is also helpful for any Primary Schools in Thach Thanh, even in Thanh Hoa province Object of the application As mentioned, there are two objects who can use this topic for studying and learning: teachers of English and students all levels from primary schools even higher grades They also use it as a reference document if necessary For teachers, they can use this one for looking for a suitable way of designing and organizing this stage They can apply in reality For students, this topic can be used by some elementary students and intermediate students and it is a source of important document for learning English They will find this subject interesting 2.3.2 Teaching plan for the real lessons THE 1st ILLUSTRATION 11 UNIT : THIS IS TONY Lesson 2: Part 4,5,6 A Objectives: By the end of the lesson, Ss will be able to improve their listening skill by listening and ticking the correct pictures B Language focus: Vocabulary: Structure: This is + name Is this/that + name ? Yes, it is/ No, it isn’t C Teaching method: Communicative method D Teaching aids: Projector,computer,loudspeaker… PROCEDURE Stage Warm up Activities Let’s play the basketball Interaction T- whole class (7ms) Group work - Divide class into two groups : Tom and Jerry - Each team looks at the picture one by one and choose the best answer - If your team’s answer is right.the ball will go to the goal, your group get score If it’s wrong, the ball will go out of the goal and other team have chance to anwer and get score After finishing the games Which team get more 12 sores is the winner Is that Mary ? a Yes, it is b Yes, this is c No, it isn’t b Yes, it is c No, it isn’t T – whole class Is this Tom ? a No, it is Is that Peter ? a Yes, it isn’t b No, it is c Yes, it is Is this Nam ? a No, it is b No, it isn’t c Yes, it isn’t b No, it isn’t c.Yes, that is Is that Tony? a Yes, it is → Lead Ss to the topic of the lesson THE 2nd ILLUSTRATION UNIT 6: STAND UP Lesson 2: Part 1,2,3 A Objectives: By the end of the lesson, Ss will be able to know how to give and respond the permision B Language focus: Structure: May I come in ? Yes, you can/ No, you can’t C Teaching method: Communicative method D Teaching aids: Projector, computer, loudspeaker… Stage Activities Warm up * Game: Simon says Teacher: Simon says: “ Stand up!” Students: ( stand up) Teacher: Sit down! Students: ( no sit down) (7ms) Teacher: Simon says: “ open your books” Students: Open their books Teacher: Simon says: “ Close your books” Students: Close their books Teacher: Simon says: “ keep silence” Students: Keep silence Interaction T- whole class 13 …………………………… T – whole class → Lead Ss to the topic of the lesson THE 3rd ILLUSTRATION UNIT 7: THAT’S MY SCHOOL Lesson 1: Part 4, 5, A Objectives: By the end of the lesson, Ss will be able to improve their listening skill by listening and ticking the correct pictures B Language focus: Vocabulary: school, library, classroom, computer room, playground, gym, big, small… Structure: Is that ….? Yes, it is Is it big/small ? Yes, it’s/ No, it isn’t C Teaching method: Communicative method D Teaching aids: Projector,computer,loudspeaker… Stage Activities Interaction Warm Twhole up * Checking vocabulary: class - Show the pictures one by one - Call students say aloud the words - After that, teacher passes the pictures as quickly as (7ms) possible for students read aloud 14 → Lead Ss to the topic of the lesson T – class whole THE 4th ILLUSTRATION UNIT 9: WHAT COLOR IS IT ? Lesson 2: Part 4,5,6 A Objectives: By the end of the lesson, Ss will be able to improve their listening skill by listening and numbering the pictures B Language focus: Vocabulary: Black, red, yellow, blue, green, purple, white, pink… Structure: What colour….? It’s + colour C Teaching method: Communicative method D Teaching aids: Projector,computer,loudspeaker… Stage Activities Warm * Game: Racing Car up Interaction T- whole class 15 (7ms) - Devide the class into teams + Blue Car T – class + Red Car whole + Green Car The rule of the game: “Each team will choose the number you want Each number has a picture Look at the picture to ask and anwer about colour ( asking ‘What colour is it? And answer “ It’s + colour” If you have the correct answer ,your team’s car will be moved a step Time for making question and answer is 10 seconds Which team’s car reaches the destination firstly will get 30 points,the second team’ll get 20 points & the last one’ll get 10 points” Ex: Picture 1: What colour is it? It’ yellow ………………………………… → Lead Ss to the topic of the lesson The effectiveness of the experience initiative Based on the evaluated data, the research finding showed some important points that need to be discussed The result showed that using these activities 16 improved students’ speaking ability It was accordance to the result of post-test control class and post-test experiment class where students’ scores were improved CLASS 3A 3B 3C TOTAL TOTAL 32 32 34 98 WELL -ACHIEVED SL TL 25% 22% 26% 20 24% ACHIEVED SL 25 26 27 78 TL 75% 78% 74% 76% NOT ACHIEVED SL TL 0% 0% 0% 0% The result of the initiative experience show that the students get improvement in speaking, also the using English of students in class is better It could be seen from the different of the students’ score in pretest and posttest More than 50% of the students get stagnation in pretest and in posttest 100% of the students could finish their speaking activity And they can give respond of the question given CONCLUSION Using warm up activities is an effective way of helping students to begin the English class daily After the research I have come to the conclusion that the role of warm ups is one of being an attention injector for students That facilitates their involvement in the class work by sharing answers, trying to participate, paying attention, giving the answers, encouraging to take part in the lesson, participating as volunteers, working on the exercises, drawing, and writing the exercises Based on the results collected mainly from the field notes, these kinds of activities really appear to promote students' involvement in the English class They must be used as a motivation and a means of preparing the ground for the various stages of the lesson We can prepare the warm up with the objective of involving students' participation and letting them communicate at an early stage of the lesson Some important aspects to be considered for the warm up development are the classroom conditions and the clarity of the activity rules, particularly if they are games or competitions to avoid confusion among students That means we have to explain the procedure carefully before starting, to have all the materials ready, to encourage students to participate and to motivate them by means of examples or guides It is also important to remark that no matter how simple warm up activities can be, they should be well prepared In addition, we need to examine the connection for the later activities so that we, as teachers, can take advantage 17 of them to develop our lessons Consequently, it did not demand a lot of time to prepare or complicated materials to be implemented We can promote students' involvement at the very beginning of the class by applying warm ups And for warm ups to be effective they should be short, related to the topic, useful to continue later activities, interesting, and enjoyable In doing so, we can prepare students to concentrate and to help them begin to think and focus their attention on the English class a Suggestions By the way I also would like to suggest some ideas: - For teacher The teachers of English may apply this topic in teaching and having the comparasion so that we can find out the most suitable way for the warm up activities to interest students to English lessons - For school The leaders of the schools need to continue to hold IOE exams online to encourage Students’ interest in learning English - Leaders should hold a small number of exams at the school for the purpose of discovering good learners to have early investment - Create many good conditions for the teachers to apply new methods in teaching - For department of education In addition to the self-study, self-improvement of the teachers, the leaders of the Department of Education should open more short courses of teaching methods Thus, the teachers of English can improve their skills in teaching and that is a chance of exchanging nice teaching experience Last but not least, I highly appreciate your sincere comments on this topic from all colleagues in order to make this topic better next time Certified by the headmaster Cao Đức Hoàn Thach Thanh, 15th april 2021 I hereby make a commitment that this report was written by myself, not plagiarism Written by Đoàn Thị Tâm 18 REFERENCE Textbook English – Education Publishing House((issued in 2010) Techniques in teaching English as a foreign language I, II-Nguyen Thi Xuan Dao, Hoang Tang Duc – 2001 Games to teach English (Harold S Madren) - Oxford University Press 2003 Bridge TOEFL: Teaching English With Games (2007) Một số website giảng dạy Tiếng Anh: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/ http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/,http://www.britishcouncil.org , http://www.globaledu.com.vn , http://www.ila.com, … LIST OF INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE RANKED ABOVE LEVEL C BY BOARD OF EXPERIENCE IN DISTRICT, PROVINCE AND UPPER LEVELS Full name of the author: Doan Thi Tam School: Thanh van Primary School Oder Name of the study Promoting positive in forging Level of rank Result School year province C 2014-2015 speaking English for pupils at grades through pairworks and groupwork Ispire and reinforce knowled of district B 2017-2018 enghlish lessons by short songs APPENDICE 19 SURVEY FORM Name: Class: What are your favorite warm-up activities? (tick activities you like best) Ordinal number Activities Play basket ball Crossword Using visual aids Racing car Watching video clips Bingo Lucky number Networks Matching 10 Jumbled words Tick (√) 20 ... to impart to them Here are the results obtained in the first term test in classes 3A, 3B, 3C in Thanh Van Primary School before I applied the method CLASS 3A 3B 3C TOTAL TOTAL 32 32 34 98 WELL... methods of The Model of New School At the beginning of the lesson, I use the method of watching videos, listening to music, playing games to present the topic of the lesson Moveover, I use the method... foundations of the initiative 2.2 The reality of the research 2 .3 The solution used to solve the problem 2.4 The effectiveness of the experience initiative 16 CONCLUSION 16 REFERENCES 19 APPENDICE 20 3