Designing some stimulating activities to motivate 10th form students to speak and develop their speaking skill

1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Reasons for choosing the topic: It is undeniable that English is an international language and together with its increasing importance, the need of learning English is becoming more urgent than ever Therefore, the need to study English has been increasing for the past few years As a teacher of English at Mai Anh Tuan Upper Secondary School, I have coped with some difficulties in teaching speaking skills for my students The lessons are sometimes not interesting enough to motivate students to speak Moreover, it is rather hard to teach them how to speak naturally and apply it in their real life As a result, only a few of them can communicate outside These are the limitations that have made me try to find the new ways in teaching English skill to develop their ability in English speaking Moreover, as can be seen from the fact, nowadays, even though Vietnamese people have had more attention in learning English skills, they are still focusing more on grammar to pass their examination at school Therefore, English skills, particularly speaking, are still the weakest points of Vietnamese people in comparison with other countries in Asia According to my survey results, most of the students finds learning speaking skill with traditional method quite bored They are not motivated to speak during the class Moreover, most of them are quite shy to speak English because of the lack of vocabulary and grammar as well as speaking skill Therefore, it has led to the inconfidence in speaking English In addition, about 40% of the students spend time studying English in the center whereas others focus on learning grammar This is also the reason why their speaking skill is rather weak For such reasons I choose "Designing some stimulating activities to motivate 10th form students to speak and develop their speaking skill” 1.2 Aims of the study: The study is carried out to: - To study the use of three stimulating activities: games, group work and role play to intensify students’ participation in speaking activities at the 10th form students at Mai Anh Tuan Upper Secondary School 1 - To suggest some recommendations on how to use three stimulating activities: games, group work, role play to enhance their learners in speaking skills and develop communicative skills 1.3 Scope of the study: The subjects chosen for this study are 10th- form students at Mai Anh Tuan upper secondary school, Thanh Hoa province where I have been teaching 1.4 Methods of the study: To acquire the objectives of the study, several methods are used, but I use mainly quantitative and qualitative methods The data serving the research analysis and discussions are collected by means of a survey questionnaire for students and observation 2 CONTENT 2.1 Theoretical background 2.1.1 What is “speaking”? There are many definitions of speaking According to Chaney, (1988:13) speaking is “the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts” According to other researchers such as Brown (1994), Burn and Joyce (1997), speaking is “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information” In a related study, Bygate (1987) had a detailed definition which states that “speaking is the skill by which learners are most frequently judged and through which they make and lose friends It is the vehicle par excellence of social solidarity, social ranking, of professional advancement and of business It is also the medium through which much language is learnt” 2.1.2 Factors affecting English speaking abilities There are many factors that influence the success or failure in learning English speaking However, the three most important factors are motivation, attitude and learning strategies 2 Motivation is the first important factor affecting a language learner According to Gardner (2001), motivation refers to the driving force in any situation In the socio-educational model, motivation to learn the second language is viewed as requiring three elements First, the motivated individual expends effort to learn the language That is, there is a persistent and consistent attempt to learn the material by doing homework, by seeking out opportunities to learn more, by doing extra work and so on Second, the motivated individual wants to achieve the goal Such an individual will express the desire to succeed, and will strive to achieve success Third, the motivated individual will enjoy the task of learning the language Such an individual will say that it is fun, challenging, and enjoyable, even though at times enthusiasm may be less than at other times Attitude is the second factor which has an influence on the language learning Gardner and Lambert (1972) defined attitude as the persistence that a learner has to follow an object Language learning attitude has a relationship to motivation Language learners who have extrinsic or intrinsic motivation will have the more positive attitude than those without motivation or who consider language learning a compulsory subject Within second or foreign language education, a number of definitions of language learning strategies have been used by key figures in the field Early on, Tarone (1983:67) defined a language learning strategy as “an attempt to develop linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in the target language to incorporate these into one’s interlanguage competence” Rubin (1987:22) later wrote that language learning strategies “are strategies which contribute to the development of the language system which the learner constructs and affect learning directly” In their seminal study, O’Malley and Chamot (1990:1) defined language learning strategies as “the special thoughts or behaviors that individuals use to help them comprehend, learn, or retain new information” 2.2 Real situation before applying methods The fact showed that the level of the 10th form students’ participation in speaking activities was very low A lot of students tended to be reticent in the 3 speaking lessons With regard to what contributed to students’ reticence in classroom, many factors were identified They were students’ factors, teacher’s factors and objective factors Firstly, a range of student- related factors brought reticence into play Among these factors, the most prominent one was low English proficiency Although all of the students had learnt English for at least 7 years, their English language proficiency such as vocabulary, grammar, even pronunciation was poor Gradually, they would not feel interested in speaking and became reticent Another important factor was the fear of being laughed at when making mistakes Probably because of the fear of leaving a bad impression on the teacher and peers, many students worried about making mistakes and thus, were unwilling to speak Addition to it was “personality” Some students were so shy and introverted that they became nervous when speaking to a group of people even in the mother tongue, let alone the foreign language Another factor was “ Students’ speaking skill is influenced by their mothertongue” During my reality of teaching, I realize that students are greatly affected by their mother-tongue while speaking When being required to talk about a given topic, it is common that students first think about the ideas in Vietnamese, then try to translate them into English This has been proved ineffective in developing students’ speaking ability It is much better that students are guided to think in English in order to make their speaking more natural Secondly, the findings referred to teacher’s factors According to the questionnaire for students, the most important factor relating to teachers was teachers’ ways of mistake correction In speaking lessons at Mai Anh Tuan high school, students were often interfered immediately when they made mistakes during their performances This was a great influence on their continuous speaking Too much teacher’s talking time was the factor 64% of the students chose The teachers occupied almost all the class time, so students didn’t have much time to 4 speak Therefore, chances given to them to express their own ideas were limited Instead of taking part in oral activities actively, they only kept silent, took notes and spoke only when they were asked to 2.3 Measures taken: According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, “stimulating” is to “make people feel enthusiastic; full of interesting or exciting ideas” (2005:1057) Up to now, there is no definition of the researchers about “stimulating activity” According to Jeremy Harmer (2001), students need frequent changes of activities: they need activities that are exciting and stimulating their curiosity: they need to be involved in something active The span of concentration of our students is less Thus, we have to assign some interesting activities to draw their attention A number of classroom techniques such as role play, discussion, communication games and problem-solving, and using stories are recommended as appropriate to stimulate natural communication by theorists such as Harmer (2001), Livingstone (1983), Littlewood (1981), Ladousse (1987), Ur (1981) In order to help students gain success in speaking, there are many activities to stimulate students talk in speaking class as follows: 2.3.1 Role play According to Stephen D Hattings (1993:165) based on his observation in the conversation class, the role play would seem to be the ideal activity in which students could use their English creatively and it aims to stimulate a conversation situation in which students might find themselves and give them an opportunity to practice and develop their communication skill 2.3.2 Simulations For others, simulations stimulate student (Joan Andorfer, 2008) Burns & Gentry (1998) state that the teacher must take on some additional responsibilities in role playing/ simulation In particular, the teacher must keep learners motivated by stimulating their curiosity and keeping the material relevant, creating a "tension to learn" 5 2.3.3 Drama According to Bang (2008:30) drama-oriented activities are capable of stimulating the learners' interest in the English classroom by inducing them to invent a scenario, practice its discourses, and express them both individually and collectively Stated simply, the activities encourage both teacher and student for creativity and spontaneity Through the dramatic activities learners not only gain an understanding of grammatical structure in a context but also experience the dynamic, and productive use of the language to influence, control, entertain, and inform, that is, as if in real communicative circumstances 2.3.4 Games According to Carrier (1980:6) “Games stimulate students’ participation and give them confidence.” This is when students free themselves in order to participate to get the best score or even to be the best in the class They usually feel much more confident with their performance and this makes them learn and practice new structures, learn from their mistakes, and fulfill the goals of the class, indeed 2.3.5 Short stories Puji Rahayu (2008) claims that stories can help to stimulate students overall facility of creativity They contribute to multicultural awareness, tolerance and familiarity with each others beliefs Stories are akin to a magnet for students to be drawn to reading We can exploit the stories to get our students to practice the many language skills required for overall proficiency The subsequent sections illustrate how this may be done The aim of using the stories was not only to develop communicative ability in English, but also to introduce Islamic values to Indonesian students Teaching the past tense is very much aided by using historical stories Biblical stories can be used with Christian pupils 2.3.6 Discussion After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various reasons The students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups Before the discussion, it is essential that the 6 purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose, so that students do not spend their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things Hence, İsmail ÇAKIR (2006) claims that “Discussion stimulates communication among students, and it helps to achieve communicative practice With this activity students have an opportunity to develop sharing and co-operative skills” 2.3.7 Video It is universally recognized that videos as visual aids have a lot to contribute to the process of language learning and teaching, combining education and entertainment Supporters agree that videos stimulate student interest to acquire the target culture, as well as language (e.g., Stempleski, 1992; Tomalin, 1992) Video is supposed to communicate meaning better than any other media (Tomalin, 1992) Here it will be useful to look at the advantages of video in language classes from different perspectives 2.3.8 Group work Grouping activity is also being able to stimulate and persuade the interest of study among students Through this activity the involvement of student in class will be increase, learning in grouping is more affective to stimulate and strike the values such as motivation, confidence, the interest to study, cooperation and others (Jacobs and Ratmanida, 1996: 102) 2.3.9 Data collection procedures Data play an important role in a research In order to carry out this research, I have followed the following steps to collect the information for analysis First of all, I have divided the textbook with 16 units into 3 groups which I can use some stimulating activities in teaching speaking skill The first activity – Role play is used to make the plans for teaching speaking in unit 1,2,3,4 The second activity – Games is carried out for unit 5,6,11,14 The last activity – Group work is set up for unit 7,8,9,10,12,13,15,16 7 After dividing the lessons into different groups with different ways of teaching, the teacher does the observation directly toward teaching speaking learning-process in 3 classes at grade 10 at Mai Anh Tuan Upper Secondary School Finally, the survey of 7 post-questionnaires is written in Vietnamese to make sure that students will understand all questionnaire items They are dispensed to 100 students from three grade 10 classes The survey for students focus on investigating the following issues: - The students’ attitudes towards the proposed stimulating activities (games, video and role play): the issue is aimed at examining whether the students can understand the activities and if the activities are suitable to their levels - The effectiveness of the activities when being experimented in class: the issue investigates the students’ comments on the effectiveness of the activities in helping students to check the students’ confidence and the willingness in using the target language as well as developing their communicative skill The data was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively The results were presented in numbers and percentage and analyzed with the help of quantitative approach There are all 7 tables which were displayed The seven tables perform the statistical data of the students’ attitudes towards three stimulating activities: games, group work and role play and the effectiveness of the activities when being experimented in the class The qualitative data from classroom observations and interviews were analyzed both descriptively and interpretively and then transcribed to find out the students’ response, their bravery, their participation and to confirm the students’ attitude toward the technique of teaching speaking by using three stimulating activities during the English lessons 2 4 RESULTS AFTER APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING: - At the beginning of the school- year, before I apply the research in teaching Speaking skill, I tested the speaking skill of 100 students from 5 classes: 10A, 10B, 10C, 10D and 10E The statistics was shown as follows: The frequency of English speaking Number of Percentage 8 Always speak in English Usually speak in English, sometimes use Vietnamese Rarely speak in English, except when students 1 1% 11 11% 70 70% called by the teacher Never speak in English (only keep silent) 18 18% - After a year of applying new methods and approaches, the result is better: The frequency of English speaking Number Percentage Compared with of Always speak in English Usually speak in English, sometimes use Vietnamese Rarely speak in English, except when called by the teacher Never speak in English ( only keep a year ago students 15 15% increase 14% 36 36% increase 25% 44 44% reduce 26 % 5 5% reduce 13 % silent) The result means that the implementation and solutions used in the school year 2019-2020 have brought good effect on students’ learning Speaking skill 3 CONCLUSION: 3.1 Summary of the study By using stimulating activities in teaching speaking skill, students have felt more confident to speak English during the class It seems that they are more motivate and confident to speak English than before With the application of these activities, Vietnamese students have found it easier to open their mouth to speak a foreign language which was like a barrier with them as they started to speak English Through using stimulating activities in teaching speaking skill in the grade 10 classes at Mai Anh Tuan Upper Secondary School, students seem to become more attracted into the lessons They have more chances to speak English 9 Through the survey, almost students have found themselves more interested in contributing into the lessons They have more desire to speak during the lessons Therefore, it can build their confidence to communicate in their real life 3.2 Recommendations on how to use three stimulating activities in class Having concluded the result of research, the success in teaching doesn’t depend on the lesson program only, but more important is how the teacher presents the lesson and uses various techniques to manage the class more lively and enjoyable Regarding to the teaching speaking by using three stimulating activities: games, group work and role play, the writer would like to propose some recommendations that hopefully will be useful for the students, and other English teacher as follows: + For the student: - Being aware that speaking is important in English communication, the students should be trained or practiced to speaking individually or in group - The students are hoped not to be shy - The students are hoped to be active and creative in enriching their vocabularies - The students are hoped to use English when they practice role play activities although it is hard for them + For the teacher: - The teacher should learn and be creative to find the way of how to teach speaking using effective method She must also give motivation and explanation about the importance of speaking in English communication or universal communication - The teacher should choose the materials that are appropriate and not too difficult for the students - Before assigning the stimulating activities (games, video and role play) to the students, the teacher should make sure that the students have fully understood and have the information they need - To motivate students, activities in class should be varied, suitable to their levels and interests 10 - The teacher should assign work to students and encourage them to take part in the lesson by giving bonus marks - The teacher should keep control the students’ activities - The teacher should present the language in an enjoyable, relaxed and understandable way - The teacher should create and maintain a friendly relationship with students is also of great importance Students would feel much more self-confident to communicate if they find their teachers are supportive Thus, teachers should always be available to help students when they are in difficulties Especially, for reluctant and shy students, teachers should show more care and encouragement than others Also, frequent praises from teachers can be seen as a special gift that motivates students to speak more Therefore, I believe a change in the assessment system can help make a change in the students' attitude and motivation of learning so that they can achieve better outcome I hope Vietnamese education in general and Vietnamese English proficiency in particular will develop more soon I believe that if all of these above matters are well addressed, English learners at Mai Anh Tuan Upper Secondary School in particular and throughout the country in general will benefit from the innovation in teaching methods and the teaching materials Thanks sincerely CONFIRMATION OF THE HEADMASTER Nga Son, May , 2021 I swear that this is my writing I do not copy these contents Hồ Hoa Mai 11 ...- To suggest some recommendations on how to use three stimulating activities: games, group work, role play to enhance their learners in speaking skills and develop communicative skills 1.3... understood and have the information they need - To motivate students, activities in class should be varied, suitable to their levels and interests 10 - The teacher should assign work to students and. .. descriptively and interpretively and then transcribed to find out the students? ?? response, their bravery, their participation and to confirm the students? ?? attitude toward the technique of teaching speaking