An investigation into the participation of high school students in speaking lessons = khảo sát về sự tham gia của học sinh trong giờ học nói tiếng anh tại trường THPT

An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons VINH UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT ========== VÕ THỊ KIM CÚC AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE PARTICIPATION OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN SPEAKING LESSONS (KHẢO SÁT VỀ SỰ THAM GIA CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG GIỜ HỌC NÓI TIẾNG ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT) GRADUATION THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY VINH – 2009 == Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For the completion of this thesis, I have been fortunate to receive invaluable contributions from many people First, I especially would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs Vũ Thị Việt Hương, M.A., who provides me with her precious knowledge, assistance, consideration and encouragement so that I can finish this thesis I must be grateful to the teachers of Foreign Languages Department, Vinh University who supply me with good conditions to conduct this thesis My thanks also go to 100 students and Vietnamese teachers of English at Tran Phu high school for their participation in my survey questionnaires and semi-structured interviews Finally yet importantly, I am greatly indebted to my family and my friends for their encouragement and support to my process of writing the thesis Vinh, May, 2009 Võ Thị Kim Cúc Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS A : Answer ALM : Audio Lingual Method CLT : Communicative Language Teaching Etc : Et cetera L : Lesson N : Number Q : Question Ss : Students S : Student TWC : Teacher with the whole class Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 : Work arrangement used in the speaking lessons Table 2.2 : Opportunities for the students in class 10A to participate in five lessons Table 2.3 : Opportunities for the students in class 10A to participate in five lessons Table 2.4 : Frequency of activities in the speaking lessons Table 2.5 : Results of survey questionnaires Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ii LIST OF TABLES iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the Study Aims of the Study Scope of the Study Methods of the Study Design of the Study PART II: CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons 1.1 Nature of Speaking and Speaking Sub-skills 1.1.1 Nature of Speaking 1.1.2 Speaking Sub-skills 1.2 Teaching Speaking in Communicative Language Teaching 1.2.1 Communicative Language Teaching 1.2.2 Principles of Teaching Speaking in Communicative Language Teaching 1.2.2.1 Principles for the Beginning Levels 1.2.2.2 Principles for the Intermediate and Advanced Levels 10 1.3 Speaking Activities 10 1.3.1 Characteristics of a Successful Speaking Activity 10 1.3.2 Problems with Speaking Activities 11 1.3.3 Solutions of the Problems with Speaking Activities 12 1.4 Classroom Communicative Tasks 13 1.5 Types of Communicative Activities in Speaking Classes 15 Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons 1.5.1 Oral Drills 16 1.5.2 Information Gap 16 1.5.3 Communication Games 17 1.5.4 Discussions 18 1.5.5 Questionnaires 19 1.5.6 Simulation and role-play 20 1.5.7 Problem-solving activities 22 1.5.8 Talking about yourself 22 CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 24 2.1 Research questions 24 2.2 Research setting 24 2.3 Description of subjects 24 2.4 Description of data collection instruments 25 2.4.1 Classroom observations 25 Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons 2.4.2 Interviews with the teachers 26 2.4.3 Survey questionnaires 27 2.5 Procedure 27 2.6 Preliminary results and data analysis 29 2.6.1 Results of classroom observations 29 2.6.1.1 Work arrangement used in the speaking lessons 29 2.6.1.2 A fair opportunity for the students 29 2.6.1.3 The activities used in the speaking lessons 32 2.6.2 Results of interviews 33 2.6.3 Results of survey questionnaires 35 CHAPTER 3: MAJOR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 38 3.1 Major findings 38 3.1.1 Students' language anxiety and low self-esteem 38 3.1.2 An unfair opportunity for the students 39 Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons 3.1.3 Frequently using guided oral practice activities and the limitation of communicative activities used in the lessons 39 3.2 Limitations of the thesis and suggestions for further studies 40 PART III: CONCLUSION 42 REFERENCES APPENDIX I APPENDIX II PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the Study English has become the language of international trade and transport Most planes traveling from one country to another used it to talk with airports All ships sailing on the oceans call for help by radio in it It has been said that 60 percent of the world’s radio broadcasts and 70 percent of the world’s mail are in English An international sport meets, at meeting of scientists from the corners of the earth, English is the language most commonly used and most widely understood English has in fact become the language of international cooperation in science and technology The most advanced results in space, nuclear and computer research are Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons published in it A scientist who speaks and writes English is in closer touch with the scientists in other countries than one who does not Language is a useful tool for human beings to communicate with one another Thus, learning a language means learning how to use language to communicate successfully For most people, the ability to speak a language is synonymous with knowing that language since speech is the most basic means of human communication The Communicative Approach teaching requires developing language learners' four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing However, "speaking in a second or foreign language has often been viewed as the most demanding of the four skills" (Bailey and Savage (1994:7)) And Bailey and Savage also suggest that: "speaking is also an activity requiring the integration of many subsystems…all these factors continue to make speaking a second or foreign language a formidable task for language learners…Yet for many people, speaking is seen as the center skill" For that reason, we would like to carry out this particular study to help teachers to develop their students' speaking skills Certainly that there are many ways to develop learners' speaking skill, but it is still discussing to choose an appropriate way to teach Today, we are trying to teach English in a communicative way followed learnercenter instruction; communicative activities certainly become a necessary part in language teaching, however, they have not been exploited by the teachers so far In addition, although the frequency of different kinds of work arrangements used affects the participation of the students in speaking class, the teachers at high school seem not to know how to apply them the most effectively Therefore, we found interesting and useful to have a specific research into the participation of the students in speaking lessons, we think that we can make use of work arrangement as well as communicative activities applied in speaking classes because they can involve students in and make them more active and confident when using Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University 10 An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons S11 S12 S13 S14 S15 S16 S17 S18 S19 S20 S21 S22 S23 S24 S25 2 1 1 2 3 2 1 1 2 1 0 0 0 2 2 1 1 1 1 0 2 1 7 7 3 8 S36 S37 S38 S39 S40 S41 S42 S43 S44 S45 S46 S47 S48 S49 S50 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 2 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 3 5 2 (Ss: Students, S: Student, N: Number, L: Lesson) In class 10A3, the same problem happened The teacher often gave the students such as S1, S3, S4, S6, S8, S23 and S26 more opportunities when getting feedback than the students at the back or at the corners of the classroom (S42, S48, S49, S50) When the teachers allowed strong students to have many opportunities to take part in the lessons, the weaker students often thought that they could never give as many good answers as the strong ones and they could not speak English as fluently as them Therefore, the weaker ones became more and more passive and less confident Moreover, in terms of psychology, the students choosing to sit at the fronts rows themselves were more confident than the others sitting at the back and at the corners of the classroom The more chances the students at the front rows and the strong ones had, the fewer chances the others in the classroom did Thus, that reduced weak and quite students' self-esteem 2.6.1.3 The activities used in the speaking lessons The activities used frequently in the speaking lessons affect the students' learning style Table 2.4 shows the frequency of the activities used in 10 observed speaking lessons and their level of success, based on the Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University 40 An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons number of students involved in It indicates that the guided practice activities were used most frequently and there were not a variety of communicative activities used in the lessons Table 2.4: Frequency of activities in the speaking lessons Activities Lessons Oral Drills Information Gap Communication Game Discussion Questionnaires Simulation and role-play Problem-solving Talking about yourself (N=10) 9(90 %) 2(20 %) 0(0 %) 8(80 %) 0(0 %) 2(20 %) 0(0 %) 3(30 %) N of students involved in the lessons 1-10 10-20 20-30 30-40 40-50 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 (The percentage figures total more than 10 % because the teachers used more than one activity in one lesson) As can be seen from the table 2.4, oral drills activity takes up the highest percentage, 90% while the activities such as communication games, questionnaires and problem-solving activities were not seen Discussions activity ranks secondly with 80%, followed by talking about yourself (30%), information gap (20%) and simulation and role-play (20%) In reality, none of the used activities was excellently successful For discussion activity, the students were usually asked to work in pairs or it was the whole class discussion There was only one lesson in which the teacher asked them to work in small groups but it failed with the participation of only five students The others keep silent or spoke in Vietnamese They wrote out their ideas instead of speaking them out Only five out of ten lessons in which this activity was used got successful with participation of 30 to 40 students while the rest of them were little successful Based on the observation, the researcher realized that the more the teacher moved around to encourage and help the students, the more successful the activities were Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University 41 An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons The table shows that simulation and role-play activities were used in two lessons but they were not very successful The number of students involved in oral drills activity was greater than in discussion activities 2.6.2 Results of interviews As stated in the description of subjects, five teachers are involved in the interview Questions for the interview are: How often you organize speaking activities for your students? What are the difficulties you find when using speaking activities in speaking class? Why was group work not often used in the lessons? Why were oral drills, discussion often used in the lessons? What about the others? Do you pay attention to the position of the students? For question and 2, five teachers said that they sometimes organize speaking activities for their students They hoped to use them more often in English speaking lessons, however, they met some certain difficulties such as time limitation because the time for each period is only forty five minutes and it is really hard for the teachers to apply speaking activities while teaching In answering question 3, most of the teachers said that they had difficulties in managing the class, especially to form groups because the students sit in rows and the desks were long and rather heavy Moreover, they said, when working in groups, the strong students often dominated and the weaker ones would be more passive and lazier Their other reasons were that working in groups often cause noise, which affected the next door classes and this was time-consuming Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University 42 An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons For question 4, all the teachers thought that these activities did not take them much time to prepare and were easy to adapt in the lessons One of them indicated that communication games were interesting but took much time so the teacher could not complete the lessons in fixed amount of time when adapting them When answering question 5, the teachers said that they not pay a lot of attention to the position of the students They usually call the students who sit near them (usually the ones sit at the front rows or the ones sit at the center of the classroom) In summary, the frequency of using speaking activities in the speaking lessons depends on the activities themselves The teachers usually make use of the ones that are effective and less time-consuming 2.6.3 Results of survey questionnaires The results of the survey questionnaires were summarized in table blow Table 2.5: Results of survey questionnaires A A B C D 60 18 14 27 32 62 24 53 68 20 15 50 35 20 24 29 23 76 58 26 Q 52 There are 10 questions including eight open-ended questions (from question1 to question 8) and two close-ended questions (question and 10) For the first question, 50 students agreed that speaking skill is difficult, Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University 43 An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons accounting for 50% while only out of 100 students thought it is boring, taking up 2% 32% felt speaking skill is interesting (32%) and 16% found it easy In question 2, no one thought that speaking is not important, over a half of the students regarded speaking skill is as important as other skills (60%) 35 students agreed that it is more important than other skills and only of them chose speaking is less significant than reading, listening and writing skill For the three next questions 3, and More than a half of students (62 people) felt a little bit shy when speaking in front of the class that accounts for 62%, 18% of the students felt confident while 20% of them seemed unconfident at all The reasons for their passiveness and lacking of confidence when using English to communicate in speaking class are their lacking ideas, having ideas but they not how to express in English and having poor amount of vocabulary There is no body chose A answer because all of them usually have ideas in their minds (interesting and new ideas, for example) but 24 people did not have enough vocabulary to speak and other 24 people did not know how to express their ideas in English When answering question 6, about the factors that prevent students from speaking English, 14 students chose the factor grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation mistakes, 29 students felt shy when using English to speak More than a half of the students (53 students accounting for 53%) affirmed that they were afraid of losing face or criticized by their friends, students thought of the combination of these factors Except for the above factors, the topics of speaking activities also decide whether the students participate in speaking activities by using English to talk the most actively and effectively or not 68 students agreed that the topics were very boring and not update at all, 23 students thought they were difficult, students found them easy and students felt that they are interesting Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University 44 An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons For question 7, students never speak during speaking lessons, students were eager and excited to speak There were 68 students found speaking boring and 23 students only spoke when the teachers forced them And for the next question, about the students' participation time in speaking class in comparison to their classmates, 27% talked as much as their friends, 15% talked more than their friends and 58% participated in speaking activities less than their ones For the last two questions, when answering question 9, most of the students said that they were very ashamed when making mistakes, they thought their ideas seemed foolish while the others' ones were really excellent or they were afraid of losing face or being criticized by their classmates, so they dare not to express their ideas In answering question 10, half of the students said they like to sit at the front rows or at the corners of the class because when sitting in such places, they can study the most effectively and they can get good chances to practice speaking English, too However, some students thought that sitting at the back or at the corners of the class is better; they believed that they would feel much more comfortable when sitting there because the teachers would not pay so much attention to them and they would not be called or forced to give answers while they did not know about them Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University 45 An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University 46 An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons CHAPTER 3: MAJOR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 3.1 Major findings Due to the results from observations and interviews that were mentioned above in chapter 2, the researcher has found out that the factors that causes the students passiveness and lack of confidence are students' language anxiety and low self-esteem, an unfair opportunity for the students, frequently using guided practice activities and the limitation of communicative activities 3.1.1 Students' language anxiety and low self-esteem Trying to produce language in front of the other students can generate high level of anxiety The students may feel that they really possess, they may have cultural inhibition about losing their faces The self-esteem also contributes to students' lack of confidence; they feel inadequate in English experience and therefore often face considerable pressure in the class Although many students are happy to speak under the teachers' guidance when doing some kinds of drill, they are inhibited when they are asked to express themselves freely in the presence of the whole class This may be because they have never been encouraged sufficiently to have a go without worrying about mistakes However, in part this may also be due to the fear of being corrected in front of the other students The more anxious the less confident they are It is therefore a major responsibility for the teachers to create a reassuring classroom environment in which the students are prepared to take risks and experiment with the language However, there is not an isolated solution for these problems, which belong to the students' psychology Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University 47 An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons 3.1.2 An unfair opportunity for the students In the class if a few fluent students dominate, the rest will either listen or be bored by being passive bystanders, lose interest completely and turn to some other occupations, which may have a disrupting influence on the proceedings As a result of this, the strong ones are more and more confident and active while the weaker ones become more and more passive That is because not all the students often have the teachers' attending Therefore, the teachers should pay much attention to the quite students; give them more chances to practice English, from easy to difficult tasks, which can help them keep pace with the class Added to this, the teacher should arrange the poor students to sit in front and ask the strong students to help them to overcome their weak self-esteem or the teacher could mix the students by asking them to change their seats when they work in groups or in pairs It is believed when they take more opportunities to participate actively in activities they will be more confident 3.1.3 Frequently using guided oral practice activities and the limitation of communicative activities used in the lessons The kind of activities frequently used in the class affects the students' learning process very much Using frequently oral drills makes the students more passive because they are used to doing safe practice Most of the students are at intermediate level so they not need too many activities for accuracy practice If they always work with much accuracy practice activities, they could not speak English fluently and naturally, which make them less and less confident Classroom activities give the students a chance to experiment with their new linguistic skills Revel (1991) indicates classroom activities are the ones to bridge the gap between "skill-getting" in classroom and "skillusing" in real life In concerning with a foreign language, confidence plays Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University 48 An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons a very large part A student needs to feel that he will be able to tackle many different situations in a foreign country Therefore, in order to give students this confidence, the teachers should provide as plenty of opportunities for them to practice what they have learnt in a realistic way as possible in their classroom Due to the results from the observation and interviews, the researcher found that there were only two kinds of communicative activities (oral drills and discussion) often used in the lessons and talking about yourself, information gap, simulation and role-play sometimes used so the opportunities for students to practice in realistic way were limited As a result, the students did not get the confidence in using the target language Therefore, the teachers should pay much more attention to students' learning than their teaching by reducing using oral drills and using a variety of communicative activities Varying the activities, tasks and materials can help to avoid a decrease in attention and an increase in boredom, and increase the students' interest level 3.2 Limitations of the thesis and suggestions for further studies Although the researcher has made great effort towards conducting this thesis, there undoubtedly exist some limitations First, due to small group of teachers observed in their teaching speaking periods, the conclusions drawn were tentative A study with a large number of teachers being observed to investigate their ways to apply communicative activities and run lessons would certainly have more valid and reliable data Therefore, further studies should include this feature in their analysis in order to get more valid and reliable explanation on the issue Second, in this study, such factors as student's background knowledge, student's motivating, kinds of test, materials were not focused Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University 49 An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons It is not doubted that these factors to some extent have decisive effects on the quality of a speaking lesson Third, further studies should study the teacher's management and control the class and teachers' feedback (both in oral and written feedback) Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University 50 An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons PART III: CONCLUSION This study is about the investigation into the participation of high school students in speaking lessons with the main aims at finding out the causes for passiveness and lack of confidence in speaking English at Tran Phu high school, grade 10 Based on the instrumentations as classroom observations interviews and survey questionnaire, this study has discovered the significant findings with a view to improving the students' speaking skill at high school One of the causes is from the students' psychology: their language anxiety and low self-esteem To deal with their language anxiety and low self-esteem, the teacher should make effort to create a reassuring classroom environment in which the students are prepared to take risks and experiment with language It means that the way to be trained of the students needs to be changed in combination of solving the later issues There were three constraints from the teachers: an unfair opportunity for the students, frequently using guided oral practice activities and the limitation of communicative activities To deal with an unfair opportunity for the students, the teachers should pay more attention to the quite students, give them more chances to practice English and encourage them to keep pace with the class, which may modify their habit and learning passive style When the students' passiveness and lack of confidence are caused by using frequently guided oral practice activities and limitation of communicative activities, the following solution should be taken in consideration The teachers should change their minds in preparing the lessons, using a variety of communicative activities that provide the students chances to use English in a realistic way It is affirmed that the Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University 51 An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons students are confident when they are able to tackle many situations in real life In summary, it is hoped that the teachers of English at high school can benefit from the findings and suggestions of the study in order to help the students overcome their passiveness and lack of confidence and improve their speaking skill Vâ ThÞ Kim Cóc- 46A1 Foreign Languages Department - Vinh University 52 ... School Students in Speaking Lessons PART III: CONCLUSION This study is about the investigation into the participation of high school students in speaking lessons with the main aims at finding out the. .. Languages Department - Vinh University 29 An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons  Real of function: the students must not think of themselves as students, ... 19 An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons Finally, language is of an acceptable level Students express themselves in utterances that are relevant,