How to motivate speaking sking skill for the 11th form students at quynh luu 1 high school

VINH UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES trần thị tuyết How to motivate speaking skill for the 11th form students at Quynh Luu high school GRADUATION THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY NGHÊ AN – 2014 VINH UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES How to motivate speaking skill for the 11th form students at Quynh Luu high school GRADUATION THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY Supervisor : vò thị việt h-ơng, m.a Student : trần thị tuyết Class : 51a – English NGHÊ AN – 2014 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For the completion of this work, I have been fortunate to receive invaluable contributions from many people First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, M.A Vu Thi Viet Huong for her absolutely indispensable assistance, excellent suggestions, detail critical comments, without which the work would not have been completed I would also like to express sincere thanks to all my lectures of Foreign Language Department, Vinh University for their help, which enable me to get a lot theoretical as well as practical knowledge My warmest thanks are due to my loving parents, my older brothers, my friends for their unconditional love support and forbearance while I was doing this study Finally, I am all too aware that despite all the advice and is assistance, I feel that the project is far from perfect; it is, therefore, my sole responsibility for any inadequacies and shortcomings that the thesis may be considered to have Vinh, April, 2014 Tran Thi Tuyet i ABSTRACT This research aims at finding out the problems with speaking activities which the 11 graders are facing and activities to bring more successful for speaking lessons The research carried out both quantitative and qualitative data Data collected through survey questionnaires and class observation The method of teacher and learning English was showed from finding of research as well as the problems were encountered during speaking classes On the other hand, some activities are presented with the hope that their speaking skill of 11th form students will be improved significantly At the end of the studies, some recommendations for using speaking activities are also given for both English teacher and students ii TABLE OF CONTENT Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .i ABSTRACT ii TABLE OF CONTENT iii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 RATIONALE 1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 1.3 METHODS OF THE STUDY 1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 1.5 FORMAT OF THE STUDY CHAPTER 2: LITERATUTE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND .3 2.1 COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING APPROACH 2.1.1 Characteristics of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) 2.1.2 Principles of CLT 2.1.3 The role of teacher, students, instructional materials in CLT 2.2 OVERVIEW OF SPEAKING SKILL 2.2.1 Speaking Skill 2.2.2 The nature of speaking 2.2.3 The importance of speaking skill in the classroom .8 2.2.4 Types of classroom speaking performance 2.2.5 Principles for teaching speaking 10 2.2.6 Characteristics for teaching speaking 11 2.2.7 Procedure to teach a speaking lesson .12 2.2.8 The speaking process 13 2.2.9 Problems in speaking classes .13 2.2.10 Activities for speaking practice 14 2.3 SUMMARY 15 iii CHAPTER 3: METHOD AND PROCEDURE 17 3.1 SURVEY ON LEARNING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL AT QUYNHLUU HIGH SCHOOL 17 3.1.1 Aims of the Survey 17 3.1.2 The participants 17 3.1.3 The research Questions 17 3.1.4 Instruments 18 3.1.5 Data collection procedure 18 3.2 REAL SITUATION OF LEARNING AND TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING AT QUYNH LUU HIGH SCHOOL 18 3.3 Preliminary results and data analysis .19 3.3.1 Students’ motivation in learning English speaking skill through the interview 19 3.3.2 Main Reasons for the Difficulties in Learning Speaking Skill 23 3.3.3 Students’ motivation on the topics of the textbook of grade 11 24 3.3.4 Activities used by the teachers to motivate students 26 3.4 SUMMARY 27 CHAPTER 4: SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES TO MOTIVATE THE 11TH GRADERS IN LEARNING SPEAKING SKILL AT HIGH SCHOOL 28 4.1 INTRODUCTION 28 4.2 SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS 28 4.3 SOME SUGGESTED KINDS OF SPEAKING ACTIVITIES TO MOTIVATE STUDENTS INTO SPEAKING 31 4.3.1 Rearranging the Order of the Conversation 32 4.3.2 Games 32 4.3.3 Role-play activity 34 4.3.4 Shopping List .34 4.3.5 Find someone who 35 4.3.6 Things in common 36 4.3.7 Story telling 37 4.3.8 Learning Short English Songs .37 4.4 SOME SAMPLE APPLIED IN “ENGLISH 11” 38 iv 4.5 SUMMARY 40 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 41 5.1 Recapitulation and Implications 41 5.2 Suggestions for Further Study 41 REFERENCES 43 APPENDIXES 44 v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Page Table Students’ interest in learning English 19 Table 2: Students’ attitude toward learning English speaking skill 20 Table 3: The students’ reasons for learning English speaking skill 21 Table 4: Students’ time for practicing speaking skill 21 Table 5: Students’ opinions about speaking exercises 22 Table 6: Students’ motivation on the topics of the textbooks .24 Table 7: Students’ interest in teachers’ activities 26 Figure 1: Chart showing students’ interest in learning English 19 Figure 2: Chart showing Students’ attitude toward learning English speaking skill 20 Figure 3: Chart showing Students’ time for practicing speaking skill 22 Figure 4: Chart showing Students’ opinions about speaking exercises 23 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT: Communicative Language Teaching Etc: Et cetera vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 RATIONALE Speaking was the most difficult skill based on some observations Students face some obstacles, which come from internal problems, such as anxiety, worried about making mistakes and lack of confidence and creative in speaking Nowadays , English has become a compulsory subject in schools and universities in Viet Nam Therefore, students have to study and practice English, but it is not easy to study, especially speaking English which is seen as the central skill to achieve the purpose In reality, to study and speak English, students have to prepare many things such as vocabulary, grammar, knowledge, etc, to be able to understand the spoken or expression of some others Some researchers mention that “Speaking does not of itself constitute communication unless what is being said comprehended by another person” In addition, along with the development of the society, English is used more and more popularly as an international language and it plays a crucial part to communicate across a great distance of space It is the language that is used by the largest group of people English, especially in education, is essential to develop human resources which seem to be the most important in developing of countries Although English has such important impacts, students still are not really interested in studying and speaking English Furthermore, in the near future, the author will be an English teacher; therefore she wishes she could find out some problems of that 11th form students are facing with speaking classes and give some useful suggestions to help students more successful in speaking English Therefore, the author has attempted to conduct the study entitled “How to motivate speaking skill for the 11th form students at Quynh Luu high school” 1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The study is conducted with the following aims: Teaching speaking skills is one of the most difficult tasks for any English teacher, the first aim is to find out the problems and difficulties in learning and teaching English speaking skill at high school Additionally, the study is done so as to get more information about the And more specially, teachers should create good environment for learning this skill by providing new activities or different interesting speaking topics due to the fact that recent surveys show interesting activities are one of the factors that has a strong encouragement for students to join speaking classes Moreover, it is important because students have much more opportunities to practice speaking because speaking tasks in textbooks cannot serve students’ purpose on enhancing their speaking skills There should be more different topics for students to practice and practice As mentioned above, a lot of speaking activities in textbooks cannot check students’ understanding exactly because of the fact that they still depend on reference books too much Thus, providing more activities will help students to concentrate more on their speaking skills According to recent studies, many students are fond of playing games and discussing, therefore teacher should make more lessons about this kind of exercises, for instance Although teachers and students may have a lot of difficulties in carrying out this way because it takes students lots of time to accomplish their lessons in textbooks in each semester Teachers should arrange time properly to provide more exercises on speaking skill for students Besides, it is essential for teachers to pay attention to different levels of speaking of students to give them suitable speaking tasks which helps students to have good speaking habits and know the ways to learn this skill better Lastly, teacher’s efforts will become useless if students not try to learn by themselves Thus, students should try to concentrate more on speaking English because it is a very important and helpful subject for their futures There is a saying: “Practice makes perfect” It means that we should invest time practicing speaking English more and more and we cannot become proficient if we not have any practice 4.3 SOME SUGGESTED KINDS OF SPEAKING ACTIVITIES TO MOTIVATE STUDENTS INTO SPEAKING In the author’s effort to motivate students and teachers in English speaking lesson, a lot of speaking activities for teaching and learning this skill have been 31 applied so far and the followings are some suggested activities for teachers and students to consider: 4.3.1.Rearranging the Order of the Conversation The aim of this activity is that students can speak English fluently and make easily a conversation in the real life Hence, in order to it, The students will be given handouts of a conversation which is in the wrong order and will be required to work in pairs or in small groups to make this conversation again in the right order They can it depending on their knowledge or their imagination After having discussed, teachers will call the leader of each group or maybe one student in this group to present their result in front of class This kind is relatively useful and popular, especially it can be carried out for students of all levels The teacher deeply understands students’ weakness and strength, the teacher can organize them effectively For example: Here is the conservation which is in the wrong order: Hannah: Good idea Are there any pizza in the fridge? Oliver: Ah There is a problem Hannah: What have we got? Oliver: No, there are not Hannah: Let’s have some lunch Oliver: There is some cheese And there is some ham Hannah: Is there any butter? Oliver: We have not got any bread Hannah: What is it? Oliver: Yes, there is Hannah: Ok Let’s have ham and cheese sandwiches 4.3.2 Games: From the data collected, the author understands well which activity is expected and which activity can be done to satisfy students’ needs This is game which really 32 stimulate students to speak English fluently In the light of the data collected and from the author own experience, the following games are suggested: - Cross- words: the teacher divides students into groups ( remember to give an interesting name for each group) and gives instruction about this game clearly Two groups answer one exciting question to decide which group will play first They can choose the number or color, etc to guess one hidden word If they answer correctly about this word, they will get one mark During playing, which group can find the key word or topic will be the winner The teacher should give one present to stimulate them to take part in the game * Notice: - The key word should be short and the questions should be rather easy for students to answer - Picture game: They are games in which the use of pictures plays a major part There are various types of picture games such as finding differences or similarities of two pictures, considering possible relationship between pictures, describing pictures, etc; from this activity, the teacher can lead into the new lesson easily and effectively For example: firstly, it is “picture description” It means that the teacher only gives students one picture to make use of pictures in a speaking activityandasks them describe what it is in the picture For this activity students can work in groups and each group is given a different picture Students discuss together with and then the leader of each group describes the picture to the rest of class This activity fosters the creativity and imagination of the learners as well as their public speaking skills Secondly, it is “picture differences” It means that students are in pairs; each member of the pair has a different picture Without showing each other their pictures they have to find out what the differences are between them - Don’t say “yes” or “no” game: This game can improve the skill of using question The students can recognize many types or questions such as: tag- question and giving complete phrases for answers using: of course, of course not, perhaps, clearly, obviously, etc through this game -Guessing game: They are the games in which someone knows something and other must find out what is it The teacher can divide class into or groups and call 33 the leader of each group to go to the teacher’s desk to see some words After that, the leader describes for their own group by using body language or drawing, etc; their group’s duty is to guess these words This game which is held at the beginning of the lesson is very exciting and relaxing; it also makes the atmosphere become happy to begin the new lesson.( see in Unit 13: Hobbies on page 38) 4.3.3 Role-play activity Role-plays require the students to assume an identity and think and speak in that character’s identity Role-plays are generally used for free speaking practice and so produce a lot of dialogues It actually helps students to practice pronunciation effectively In role plays, students are assigned roles and put into situations that they may eventually encounter outside the classroom According to the result of survey, a half of student at high school like this activity, because they usually find role playing enjoyable; however the rest of students who lack self-confidence or have lower proficiency levels may find them bored and stressed Therefore, To succeed with role plays, the teacher must some things well such as: Prepare carefully, set a goal or outcome, use role cards, brainstorm, keep groups small, give students time to prepare, be present as a resource, not a monitor, allow students to work at their own levels, topical follow-up, linguistic follow-up 4.3.4 Shopping List This is also a kind of games hold at the beginning of the lesson but it takes rather much time and likes one major activity during the lesson; therefore the teacher can organize it as a task in textbook Procedure: imagine there is a miracle store that actually sells the items shown in the table below However, the owners only stock the items if they convinced there is a demand Students each choose three items they want to buy and try to find for each item at least three buyers Buyers mean that students who have also chosen this item They mark the names of the other students in the appropriate column; if four people want an item, this is enough “demand” to justify the owners of the store acquiring the stock The aim is to get the owners to stock all the items you have chosen 34 Name of item Second buyer Third buyer Fourth buyer 1.More confidence Perfect health More free time A perfect darling A talent for making money More excitement in my life More friends Notice: this activity is rather difficult for students at first; however the teacher can adapt it depending on students’ level For example, if the ability of students is intermediate, students may simply ask each other “one?” ( more confidence) or “six?” ( more excitement in my life), and the answer “yes” or “no” However, if students’ level is advanced, teachers can require their students ask some questions to get information, not using yes-no question and students can try to persuade each other to change their choices in order to agree on which to buy Teachers can role-play the store-owner 4.3.5 Find someone who The purpose of this activity is that students may be natural and confident to communicate with their friends without the teachers’ control It is rather suitable to students at high school because they are really active and curious to find who they are Procedure: The students walk around the room and find at least one person in the class who has the same number of brothers as they; they make a note of name Then they have to find someone who has the same favorite color as they and so on down the list At the end, the students with the lost number of “matches” win 35 Find someone who… Has the same number of sisters as you Has the same number of brothers as you Was born in the same month as you Was born on the same day of the month as you … 4.3.6 Things in common The teachers can organize this activity at the end of the lesson to stimulate them to speak English when they feel tired after a long lesson Procedure: Students sit in pairs, teachers should let them choose their partners freely to make a comfortable atmosphere in their classroom They will talk to another in order to find out as many things as they can that they have in common These must be things that can only be discovered through talking- not obvious or visible characteristics like “we are in the same class” or “we both have blue eyes” At the end they share their findings with the whole class The common things 36 4.3.7 Story telling According to the result of the survey, 68.18 % of students like story telling activity but only a small number of students don’t like this activity ( 31.82 %) Therefore, I will mention some kinds of story telling activities: - Giving groups of students a series of pictures asking them to sequence them into a story to tell to another group - Providing each student in a group with one or more pictures of different object and/ or person Students create a story which must include each object or person - Showing the class a picture to start off a class story Each student in turn has to add a relevant sentence to keep the story going - Individual students make a collage of pictures about themselves They take turns giving mini- presentations telling their own story with reference to the pictures - Providing students with cartoon strips from which the speech text has been removed Students try to write appropriate sentences for the speech bubbles, then compare them with the originals - Giving pairs of students two pictures of people and asking them to construct a story about these people and how their lives are connected ( See in Unit 2: Personal Experience on page 39) 4.3.8.Learning Short English Songs This activity does not seem to be popular in speaking lesson; however, when the author carries out this activity during her practicing at Quynh Luu high school, the results are quite rewarding It is often happened according to that way: after they finish the speaking lesson, teachers supply students with a song the content of which relates to the topic they have just studied or perhaps it is actually great While listening, students’ responsibility is to repeat and remember as much as possible After that, asking students to sing it is very interesting If possible, students can give the main message of the song This activity is usually for students to relax after a long period and avoid making them bored and stressed 37 4.4 SOME SAMPLE APPLIED IN “ENGLISH 11” a Example 1: Unit 12: THE ASIAN GAMES Activities: Game * To help the students interest the topic “The Asian Games”, in the pre – speaking part, the teacher can use this game: Bing-go - Divides students into teams - Draws two lines on the board and inviting students from groups to go to the board and write answers Group A Group B Country: Sports: - Giving students a letter from the alphabet, for example letter M As quickly as possible, they should think of a word connected with each category beginning with letter M and say for their partner to write them down If they have answers, say “Bing – go” and write correctly, they will one mark and if they cannot say, they will lose their turns For example: Country: Malaysia Sport: mountain climbing - Suggested ideas: - T, P, V - ; -B,C,M- T: Thailand - Table tennis/ Tennis P: Philippines/ Pakistan - Ping pong V: Vietnam - Volleyball B: Brunei - Basketball / Boxing / Bodybuilding / Billiards C: Cambodia - Chess M: Malaysia / Myanmar - Mountain biking/ climbing S: Singapore - snookers/ Squash * After this period, to relax, the teacher can let students listen to a song related to sport and require them to sing together 38 b Example 2: Unit 13: Hobbies Activity: guessing game Aim: speaking skill Content: descriptions of some activities that the students like Organization: work in groups Preparation: some funny pictures related to hobbies Firstly, the teacher divides students into groups, one student of each group go to the board and see the picture Their duty is describe for their own groups and their group guess this activity, which group guess correctly all pictures will be the winner C, Example 3: Unit 2: Personal Experiences Activity: Story telling The teacher divides students into or groups and gives them a sequence of pictures that tell a story Each group will create a story depending on their imagination, 39 which group has an interesting story will be the winner From that, the teacher leads into the new lesson 4.5 SUMMARY To conclude, this chapter suggests some solutions to solve the problems and difficulties in learning speaking skill and then recommends several activities used to motivate students and increase their interest in speaking this skill such as: story telling, things in common, find SO who, shopping list, role- playing, games, lucky speaking topics, etc Those activities can be used for students at different levels and they depend on the purposes of teachers as well as the teaching and learning conditions This chapter also gives some samples in textbook grade 11 40 CHAPTER 5:CONCLUSION 5.1 Recapitulation and Implications Clearly, teaching and learning English speaking skill in particular and a language speaking skill in general are not easy at all It requires much effort from both teachers and students However, the way to create motivation in teaching and learning English speaking skill the most effectively is the question The thesis discusses some main points about speaking skill: several different definitions, importance and types of speaking Moreover, it comes up a language teaching approach called CLT with the main roles of teachers and students It also presents ten principles with two levels of teaching English speaking skill, four characteristics and procedure for teaching speaking Also, it mentioned types of activities for speaking practice: controlled practice, activities for communication and topic based and task based activities In addition, the study investigates the real situations of teaching and learning speaking skill in a high school (QuynhLuu 1) by doing a survey about this school The survey questionnaire which consists of questions is given to 132 students from three classes: 11A1, 11A3, 11A4 of the school to search for necessary information From the survey, a lot of useful information has been collected to come to conclusion for many matters of teaching and learning this skill which need solving Besides, some suggested solutions including subjective solutions from the schools and objective solutions from teachers and students are given The study also recommends some speaking activities and games for teachers and students to consult Finally, the author hopes that the findings in this study will be some sort of supplementary information for those who are interested in teaching English speaking skill in upper secondary school 5.2 Suggestions for Further Study In this research the author just focuses on some main points of this Topic Speaking is a popular theme for all students or candidates use to make the study because speaking skill has a large scope for study, the problems and the solutions for teaching and learning such a difficult skill are nearly limitless There are still many 41 more problems and solutions such as new interesting activities to change the boring and stressful atmosphere in many speaking classes However, because of the limitations of the author’s knowledge and experience, the study cannot cover all the matters relating to the topic Therefore, the author hopes that further studies will be carried out on other aspects that we cannot cover and finish The scope of further studies can be extended to include a larger quantity of students at high school to find more useful and realistic solutions and activities for teaching and learning this skill better - How to motivate speaking skill for 11th form at high school through games - How to motivate speaking skill through using language games for the first year students at Vinh University 42 REFERENCES [1] Dornyei, Z (2001) New themes and approaches in second languagemotivation research Annual Reviews of Applied Linguistics21, 43 – 59 [2] Lam, N.T.V, M.A & Phuong, N.D, Ph.D (2007).An introduction toresearch methodology.Vinh University [3] Lam, N.T.V, M.A, & Phuong, N.D, Ph.D (2006) Language TeachingTheory.Vinh University [4] Lam, N.T.V, M.A, & Phuong, N.D, Ph.D.(2007) English TeachingMethodology.Vinh University [5] Richards, J.C and Rodgers, T.S (2001).Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [6] Brown, H.D (1994), teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Languagepedagogy, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Regents [7] Nunan, D (1991) Communicative tasks and the language curriculum,TESOL Quarterly 25(2), 279-295 [8] Hoang Van Van, Hoang ThiXuanHoa, Dao Ngoc Loc, Vu ThiLoi, Do Tuan Minh, Nguyen Quoc Tuan (2007).English Eleventh Form Textbook Education Publisher [9] Giang, N.T.H (2011) Using peer interaction activities to teach English speaking skill in the tenth form class B.A thesis, Vinh University [10] Binh, N.T.T (2011) Developing speaking skill through using language games for the 10thform students at Sam Son high school B.A thesis, Vinh University [11] Byrne, D (1976) Teaching Oral English London: Longman [12] Diane, L & Freeman (2000) Techniques & Principles in language teaching.Oxford: Oxford University Press [13] http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kayi-TeachingSpeaking.html [14] http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/digests/speak.html [15] http://text.123doc.vn/document/1027325-a-study-on-imrpoving-speakingskill-of-the-1st-year-students-of-pre-intermediate-level-at-fpt-univesity-throughgroup-work.htm [16] http://thpt-lequydon-danang.edu.vn/upload/soft/Teaching%20speaking.doc http://www.slideshare.net/chela894/the-speaking-process 43 APPENDIXES This survey questionnaire is carried out for the study about “How to motivate speaking skill for the 11th form students at Quynh Luu high school” The researcher would be very glad if you support her by answering the following questions truthfully The purpose of this is only for study so you don’t have to worry that your name will be mentioned in the study Thank you for your help How long have you learnt English? Do you like English? a yes b no How is English speaking skill important to you?  A very much  B not very much  C not at all Why you study English? ( you can choose more than one answer)  A to get a good job in the future  B to travel or study abroad  C To read books, watch TV program, listen to music in English or to communicate with foreigners  D To please students’ parents  E To get good marks in the exam  F To understand the people, culture of English speaking countries How much time you spend on speaking skill per day? a hour b more than hour c less than hour What you think about speaking exercises in the textbook? a too difficult b difficult c rather difficult d not difficult at all 44 Give your comments about each topic in textbook grade 11? Strongly like? Like? Dislike? How they motivate you? ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… What are the activities that motivate the students most? Give your opinions?  Interview  Role play  Discussion  Games  Drama  Picture description  Story telling  Free talk Other activities: ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… Give your comments about the activities that your teacher uses in English speaking classes? How they motivate you? ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… 45 ... entitled ? ?How to motivate speaking skill for the 11 th form students at Quynh Luu high school? ?? 1. 2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The study is conducted with the following aims: Teaching speaking skills... activities for teaching and learning this skill better - How to motivate speaking skill for 11 th form at high school through games - How to motivate speaking skill through using language games for the. .. given to 13 2 students from three classes: 11 A1, 11 A3, 11 A4 of the school to search for necessary information From the survey, a lot of useful information has been collected to come to conclusion for