NGÔN NGỮ GIẢNG dạy của GIÁO VIÊN bản NGỮ nói TIẾNG ANH ở một TRƯỜNG tư THỤC tại hà nội)

Classification and grammatical expressions...20 2.3 CLASSROOM INSTRUCTIONS AS SPEECH ACTS ...22 2.4 STATEMENTS ON PREVIOUS STUDY ON LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION IN LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS...24 CH

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

This work contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the work contains no material previously published or written by other person, except where due

to references has been made in the text

Hanoi – 2007

Ph m Th Thu Trang

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to investigate the English language that native English teachers use to conduct their lesson It focuses on the presence of lesson phases, the language for presenting in each lesson phases; the speech acts as well as the grammatical expressions realizing those acts that they perform in instructing the lessons Also, the comparison is made between the grammatical expressions and the acts they perform to identify the most preferable language expressions in performing a speech act in a language class

The data consist of 14 lessons collected with audio-recorder in Lomonosov Private School, Hanoi, Vietnam for analysis The elements comprising lessons phases and the patterns making up the act of explaining tasks, significant speech acts and their equivalent grammatical structures are examined

It is indicated in the study that the lesson phases such as opening, instructional and closing phases were made up of various elements and can be applied in any order of appearance in the suggestion of possible paradigm for each of the phase Moreover, the four speech acts are detected and analysis in terms of the language used; the polite strategies in performing the acts; the frequency and preference of use

This study can firstly be uses as reference for teachers of English at Lomonosov Private School, and for any teachers who are concerned about this matter

It is hoped that this study can help language teachers to improve and better their use of English as language of instructions in their own classes in order to provide a more and more natural interactions and communications to the students in Vietnam

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish, first of all, to express my deepest gratitude to Assoc Prof Dr Vo Dai Quang, my supervisor, who has enthusiastically and generously given me invaluable assistance and guidance during the process of carrying out the thesis The success of my study would have been almost impossible without his support and encouragement

My profound thanks are also to all other teachers at Vietnam National University, Hanoi – College of Foreign Languages for their useful lectures which have laid the foundation for this research paper

My special thanks are due to all the volunteer teachers who willingly and nicely participated

in my study with their great help in letting me record their teaching process My sincere thanks are also to all the Vietnamese teachers at Lomonosov Private School who generously offered their help and support during the time of my teaching at Lomonosov Private School

I would also thank all of my friends and classmates at Vietnam National University, Hanoi – College of Foreign Languages, Postgraduate Studies as well as my old friends who have been studying in England for their great support in sharing experience and providing me with invaluable reference books, which was of great help in the completion of this study

Last but not least, my heartfelt thanks go to my parents, who have always been by my side, supporting and encouraging me for the whole course of my study, to whom I have never found enough words to express my gratitude

TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 RATIONALE 1

1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 2

1.3 SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH 2

1.4 THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 3

1.5 METHODOLOGY 3

1.5.1 Approach 3

1.5.2 Techniques 3

1.6 STRUCTURES OF THE STUDY 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 THE LANGUAGE OF CLASSROOM INSTRUCTIONS 6

2.1.1 Classroom interaction 6

2.1.2 Language of opening – closing the lessons 10

2.1.3 Language of introducing vocabulary – introducing and transiting activities 14

2.1.4 Language of managing class 15

2.1.5 Language of instruction 15

2.2 SPEECH ACTS 18

2.2.1 Definition 18

2.2.2 Classification and grammatical expressions 20

2.3 CLASSROOM INSTRUCTIONS AS SPEECH ACTS 22

2.4 STATEMENTS ON PREVIOUS STUDY ON LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION IN LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS 24

CHAPTER 3: FEATURES OF THE LANGUAGE OF NATIVE ENGLISH TEACHERS USED IN EACH PHASE OF THE LESSON 26

3.1 THE LANGUAGE OF OPENING AND CLOSING THE LESSONS 26

3.1.1 Greetings 26

3.1.2 Social English 28

3.1.3 Signals to start 28

3.1.4 Procedural English 28

3.1.5 Statements of lesson plan 28

3.1.6 Links to previous lessons 30

3.1.7 Transitional signals 30

3.1.8 Transitional stage 30

3.1.9 Summary 30

3.2 THE LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTIONS 32

3.2.1 Signals to engage class’s attention 33

3.2.2 Statements of task or topic 34

3.2.3 Organizing seating/ groups 36

3.2.4 Main instructions 38

3.2.5 Monitoring understanding; repeat/ rephrase 43

3.2.6 Signals to start 44

3.2.7 Summary 45

3.3 SUMMARY 46

CHAPTER 4: AN INVESTIGATION INTO SPEECH ACTS IN LANGUAGE LESSONS PERFORMED BY NATIVE ENGLISH TEACHERS 47

4.1 THE ACT OF REQUESTS AND MANAGING CLASS 47

4.1.1 Classification of grammatical forms 47

4.1.1.1 Modals 47

4.1.1.2 Infinitives 49

4.1.1.3 Gerunds 50

4.1.1.4 Questions 50

4.1.1.5 Others 51

4.1.2 Possible functions of requests in language classroom 52

4.1.2.1 Modals 52

4.1.2.2 Infinitives 56

4.1.2.3 Gerunds (V-ing) 57

4.1.2.4 Interrogatives 58

4.1.2.5 Nouns – Adjectives and Others (mainly for managing class) 60

4.1.3 The comparison of the frequency in using each grammatical form to perform the acts of requests in language classroom 61

4.2 THE ACT OF ENCOURAGING 62

4.3 THE ACT OF EXPLAINING TASKS 64

4.3.1 Identification of patterns of the act for explaining tasks 64

4.3.2 Classification of grammatical structures 67

4.3.3 Summary 69

4.4 THE ACT OF GUIDING AND ASSISTING 70

4.4.1 Repeat and rephrase the instructions 70

4.4.2 Define or suggest the meaning of the new vocabulary 71

4.5 SUMMARY 73

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS 74

5.1 SUMMARY OF THE STUDY 74

5.2 FINDINGS 74

5.3 CONCLUSIONS 75

5.4 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 76

5.5 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 77

APPENDICES 78

APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 .VIII APPENDIX 3 .XXIX APPENDIX 4 XXXVII REFERENCES 79

LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND FLOW CHARTS

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3.1 Types of classroom interactions

Figure 3.2 Le Cong Tien’s proposed elements for transitional phase

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Examples for greetings from data 1-14 27

Table 2: Examples for procedural English in the data 1-14 28

Table 3: Summary of elements of the opening phase found in data 1-14 31

Table 4: Signals to engage class’ attentions found in Data 1-14 34

Table 5: Requestive/ Politeness strategies used in the statement of tasks in Data 1-14 36 Table 6: Language of organizing seating/ groups of data 1-14 37

Table 7: Strategies for giving instructions 42

Table 8: Summary of the language for monitoring understanding; repeat/ rephrase 44

Table 9: Summary of signals found in 21 instructions in data 1-14 45

Table 10: Examples of requests realized by Modals in data 1-14 48

Table 11: Examples of requests realized by Infinitives in data 1-14 49

Table 12: Examples of requests realized by Gerunds in data 1-14 50

Table 13: Examples of requests realized by Interrogatives in data 1-14 51

Table 14: Examples for other types of requests expressions 51

Table 15: Possible strategies to perform requests using MODALS in language classrooms 55

Table 16: Summary of the frequency of using syntactic classes (Declaratives and Interrogatives) in performing the act of request by Modals 55 Table 17: Possible strategies to perform requests using INFINITIVES in language classrooms 57 Table 18: Possible strategies to perform requests using GERUNDS in language classrooms 58 Table 19: Possible strategies to perform requests using INTERROGATIVES in language classrooms 60 Table 20: Possible strategies to perform requests using NOUNS, ADJECTIVES, PREPOSTIONS and OTHER FORMS in language classrooms 61 Table 21: Summary of frequency of grammatical forms used to convey requests in language classrooms 62 Table 22: Classification of linguistic forms used to perform the act of encouraging students in language classrooms 63 Table 23: Identification of patterns for the act of explaining found in 14 data 66 Table 24: Examples of defining and suggesting the new vocabulary 72

LIST OF FLOW-CHARTS

Flow-chart 1: Sequence and paradigm for the Opening Phase 32 Flow-chart 2: Proposed sequence and paradigm for instruction-giving 45 Flow-chart 3: Paradigm of task – explanation – giving 66

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, English has become an international language Learning English is not only fashion as over ten years ago, but also a must for anyone to want to access the world More and more Vietnamese learn English to attain knowledge and achieve communicative competence In fact, the weakest point of Vietnamese learners is that they are not able to produce meaningful utterances and communicate in real situations

This fact raises the awareness of teaching and learning English communicatively to both teachers and learners The new textbooks in Vietnam are formed, edited in this way In addition, language teachers at high school now are trying to apply new methods to teach English communicatively The aim is to prepare students with authentic sources of language, real situations, and practical use of language

Lomonosov Private School (My Dinh – Tu Liem – Hanoi) is specialized in foreign languages such as English, French, Chinese, and Japanese In here, most language teachers try to maximize the use of the target language and the talking time of the students in class Furthermore, the school has many exchange programs with some voluntary organizations

in Europe, Australia and America Every year, there are many volunteer teachers from the USA, Switzerland, Belgium, Australia, England… coming to this school and teaching the children for about one period a week in each class, they have created a good language environment for the students During those lessons, the native teachers deal with the children without the help of Vietnamese teachers in class Most students like those lessons much; they usually become more active, interested, motivated, and confident in speaking English, especially to foreigners

As a teacher, I always try to make full use of my English to familiarize the students with real communication Sometimes I failed and had to come back to our mother tongue, Vietnamese This fact raises a question to me: “How can English teachers get our secondary students understand the lessons, get involved, actively participate and freely

express their own ideas, despite incorrectness, misunderstanding or wrong word uses?”, and “What makes the students understand the teachers’ instructions and motivates them better after each lesson with the native teachers?”

So as to answer such difficult questions, I decided to do a research on the language used by those native teachers in my school for a semester

1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The research aims at investigating the language used by those native speakers in Vietnamese settings to know what kinds of language are used to have a successful English lesson

The main aims of this study, first of all, are to see what English language expressions used

by native teachers of English to conduct English language lessons

Secondly, comparison is made to identify the equivalence and the variants of the grammatical structures and the acts that they perform Based on the findings, the question

of why native teachers of English are successful in conducting the lessons in a high school

in Vietnam will be answered

Finally, the study has some implications for English teachers in that school in respect of what English language can be used in language classroom for the effectiveness of conducting the lessons communicatively in English, the target language

1.3 SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH

The study focuses on the instructional language used by native English teachers in a specific secondary school in Hanoi The school is specialized in English and the students are young learners who are of between 11 and 13

The study focuses on the structures of the language, the acts performed by those structures respectively, and the teachers’ intentions when they use those expressions to achieve their aims of the language activities inside a language classroom The analysis takes a closer look at the opening, closing and transiting the activities, introducing new topics or new vocabulary, and instructing students how to do the task assigned

1.4 THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study first examines the procedure of a language lesson to see whether the three-phase theory is applied or not Secondly, it looks at grammatical structures and the application of speech acts in a language teaching environment to find out the possible acts, the most used acts as well as the applicable politeness strategies if any Thirdly, the study examines and then proposes some paradigms for the sequences of steps in each phase of a language lesson

From the result of the study, the most preferable structures of language used in each phase

as well as the language used to perform the speech acts will be drawn out Furthermore, the study may be used for reference for the language teachers in the use of specific language for instructions It would be useful to have a closer look at the language used to introduce new items, new topics or new vocabulary to the students

It is believed that the study would provide the teachers with good reference for their real teaching in terms of successful language used

1.5.1 Approach

The study will be carried out as an ethnographic and applicative research It will be carried out at a school with a group of teachers for a certain period of time for some groups of students The data come from real teaching and it is hoped to provide an applicative view

in the study of instructional language

1.5.2 Techniques

1.5.2.1 Procedures

To achieve the aim of the study, data from two native teachers of English was collected in

a private school in Hanoi, Vietnam, for analysis

All the lessons were recorded with a digital recorder so as to get the best and the most natural quality of the teachers’ voice

After being transcribed, all the data would be put in categorized in terms of lessons phases, the language realization as well as speech acts

In addition, a small comparison is made between the use of grammatical expressions and the speech acts that they convey to see the equivalence between the two

Basing on the result of the study, it is hoped to propose some applications for language teachers and suggestions for further study as well

For limited time, the comparison in this matter between native teachers and non-native teachers of English has not yet been carried out; it is a suggestion for further study

1.5.2.2 Data types and analysis

1.5.2.2.1 Collection of the data

1.5.2.2.1.1 Nature of the lessons

These lessons were conducted in English by native teachers of English in Vietnamese language classrooms in a high school in Hanoi They were collected by audio recording of classes in Lomonosov Private School, Hanoi Two teachers (one from England and one from Australia) were asked for permission to record their lessons without prior preparation

or formality so that they were as natural as possible The lessons were for secondary students who were from 11 to 13 years old, respectively of grade 6 to grade 8

1.5.2.2.1.2 Selection and quantity of the lessons

Fourteen lessons were collected in the data for the long period of about five months, from the late December 2006 until early May 2007 Each lesson lasted for about forty-five minutes with different activities, skills and tasks involved Each teacher was asked for the recording of around three or four lessons Therefore, the quantity of the lessons in the data was not equal for certain activity or lesson, as at a certain time there could not be two classes with the same lesson under observation and recording All the lessons were skills integrated The lessons were at a specific high school in Hanoi, therefore, the suggestions and implications are also first for the teachers of English in that school, later on, are for all the teachers who are interested in this matter as reference

1.5.2.2.2 Data analysis

Analysis of the data is chiefly based on the concepts of lesson phases for teaching English

as foreign language and the concepts of instructional language as speech acts, discussed by different applied linguists and methodologists As a result, it will focus on each phase, for example, opening phase, instructional phase, closing phase and transitional phase For the instructional phase, three main activities (introductions to new activities, or vocabulary items, management of class, and instructions) will be analyzed instead of investigating all activities Moreover, all the grammatical forms of the language expressions and the acts of requests performed by those expressions will be analyzed and compared Each item of analysis is presented separately, and the analyses can mostly be found in the appendices 1.5.2.2.3 Comparison

To find out the equivalence between the speech acts and the grammatical language structures perform those acts, comparison will be made for each grammatical structure that realizes the speech acts performed by teachers in a language classroom It will also take a closer look at the speech acts performed in each phase, introductions to new topics, activities, or vocabulary items, management of class, and instructions

1.6 STRUCTURES OF THE STUDY

The study has seven chapters The first chapter is the introduction, which covers the rationale for choosing the topic, aims and objectives of the study, scope of the study, theoretical and practical significance of the study, and the methods of carrying out the study The next chapter presents the theoretical background and review of previous study with the same concerns and interests Chapter 3 and 4 report the study and the analysis of the data, which comprises of the two main sections: features of the language used by native English teachers and an investigation into speech acts in language lessons performed by native English teachers Chapter 5 concludes the study with the summary of the main aims achieved through the study, the findings and the results of data analysis and some implications for teaching English in high schools in Hanoi, Vietnam It at the same time gives out the limitations of the study and proposes some suggestions for further study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1.1 Classroom interaction

Some linguists believe that the classroom creates a communication context in which the teachers and their students interact by means of writing or speech to achieve the goal of the lessons In the classroom, the teachers play different roles to communicate with their students from the time they come into the room until they leave the class The roles can be organizers, managers of the class, facilitators of the language items, actors, or resource etc.) Students accordingly play various roles to communicate; sometimes they are asked or assigned to communicate something

Brown (1994:159) defines interaction as “the collaborative exchange of thoughts, feelings,

or ideas between two or more people resulting in a reciprocal effect on each other” It is believed that interaction is an important factor for communicative achievement, as according to Rivers (1987: 4), he writes:

Part of the teacher art is to create, or stimulate student creation of, the types

of situation in which interaction naturally blossoms and in which students can use for actual communication what they have been learning in a more formal fashion In this way, they are already engaging in the central activity for which language is used in human relations

Many linguists propose the mainly found patterns for classroom interactions as I-R-F, which is Initiating – Responding – Follow up However, Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) suggest another pattern as I-R-E, which are Initiating – Responding – Evaluation However, in real classroom observations recently, it can be seen that the patterns of interaction now is I-R-F, which are Initiating – Responding – Feedback And this pattern is the combination of the above two Here the Feedback consists of assessment (evaluation), correction, or comment and then the next initiation occurs

The interactions can be between the teacher and an individual student, between the teacher and the whole class, between a student and a student, between a student and the whole

class, or among students in a group The types of classroom interaction can be generalized

as in the following chart:

Recently, it is believed that the teachers should reduce their talking time in classroom, act

as facilitators, not only teachers It means that the teachers give their students more opportunity to talk and to interact in real-like situations which are created by the teachers There is one question about the importance of meaningful communications or meaningful interactions to the achievement of the students

The interactions are mainly prompted or created or assigned by the teacher The teacher keeps the first and foremost power to initiate any kinds of interactions in a classroom context Most of those interactions are carefully planned beforehand to serve the aims of the lessons The interactions that come from the teachers can be in forms of questions, such

as WH-questions, Yes-No questions, Tag-questions or Alternative questions Sometimes, it

is in form of a short informal talk like chatting, so that they can create a friendly or less threatening atmosphere before starting the lessons They can be used as warm-up activities Aziz (1987: 59) concludes on classroom interaction after his study:

“…most interactions in classroom were rigid; the teacher initiated and

closed episodes Pupils’ tasks were to make appropriate responses,

whether in terms of activity or giving information.”

And he believes that “verbal interactions had to be limited”, which is far more different from recent views in this field

In addition, those interactions serve different purposes in each stage of the teaching procedure, which will be discussed more in detailed in the next part By interacting with the students, the teachers can lead them to new language input or new activities; organize the class settings and the students; check if the students understand the lessons; help the students with difficult items in the language; control the class, manage the activities; and get the students work This kind of language is known as meta-language (Wajnryb, 1992:43), the language that is “not related to the language being presented”

More commonly, the teachers try to create the real need for the students to interact, to communicate, that is to give meaningful interactions This kind of interactions seems to seek for “genuine information” (Le Cong Tien, 1997:7) from the teacher or from the students For example:

(1) What’s the date today, children?

Today is Wednesday, September 4, 2007, Miss Trang

Ok, thanks Sit down, please

(2) Miss Trang, what’s your date of birth?

My date of birth? It’s on 17th February

Really? My birthday is in February, too

(3) I like reading books, especially in my free time What about you, Linh?

I don’t like reading at all, it’s so tiring I like listening to music

(4) What’s the date today?

Miss, Wednesday September 4, 2007

Oh, I forgot my cousin’s birthday It was yesterday

Here in example (1), as usual, the teacher wants to know the exact date so that she can write it on the board before starting the lesson She asks to get the information which she doesn’t know; she used a genuine question to her students, a real question And in example (2), the purpose is the same, which is exchanging information It is also a real conversation, a real question in an informal context, even though the question is from the student, not from teacher as usual in all classroom contexts In the example (3, 4), they are meaningful talks between a teacher and a student, it isn’t necessary to serve any teaching purposes

However, in most cases, the teacher asks the questions that she already knows the answer

in advance or as planned (in reading/ listening comprehension check), or she seeks for the answers that can be used for the teaching purposes For instance:

(5) My birthday is in February It’s on 17th February Linh, when’s your birthday?

Well, my birthday is on 15th October

Good! Her birthday is on 15th October (So when we say the exact or certain date with month, we use the preposition on.)

In this example, the teacher is not really interested in the information about the student’s birthday; she just asks to refocus on the use of the preposition of time on That is a typical interaction can be found in classroom setting The interaction is used for teaching purpose

to draw the students’ attention to the use of the preposition “on” in a fairly meaningful context That is also one aspect in communicative teaching

Following is one more example for teacher’s meta-language:

What does the teacher say? What is the communication

purpose? (functions or acts)

How might this be said to a native speaker?

“Look at the map Can you

see the bank?”

Furthermore, it is the teacher who decides what kind of interactions should occur in the classroom, for what purpose, for how long and about what topics, what kinds of language should be used during those interactions

In addition, it is also proved that the classroom interactions are also typical for checking students’ understanding The teachers often check their students’ understanding of the structures, instructions, or requirements of the activities The teachers want to make sure if the students understand what they are supposed to do in each activity of the lessons, and if they need any further explanation or sampling

Moreover, it is believed that the teacher is always aware of her students’ level of English She “usually closely adapts” her language to her students’ level (Le, 1997:8) Sometimes, when the teachers can not make the students understand in the target language, they have

to change to the students’ mother tongue, in other words, they translate the instructions into the students’ first language if it is available to all of them

In short, we can find special kinds of communication inside the classroom context That is the typical setting where its interactions can serve not only the meaningful communications but also the study of the language in forms and in use In addition, classroom interactions also mark the significant roles of the teachers in terms of handling the activities during the lessons, managing classes, giving instructions about the language and its use inside and outside the classroom, and checking for students’ comprehension for the language and the instructions of the activities

2.1.2 Language of opening – closing the lessons

The lesson usually consists of three main phases: opening, instructional, and closing phases In this part, the model or frame of each phase will be presented basing on many previous studies They will give a better and clearer view on the patterns of each phase in classroom interaction

Following is the chart adapted from Le Cong Tien’s study (1997: 18) summarizing those phases, the chart also shows that each phase can comprise different activities serving the teaching aim of the lessons

In the opening phase of the lesson, as can be seen from almost all the classroom, the teachers tend to create a comfortable atmosphere in their class, so that the students can easily change from the “non-working state to the working state” (Le, 1997:20) By organizing several kinds of warm-up activities, the teachers want to prepare and direct their students to the content of the lesson From my own teaching experience, the teachers do not always reveal their teaching aims in this stage, most of them tend to keep it as a secret

in order to motivate and get the students more involved in the activities to find out the language or the teaching aims themselves

Le (1997) also states that the opening phase of the lessons help the students to “link the previous lesson with the present one or even the forthcoming one” However, they also aim

at create a link in the students’ mind between what the students already know and may use

in the lesson and what they might learn to use during and after the lesson By doing that, the teachers aim at providing the students with general view or knowledge about what language abilities, language patterns or the topic of the lessons that may be required during class activities In his study, Le (1997) once more suggests that:

“…the chief purpose is to define the aims of the lesson, to state what the main work is and how it is expected to be done within class time…”

In my opinion, this stage tends to belong to the instructional phase, where the students are told what to do and how to do it

The instructional phase may take the most working time of both teachers and students It is where all the main activities of the lesson take place The teachers, in this phase, give the students the instructions for each necessary activity; give explanations for new items such

as new vocabulary, new grammar, etc Moreover, in this phase, the teachers also perform the roles of organizer, instructors or helper and so on Sometimes, the teachers can create a link from one activity to another or a transition from this phase to the closing phase (it means the transitional phase is mixed with the instructional phase) It is possible to mix those two phases because the transitional phase often takes only a minute and normally it is only in form of a sentence or two

The last phase of the lesson is the closing one, in this phase the teachers often signal for the end of previous activity, summarize the main or important points of the activity, review the results of the activities or comment on the students’ performance Sometimes, this phase is also the time for the teachers to give their students homework or further exercises, even short tests to check how well their students acquire after the lessons If there is more activity, this phase is only to end the previous activity and set the transition to the next activity In addition, in this phase, the teachers usually try to create a pleasant and comfortable even funny atmosphere for the students so that they will feel happy and good when ending the lessons, and they will feel eager to the next meeting

Normally, the activities in a language classroom are often very active and noisy; they are usually at high speed and require much energy and concentration from the students It is not easy to end up an activity with only one word or one signal

As stated in the introduction, this study aims at the language used in each phase of the lessons, so in the next part, the patterns of interactions in each phase will be on the focus There is also a question about the language patterns that are used to serve the aims of each phase, the answer will be given during the analysis process of the data However, some patterns proposed by some linguists will also be mentioned in the following part as reference

Willis (1981: 8-9;34-36) proposes some constituents of the opening phases such as greetings, beginning a chat, beginning a revision, talking about the lesson, defining aims, introducing a new stage in a lesson Following is the chart showing the patterns of the opening phase proposed by Le (1997: 22):

The instructional phase as stated in some previous part consists of the instructions, introductions or explanations for the main activities in the lessons The following chart is also adapted from Le’s summary in his study (1997: 23) describe the elements which can

be found in this phase

FORMAL/ INFORMAL GREETINGS

SOCIAL

ENGLISH

SIGNAL TO START

PROCEDURAL ENGLISH

STATEMENT OF LESSON PLAN (AIMS, MAIN CONTENTS)

LINKS TO PREVIOUS

TRANSITIONAL SIGNAL TRANSITIONAL STAGE

Figure III.3 The opening phase

As regarding the language patterns which can be found in this early stage, Wajnryb (1992:95) lists several ways for the teachers to elicit:

Open questions: “What do you think of…?”

Close questions: “What’s the word for…?”

Imperative prompts: “Tell me what you know about…”

Directed questions: “Anton, what can you tell me about…?”

In short, the language that the teachers import to serve the teaching aims in language classroom can be flexible and various One sentence can serve different purposes in each situations or teaching phases More important, the language patterns can also be very different from all of the patterns that we have discussed in this part The analysis of my data will give a sound conclusion whether the proposed patterns are similar to what we can find in real classroom contexts

2.1.3 Language of introducing vocabulary – introducing and transiting activities During the activities in the language lessons, the students may encounter difficulties with new language lexical items; therefore, teachers come and help in various ways The teachers can provide new lexical items for the students by giving the equivalence in the students’ first language, or by explaining and giving examples then the students come to the meaning themselves; sometimes, the teachers let their students deal with the new language items themselves by looking up in the dictionary or discussing in groups Sometimes, by putting the new language items in its different contexts, the teachers can help the students to learn how to use the language items without knowing the equivalent in their own language

Transiting from one activity to another is also one important factor in making the lesson go smoothly and successfully It creates the link between activities and provides students with general knowledge about what they are going to do in the next activity Sometimes, transiting to the new activity also motivates the students by providing the students with the information gap, which they will have to bridge during the next activity

2.1.4 Language of managing class

The first ideas came into my mind when mentioning the language of managing class is that all the language should be in the form of imperatives The language of managing class should be powerful and clear enough so that the students will know what they supposed to

- Linh, sit down, please

- Nam, what are you doing?

- Alright, ask your friend, I am listening

- I want to hear your voice, louder please

- All talking, please

- You work with Lan…

In the analysis of the data, the language of managing class will be clearer in grammatical expressions

2.1.5 Language of instruction

Instructional language is the language employed to draw the attention of the students to the new activities in the lessons, then lead them participate in the activities comprehensively and comfortable It serves the need of the students in terms of vocabulary, grammar points review (if any), of how to do the tasks and of what the aim must be achieved after the task

is Language of instruction is one among many aspects that have been studied by many linguists, educators and language teachers In this section, some models of the language used for opening and closing the lesson will be presented

Gower and Walters comment (1988: 37) on the language of instruction as follows:

The way you give instructions indicates the way you control exercise

and your attitude to the group…generally students, even adults, would

not appreciate you trying to be more polite It would be time-wasting

and slow things down and would involve you in more complicated

language than they can really understand

It is believed that the language of instructions should be clear, short and comprehensible to the students Widdowson (1990: 67) states:

It has been traditionally supposed that the language presented to

learners should be simplified in some way for easy access and

acquisition Nowadays there are recommendations that the language

presented should be authentic How is it to be graded so that it can be

made accessible? Is it simplification as a pedagogic strategy

inconsistent with the principles of a communicative approach to

language teaching?

However, Wajnaryb (1992: 45) argues whether the above ideas are applicable to language as it is to model language input, and if it is not good to consider language of instructions also as a meaningful and authentic input to the students, and whether the meta-language should be easy to fit the students’ level of acquisition In my opinions, the teachers’ meta-language is also an important input for the students because it occurs in meaningful context and it is meaningful interaction between the teachers and the students

meta-If the students do not understand what their teachers say, they can not follow the lessons, they can not do what they are required to do

In “Classroom Observation Tasks” (1992) Wajnryb suggests one possible paradigm for instruction –giving as follows:

i) Give signal to engage class’s attention

ii) Sate briefly the overall nature of the task

iii) Organize seating/ groups

iv) Give instructions

v) Signal to start

vi) Monitor understanding – repeat/ re-phrase as necessary

Further more, there is a suggestion for looking at the language of instructions concerning meaning exchange between the teachers and the students Doughty and Pica (1986: 313) suggest some categories for language operations through which meaning may be negotiated Followings are the examples adapted from their study:

A confirmation check:

This is where the listener believes they have understood but wishes to make certain, for example:

A: Mexican food has a lot of ulcers

B: Mexicans have a lot of ulcers? Because of the food?

A: She’s on the welfare

B: What do you mean by welfare?

A repetition

This is where the speaker repeats (or re-states) their own (or another’s utterance) in order

to repair a real (or perceived) communication breakdown, for example:

A: She’s on welfare

B: I think she’s working at the factory

A: No, she lost her job She’s on welfare

There can be two kinds of classroom instructions: managerial instructions and content instructions (Wajnryb, 1992) Managerial instructions are to arrange the class in each activity, or put the students into pair work or group work:

“I want you to work in group or three, so three of you here is one group, you three here form one group…”

“Let’s work in groups of three …”

The content instructions are to tell the students what to do in required activity:

“In this activity, one of you will be an interviewer and the other will be

the interviewee”

In fact, these two kinds of activities often go together, one after another It is not easy to put them separately As can be seen from the real interactions, instruction giving is somehow similar to explanation giving, by instructing the students, the teachers at the same time will have to explain how the students are going to do the tasks and tell the students what they are going to do

2.2.1 Definition

John Austin (1962) in his book “How to do things with words” is the first to introduce the idea of Speech Acts, analyzing the relationships between utterances and performance Speech Acts are utterances which contain information needed to assert and perform actions, or according to Austin, “things that people do with words” Speech acts are used in everyday life in the form of, for example, promising, wishing, booking, complaining, forgiving, and so on (Verschueren, 1977)

Austin identifies three distinct levels of action beyond the act of utterance itself He

distinguishes the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, and what one does by saying it, those are named as locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary act

When a speaker makes an utterance, he performs a locutionary act the act of producing a grammatically correct and meaningful language expression For example, when the student says “You have two more minutes to go, boys.” he performs the locutionary act of saying that you (the boys in the class) have two more minutes to go (from the time of speaking) The illocutionary act is what the speaker does when he utters something As in “You have two more minutes to go, boys.” the speaker does intend to inform the boys that the boys have only two more minutes to finish the task So the illocutionary act is the act of informing The speakers can promise, threaten, warn, inform, request, greet, questions, suggest, and so on

And the highest level of speech act is the perlocutionary act, the act of getting the hearer do something In the utterance “You have two more minutes to go, boys” the teacher intend to remind the students of the time limited to the task, and at the same time may urge the students to round up their work

Yule, G (1996:47) in Pragmatics says that “actions performed via utterances are generally called speech acts and more specially labeled as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, request, suggestion, offer, etc However, Yule argues that among three levels of speech acts, the most discussed and concerned one is illocutionary force In fact, the term speech act can be generally interpreted narrowly to mean only the illocutionary force of an utterance For example, the utterance “I’ll come back soon” can present different illocutionary force such as a promise, a prediction, a warning, etc However, the context in which the utterance is uttered decides which illocutionary act it performs According to Yule (1996:54), another approach to distinguish types of speech acts can be made on the relationship between structure and functions, and there are direct and indirect speech acts He claims that there is an easily recognized relationship between the three structural forms (declarative, interrogative, and imperative) and the three general communicative functions (statement, question, and command or request)

His examples are: (1) You wear seatbelt (Declarative)

(2) Do you wear a seatbelt? (Interrogative) (3) Wear a seatbelt? (Imperative) Yule states that when there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act When there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a function, we have an indirect speech act For example:

Utterances Direct speech act Indirect speech act

“It’s so dark in here.” Inform the fact - Request to open the door or turn on

the light

- Complain

“Will you wear a seatbelt?” Question - Confirm if the hearer will wear a

seatbelt

- Request to wear a seatbelt

2.2.2 Classification and grammatical expressions

Quirk, R (1973: 191) writes: “Simple sentences may be divided into four major syntactic classes, whose usages correlate with different communicative functions” With respect to their major uses in communication, those types can be listed as follows:

1 Declaratives, or declarative sentences, or statements

2 Interrogative, or interrogative sentences, or questions

3 Imperatives, or imperative sentences, or commands

4 Exclamatives, or exclamative sentences, or exclamations

Sentences belonging to each of these above all types differ from each other in some grammatical points or forms

Declaratives are not only used to inform somebody of something new, but it is also used

for other various purposes For example, we can use declaratives:

- To praise: I am very happy to hear your excellent result

- To request: I’d like some more beer, please

- To apologize: I am sorry to interrupt you

- To advise: You should take my advice

- To make an offer: I can give you a hand to look after the baby

- To give permission: You may use my car

- To suggest: Let’s have some cold drink

When discussing speech acts, the use of performative verbs to explicitly denote communicative purpose are mentioned as in the following examples:

- I promise to be there on time

- I must warn you that dog is very dangerous You shouldn’t walk near him

- I apologize for being rude that day

- I advise you not to lend him money any more

- You are not allowed to come into this area

- I predict that the tree will grow fast and strongly

Interrogatives can be used:

- To suggest: Why don’t you join us this weekend?

- To invite: Would you like to hang out with us tomorrow?

- To disapprove: Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?

- To request: Could you please show me the way to the headmaster’s room, please?

- To confirm: Do you finish?

Imperatives can be used:

- To request: Come here

- To suggest: Let’s go to the movies

- To introduce: Alright then, let’s do this exercise orally in pairs

- To encourage: Keep doing, boys! That’s good! / Come on, boys

To conclude, as can be seen from the above examples, one kind of utterance can be used to perform different speech acts My study will focus on the patterns of the language that carries the speech acts as well as the frequencies of their occurrence in each lesson The details will be seen more clearly in the analysis of my data taken from real classroom interactions

2.3 CLASSROOM INSTRUCTIONS AS SPEECH ACTS

Normally, during class time, the teachers often propose tasks that “require students to do something”, which brings me to the ideas of studying speech acts in language classroom When concerning speech acts, Lim (1987:103) reminds the six categories for speech acts which can be found in classroom context, such as Informing, Eliciting, Replying, Acknowledging, Directing, and Nominating

However, following speech acts suppose to be found in this study:

Speech acts Suggested grammatical realizations Types of sentences Requesting

and

Managing

class

- I want you to work in pairs

- Can you two work in pair? Yes, that’s better

- Work with your partner in pairs, the whole class

- The whole class: “SCHEDULES” (repeat

in chorus)

- Hey guys! Why aren’t you working?

- Everybody, listen up!

Declaratives Interrogatives

Imperatives

Declaratives (verb omitted)

Interrogatives Imperatives

- I want you to sit down

- Back to your seat, Linh!

Declaratives Imperatives (verb omitted)

Encouraging - That’s good, go ahead

- Good

- Nearly, go on!

- You’ve done it Excellent!

Declaratives and Imperatives Exclamatives Declaratives and Imperatives Declaratives and Exclamatives Guiding and

assigning

tasks

- You will listen to the tape about Mr.Lam’s working day Whenever you hear a new word, stop the teacher

- You see, for this one, you must draw a table

on your notebook first, then ask your friends to fill in your survey

Declaratives and Imperatives

Declaratives and Imperatives

(suggesting for the word “cell phone”)

- For example, this word is scrambled; you have to rearrange the letters to make a correct word like this…

Declaratives

Declaratives

Transiting - Now, we will play a game

- Well, do you want to play a game?

- It’s time for games, children

- Everybody, we play game

Declaratives Interrogatives Declaratives Declaratives Introducing

new items

- We use this sentence when we reply for a

“thank you” one (introducing “You’re welcome”)

Declaratives

2.4 STATEMENTS ON PREVIOUS STUDY ON LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION

IN LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS

Dr Le Cong Tien (1997) in his research on the language used by EFL teachers collected data from teachers in Liverpool University and teachers from Vietnam National University The students were of university level and each lesson as skill-focused He analyzed and compared the data to find out the linguistic similarities and differences in the language used by native English teachers and Vietnamese teachers He focused on the instructional phases and recorded the lessons of all four skills: speaking, listening, writing and reading

He also aimed at suggesting some implications for the English language teachers training

in Vietnam

His findings as follow:

1) To the non-native English teachers: The sequence of instruction giving is similar to the suggested paradigm

2) For the opening phase, there are 8 elements making up the phase that can be found: greetings – social English – signals to start – procedural English – statement of lesson plan – links to previous lessons – transitional signals – transitional stage 3) The most commons way to give signals for transitions was compound signals with

OK + [NOW/ WELL/ THEN/ SO] In addition, the language paradigm remains unchanged

4) There are more differences than similarities in the language that the native speaking teachers and non-native English-speaking teachers used to produce introduction to topics and activities The language paradigm is still similar

English-5) Non-native speaking teachers conduct the lessons without paying serious attention to the structure of the lesson The lesson is conducted just with the core phase Moreover, there seems to be no exits for the lesson It is quite different from the native speaking teachers

6) Non-native speaking teachers seem not to use any kinds of transitional signals of any kinds No procedural or “buffer” English was used

7) Non-native speaking teachers are limited to poor requestive and politeness strategies

to state the tasks to their students In addition, they are rather bald and too directed to the tasks they want to announce

8) Instructions are insufficient, or even no instructions at all

His study focuses on the language used by the teachers at Language University instructing

to their students That is also one reason for me to conduct this study, focusing on the language used by native speaking teachers to conduct the lessons for Vietnamese secondary students and I also focus more on the speech acts performed by native English speaking teachers in Vietnamese language classrooms

CHAPTER 3: FEATURES OF THE LANGUAGE OF NATIVE ENGLISH

TEACHERS USED IN EACH PHASE OF THE LESSON

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze some linguistic features of the language used by the native English teachers in each lesson phase This comprises (1) the language used to open and close the lessons; (2) the language used to instruct the activity during the instructional process

It is usually believed that the most important part of a lesson is the instructional phase, other phases can be subject to omit from the lesson plan of the teachers The features for the language in the instructional phase will be viewed in the next part of this chapter 3.1 THE LANGUAGE OF OPENING AND CLOSING THE LESSONS

It is seen from the transcriptions (see in the index) that all the lessons have the opening phase but none of them experience any signals for the closing As the matter of fact, in this section, only the language features for opening phase will be under investigation, to identify and discuss the elements that can be found in the phase of the lesson

The main function of the opening phase is to lead the students smoothly to the next part of the lessons, to review what they have learnt and done then create a link to the present lesson, to motivate and prepare the students to the new items, and sometimes it is used to present the aims and main purpose of the lessons As adapted from Le Cong Tien’s research, the eight following elements were stated to build up the opening phases, such as (1) greetings; (2) social English; (3) signals to start; (4) procedural English; (5) statement

of lesson plan (aims, main contents); (6) links to the previous lessons; (7) signals for transition and (8) transitional stage All of those elements will be detected and analyzed in all data of this study (For analyzing the Opening phase of each lesson in the data, see Appendix 1)

Analysis

3.1.1 Greetings

In 13 among 14 data, the teachers greeted their students in a formal or informal way when they came into the classroom This greeting makes the atmosphere in the classroom less formal and the students get closer to the teachers The most frequently used of greetings are “Good morning”, “Good afternoon”, “Hello”, or “Hi”

In this sub-stage, the teachers often give the students permission to sit down or manage the class by using modal verbs or present participles Followings are the examples from the data:

1 Good morning, everybody may sit down

2 Good afternoon, everybody may sit down

6 Can you sit down, please?

Sit down

Ok, thank you very much

8 Everyone may sit down

Sitting down

9 Everyone may sit down

Ok, everyone sitting down

14 Everyone may sit down

Table 1: Examples for greetings from data 1-14

3.1.2 Social English

This element is the language which does not belong to the main aims of the lessons; it is often the chat between teacher and the students with various topics involved For example, the teacher and students can talk about the weather that day, or talk about the movie on TV the night before and so on However, this element was not found in any data of the study 3.1.3 Signals to start

The third element is signals to start It was found in 9 among 14 data The signals are “OK” (7/9), “Alright” (2/9), “Everybody listening” (1/9), “Ok, alright” (1/9) In some data, the teachers used more than one signal to start And with this element, the teachers give the sign for the students to get ready to the next part of the phase

3.1.4 Procedural English

Procedural English is the language that the teachers use to state the steps or stages of the lessons, which comes first, comes next or comes last This element was found in 6 data, among 14 data of the research The teachers indicated that there were several activities or tasks in the lessons, and only introduced the first one to the students The language is used straightforward and clear

Data Examples

1 At the top, they are words…

2 The first section of the worksheet…

3 The first section is mixed up words…

8 In the first section, there are 20 words…

10 The first activity is words written in wrong order

14 The first section of the worksheet is…

Table 2: Examples for procedural English in the data 1-14 3.1.5 Statements of lesson plan

Only in 8 lessons among 14 data, we could see that the teachers stated the lesson plan with aims, contents of the lessons In the data, it is realized that the teachers only mentioned the contents of the lessons but not the aims Followings are what the teachers say to reveal the contents of the lessons

“I have a worksheet for you” (Data 3)

“Today, we have a worksheet that is codes and capitals” (Data 4)

“We have a worksheet about countries” (Data 5)

“I have a worksheet for you” (Data 8)

“I have a worksheet for you These are words that are written in wrong order The letters are jumbled up, you need to work out what each word say.” (Data 9)

“Today I have a worksheet for you with different activities” (Data 10)

“Today we are doing a worksheet on countries and codes” (Data 11)

“Today we have a worksheet about countries” (Data 14)

As can be seen from the above data, the teachers always state directly and exactly what the students are going to do, or to work on in the lessons They usually use direct expressions,

by using the verb “Have” and the first personal pronouns “I” and “We”, or using “to be + doing” (as in data 11)

It is clear that all the teachers tend to use simple and direct language to the students It is not necessary to make the expressions complicated Some linguists may believe that people often can understand the language of the higher level than their own level of speaking or writing, however, in this early stage it is not a good idea to make the students nervous by using too much difficult language The opening phase is still the time to motivate and get the students involved in the main part of the lessons, the activities If the students feel impossible to understand the aims or lesson contents in this early stage because of the complicated language that their teachers use, they may not be willing to continue with the lessons In short, the teachers can use more complex language to the students but it is recommended to use it in the later stage or phase

3.1.6 Links to previous lessons

This element is supposed to be found in most the data; however, none of the 14 data has this element comprising the opening phase It can be explained clearly when we take a look

at the lesson as a whole and when we understand the nature of those lessons All the lessons do not follow a certain syllabus, they only employ the vocabulary and the grammatical points in each lessons

Base on those linguistic elements, the teachers prepare the lessons where the students can use the language that they already learnt to finish the worksheet or to discuss and express their ideas in English The teachers in this study did not have to teach the students the grammar points as the main aims of the lessons Their role is to organize the activities for the students to apply what they have learnt to real communications, or more lively situations As a result, each lesson serves its own purposes; it is likely not related to any of the previous lessons in terms of topic or linguistic elements Therefore, the teachers did not give any links to previous lessons

3.1.7 Transitional signals

This element was found in 9 among 14 data The transitional signals consist of “OK” (5/9);

“So” (3/9), “And” (1/9) It provides a link to the next element, the transitional stage 3.1.8 Transitional stage

This element was only found in one data (Data 6):

“Can anybody explain? Can you explain to everybody? Do you understand?” The teacher asked the students those questions after all the worksheet had been passed out, and before she explained the work the students were going to do with the worksheet

In other data, the teachers got directly to the second stage of the lessons, the instructional stage

3.1.9 Summary

This section took a look at the Opening phase to identify 8 elements that comprise the

phase Among all the elements, the sixth element (links to the previous lessons), the eighth element (transitional stage) were not mostly found, the others elements could be found in around half of the data The following table gives out the summary of all the elements of the Opening phase which were found in the 14 data of this study

ELEMENTS Data

+ : element found in the phase - : element not found

1 Greetings

2 Social English

3 Signals to start

4 Procedural English

5 Statement of lesson plan (aims, main contents, etc.)

6 Links to previous lessons

7 Transitional signals

8 Transitional stage

Table 3: Summary of elements of the opening phase found in data 1-14

From the table above, the new paradigm for opening phase can be drawn out as followed:

Flow-chart 1: Sequence and paradigm for the Opening Phase

In the paradigm above, the element 2 (social English) and the element 6 (links to previous lesson) are omitted, elements in italics can be omitted in the lessons, the ones in block capitals are obligatory to the teachers All the elements and the sequence are only proposed basing on the data collected in the study All of those can be applied flexibly in real teaching

3.2 THE LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTIONS

This part views the language that the native teachers used to instruct the students First, all the elements of the instructions giving will be examined After that, there will be the analysis of the data as well as some discussions on the findings To conclude, it will propose the possible language paradigm for instruction giving

All the elements of the instructions giving can be applied in any order, depending on the teachers’ preference to serve the teaching purposes The elements of this section are

‘signals to enlarge class’s attention’, ‘statements of task or topic’, ‘organizing seating/ groups’, ‘main instruction’, ‘monitoring understanding, repeat/ rephrase’, and ‘signal to start’

In the 14 lessons, 42 instructions were found for analysis in this section For details of the

START

PROCEDURAL ENGLISH

STATEMENTS OF LESSON PLANS

TRANSITIONAL

SIGNALS

TRANSITSIONAL STAGE