Applying some language games in speaking lessons to create excitement and enhance learning English f...

Applying some language games in speaking lessons to create excitement and enhance learning English for grade 11 students TABLE OF CONTENT A INTRODUCTION 2 I Reason for choosing the study 2 II Aims of the study 2 III Objects of the study 2 IV Methods of the study 2 B CONTENT 3 I Theoretical back ground 3 II Real situation of teaching and learning English at Tho Xuan 4 high school 4 III Some speaking activities applied in teaching English 11 (basic) 5 1 Who is who? 5 2 Have you ever ? 5 3 Which pa[.]

TABLE OF CONTENT

A INTRODUCTION 2

I Reason for choosing the study 2

II Aims of the study 2

III Objects of the study 2

IV Methods of the study 2

B CONTENT 3

I Theoretical back ground 3

II Real situation of teaching and learning English at Tho Xuan 4 high school 4

III Some speaking activities applied in teaching English 11 (basic) .5

1.Who is who? 5

2 Have you ever……? 5

3 Which party? 6

4 How do you know about this? 7

5 Describe the pictures 8

6 Guessing game 9

7 Knowledge Map Building 9

8 I spy 10

9 Mapped dialogue 12

10 Exhibition 13

11 Right or wrong chair 13

12 Stop the bus 14

13 Find some one who… 14

14 Mysterious picture 15

15 Around the world 16

IV Result 17

C CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 18

I Conclusion 18

II Suggestions 18

REFERENCE 19

A INTRODUCTION

I Reason for choosing the study

Learning a language is a complex and long process as anyone who has tried will agree One of the most difficult and frustrating things is making the transition from the classroom to the 'real' world In the classroom, everyone knows you are a student and mistakes are allowed, and the environment is contained and safe Speaking another language outside the classroom is completely different and often students are lost at sea as soon as they step outside the door Lists of memorized vocabulary are suddenly useless when ordering in a restaurant

The problem becomes more complicated when it comes to Vietnam setting English teachers in Vietnam have just adopted communicative approach for just a few years since the using of the new textbooks However, they have not paid enough attention to speaking skill The speaking tasks are simple, and more importantly, impractical

How to create excitement for students during English speaking lessons? Through out five- year teaching experience, studying materials as well as observing the other teachers' class, I realize that stimulating students to practice speaking actively during English lesson majorly bases on designing teaching-learning activities of each teacher in each lesson plan And, games in general and speaking games in particular are very useful in teaching and learning English speaking because it not only encourages, but improves and teaches students’ ability in using English fluently as well Therefore, I think this study is necessary and the result of using games in teaching speaking will bring many practical benefits to the students

As an English teacher, I really want to clarify the topic here with my knowledge to analyze, understand the situation of teaching and learning English at high school; the application of games in teaching English at the school Thanks to

it, I will find out lessons, experience for myself and make a small contribution to enhancing the effectiveness in teaching this subject Thus, in this writing, I would like to present the study entitles:

"Applying some language games in speaking lessons to create excitement

and enhance learning English for grade 11 students".

II Aims of the study

The aims of this study are:

- To introduce some language games in teaching speaking

- To show how to organize games effectively and how to deal with initial problems that may arise

- To create excitement and enhance learning English for students

III Objects of the study

This subject is concerned with ways of using some language games as well

as their effectiveness on teaching speaking

IV Methods of the study

Reading reference books, discussing with other teachers, applying in teaching, observing and drawing out experiences

B CONTENT

I Theoretical back ground

Speaking is "the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" (Chaney, 1998, p 13) Speaking is a crucial part of second language learning and teaching Despite its importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues However, today's world requires that the goal of teaching speaking should improve students' communicative skills, because, only in that way, students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in each communicative circumstance In order to teach second language learners how to speak in the best way possible, some speaking activities are provided below, that can be applied to ESL and EFL classroom settings, together with suggestions for teachers who teach oral language

Now many linguistics and ESL teachers agree on that students learn to speak

in the second language by "interacting" Communicative language teaching and collaborative learning serve best for this aim Communicative language teaching is based on real-life situations that require communication By using this method in ESL classes, students will have the opportunity of communicating with each other

in the target language In brief, ESL teachers should create a classroom environment where students have real-life communication, authentic activities, and meaningful tasks that promote oral language This can occur when students collaborate in groups to achieve a goal or to complete a task

There is an interesting movement towards teaching speaking with games It creates students’ motivation in learning English, especially speaking English g Just immage when coming in class the teacher annouces that it is time for speaking lesson with games instead of moans and whinning, the teacher and the students get

smiles and excitemment

Aydan Ersoz, author of "Six Games for the ESL/EFL Classroom" also explains more reasons why games do work for teaching speaking Learning a language requires constant effort and that can be tiring, but Ersoz outlines two good reasons why games should be included in the classroom:

* Games that are amusing and challenging are highly motivating

* Games allow meaningful use of the language in context

Students may wish to play games purely fo fun Teacher, however, need more convincing reasons “ Teacher need to consider which games to use, when to use them, how to link them up with the syllabus, textbook and programme and how, more specially, different games with benifit student in different ways” (Khan,

J,1996) The key to a sucessful language games is that the rule is clear, the ultimate goal is well designed and the game must be fun

II Real situation of teaching and learning English at Tho Xuan 4 high school

From applying new English teaching methods, "language games" have been become main activity in teachers' lesson plans, especially in speaking plans Some teachers have paid attention and prepared careful game They know how to make the classtime pleasant and comfortable so they create excitement and motivate speaking English for their students However, some others are not aware much about the importance of language games as well as speaking skill They still think that these games for this part waste time and make class noisy Thus, instead

of having better preparation for speaking period, they often explain the grammar rules and ask students to do exercises This makes students stressful and the classtime boring

Moreover, for students at Tho Xuan 4 high school, they have approached new teaching methods, but they seem to be embarrassing when they take part in speaking activities To know exactly about this problem, I have investigated 90 students in 2 classes 11A5 and 11A6 by asking them the following questions:

Please tick your choice to answer the following questions:

1 Do you like speaking activities in English lessons?

Very like Like Normal Dislike

2 Why do (don't) you like speaking activities in English lesson?

And I get the bellow result:

Total

As can be seen from the result that most of good students are interested in speaking activities while lower students are shy because they have no ability to take part in Student's level of understanding is unequal in a class to cause difficulty for teachers to choose activities which are suitable for whole class Many activities can

be applied well in this period but they also are boring in the other ones Lots of speaking activities make good students excited while bad students could not participate in And vice versa, some activities attract lower students but make good ones bored

Besides, my school is located in half-plain and pure agricultural area so students `have less chance to communicate in foreign language in daily life They are so shy to speak as well as express ideas, so the lessons often end with chatting

in mother tongue

From those reasons, the study entitled "Applying some language games in

speaking lessons to create excitement and enhance learning English for grade

11 students" has been conducted with the hope to make teachers and students have

a good chance to practice speaking English

III Some speaking activities applied in teaching English 11 (basic).

1 Who is who?

Unit 1: Friendship

Aim: Practice describe the physical characteristics

Times: 5 minutes

Preparation: T asks Ss to prepare a short talking to describe a classmate

Work arrangement: group work

Procedure:

- T chooses 5 best speaking students to present their talking prepared in front of class

- T divides class into 2 teams A and B They will listen to the talking and guess

"who is who?"

- Each team will raise hand to have right to answer Which team having more right guessing will be the winner?

- T models with whole class: “She is very tall She wears glasses She is helpful to

everyone Who is she?” (She is Lan).

- Ss standing on the board present, whole class listen and guess

- T declares the winner

2 Have you ever……?

Unit 2: My most embarrassing experience

Aims: practice making “have you ever … ”question and respond to them

Times: 7 minutes

Work arrangement: pair work

Procedure:

- T lets Ss to work in pairs

- T models “have you ever + past participle” for Ss as well as ways to respond to

“have you ever” questions

Ex: Have you ever sung in public?

Yes, I have or No, I haven’t

- If the answer is “ yes”, one might ask a follow- up question, using past simple

such as: When was it? Where did it happen?

- If the answer is “no”, Ss have to ask another question

- T asks Ss to make dialogue and calls some pairs to present in font of the class

- T gives feedback

*Model dialogue:

A: Have you ever been drowned in the river?

B: Yes, I have

A: When did it happen?

B: It happened a year ago, on my last summer vacation

A: Where did it happen?

B: in a river near my house

A: How did it happen?

B: When I was swimming, I suddenly caught a cold, I felt dizzy and I was too weak to swim

A: Who were involved?

B: Some of my friends were also swimming at that time, one tried to save me A: How it affect you?

B: I learned that life is so important.

3.Which party?

Unit 3: Party

Aims: warm- up talking about party

Time: 5 minutes

Preparation: pictures of different kinds of party

Work arrangement: group work

Procedure:

- T sticks pictures on the board

- T divides class into groups of four or five and gives each group a card

- T asks Ss to match the pictures with their names

- Ss write the answers on the card and hold up when they have finished

- The group who finishes first wins the game

- T leads-in to the new lesson by asking questions:

1 Have you ever been invited to one of these parties?

2 How was it organized?

Key: 1A, 2C, 3B, 4D, 5F, 6E

* Names of parties: 1 Garden party 2 House-warming party

3 Birthday party 4 Wedding party

5 Farewell party 6 New Year party

* Cue pictures:

A B C

C D

D E F

4.How do you know about this?

Unit 3: Party

Aims: practice talking about the preparation for party

Time: 5 minutes

Preparation: using pictures in warm-up activity

Work arrangement: groups work

Procedures:

- T divides class in to 6 groups

- T lets Ss to choose one of 6 pictures about parties randomly

- T asks them to observe the pictures and discuss about the preparation for this party

- Ss discuss in their group

- The representative of each group will go to the board and present their ideas

- T gives feedbacks

*Example:

To prepare for birthday party, we need to buy birthday cake, candles……

………

5 Describe the pictures

Unit 4: Volunteer works

Aims: introduce some popular volunteer activities and practice making meaningful

sentences

Time: 5 minutes

Preparation: pictures about volunteer works

Work arrangement: group work

Procedure:

- T divides class into groups of five students and gives them a set of pictures

- T asks them to describe activities in each picture in one sentence only.

- Which group finishes first will raise the hand to read out the sentences If they have more corrects and meaningful sentences will be the winner

- T gives feedback.

*Suggested answers:

1 The students are taking part in directing the traffic.

2 The students are participating in a Blood Donation activity

3 The student is helping the old cross the road

4 The students are helping people build the road

5 The student is teaching the children in the mountainous area.

6 The students are comforting the disadvantaged

* Cue pictures

6 Guessing game

Unit 6 : Competition

Aims: talking about a contest you have recently join or seen

Time: 10 minutes

Preparation: some small gifts

Work arrangement: group work

Procedure:

- T divides class into 4 teams

- T asks them to prepare a talking about a contest or a competition you have recently joined or seen on TV in 5 minutes

- T lets each group to choose the best student to represent

- A representative of each group will stand in front of the class and tell about their competition you have talked Other teams have to listen and give the name of the competition /contest

- The team who gives the correct answer first will win and gets 10 marks

- T gives feedback after each presentation and declares the winner

*Example:

I have seen a competition recently It is often on TV at 20.00 on VTV3 every Thursday It is a General Knowledge Quiz It is Vietnamese versions of the British game show It offers a maximum cash prize of one hundred and twenty million VND for correctly answering successive multiple – choice questions of increasing difficulty.

Key: Who is millionaire?

7 Knowledge Map Building

Unit 7: World population

Aim: summarize the main points of the lesson

Time: 5 minutes

Preparation: handouts

Work arrangement: group work

Procedure:

- T divides class into groups of five

- T gives them the handouts and asks them to find ideas which is suitable with each given main points to build the map

- Ss work in groups to discuss and complete the map

- Each group will choose the representative to present their ideas in front of class

- T gives feed back

*Model

8 I spy

Unit 8: Celebration

Aims: Introduce some festivals in the world

Time: 4 minutes

Preparation: 6 pictures about some popular festivals

Work arrangement: group work

Procedure:

- T divides class into 2 teams

Solutions

Overpopulation

Fewer children die at birth

Poor living standards

Carry out family planning

- T speaks loudly: “I spy with my little eyes, a celebration beginning with letter…”, then hangs on a picture and asks Ss to guess what festival is?

- T explains “spy” mean “can see”

- Ss raise hand to have right to guess with the given letter

Ex: T: I spy, with my little eyes, a celebration beginning with “H”

(T shows picture about Halloween)

Ss: (guessing) is it the Halloween?

T: yes, it is

- T gives feedback after each guessing if it is correct, they will have 1 mark and if

it is wrong, the other team will answer Which team having more marks will be the winner

- T declares the winner and leads in to the lesson

* Cues pictures:

A Halloween B Valentine’s Day

C Teacher’s Day D Thank Giving's Day

E New Year Day F Mid-Autumn Festival

9 Mapped dialogue

Unit 9: The post office

Aim: practice make dialogue (task 2)

Time: 10 minutes

Work arrangement: pair work

Procedure:

- T draws on the board two faces and introduce the scene: “This is Minh and this

is the clerk at a post office Mr Minh wants to have a telephone line installed at his home.”

- T draws a mapped dialogue on the board and elicits dialogue from Ss

- Ss to work in pairs to make dialogue and then practice it in open pair

- T calls some pairs to present their dialogue in front of class

- T gives feedback