(SKKN 2022) Organizing meaningful activities to improve Speaking competence for 11th grade students At quang xuong ii high school

Tên sáng kiến: Organizing meaningful activities to improve speaking competence for 11th grade students at Quang Xuong II High school.. ORGANIZING MEANINGFUL ACTIVITIESTO IMPROVE SPEAKING

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

QUANG XUONG II HIGH SCHOOL

I INTRODUCTION

1 Background/context………

2 The scope of the research……….………

3 Rationale/reasons for choosing the topic………

4 Research aims ………

III CONTENTS 1.REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING SPEAKING……

2 RESEARCH CONTENTS ………

2.1 Research procedures/definitions of terms……….

2.2 Advantages and disadvantages of meaningful activities…………

2.3 Evaluation of the research……….

2.3.1 Novelty of the research………

2.3.2 Effectiveness………

2.3.3 Applicability of the research………

3 ADAPTATION: LESSONS WITH MEANINGFUL ACTIVITIES 3.1 Apply game “mind- map” for a presentation about some famous people’ background (unit 3- grade 10) 3.2 Using game “finding synonyms and antonyms” 3.3 Cross-border classroom 3.4 Using English for interdisciplinary learning activities 3.5 Movie dubbing III CONCLUSION………

REFERENCES………

APPENDIX Appendix 1: Research design……….……….

Appendix 2: Students’ Survey……….……….

Appendix 3: Teacher’s Survey……….……….

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3 4 4 6 7 7 7 7 7 7 8 9 9 10 11

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ABBREVIATION LIST

1 TESOL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

2 IELTS: International English Language Testing System

3 TOEFL: Test of English as a Foreign Language

4 TOEIC: Test of English for International Communication

THÔNG TIN CHUNG VỀ SÁNG KIẾN

1 Tên sáng kiến: Organizing meaningful activities to improve speaking

competence for 11th grade students at Quang Xuong II High school

2 Lĩnh vực áp dụng sáng kiến: Phương pháp dạy tiếng Anh

3 Tác giả:

- Họ và tên: Đỗ Thị Phương

- Trình độ chuyên môn: ĐH Sư Phạm Tiếng Anh

- Chức vụ, đơn vị công tác: Tổ phó chuyên môn tổ tiếng Anh, Trường THPTQuảng Xương II

- Điện thoại: 0943686998 Email: Dophuongqx2@gmail.com

ORGANIZING MEANINGFUL ACTIVITIES

TO IMPROVE SPEAKING COMPETENCE FOR 11TH GRADE

STUDENTS AT QUANG XUONG II HIGH SCHOOL

do my best to carry out this mini-research with empirical methods, and I hold thebelief that I can make an innovation in English language teaching and learning atQuang Xuong II High School, where there are over 1000 students wanting tobecome competent English speakers This research focuses on the expectedeffectiveness of using meaningful activities in improving 11th grade students’spoken competence

or university

The province has over 100 high schools, and Quang Xuong II High School is one

of the twenty best high schools in Thanh Hoa Each year, the school has hundreds

of students who are good at many subjects including mathematics, chemistry,physics and biology, but their English communicative competence must becarefully taken into consideration to some extents

In informal discussions with students and teachers of English and in other subjects

in the school, I have recognized that problems facing the reality of teaching andlearning speaking are that real communication is not always achieved Most form isfocused and display questions are often exploited The teachers make questionsavailable in the textbooks in order to complete their lesson plan Therefore, thestudents meet difficulty achieving good results in IELTS, TOEFL and TOEIC tests

2 The scope of the research

The research consists of an introduction, a review of worthwhile literature related

to the independent variable: “meaningful activities” and their benefits, a description

of students’ learning styles, learning habits, preferences and their views of thesespeaking activities The final parts of the research paper are sections about researchmethodology, anticipated outcomes and possible problems which may come upduring the research together with a short conclusion

The application of meaningful activities will be carried out among a class of five 10-graders at Quang Xuong II High School The students will be tested on orally communicative ability before and after the techniques called “meaningfulactivities” are applied in the classroom in order to see how much improvement thestudents gain Both teachers’ attitudes and students’ feelings towards meaningfulactivities as teaching and learning tools will be reflected through interviews andquestionnaires respectively This will prove, to some extent, the usefulness and thefeasibility of these activities in English classrooms.

thirty-3 Rationale

Students acquire a foreign language through the four fundamental skills includinglistening, speaking, reading and writing Proficiency in each of these skills makes agreat contribution to becoming a competent language user, but the ability to speakclearly and fluently can help learners to inform, express feelings, persuade andinteract with others Therefore, teaching speaking plays a very important role inhelping learners master the target language

As a language teacher, I have recognized that real communication occurs in life contexts By using meaningful tasks, activities and practice in classes, studentswill have opportunities to communicate with each other in the target language It isthe teacher’s job to create classroom environments where real-life communicationtakes place and meaningful tasks are exploited

● Research Focus

The following diagram illustrates the relationship between the key variables of the

study which serve as the research focus with the title: “Organizing meaningful

High school students’ spoken Communication (Problems)

activities to improve speaking competence to grade 11th students at Quang Xuong

II High School”.

● Research Questions and Variables

- What is the effect of meaningful activities on the development of Grade 11students’ spoken communication?

- How will meaningful activities be effectively used in speaking classes ?

- What are students’ opinions on meaningful activities: referential questions,discussions and simulations?

4 Research aims (Purposes)

The study aims at finding out about the effects of using meaningful activities on thedevelopment of high school students’ spoken discourse at the school The researchalso aims to identify students’ speaking problems with the hope that meaningfulactivities can help promote their spoken competence

II CONTENTS OF THE RESEARCH

1 REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING SPEAKING

As a teacher of English for nearly twenty years, I usually have discussions with anumber of students, I have learned that most of them really want to study Englishfor communication However, they do not have strategies for developing their oralcommunication The speaking problems that the teacher frequently deals with arestudents’ difficulty in expressing ideas and opinions Also, students are not often,during the lesson, encouraged to respond to questions for real information fromtheir teachers and friends

In my teaching experience, I have learnt that teaching speaking, a productive skill,

is particularly vital because my students’ achievements in speaking will increasetheir intrinsic motivation to learn other language skills

I also hold the belief that speaking is one of the most important parts of Englishlanguage learning and teaching However, its significance is underevaluated bysome students and teachers in the school They teach speaking just as a repetitiondrill for memorizing dialogues, useful expressions or language functions In fact,the goal of our teaching speaking is to improve students' communication skills, andthrough speaking with meaningful activities students can learn how to follow thesocial and cultural aspects appropriate for any situational context

second term of the school year 2021-2022, using meaningful activities with theexperimental group and the control group will be taught as usual The two groupswill be orally tested at the end of the second term so that I can get the scores foreach student The test scores will be analyzed and considered as useful data for thefindings The three teachers and I will make comparisons between the controlgroup and the experimental group on their learning achievements in order to see theeffect of meaningful activities on students’ development of spoken English.Finally, data collection will be shared and discussed with the school administrators.

DATA COLLECTION

The research will be carried out with three different methods for data collection.The first tool is to prepare open-ended questions for the survey that the researcher

is going to carry out A questionnaire which will find out about students’ attitudes

to meaningful activities, their views of their speaking abilities and awareness ofwhat meaningful activities will be about

Then, I will interview the four teachers in my school The second thing I will do isthat I get my students to fill the questionnaire I have made to find a better way toteach and learn speaking The next thing I will do is that I make a lesson plan inwhich meaningful activities are made effective use of The purpose of thequestionnaire and the interview and classroom observation will be clearlyexplained to the students before the research starts

● Questionnaire

As a questionnaire may play a central role in the data collection process, a designed questionnaire is needed To do this, I have to make a draft plan, thenconsult my colleagues for some questions on the topic I want the questionnaire to

well-be informative and appropriate for the subjects Before conducting thequestionnaire, I will pilot it in another group that shares the same similarities to thesample The designed questionnaire is anonymous so that the students do notconceal their feelings when they give comments on their teachers and theirteaching The questionnaire which uses closed-and open-ended questions coversdifferent kinds of students, their views on meaningful activities

● Interview

Interviewing is chosen as one of the three main methods of data collection Byasking 4 teachers questions about views or opinions on using referential questions,discussions and simulations, and the approaches of teaching speaking It will take

an hour for each interview In order to make the interviewees comfortable, theplace for the interview and the purpose of the interview will be made clear to thefour interviewees .The main part of the interview includes asking teachers 13questions and recording their answers by a good Sony recorder Each teacher will

be interviewed once at the beginning of the study Open-ended questions aredesigned for the teacher’s interviews

● Classroom Observation

I have designed 16 statements which describe the students’ learning styles, viewsand the teacher’s methods of teaching The observer will observe and recordconcrete details of what the teacher does in the lesson, methods of teaching andmeaningful activities will be utilized in the classroom.

DATA ANALYSIS

All the data will be analyzed by the four teachers The findings will be shared withthe teaching group leader and the school administrators A workshop will soon beheld in order to widely disseminate the findings of the research

● Questionnaire Analysis

There are five items in the student survey, I will do a tally count, then change it intopercentages, using the tables about the students’ learning styles and views onmeaningful activities The data will be carefully analyzed

● Class Observation Data Analysis

Observations will be used to gain in-depth understanding and to avoidmisinterpretation I will double read to gain the teacher’s views or beliefs aboutmeaningful activities in teaching speaking, and the relationships among views andpractices

● Interview Data Analysis

Each interview will be recorded, coded and then transcribed and analyzed critically

In looking across cases, I will look for themes and patterns which emerge from thedata and code for the emerging themes Each teacher’s data analysis includesclassifying, categorizing, labeling and organizing the emerging classifications

REVIEWS OF LITERATURE

The study aims to investigate the effects of meaningful activities on thedevelopment of students’ speaking skill The first thing that will be discussed is abrief review of literature related to the definition of meaningful activities:referential questions, discussions and simulations The second part will look at theadvantages of meaningful activities to teaching speaking

● Referential questions

In my experience, I often make referential questions in order to get students to

communicate We should consider the question: “ What do you think will happen to

Everglades National Park if more chemicals are released into the water?”( English

10- page 114) In fact, this referential question encourages students to havepersonal ideas on a serious problem of pollution nowadays

In defining referential questions, Brown (1983) explains that referential questionsare questions you ask someone because you don't know the answer He also addsthat this can mean questions teachers ask learners and learners ask each other.Referential questions can be compared with display questions, for which theanswer is already known by the asker Teachers make display questions to see if thestudents know the answer and to ask for language manipulation Brown (1983)

states that “display questions” seek answers in which the information is already

known by the teacher This type of elicitation has been criticised for its lack of

authenticity since it is not commonly used in conversation outside the classroom Inexplaining the benefits of referential questions, Brock (1986) points out thatreferential questions are commonly used in regular conversation outside theclassroom, so they are used to encourage students’ higher-order thinking skills andauthentic use of the second language in the classroom Many researchers (Nunan,1987; Suter, 2001; Morell, 2007) also emphasize that teachers’ use of referentialquestions can stimulate students to provide much longer and more complexresponses than the use of display questions.

● Discussions

Davis (1993) says that using discussions as a main teaching technique allows us tostimulate critical thinking As we establish a rapport with our students, we candemonstrate that we appreciate their contributions, at the same time that wechallenge them to think more deeply and to articulate their ideas more clearly.Frequent questions, whether asked by the teacher or by the students, provide ameans of measuring learning and exploring in-depth the key concepts of the course.After the input or contents are delivered, a discussion should be organized forvarious reasons First, the students aim to come to a conclusion, share ideas about

an event in their discussion groups Before the discussion, it is essential that thepurpose of the discussion is clearly stated to the students In this way, thediscussion points are relevant to the purpose Each group works on their topic for agiven time period, and then presents their opinions to the class It is essential thatthe talking time should be equally divided among group members Finally, the classdecides on the winning group that can express the idea in the best way Thisactivity fosters critical thinking and quick decision making

Harmer (1984) stresses that simulation activities increase the self-confidence ofhesitant students, because in simulation activities, they will have a different roleand do not have to speak for themselves, which means they do not have to take thesame responsibility

2.2 Advantages and disadvantages of meaningful activities.

Meaningful activities are used to encourage students to concentrate on meaning,understanding, not memorization Therefore, meaningful activities or practice canincrease active learning, such as problem-solving, collaborative learning and

decision making However, meaningful activities can have some problems thatshould be considered Students who lack prior knowledge will get very little activelearning and meaningful activities are not very appropriate for test or exampreparation Therefore, we should help our students get familiar with these activelearning activities by using clear instructions and scaffolding It is the teacher job todecide on when meaningful activities should be exploited and when they arerelevant to the students’ needs.

2.3 Evaluation of the research

2.3.1 Novelty of the research (Innovations)

I expect that after the experimental process, lessons with meaningful activities willenable the experimental group to produce better developed spoken English than thecontrol group in the post-test, in terms of the following features: real information,fluency, language function, organization of the spoken discourse I am in the hopethat the teaching of speaking with referential questions, discussions and simulationscan really increase the experimental group’s self-awareness through observing andclarifying feelings and thoughts Besides, some low-motivated students may alsoget benefits from the approach of speaking with the above-mentioned activities

2.3.2 Effectiveness

The study of the effects of meaningful activities on the development of high schoolstudents’ speaking are of great importance for several reasons First, understandingrelationship between the students’ speaking problems and the use of meaningfulactivities can help to improve their orally communicative competence Second, theresearcher has opportunities to set up members of reflective teachers who can helpother teachers to solve the speaking problems of students at the same levels fromother schools Finally, the research findings will also help the administrators tohave new policy in teaching and learning English in the school The research onmeaningful activities in teaching speaking is manageable and will support all theteachers’ professional development

2.3.3 Applicability of the research

The results of the research will provide high school teachers in Viet Nam withvaluable suggestions in English teaching and learning More importantly, students’spoken competence can assist other language skills, such as writing and listening.Meaningful activities are expected to use for all students from secondary students

to high school ones The research will bring about improvements in my teachingpractices and implement some changes in all high schools and secondary schools inThanh Hoa Province

3 ADAPTATION: LESSONS WITH MEANINGFUL ACTIVITIES

The following questions and activities are redesigned to help students make gooduse of referential questions in helping students exchange real information Thesereferential questions make the learning of speaking more meaningful for highschool students