SKKN Using language games to motivate the 10 - Form students in speaking lessons at Đào Duy Từ high...

SKKN Using language games to motivate the 10 Form students in speaking lessons at Đào Duy Từ high school 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART A INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale 2 Aims of the study 3 Design of the study P[.]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

2 Aims of the study

3 Design of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Stages of a CLT speaking lesson………

2 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity………

3 Problems with speaking activities………

4 Types of language games

CHAPTER II: SAMPLE GAMES TO MOTIVATE 10 TH -FORM STUDENTS IN SPEAKING LESSONS………

1 Warms-up

2 Pre-speaking stage

3 While-speaking stage

4 Post-speaking stage

CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS OF THE 10 TH -FORM SURVEYED STUDENTS 1 Students’ feelings and attitudes towards language games exploited by the teacher………

2 Data analysis of the 10th-form surveyed students………

a At the beginning of the school year (Before using language games) b At the end of the school year (After using language games ) PART C: CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale.

In the globalization age today, English is considered as a global means of communication When someone is able to communicate well in English, they not only easily connect with people in many different cultures around the world but they also have greater job opportunities Therefore, in some recent years, the focus of teaching has been promoting oral skills in order to respond to the students' needs for effective communication

However, due to some objective and subjective reasons, teaching and learning English in general and teaching and learning speaking in particular does not come up to the study aims Despite teachers' efforts to provide students with opportunities to develop their communicative skills, how to teach and learn speaking effectively is still a challenging question to both teachers and students at many high schools in Vietnam

At Đào Duy Từ high school, the situation is the same For most students in 2 groups 10B5 and 10B6 I am allotted to teach in the school year 2017-2018, they find speaking especially important yet most challenging one It has been proved that students

in these groups have some problems with speaking activities such as: inhibition, nothing

to say, low or uneven participation, mother-tongue use and some students got into a

habit of learning “mute English” which is obviously harmful to a language learner It

also seems to me that the techniques exploited during a speaking activity such as: simulations, discussions are not really effective Therefore, it is a necessity to find a supplementary technique used in teaching speaking In language teaching, language

games have proved themselves not merely as "time filler activities" but as an important

factor which can create more chances and interest to motivate students to speak

All the above-mentioned reasons and factors have inspired me to write the study

with the title "Using language games to motivate the 10-form students in speaking

lessons at Đào Duy Từ high school"

2 Aims of the study.

The study is aimed at providing some suggestions and implications for the improvement of speaking teaching at Đào Duy Từ high school by using language games

in addition to other techniques.

3 Design of the study

This paper is divided into three main parts:

Part A is the INTRODUCTION In this part, the rationale, the aims, and also its design

are presented

Part B is the DEVELOPMENT which includes 3 chapters Chapter I deals with the

literature review that is relevant to the purpose of the study: speaking skill and language

games Chapter II is by far the most dominant one in which some suggestions on using

language games are made and some sample language games exploited during all stages

of the lessons are provided Chapter III is the data analysis of the 10th-form surveyed students

Part C is the CONCLUSION which includes the summary of the study.

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Stages of a CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) speaking lesson.

According to Methodology course 1- Teaching The Skills (Hanoi 2002) page 42-43,

a CLT speaking lesson should have warm-up and three main stages: pre, while and post

Warm- up is often a short and fun game which the teacher can use with his students

The purpose of warms up is to prepare them to learn by stimulating their minds This stage prepares students by getting them to think about the topic or situation before they speak about it

The pre-speaking stage: Pre-speaking tasks can be brainstorming or discussion tasks,

where students collect all their ideas on the topic; vocabulary preparation tasks, where the teacher pre-teaches key vocabulary to help students express their ideas more easily

or train students with pronunciation drill so that they can speak English in good stress and intonation and this will help them speak out their ideas in English easily and fluently

In this stage, the teacher will have to set up a pre task, organize pair/group work and give clear instructions about the task

The while-speaking stage: At this stage the teacher lets students work with each other

without interfering with correcting any mistakes in order not to stop students from being influent She/ he just gives assistance when/if necessary At the while-speaking stage, the teacher doesn't have to do a lot of teaching because his/her students will be working

on the while-task by themselves, individually or in groups In stead, the teacher will have

to do a lot of monitoring and assisting weaker students who are having difficulty completing the task

The post-speaking stage: The post-speaking stage is like "the follow-up stage”

After students have practised speaking skill in the while-speaking stage, they do an extension speaking activity This helps students take the information from other groups

or whatever they have produced in the while-speaking stage, and do something meaningful with it At this stage, the teacher gets students to report their work and lets the whole class share what they have got from pair/group work The teacher might give

feed back, correct serious mistakes here and give students marks.

2 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity

There are many characteristics of a successful speaking activity which are introduced

by Ur (1996) as follows:

• Learners talk a lot: As much as possible of the period time allotted to the activity

is in fact occupied by learner talk This may seem obvious, but often most time is taken up with the teacher and talk and pauses

• Participation is even: Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority of

talkative participants: all get a chance to speak and contributions are fairly evenly distributed

• Motivation is high: Learners are eager to speak because they are interested in the

topic and have something new to say about it, or because they want to contribute

to achieving a task objective

• Language is of an acceptable level: Learners express themselves in utterances that

are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other and of an acceptable level of language accuracy

In practice, however, few classroom activities succeed in satisfying all the criteria mentioned above Therefore, language teachers should make great efforts to employ a variety of effective techniques to create some of the mentioned-above criteria

3 Problems with speaking activities

According to Ur (1996), there still exist some problems with speaking activities as follows:

Inhibition: Unlike reading, writing and listening activities, speaking requires some

degree of real-time exposure to an audience Learners are often inhibited about trying to say things in a foreign language in the classroom: worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts

• Nothing to say: Even if they are not inhibited, you often hear learners complain

that they cannot think of anything to say: they have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should be speaking

• Low or uneven participation: Only one participant can talk at a time if he or she

is to be heard, and in a large group this means that each one will have only very little time talking This problem is compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate, while others speak very little or not at all

• Mother-tongue use: In classes where all, or a number of, the learners share the

same mother tongue, they may tend to use it: because it is easier, because it feels unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language, and because they feel less

"exposed" if they are speaking their mother tongue If they are talking in small groups it can be quite difficult to get some classes-particularly the less disciplined or motivated ones- to keep to the target language

In order for the learners to develop their communicative skills, it is advised that the language teachers should help the learners to overcome these problems with speaking activities

4 Types of language games.

Classifying language games into categories can be very difficult because categories often overlap Therefore, different linguists use different ways to classify language games According to Hadfiled (1987), "language games can be divided into two further categories: Linguistic games and communicative games Linguistic games focus on accuracy, such as applying the correct antonym On the other hand, communicative games focus on successful exchange of information and ideas, such as two people identifying the differences between their two pictures which are similar to one another but not exactly alike Hadfield (1987) also classifies language games into many more categories as follows:

Sorting, ordering or arranging games For example, students have a set of cards

with different products of them, and they sort the cards into products found at a grocery store and products found at a department store

• Information gap game: In such games, one student has access to the information

Which is not held by the other student, and this student must acquire the information

to complete the task successfully Information gap games can involve a one-way

information gap or a two way information gap

• Guessing games: In these games, someone knows something and the others must

find out what it is.

• Matching games: As a name applies, participants need to find a match for a word,

picture or card

• Labeling games: These are form of matching, in that participants match labels and

pictures

• Puzzle-solving games: The participants in the game share or pool information in

order to solve a problem or a mystery

• Role play games: The terms role play, drama and simulation are sometimes used

interchangeably but can be differentiated Role play can involve students playing roles that they do not play in real life, such as dentists, while simulations can involve students performing roles that they already play in real life or might be likely to play, such as a customer at a restaurant Dramas are normally scripted performances, whereas in role plays and simulations, students come up with their own words, although preparation is often useful

CHAPTER II: SAMPLE GAMES TO MOTIVATE 10 TH -FORM STUDENTS

IN SPEAKING LESSONS

1 Warm-ups

A warm up activity is often a short and fun game which the teacher can use with his students The purpose of warms up is to prepare them to learn by stimulating their

minds Warm ups should last about five minutes

Unit 5: Technology and you

Type of games: Matching games Classroom management: Group work

Material: Pictures and cards Time: 3-5 minutes

Procedure: The teacher divides the class into groups of four or five students The

teacher gives each group a set of pictures of modern inventions and slips of paper containing their names Students work in groups and quickly match each modern invention with their name Which group finishes first and has all the correct answers will

be the winner The teacher then can ask students what they know about the uses of these modern inventions

Radio Television Air-conditioner Fridge

Fax machine Electric cooker Cell phone Washing machine

Unit 6: An Excursion

Type of games: Puzzle-solving activity Material: A crossword handout Class management: Group work Time: 5-7 minutes

Procedure: The teacher gives out a crossword which has 7 horizontal lines and one

vertical line The word in the vertical line is made up of 7 letters from the 7 horizontal lines The teacher asks students to work in groups and find the words Each correct word in the horizontal line gets 10 points and the one in the vertical line gets 40 points

C A V E

V

N U S

E

P

O P

R

S R X D

N

H I C A G O

1 A natural place below the earth surface or in the mountain

2 Light of the sun

3 A large natural stream of water

4 A short journey usually for pleasure

5 A temple or sacred tower in Asian countries

6 The science that studies the surface of the earth and its associated physical,

biological, economic, political features

7 A hill of impressive height

Unit 13: Films and cinema

Type of games: Sorting, arranging games Class management: Pair work Material: film posters and handout Time: 5 minutes

Procedure: The teacher asks students to work in pairs Teacher sticks the

following posters on the blackboard or alternatively print these posters and distribute them to students The teacher then gives the handout to the pairs and asks students to match the film with the correct types

Film

Science fiction film

Cartoon

Horror film

Detective film

Thriller

Romantic comedy

War film

Action film

Unit 14: World Cup

Type of games: Puzzle-solving activity Material: A slip of charts and cards Class management: Group work Time: 5-7 minutes

Procedure: The teacher divides the class into groups of three or four students and

give each group a copy of chart and a copy of cards in which clues are given Each group has to work to find out who won the cup The first group to find the correct answer will be the winner

Chart

Fill in the names of the football teams on the chart and thus find out who won the cup

2

1 0

2

4 1

1

1

0 3

2

3 2

3

Clues:

1 England lost one goal in the semi-final

2 France scored 2 goals in the quarter final

3 Brazil beat the Netherlands

4 Germany scored one goal less than the team that beat them in the semi-final

5 Spain played England in the quarter-final

6 Italy beat Argentina by twice as many goals in the quarter final

7 The Netherlands lost 0-1 in the quarter final

2 Pre-pre-speaking stage

This stage is carried out before students actually speak The pre-speaking activities are aimed at preparing students with everything necessary for speaking They also involve thought and reflection, and provide opportunities for students to plan and organize for speaking Normally, pre-speaking stage often lasts from five to fifteen minutes depending on each lesson

Unit 9: Undersea world (speaking task2)

Type of games: Labeling games Class management: Whole class

Material: pictures Time: 7 minutes