(SKKN HAY NHẤT) promoting boldness in english communication for students at quang xuong II high school through alternative activities in the learning process

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRANININGQUANG XUONG 2 HIGH SCHOOL ---o0o---EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE PROMOTING BOLDNESS IN ENGLISH COMMUNICATION FOR STUDENTS AT QUANG XUONG II HIGH S

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRANINING

QUANG XUONG 2 HIGH SCHOOL

-o0o -EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE

PROMOTING BOLDNESS IN ENGLISH COMMUNICATION FOR STUDENTS AT QUANG XUONG II HIGH SCHOOL THROUGH ALTERNATIVE

ACTIVITIES IN THE LEARNING PROCESS

The writer: Nguyen Thi Hang The Post: Teacher

Innovation of subject: English

THANH HOA , 2021

TABLE OF CONTENT PART 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

1.2 Aims of the study

1.3 The object of the study

2.1.3 Characteristics of speaking skill

2.2 The real situation of the matter

2.3 Alternative activities are applied for promoting boldness inEnglish communication

2.3.1 Applying game “mind- map” for a presentation aboutadvantages and disadvantages of using technology devices (unit 5-grade 10)

2.3.2 Using game “finding synonyms and antonyms”

UAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com

PART 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

English is the official language of more than 53 countries and territories,and is the official language of the EU and is the third most widely usedlanguage in the world After Chinese and Spanish (due to differences in thepopulation of the countries used)

Learning another language besides your mother tongue always gives youmany difficulties, so to learn English well requires you to have quite clearmotivations Or if you want to study abroad, you must learn English to beable to follow the content of the training program

Employers will want to choose a candidate with good English skills,rather

than a candidate who can't use or is very bad at this language When yougraduate and want to work in a good company, have a good salary and astable environment, what employers will ask of you: definitely cannot ignorethe requirement: know how to use English Even if you work for a Japanesecompany, or any other multinational, if you know English, and preferablyfluently, you will still be given priority

However, their speaking skill of students at Quang Xuong II High school

is still very weak They are afraid of speaking because their vocabulary is stilllimit, afraid of making mistakes, afraid of being laughed The quality ofstudents' English learning is still so low, partly because of the student's ability(due to the low quality of the students' input), partly because the teachingmethods of the teachers are not suitable, partly because the students do nothave a environment to promote language competence and a playgroundsuitable to the characteristics of the subject Therefore, it is very necessaryand urgent to improve the quality of English speaking in schools

The four language skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing areall interconnected Proficiency in each skill is necessary to become a well-rounded communicator, but the ability to speak skillfully provides the speakerwith several distinct advantages The capacity to put words together in ameaningful way to reflect thoughts, opinions, and feelings provides thespeaker with these important advantages Here are some of the specificreasons why English learners are encouraged to speak in English

Organizing lessons to practice speaking English can be a big challengefor both teachers and students Therefore, besides the lectures in the textbookprogram, we also integrate other activities to increase the courage in Englishcommunication of students at Quang Xuong II High school In this situation, Itry my best to find out effective activities to improve student’s speaking skill

From the above reasons, I have boldly presented the experience

initiative: “ Promoting boldness in English communication for students at

1UAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com

Quang Xuong II High school through alternative activities in the learning process”

1.2 Aims of the study

With a view to building a language environment to help students practicetheir language skills in a natural and exciting way Creating opportunities forcreative experiences, enhance students' interest, and encourage self-study

Creating a place to exchange, learn and exchange English learningexperiences for those who love, want to practice skills in using English as acommunication tool Relieving stress after studying by different activities

Building a healthy, vibrant and rewarding playground, improving the use ofEnglish in practice

To suggest some recommendations on how to use five stimulatingactivities: games, video, role play to enhance their learners in speaking skillsand develop communicative skills

1.3 The object of the study

The study was conducted at Quang Xuong II High school for students ingrade 10, 11, 12 Five classes 10C3, 10C10, 11B2, 11B5, 12A2 were asked toparticipate in the study

1.4 Research methods

To conduct the study, a lot of methods are used However, the main onesare connection, observation and experiment

PART 2 CONTENT 2.1 Theoretical background

Speaking seems to be the most important skills of all the four skills(listening, speaking, reading and writing) because people who know alanguage are usually referred to as speakers of that language (Ur, 1996) Themajor goal of all English language teaching should be to give learners theability to use English effectively, accurately in communication (Davies &

Pearse, 1998) However, not all language learners after many years studyingEnglish can communicate fluently and accurately because they lack necessaryknowledge

We need linguistic competence, an adequate vocabulary and mastery ofsyntax to speak in another language (Nunan, 1999) However, linguisticcompetence is not sufficient for someone who wants to communicatecompetently in another language According to Nunan Asian Journal ofEducational Research Vol 3, No 2, 2015 ISSN 2311-6080 MultidisciplinaryJournals www.multidisciplinaryjournals.com 9 (1999), the speaker needscommunicative competence which includes not only linguistic competencebut also a range of other sociolinguistic and conversational skills which helphim/ her know how to say what to whom and when Johnson (1995) claimsthat the second language students need communicative competence toparticipate in and learn from their classroom experience

At Quang Xuong II High School, the students are not good at English.

They can pass exams easily but they find it difficult to use English tocommunicate Especially, they are afraid of speaking English in class due tovarious reasons such as ; psychologically shy, reserved, afraid that friendswill laugh when they say the wrong thing Due to the large class, teachers areless able to practice skills for each student Organizing speaking practice willhelp overcome these limitations

To help the students improve their speaking skills, it is necessary to findways to help them overcome their problems Moreover, the teachers need toknow the factors that affect their students’ speaking performance so that theycan deal with these factors to help the students improve their speakingperformance

2.1.1 Definition of speaking skill

There are many definitions of speaking according to experts Harmer(2007:284) states speaking is the ability to speak fluently and presuppose notonly knowledge of language features, but also the ability to processinformation and language, on the spot while Quianthy (1990:7) definesspeaking as the process of transmitting ideas and information orally in variety

Learning speaking is not similar with writing Therefore learn andpractice the language through speaking also will be different In spokenlanguage, we do not only need the competence to master and understand thelanguage, we also need to learn culture, gestures, and the expression whichgive added meaning to the words or sentences An intonation pattern can alsoshow the feeling of the speaker It may express some kinds of expression, like

as show the anger, happiness sadness and etc

2.1.2 Methods of teaching speaking skill

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

in the second language by "interacting" Communicative language teachingand collaborative learning serve best for this aim Communicative languageteaching is based on real-life situations that require communication By usingthis method in ESL classes, students will have the opportunity ofcommunicating with each other in the target language In brief, ESL teachersshould create a classroom environment where students have real -lifecommunication, authentic activities, and meaningful tasks that promote orallanguage This can occur when students collaborate in groups to achieve agoal or to complete a task

3UAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com

Activities to promote speaking.

+ Discussion : After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various reasons.

The students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions in theirdiscussion groups Before the discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the discussion activity is set bythe teacher In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose, so that students do not spendtheir time chatting with each other about irrelevant things

+ Role play: One other way of getting students to speak is role-playing Students pretend

they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles In role-play activities, the teachergives information to the learners such as who they are and what they think or feel Thus, the teacher cantell the student that "You are David, you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and…"(Harmer, 1984)

+ Information Gap: In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs One

student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share theirinformation Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or collectinginformation Also, each partner plays an important role because the task cannot be completed if thepartners do not provide the information the others need These activities are effective because everybodyhas the opportunity to talk extensively in the target language

+ Reporting: Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine

and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting news Students can alsotalk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives beforeclass

+ Interview: Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people It is

a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of questions theycan ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own interview questions Conductinginterviews with people gives students a chance to practice their speaking ability not only in class but alsooutside and helps them becoming socialized After interviews, each student can present his or her study

to the class Moreover, students can interview each other and "introduce" his or her partner to the class

+ Brainstorming : On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time.

Depending on the context, either individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners generateideas quickly and freely The good characteristics of brainstorming is that the students are not criticizedfor their ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas

2.1.3 Characteristics of speaking skill

4UAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com

Young learners are like sponges, they soak up everything we say andhow we say it Thus clear and correct pronunciation is of vital importance,since young learners repeat exactly what they hear What has been learned at

an early stage is difficult to change later on One rule that applied here isslowly and steadily through constant revision and recycling With the help ofmixed activities, such as dialogues, chants, songs, poems and rhymes,students speaking abilities grow, their pronunciation gets better and theirawareness of the language improves When applying video techniques inclassroom it may help the learner to develop their speaking skill and we havekeep in mind that interaction and dissection is importance way in learning

Therefore, increased oral emphasis should be included in our teaching to givethe students as much speaking time as possible [1 p 22]

In recent teaching context, a lot of attention has been paid to designactivities which focus more on tasks that are balanced between the need toachieve fluency and accuracy These criteria are also based upon in theassessment of the oral skills

Fluency: The main goal teachers wish to achieve in teaching the

productive skill of speaking is oral fluency; it is the main characteristics of thespeaker performance The ability to express oneself in an intelligible,reasonable and accurate way without too much hesitation; otherwise thecommunication will break down because listeners will lose their interest

To achieve this goal, the teachers then should train learners to use theirpersonal language freely to express their own ideas and then avoid imitations

of a model of some kind

Many of foreign language speakers think of fluency as the ability tospeak fast, that is why they start speaking rapidly without pauses Thornbury[2 Р 56] argues that speed is an important factor in fluency and pausing too,because speakers need to take breath Native speakers also need to pause fromtime to time in order to let the interlocutors catch what they said

However, a frequent pausing is an indication that the speaker hasproblem of speaking In such cases Thornbury suggests what is called “tricks”

or production strategies, i.e the ability to fill the pauses The most commonpause fillers are "uh” and "um”, vagueness expressions such as“ short of and“

I mean" Another device for filling the pauses is the reputation of one wordwhen there is a pause

Accuracy: Nowadays most foreign language teachers emphasized the term of

accuracy in their teaching because learners seek more to be fluent and theyforget about being accurate Without structuring accurate speech, speakerswill not be understood and their interlocutors will lose interest if they performincorrect utterances each time Therefore, paying attention to correctness andcompleteness of language form is of more importance for oral proficiency

5UAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com

Therefore, learners should focus on a number of things in theirproduction of the spoken language, mainly, the grammatical structure ,vocabulary and pronunciation.

Grammar: The grammatical accuracy refers to the range and the appropriate

use of the learners’ grammatical structure that involves the length and thecomplexity of the utterances in addition to the ability to use the subordinatingclauses The grammar of speech differs of that of writing

Vocabulary: Achieving accuracy in terms of vocabulary refers to the

appropriate selection of words during speaking Students often finddifficulties when they try to express what they want to say, they lack theappropriate vocabulary, and they sometimes use words incorrectly like in thecase of synonyms which do not carry the same meaning in all contexts

Students then, have to be able to use words and expiration accurately

Pronunciation: English language has been long considered by either native

speakers or nonnative speakers as a difficult language because of itspronunciation Learners, then who want to develop their speaking skill inEnglish should practice pronunciation overall They should be aware of thedifferent sounds and their features and where they are made in one’s mouth;

they have also to be aware of where the words should de stressed, when to useraising intonation and when to use a falling one All these issues give themextra information about how to speak English effectively and help to achievethe goal of a better understanding of spoken English

2.2 The real situation of the matter.

Quang Xuong II High school is situated in Quang Ngoc, Quang Xuongdistrict The school currently has 31 classes With the great care of the schooladministrators to the quality of English subject, rooms are equipped withenough TV for learning and teaching English but the school does not have aspecialized English classroom Inadequate facilities for the school's Englishlearning such as lack of connection of Internet

Despite the difficulties in life, some of the parents and children havebeen aware of the importance of learning English, which is a big advantagefor English teachers here However, The rest of students’ parents are farmer

or worker, the family's economic conditions are still very difficult, parentsonly worry about working and earning money They let their children learn bythemselves, which has a great impact on the students' learning spirit

English is a difficult subject, requiring students to work hard and begifted in languages, so most students are afraid to study Many children aretimid, not bold, afraid of mistakes and passive when speaking English in front

of teachers and friends Moreover, students' parents have not paid properattention to the subject, so improving the quality of the subject is extremelydifficult

The reality of the quality of English language learning in recent years ofthe majority of students at Quang Xuong II High School is still very poor

Although they have studied English for four years at the lower secondarylevel, by the time they enter the 10th grade, many of them do not know how

to write and speak an English word, or do not know the distinction betweendifferent types of words: noun, verb, adjective According to the actualsurvey, the percentage of students achieving the average score or higher inEnglish at Quang Xuong II High School is only below 55% of the average ofcompetitions such as: admission to grade 10, midterm and final quality,GCSE,

After orienting the activities, with the number of 192 students in all threegrades 10, 11 and 12 With the help of teachers in the English department, Iconducted a survey test for speaking skill And the results are as follows:

Table 1: The results of survey about the English speaking skill of students at the beginning of the 2020 - 2021 school year (192 members)

In order to use this technique, I divided the class into four groups, eachgroup presented the advantages and disadvantages of a device such a smartphone, TV, computer and so Before showing the presentation, I guidedstudents to find out some questions:

1 What can a computer/ a smart phone/ a TV do to help us in our daily

life?

2 Why is a computer/ a smart phone/ A TV a miraculous device?

7UAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com