Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS the use role play activities in improving speaking skills of first year chemistry majors at hanoi university of industry

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THÚY NGA THE USE OF ROLE-PLAY ACTIVITIES IN IMPROVING SPEAKING SKILLS OF FIRST-YEAR CHEMIS

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ THÚY NGA

THE USE OF ROLE-PLAY ACTIVITIES IN IMPROVING SPEAKING SKILLS OF FIRST-YEAR CHEMISTRY-MAJORS AT HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

Sử dụng các hoạt động “đóng vai” trong việc cải thiện kỹ năng nói cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất khoa Công nghệ hóa- trường

Đại học công nghiệp Hà Nội

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60 14 10

HÀ NỘI, 2011

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ THÚY NGA

THE USE OF ROLE-PLAY ACTIVITIES IN IMPROVING SPEAKING SKILLS OF FIRST-YEAR CHEMISTRY-MAJORS AT HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

Sử dụng các hoạt động “đóng vai” trong việc cải thiện kỹ năng nói cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất khoa Công nghệ hóa- trường

Đại học công nghiệp Hà Nội

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: NGUYỄN THỊ BÁCH THẢO, M.A

HÀ NỘI, 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Communicative Language Teaching & Cooperative Learning 5

2.1.1 Characteristics of Communicative Language Teaching 5

2.2.2 Types of Role Play and Procedures in Using Role Play 11 2.2.3 Roles of Teachers and Students in role-play activities 17 2.2.4 Significance of Role Play in Developing Speaking Skills 21

CHAPTER III: THE STUDY

3.1 Setting of the study 22

CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION

ABSTRACT

The context of international integration and development has attached increasing importance to communication in general and oral communication in particular Oral communication skills or speaking skills therefore have become the focus of language teaching

as far as the objectives of English course of the Faculty of Chemistry, Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI) are concerned With a lot of advantages, role-play is considered one of the most potential activities to help students promote their speaking skills

As one of the first attempts to explore the application of using role-play in speaking classroom for a specific group of learners, namely first-year chemistry-majors, this paper sheds light on both the students and teachers’ attitude towards using role-play, the difficulties they encounter as well as suggestions for utilizing this kind of activity effectively

To achieve the aims of the study, a survey was conducted with 120 first-year chemistry-majors and twenty teachers being involved To enhance the quality of information collected from the questionnaire and help the researcher provide more details to the findings, interviews were employed

The results of this research show many positive signs in students and teachers’ attitude towards using role-play in improving speaking skills By identifying the difficulties they face, the paper suggests some changes in the students’ participation, the teachers’ roles during role-play activities as well as alteration of the management board The study is of great use to those who want to find an effective way of using role-play to teach speaking skills and thanks to it, students will be more interested in learning speaking to gain a better result

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

There exists one problem that teachers and students of English in Vietnam cope with:

the target language is mainly used in the classroom and learners have few opportunities to use English in authentic contexts outside the classroom This requires some changes in teaching approach from traditional ones which put emphasis on the production of accurate grammatical sentences into CLT approach which focuses on developing learners’ communicative competence, i.e the ability to communicate through language

The above reasons have urged the author to conduct a study to gain more insight into the current situation of using classroom activities with a focus on role-play tasks and try to draw some implications for using role-play to improve speaking skills for 1st-year students at the Faculty of Chemistry – Hanoi University of Industry (FC - HaUI) It is hoped that this study will lay a foundation on which subsequent research into this matter is based and developed

1.2 Aims of the study

Firstly, this research is carried out in order to investigate the reality of applying role-play activities in teaching speaking skills to 1st-year students at the Faculty of Chemistry – Hanoi University of Industry Additionally, it is planned to explore students and teachers’

attitude towards role-play activities as well as the difficulties in using these activities in improving speaking skills

1.3 Scope of the study

Within the scope of a graduation paper and due to the limitation of time, the study is confined to the Faculty of Chemistry, Hanoi University of Industry with focus on first-year chemistry majors Moreover, although role-play activities could be used extensively in different contexts and for different purposes, the study is dealing with role-play in developing speaking skills only

1.4 Significance of the study

The study is carried out with the intention to provide teachers of English at FC – HaUI with a deeper understanding of using role-play activities in teaching speaking skills In addition, it is hoped that the study will be of great significance in helping teachers find an effective way to increase their students’ participation in speaking lessons as well as supply them with successful communication outside classrooms

1.5 Methods of the study

Questionnaires and interviews will be utilized to collect data for the whole paper After completing questionnaires, those who are willing to give further response on the issue will be invited to take part in semi-structured interviews

1.6 Design of the study

The thesis consists of four chapters as follows:

Chapter 1 provides a general introduction

Chapter 2 is an attempt to review some theoretical background for the study

Chapter 3 presents the methodology of the study Chapter 4 is the conclusion of the study

CHAPTER II - LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Communicative Language Teaching & Cooperative Learning 2.1.1 Characteristics of Communicative Language Teaching

The communicative approach is usually characterized as a broad approach to teaching rather than as a teaching method As such, it is most often defined as lists of general principles One of the most recognized of these lists is five features of CLT pointed out by Nunan:

- An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language

- The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation

- The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language, but also

on the Learning Management process

- An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning

- An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activities outside the classroom

(David Nunan, 1991) These five principles show that the communicative approach focuses on the needs and desires of their learners Based on these principles of CLT, it can be concluded that any teaching practice that helps students develop their communicative competence in an authentic context is deemed an acceptable and beneficial form of instruction

2.1.2 Cooperative Learning (CL)

CL has received much attention of many researchers and become popular over the last decade In general, CL is one instructional strategy which is under the learner – centered

approach

In general, CL has been proven to be effective for all types of students because it promotes learning and fosters respect and friendships among diverse groups of students

Students in cooperative classrooms achieve many social and academic benefits as Slavin

(1987) stated: “Cooperative classrooms are classrooms where students are likely to attain

higher levels of achievement, to increase time on task, to build cross-ethnic friendships, to experience enhanced self-esteem, to build life-long interaction and communication skills, and

to master the habits of mind (critical, creative and self-regulated) needed to function as productive members of society.”

2.2 Role-play in developing speaking skills

In defining role-play, the writer views that role play is a technique which involves fantasy or imagination to be someone else or to be ourselves in a specific situation for a while, improvising dialogue and creating a real world in scenario It aims at encouraging the students

to think and create, lets students develop and practice new language and behavioral skills in a relatively non-threatening setting, and can create the motivation and involvement necessary for learning to occur

In case of role play activities, according to Byrne (1986), role play can be grouped into two forms, scripted and unscripted role play

Holding different ideas from Byrne, in dividing types of role-play, Littlewood (1981) reported that role-play activities can be categorized into four types as follow: Role-playing controlled through cued dialogues, Role-playing controlled through cues and information, Role-playing controlled through situation and goals, Role-playing in the form of debate or discussion

2.2.3 Roles of teachers and students in role-play activities

In this kind of activities the teacher is less dominant but by no means less important than in the traditional classroom activities He is a facilitator of the communicative process in which he may play the roles of instructor of language items, organizer of the role-play activity, error-corrector, passive viewer, and consultant He may also take part in the role-play activities as a co-communicator, or observe the students’ performance for planning future activities

The roles of students have changed since the invention of Communicative Teaching Approach According to Morrow, (1977: 71), “the learner is now concerned with using

language, not English usage In order to do this, learners take on roles and interact with other learners who also have roles What they say is determined by the roles they play, their communicative intentions and the contribution of the other learners”

2.2.4 Significance of Role Play in Developing Speaking Skills

Role play is a technique which can develops students’ fluency in the target language, promotes students to interact with others in the classroom, increases motivation and makes the teaching-learning process more enjoyable

CHAPTER 3: THE STUDY

3.1 Setting of the study

The study was conducted at Hanoi University of Industry among first-years chemistry-majors whose English competence is of mixed levels Almost all of these students studied English at high school in traditional approaches which focus on grammar, vocabulary and reading Therefore their communicative competence, especially speaking is limited

3.2 The study 3.2.1 Type of research

This research is a survey research because it uses questionnaires to gather information

3.2.2 Participants

The study was conducted at Faculty of Chemistry, Hanoi University of Industry 360 students in total and twenty teachers were involved in the research

3.2.3 Data collection instruments

In order to collect sufficient, reliable, and valid information for the study,

questionnaires and interview were employed

3.2.4 Data collection procedure

Phase 1: all preparation for the data collections was made Piloting is essential since it can indicate problems or potential pitfalls

Phase 2: the researcher had a direct interaction with the respondents and delivered questionnaires to them After that, interviews with the participants were conducted in classrooms on campus

3.2.5 Data analysis procedure

Responses collected from different interviews were analyzed to compare interviewees’

opinions Discussion and comparison between the data from the interviews and those from the questionnaires were also made All the data were presented in table and bar charts for better illustration and explanations in a reader – friendly way to easily compare different variables in the same category

3.3 Results and Discussion 3.3.1 The current situation and participants’ attitude towards using role-play activities

in improving speaking skills

The results of the study reveal that students often have opportunities to take part in role-play activities and different kinds of role-play are employed in speaking lessons In general, role-play is popular to both students and teachers because it not only helps to improve students’ speaking skills but also meets the demand of learning English for communications

However, teachers and students show different interest in different kinds of RP While students are in favor of role-playing controlled through cues and information, teachers often prefer to use playing through cued dialogues The reason may lie in the fact that role-playing controlled through cues and information is neither too easy nor too difficult to students

so they find it interesting; whereas teachers may underestimate students’ level in choosing

role-playing through cued dialogues

The findings of the survey also show that when conducting role-play activities, in order

to involve students in the activity, many teachers go round to check students’ performance and keep them on the right track, which is highly appreciated by the students The teachers also help less able students by giving them some clues The direct interviews with teachers indicate that checking students to ensure their going on the right track can prevent any

misunderstanding so that students can fulfill their tasks successfully

To sum up, both teachers and students have positive evaluation of and favorable response to role-play activities conducted to improve students’ speaking skills at the Faculty

of Chemistry, HaUI Nevertheless, there is still a small gap between teachers’ practice and

students’ expectations in the implementation of role-play activities

3.3.2 Participants’ difficulties in using role-play and their expectations for more effective role-play activities

According to the data collected from the survey, teachers have some difficulties during the implementation of role-play activities These include involving all students in the activity, encouraging students to use the target language in class, selecting or designing suitable activities and managing the class Among those difficulties, teachers always find getting all the students involved in the activity very hard to be done Possible explanations to these troubles might be the large size of classes and students’ mixed ability in a class However, from the researcher’s point of view, the reasons may also lie in the teachers’ low proficiency and management skill

For students, their biggest problem is poor linguistic competence which prevents them from taking part in role-play activities productively This results from the fact that HaUI students are non-English majors Moreover, they are used to studying English in traditional approach in which students are passive in classroom activities When they are unconfident of their English proficiency, they cannot do their task effectively

In order for role-play to be fully employed, teachers expect changes in both students’

participation and administrators’ actions Actually, administrators hold the right to categorize students into English classes and this division directly affects the teaching quality Too many students of different levels in one class make it impossible for teachers to monitor the activity well Therefore, if there were smaller classes with students of similar English proficiency, teachers’ work would be more effective In addition, students’ participation is a significant factor contributing to the success of role-play activities

Besides, students expect for better support and help from the teacher during the activity They also want their teachers to clarify the instructions and provide them with