(Skkn 2023) guiding students to use some effective strategies for self study and some motivative activities to develop knowledge and skills for 10th form students at nam yen thanh high school

Through my teaching experience and lesson attendance at Nam Yen Thanh High School, I realize that a lot of students at my school, a rural area, are very passive in learning, they only co

TABLE OF CONTENT

1 The real state of learning and using English at Nam

Yen Thanh High school

A - INTRODUCTION

I REASON FOR CHOOSING THE TOPIC

Motivating students to apply language in life when studying foreign languages is the priority aim that the teachers want to obtain Through my teaching experience and lesson attendance at Nam Yen Thanh High School, I realize that a lot of students at my school, a rural area, are very passive in learning, they only concern about what are in the examinations So, the students can‟t use the language effectively in their daily life The question is that how we can get students more involved and interested in what they have learnt and help them use language skills, especially speaking skills

I am teaching at grade 10 with new text book (global success), I realize this book is very useful for students to develop their skills Especially, in project periods, if the teacher knows how to promote students‟ creativities and their self- study, students will try their best to know and use the language more Through using teaching project-based approach, teachers can help students use the language they have learned outside the class effectively

For those reasons above, I choose the topic: “Guiding students to use some effective strategies for self-study and some motivative activities to develop knowledge and skills for 10 th form students at Nam Yen Thanh High School through project periods”

II AIMS OF THE STUDY

I do this research to investigate how students at Nam Yen Thanh High School use the language knowledge they have learnt in daily life and to promote students to develop skills by studying themselves through guiding of the teacher, build and develop learning environment of foreign language to 10th form students at school

III DUTIES OF THE STUDY

The study will focus on how some activities are well applied to 10th form students

at my school to motivate their self- study in the purpose of using language naturally

IV OBJECT OF THE STUDY

This research study was conducted at Nam Yen Thanh High School The subjects of this study were students at three classes 10A1 and 10A4 and 10C1 In order to collect data needed for this study, documents and questionnaires were the main instruments used

V METHODS OF THE STUDY

- I guide students some ways to develop their abilities in using languages in life and promote their awareness of self- study through the project periods

- I have analyzed the result and the advantages and difficulties that students encountered

- I have investigated and asked my colleagues‟ evaluation and students‟ comments

- I have applied English project- based approach

B CONTENT

I THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Learning strategies are commonly defined as the operations or processes which are consciously (or unconsciously) selected and employed by the learners to learn a target language or facilitate a language task (White 1999, cited in Hurd & Lewis

2008, p.9) Aside from that, Chabot (1987) defines learning strategies as techniques, approaches or deliberate actions that students take in order to facilitate the learning and recall of both linguistic and content area information In addition, Oxford (1990, p.8) points out learning strategies are specific actions taken by learners to help their own learning to make the learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective and more transferable and the use of appropriate language learning strategies is a major contribution for development of communicative competence By employing the right strategies, the process of learning the language will improve significantly Language learning strategies constitute a useful tool kit for active and conscious learning and these strategies pave the way toward greater language learning proficiency (Dornyei, 2005) Thus, learning strategies are among the main factors that help to determine how and how well learners learn a foreign language Studies by O‟Malley and Chabot (1989) and

Gu and Johnson (1996) also prove that successful learners made use of combinations of strategies Self-study is a method of learning where students take charge of their own studying by finding out the knowledge through internet, newspaper, television, without direct supervision This allows the student to take control of how, what, when, and where they learn and are active to develop skills

in using language

Whereas, there are numerous advantages of motivative activities They are not just time-filling activities but have a great educational value Weirs (1994) says that “in the easy, relaxed atmosphere, which is created by motivative activities such as using games, students remember things faster and better” Using motivative activities in classes, teachers have a chance to help students learn, practice, recall specific language materials in a pleasant and entertaining way These activities are obviously useful, especially in speaking classes According to Hansen (1994), motivative activities are highly entertaining, and they can give shy students more opportunity to express their opinions and feelings Similarly, Lewis

(1999) believes that “the promoting activities makes the reasons for speaking plausible even to reluctant children.” Even shy students can participate in lesson positively and they are not aware of they are studying, which do not make the lessons stressful to the students

Hence, this present study was undertaken to further explore the learning strategies used by students outside class and the motivative activities used in class

in developing students‟ knowledge and skill It is expected that knowing more about the language learning strategies combined with motivative activities in class will enable both teachers and students to find better solutions for the problems that students face in improving their oral ability

II PRACTICAL BACKGROUND

1 The real state of learning and using English at Nam Yen Thanh High school

- Most of the students are passive, just learn grammar and words for some examinations and cannot use language to communicate in class or outside class

- Some students feel shy and unconfident when speaking English Only few some best students can use the language quite fluently when speaking

- Environment of learning English is not promoted because students think this subject is very difficult with them

2 The solution: Guiding students to use some effective strategies for study and some motivative activities to develop knowledge and skills for 10 th form students at Nam Yen Thanh High School through project periods

self-I apply language learning strategies to design the tasks for students in project periods to promote the self- study for them The learning strategies are:

+ Memory strategies: help learners store and retrieve new information

+ Cognitive strategies: enable learners to understand and produce new language

by many different means

+ Compensation strategies: aid learners in overcoming knowledge gaps and continuing to communicate authentically

+ Affective strategies: help develop self- confidence

+ Metacognitive strategies: help learners to regulate their own cognitive abilities and to focus, plan and evaluate their process as they move toward communicative competence

+ Social strategies: learn with others, provide increased interaction and more empathetic understanding

The main goal of constantly using strategies is to become communicatively competent

To achieve high performance with a project, students should have a good balance

in the learning and practicing strategies that they used and maintain their habits daily That means students should employ the most suitable strategies with much the same degree of frequency

But with the level of my students, I choose some other techniques and activities to motivate them to complete a project From these activities, students will know how to apply English outside the class and how to present their idea about an issue in English

In English 10, students have ten projects that they have to complete To have

an effective project, the teacher should guide students to study themselves and give some motivative activities for developing knowledge and skills So, I designed 6 types of activities in my process of teaching to make students apply English effectively after they have studied each unit The demand to complete a project is:

- Students work in groups (From 2- 4 groups) or in pair

- Teacher gives out the ways to make project for each unit, about two, three or four activities for each project Each group can draw to choose their duty in the project

- Teacher guides students to find out the information themselves and gives some suggestions for them to complete their projects through sources of internet, newspapers and books

- Teacher and students give out the evaluation to remark the students‟ presentation

- Each project will be prepared in one or two weeks and will be presented from 8 to

15 minutes

- These are some guiding the teacher asks students to do:

+ Organizing a competition: The teacher will organize a competition with some

activities such as: singing English songs, answering the questions, playing games,

designing something … about the topic

+ Recording videos: Students will record their speaking about the topic by camera of their mobile phone And they will show this record before the class -+Presentation: Students make PowerPoints slides or make a presentation with

Cava software about the topic they learn One or two students in each group will present about the project before the class

+ Brainstorming: Students can draw pictures about the topic and write down their

ideas by brainstorming or make the mind map and present before the class

+ Doing a survey: Students can make a survey about the topic and then make a

conclusion for this survey

+ Mapped dialogue: Students can make a mini - dialogue depending on some

suggestions (word cues, pictures )

During the process of practicing, teacher notes students about the pronunciation of

words, linking words (stand- up, look- at, it’s my friend ), or intonation of the

sentences and encourage them trying to avoid the hesitation, pause in speaking

(English, English or E-n-English )

And here are the uses of these activities in real lessons

2.1 Organizing a competition: (Applied in unit 1, unit 10)

* Unit 1: Family life

a Aim of activity: This activity is expected to motivate students use English

through organizing a competition among groups Through the contest, Students will learn English structures, vocabularies and cultures It is also a good chance for students to show their interest and talent then make them more confident

b Time of activity at class: 8 minutes for each group

c Way of organizing: group work

d Preparation: The teacher divides the class into 4 groups Each group will

practice to be able to sing an English song about family (love, relationship, mother, father…) And the students from groups search the information about the family day in Viet Nam, the UK, America and Korea at home The information should be about the place, the time, the reason, the activities of this day in each country Teacher also choose two students in class to make MC The MC have responsibilities in presenting the competitions

The teacher can guide some English songs for them to choose or they can choose other songs that they like

Mama – II Divo

Just the Two of Us -Will Smith

Hey Brother- Avicii

Remember When- Alan Jackson

The Best Day- Taylor Swift

e Procedure:

- Two MC will give 4 ballots for the leaders from 4 groups The leader will choose

a ballot to know the task they will do today

Ballot 1 : Sing an English song about family and answer the question about the family day in the UK

Ballot 2 : Sing an English song about family and answer the question about the family day in Viet Nam

Ballot 3 : Sing an English song about family and answer the question about the family day in Korea

Ballot 4 : Sing an English song about family and answer the question about the family day in American

- Two MC give out the way of giving mark The Judge is the teacher

Singing English song: 5 points

Answering five questions: 5 points (one correct answer they will get one point)

Questions: 1, Where is the Family Day in… celebrated?

2, When is it celebrated?

3, When was it first celebrated?

4, Why is it celebrated?

5, What do people often do to celebrate the day?

- The students in each group take part in the competitions

- The teacher will decide the winner group and ask the class to find out the students singing the best for awarding

These are some pictures of the competition

2.2 Recording videos (Applied in unit 2, unit 7)

* Unit 2: Humans and the environment

a Aim of activity: Lack of self- confidence is a challenge to speak anything So,

this activities with the aim of improving students‟ confidence day by day by recording what they did for a greener environment

- Students record their own speaking by cameras of their mobile phones They can

do the task in groups The topics of their video is about the activities that they do to

make their school cleaner They will hand in their products to the teachers and get comments for their speaking

This is an interesting activity which gives students more chance to practice

speaking and self- study at home

b Time of activity at class: 8 minutes for each group

c Way of organizing: group work

d Preparation: The teacher divides the class into 3 groups And ask each group

to record their activities for making their school cleaner at the weekend time

Group 1: Recording the activities about the collecting rubbish in their school and

sweeping their school yard

Group 2: Recording the activities about cleaning the streets around their school Group 3: Recording the activities about taking care of the parterre flower, trees,

and planting more flowers

-The teacher guide students how to record The recording includes the name of activity, time, place, reasons and the results

- Each group will choose a leader to introduce about their work

- Each group will show their recording before the class

- The teacher and the students from other group can make some questions to comment the activities and the record of students The questions may be:

+ How do you feel after you make environment around you cleaner?

+ Why should we clean our environment?

+ What more activities should we do for fresh air around us?

+ What kind of volunteer work about protecting environment in the future will you do?

This is an example about the recording of group 1:

All students from group say greeting to the audiences

Kieu Anh : Hello every one, my name is Kieu Anh, comes from group 1, class

10C1 Today I am very happy to be on behalf of my group to introduce about our group work in cleaning our environment As you see that our friends are collecting rubbish in our school- Nam Yen Thanh high school on Saturday afternoon after their studying They look very cheerful Now I will ask some students from my group about their work

Kieu Anh : Loc, what are you doing?

Loc: I’m colleting the rubbish in our school

Kieu Anh : How do you feel?

Loc: I feel very happy because I think this work is very useful

Kieu Anh: Thank you

Kieu Anh: Now Hang, do you often volunteer to collect the rubbish?

Hang: Of course, This is my pleasure I think collecting the litter can help me feel

more responsible with our environment

Kieu Anh: Thanks, Hang

Yes, let’s ask Phuoc, a boy in our group

Kieu Anh: Do you think cleaning the school is your responsibility?

Phuoc: That’s right All students should make our school as well as other places

cleaner day by day

Kieu Anh: Oh, I think you are right Thank you very much

And this is Thuong- a very hard-working student in our group Thuong, can I ask you a question?

Thuong: ok

Kieu Anh: Do you think we should clean some other places such as park, market? Thuong: I think that we should have many green days for a very cleaner

environment

Kieu Anh : That’s a good idea, thank you

Kieu Anh: We can see that the school is very clean with no rubbish We all very

happy as we have done a very meaningful work for our school on Sunday In the future we’ll try to collect litter in the parks, in the sea or in the market for an eco- living place

This is an example about the recording of group 2:

All students from group say greeting to the audience

Quynh Anh: Good afternoon everyone My name is Quynh Anh, come from class

10C1, a member of group 2 I’m very glad to talk about my group work today We are cleaning the street around our school- Nam Yen Thanh high school After studying I with my friends am intending to make the street very clean here You can see a lot of students sweeping and collecting the rubbish in the street They work very hard and they look very satisfied with this work Now I want to ask some students’ feeling

Quynh Anh : Khanh Huyen, do you feel glad with this work?

Khanh Huyen : Yes, I do I think this work is very meaningful It not only makes

our environment cleaner but also educate our awareness of protecting our living thing

Quynh Anh : Thanks, Khanh Huyen

Quynh Anh: This is Pham Li, she is very hard working Let’s ask her a question:

What kind of volunteer work you want to do more?

Pham Li: I want to plant more trees, more flowers in our school, in our village

and collect the rubbish in the river near my house

Quynh Anh: Yes, it’s very meaningful for us, thank you

Quynh Anh: Let’s ask Anh Tho- a very hard -working student in my group

Anh Tho, do you often clean the street in your village?

Anh Tho: Yes, of course, I often clean my street in my village when I have free

time because I think our cleaner environment will help us have a very healthy life

Quynh Anh: Thank you very much, Anh Tho

Quynh Anh : You see making our environment cleaner and not polluted is the

responsibility of all people If we always protect our environment, I believe the air and the surrounding are always fresh, not harmful to our health

Yes, now we look the streets It’s very clean I think all of students are very happy because they’ve done a very useful thing

I hope volunteer work for environment will be made by many people in the future

This is an example about the recording of group 3:

All students from group say greeting to the audience

Vu Thuong: Hi every one, my name is Vu Thuong, comes from group 3, class

10C1 Now I am here to be on behalf of my group to introduce about my group work in taking care of flowers and trees in my school You see that our friends are cutting the grass in the parterre flower and watering the trees in our school- Nam Yen Thanh high school on Sunday afternoon They work very hard and they look cheerful Now, let’s ask them some questions

Vu Thuong: Duyen, what are you doing?

Duyen: I’m cleaning the parterre flower in my school

Vu Thuong : Are you satisfied with?

Duyen : I feel very happy because I think this work is very useful for a beautiful

campus of our school

Vu Thuong : Thank you

Vu Thuong : Now Tuan, do you often plant flowers in your village and at home

like this?

Tuan: Of course, This is my pleasure I think planting flowers and trees will make

our environment cleaner and fresher

Vu Thuong : Thanks, Tuan

Vu Thuong: Now, let’s ask Anh Thu, a very hard-working student in my class

Anh Thu, do you think the campus of our school will be very nice after we clean and plant more flowers?

Anh Thu: Sure, we should make our school fresher and nicer

Vu Thuong: thanks a lot, Anh Thu

Vu Thuong: Look at some boys, they are watering the trees in our school This is a

very useful work for protecting the lug in our school Now, I will ask a boy He is Duy

Vu Thuong: Duy, Are you happy with this work?

Duy : Yes, I’m glad with this because it makes our school greener day by day

Vu Thuong: Do you know when we often plan trees in our school?

Duy: All the teachers and students plant trees in Spring for a clean environment

Vu Thuong: Thanks, You very much, Duy

Vu Thuong : We can see that the flowers and trees has just been taken care of, so

they look greener We all very happy as we have done a very meaningful work for our school In the future we’ll try to make our school cleaner and cleaner as well

as other places for an eco-environment

Link video of group 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbubZpjRaVk Link video of group 2: https://youtu.be/kUpRBT2Gklk

Link video of group 3: https://studio.youtube.com/video/El-IzaQGAgw/edit Some pictures from videos

2.3 Presentation: (Applied in Unit 3, Unit 9)

* Unit 3: Music

a Aim of activity: This activity is used to help students present their

understanding and knowing about the Traditional music in Viet Nam

b Time of activity at class: 8 minutes for each group (Include presenting and

feedback the classmates‟ questions)

c Way of organizing: group work

d Preparation: - Teachers divides the class into 4 groups and ask each group to

find out the information about the traditional music in Viet Nam by making power point slides Group 1 presents about Quan Ho folk song, Group 2 presents about Bolero, Group 3 presents about folk song Group 4 presents about Cai Luong The presentation includes some information such as:

+ when/ where it started

+ instruments

+ types

+ artists/performers

+ costumes

+ some famous songs

+ How they feel when listening to this kind of music

The group must find out the leader, the presenters (2 presenters), the designers and all students in each group find out the information and pictures from books,

newspapers and sources of internet During making their projects, they ask teacher

if they have difficulties

There are 5 parts in a presentation that the teacher can introduce to students:

Part 1: Welcoming to the audience

- Good morning/ afternoon everyone Let me introduce myself; my name is … member of group …

- Hi, everyone I’m…I’m from group… Good to see you all

- On behalf of my group, I’d like to welcome you My name is…

Part 2: Introducing the topic

- Today I am here to present to you about…

- I would like to present to you…

- I would like to present to you…

- As you all know, today I am going to talk to you about…

- I am delighted to be here today to tell you about…

Part 3: Introducing the content of the presentation

- In the first part…

- Then in the second part…

- Finally, I’ll go on to talk about…

Or:

- I’ll start with / Firstly I will talk about… / I’ll begin with…

- then I will look at …

- Next, … and finally, …

Part 4: Finishing the presentation and thanking the audience

- That concludes our presentation

- That’s the end of our presentation today

- Thank you for listening

- Thank you for your attention

- Well that’s it from me Thanks very much

- May I thank you all for being such an attentive audience

Part 5: Making questions

Now we have some minutes for questions and discussion

So, now I’d be very interested to hear your comments

And now if there are any questions, I would be pleased to answer them The teacher can guide students how to lead to the pictures by these ways:

- This picture shows you…

- Take a look at this…

- If you look at this, you will see…

- As you can see…

- This clearly shows …

- From this, we can understand how / why…

e Procedure at class:

- Teacher asks each group to show their slides and present before the class the

topic that they prepare at home

- The comment from teachers and students about the content, the slides, the

pictures, the presentation, the accuracy and fluency in speaking about the project of each group Teacher decides mark for the group

These are some pictures about the slide and presentation of students in class

Some pictures about students who are asking the questions

The design of group 2

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFg16lbVyg/bqaFjNc00wiaStMFsGmxhg/ed it?utm_content=DAFg16lbVyg&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium= link2&utm_source=sharebutton

The design of group 3

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFR7Gk707k/gmxJEjFF6D6J05h-dvUMHw/view?utm_content=DAFR7Gk707k&utm_campaign=designshare& utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

The design of group 4

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFRvjIJXYk/8U_rXihGBzKiiq1CoTq5gQ/vi ew?utm_content=DAFRvjIJXYk&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_

2.4 Brainstorming: (Applied in unit 4, unit 5)

* Unit 4: For a better community

a Aim of activity: This activity is used with the hope that students can use

English to tell about their plan of volunteer work through drawing the pictures and

a diagram

b Time of activity at class: 6 minutes for each group

c Way of organizing: group work

d Preparation: The teacher divides the class into 4 groups Each group will draw

a picture to tell about their volunteer work in the future The picture should include some information and small pictures such as: Name of volunteer project, where it

is carried out, main activities, who will benefit from

e Procedure:

- Each group will choose one presenter to tell about their picture Their talking must answer the following questions:

+ What is the volunteer project about?

+ What are the aims of the project?

+ Where is it carried out?

+ Who takes part in the project?

+ What are the main activities of the project?

+ Who will benefit from the project?

- Other students can ask some questions for each group to response

- The teacher will decide the mark for each group (Picture + Presentation)

These are some pictures about this activity