An investigation into the participation of high school students in speaking lessons = khảo sát về sự tham gia của học sinh trong giờ học nói tiếng anh tại trường thpt

LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 : Work arrangement used in the speaking lessons Table 2.2 : Opportunities for the students in class 10A1 to participate in five lessons Table 2.3 : Opportunities

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VÕ THỊ KIM CÚC

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE PARTICIPATION

OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN SPEAKING

LESSONS

(KHẢO SÁT VỀ SỰ THAM GIA CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG GIỜ HỌC

NÓI TIẾNG ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT)

GRADUATION THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY

VINH – 2009

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For the completion of this thesis, I have been fortunate to receive invaluable contributions from many people

First, I especially would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs Vũ Thị Việt Hương, M.A., who provides me with her precious knowledge, assistance, consideration and encouragement so that I can finish this thesis

I must be grateful to the teachers of Foreign Languages Department, Vinh University who supply me with good conditions to conduct this thesis

My thanks also go to 100 students and 5 Vietnamese teachers of English at Tran Phu high school for their participation in my survey questionnaires and semi-structured interviews

Finally yet importantly, I am greatly indebted to my family and my friends for their encouragement and support to my process of writing the thesis

Vinh, May, 2009

Võ Thị Kim Cúc

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ALM : Audio Lingual Method

CLT : Communicative Language Teaching

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 : Work arrangement used in the speaking lessons

Table 2.2 : Opportunities for the students in class 10A1 to participate in five lessons

Table 2.3 : Opportunities for the students in class 10A3 to participate in five lessons

Table 2.4 : Frequency of activities in the speaking lessons

Table 2.5 : Results of survey questionnaires

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ii

LIST OF TABLES iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the Study 1

2 Aims of the Study 2

3 Scope of the Study 3

4 Methods of the Study 3

5 Design of the Study 3

PART II: CONTENTS 5

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5

1.1 Nature of Speaking and Speaking Sub-skills 5

1.1.1 Nature of Speaking 5

1.1.2 Speaking Sub-skills 6

1.2 Teaching Speaking in Communicative Language Teaching 7

1.2.1 Communicative Language Teaching 7

1.2.2 Principles of Teaching Speaking in Communicative Language Teaching 8

1.2.2.1 Principles for the Beginning Levels 9

1.2.2.2 Principles for the Intermediate and Advanced Levels 10

1.3 Speaking Activities 10

1.3.1 Characteristics of a Successful Speaking Activity 10

1.3.2 Problems with Speaking Activities 11

1.3.3 Solutions of the Problems with Speaking Activities 12

1.4 Classroom Communicative Tasks 13

1.5 Types of Communicative Activities in Speaking Classes 15

1.5.1 Oral Drills 16

1.5.2 Information Gap 16

1.5.3 Communication Games 17

1.5.4 Discussions 18

1.5.5 Questionnaires 19

1.5.6 Simulation and role-play 20

1.5.7 Problem-solving activities 22

1.5.8 Talking about yourself 22

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 24

2.1 Research questions 24

2.2 Research setting 24

2.3 Description of subjects 24

2.4 Description of data collection instruments 25

2.4.1 Classroom observations 25

2.4.2 Interviews with the teachers 26

2.4.3 Survey questionnaires 27

2.5 Procedure 27

2.6 Preliminary results and data analysis 29

2.6.1 Results of classroom observations 29

2.6.1.1 Work arrangement used in the speaking lessons 29

2.6.1.2 A fair opportunity for the students 29

2.6.1.3 The activities used in the speaking lessons 32

2.6.2 Results of interviews 33

2.6.3 Results of survey questionnaires 35

CHAPTER 3: MAJOR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 38

3.1 Major findings 38

3.1.1 Students' language anxiety and low self-esteem 38 3.1.2 An unfair opportunity for the students 39 3.1.3 Frequently using guided oral practice activities and the limitation of communicative activities used in the lessons 39 3.2 Limitations of the thesis and suggestions for further studies 40

PART III: CONCLUSION 42 REFERENCES

APPENDIX I APPENDIX II

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the Study

English has become the language of international trade and transport Most planes traveling from one country to another used it to talk with airports All ships sailing on the oceans call for help by radio in it It has been said that 60 percent of the world’s radio broadcasts and 70 percent of the world’s mail are in English An international sport meets, at meeting of scientists from the corners of the earth, English is the language most commonly used and most widely understood English has in fact become the language of international cooperation in science and technology The most advanced results in space, nuclear and computer research are published in it A scientist who speaks and writes English is in closer touch with the scientists in other countries than one who does not

Language is a useful tool for human beings to communicate with one another Thus, learning a language means learning how to use language to communicate successfully For most people, the ability to speak a language

is synonymous with knowing that language since speech is the most basic means of human communication The Communicative Approach teaching requires developing language learners' four skills: speaking, listening,

reading and writing However, "speaking in a second or foreign language has often been viewed as the most demanding of the four skills" (Bailey and Savage (1994:7)) And Bailey and Savage also suggest that: "speaking is also an activity requiring the integration of many subsystems…all these factors continue to make speaking a second or foreign language a formidable task for language learners…Yet for many people, speaking is seen as the center skill" For that reason, we would like to carry out this

particular study to help teachers to develop their students' speaking skills Certainly that there are many ways to develop learners' speaking skill, but it is still discussing to choose an appropriate way to teach Today,

we are trying to teach English in a communicative way followed center instruction; communicative activities certainly become a necessary part in language teaching, however, they have not been exploited by the teachers so far In addition, although the frequency of different kinds of work arrangements used affects the participation of the students in speaking class, the teachers at high school seem not to know how to apply them the most effectively Therefore, we found interesting and useful to have a specific research into the participation of the students in speaking lessons,

learner-we think that learner-we can make use of work arrangement as learner-well as communicative activities applied in speaking classes because they can involve students in and make them more active and confident when using English to communicate in class For this reason, they are useful and helpful for teachers at high school to teach their students' speaking skill

For the reasons above, we decided to choose the topic: "An Investigation into the Participation of High School Students in Speaking Lessons"

2 Aims of the Study

The Study reported in this thesis aims to:

 Investigate the reasons why students are passive and lack of confidence in speaking English in classroom

 Study different kinds of work arrangements that can be used in a speaking class

 Make some suggestions for teaching and learning English speaking skill at high school

3 Scope of the Study

The Study only covers speaking skill That does not mean that the other skills are not concerned about In fact, the oral ability of the students

is one prominent problem that makes the teachers take into consideration Especially, the students' passiveness and their lack of confidence are the most common factors that contribute to their inability to communicate in English It is the fact that the students usually feel embarrassed and nervous when interacting with other people Furthermore, they usually keep quite, take a passive role or speak so softly that no one can hear in oral practice Therefore, this Study only focuses on identifying the causes of the above-mentioned problems

4 Methods of the Study

There are varieties of measures that are available for the research However, in the narrow scope of the Study, we only use some of them They are:

 Descriptive method

 Qualitative method

 Quantitative method

 Analysis method

5 Design of the Study

Except for the acknowledgements and the table of contents, the Study consists of three main parts, a list of references and appendices

Part I: Introduction The Introduction deals with the rationale, aims, methods, scope and

design of the Study

Part II: Contents

This part consists of three chapters Chapter 1 deals with theoretical background that includes nature of speaking and speaking sub-skills, teaching speaking in communicative language teaching, speaking activities, classroom communicative tasks and types of communicative activities in speaking classes Chapter 2, the study, presents the methodology adopted to collect data for the research It contains research questions of the study, research setting, description of subjects, descriptions of data collection instruments, procedure and preliminary results and data analysis Chapter 3 describes the major findings and discussions

Part III: Conclusion

This is the final part of the thesis It summarizes what have been presented in the thesis

The study ends up with “References”, with a list of sources of materials and “Appendices”, with the questionnaires of the survey

PART II: CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 Nature of Speaking and Speaking Sub-skills 1.1.1 Nature of Speaking

Speaking is one of the features that distinguishes us from most, if not all, animals because it is the common way to convey ideas from one person

to another through language Language is a complicated phenomenon and language learning is a complicated process, so speaking a foreign language

is a complex skill

Of all the four skills, the speaking seems intuitively the most important Ur (1996:56) states people who know a language are referred to

as: "speakers of that language as if speaking included all other kinds of knowing and many if not most foreign language learners are primarily interested in learning to speak"

Speaking involves language production and is therefore often referred to as productive skills Moreover, according to Byrne (1976:8)

says that "speaking is a two-way process between speaker(s) and listener(s) involving the productive skills of understanding" Byrne (1995:10) gives

the following diagram to show what happens in a speech situation and incidentally, therefore, what is involved in oral ability:

Initiate Speak

Listen

In some situations, one person may do all the speaking, so the speaker initiates and simply keeps up the flow of speech, for example giving a lecture, instructions or directions Normally, however, as in a conversation although one person initiates, the speaker and the listener are constantly changing the roles and consequently speaking involves responding to what has been regarded In this case, speaking is an integral part of listening So speaking belongs to integrated skills

1.1.2 Speaking Sub-skills

In order to use language skills, competent use of a language need a number of sub-skills Bygate (1987:6) suggests that speaking consists of four sub-skills that are:

 Motor-perceptive skill

 Interaction skill

 Compensatory strategies

 Production skill Motor-perceptive skill concerns grammatical competence because it implies mastery of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and structure of sentences This is regarded as a fundamental factor Interaction skill refers

to general knowledge of the interaction, which relates to social-linguistic

competence Bygate (1987:7) claims that: "Interaction skills include using knowledge and the basic motor perceptive skills to achieve communication and they involve making decision about communication" Compensatory

strategies are concerned with strategic competence and the skill to produce what speakers want to say with considering discourse is called production skill in speaking

The four sub-skills above have a very close and subsidiary relationship, which makes up the complete speaking skill Lewis and Hill (1992) also indicate that language skills, both receptive and productive, need to be broken into sub-skills and teaching needs to build from small units to larger, not leap from a detail to the whole

1.2 Teaching Speaking in Communicative Language Teaching 1.2.1 Communicative Language Teaching

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach to the

teaching of second and foreign languages that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of learning a language It is also referred to as “communicative approach to the teaching of foreign languages” or simply the “Communicative Approach”

As an extension of the notional-functional syllabus, CLT also places great emphasis on helping students use the target language in a variety of contexts and places great emphasis on learning language functions Unlike

the Audio Lingual Method (ALM), its primary focus is on helping learners create meaning rather than helping them develop perfectly grammatical structures or acquire native-like pronunciation This means that successfully learning a foreign language is assessed in terms of how well learners have developed their communicative competence, which can loosely be defined as their ability to apply knowledge of both formal and sociolinguistic aspects of a language with adequate proficiency to communicate

CLT is usually characterized as a broad approach to teaching, rather than as a teaching method with a clearly defined set of classroom practices

As such, it is most often defined as a list of general principles or features One of the most recognized of these lists is David Nunan’s (1991) five features of CLT:

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

2 The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation

3 The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on the Learning Management process

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

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

These five features are claimed by practitioners of CLT to show that they are very interested in the needs and desires of their learners as well as the connection between the language as it is taught in their class and as it used outside the classroom Under this broad umbrella definition, any teaching practice that helps students develop their communicativecompetence in an authentic context is deemed an acceptable and beneficial form of instruction Thus, in the classroom CLT often takes the form of

pair and group work requiring negotiation and cooperation between learners, fluency-based activities that encourage learners to develop their confidence, role-plays in which students practice and develop language functions, as well as judicious use of grammar and pronunciation focused activities

1.2.2 Principles of Teaching Speaking in Communicative Language Teaching

It is important to remember that the goal in language use is natural communication in which real information is transferred through speech According to Forseth, et.al (1996:35) divide the principles into two groups: principle for the beginning levels and the ones for the immediate and advanced levels

1.2.2.1 Principles for the Beginning Levels

First of all, the teacher should limit the objectives to avoid making students confused It means that the teacher should provide the students with enough structured practice so they can begin interacting at a basic level This will reduce students’ fear and encourage more speaking Later, more free production can come after structured practice

Secondly, the teacher should mix the speaking activities with comprehension work The teacher should have students listen to the teacher

or each other before they speak When students listen before they speak, it leads to speech that is more natural Also, comprehension work fosters an interaction between speaking and listening

The third principle is that the teacher should provide activities that involve dialogue and functional use of the language Language use should

be focused on rather than knowledge about language Functions involve a focus of meaning Dialogues are more concrete and controlled than less structured drills

Another principle is that the teacher should not emphasize the significance of mistakes because this encourages students to speak without fear of correction and this increases the focus on meaning and communication rather than grammatical correctness The correction should especially focus on problems affecting clear communication or language already taught to the students

One more principle is to state the purpose or goal of the activity to the students that provide a context or focus to help comprehension and allows the learners to concentrate on the task and understand why they doing it

1.2.2.2 Principles for the Intermediate and Advanced Levels

The first principle is to focus on and work toward real, spontaneous speech The teacher should avoid giving students form-based drills (repetitious or grammar-based exercises) and should remember real speech

is most often unrehearsed and practiced in order to reach that kind of speech

The second principle is to design activities that encourage natural interaction between speakers Human speech most often involves interaction which integrates speaking and listening

Next, the teacher should place students in pairs, triads or small groups Smaller groups, triads and pairs are student-centered This increases the quantity of speech spoken by the students and relieves their anxiety

Then, the teacher also should provide topics of interest to the students This fosters a focus on meaning and interesting topics increase student motivation Yet, it is good to ask students what they are most interested in

The last principle is that at the advanced level, especially in free production, the teacher should allow only speech in the target language This greatly increases the amount of English spoken Students may dislike this but should be discouraged from using their own language without the teacher’s permission

1.3 Speaking Activities 1.3.1 Characteristics of a Successful Speaking Activity

Classroom activities that develop learner's ability to express themselves through speech would therefore seem an important component

of a language course Successful speaking activities in class can result in great improvement of students' speaking skills The teacher should try to design and administer such activities As is discussed in Ur (1996:120), they have four characteristics

Firstly, students talk a lot As much as possible of the period of time allotted to the activity is in fact occupied by student talk This may seem obvious, but often most time is taken up with teacher talk or pauses

Secondly, 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

Thirdly, motivation is high Students 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

Finally, language is of an acceptable level Students express themselves in utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other, and of an acceptable level of language accuracy

In conclusion, if we want to have successful speaking activity or if

we want to get students talking, we need to meet all these above criteria

1.3.2 Problems with Speaking Activities

In spite of knowing the criteria to reach a successful speaking activity, the teacher often encounters many problems in getting students to talk in the classroom Ur (1996:121) discusses some following common problems

Inhibition is one of the problems with speaking activities Unlike reading, writing and listening activities, speaking requires some degree of real-time exposure to an audience Students 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

Furthermore, students have nothing to say Even if they are not inhibited, you often hear learners complain that they can not think of any thing to say: they have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should be speaking

One more problem is 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 talking time This problem is compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate while others speak very little or not at all

Mother tongue use is also a problem happening in speaking class In classes, where all, or a number of, the learners share the same mother tongue, they may end to use it because it is easier; and 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

1.3.3 Solutions of the Problems with Speaking Activities

Ur (1996:121) provides some suggested solutions to the problems above The first solution is using group work This increases the sheer amount of student talk going on in a limited period of time and also lowers the inhibitions of the students who are unwilling to speak in front of the full class It is true that group work means the teacher can not supervise all student speech, so that not all utterances will be correct, and students may occasionally slip into their native language; nevertheless, even taking into consideration occasional mistakes and mother tongue use, the amount of time remaining for positive, useful oral practice is still likely to be far more than in the full-class set-up

Next, the second suggested solution is basing the activity on easy language In general, the level of language needed for a discussion should

be lower than that used in intensive language-learning activities in the same class: it should be easily recalled and produced by the participants, so that they can speak fluently with the minimum of hesitation It is a good idea to teach or review essential vocabulary before the activity starts

Moreover, the teacher should make a careful choice and task to stimulate interest On the whole, the clearer the purpose of the discussion is the more motivated participants will be

Another solution is giving some instruction or training in discussion skills If the task is based on group discussion, then include instructions about participation when introducing it For example, tell learners to make sure that everyone in the group contributes to the discussion; appoint a chairperson to each group who will regulate participation

Finally yet importantly, the teacher should keep students speaking the target language You might appoint one of the group members as monitor, whose job is to remind participants to use the target language, and perhaps report later to the teacher how well the group managed to keep to

it Even if there is no actual penalty attached, the very awareness that someone is monitoring such lapses helps participants to be more careful However, when all is said and done, the best way to keep students speaking the target language is simply to be there yourself as much as possible, reminding them and modeling the language use yourself: there is

no substitute for nagging

1.4 Classroom Communicative Tasks

Nunan (1989) argues that the concept of the communicative task can provide a way of integrating the research on language learning and use as well as give practical effect to the research at the level of pedagogical action It is described as:

"A piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending,

manipulating, producing and interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form The task should also have a sense of completeness, being able to stand alone

as a communicative act in its own right"

(Nunan (1989:10))

Hedge (2000:61) sees communicative tasks as an "essential ingredient in a program but as part of a balance diet of accuracy and fluency work" It means a series of tasks can usefully provide the basic of a

program, in which case their selection, organization and sequencing will need to create opportunities for a focus on accuracy and input into the interlanguage system as well as fluency

Harmer (1991:49) indicates two types of speaking tasks: one-way information gap tasks in which the speaker has all the information, which must be conveyed to the listener, and two-way information gap tasks in which both participants must pool their information in order to complete the task successfully

Littlewood (1982:86) presents typical classroom activities used to teach speaking on the following diagram:

Structural activities Pre-communicative activities

(similar to the practice stage) Structural activities consist of structural exercises, focusing on grammatical system and on the ways in which linguistic items can be combined Quasi-communicative activities that consist of one or more typical conversation exchanges are intended to help students relate forms and structures to three typical kinds of sentence meanings: communicative function, specific meaning, and social context The second major type of activities, communicative one is also of two kinds: functional communication activities and social interaction activities

In the case of functional communication activities, the main purpose is that students should use the language they know in order to get meanings across

as effectively as possible Social interaction activities, on the other hand, involve exploiting simulation and role-playing

1.5 Types of Communicative Activities used in Speaking Class

Speaking has different aspects They are accuracy and fluency Accuracy involves the correct use of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation According to Bailey and Savage (1994:34), fluency can be

thought of as: "the ability to keep going when speaking spontaneously"

With the natural of spoken language which has been pointed above, the main goal in speaking and learning speaking skills will be oral fluency:

"the main ability to express oneself intelligibly, accurately and without too much hesitation" (Byrne (1986:9)) Several checklists of fluency activities

have been published For example, Klippel (1988) offers interview, guessing games, jigsaw tasks, questioning activities, ranking exercises, discussion games, values classification techniques, thinking strategies, problem-solving activities, role-play and simulation Harmer (1991) and Littlewood (1982) provide similar lists but all of these are categorized in different ways

1.5.1 Oral Drills

Drills are widely used for accuracy practice of new items Oral accuracy practice involves the repetition of a language pattern or patterns Repetition in accuracy practice is based on the principle substitution in a pattern Drill work is very useful because it provides opportunities for students to practice a new bit of language in the most controlled way In other words, drill gives students the opportunity for safe practice; accuracy can be focused on as the students get a chance to rehearse language Most drills can be adapted for pair work and group work However, they are usually controlled and therefore, they have limited potential Because they are repetitive and not very creative, they should not be used for too long or too frequently

1.5.2 Information Gap

The term "Information Gap" is mentioned by Wright, Betteridge and Bucky (1990:24) This term is widely used to describe features essential to communication in our daily life as Harmer (1983:95) states that

"Information gap is an ingredient in most real life communication" With

information gap activities, different students are given different parts information making up a whole Normally, there is worksheet A and B of everything Students will work in pairs; one will look at worksheet A while the other will look at worksheet B Because they have different information, there is a "gap" between them and in order to complete the task, they must share the information they have with each other by using English Communicative accuracy practice requires some forms of information gap Information gap can be designed to provoke the practice

of more or less specific items of language In fact, it is not easy to organize

it, the teacher may lose control of the class since the students are so curious that they want to look at each other's paper before completing the task

Therefore, the teacher should be careful when choosing to use information gap activities

1.5.3 Communication Games

Games which are designed to provoke communication between students frequently depend on an information gap so that one student has to talk to a partner in order to solve a puzzle, describe and draw (draw a picture), describe and arrange (put things in the right order) or find the differences (or similarities) between pictures, guess games Games often provide good fluency activities Students are put into situations in which they have to use all or any of language they process to complete a game-like task

Games are essential part of the teacher' equipment not only for the language practice they provide but also for the therapeutic effect they have They can be used at any stages of a lesson to provide amusing and challenging atmosphere and are especially useful at the end of a long day to help students feel cheerful about their English class Moreover, games are also very important activities in developing speaking skill for students in class For example, for guessing game, the "knower" has an object such as

a small ball in the box; the "guesser" must find what the object in the box is

by asking only "Yes/No questions" For instance, "Is it round?" or "Is it black?" The "knower" should limit the time and the number of questions to help improve tension and enjoyment Besides, the game usually needs simulating by some hints if it is rather difficult for students to guess in other games, different tricks or devices are used to make fluent speaking amusing

In order to process game, the teacher must know the rules, produce clear instructions and check them as well She/he should choose the games that are suitable for students' level and popular for the background

knowledge so that they are motivated to use English in games According

to Rivers (1983), communicative games make the classroom enjoyable and natural, and encourage the learners to focus on meaning rather than on form

of utterance

1.5.4 Discussions

There are three types of discussion activity They are the buzz group, controversial topics and the debate Discussion activity can help the teacher avoid difficulties when the students are reluctant to give an opinion in front

of the whole class, particularly if they can not think of anything to say or are not confident of the language All it means that students have a chance for quick discussions in small groups before some of them are asked to speak And the stress level of that eventual whole-class performance is reduced because the students have a chance to think of ideas and the language to express them with before being asked to talk in front of the whole class

A successful discussion consists of "full participation and high motivation" (Ur (1981:4)) The discussion gets successful or not depends

on if the teacher knows how to manage the class The teacher should pay attention to organizing discussions by using some techniques such as: putting students into group first, giving students a chance to speak and then give them a task Before setting any group discussions, teacher needs to consider for the best timing and the most appropriate topics Discussion activities are an important part of many lessons The main thing to remember is that proper organization can ensure their success, lack of it can provoke their failure Furthermore, this activity usually have students involved in, thus, the teacher must recognize when it should be stopped by giving limited time for students