Suggestions for organizing speaking activities in high school

STUDENTS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS ENGLISH SPEAKING ACTiViTy 24 1.. Activities in classroom 2.1 Pair work and group work 2.2 Accuracy work with the whole c1ass/ group work 2.3 Fluency work with

DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Student's code: 0171300

Ho Chi Minh City July, 2005

, -'-" "

j

In completing this graduation papers, I have received a lot of precious advice

as well as valuable help and encouragement from my professors, family and friends.

First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to HUFLIT University, especially to the professors and teachers in the Department of Foreign Languages, who gave me opportunity doing this graduation papers I also sincerely send my thankfulness to Mr. Vu Quoc Anh, M.A., a Vice Dean of Department of Foreign Languages, for his concern and encouragement I also would like to send my thanks

to Ms Bui thi Thanh Truc, M.A., for her very kind concern to my work.

I am extremely grateful to my adviser- Ms Vo Thi Van Nga for her useful advice and instructions Ms Van Nga is always patient, responsible and sympathetic

to me I really appreciated her encouragement, ideasas well as comments I would like to express my special gratitude to her.

lowe agenuine thank to my family members who always care for me and my work during the time I carried out this research They are my great source of

encouragement and motivation.

Next, my thanks should be sent to the vice-principal of Le Qui Don high school dir her support and to forty three students in class 10 C at this high school for their significant participation.

I NTRODUCTI ON 3

LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Rehearsal

2 Feedback

3 Engagement

1 Much learners' talk

2 High motivation

2 Accuracy work in pairs

3 Fluency work with the whole class

4 Fluency work in groups

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

A STUDENTS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS ENGLISH SPEAKING ACTiViTy 24

1 Students' attitude towards speaking English

2 Students' enthusiasm

3 Students' self-evaluation

1 Students' frequency of speaking English

2 Students' favorite types of speaking activities

3 Time and activities

4 Students' ideas

D.STUDENTS' OPINIONS TOWARDS THE ENGLISH EXPERIMENTAL

1 Requirements for the organizer - the teacher

2 Activities in classroom

2.1 Pair work and group work

2.2 Accuracy work with the whole c1ass/ group work

2.3 Fluency work with the whole class

3 Fluency work with the group work

1 English speaking clubs in high school

2 Extra-curriculum activities

Chapter VI:

CHAPTER I

Communication is an important activity considered a must in social life Inthe general trend of global integration nowadays, far and the most, the need ofexchanging relations among nations becomes so urgent Those activities occurred

in various forms with different purposes.lnternational language is a significant tool

in period of international integration to exchange and learn from each latestinformation, technology, scientific progress

No one can deny the important role of "oral communication" Along withthe speedy development of Information Technology that internet is more concrete,oral communication is one of the quickest means to help people understand andget closer to each other more easily

For the significant features of international language, English has become

an official subject in school at all levels In addition, English is also a compulsorysubject for important exams (graduation exams and entrance exams)

A few months ago, when reading an article- an educational research, withthe title "Foreign language in school- Why cannot students speak foreign languagewhile they have learnt it for 10 years:" ( page 7, Thanh Nien Newspaper 301,published on Wed, Oct, 27th, 2004), I paid much attention to this problem.Moreover, one month's practice in high school showed me much The 11 form

Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang

class I worked in was an outstanding one in the school I had expected them to be good at English as well as English speaking However, the reality was quite contrary I also had chances to work in a few classes from form 10 to form 12, some of them are what we call "selected classes" but the number of students who could produce English speaking fairly well was just 'a few Most of them weren't used to speaking in English and they had many difficulties in their speaking skill The fact is that they are good at grammar, reading comprehension or writing, but not speaking.

Last year, J read mx friend's research which showed thaLeven students in Engl isfLDepartment.did-not-speak -Engl ish-very-well.

I ,~'s a waste of time and chances JIlat after ten_years studying English, students still

can't speak English well.

I

Recently, I have heard about an English experimental textbook which has been put into teaching for the 10 form students in Le Qui Don high school I wanted to find that if it was interested by students or not.

For these above reasons, I would like to learn the actual state of those students about English speaking after one year's studying this experimental textbook Furthermore, seeking the answer for the question "How to organize English speaking activities successfully in high school?" is my last goal in carrying out this graduation papers.

This graduation papers begins with the introduction about the theme and this is expanded in the following chapters by a detailed analysis It then goes on

to show the method J used to research Basing on the finding from questionnaires collection, I will discuss and draw out the conclusion The final chapter makes

Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang

recommendations for speaking activities organizations and suggests possible ways

to improve students' speaking skill

and valuable for my later development

Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang

CHAPTER II

A Why should teacher (T) encourage students (5s) to do speaking activities?

should encourage students to do speaking activities They are:

1 Rehearsal:

2 Feedback:

are trying to use all and any languages they know T can see how the 5s are

speaking ability and what they need to do to improve it, and also they becomeconfident and satisfied, thus willing to study further

3 Engagement:

be motivated

Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang

Communication is also a form of speaking Encouraging Students to

production activities and Students can benefit from it

exercises

Harmer (1998:87) stated that good speaking activities should be motivated,

successful speaking activity as follows:

speaking activity

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3 Acceptable level of language accuracy:

4 Even participation:

A successful speaking activity should allow all Students to have a chance to

do much on speaking activities

kind of seating arrangement:

maintain eye contact with 5s

Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang

• T can control the class so that the disciplines would be stricter so ass not to

be disruptive.

• This kind of arrangement is useful for teaching the whole class and some other special activities such as watching a video, demonstrating in front of the class, explaining a grammar points

Although it makes speaking activities less lively and vivid, this seating arrangement exists in most classes in Viet Nam's schools However, group work, pair work as well as individual work may help.

Group work and Pair work have become increasingly popular in language teaching because of these following advantages:

• Pair work and Group work give 5s chances to be more independent They aren't under pressure because T doesn't control them all the time In the other hand, T has opportunity to work with students individually, enhancing the relationship between T and 5s.

• Group work is a cooperative activity where a group of 5s work together solving a problem, doing a role-play or discussing a topic Group work gives 5s an equal chance to speak, to experiment and use the language.

• Pair work also brings to 5s the same advantages Pair work allows every student to be more confident speaking out.

Besides discussing these kinds of working together above, Harmer (1998:21) also introduced some advantages of individual work as follows:

• Being different from pair work and group work, 5s work by themselves in individual work They can work at their own speed, have time to think

Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang

differently and they don't have to bear the pressure from some better ones.

progress

manage to use different class groupings for different activities

D Teacher's role and teacher's correction:

1981 :2) The importance is 5s want to speak, feel relaxed and eager to speak

and they are often worried about being laughed at if they cannot speak well or

few weeks, some 5s will try things out for themselves

much: "Praise before Correction"

Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang

The way T corrects Ss' mistakes has great effect on the Ss' progress If Ss

state an important point, if the t interrupts then, the point will quickly be lost

and plan to deal with them t the later stage, instead of correcting Ss' mistakesright away

are easy to be shy In reality, many teachers deal with the mistakes they heardwithout telling the class who make them

mistakes correction was important for the learners, because it helped them to

again in speaking activities

emotions "can eliminate any productive outcome" Hedge (2000)

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The methods to correct mistakes he introduced are worthy learning:

tape journals which included four steps as follows:

not reading from a prepared text

mistakes when listening, then records comment on these at the end

of the tape

syntactic ones

of those errors and making a personal response

By using this way of correcting errors, the work of correction seemed to bemore comfortable for the student, he added

on, while the others who didn't self-correct couldn't

Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang

a The teacher repeats a sentence that the student has just said, with

stud en t to se If-correct

stressing the past perfect tense form, and waits for the student's correction

cards and giving these to the students for correction

students to listen and see if they can identify and correct their ownerrors and correct their own mistakes and their peers'

teacher goes through these errors with the class

Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang

o The teacher notes down examples of errors, using them as materialsfor an activity in the next class.

Obviously, there are two important goals: Accuracy and fluency

and pronunciation

important goals: Accuracy and Fluency?

missed

Byrne (1987:7) made clear of positions of those goals in the lesson

Whole class work Pairs and groups work

group work or class work) and use variety of activities which really motivate

There are four types of work:

D: Fluency activities directed by the learners and done in pairs or groups.

and Fluency

• Considering the activities that can be applied for those four types:

1• Accuracy work with the whole class.

A

.: T's role:

check their work

•: Ways of teaching the whole class:

T work with 5s individuallyPair work

Chorus workTeam work.: What should T do?

Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang

interested in what 1's talking about.

work, T does a mixture of choral and individual work

- Dri lis

guessing about pictures

2 Accuracy work in pairs

working as a manager or consultant

• Activities to be applied:

Discussion

F Factors that affect 5s' speaking:

of losing their faces so they often keep silence or speak a little as a solution.Obviously, this solution will prevent them from being improved in speaking

Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang

another difficulty that occurs in 5s' speaking process That is for the 5s, the matter of what to say is often considered less important than how to speak

it In other words, in stead of paying attention to the ideas of the speaking task, 5s just worry about the way they speak They want to speak fluently with correct pronunciation, great intonation

• When discussing a topic, 5s often complain they cannot think of anything to say, their source of information is limited T then can suggest some ideas or

T should list some ideas on 5s' handout at first.

• Mother-tongue use: In a class where all the 5s share the same native language, 5s tend to use their mother-tongue rather than English to carry out the speaking task Maybe because using mother tongue is easier than the target language, or they want to say something important and they do not know how to speak in English, while some other 5s are too lazy to speak English.

For dealing with this problem, Harmer (1998:130) suggested some solutions:

o T should encourage 5s to use English appropriately That means some mother tongue speaking is acceptable in Reading activities but speaking activities requires practice in English.

o T responds to English use only.

o T keeps reminding 5s during speaking activities.

T creates an English environment around the 5s so that they would

be familiar to using English.

Controlled conversation

Role play activities

Games

"Finding a partner" activities

3 Fluency work with the whole class:

c

T is advised to encourage 5s to speak and to join in the activity; to listen tothe 5s' ideas and their language

Activities to be used:

Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang

There were forty-three the- form students studying in class 10C this school

experimental textbook

When the investigation was carried out in class 10 C, most of the students

questions as well as raised their desires, points of view towards the theme ofthe research

Having at least five years studying English, those students who are aroundsixteen years old, live in HCM city for a long time

a T creates an English environment around the Ss so that they would

be familiar to using English.

When the investigation was carried out in class 10 C, most of the students seemed to be concentrative in it They asked the researcher many interesting questions as well as raised their desires, points of view towards the theme of the research.

Having at least five years studying English, those students who are around sixteen years old, live in HCM city for a long time.

Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang

=

To figure out three main points, which as follows:

4 Procedures:

research instructed them how to finish their work They were required to think

ideas

about the real situation speaking activities in their class

made the students relaxed to give their truth answers and ideas

At the end, the students gave their work back to the researcher

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5 Statistical treatments:

following those groups

the speaking activities applied during the practicum period

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CHAPTER IV

English easy or difficult? b Normal 46.5%

through speaking activity?

The results in table 1 show that 83.7% of the students were aware of the

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However, 44.2% thought speaking English was difficult, while just 9.3%

that

learners' functions of a language Normally, students use the given information

However, the students' desire to get more knowledge through speaking activity

functions of that language

they like speaking and expect to be better at speaking skill, then all they need

is to practise with interesting speaking activities

The findings of the features to which students paid the most attention when

Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang

stressed syllabuses, 21 % took most notice of pronouncing every work

you sing them?

did not know nay songs at all

Speaking is a skill that requires dynamic, prompt and sensible characteristic

Universities and Colleges where English learners can practise speaking with

was about to join

such clubs because they also have many duties to do for their hard studying In

colleges, there are only a few high school students there

they do it for their progress in studying English, they could spend time joining

browsed: the students who joined English clubs felt confident in speaking and

sufficient time to practise speaking skill in class, so joining a speaking club is a

activities for it

Student: Nguyen Thi Huong Giang