Luận văn a case study on vietnamese primary school teachers’ grammar teaching

Moreover, leaching grammar to young leamers, who owns special psychological and perceptional characteristics, requires much more effort from teachers in seeking new attractive teaching

VIETNAM NATIONAL, UNIVERSITY, IANGI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

HOANG THUY LINH

A CASE STUDY ON VLETNAMESE PRIMARY SCHOOL

TEACHER’S GRAMMAR TEACHING

(MỘT ĐIẾN CỨU VẺ VIỆC DẠY NGŨ PHÁP CỦA GIÁO VIÊN

"TIỄNG ANH TIỂU HỌC TẠI VIỆT NAM)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL, UNIVERSITY, IANGI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

HOANG THUY LINH

A CASE STUDY ON VLETNAMESE PRIMARY SCHOOL

TEACHER’S GRAMMAR TEACHING

(MOT BIEN CUU VE VIEC DAY NGU PHAP CUA GIAO VIEN

"TIỄNG ANH TIỂU HỌC TẠI VIỆT NAM)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Duong Thi Nu

Hanoi, 2014

DECLARATION

1 declare that the thesis entitled “A case study on Vietnamese primary school teachers’ grammar teaching” is the result of my own research and the substance of this thesis has not, wholly or in part, been submitted for a degree to

any universities or institutions

Tlanoi, August 2014

Toang Thủy Linh

ACKNOWLEDGEMEN

ml oŸ all, T wonld bike to express my sincere gratitude Lo Dr Duong Thi Niu

for her supervision and guidance during the time | carried out my study

Second, I am also grateful to the Administration Board of Anh Dung primary

schoal, who gives me an opporlunily and the best conditions to do this study

Besides, 1 wish to show my sincere thanks to the students in class 4A, 4B,

SA, 5B and Fnglish as Foreign Language teachers at Anh Dung primary school for

their help and co-vperation

Last but not least, my special gratitude is for my family and my friends from

whom [ have received a lot of spiritual and material support.

ABSTRACT

This paper deals with English grammar teaching of teachers at Vietnamese primary schools In Vietnam, English language in general and grammar in particular are no longer taught in traditional method because that did not give leamers ability

to communicale i real life situations Moreover, leaching grammar to young

leamers, who owns special psychological and perceptional characteristics, requires much more effort from teachers in seeking new attractive teaching activities

However, the application of moder method, which is known as Communicative

language teaching (CL‘T) in real grammar teaching in primary schools showed some

shortcomings when teachers do not understand what CLT actually means As the

yosult, majority of students found it difficult (o remembor and use sentence palierns

they had introduced in class Within the scope of this paper, only two teachers and a small number of students of Anh Dung primary school participated in the study

Through different instruments such as teacher interview, class observation, and

questionnaire for students, the underlying reasons for the above problem have been revealed Finally, this paper suggested some suitable techniques that teachers can

apply in ther Hnglish classroom in order to improve the quality of grammar

teaching in Vietnamese primary schools:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Declaration

Acknowledgement ii

Abstract

Table of contents

Part A: Introduction 1 1 Rationale

2 Aims of the study

bọ 3 Research questions 4, Scope of the study

5 Research methods 6, Design of the study

Wow wow Part B: Develupment

wr Chapter 1: Literature review 1.1 An overview of grammar and grammar teaching

` 1.1.1 Delinidon o[ grammar 1.1.2 ‘Teaching grammar using communicative approach a Communicative language leaming

b Grammar in CIT classroom c Teaching grammar in CLT classroom

1.1.3 The implementation of CLT in teaching grammar in Vietnam

1.2 ‘Teaching English grammar to young learners 1.2.1, Characteristics of young leamers

ona me ON Naw 1.2.2 Techniques to tcach grammar ta young leamers 1.3 Previous study on teaching grammar to young leamers 10 Chapter 2: Methodology 13

2.1 Parlicipants and setting of the sludy

2.2.2 Data collection procedure

2.23 Data analysis procedure

Chapter 3: Findings, discussion and suggestions

3.1 Findings and discussion

3.1.1 ‘the results of teacher interview and questionnaire for students

3.1.2 The results of class observation

PART A: INTRODUCTIOX

1 Rationale

English is spoken today on all five continents as a resull of colonial expansion in the last four centuries or so The colonial era is now definitely over but its consequences are only too clear to be seen in the presence of English as an official and ollen nulive language in wany of the fonaer colonies Even in olher countries which were not English colonies, people are using this language widely in every aspects of life because it is considered an indispensably communicative tool in the cra of globalization, Going with the social development, learning English is obviously not only the increasing desire but also the immense demand of people in over the world

To meet the demand of industrialivalion and modemization, Vietram education has made great efforts to train high quality human resources who have enough

ability to survive in ternational environment That means the workers must be able

In the past, English is taught with grammiar-translation approach in which

grammatical Imowledge is considered most important Its prime position however changed whon communicative approach was approved by linguislies and educators English textbooks in Vietnam nowadays mainly focus on developing the four skills Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing It seems that students’ Jeaming becomes more pleasanl Neverlhialess, il is nol believed thal grammar is negleoled

‘Through interesting themes, students also leam to use practical sentence pattems

which serve particular fictions in particular contexts Without grammar knowledge, students canmol communicate successfully One problem raised in reality is that many teachers feel it difficult to teach grammar to young leamers and preferred to teach older ones Although the target structures introduced in children’s books are much simpler than those in high school textbooks, primary school

teachers said they often get confused when trying to find a good way to explain a grammatical phenomenon to their students While there are abundant researches

studying vocabulary and the Cour skill teaching, how lo leach grammar effectively

and attractively to young learners is definitely a big question whose answer needs to

‘be found as soon as possible

Tike many other primary school, Anh Dung primary scliool requires students to

learn English from grade 3 to grade 5 Using, the new textbook provided by Ministry

of Education and training, students really like this subject because of its less

stressfulness and fun aclivilies However, grammar is sill ihe challenge thal

teachers of Jinglish in the school often meet in their classroom Teachers’ grammar teaching is problematic, and, as the result, students” leaming is not effective

Rooted fros (hat issue, we need to carry out a study entitled as “A case study an

Vietnamese primary school teachers’ grammar teaching with practical aims and

sensible solutions

2 Aims of the study

‘The study is implemented with, the specific aims as follows

+ Tounderstand teachers’ awareness of leaching English grammar Lo pomary students

- To investigate the real situation of teachers’ English grammar teachmg af Anh

Dung primary school, find out the positive factors and problems that affect the

quaHly of teaching and learning English grammar al Anh Dung primary school

- Yo suggest some doable solutions to improve the quality of teaching and leaming English grammar at Anh Dung primary school

3 Research questions

With clear aims listed above, the study is carried out m order to find out the

answers to the following questions:

- What do the teachers al Anh Dung primary school think aboul English grammar

teaching in primary school?

- How are the teachers at Anh Dung primary school teaching English grammar?

- What are suggestions to improve English grammar teaching and learning at Anh Dung primary school?

4, Scope of the study:

Because of limitations of time and other research conditions, the study is only carried out among 2 teachers and 40 students at one primary school, Also, the study

amainly [ocuses on investigating grammar teaching Olher malicrs of English

teaching would be beyond the scope of this thesis

5 Roescarch methods: Case study — Qualitative

To order to conduct a deep investigation imto the situation, the thesis is conducled

with qualitative method which consists of the following tasks:

- Analyzing the context of grammar teaching of teachers at Anh Dung primary

school and then determirnng research questions

- Choosing the case and research techniques

- Collecting data and information from the students and the teachers at Anh Dung primary school

- Assessing the real situation of learning and teaching Knglish grammar in grade 4 and grade § al Auh Dung primary school

- Evaluating the techniques that best fit the teachers and students at Anh Dung primary schooL

Besides, this thesis is also cared out through a variety of instruments such as

class observalion, mlormal interview wih the teachers and questionnaire [or

students at Anh Dung primary school

6 Design of the study

The thesis is divided into three parts:

Part A introduces the reason for the choice of the study, aims of the study as well as the scope and methodology of the study

Part B comprises four chapters

Chapter | presents an overview of the theoretical background of the research

It is concerned with various linguistic concepts most relevant to the research topic Also it provides a brie! summary of the previous studies of the same topic

Chapter II shows the context, description of instruments, data collection and analyzes the results which reveal the present situation of teaching and learning English grammar al Anh Dung primary scoot

Chapter I draws the findings and offers some suggested techniques to improve English grammar teaching in primary schools in Vietnam

Parl C summaries what is addressed in the study, conclusions drawn from the findings, limitation of the study, some suggestions for further research.

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1: Literature review

1.1 An overview of grammar and grammar Leaching

1.1.1 Definition of grammar

Grammar, the issue which is being discussed in this study, is a very familiar

tenm to language leamers Every language has its own grammatical system According to Longman Dictionary of contemporary English, grammar is: “The rules

by which words change [heir forms and are combined inlo sentences, or the sludy or

suse of these rules.” (Longman Dictionary of contemporary English, 2001, p 619) Similarly, Jeremy Harmer (1987:1) defines grammar as “the way in which words clunge themselves and group together to make sentences The grammar of a language is what happens to words when they become plural or negative, or what

word order is used when we make questions or join two clauses to make one

sentence.” More practically, Jim Scrivener shared that “grammar is nol just a dry list of facts and rules It is in our heads and it is a living resource that gives us the ability to communisate our ideas and feelings and to understand what other people say or write to us.” (Serivener, J., 2003)

In short, grammar can be recognized as the system of rules which are used to construct our language so that it is meaningful and comprehensible No matter how

it is viewed, grammar still exists as an indispensable element of language whose values are always appreciated, ‘here is no doubt that no one can master a language

without leaming its grammar Without grammatical knowledge our speech and

writing will be useless in communicaling to other people Therefore, grammar teaching cannot be neglected in any language schools, especially in EFL classroom

1.1.2 Teaching grammar using communicative approach

There aro many influential methods which aro widely used by language teachers in the world in general and in Vietnam in particular In the late of 19"

century, traditional method or Grammar — Translation Method (GTM) which was

used for the purpose of helping students read and appreciate foreign language

Literature became popular In the Jate 19" century, the G'TM was found not very

allective in preparing students to use the target Janguage communicatively and a new method, namely Direct Method was bom Latter, the Audio-Lingual method in which

speaking and listening skill are put at the first place was preferred, Despite some

adventages, cach of these above methods has ils ows weaknesses so thal they are

not advised to use widely in HEFL classrooms in today’s world, Instead, Communicative method, which shows great effectiveness in developing leamers’

skills and knowledge without reducing ther molivalion and crealiveness, is

approved by almost linguistics

a Communicative language tcarning

Berns, a export in the field of communicative language teaching, wrote thal

“language is interaction; it is interpersonal activity and has a clear relationship with sociery In this light, language study has to look at the use (function) of language in

context, both ils linguistic contexL (whal is uticred belore and afler a given pice of

discourse) and its social, or situational, context (who is speaking, what their social

toles are, why they have come logether ta speak)” (Berns, 1984, p 5) Tn other words, Communicative language teaching (CLT) makes use of real-life situations

that are necessary to communication ‘The teacher sets up a situation that students

are likely to encounter in teal life Unlike the audio-lingual method of language

teaching, which relies on repetition and drills, the communicative approach can leave students in suspense as to the outcome of a class exercise, which will vary according to their reactions and responses The real-life simulations change from day to day Students’ motivation to Jearn comes from their desire to communicate in meaningful ways about meaningful topics(Galloway, 1993) Moreover, CLT can be

said the learner-centered classrooms im which teachers will find themselves talking

less and listening more, and becoming active facilitators of their students’ learning (Larsen-Freeman, 1986) The teacher sets up the exercise, but because the students’

performance is the goal, the teacher must step back and observe, sometinies acting

as a referee or monitor

b Grammar in CLT classroom

Communicative competence, according to Canale and Swain (1980), is made up

of grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and

strategic competence This means grammar stil] has an imporlanl position in CLT

classroom Besides, many scholars emphasized that form focused instruction and

communicative activities should be combined If students learn from context by

combining grammar in CIT they pay more allenlion to target forms and this

results in successful language leaming

However, grammar in CLT is viewed a little differently from it is in traditional methods Grammar which is taught for studeris is nol only linguistie nukes and

grammatical categories such as tenses, aspects, number, gender but also practical forms which serve specific functions Grammatical phenomena are not rough and

dry io slurdonis because they are nol inlroduped separataly from the context in whieh they are used

e Teaching grammar in CLT classroom

Teaching grammar communicatively means thal, Ure teacher should present the Janguage in situations in which it is used, and he/she must control the activitics that

follow, allowing learners to practice it in a controlled situation, then in more

communicative aclivitics, and (mally in {ueney activities

According to authors of Methodology Handbook for English teachers in Vietnam, there are some key principles for teaching grammatical structures:

1 Most often, teach structures implicitly In other words, present examples of the

structure and allow students to focus on the meaning without teaching grammar

W Present a structure orally before presenting a written form and an explanation

When listening, it is easier to focus on meaning When reading TL is easier lo

focus on the form Listening first will help the learners to understand the meaning communicated by the structures

3 Use visual aids to help students sce the structure and the grammatical meaning

‘Yhis can be done with a chart or with a graph

4 Conmecl the [on to meaning Students should understand the mean of the

structures they are studying To focus on meaning 1) use the structures in context (as in dialogues or paragraphs), 2) show pictures, or 3) contrast with

other similar struclures which the students already understarud,

5 De-emphasize the use of special terms Use common words but not lots of fancy ones to desoribe language

6 Along with correction, give posilive feedback and emphasize communication

rather than just grammatical accuracy

7 After practicing a structure in a controlled exercise, give students opportunities

touse [he structures m mare free commuricalive

1.13 The implementation of CLT in teaching grammar in Victnam

Vietnam is not an exception from the spread of English and CLT Many schools and universilics are alfempling to amploy CLT into syllabus design, examinations, and teaching, However, these attempts face resistance from language policy-makers, researchers, loachers and learners According scholars in

Vietnam, teachers’ misconecption of CLT and poor methodology are two of the

problems which lead to low effectiveness of CLI implementation in Viemam In particular, teachers do nol undorsiand what exactly CTT means so that hey only try

to increase students’ talking time and neglect grammar teaching in classroom

Students are not considered the center but teacher as Le (1999) stated the

environment of English leaming in Vietnam can be compared to “a cultural island where the teacher is expected to be the sole provider of experience in the

target language”

1.2 Teaching English grammar to young learners

1.2.1 Characteristics of young learners

The study is carried out in a primary school whose students are from 6 to 11 years old They are called, aseording 1o linguislics, young learners Slallery and

Willis say that gencrally we can characterize all young children by these characteristics ‘They:

- are developing very quickly as individuals

- Jeam in variety of ways, by watching, listening, imitating, doing things

- are not able to understand grammatical rules and explanations about language

- by lomake sense of silualions by making use of non-verbal clues

~ talk in their mother tongue about what they understand and do this helps them leam

- ean generally imitate the scumds they hear quite accurately and copy the way adults speak

- are naturally curious

- love to play and use their imagination

- are comlortable wilh routines and enjoy repetition

- have quite a short attention span and so need variety (Slattery, Willis, 2006) The above list inclides psychological and perceptional factors which affect

students in this group when they leam any subjects Having awareness of these charactenistics, teachers will be able to-find the most suitable methods for the students

1.2.2 Techniques to teach grammar to young learners

Unlike adults, children arc not self-motivated to learn English, thei world is

their daily games, events of interest to them, and teachers should capitalize their

curiosity, the desire to play and explore Teaching must be planned in such a way

that learning becomes an interesting, at times even entertaining process Developing

such interest will lead children to a spontaneous use of language forms The

teacher’s participation in games and activities helps children to overcome any

inhibitions they may have Lf we want teaching to be successful we should consider the learners” interests and motivations, because they will pay more attention if they are motivated

Tn Teacher books af the series Tieng Arh 3, 4, 5 which are using in Vielwamese primary schools, the authors provided helpful recommendation for teachers “Young learners of English begin their English grammar learning based on formulaic sequences and unanelyzed chunks of language mel in the conlext of dialogues,

readings, chants, sougs, rhymes, stories, and games Through activities, stadonts develop a sense of achievement and gradually transfer chunks to new contexts and

use thon creatively One way lo cnable siudenis’ langusgt

wareness is drawing

their attention to specific language pattem or features of grammatical forms and, if necessary, comparing or contrasting these with other pattems and forms in

Vicinamesc The apprupriale steps to be used to teach students are:

> Focusing students’ attention on the new grammatical patterns in the texts,

> Playing the recording for students to listen and follow in their books, and

asking them some queslions lo check their comprehension,

} Playing the recording again for students to listen the second time;

> Providing models for students to practice the new prammatical item in a

spoken or writlen actvily, usinig Ihe cued pictures or prompts in their books;

} Reinforcing the new grammatical item with a variety of spoken and written

activities.” (Teachers’ book)

Tadeed, teaching grammar to young learners is nol an casy job Teachers need Lo

use different techniques to teach structures without reducing students’ happiness

and comfortableness In a limited time im class, much more pressure will be pul on

teachers’ shoulders ithhe‘she really wants their students understand and use grammar well

1.3 Previous studies on teaching grammar to young learners

While there have heen many studics working teaching English vocabulary in

primary schools, numbers of studies, which also paid attention to teaching grammar

to young leamers, have been introduced recently

In 2009 a study named “Grammatical awareness among Primary School English

language teachers” was launched in GEMA Online Joumal of Language Studies by

Munir Shuib from School of Tumanities, University Sains Malaysia In particular,

the sludy examined the English language teachers’ nalure and level of

grammatical awareness, le emphasized that teachers’ low grammatical awareness can influence students’ grammar competency The study had valuable findings:

‘however, itdid nol pay much ellention on teachers’ mathodology in grammar teachings

10

In 2010, Le Thi Ngoc Phuong reported a study entitled “An investigation into teaching Linglish grammar to children learning Unglish as the second language at

primary level in Da Nang.” The research was conducled to explore how English

grammar was taught to children learning Kntish as a second language at primary level and to study factors influencing grammar teaching and to offer some

suggestions to help improve grammar instruction The study was carried out in

larger scale involving many teachers and students at different schools in Da Nang Moreover, the schools are using two textbooks Let's learn English and Let’s Go

Tn 2011, a sludy named “Effectiveness of using games in teachmg grammar to

young leamers” was designed as a descriptive study with the aim of exploring the beliefs and habits of Turkish EFL teachers’ towards using games in young learners’

English classes The author fourd that while Turkish EFT teachers accepted the

effectiveness of using games in grammar teaching, they did not use games as frequently as expected in their classrooms However, the study only pointed out the

problem without any particular solutions or suggestions

tn 2012, Alexandra Povjakalova from Masaryk University in Bmo conducted

the study named “Teaching raunnar lo Young Leamers using Tuteractive Whiteboard” The main aun of his work is to design teaching objects for Interactive

Whiteboard to teach English grammar in the Sth grade of primary school and to find

oul how this Lechrrical lool helps learners im the complex process of education Tr

this study, the author approved the use of modem technology in today’s schools, particularly Smart Board of Interactive Board, which can raise studems’ motivation

in learning grammar because he found that grammar is still taught in standard way where students sit passively working with their books and worksheets 21 teaching abjects inchiding useful activities were designed to provide teachers with available

interesting lessous to Leach grammar ina new way However, this can be said a kind

of expensive solution which is hard to apply widely in Vietnamese schools

One more study which also investigated into teaching grammar comunivatively was implanented by Vuong Thi Hai Yor in 2008 Although

11

focusing on Ethnic Minority students at Ha Giang Medical Secondary School, the research provided many vahuble fndmgs about the application of CL'I' in teaching Linglish grammar in Vietnam,

In the scope of this study, 1 conduct the research on real situation of English grammar teaching of primary school teachers to students of grade 4 and grade 5 The study focuses on finding out problems in teachers’ methodology and

conception of teaching grammar in CLT Finally, | am going to suggest some

teaching techniques which are effective and easy to apply in Vietnamese primary

schools in order Lo improve the situation

Summary

In this chapter, an overview of grammar and grammar teaching is considered

Useful Lechmiques to teach grammar are also mentioned im detail Teacher, however,

find it difficult to teach grammar to young leamers because of their insufficient

development of psychology and perception Therefore, to improve the effectiveness

of students’ Jearning grammar, there is a nocd for greal effort trom leachers

‘Teachers should adjust their way of teaching so that it is not only easy to understand

‘bol also can motivate students to learn grammar beller

Chapter 2: Methodology

The study was carried out with case study methodology According to Yin (1984), a case study is an inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident, and in which multiple sources of evidence are used Dobson

(1981) also desenbed “The most common type of case study mvolves the detailed

description and analysis of an individual subject, from whom observations,

inlerviews, and histories provide the database.” Talking about characteristics of case

study, Merriam (1988) stated that “Case studies are particularistic, desenptive, and heuristic and rely heavily on inductive reasoning in handling multiple data sources

This case sludy was implemented with the aim of vonducting a decp investigation

into the real situation of English grammar teaching of the two teachers at Anh Dung primary school

2.1 Participants and setting of the study

2.1.1 Participants

The participants are 2 teachers who are teaching English at Anh Dung primary school Both of thom are female; one is martivd, one is single The older teacher is Ms Pham ‘Thanh H who has 8 year experience ín teaching English Tlowever, she has been working with primary school students for 2 years Before

that she taughL in an English center Now she is teaching 8 classes with 16 periods

per week ‘The younger one who has just graduated from university, Ms Tran Thị ‘I,

is the teacher in 7 classes Both of them are qualified enough to teach primary

achool sluderits

H

Tran Thi T 23 Female B2 6 months 4B, SB

Besides, the study was carticd out among 40 students who are randomly

chosen from class 4A, 4B, SA, 5B

2.1.2 Setting of the study

‘The study is conducted at Anh Dung primary school in Duong Kinh district,

THai Phong city This is a small school with about 600 students and 24 teachers of all subjecis As other schools, English is obligated for students (rom grade 3 10 grads 5

“he students have 2 periods of English per weelc most of which are aranged in one school day

The course books used are Tieng Anh 3, 4, 5 approved by the Ministry of Fiducation and Training in August, 2010 The book follows a systematic, cyclical and them-based syllabus with twenty units of familiar topics Hach unit consists of

three lessons each of which provides materials for two periods of class contact However, in reality, teachers only lave 1 period ol’ 35 mimutes for cacl lesson

Without any exception, the observed classes also happened in that period of time

with a lot of activities Because of some school's activities, the two teachers did not

follow the sare schedule Teacher H taught lesson 1 of urat 20 while teacher T taught lesson 1 of unit 16,

Tn every lesson 2, a new topic is introduced with chosen vocabulary and

targct sentence patterns The lesson is divided into 4 parts:

- Look, listen, and repeat: ‘This part is colorful illustrated to set up the situation in

which Figlish is used The ingad language is proscnied inthe form of a didogus or conversation,

- Look and say: The second part picks out the model sentences to be leami Besides, it provides words/phrases of related topic which can be used to practice

the model sentences by substitution technique It means in this part teachers

have to teach both vocabulary and grammar, including the presentation and

practice

- Talk: This part provides students with an opporlurity to speak English freely,

using the recently practiced language in different contexts It also helps to

reinforce students’ understanding and memory

- Listen and tick/ listen and number: Last, a listening task is provided to roinfOorce all the things they have leamt during the lesson

Tn the next two lessons, all four skills - reading, writing, listening, speaking — are practiced Phonics is also paid attention to Hspecially, vocabulary and structures are continued to develop

Dunng a school year, students have 2 mid-term tests and (wo final tests All

of them are in written form with typical exercises such as choose the best answer, rewrite the sentences, complete the sentences, read and answer questions

2.2 Data collection

2.2.1 Data collection

To identify the problems, instruments were chosen They are: Class

observation, Teacher inte

the observation will reveal real silualion of granmnar teaching in the school

&, Teacher interview

‘Teachers were also interviewed with 6 questions about their awareness toward grammar teaching in primary school Question 1 explores icachers’ imowledge of English teaching for young learners in Vietnamese in general In this question, teachers were asked about how Inglish is taught in primary school and

what matter teachers should take into consideration while working with

children Question 2 examines teachers’ methodological knowledge when asking about steps in teaching grammar basing on PPP model The answers of teachers will

‘be used to compare with their real teachirys The next question requires leachers lo

report main methods and techniques they are applying in teaching grammar ‘he

answers of question “1 and 5 reveals problems and difficulties teachers often meet

when teaching grammar to primary school students, And the last question asked teachers to tell what they need to support their grammar teaching,

Tnglish learning Question 3 explores teachers’ use of fun activities and games in

class The next 4 questions are the most important ones because their answers will

reflect the ways in which teachers often teach grammar in the school ‘The last question asks about form of assessment of the subject

2.2.2 Data collection procedure

a, Implementing class observation and teacher interview

After deciding to stady the teachers at Anh Dung primary school, I had a

formal mocting with them to presen my inlention The aims and scope of the study

were also introduced ‘The most important thing is how to persuade them to agree to

‘be observed The study was carried oul at the end of the school year when teachers

and students were out of cxammation preszure Moreover, teachers were explained

that the results of class observation and interview were used for scientific purpose

only, not related Lo their work al school

The class observation was implemented first in order to get an honest picture

of teachers’ grammar teaching, Teachers would teach nonmal lessons in their

normal ways I sat at the last table in class and recorded all activities of the lesson

by a digital camera without any participation or interruption

The interview was conducted after each teacher was observed 2 classes All

the questions were about English teaching theory and teachers’ real experiences AL

first, 1 tended to ask in Linglish, however, the teacher wanted to answer in

Vietnamese because this would be easier for them to express their ideas Their

answers which was used later to compare with their teaching were recorded by a mobile phone

b Conducting questionnaire for students

The questionnaire for students was the last instrument to be conducted The

chosen students were those who belonged to observed classes As predicted, a very

garalully and thoroughly explanation was given in order 10 make sure the young children all understand what to do and how to do 1 instructed students to answer

question by question After about 30 minutes, the results were collected

2.2.3 Data analysis procedure

‘Yo find out he answers for research questions, the collected data need to be

analyzed and evaluated carefully

First, icachers’ answers m the mterview which were recorded by a mobile

phone were transcribed later What they presented was compared with theoretical imowledge and recent trend of teaching English in the country to clarify their

awareness of the subject Morcover, their own opinions and teaching habits were

also shown clearly when answering different questions These points would be

considered in order to see whether (hey were reflected in thei real teaching and how they influenced on their teaching Besides, the problems that teachers often

meet when teaching grammar were studied to find out the reasons and best solutions

for those

Second, the class observation results which are the most difficult things to

analyze were brought under the lights Of course, not all aspects of the teaching were necessarily worked on However, I mostly focused on how teacher taught students a new sentence pattem in each part of a PPP lesson, including presentation, practice, and production In the comparison with theoretical background, teachers’

weaknesses would be revealed Furthermore, 1 would consider the influence of

teachers’ teaching and students’ learning to figure out what is the real reason for all

the problems

Last, students’ responses which were really honest were very important to be concemed because these will be evidences to make sure what the teacher said were trustworlly The manber of chosen answers would be presented by percentage which was easier for the readers to imagine Here, 1 would know more about the

real situation of grammar teaching and leaming

Summary

The methodology in which the stdy was carried out has just been presented

in this chapler This is a case study with the 2 main parliciparts who were teachers

at Anh Dung primary school [owever, to clarify the problem, three different instruments were used involving both teachers and students of the school The data

was collected directly im classroom im several days The resulis which were

analyzed thoroughly will be given in the next chapter with further discussion

Chapter 3: Findings and discussion

3.1 Findings and discussion

3.1.1 The results of teacher interview and questionnaire for students

‘the teacher interview and questionnaire for students aim at finding out

teachers’ awareness of teaching English grammar to primary students Being asked

6 questions about English (caching in Victnam in general and grammar teaching in detail, the two teachers had some similar and also different answers

a Teachers’ respanses on how English is taught in Vietnamese primary school

First, the interview started with tho question about how English is taught at primary school Bath of the teachers reported that teaching English for primary

school sluderis is lo ann al gelling students asqueintanted wilh a forcign language

and a different culture In classroom, teachers should pay more attention to teaching communicative skills About this matter teacher LI said that besides speaking and

listening, the two other skills also need to be considered whereas (cacher T added

phonies as another issue According to teacher H, teachers should not neglect reading and writing: skill because, at the present, English tests are mainly in written form They also shared that (caching very young studonts is a hard job bevause they always like exciting activities but are easy to get distracted, or they can remember things really fast but quickly forget them later Therefore, they shauld not be taught

inthe way adulls are laught And teachers have Lo play the role of very enthustaslic

and patient guides who can get all students involved in all the activities of the lessons,

b Teachers’ responses on how English grammar should be taught to primary

school students

The second question whose responses will he used to compare with teachers”

tcaching lo sce whal the problems are is actually aimed to check teachers’ methodological knowledge Several sub-questions about teaching activities and

teachers’ role basing on a PPP model lesson were suggested in order lo help them

give detailed answers The two teachers both aproe on using interactive

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communicative activities and games in practice and production stage In the former stage, teacher controlled the whole class working tightly In the latter one, this

oontrolling should be reduced and students should speak more freely However, in

the presentation stage the two teachers shared different views While teacher H said

teachers should not analyze the information of a sentence with such elements as S,

V,O, , leachor T answered they should For (cacher H, primary school students

are too young to understand such linguistics terms ‘Teacher should only make a

model sentence for repetitions and substitution drills On the other hand, teacher T

said students need lo know those in ordsr to compare with their equivalents in

Vietnamese Although processing some different points of view, they both agree that teachers should be the people who introduce the structures to save time and

they should explain such things as usage, form, meaning, and phonics

¢ Teachers’ response on methods and techniques

The two teachers were quite hesitant when answering the question about which methods and techriques they are applying in teaching grammar They just

said they were using communicative methods with mostly interactive speaking and Baiening in the form of pair work oF group work As reported, teachers only follow

tasks in textbooks beginning with a dialogue, teaching model sentences, and then

practicing them by asking and answering with a partner Game is said to be a time-

wasling activity so that it is rarely used in classroom Teacher T added thai the

important thing is how to explain and instruct students to work rightly According to

her, teacher should give a clear and simple presentation about target structures including its form, usage Giving as many examples as you can in the allowance of time because this can help students to understand better than your words

d ‘eachers’ responses on problems they often meet when teaching grammar

As reported, the students of both two teachers do nol remember all the

structures they have Jeamt Many of them often forget or confuse model sentences

after the lessons Some even cannot use the structures well in class The teachers

explained that this is one of their psychological charavteristies Morcover, there arc

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too many things to teach in 35 minutes While the text book is designed with 6 periods for each unit, teachers only have a half of the time in reality

e Teachers’ responses on what they need to support their grammar teaching

When being asked about what the teachers need to support their grammar teaching, they just said that the school’s leaders should distribute more time/periods

for Figlish subject Bosicks, they also nexd to be trained on some tochniques or activities of teaching,

granunar

In conclusion, the twa teachers have had some general ideas of English

teaching methodology Basically, they know how to leach young learners and their

roles in a PPP lesson Llowever, they did not agree with each other on the views of teaching grammar Teacher H said any analysis about form is unnecessary because

students cant casily repeal mods! sentences and make a similar one by replacing

information On the other hand, teacher T always pointed out separate sentence

elements in the new structures However, both of the two teachers seemed to have

little things to say about their methods and techniques To know more about this, we

will consider the result of class chservation which may reveal the real grammar teaching inthe school

3.1.2 The resuits of class observation

In order to have better understanding of how English grammar is taught in

Anb Dung primary school, | observed some classes of two teachers and recorded all

the activities durmg the lessons Afler four class observalions, the real silualion of

grammar teaching was clearly identified with several certain problems which need

to be improved in the future Moreover, students were also asked questions to

ensure the observation result was reliable

a Teachers’ using of (raditional method in presentation stage

Teaching foreign structures to children is not an easy task because they have

nol been ready for linguistics ferms yel The simpler the explanalion is, he more

easily they understand However, a presentation with insufficient knowledge makes

the structure unusable to students

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In reality, the way of presenting granunar of cach tcacher is very đifferent

‘The two observed teachers’ teaching showed some problems which need to be improved

First, teacher H’s presentation is revealed She saidto the students in Vietnamese:

Teacher IZ: “Today, I am going to teach you a new structure To ask for the

way to somewhore, we use Lhe question: ‘Where’s + {the place you want la go la)?”

And the answer is: ‘It's + (position) Ok, now example if | want to ask the way

to Toa Mai primary school, how can I ask?”

Then she called a student to answer

Ngan: “Where’s primary school Iloa Mai?”

answer? We show directions: Go straight ahead I1’s on your right.”

Then she repeated the target structure:

Teacher: “To ask for the way to somewhere, we use the question: ‘Where's |

(lhe place you want Lo go lo)? And the answer: ‘I’s + (posilion)’ Ok, now the whole class read after me the example ”

The example was read one Gime only Afler that, teacher asked students to practice the structure with four pictures i the book

As being observed, teacher 11 started to teach mew structure from the

amvaning, (hen the form, the pronuncialiou, and example comes the last Teacher

was the person who talked all the time and provided everything Students just sat and listened; however, it was not sure to say they all understood

The second teacher, Miss T, also presented in Vietnamese Yeacher “Ok, the question today is “What's the matter with you”, Now class, listen and repeat “What's the matter with you?” Again Louder Ok,

this question is used to ask about other people’s health mater Naw, look al the

board.”

Then she wrote the structure on the board

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Teacher: “To answer this question, I have the subject ‘I’, the verb is “ve got’ Now listen and repeat ‘ I’ve got’ Again again Ok After this phrase, we use a

noun lo describe a health matter But we need an article ‘a’ or ‘ar’ before that nour

In the dialogue in your book, Tom has got a headache, we will say

“Dve got a headache.’ Now, listen and repeat ‘ I’ve got a headache.” Again again

Ok

‘To talk about other matters, we replace the names of illnesses to

the blank after ‘I've got’ Now I will ask question, and you answer with the words

of illnesses which are printed in the Mlashcards that T point Lo

‘T: ‘ What’s the matter with you?” S: ‘I’ve got a headache.’ T: ° What's the matter with you?” S: ‘I've got a backache.”

TT: ‘ What's the matier with you?’ |S: ‘Pye gota cold”

Alright, let’s practice the structure with pictures in your book.”

Differently from Miss H, teacher T presented grammar structures from the

promuneialion, (he mearring, the form, to the examples However, teacher's talking

time still held the longest length of time More noticeably, she used many linguistic concepls such as subject, verb, noun, articles while analyzing the form of the

answer This can make the knowledge more complicated to students and actually is

unnecessary to be introduced

Ta summary, the ways of leaching grammar of the Lwo teachers carmol be

considered to be communicative approach as they reported, but taditional one

which has low effectiveness to students Teachers seemed to limit students’ ability

to discover new knowledge when she always plays inappropriate roles in her

classroom Half (1998) stated: “leachers who perceive themselves as authorities

of knowledge and students as passive recipients of their knowledge are more

likely to use the standard (-R-E [T: Teacher iniliates; R: Students response; F

‘Teacher evaluates[’As you can see, students were not put at the centre of the teaching and learning process, which may reduce students’ interest and involvement

in the lesson, Moreover, (he slsps in presentirys grammar were disordered and

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happened really fast While teacher believed that what they often did saved amuch time, it may result in less understanding of students that takes teachers much time

latler ko corrce! inistakes and reinforee knowledge Besides, some phonological

elements such as the stress and intonation of the target question and answer are not

mentioned here Unsurprisingly, the students cannot use the structures well and then

they quickly forgel thom because they did nol understand them Clearly, the reason

for this problem is not totally due to students or class time but the teacher themselves Teachers misunderstood what CLT really means and chose the way

they beheved to be right to teach under fire pressure This is actually a worrying

matter which should be changed as soon as possible

b ‘Leachers’ inappropriate mistake correction method

Teacher H’s presentalion and instructions are nol clear cnough for students to

follow As a result, students felt it difficult to make up the sentences Many

mistakes were made while they practiced However, the way teacher corrected

amistakes canmot help students to make progress

When the called student I said: “Where’s bookshop?”

Teacher: “Where’s the bookshop? You need to put ‘the? here”

Student 1 repeated: “Where’s the bookshop?”

Student 2: “uh ”

Teacher: “lan Anh, answer quickly ”

Student 2: “next to .uh ”

Teacher: “What are you saying? Let me see Ok, Tum right.”

Student 2: “Tum right.”

Yeacher: “What's next? It’s ”

Student 2 “It’s ”

Teacher: “Tl’s next to the pos| office.”

Student 2: “It’s next to the post office.”

Teacher: “Sit down The other pairs

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The next pair had similar problem because they have not understood how to

use the structure yet And teacher continued to make the sentences to each student

to repeal instead of representing the knowledge in front of the whole class

Unsurprisingly, the others still got trouble when practicing

The other teacher’s instructions seemed to be clearer Iler students could be abla to make sentences quickly However, mistakes which are unavoidable were

neglected by teacher The structure: “What animal is that? It’s a/an .” is not hard for students to remember and use Perhaps, teacher T thought her students

could produce correct sentences easily and she nearly did nol notice thal they oflen

forgot to pronounce the sound /s/ in “It’s”

Obviously, both of the two teachers did not pay much attention to correct

students’ mistakes They just asked students to makes the sentences and then called

them to present in tum after practicing in pairs Then the activities finished when

the last pairs sat down without any consolidation from teachers Consequently,

students repealed their mistakes im both spoaking and writing and easily forgot the exact fonns

c Teachers’ poor activities in practice and production stages

According to student's response to the question of activities of practicing and

producing target structures, the answer with the least choice was ‘practice through

fun games and activities’ while ‘do ask and answer tasks in textbouk’ accounted for 100%

This result totally coincided with observed situations in which there was not

any activity outside the book to be introduced Of course, the book provided available interesting tasks for students to practice the structures ‘he tasks were put

in certain context with colorful and fun pictures Tlowever, teacher forgot to set the

scene or build the context, which car raise students’ excitement and crealiveness

before they practice In both two classes, teacher LI just gave instruction as ‘work in pairs, ask and answer with your partners using pictures in task 2 ’ without any

introduction or exploitation Besides, she added only one more task which asked

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students to rewrite the sentences they have just made into their notebooks at the ond

of the lesson

Teacher T prepared more activities in the lesson than her colleague However, most of those were for teaching vocabulary only She used at least three kinds of activities which are chant, mime, erase and remember The ones used for practicing grammar were only Fimited in [he book

Jt can be concluded that the students’ grammar learning cannot gain the highest effect because they were not practiced enough Only two tasks (look and

say; lalk) in textbooks do not provide full opportunities for studenis to expose new

language ‘They need more and diverse activities to produce sentences by themselves, to make mistakes, and then found out and correct them The saying

“Practice makes porfect” is always valuable in loarning a forcign language because

by only this way they are able to understand, use and remember knowledge Clearly, what the teacher did and what they said in the interview was not related

whan they mentioned the importance of using various kinds of activities, especially

fun and competitive ones, but neglected them in reality of teaching

d Teachers? irregular recycling of learnt structures

Onc more thing that should be concemed here is the frequency of using

leamt structures inside the classroom After one or two years learning linglish,

students musl know @ number of structures which are already described im thew

syllabus In order to help students not to forget them, teacher should regularly ask the old questions again In contrast, the two teachers did not do that well in every

are they? What are they doing? What arc they talking about? Are they happy? What can you see in the pictures ?” Or in the alk part, the two teachers did not

encourage her students lo produce as many serlences as (hey could bul the targel one

Indifferently, 27 out of 10 asked students responded that their teachers

sometimes check thew using of lear structures The rest, which accounted for

32.5% of the students, said rarely, and no one chose often or usually Clearly,

teachers did not provide studenis opportunities to recycle the structures regularly Therefore, each grammar phenomenon was practiced separately amd boringly Students might repeat the model sentences like machines and then easily forget what they have been taught

To sum up, aller observing classes and conducting questionnaires to teachers and shidents, many interesting things about English grammar teaching at Anh Dung primary school were revealed There were varied problems that need to he improved bul most of them related Lo tcachers’ methodology They reported thal hey are applying communicative approach to teach students; however, their real teaching went on another way Probably, teachers have not realized the importance of

teaching grammar, which were often neglected in CLT Instead, they got used to

using “traditional but pleasure method” in which teacher did not have to prepare sauch Necessarily, there should be some changes in teachers’ awareness and practice Surely, if positive actions are made, students’ grammar learning will be

docs nol mean teachers only teach speaking without grammar and using pair-work

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as much as possible Grammar should be taught in an appropriate way so that

students can understand and use it in real life situations Teacher should not only exploit lasks in (extbooks but also design a varicty of activities to help students

practice However, an overuse of games in classroom also does potential harms when students do not leam anything Moreover, CLT can also be considered

learmer-centre approach in which teachers’ roles are dillerent [rom those in the

traditional ones Breen and Candlin (cited in Richards and Rodgers (1986) [13]) claim: “The teacher has two main roles: the first role is to facilitate the

communication process between all parliciparits in the classtoum, and between

these participants and the various activities and texts ‘Ihe second role is to act as

an independent participant within the leaming-teaching group third role for the

jeacher 1s that of researcher and Jearncr, wilh much to contribute in terms of

appropriate knowledge and abilities, actual and observed experience of the nature of learning and organizational capacities.”

Possibly, educational institulions should bold more teachers training

programs which focus on providing teachers with CLT knowledge and teaching

methods CIT may be more interesting and fun, bul definitely nol easy to apply when teachers do not know it well If our teachers know what CLT actually is they

may be more confident to use given tasks textbook as well as self-designed

achivilics in their classroom

3.2.2 Improving teachers? teaching methods

In this part, I would like to recommend some useful techniques and activities

which teachers can apply in classroom It is important to say that teachers are

xecommended to apply PPP approach to their lesson It meaus they need to follow three stages: Presentation, Practice, and Production

a In presentation stage

‘Yo improve teachers’ weaknesses in the presentation stage, teachers should sit together and discuss the techniques employed for introducing new strictures so that they can reach an agreement on thal Basiry on theory of CLT and grammar

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teaching, teachers should follow these following steps

- Give students chances to explore target structures in the provided contex:

Our lextbooks which are designed basing on commmicative approach created many

dialogues at the beginning of every lesson with the aim of setting the context in which sentence pattems were used Teachers, therefore, need to do only one more

job that is lo ask students to find oul the structure instead of introducing il themselves

- Focus students’ attention on target structures through listening: After

students speak oul the sentence pallems, teachers should play the recordings several

times (2 or 3 times is appropriate) to focus the attention of the whole class In the

case that many other students are too slow to camplete teacher’ requirement, it is

the righl time Lo help them recognize the target language Listening [irst will help

the leamers to understand the meaning communicated by the structures Moreover,

listening provides natural sounds and intonation of the sentence patterns which is

also very important fo learn,

- Ask students’ simple questions to explicit the target structure: From the

Ulustraled pictures and the Rstening, students can understand the context in which the target structures were used, Quickly, they can produce some general ideas about

the grammatical phenomenon they are going to leam ‘Leacher and students can

exchange in Vietnamese the usage and the [orm of the senlence patlorn

- Represent and reinforce necessury knowledge of the target structure:

After the discussion, teachers need to represent knowledge of the target structure in

simple words to make sure all the students understand and use it well Such matter

as usage, form, phonics (pronunciation, stress, intonation) should be always mentioned, Necessarily to remember, complicated linguistics terms such as present simple lenses, continuous aspect, third person singular should be avoided in primary classroom because students are not ready to understand them After that, teachers can ask the whole class to repeat the sentence patterns several times and giving similar examples

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