Skkn cấp tỉnh the current situation of training speaking skill for students of class 10a6 at hau loc i high school

Procedures to train speaking skill...4 - Using target language in meaningful contexts ………..…….4 - Using model presentations ………..4 - Using role plays in teaching speaking English………5 -Us

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

AND TRAINING

HAU LOC I HIGH SCHOOL

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

IMPROVING SPEAKING SKILL IN CLASS 10A6

AT HAU LOC I HIGH SCHOOL - GLOBAL

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 2

1.1 Rationale 2

1.2 Aim of the research 3

1.3 Objectives 3

1.4 Scope of the research 3

PART 2: CONTENT …… 3

2.1 Theoretical and practical background 3

2.2 How to improve speaking skill for students ……… ………… ………

4 2.2.1 Participants ……….4

2.2.2 Procedures to train speaking skill 4

- Using target language in meaningful contexts ……… …….4

- Using model presentations ……… 4

- Using role plays in teaching speaking English………5

-Using group activities to engage students in speaking lessons……….…6

-Using technology to encourage students to speak ……….… 6

2.3 How to make effective speaking lessons … ……… 6

2.4 Results and evaluation… 14

PART 3 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION … ………….……17

3.1 Conclusion……….……… ………….17

3.2 Recommendation ……….……….……….18

REFERENCES 19

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

1.1.1 The necessity of acquiring speaking skill

Nowadays, English as a tool of communication has been playing an important role

in integration of Vietnam towards the world It is a means of collecting worldwideinformation and carrying out international exchange and cooperation Therefore,improving the level of spoken English is very important Since the problems wereidentified as the learners did not engage in the speaking lessons This project is tomotivate learners to speak English in class

As a teacher at high school for many years, I have realized that speaking skill isessential both in the classrooms and in the real world

It cannot be denied that after every speaking lesson, the students need toremember the lessons well and can use the new words in a real talk Obviously,speaking lessons help high school students learn new words in contexts, reviewand widen the content of the topics in the text book, improve speaking skill andbuild up their confidence

Speaking skill not only plays an important role in students’ learning but also ve

ry useful in many aspects of their subsequent work and life After graduating fromschools and entering the workforce, students with well-developed speaking skill atschools will be able to communicate clearly, precisely and effectively in a variety

of settings It should be pointed out that public speaking skills are rated as one ofthe most important soft skill In fact, developing the confidence and capability togive good speech, and to stand up in front of an audience and speak well, isextremely helpful competencies for self-development and social situations.Therefore, it is true that the students with good public speaking skills have morefuture opportunities and easy to be successful in their future career

In short, the ability of communicating with the audience and giving a speechshould be seen as a mandatory prerequisite for both the effective learning processand the successful working life Therefore, teachers at high school should pay a lot

of attention to helping their students improve these useful skills for the sake oftheir learning and their future careers

1.1.2 The current situation of training speaking skill for students of class 10A6 at Hau Loc I high school

Through a survey, I figure out that most of the students of class 10A6 at myschool find it challenging to speak in front of the class Some say that when they

have to stand and speak in front of the others, their mouths dry up and their heartsstart racing They are really afraid of speaking in front of a crowd so they alwaystry to avoid any situations where they have to make a speech.

In fact, so far, students have had little experience in how to speak in front of theclass, how to answer questions and how to behave properly during the Englishlessons They have had few opportunities to work in groups, in pairs orindividually, to later develop some idea into a topic to speak about and present toothers Most teachers at the my school agree that they do not have time to get theirstudents involved in presenting activities Actually, they spend most of the classtime concentrating on grammar and reading skills which help their students dowell in the GCSE exams However, through a survey and process of teaching, the Irealize that many students in class 10 A6 (most of them are quite good at English)really want to improve their speaking skill They see the real benefits of goodpublic speaking skill and are willing to be trained for this skill

In order to solve the above problem and prepare students for making goodspeech in good English, I have applied a variety of activities that can really helpthe students to acquire good speaking skill All of these activities and techniquesare going to be mentioned in detail in this teaching experience

1.2 Aim of the research

To help students in class 10 A6 acquire good speaking skill

1.3 Objectives

In order to achieve the above aim, the writer will:

(1) - Investigate to identify the current state and the problems that manyteachers and students are facing in teaching speaking skill

(2) – Introduce some techniques and activities which can help students improvetheir speaking skill

(3) - Analyze the effects of the designed activities on students’ ability to speakEnglish

1.4 Scope of the research

Beside the introduction and the conclusion, this research consists of three parts:

- Theoretical and practical background

- Applied methods to improve students’ speaking skill

- Results and evaluation

PART 2: CONTENT OF THE INNITIATIVE 2.1.THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL BACKGROUND

What is the speaking Skill?

Speaking skill is the skill we need in delivering effective and engaging speech to avariety of audiences

Some Techniques to Improve Students’ speaking Skill

There are some techniques in communicative language teaching to

encourage high school students of spoken English such as : Using target language,using model presentations, implementing role plays , using collaborativeactivities and using technology in an English lesson are focused in the research

2.2 HOW TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILL FOR STUDENTS

2.2.1.Participants : Students in class 10 A6

Participants’ demographic information

Number of participants 42 (10A6)

Accumulated English learning experience 10 years

English oral proficiency level B1

Most of the students in class 10 A6 are quite good at English and can speakEnglish to some extent Especially, they are well aware of the importance ofspeaking skill and they are eager to practice them As I can see through the time ofteaching at school, after graduating from high school, a majority of the students of

my school will attend many famous universities in Vietnam and subsequently getimportant jobs which appreciate public speaking skills as the most important softskills

2.2.2.Procedures to train speaking skill

- Using target language in meaningful context to teach students communicatively

Training plays a very important role in getting students to know how to have agood speech However, it is not easy to have effective training classes Afterconsidering many ways to teach students speaking skill, I find out that using thetarget language combined with the explanation from the teacher is the best choice.Learner-center instruction, cooperative and collaborative learning, interactivelearning, whole language education, content-based instruction and task-basedinstruction are analyzed which support teachers in using communicative languageteaching However, not all teachers can maximize these strategies in languageclassroom Teachers should guide students to keep the presentation simple byfocusing on important points the presenters want to communicate Also, keep themessage focused and stick to what the presenters want to say If there isinformation which isn’t relevant to the key message, do not include it

These are some benefits of using the target language:

- It is a great help in covering basic points in a different situation rather than theteacher just following the content of the books

- It provides a way to change the methodology and keep the students engaged It’slike having someone who is a well-known expert in the field, support the teacher’spoints.

- It covers one small point in a clear and practical way So, it can complement theteacher as a trainer on what she wants to get across to her students

- Using model presentations

A new infographic from Yowl shows that only 10% of people remember whatthey hear Reading doesn’t help much either since only about 20% of peopleremembering what they read But conversely 80% of people remember what theysee and do They also learned that visuals are processed 60,000x faster than textand that 93% of communication is nonverbal

It is clearly seen that videos are more persuasive than other types of contentbecause the human brain requires emotional input to make decisions Notechnology is better at conveying emotion than videos This is due to the factthat video caters to both the brains’ visual and auditory systems, picking up oncues like body language, facial expressions, imagery and music This can elicit anemotional bond that will influence a person’s choices or action

From the facts above the teacher sees that one of the best ways to ease thestudents into the world of speaking is to inspire them! There are so many greatexamples of public speaking, from the vast library of TED talks The teacher haschosen carefully some of the model videos in which the speakers are teens andhave impressive ways to present their talk Most students in class 10A6 show greatinterest when the teacher sends these videos in the class Facebook page and asksthem to watch carefully to learn some useful things from these videos It cannot bedenied that mimicking is a good way to learn speaking skill

- Using role plays in teaching speaking English.

Role plays has been used in various contexts and with different ages oflearners discussed in previous studies According to Shapiro & Leopold , roleplays has been widely used in teaching English, especially in the early ages ofcommunicative approach, when researchers have found how to modify from ‘pre-scripted dialogues’ to more ‘student-generated interactions’ Role-plays is ameans to encourage students’ motivation, confidence, engagement and speakingability

More importantly, role-play is a link between creative thought and real world,and a challenge to express social pragmatics which will attract student to speakspontaneously because of this kind of happy knowledge However, teachers havenot maximized the benefit of communicative language teaching in improvinglanguage learning Finding the link and creating the inspiration for students arereally challenges for Vietnamese teachers of English to apply in their class.Applying role plays creates student-center learning which helps studentsescape themselves for a while In short, role play takes time to implement in class

The teacher should include pre-, while-, and post activities of role play.Scaffolding pre-task activities of role plays help the students adapt the linguisticaims of the lessons , which is essential for lower ability learners Moreover, it issuggested that teacher should facilitate a discussion to collect ideas before realperformance

- Using group activities to engage students in speaking lessons.

Educationists over the world consider collaborative activities play an importantrole in teaching language Collaboration is one of the effective teaching strategiesand suitable for every age Meng (2009) suggested group work is a good tool forlearners to participate in a large class and it enables learners to engage indiscussion and assisting another in understanding Therefore, teachers areresponsible for sustaining and facilitating the students’ attention and interest in thelessons, since group activities enable learners to find fun when working togetherwhich is one kind of intrinsic motivation and create opportunities for learners toraise their voices In addition, collaborative activities stimulate learners to interactwith each other and creates cooperating learning atmosphere In order to have thebest of group working, topics should be around personal experience, the worldaround us, Nature and the environment, technology, and tourism

Traditionally, Vietnamese English teachers tend to dominant in class Teachersprovide lessons, and students listen and dictate which lead a passive learning.Therefore, teachers’ dominant make students dull and lose student’s interest It isimportant for teachers to find ways for engage students in speaking lessons CLT

is suggested to create opportunities to show their opinion, their previousknowledge and the interaction between members in the group occurs more often.Accordingly, as teachers, we should activate learners to work in pairs and groups

- Using technology to encourage students to speak and decrease the stressful atmosphere in speaking classes

It is proven that 65% of the population are visual learners, using slides or othervisual support during a presentation falls somewhere between being pretty usefuland critically important For the 65%, visual reinforcement enhances their ability

to digest, process, and ultimately retain material

I really wish my students to make the presentation more interesting through theuse of multimedia Obviously, the presentation slides can help to improve theaudience's focus PowerPoint allows students to use images, audio and video tohave a greater visual impact These visual and audio cues may also help them bemore interactive with the audience It can even help reduce speaking anxiety bydrawing eyes away from the speaker and towards a screen

- Speaking practice during the lessons in textbooks

Being well aware of the importance of frequent practice, during the process ofteaching in class 10A6, I pay a lot of attention to training speaking skill forstudents For each unit in the text book, I usually give students the topic to preparefor a speech Students practice the speech at home carefully and the teacher asksthem to present at the check-up time before the new lessons These presentations

are usually short from 4 to 7 minutes I also encourage my students to make videos

of their presentation and send them to me to get the points for “oral test” if theywant

The following are some topics I give my students in order for them to practicewhile they learn new lessons in textbooks However, the students also can talkabout the other topics as long as they relate to the main topic of the lessons Byallowing students to choose the topics they like to talk about, the teacher canencourage them to make good research about the topics and have the greatmotivation to talk about Some students have shown their great enthusiasm whenthey talk about the things they are really keen on For example, in unit 2: Humanand the environment, Tram Anh – a student in class 10A6 has chosen to talk about

“healthy lifestyle” – the topic she is really interested in In unit 6: Gender equality,Thanh Thao from 10 A6, is very excellent with the topic “My ideal jobs” In unit 9:Protecting the environment, Phuong Thao (10A6) shows great enthusiasm withthe talk about “Air pollution” In unit 10: Ecotourism, Thu Huong from 10A6,makes a good progress with the topic “A trip to Sam Son beach”

2.3 How to create some strategies for the effective speaking lessons.

Week I

Firstly, the researcher held a focus group and designed the strategies Secondly,inform students why the researcher did this implementation Thirdly, explain whatmight happen during the implementation and after the project what the studentscould receive from After all, the participants signed in the consent-form to ensurethe benefit of both sides – researcher and participants

Week II: This week was the beginning of the strategy implementation.Therefore, in this week, it was very important for teachers to make students enjoylearning with role play and collaborative activities Before each lesson, teacherprovide the target language, and some important slides on the topic

The researcher focused on Unit 8 (New ways to learn) of students’ book Thetopic is about ways of learning The language practice focus on relative clauses.The reading session is a text about Online and Face-to face learning

The topics for role play were:

1) What are the most suitable ways of learning for boys/ girls ?

2) What are the advantages and disadvantages of online learning ?

3) Why do you think some ways of learning are suitable for men / women ? Each group chose one topic and created a situation for the topic, designed theslides for the speaking lesson, and prepared the concerned information In the roleplay activities, they must use relative clauses, suitable grammar tenses and theactivities suited with each situation Since this was the first week, the researcherdid three observations

Week III : This time, it was important to make sure that the students were clearwhat they must do In addition, the main aim of engaging students in speakingEnglish was identified

Week III focused on Unit 9: Protecting the environment The topic is about

environmental problems Besides, students learnt to talk about environmentalsolutions Language practice focuses on Reported speech

The topics for role plays activities are: 1) Giving some environmentalproblems and offering solutions for these problems, 2) You see deforestationevery where, ask your friends to give some solutions for it, 3) You were in a bigcity with a lot of air pollution, ask your friends about the reasons and givesolutions to this problem Each group chose 1 topic and create situations

Week IV : It was an improving week Therefore, in this week, it should improvethe applied activities and check if students still remained their engagement in thelesson as well as their improvement of speaking ability

This week focused on unit 10: It is about the experience people spent on anecotourism In this unit, Students learnt simple past tense and a read about

‘Ecoctours’

Students were provided 1 topic: your last vacation, For example, badexperience or good experience of the last vacation, how you spent it, and what didyou do there to be an ecotourist ? This topic is very vast, so students could use theirimagination to create an interesting role play

Week V : It was a confirmation week of whether students still keep their interest inthese activities In addition, if the students improve their speaking ability comparewith before the implementation

This week focused on Unit 10: Ecotourism The topic is about what areincluded in an ecotour Besides, students learnt to talk about how to become anecotourist Language practice focuses on conditional sentences The readingsession is ‘a brochure about ecotours”

The topics for role plays activities are:

1) Introduce about Sam Son beach for friends How to become an ecotourist2) You were tourists to Ho Chi Minh city, ask the tour guide for informationabout it

3) You were a tour guide for visitors to Hoan Kiem lake Introduce thedestination to the visitors

Each group chose 1 topic and create situations which use ‘should (not)/ ought(not) ’ and ‘If…………’

These topics enable students to use grammar and related vocabulary as much

- The ways to conduct role-plays in a language class.

I invited five teachers in this focus study to implement the strategies I haveprovided Three of five teachers have applied in their own classrooms Theyexperienced from difficulties at the beginning to success at the end

Ms Truong Thi Loan said that we had to prepare it carefully before going toclass to have a successful role play in class She illustrated by her role play in herclass She gave the target language ( possible new vocabularies) for students thatmight appear in the “talking” She also provided some ideas that students mightuse in their performance

Mr Pham Van Bon recommended we should limit related topics forstudents, for example, the topic of environment, he suggested some situationsabout protecting the environment and students can pick what subject they want

Ms Bui T Thu added that if we didn’t limit the topic in one section, we couldn’tcontrol what may happen in the class and the content of the role play may be farfrom the content of the course book

Ms Hoang Thi Thuong and T.T.Huong suggested we should limit andchoose some topic related to the content of the book to save time She explained,with this preparation, we did not have to cover again the same issues which hadbeen mentioned in role playing

However, the preparation for role play requires lots of time Ms Le Thi Yensuggested that we should conduct role plays 1 time per week to avoid boredom.All of five teachers in my group agreed that it was not easy to conduct a roleplay in class, especially the first times There are three reasons below:

Firstly, conducting a role play in the class took a lot of time Secondly,choosing topics which relate to the content of the book is still challenging.Thirdly, maintaining role play in class for long time is not feasible

- The effectiveness of conducting role-play activities in class.

Mr Pham Van Bon and Ms Bui Thu use role play during their speakinglessons because it motivates students to speak English Most students in their classimprove their speaking through practicing real life situations

Through the focus group interview, I can see the procedures of conductingrole plays: preparation, group rehearsing and performing In preparation, theteacher provides some vocabularies and ideas which relate to each topic In grouprehearsing, students prepare, arrange their ideas and rehearse their plays beforegoing to perform In performing, each group comes to the stage and play

I also learnt from the difficulties: avoiding conducting role plays sofrequently because it makes the lessons boring Therefore, teachers should preparelessons carefully to save time, and choosing topics suitably to match withstudents’ interest

As a result, the students could better their speaking skill through real lifesituations

- How to effectively conduct collaborative activities: