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Current situation of using oral activities to teach grammar communicatively to first year non English majors in Vietnam University of Commerce .... Problems in using oral activities to t

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION …i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …ii

ABSTRACT …iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS …iv

LIST OF TABLES …vi

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study …1

2 Aims of the study …2

3 Scope of the study …2

4 Research questions …2

5 Method of the study……… .3

6 Design of the study …3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT ….4

CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW …4

1.1 Definitions of grammar ….4

1.2 Roles of grammar in language teaching …5

1.3 Approaches to grammar teaching …6

1.3.1 The Grammar – Translation Method …7

1.3.2 Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) …8

1.3.3 Applying CLT to teaching grammar …14

1.4 Oral activities …15

1.4.1 Definition of oral activities …15

1.4.2 The roles of using oral activities in grammar teaching …15

1.4.3 Characteristics of a successful oral activity …16

1.4.4 The selection of appropriate oral activities …17

1.5 Conclusion …21

CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY …22

2.1 The research hypothesis …22

2.2 Methodology …22

2.3 Participants and instruments …23

2.3.1 Participants …23

2.3.2 Instruments …23

2.4 Procedure of data collection …24

2.5 Results and discussion …25

2.5.1 Current situation of using oral activities to teach grammar communicatively to first year non English majors in Vietnam University of Commerce …25

2.5.2 Problems in using oral activities to teach grammar communicatively to first year non English majors in Vietnam University of Commerce 32

2.5.3 Suggested solutions …34

PART III: CONCLUSION …40

1 Summary of the study …40

2 Implications …40

3 Limitations of the study …41

4 Suggestions for further studies …42

REFERENCES …43 APPENDICES……… I

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Student’s profile

Table 2: Teacher’s profile

Table 3: Students’ attitude towards the position of grammar

Table 4: Reasons for learning grammar

Table 5: Students’ agreement to grammar teaching through oral activities

Table 6: Teachers’ difficulties in using oral activities to teach grammar

communicatively

Table 7: Evaluation of the effectiveness of oral activities by students

Table 8: Evaluation of the effectiveness of oral activities by teachers

Chart 1: Students’ opinions about learning grammar through oral activities

Chart 2: Frequency of learning grammar through oral activities

Chart 3: Frequency of oral activities application in grammar teaching

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

The use of English has been gradually increasing in Vietnam Also, it has a stable ground

in the Vietnamese education system English is introduced to the educational curriculum from primary education (optional) to tertiary education (compulsory) Like many other universities, teachers and students at Vietnam University of Commerce (VCU) were affected by the traditional philosophy of teaching and learning As a result, many students lack the ability to communicate in oral English after graduation from the university This fact gives rise to the need of a more effective method that creates opportunities for the learners, the subject and the centre of the teaching and learning process to bring full play their intelligence and creativeness

Over the past few years, the application of the Communicative Language Teaching method has been widely adopted This marked the beginning of a major change in the language teaching and learning at VCU And students’ grammar as well as communicative ability has been improved remarkably

VCU Faculty of English has been newly established for 4 years Almost all of the teachers were trained about CLT approach at the University and they fully understood the importance of communicative grammar lessons among students Therefore, they made all their effort to apply many kinds of activities in grammar lessons to encourage students to communicate in studying grammar in classroom

As a teacher in the Faculty of English at VCU, from my own observations and experience,

I have noticed that there are many ways to motivate the first year non-major students in grammar lessons Among them, the use of oral or speaking activities has been received more emphasis Nevertheless, both teachers and students have faced a lot of challenges in implementing and managing oral activities in grammar lessons For example, the classroom is too noisy, teachers sometimes lose control of the class or students tend to switch to use their mother tongue when not under the teacher’s eyes and so on Moreover, the teachers’ procedure in organizing speaking activities in grammar lessons is not very effective

The above mentioned situation has urged me to conduct a study to investigate teachers’ and students’ difficulties in implementing oral activities, teachers’ oral activities organization procedure, and teachers’ strategies to foster students’ English grammar As a

result, I have decided to carry out the research into “Using oral activities to teach grammar communicatively for first year non English major students in Vietnam University

of Commerce” This study is intended to make a modest contribution to an increased

understanding of using oral activities in the grammar lesson at VCU

2 Aims of the study

The purpose of this study is to explore the reality of the use of speaking activities in the grammar lesson of 1st year students of Economics, Finance and Banking at VCU where the researcher is serving More specifically, this study attempts to clarify the procedures of organizing speaking activities in the grammar lesson of 1st year non English major students and to identify strategies used by teachers to stimulate students’ communicative competence in grammar learning and the factors bringing about difficulties for the teachers and students in their application of oral activities One additional aim is to compare teachers’ practice with students’ expectation Based on the findings, the research further seeks to suggest practical recommendations for the possibility of using speaking activities

in grammar lessons of 1st year non English major students at VCU

3 Scope of the study

Though oral activities are usually applied in the speaking skill, I have chosen to focus on

grammar lessons for the fact that grammar is the first thing that learners learn on the first day of an English lesson for non English major departments Moreover, the purpose of studying English of English non English major students at VCU is to gain an international certificate in communication, for instance, the TOEIC test Therefore, this research tends to investigate the use of oral activities in the grammar lesson Also, due to the time constraints, this study only involves a small number of VCU teachers and Economics, Finance and Banking students in their first year

4 Research questions

In order to achieve the set goals, the research seeks to answer the following research questions:

- To what degree have oral activities been applied in teaching grammar communicatively

to first year non English majors in Vietnam University of Commerce?

- What problems do teachers meet when using oral activities to teach grammar communicatively to first year non English major in VCU?

- What are the possible solutions to these problems as suggested by the teachers atVCU?

5 Method of the study

The main method of the study was survey questionnaire, in which two types of questionnaire are designed and distributed to the learners and the teachers Furthermore, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the suggested approach, the writer collected some information based on her informal interviews to make sure that the data is more accurate and reliable

A combination of different methods above will provide reliable data, based on which the conclusions and suggestions will be made in the next parts

6 Design of the study

The study consists of three main parts:

The first part, Introduction, provides an overview of the study in which the reasons for choosing the study will be focused It also includes the aim, research questions, research methods, scope and design of the study

The second part, Development, consists of two chapters:

Chapter one, Literature Review, provides the theoretical background for the thesis This chapter includes three main points The first point deals with the general view on grammar and grammar teaching approaches The second point discusses the problems Finally, the third point discusses the need for applying oral activities to grammar teaching

Chapter two, The Study, aims to describe background information about the current teaching and learning of grammar at VCU and presents the methodology underlying the research including data collection instruments, procedures A detailed data analysis and discussions are also given

The last part, Conclusion, gives a summary and a recommendation for further study

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter aims to explore a general view on grammar, grammar teaching in some English teaching approaches, problems in teaching grammar at VCU, and oral activities application to grammar teaching

1.1 Definitions of grammar

In the foreign language teaching context, grammar is the first thing that learners learn on the first day of an English lesson Grammar is often defined as the study of how words and their component parts combine to form sentences However, that is only the way traditional grammarians see grammar Other linguistic schools have their own definitions basing on their different interest Structural linguistic might see grammar as the sum total of sentence patterns in which the words of a particular language are arranged In addition, grammar is regarded as our innate knowledge of the structure of language by cognitive linguistics According to Jacob, R.A (1993) grammar has three components:

- Syntax: the grammatical principles, units, and relations involved in sentence structure

- Lexicon: the set of individual words, suffixes, and prefixes

- Semantics: the meanings associated with the lexicon of a language and with the units and relations in the sentence structures

These three components necessarily interact The grammatical principles determine the kinds of units the language can have, the order in which these units can be arranged, and the kinds of relations (or functions) they participate in From the lexicon come the actual words, suffixes and prefixes that fit into the slots provided by the syntax, while the semantic component determines the range of interpretations associated with each lexically filled syntactic structure

Recently, with the introduction of functional grammar, it is considered as a resource used

to accomplish communication purposes in specific contexts

However different these definitions of grammar are, the common feature should be born in mind is that “grammar is not just a collection of sentence pattern signifying nonsense” (Widdowson, 1990:81) Rather, grammar should be viewed as linguistic rules functioning

in alliance with words and context for achievement of meaning For the purpose of this study, I use the definition that grammar is “a description of the structure of a language and the way in which linguistic units such as words and phrases are combined to produce sentences in the language It usually takes into account the meanings and fuctions these sentences have in the overall system of language” (Richards, Platt and Platt, 1992: 161) because it shows both linguistic and social nature of grammar

1.2 Roles of grammar in language teaching

In the language teaching field, teaching and learning grammar is appreciated incorrectly and inexactly Sometimes it is thought to be very boring because the teachers and learners always follow the old trace, that is, learning terminology, memorizing rules, doing mechanical exercises, such as sentence patterns and further practice As Hopkins et al (1994: 157) assumes that it is boring to teach grammar but hardly any teachers ignore it completely Grammarians do give strong support to grammar teaching They think grammar gives us a means to understand a language Besides, it reflects the order of the human thoughts and helps us to understand the diversity of human culture For them, the acquisition of the grammatical system of a language remains the most important element in language teaching

Nevertheless, there are still people who think that grammar will be acquired naturally and automatically through lessons if opportunities for meaningful communication in the language classroom are created and they lessen the role of grammar In short, different views on the role of grammar still remain Below is a brief look at some of these views

As for Thornbury (1999), grammar is a process for making a speaker’s or writer’s meaning clear when there is a lack of contextual information Moreover, grammar means the relationship between three things: grammar, words, and contexts It means it is necessary for students to learn basic and fixed forms and particular forms so that they can express particular meanings

It might be confirmed that grammar is clearly central to the working of language Widdowson (1990: 81) emphasizes: “Grammar is not just a collection of sentence patterns signifying nonsense, something for the learner’s brain to puzzle over”

Obviously, the definition of grammar makes us clear that grammar consists of certain rules and these rules that govern the system of language units and structures by which we communicate with each other How important grammar is assumed obviously has an impact on the teaching of grammar Hughes et al (1998: 265) regard grammar as the

discourse not as the sentence and coined the term discourse grammar with the statement

“grammatical statements that do not take account of such contextual features inadequate and unable to support grammar teaching effectively.”

It is quite reasonable to see the importance of grammar according to Harry viewpoint:

“Without some understanding of Grammar, students would not be about to do anything more than utter separate items of language for separate of functions Making expression of functional language is only possible through the use of Grammar rules of the language”

In general, grammar is acknowledged to be of importance in language study and in language teaching and learning in particular He also emphasize that hardly anyone needs

to learn grammar Grammar is acquired naturally from meaningful input and opportunities

to interact in the classroom More especially, learners can improve their grammar competence in suitable environment without conscious focus on language forms However, this partly depends on the learning circumstances As a result, grammar teaching gains its significant role in ELT because highly developed language skills are difficult to achieve without some knowledge of grammar

1.3 Approaches to grammar teaching

In the history of language teaching methodology, it can be said that grammar goes closely together with the development of teaching methods and approaches Grammar was once the focus of the earliest method – Grammar Translation and until now the tremendous change in methodology have always implied the changes in grammar teaching objective, techniques and activities The following part is about some of the most common methods and approaches in which the grammar teaching will be concerned

1.3.1 The Grammar – Translation Method

This method is associated with the learning of Latin and Greek which was popular in the late 18th century in Europe and considered to be the key to the thought and literature of a great and ancient civilization The primary aim of this method is to engage the learners in mental gymnastics and to read literature and philosophy in the target language Also, it focuses on grammatical rules, rote memorization of vocabulary and translation of literary texts

According to Prator and Celce-Murcia (1979: 3), the key features of the Grammar Translation Method are as follow:

(1) Classes are taught in the mother tongue, with little active use of the target language

(2) Much vocabulary taught in the form of lists of isolated words

(3) Long elaborate explanations of the intricacies of grammar are given

(4) Grammar provides the rules for putting words together, and instruction often focuses on the form and inflection of words

(5) Reading of difficult classical texts is begun early

(6) Little attention is paid to the content of texts, which are treated as exercises in grammatical analysis

(7) Often the only drills are exercises in translating disconnected sentences from the target language into the mother tongue

(8) Little or no attention is given to pronunciation

In this method, the learners are the passive recipients of the explicit grammar rules and engaged in practice activities and translation exercises, requiring the application of those rules Listening activities takes form of dictations, and speaking practice is accomplished

by having students read a passage aloud in front of the class In other words, communication skills are ignored Conversely, the teacher holds the authoritative role, or

he is seen as ideal language model and commander of classroom activity

It is worth noticing that mistakes and errors are seen as a failure and they must be avoided

at any cost Whenever the learners make mistakes or errors, the teacher often correct at once to make sure that the learners always produce correct sentences

As its name reveals, grammar plays a very important role in Grammar – Translation method, and at times even the goal of language study Grammar (usually prescriptive) is taught deductively moving from the statement of the rule to the example

Grammar – Translation method dominated the history of language teaching from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century and it is still widely used, especially in the EFL settings The best point of this method is that it helps the learners produce grammatically correct sentences Besides, it can be easlily exploited in many classroom situations where the class is large (about 40 learners), where the teachers are unqualified, emphasize grammatical knowledge Nevertheless, the biggest disadvantage of this method

is that the learners can not communicated in real situations, or their utterances are correct but inappropriate This is the result of the process of learning only form and usage, but not use, and learning about the language, not using the language to learn through authentic tasks Furthermore, this method makes the learners really passive in the process of getting

knowledge They just listen to the teacher’s explanation and do not participate in the exploration of new knowledge

Despite of these defects, it is widely recognized that the Grammar Translation Method is still one of the most popular and favorite models of language teaching

1.3.2 Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

Towards the end of the 1960s there was a growing dissatisfaction among applied linguists and foreign language teachers with the language theories and teaching methods The prominent American linguist Noam Chomsky had demonstrated that the current standard structural theories of language were incapable of accounting for the fundamental characteristic of language – the creativity and uniqueness of individual sentences Besides, applied linguists emphasized a fundamental dimension of language that was inadequately addressed in approaches to language teaching at that time – the functional and communicative potential of language Consequently, the teaching produced structurally competent students who were often communicatively incompetent Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) emerged as a response to that judgment It is based on the language theory that language is for communication and the learning theory that real communication, meaningful task and meaningful language promote learning The term CLT covers a variety of approaches that all focus on helping learners to communicate meaningfully in the target language

Howatt (1984: 279) distinguishes between the weak and the strong versions of Communicative Language Teaching The weak version stresses the importance of providing learners with opportunities to use English for communicative purposes and therefore attempts to integrate communicative activities into the program of language teaching As different from this, the strong version of communicative language teaching claims that language can be acquired only through communication This would mean that teaching involves not just “activating an existing knowledge of the language”, but

“stimulating the development of the language system itself” (Howatt, p 279) It is worth noticing that while the strong version of the communicative movement pays no attention to grammar learning in the classroom, the weak version attempts to integrate a communicative component into a traditional setting (Allright, 1977) However, whether it

is the weak or the strong version, the proponents of Communicative Language Teaching

have always viewed learning a second/ foreign language as acquiring the linguistic means

to perform different functions

The general aim of CLT is to develop the students’ communicative competence The theory of communicative competence was put forth by Dell Hymes in the paper “On communicative competence” In Hymes’s view, “communicative competence” refers to the ability not only to apply the grammatical rules of language in order to form grammatically correct sentences but also to know when and where to use these sentences and to whom Later, in 1980, Canale and Swain offered a widely accepted model of communicative competence which consists of grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence In Canale and Swain’s model, grammatical competence refers to what Chomsky calls linguistic competence It is the knowledge of the language code, including lexical items, rules of morphology and syntax, sentence – grammar semantics and phonology Sociolinguistic competence refers to an understanding of the social context in which communication takes place, including role relationships, the shared information of the participants, and the communicative purpose for their interaction Discourse competence broadly refers to the interpretation of individual message elements in terms of their interconnectedness and of how meaning is represented in relationship to the entire discourse or text Strategic competence refers to the coping strategies that communicators employ to initiate, terminate, maintain, repair, and redirect communication

It should be born in mind that “communicative competence” or “communication” does not always mean “oral competence” or “oral communication” as it has been wrongly assumed

by many language teachers This can be explained by the theory of a speech event which is set out by Hymes:

1 The sender (addresser, speaker, writer)

2 The receiver (addressee, listener, reader)

From this model we could learn that communication occurs in all four skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing and the teacher could use CLT to teach the learners all four skills

Although CLT is very popular, it is hard to reach an agreement about what it is However, linguists have tried to point out the characteristic features of CLT Littlewood (1981: 1) states that “one of the most characteristic features of communicative language teaching is that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspect of language” David Nunan (1989: 279) also offers five features to characterize CLT:

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

2 The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation

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

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

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

Furthermore, Richards (1986: 12) reminds us of some crucial principles of CLT such as language learning is a process of learning how to negotiate meaning in a particular socio-cultural context, activities and materials will be more effective if they are centered around the learners needs and interests, effective communication is more important than structural accuracy particularly at the beginning stages of language learning and errors are manifestation of the fact that learning is taking place Relating to the mother tongue’s use Finocchiaro and Brumfit (1983) believe that native language could be used for explanation and discussion when useful In a communicative classroom, the teacher’s and learner’s role are quite different from the previous methods and approaches The teacher is a facilitator

of her students’ communication process between all participants in the classroom and between these participants and the various activities and texts During the activities, she acts as an advisor, answering students’ questions and monitoring the performance At other times she might be a “co-communicator” engaging in the communicative activity along with the students Meanwhile, the learner is a negotiator between the self, the role of joint-negotiator with the group and within the classroom procedures and activities which group undertakes Learners are, above all, central communicators They are actively engaged in

negotiating meaning in trying to make themselves understood even when their knowledge

of the target language is incomplete They learn to communicate by communicating Students are seen as more responsible contributors of their own learning, and they are independent learner

According to Richards and Rodgers (2001), there are two types of classroom activities The first type involves functional communication activities such as comparing sets of pictures, discovering missing features in a map, solving problems from shared clues, etc The other type is social interaction activities like conversation and discussion, dialogues, role plays, simulations

Early approaches downplayed the importance of grammar, some even advocating the abandonment of any focus on form In natural approach – one of current communicative approaches, Hammerly (1987:330) suggests that all grammatical instruction and practice activities should be done outside the class so that the classroom time is not wasted in grammatical lectures or manipulative exercise He also believe that manipulation of grammar rules should be applied in writing or in prepared speech In addition, if grammar explanations must be done in the classroom, Krashen and Terrell, they recommended that they should be short, simple and in the target language

More recent approaches acknowledge the centrality of grammar and try to teach the learners the relationship between grammatical form and communicative meaning However, CLT believes that language is learned through exposure and interaction Thus, CLT makes little or no provision for the formal instruction of grammar, and students are encouraged to identify and learn the rules Grammar is not seen as a set of rules to be memorized but to be internalized and used for communication Celce-Murcia (1988:27) proposes a four part grammar lesson successfully applying a communicative approach to teaching grammar The first part is presentation in which we introduce the grammar structure inductively or deductively The next part is focused practice which allows the learners to manipulate the structure in question while all other variables are held constant

As a result, the learners gain control of the form without the added pressure and distraction

of trying to use the form for communication After that the learners engages in communicative activities to practice the new structure in communicative practice Finally, the teacher gives feedback and correction Although this is the final part, Celce-Murcia notes that it must take place throughout the lesson In focused practice, correction should

be straightforward and immediate However, in communicative practice the teacher should take note of errors and deal with them after the communicative exercises

CLT is now accepted by many applied linguists and classroom teachers because of several reasons It can be well-observed that the learners are often much motivated when their teachers apply CLT to teaching language because they are encouraged to discover rules, use their language knowledge to complete interesting tasks, and communicate well in both oral and written form What is more, the learners become more active in their language learning process, eager to study language inside and outside the classroom since in CLT they are those who decide and are responsible for the success of failure of their learning result However, CLT focuses on meaning rather than form (grammar rules) so the most obvious risk that has been criticized by many linguists and teachers is the fossilization of learners’ errors

As discussed above, when evaluating the effect of immersion approach by reviewing six studies, Hammerley (1987) stated that the grammatical competence of immersion students

is characterized by fossilization or classroom pidgin as a result of their trying to communicate freely beyond their limited linguistic competence In addition, a research by Prabhu (cited by Beretta & Davis, 1985) showed that students who received meaning based instruction did well on the meaning-based test by poorly on a discrete-point grammar test Therefore, research indicated that a combination of form and meaning may be the best teaching approach Richards & Platt (1992) concluded that “form focused instruction and corrective feedback within the context of communicative interaction can contribute positively to second language development in both the short and long term” (p.205) This integration of form and meaning is gaining importance in what they refer to as the students should learn grammar explicitly but should also be given the opportunity to practice than in communicative and authentic/ simulated tasks

This paper is of the view that both structural and communicative elements have a role to play in EFL and ESL especially in Vietnam setting This is due to two main reasons: First, the norms and practices of the structural syllabus have been embedded in the Vietnam cultures for decades For instance, for most of language teachers and learners, textbook means knowledge Therefore, to learn is to memorize all knowledge in the textbook Second, in a society of which the first and the second language is not English like Vietnam, communicative proficiency will become easier to achieve only when one has grasped the

necessary grammatical knowledge Hammerly (1987:94) suggests that students learn more from than meaning at an early stage and as time increases (and as students’ language proficiency improves), the intervention of communicative functions increases along with the form reduce

1.3.3 Applying CLT to teaching grammar

According to Siaw-Fong Chung (2005) since the introduction of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), many textbooks have been written to incorporate communicative activities, authentic materials and personalized contexts, but where the teaching and learning of grammar is concerned, most textbooks do not reflect CLT principles Obviously, applying CLT to grammar teaching is necessary in order to deal with the disadvantages of Grammar Translation method when being used to teach grammar such as the learners’ inappropriate utterances and passive learning style The deep basis of this application is that CLT aims at developing communicative competence and grammatical competence is one of four of its component competences Thus, in theory, CLT may be used to teach grammar so that understanding the rules of grammar is not an end in itself and learners are helped to recognize the communicative value of grammatical structures

It is worth mentioning here some researches into teaching grammar in the light of CLT Celce-Murcia and Hilles (1988) propose that “grammar should never be taught as an end in itself, but always with reference to meaning, social factors, or discourse… or a combination of these factors” (cited in Celce-Murcia, 1991) Fuyuko Kato (1998) also refer

to the application of CLT to grammar teaching when she stated that teachers are required

to create a chance of real communication in the classroom so that learners can actually use the target grammar form in a meaningful way Furthermore, when referring to the limitations of Grammar Translation method (form-based) and Communicative Approach (meaning-based), Pavel V Sysoyev (1999) argued for a combination of form-based and meaning-based focus, and thus proposed a method that he called “integrative grammar teaching” (or EEE method) which consists of three major stages (a) exploration, (b) explanation, and (c) expression By conducting an evaluative questionnaire after the experimental lessons, he concluded that students preferred to learn L2 grammar using the EEE method, as opposed to form-based or meaning-based only approaches

Recently, Siaw-Fong Chung (2005) in an attempt to find out whether CLT principles are incorporated into grammar exercises in textbooks has suggested five methods so that

grammar activities can be made more communicative The five methods relate to games, natural contexts, balancing skills, personalization and adjustment of teacher role

Obviously, grammar has played a central role in language teaching and the question “how

to teach grammar” is far from being satisfactorily answered Nevertheless, the tendency of applying CLT to grammar teaching is indispensable in order to improve the drawbacks of the traditional way of teaching grammar

1.4 Oral activities

1.4.1 Definition of oral activities

A grammar lesson consists of different stages which are suggested differently by different methodologists Ur (1996) organizes grammar teaching into four stages: presentation, isolation and explanation, practice and test, whereas according to Celce-Murcia and Hilles,

a grammar lesson goes through four following phases: presentation, practice and testing Thus, however different such suggestions are, practice as a stage is always present, it comes after the initial presentation and explanation when learners have taken knowledge into short term memory but have not really mastered it yet Practice may be defined as any kind of engaging with the language on the part of the learners, usually under the teachers’ supervision, whose primary objective is to consolidate learning Practice involves both spoken and written practice (Ur, 1996:11)

1.4.2 The roles of using oral activities in grammar teaching

Nunan (2007) agrees that oral grammar practice gives learners increasing opportunities and motivation to interact with other communicators, to raise their awareness of the forms and functions of English grammar Grammatical patterns are matched to particular communicative meanings so learners can see connection between form and function Learners learn how to choose the right pattern to express different communicative meanings They will incorporate various grammatical structures in their performance Students, for successful language use, need not only to be exposed to the structures and functions of communication but also to practice applying grammatical knowledge in real contexts To reach the goals, the application of grammar in the classroom should be more creative and open-ended Creative language activities provide more opportunities for the learners to use language more flexibility than receptive language tasks Creative language use involves learners in recombining familiar words, phrases and structures in new and

familiar ways When students have enough time and enough opportunities communicate and to receive feedback on attempts at producing meaningful language, errors will gradually diminish (Corder, 1981; Selinker, 1972, 1992) Thanks to that students will learn grammar better

Teaching grammar communicatively or using communicative activities means teaching grammar effectively In other words, oral grammar practice provides for effective grammar acquisition But how to organize oral practice successfully is a hard question According to

Ur (1996: 15), “Interest is an essential feature of successful oral practice” Without properly getting involved in practicing grammar orally and communicatively, students feel bored and find it difficult to concentrate, their attention wanders, and they may spend much

of the lesson time thinking or dreaming of other things So the poor quality of effort and attention will reduce their learning results Besides, because of boredom, students may start out-of-focus talks often talk or produce unruly behavior, therefore, more valuable learning time may be wasted on coping with discipline problems On the contrary, if students are interested in what is done, they will not only learn efficiently, they are also likely to enjoy the process and want to continue learning

Nunan (2007) emphasized that oral practice activities, in grammar learning and teaching, not only maintain learners’ interests but also sustain their attention in the long term process

of acquiring grammatical knowledge and skills in English Oral practice will offer students opportunities to practice and use grammar realistically and meaningfully so as to activate learners’ knowledge of grammar Oral grammar practice also increases the realism and usefulness of grammar lessons Moreover, for many teachers, correcting grammar errors in students’ written work is quite a time consuming task

In brief, grammar should be taught through oral practice activities to increase students’ interests which results in more effective grammar acquisition

1.4.3 Characteristics of a successful oral activity

According to Ur (1996: 120), a successful oral activity consists of the following characteristics:

 A lot of learners talk: learners speak as much as possible during the period of time allowed Time taken up with the teacher talk or pauses is minimized

 Even participation: every learner takes part in the speaking activity The participants’ contributions are fairly distributed

 High motivation: The topic makes them interested and eager to speak or learners want to fulfill the task to get the goal

 An acceptable language level: Learners use relevant and comprehensible expressions Language accuracy is of an acceptable level

1.4.4 The selection of appropriate oral activities

Many researchers discuss classroom activities and a lot of activities are adapted or designed based on the theory and characteristics of CLT

Littlewood (1981) distinguishes between “functional communication activities” and “social interaction activities” In his views, the former includes such tasks as learners noting similarities or differences in sets of pictures, discovering missing features in a map or picture, one learner communicating behind a screen to another learner and giving instructions on how to draw a picture or shape, or how to complete a map, following directions, and solving problems from shared cues The latter includes conversation and discussion and sessions, dialogues and role-plays, simulations, and improvisations and debates

Richards and Rodgers (1986: 165) discuss that the range of exercise types and activities with a communicative approach is unlimited, provided that such exercises and activities enable learners to attain the communicative objectives of the curriculum, engage learners

in communication and require the use of such communicative processes as information sharing, negotiation of meaning, and interaction In their views, classroom activities should

be designed to focus on completing tasks that are mediated through language or involve negotiation of information and information sharing

Activities may be classified as activities for accuracy that aim at learners’ competence in producing right words, phrases or sentences and activities for fluency that aim at learners’ capacity to sustain the flow of speech with ease and comfort

In short, oral activities are various and can be found in a great number of resources However, in this minor thesis, the author would introduce some most applicable types which have proven the most effective:

 Conversation

Conversation serves many functions People use conversations to establish relationships through personal expression, to find out information, and to compare views with others Conversation provides a means for sharing experiences and solving problems

Teachers can capitalize on the critical role of conversation in students’ lives and use it to enhance their language learning Through experiences with the language processes, students can discover a steadily expanding series of topics such as projects, books, characters, television programs and videos In conversation, it is important for students to have useful vocabulary Clarity and precision are the keys to effective word choice in conversation Teachers should not expect perfection from students in the use of unfamiliar

or difficult words, but rather should develop a supportive environment and group rapport that encourage students to experiment with unfamiliar words

 Discussion

Discussion differs from conversation in that it generally has an identifiable purpose, such

as coming to a clearer understanding of characters’ roles in a drama or exploring the possibilities for publishing student writing Discussion is similar to conversation with regard to listening carefully, considering what others say, being courteous, and speaking so that all can hear Many of students’ conversational abilities will transfer to discussion situations

Discussion assists students in the development of reasoning, critical thinking, and solving skills It gives them practice in expressing ideas orally in an organized manner and enables them to arrive at conclusion, clarify or modify ideas, resolve differences, and find alternative solutions In group discussions, students may encounter viewpoints different from their own They come to see that there are many problems for which there is no one appropriate solution As well, discussion can serve as a means of building consensus among group members

problem-Groupings of three to five are good for effective discussions Everyone is able to contribute

to discussion as a listener and as a speaker In addition, a small group draws out quieter students who may not contribute to larger group discussions

 Storytelling

Storytelling is an oral sharing of a personal or traditional story, told using the essence of the tradition from which it originates As a shared experience between teller and listener, it offers natural language experiences for students

Storytelling allows students to internalize important aspects of story beginnings and endings, settings, characters, and plot lines It provides practice in expressing ideas in thought units, using colorful and descriptive language, developing ideas in sequence, and choosing effective action words

The speech abilities needed for storytelling are essentially the same as ones required for all speaking activities Storytelling encourages students to experiment with voice, tone, eye-contact, gestures and facial expressions It also lets them practice techniques for holding audience attention

 Oral reports

In preparing reports, students develop the ability to select material appropriate to classroom topics and to the audience, and the ability to collect and organize material (requiring skill in reading critically, taking notes, summarizing and outlining) Often a report can be made more meaningful to the audience through the use of visuals such as charts, maps, diagrams, and overhead transparencies

Oral reports should emerge from other English language arts processes If some students are not comfortable with reporting, they can develop more confidence by taking part in other oral activities before they are ready to give a report

 Telephoning

The telephone is an important tool for personal, school, and business use because of the rapid communication it permits Therefore, there is need to reinforce personal speaking and listening abilities regarding telephone use

Students should be provided with functional and helpful vocabulary and they must have authentic reasons for telephoning when they are practicing their skills in the English language arts classroom

 Announcements

Making announcements can serve as useful oral speaking practice at any grade level As with other types of speech activities, criteria for making announcements should be developed by the class These criteria should address the recommended format and manner

of presentation and serve as guidelines for the students

After the announcements are made, peers or the teacher might write the student announcer

an informal note, commenting on the strengths of the presentation and including one suggestion for improvement

 Role play

Role play provides the opportunity for students to develop and revise their understanding and perspectives by exploring thoughts and feelings of characters in given situations The teacher may take a role, becoming an active participant in promoting independent thinking and co-operate learning

Role play helps students to develop empathy as they examine others’ ideas, feelings, and points of view as well as oral expression and interpretation skills as they use language to describe perceptions, emotions, and reactions In addition, it also helps students to improve decision-making and problem-solving skills as they gain experience in independent thinking and co-operative learning

 Interviews

An interview is a good way to gain information and provide the participants with practice

in improving speaking and listening skills Results of interviews can be prepared for publication in reports or in the school newspaper, thus supporting the writing component of the language arts program

Students might interview people from the community who have firsthand knowledge regarding topics being studied at school or they might interview visitors, fellow students,

or teachers It is important that the interview has a definite purpose

Informal debate reflects the learning process Debating allows students to explore ideas and arguments in a non-threatening atmosphere, because presentational guidelines are provided Debating is an effective method of acquiring knowledge, as arguments need to

be supported by relevant, accurate, and complete information Students who debate informally learn to recognize the elements of a good argument and to develop further their abilities to speak confidently

 Co-operative learning

Co-operative learning involves students in group collaboration in order to achieve a goal or

to complete a project Although students do not necessarily work together at one table throughout the project, participation by each group member is necessary to accomplish the

task Success and assessment are based on the performance of the group, as well as on individual contributions and performance within the group

Co-operative learning experiences are particularly effective at the Middle Level, where students have innate desire to be accepted Competitive, individual efforts are appropriate

at times, however, co-operative learning experiences have the advantage of helping students work together and support each other

1.5 Conclusion

Briefly, this chapter presents the literature related to the study Not only the definition, the role of oral activities in grammar teaching as well as the characteristics of an oral activity, but Communicative Language Teaching approach and some other approaches are also viewed to figure out the most suitable techniques for effective English grammar lessons Applying these techniques, the researcher wishes to discover how oral activities can help to teach grammar communicatively to the first year English non-major students in Vietnam University of Commerce

CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY 2.1 The research context

The study was conducted at VCU where students come from all parts of Vietnam The students experienced traditional method of English teaching at high schools and learning used to focus on reading and writing but not listening or speaking Thus, they had very few chances to speak English In fact, the first year non major students of English find the University learning style completely different and they find it difficult

to join classroom activities However, this study is carried out in the second semester when the students have passed the first semester and are quite familiar to

communicative grammar Moreover, they are active, enthusiastic and hard working in the study, which has encouraged the teachers of English to keep looking for way to help them improve their studying

The role of the teachers is undeniable in the process of teaching and learning a target language In Department of Theory, Faculty of English, VCU, most of teachers have got their MA degree or are studying toward that degree at the University of Language and International Studies of Vietnam National University They are all experienced, friendly, active, knowledgeable, and full of inspiration for teaching

As for classroom arrangements, the class size is averagely 50 (or more) Therefore, it is difficult to carry out a communicative task in such a mixed-ability large class All classrooms are designed for lectures with a board, a cassette recorder Besides, teachers can also present their lectures by using overhead projectors in most of the classrooms

2.2 Methodology

Nowadays, it is increasingly common for researchers to report the study on both quantitative and qualitative findings, especially, in studies on English Second Language (ESL) (Adams, Fujii & Mackey, 2005) Thus, in consideration of the research’s purposes, this study was done in the light of both quantitative and qualitative research in which the data is collected by means of questionnaires and interviews of both teachers and students

Survey questionnaire is one of the most effective instruments for collecting data in social science Advantages of using questionnaires that Gillham (2000) highlights are: less pressure on respondents, not under pressure of bias, and analysis of answers is straight forward Like questionnaire, interviews can allow researchers to investigate cognitive processes such as awareness or constructs such as perceptions or attitudes that are not directly observable

The purpose of using questionnaire and interviews as research materials to collect data

in this study is to triangulate the data and to overcome the limitations or drawbacks of other methods because one can well support another which helps strengthen the research findings

2.3 Participants and instruments

2.3.1 Participants

The subjects of this study consist of two groups The first group includes 150 first year students majoring in Economics and Finance & Banking The other consists of 10 English teachers of Theoretical Department, English Faculty, VCU The students age from 18 to 22, 54% are male and 46% are female Some of them have learnt English for 6 years and the others for 3 years or fewer Among the teachers, 4 have a Master degree, 3 are attending M.A courses and 3 graduated from the University of Languages and International Studies of Vietnam National University They all age from 24 to 40 and have at least 2 years teaching experience

2.3.2 Instruments

2.3.2.1 Questionnaires

The study employs two questionnaires, one for teachers and the other for students The questionnaire for teachers, adapted from Mueller (1997), written in Vietnamese consisting of 4 questions was delivered to 10 teachers who were teaching English for the first year students at VCU The questionnaire was used to explore information about their attitudes towards their degree of using oral activities, their difficulties in organizing oral activities during grammar lessons as well as the solutions they have applied when using these oral activities to teach grammar communicatively

The survey questionnaire administered to 150 first year students including seven questions with an aim to get information about students’ opinion on and students’ desires in learning grammar through oral activities together with some kinds of oral activities, students have experienced when studying grammar

2.3.2.2 Interviews

Another research tool employed in this study was private interviews The interviews with teachers were carried out (5 items for the teachers) to get more information about the difficulties they coped with when using oral activities in teaching grammar communicatively and some solutions they offered to deal with these difficulties These questions were open enough to allow the interviewees to comfortably express their thoughts, feelings or opinions Before officially carrying out the interviews, the interview questions were piloted with one teacher to identify the potential problems

2.4 Procedure of data collection

In the first phase, questionnaires were administered to 150 first year students in Economics and Finance & Banking at the end of the second semester of the academic year 2011 The participants were asked to complete the questionnaire at home and returned their responses one week later so that they would have as much time as they needed

After the data collected were analyzed, in the second phase, 5 teachers were contacted for personal interviews with the researcher in locations where they felt at ease and at a time they suggested The interviews were all tape-recorded to free the interviewer to participate naturally in the discussion and to allow the content to be reviewed carefully The length of each interview was from 7 to 10 minutes

In order to answer the first question, the data collected from the survey questionnaire and the interview questions would be categorized into degrees of using oral activities in grammar lessons The quantitative data were analyzed in the form of tables while qualitative data from open-ended questionnaire items were presented by quoting relevance responses from the respondents Then the data were analyzed both descriptively and interpretively

The data collected from survey questionnaire and from the writer’s analysis of the context of grammar teaching and learning at VCU would be used to answer the second and third questions

In short, this part has described in details the research context, the research methods, the research participants, instruments, data collection procedure and data analysis used

in this study Major findings will be presented and discussed in the next part

2.5 Results and discussion

2.5.1 Current situation of using oral activities to teach grammar communicatively

to first year English non-majors in Vietnam University of Commerce

The presented and analyzed data was taken from two questionnaires for both Teachers and Students at VCU and interviews for Teachers at VCU

Research Question 1: To what degree have oral activities been applied in teaching grammar communicatively to first year English non-majors in Vietnam University of Commerce?

As can be seen from the table below, the student’s profile plays a very important role in deciding what degree oral activities have been applied to teach grammar communicatively

to large multilevel classes of the first year students at VCU

Table 1: Student’s profile

(Source: Student’s questionnaire)

The total number of the students chosen in the studying was 150 of which 69 were female and 81 were male The majority were aged 19 Some were 18 and the rest belongs to the age groups of 20 – 22

Most of students have learnt English for over 5 years (90%) 4% have spent from 3 to 5 years studying this language 2% have experience of 1 – 3 years in learning English while

2 % have learnt English less than 1 year There are even 2 students who have no experience of learning English because they did not have it as a compulsory subject in high schools or they studied another language such as French and Russian before Most of the study subjects came from the countryside and provinces round Hanoi (76.67% equals 115 students) while only 35 were from big cities Their different places of domicile led to a greatly various experience in their English language learning Students from the countryside and provinces round Hanoi were taught grammar in traditional ways and have

no opportunities to practice communicating English Therefore, it is hard for them to get acquainted with the approach of learning grammar through oral activities