SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM Using Communicative Tasks or Activities to Promote High School Students Grammatical Competence

SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM Using Communicative Tasks or Activities to Promote High School Students' Grammatical Competence Người thực hiện: BÙI PHÚ XUÂN Lĩnh vực nghiên cứu: Quản lý giáo d

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐỒNG NAI

Đơn vị : Trường THPT NGÔ QUYỀN

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Mã số: ………

SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM

Using Communicative Tasks or Activities to

Promote High School Students' Grammatical Competence

Người thực hiện: BÙI PHÚ XUÂN

Lĩnh vực nghiên cứu:

Quản lý giáo dục Phương pháp dạy học bộ môn: Tiếng Anh Lĩnh vực khác:

Có đính kèm:

Năm học: 2014-2015

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SƠ LƯỢC LÝ LỊCH KHOA HỌC

I THÔNG TIN CHUNG VỀ CÁ NHÂN

1 Họ và tên: BÙI PHÚ XUÂN

2 Ngày tháng năm sinh : 02 / 09 / 1976

3 Nam/Nữ: Nam

4 Địa chỉ: 103/71 Đường 30/4 Phường Trung Dũng Thành Phố Biên Hòa -

Tỉnh Đồng Nai

5 Điện thoại: Cơ quan: 061.3829029 Nhà riêng: 061.3819495

7 Chức vụ: Giáo viên

8 Nhiệm vụ được giao: Thư ký HĐ, chủ nhiệm lớp, giảng dạy bộ môn tiếng Anh

9 Đơn vị công tác: Trường THPT NGÔ QUYỀN

II TRÌNH ĐỘ ĐÀO TẠO

- Học vị (hoặc trình độ chuyên môn, nghiệp vụ) cao nhất: Thạc Sỹ

- Năm nhận bằng: 2007

- Chuyên ngành đào tạo: Giảng Dạy Tiếng Anh

III KINH NGHIỆM KHOA HỌC:

- Lĩnh vực chuyên môn có kinh nghiệm: Giảng dạy bộ môn Tiếng Anh

- Số năm có kinh nghiệm: 16 năm

- Các sáng kiến kinh nghiệm đã có trong 5 năm gần đây:

+ Five-minute activities + Pre-Listening activities + Strategies for Developing Reading Skills Skimming and Scanning + Arousing Students’ Interest in Reading

+ Using Interactive Tasks to Arouse High School Students’ Interest in Learning Speaking

TOPIC: Using Communicative Tasks or Activities to Promote High School Students' Grammatical Competence

I Introduction:

Learning a foreign language nowadays is considered to be the most necessary thing to do among the young people Also in Vietnam, English has become a compulsory subject at secondary schools, high schools, colleges and universities

It is usually believed that teaching grammar is one of the most difficult tasks that

a teacher has to deal with However, we all know that grammar skills are necessary for students’ success on standardized tests and university entrance exams, in their ability to communicate orally and in writing, and in life

Through discussions with some of the teachers and students’ in my school I have found out some problems in teaching and learning grammar Most teachers choose the teaching career with the hope that they could spark the joy of learning

in their students However, classroom teaching is a demanding job Most Vietnamese teachers have to work with a class of forty five students or more and there is usually a wide variety of abilities in each class When teaching grammar, the teachers always play the centered roles, they try to force their students to memorize structures that are not contextualized or used in everyday conversation

As a result, the students sit passively and do nothing, what they do is to listen to the teacher and then copy everything on the board into their notebooks Therefore they don’t know how to apply what they have studied at school in their daily life

As Richards and Renandya (2002) points out “students may know a lot of grammar but they are unable to use their knowledge for any practical communicative purposes”

At the end of the lesson students usually feel tired and bored, they find no pleasure and no interest in the grammar lessons Therefore I think it is very necessary to design some of the communicative tasks and activities when teaching grammar in order to promote my students' grammatical competence

II The importance of teaching grammar:

Grammar is a significant part of language learning It is very important for the learners to use correct grammar when they write or speak so that they can avoid misunderstandings and also help other people understand them better and easily

If your English is full of mistakes you will fail to express your opinions and your thoughts clearly and concisely

We cannot deny the fact that the use or misuse of grammar in speaking and in writing has negative effect on the image we have for other people The use of correct grammar helps people communicate more successfully and get the jobs they applied more easily

Moreover it is widely approved that learning grammar is very essential when studying a foreign language With a good knowledge of grammar people can communicate more effectively and also have good impression on listeners

III Aims of the topic:

 Promote students' grammatical competence by using communicative tasks and activities

IV Level:

 From tenth grade to twelfth grade

V Content of the topic:

This contains some of the activities that teachers can use in class and I use

the Units in “English book 10 & 12” as examples in my activities

1 Activity 1 : Find someone who

- We can use this activity after reviewing “Tenses” in Unit 1 & 2 English 12

in order to check the students’ understanding and at the same time consolidate what they have learned

- Each student needs a copy of the work sheet

Students mingle and ask each other questions to find a person for each category, they should only ask one question before moving onto the next person Students could write down the questions they are going to ask, e.g

+ Have you been to Ha Long Bay?

+ Have you ever seen a ghost?

 This kind of activity is a good way helping students practise the present perfect tense and also encourage them to ask a follow-up question in the past simple when they find someone who fits the category

Ex: Have you ever been to Ha Long Bay?

- Yes, I have

- Who did you go with?

- I went with …

Name and details

1 has been in a helicopter

2 has cooked a meal for more

than 10 people

3 has met someone famous

4 has visited Ha Noi several

times

5 has seen an action movie in

the last week

6 has gotten lost while

travelling

7 has driven a car

8 has written a letter in

English

9 has eaten something very

unusual

10 has passed an exam recently

2 Activity 2 : Passive quiz

We can use this activity after teaching “Passive voice” in Unit 4 “School

Education System” English 12 in order to check the students’ understanding

and at the same time consolidate what they have learned

- Students work in groups to answer the questions

- Discuss the answers with the class, with students giving their answers as passive sentences

1 When was the Eiffel Tower built?

a 1869

b 1889

c 1909

2 When was Kennedy assassinated?

a November 1961

b December 1961

c November 1963

3 Which city is known as the Big Apple?

a New York

b Los Angeles

c San Francisco

4 Where was Christopher Columbus born?

a Portugal

b Spain

c Italy

5 Who invented television?

a Marconi

b John Logie Baird

c Edison

6 Where was paper invented?

a Japan

b China

c India

7 Who wrote Harry Porter?

a J.K Rowling

b Margaret Mitchell

c Ernest Hemingway

8 Who invented the telephone?

a Alexander Graham Bell

b Albert Einstein

c Howard Aiken

9 When was Mount Everest first climbed?

a 1943

b 1953

c 1963

10 In which city will the 2016 Olympics be held?

a Sydney

b Rio De Janeiro

c Atlanta

Answer key:

1 B 2 C 3 A 4 C 5 B 6 B 7 A 8 A 9 B 10 B

3 Activity 3 : Brainstorming

We can use this activity after teaching “Comparison of adjectives” in Unit 16

“Historical Places” English 10 (comparative and superlative, also as …… as and not so ………… as to compare subjects) in order to check the students’

understanding and at the same time consolidate what they have learned

 Procedure:

Teacher has the students to work in pairs, gives them 3 names of objects such as animals, jobs, or whatever he likes and asks them to write down as many sentences as possible to compare these items

 Examples : If they are given a car, a plane, a bicycle, comparisons might

run:

+ The plane is the fastest

+ The car is more expensive than a bicycle

+ The car is heavier than the bicycle

 Variation:

After a preliminary trial run with the whole class, if we have more time, another set of words can be given to small groups, who compete to see who can think of the most comparisons in 3 or 4 minutes Encourage the students to make

do with vocabulary they know rather than asking us for extra words

 Examples: Things to compare

a a pen, a ball, a USB

b an elephant, a snake, an ant

c a cell phone, a computer, a lamp

d a car, a plane, a bicycle

e a house, a villa, a hut

f a teacher, a farmer, an actor

g tennis, golf, football

4 Activity 4 : Quizzes

We can use this kind of activity as a game to help the students review the grammar point “Comparison of adjectives” they have studied in Unit 16

“Historical Places” English 10 and at the same time they can get some general knowledge from the answers

 Materials:

- Quizzes based on comparisons

eg: What is the longest river in the world?

- Vocabulary should be familiar to the students or easily guessed

 Procedure:

The teacher asks the questions, students answer them either orally or in writing, preferably in complete sentences:

Eg: The River Nile is the longest river in the world

Then they make up their own quizzes for each other to do

 Variation:

Give the students only a name (Lake Baikal ; the Pacific Ocean; Queen Victoria) and ask them to work in pairs or groups to discuss why these are outstanding

 Examples :

BOX: Comparative & Superlative Quizzes

a Where are there more people: in Thailand or Vietnam?

b Which is the larger country: Canada or Australia?

c Which is taller: Bitexco Financial Tower or Keangnam Hanoi Landmark Tower?

d Which is larger: The Sahara Desert or Gobi Desert?

e Which has faster heartbeat: a mouse or an elephant?

f What is the largest state in the United States?

g What is the deepest lake in the world?

h What is the largest ocean basin on Earth?

i What is the largest rainforest in the world?

j Which is the most ancient monument in the world?

ANSWERS:

a Vietnam

b Canada

c Keangnam Hanoi Landmark Tower

d The Sahara Desert

e a mouse

f Alaska

g Lake Baikal

h the Pacific

i the Amazon Rainforest

j the Pyramids

5 Activity 5 : Why would you do that?

- We can use this activity after reviewing “conditional sentence” in Unit 5

“Higher Education” English 12 in order to check the students’

understanding and at the same time consolidate what they have learned

- Give each student a copy of the worksheet

- Student work individually to compete the beginnings of the sentences, e.g:

If I saw a snake I would scream

- Then students work in pairs, A and B A reads out the beginnings of the sentences one by one (not in the same order as on the worksheet), and B tries to guess the correct endings, e.g

+ If I lost my keys … I’d break the window

+ If I saw a robbery … I’d call the police

- Then A and B swap round

- Students could then form new pairs and tell their new partner why their own partner would do the things on the worksheet, e.g:

If he saw a lion in his garden he’d shoot it

Why would you do that?

1 If I’d scream

2 If I’d call the police

3 If I’d invite him to my birthday party

4 If I’d stay at home

5 If I’d wouldn’t pay

6 If I’d shoot it

7 If I’d break the window

8 If I’d disconnect the

phone

9 If I’d sell my story to the newspapers

10 If I’d dance with joy

VI Conclusion:

Generally, the results from this research are expected to help find out the importance of teaching grammar at school The above-mentioned communicative activities more or less force the students to take part in their lesson, and also remind them of their individual roles in the class As a result of this the students will be able to recognize and produce the distinctive grammatical structures of a language and to use them confidently and effectively in communication

They no longer consider the grammar lesson a burden I hope this relieved feeling will be comfortable with them throughout the lesson, and they will feel more relaxed and enjoyable when studying grammar Personally, I strongly believe that what I mentioned above will help me and other language teachers promote high school students’ grammatical competence

NGƯỜI THỰC HIỆN

Bùi Phú Xuân

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REFERENCES

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English Book 10 Education Publishing House

English Book 12 Education Publishing House

Richards, J C., & Renandya, A W (2002) Technologies in the classroom In J C

Richards, & A W Renandya (Eds.), Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of

current practice (p 361) New York: Cambridge University Press