How to prepare and organize a successful speaking lesson for high school students

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP Title: HOW TO PREPARE AND ORGANIZE A SUCCESSFUL SPEAKING LESSON FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS Submitted in partial fulfillment for Degree of Bachelor of Arts in Englis

ACKOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly, I express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Nguyen Thi Phuong Lan, M.A, without whose valuable comments and guidance, my thesis would not have been accomplished

My special thanks go to all teachers of Foreign Languages Faculty and English major students from Course 35 at Hanoi Pedagogical University N0.2 in the academic year of 2012-2013 They helped me to complete my graduation

Finally, I am immensely grateful to my family and friends for their non-stop encouragement and support during the research’s finalization

ABSTRACT

Many researchers have done many studies on speaking in general and speaking lesson in particularly They give principles, problems, and characteristics of a speaking lesson In addition, they mention many other factors in a speaking lesson, i.e teacher and students’ role, effective ways of organizing a speaking lesson It is obvious that students together with the teacher are the most important ones Modern teaching methods of foreign languages count on involving the use of different forms of organizing activities and activities used

in a speaking lesson

The thesis focuses on finding the most common ways of preparing and organizing a good speaking lesson Primary data was collected from fifty trainee teachers from K35A of Faculty of Foreign Languages at Hanoi Pedagogical University N0.2 Some limitations and directions have been indicated for future research

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP Title:

HOW TO PREPARE AND ORGANIZE A SUCCESSFUL SPEAKING

LESSON FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

(Submitted in partial fulfillment for Degree of Bachelor of Arts in English)

I certify that all the materials in this study which are not my own work have been identified and acknowledged, and that no material is included for which a degree has been conferred upon me

Date submitted: May 2013

TABLE OF CONTENT

ACKOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP iii

TABLE OF CONTENT iv

PART ONE INTRODUCTION I Rationale 1

II Research presupposition 2

III Research objectives 2

IV Research scope 2

V Research tasks 2

VI Research methods 2

VII Significance of the proposed research 2

VIII Design of the research work 3

PART TWO DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND I Literature review 4

II Overview of the speaking lesson 5

II.1 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity 5

II.2 Problems with speaking activities 6

II.3 Stages of a speaking lesson 7

II.3.1 Warm-up 7

II.3.2 Introduction 8

II.3.3 Presentation 8

II.3.4 Practice 8

II.3.5 Review 9

II.4 Forms of organizing activities in a speaking lesson 9

II.4.1 Whole-class 9

II.4.2 Group work 10

II.4.3 Pair works 11

II.4.4 Individual work 13

II.5 Teacher’s roles during a speaking lesson 13

II.6 Students’ roles in a speaking lesson 14

II.7 Tips for teachers on preparing and organizing a speaking lesson 15

II.7.1 Preparing a speaking lesson 15

II.7.1.1 Preparing the lesson plan 15

II.1.2 Planning for out-of-class learning 16

II.7.1.3 Choosing appropriate teaching methods 16

II.7.1.4 Selecting appropriate teaching aids 16

II.7.2 Organizing a speaking lesson 17

II.7.2.1 Warm-up 17

II.7.2.2 Introduction 20

II.7.2.3 Presentation 21

II.7.2.4 Practice 21

II.7.2.5 Review 22

CHAPTER TWO: THE RESULTS I Survey 24

I.1 Rationale for the use of survey questionnaire 24

I.2 Purpose of the survey 24

I.3 Population of the survey 24

I.4 Construction of the survey 24

I.5 Try-out 25

I.6 Steps of the data analysis II Results of the survey 25

II.1 Preparing a speaking lesson 25

II.2 Organizing a speaking lesson 26

II.2.1 Warm-up 26

II.2.2 Introduction 27

II.2.3 Presentation 28

II.2.4 Practice 29

II.2.5 Review 30

II.3 Students’ reaction 30

III Sub-conclusion 31

PART THREE CONCLUSION I Summary of the study 33

II Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 33 REFERENCES 35 SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE 36

PART ONE INTRODUCTION

I Rationale

In the globalization age today, English assumes as a more and more important part as a means of international communication than ever Therefore, in some recent years, the focus of teaching has been promoting oral skills in order to respond to the students’ needs for effective communication

However, due to some objective and subjective reasons, teaching and learning English in general and teaching and learning speaking in particular does not come up to the study aims Despite teachers’ efforts to provide students with opportunities to develop their communicative skills, how to teach and learn speaking effectively is still a challenging question to both teachers and students

at many high schools in Vietnam

English teaching program for high school students in Vietnam has been changed since the academic year 2006- 2007 Therefore, there are many unprecedented things in the textbook in which a unit is divided into five lessons, i.e reading, speaking, listening, writing, and language focus

Speaking is one of new skills in teaching program It is said that speaking is the skill students have a lot of difficulties in learning Students seem to be reluctant, and reluctance to speak is seen as the biggest challenge Moreover, a speaking lesson depends on both teacher and learners While a teacher is trying to organize a speaking lesson, his students do not pay attention to the lesson or in other words, they do not take part in speaking activities at class As a result, the lesson’s objectives could not be achieved

Through the process of teaching practice at Nguyen Van Huyen High School and discussion with English teachers there, I realize that it is necessary to give

II Research presupposition

This study is about speaking lesson and I am making an analysis in preparing and organizing a speaking lesson so that the question is raised:

What are the effective ways to prepare and organize a speaking lesson?

III Research objectives

The study is carried out to find out effective ways of preparing and organizing a speaking lesson at high schools

IV Research scope

The general research scope of this study is methodology

The population involved in the study is 50 students from K35 English major of Foreign Language Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University N0.2

V Research tasks

The paper studies reality of preparing and organizing speaking lessons at high schools and documents that gives tips of preparing and organizing a speaking lesson to finish the research objective

VI Research methods

To achieve the objectives of the study, the following methods have been applied:

- Documents collection

- Analysis

- Survey questionnaire

VII Significance of the proposed research

In the context of Foreign Languages Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University

No.2, the study was carried out to give a clear picture about ways the students used to prepare and organize a speaking lesson when they have a period of

teaching practice Therefore, hopefully, the thesis is beneficial to both students and teachers in preparing and organizing a speaking lesson

VIII Design of the research work

The study has three main parts: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion

Part one is the Introduction In this part, the rational, the aims, research

questions, the scope of the study, methods of the study and also its design are presented

The next part, Development consists of two chapters Chapter one is entitled

“Theoretical Background” dealing with literature review, overview of speaking

lesson (characteristic of a successful speaking lesson, problems with speaking activity, stages of a speaking lesson, forms of organizing speaking activities, teachers’ and students’ roles in a speaking lesson, tips for preparing and

organizing a successful speaking lesson) Chapter two is named “The Results”

including overall of survey and the result of survey

The last part is the Conclusion which includes the summary of the study,

limitations of the study and suggestions for further study

References and Survey questionnaire are presented in the last pages of the

study

PART TWO DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

I Literature review

Many researchers, i.e Terry (2008), Richards (2011), Harmer (2001) and Byrne (1991), have done many studies on speaking in general and speaking lesson in particularly

Terry (2008) presented that a speaking lesson consists of three main stages Specifically, in the pre-communicative stage, teachers are supposed to introduce the communicative function, highlight the fixed expression, point out the target structure and provide students with the necessary vocabulary and the language

of interaction In the practice stage, teachers prompt and correct students if necessary In the last stage of communicative interaction, teachers encourage language negotiation among students, take notes of any aspects that may hinder communication such as pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, etc After this stage, teachers give students feedback on pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary and ask students to repeat the task if necessary

In the book “Creating effective language lessons”, Richards and Bohlke (2011) introduce four possible ways to arrange a class: whole class teaching, individual work, group works, and pair works These four forms of organizing activities at class depend on the type of lesson and on the particular stage of the lesson Whole-class involves teaching all students together, and when carefully carried out, it can lead to the quick and effective achievement of lesson objectives Individual work allows students to work at their own pace and to work on activities suited to their level or interest Whereas, pair works can take into consideration between two students, and students who are not familiar with this learning arrangement may need careful orientation and preparation for pair-work

activities Lastly, group works are said that they increase students’ talking time and can increase students’ motivation by providing a risk-free environment for language practice

Teachers play important roles in a speaking lesson Byrne (1991) divides the roles of the teacher according to the type of interaction activity (fluency and accuracy activities) In addition, Harmer (2001) mentions three basic roles that teachers take on including: prompter, participant, and feedback provider

In short, many researchers have done many research on speaking lesson, however they have not paid much attention to how to prepare and organize a speaking lesson for high schools students Therefore, it is essential to carry out this study on how to prepare and organize a successful speaking lesson for high school students

II Overview of the speaking lesson

II.1 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity

Successful speaking activities are highly motivating, have a real purpose to prompt communication and can use almost any type of language

There are many characteristics of a successful speaking activity which are introduced by Ur (1996) as follows:

 Learners talk a lot: As much as possible of the period time allotted to the

activity is in fact occupied by learner talk This may seem obvious, but often most time is taken up with the teacher and talk and pauses

 Participation is even: Classroom discussion is not dominated by a

minority of talkative participants: all get a chance to speak and contributions are fairly evenly distributed

 Motivation is high: Learners are eager to speak because they are interested

in the topic and have something new to say about it, or because they want to contribute to achieving a task objective

 Language is of an acceptable level: Learners express themselves in

utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other and of an acceptable level of language accuracy

In practice, however, few classroom activities succeed in satisfying all the criteria mentioned above Therefore, language teachers should make great efforts

to employ a variety of effective techniques to create some of the above criteria

mentioned-II.2 Problems with speaking activities

According to Ur (1996), there still exists some problems with speaking activities

as follows:

 Inhibition: Unlike reading, writing and listening activities, speaking

requires some degree of real-time exposure to an audience Learners are often inhibited about trying to say things in a foreign language in the classroom: worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy

of the attention that their speech attracts

 Nothing to say: Even if they are not inhibited, you often hear learners

complain that they cannot think of anything to say: they have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should be speaking

 Low or uneven participation: Only one participant can talk at a time if he

or she is to be heard, and in a large group this means that each one will have only very little time talking This problem is compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate, while others speak very little or not at all

 Mother-tongue use: In classes where all, or a number of, the learners

share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use it: because it is easier, because it feels unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language, and because they feel less “exposed” if they are speaking their mother tongue If they are talking in small groups it can be quite difficult to get some classes-

particularly the less disciplined or motivated ones- to keep to the target language

In order for the learners to develop their communicative skills, it is advised that the language teachers should help the learners to overcome these problems with speaking activities

II.3 Stages of a speaking lesson

It is advised that a successful speaking lesson often includes five stages:

warm-up, introduction, presentation, practice, and the last, review

Because it's the first activity of the lesson, the warm up sets the tone for the next forty-five minutes A fun warm up, therefore, raises energy levels Fun activities help students relaxed, comfortable and even confident With the right warm up, teacher will create a positive atmosphere to practice and experiment with the language

A warm up should generally last about five minutes Without enough time to get warmed up, though, students will continue to make mistakes during the early stages of the lesson - important time needed to present and drill the new material Students may be slow to understand, too, because those wheels aren't turning yet As a final comment, if the warm up takes too long, then valuable

time gets lost from the main focus of the lesson Students have less time to acquire the new material

II.3.2 Introduction

The introduction of an effective lesson plan will set up the activities to follow This part of the lesson plan will introduce students to the concepts and goals of the lesson It will also help students understand how the lesson plan relates to previous lessons and future lessons (Burden & Byrd, 2003) Giving students a guideline of what they will gather from the plan will help the class achieve the goals

The introduction also provides interest and motivation to the students It focuses students' attention on the lesson and its purposes It also convinces students that they will benefit from the lesson

II.3.3 Presentation

The presentation part of the lesson is when teacher presents new information and checks for comprehension In order to help students actually digest the new information rather than just swallow it, this portion of the lesson must be paired with clear explanations of the grammar, new words along with examples It is

highly recommended to show several clear and concise examples, in context

Before moving on to next part of the lesson, make sure students have some understanding of the material they just learned, as well as an understanding of its meaning and proper use

the new language by working in groups or pairs The activities or exercises teacher can prepare for this stage may vary: a short role-play, games, fill-in-the blanks, guided dialogue, information gaps, and problem solving activities are all some great ideas The practice in a speaking lesson should focus on oral Upon termination, the teacher can collect these activities to grade and return, or review the answers in class together This part of the lesson will take up the bulk of class time It will serve to ensure students have a solid grasp on the material teacher had just presented It's best to use a large range of practice activities to keep students intrigued and excited

II.4 Forms of organizing activities in a speaking lesson

A successful lesson obviously depends on the kinds of interaction you provide for during the lesson This will include opportunities for interactions between you and the students as well as interactions among the students themselves There are four possible ways to arrange a class: whole-class teaching, individual work, group work, and pair work

II.4.1 Whole-class

Whole-class teaching is defined by Richards and Lockhart (1999) as follows:

“The teacher leads the whole class through a learning task.” In addition, Harmer (1992) provides another name for the whole-class teaching, i.e lockstep method

He states that “Lockstep is the class grouping where all the students are working

with the teacher, where all the students are ‘locked into’ the same rhythm and pace, the same activity.”

This mode of teaching involves teaching all the students together; the use of whole-class teaching depends on the type of lesson you are teaching and on the particular stage of the lesson Whole-class teaching is most common used for the beginning of lesson (Richards, Lockhart 1999)

Whole-class teaching can aim at focusing students’ attention quickly on a learning task And it enables teaching large numbers of learners at the same time and can serve as a preparation for the subsequent activities However, the unavoidable disadvantage is the little opportunity for learners’ oral practice

To conclude, when planning your teaching, you need to consider when class teaching is appropriate in order to promote lesson’s efficiency

whole-II.4.2 Group work

In Adrian Doff (1991), group work is described as follows: “In group work, the teacher divides the class into small groups to work together (usually four or five students in each group).”

Group work has not only great advantages but also considerable disadvantages

Advantages of group work

By dividing the class into groups, students get more opportunities to talk than in full class organization, and each student can say something Penny Ur (1996) recommends that teachers working with a large class should divide them into small groups which are the most effective organization for practicing speaking Working in a group, children are more engaged not only intellectually but emotionally as well They have to think, contribute to the group, evaluate what other members of the group say, share information, and prepare a presentation together They also use information previously given by the teacher or

contributed by the members of the group to express themselves more fully and improve the quality of their performance

In the long run, group work develops learners' independence At first preparing a group presentation may requires more effort from the student However, using this technique regularly students become more efficient and skilled at practicing the language Students learn how to learn and gradually take responsibility for their own learning

Disadvantages of group work

In the process of working, there would be unavoidable problems which might occur with the students Because there are usually four or five students in each group, they can make noise while working on the task, and do not concentrate

on the task if the task is not clear and goes for too long

When learners work in groups, it is impossible for the teacher to listen and correct all the mistakes they make and this is not the purpose of the activity However, the teacher can reduce the number of mistakes before the students start working by demonstrating the activity to the class first and by asking groups to perform in front of the class afterwards and discussing what they said and pointing out the most common mistakes (Doff, 1988:141)

To sum it up, group work tends to support cooperative learning, and may give confidence and encourage shy students when handling the target language II.4.3 Pair works

To begin with, Bryne (1991) divides pair work into three kinds: open pairs, fixed pairs, and flexible ones During open pair work, a student talks to another across the class under the teacher’s control While learners work with the same partner in order to complete a task in fixed pairs Finally, working in the flexible pairs presupposes that students keep changing their partner (for example, interviewing other classmates)

On the other hand, Doff (1991) defines pair work as follows: “in pair work, the teacher divides the whole class into pairs Every student works with his or her partner, and all the pairs work at the same time.”

Similarly as group work, pair work has its own advantages and disadvantages

Advantages of pair work

Harmer (2001) describes five advantages of pair work in a speaking lesson as follows:

It increases the amount of speaking time when students get in class It also allows students to work and interact independently without the guidance of the teacher, thus promoting students’ independence It allows teacher time to work with one or two pairs while others continue working It helps promoting cooperation in the class because “two head are betters than one” If the teacher gets students make decisions in pairs, they would share responsibility rather than having to face up to the task themselves Finally, it is relatively quick and easy

to organize

Disadvantages of pair work

Harmer (2001) also states disadvantages of pair work beside its advantages Pair work is very noisy and some teachers and students dislike this Teachers worry that they will lose control of their class

Students in pairs can have different point of an exercise, so the chance of

‘misbehavior’ can take place in the class

It is not always popular with students, many of whom want to relate to the teacher and do not interact with another learner who may be just as weak as they are

The actual choice of paired partner can be problematic especially if students have to work with someone who they are not keen on

II.4.4 Individual work

Harmer (2001) calls it with other name ‘students on their own’ At the opposite

of the spectrum of whole-class grouping, students work with the pattern of individualized learning Students must do exercises in their own in class while teachers are able to spend time working with other students And Harmer (2001) also states that “Such individualized learning is a vital step in the development

of learner autonomy.”

Advantages of individual work

Students work at their own pace, they are confident about what they know and what they need to send more time on, they can use their preferred learning styles and strategies

“It can develop learner autonomy and promote skills of self-reliance and investigation over teacher-dependence.” (Harmer, 2001)

It can be a way for teachers to control class in peace and avoid a ‘noisy and chaotic situation’ (Harmer, 2001)

Disadvantages of individual work

Students don’t get the benefit of learning from and working with their peers When giving individual students different tasks, it means that teachers have a great preparation of thought and materials than whole-class teaching When teachers work with individual students, it takes much more time than interacting with the whole class (Harmer, 2001)

II.5 Teacher’s roles during a speaking lesson

Caroline Terry (2008) describes teacher roles during a speaking lesson A teacher can act as an organizer, a prompter, an observer, a participant, an assessor, a feedback provider, and the last, a resource

 Teachers can act as an organizer means that the teachers can do the task

of getting students engaged and getting the activity

 When teachers act as a prompter, it means that the teachers can provide

students with chunks not words

 Teachers act as an observer means that the teachers can analyze what

causes communication breakdown

 Teachers can act as a participant means that the teachers do not

monopolize or initiate the conservation

 Teachers can act as an assessor when they can record mental or written

samples of language produced by students

 Teachers can act as a feedback provider means that they can tell students

hoe proficient their performance was

 The teachers can act as a resource because they can provide students with

tools to improve their oral performance

Based on the reflection of the students’ behavior in the classroom, Nunan and Lamp (1996) grade the roles of the teacher from the most problematic, in terms

of participants’ roles and behavior They include the roles of: controller, entertainer, disciplinarian, and a developer of a sense of independence and responsibility The teacher establishing control, giving directions, threats and punishment, is labeled as ‘controller’ The teacher acts as an ‘entertainer’ when the teacher introduces games and recreational activities, or reading stories and classroom atmosphere is noisy but positive The ‘disciplinarian’ establishes rules

to be followed and is quick to notice any misbehavior; while the teacher who spends time teaching lesson, not requiring a close supervision, he/she shows as

‘developer of a sense of independence and responsibility’

II.6 Students’ roles in a speaking lesson

Riddell (2010) summarizes that our students usually have different favored learning styles, influenced by their previous learning experiences Most prefer,

or accept the advantages of, a mostly communicative approach to their learning Students have to accept some responsibility for their own learning and not rely only on the teacher Learning has to include authentic practice, and has to

continue outside the classroom Students need motivation and commitment Students prefer – and expect – English to be the only language spoken in the lessons, except with very low-level classes Everything which has been mentioned inevitably affects the role of the teacher and how she plans her teaching

II.7 Tips for teachers on preparing and organizing a speaking lesson

II.7.1 Preparing a speaking lesson

II.7.1.1 Preparing the lesson plan

Most teachers engage in yearly, term, unit, weekly, and daily lesson planning Therefore, before they enter a classroom, it means that teachers need to plan to lecture, outline of content of the lectures and the way he/she will get students involved (Svinicki and McKeachie, 2006)

Maybe many teachers may ask themselves why they should write plans for every lesson And there is a fact that not many teachers enter a classroom without some kind of plan Lesson plan are methodical records of a teacher’s thought about what will be covered during a lesson Richards (1998) suggests that lesson plans help the teachers “resolve problems and difficulties, to provide

a structure for a lesson, to provide a ‘map’ for teacher to follow and to provide a record of what has been taught”

Also according to Richards and Renandya (2002), daily lesson planning can benefit English teachers in the following ways:

A plan can help the teachers think about content, materials, timing and activities, provides security in the unpredictable atmosphere of a classroom, and a plan is a log of what has been taught

Because every teacher has different style of teaching, therefore they must “allow themselves flexibility” (Richards and Renandya, 2002) to plan in their own ways A clear lesson plan will maintain the attention of students, generate their

II.7.1.2 Planning for out-of-class learning

It is easy for teachers to imagine that what happens in class is important to students’ learning, but they can see what happens after the lesson finishes because it is often visible Therefore when they do their planning , most teachers give their attention to covering content in class rather than to what happens out

of class, according to Starks and Lattuca (1997) (as cited in Svinicki and McKeachie, 2006)

In fact, students may spend more time studying out of class than they do in class Thus teachers need to focus on what they expect students to do outside class

II.7.1.3 Choosing appropriate teaching methods

As any good teacher knows, all students do not learn in the same way In addition, it is common for a class of students to be at a variety of levels in English subject With so many different approaches and methods available, many teachers are unsure of which to choose and how to make choice (Harmer, 2001) It is extremely difficult to give conclusions about which approaches and methods are best or most appropriate for every teaching situation Teachers need

to use different teaching methods in order to reach all students effectively A variety of teaching strategies, knowledge of student levels, and an implementation of which strategies are best for particular students can help teachers to know which teaching methods will be most effective for their class II.7.1.4 Selecting appropriate teaching aids

It is quite possible to teach an effective speaking lesson without any teaching aids because students can become bored sitting in a classroom for hours Teachers can use various teaching aids besides textbooks to generate students’ interest and demonstrate how things work Visual aids, such as whiteboards or chalkboards, charts, maps, flash cards, and calendars are commonly used in a

speaking lesson Multimedia displays and computers have become popular teaching aids in speaking lessons

When used appropriately, teaching aids can provide opportunities for students to interact with the content of the lesson (Svinicki and McKeachie, 2006)

II.7.2 Organizing a speaking lesson

II.7.2.1 Warm-up

In section 1 in this chapter, the Warm Up is shown to be the first stage of the lesson In short, the purpose of this stage is primarily to get students' brains into English mode, to make them feel comfortable with the lessons What should a teacher do to organize an effective warm-up?

How long should the warm up be?

It depends on the length of the lesson In a 45- minute lesson, 5 minutes would

be appropriate If it is longer, it will take time away from one of the other stages meaning that the target language won't be practiced enough or there won't be enough time for students to use it enough in the next stages

How to do the warm up

Of course there is no unique way to conduct the warm up However, in order to achieve the goals of the warm up, the teacher should greet the class at first And surely, when making the lesson plan, the teacher prepares the activity he/she will use in the classroom By what way does he/she set up an activity effectively?

Choosing a warm-up activity

Depending on the level and lesson plan, you may choose any kind of activity as long as it's easy, fun, student-centered, and it involves all the students

Also, it's best not to do a warm-up activity that requires the use of the lesson's target language The reason is that the students have yet to learn it It's effective

to have an activity where they can use their own target language or activate