a study on the impact of the communicative approach to grammar teaching on students interest at the institute of foreign language hanoi university of agriculture

Table 1: Students’ profile Table 2: Students’ awareness of the role of grammar in learning English Table 3: Students’ attitudes towards the grammar learning Table 4: Students’ reasons fo

PART A: INTRODUCTION

I Rationale

II Aims of the study

III Research questions

IV Scope of the study

V Methods of the study

VI Design of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

I.1 An overview on language teaching methods in Teaching grammar

I.1.1 The Grammar – Translation Method with teaching grammar

I.1.2 The Audio – lingual Method with teaching grammar

I.2 Communicative language teaching (CLT) in teaching grammar

I.2.1 An overview of communicative language teaching (CLT)

I.2.2 Characteristics of CLT

I.2.3 Status of Grammar in CLT

I.2.4 Teaching grammar in the light of CLT

I.3 Students’ interest

I.3.1 Concept of students’ interest

I.3.2 Factors affecting students’ interest in the class

I.4 The impact of CLT to grammar teaching on students’ interest

I.4.1 Grammar teaching techniques in CLT

I4.2 Teachers’ personal qualities and characters

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

II.1 Setting of the study

II.2 Methodology

II.2.1 Subjects

II.2.2 Methods and Procedures

II.2.3 Survey Instruments

II.2.3.2 Class observation

III.1 Recommendations for Teaching

III.2 Suggested communicative Activities for a Grammar lesson

III.2.1 Using games and problem-solving activities

III.2.2 Using songs

III.2.3 Role play

III.2.4 Interview

III.2.5 Telling stories

PART C: CONCLUSION

1 Summary of the study

2 Limitations of the study

3 Recommendations for further study

REFERENCES

APPENDIXES

IFL: The Institute of Foreign Languages

HUA: Hanoi University of Agriculture

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

CA: Communicative activities

ESP: English for Specific Purposes

Table 1: Students’ profile

Table 2: Students’ awareness of the role of grammar in learning English

Table 3: Students’ attitudes towards the grammar learning

Table 4: Students’ reasons for learning grammar

Table 5: Students difficulties in learning grammar

Table 6: Teacher’s profile

Table 7: Teachers’ awareness of the role of grammar in teaching English

Table 8: Teachers’ attitudes towards the grammar teaching

Table 9: Teachers’ aims of teaching grammar

Table 10: Teachers’ difficulties in teaching grammar

Table 11: Students’ opinions about learning grammar through communicative activities Table 12: Students’ interest in learning grammar through communicative activities

Table 13: Students’ frequency of learning grammar through communicative activities Table 14: Students’ evaluation of the effectiveness of communicative activities in learning grammar

Table 15: Teachers’ frequency of communicative activity application in teaching grammar Table 16: Teachers’ evaluation of the effectiveness of communicative activities in teaching grammar

PART A: INTRODUCTION

I RATIONALE

English is considered to be the most common and important language of the world today in which a great number of people understand and use it In fact, English has proved its self to be an international language which not only helps people in the world communicate more easily but also encourages cultural exchanges among countries

In Vietnam, the economic open-door policy pursued by the government has increased a demand for studying English Many people are expected to be competent to communicate verbally with the outside world and to access science and technology English is also seen as a necessary means for any graduate who wishes to find a good job, especially in foreign companies In correspondence to this trend, at almost all colleges and universities, English is taught as a compulsory subject Additionally, there are many evening English classes at foreign languages centers opened to serve the explosion in the demand for English

However, both teaching and learning English in Vietnam are said to be not effective because, as a matter of fact, the traditional method of teaching is still applied in many universities in general and at Hanoi University of Agriculture (HUA) in particular, which fails to get students involved in the lessons, especially in grammar lessons

The role of grammar in language teaching in general and in foreign language classroom in particular has been debated for a long time among educational researchers, linguists, methodologists and teachers It goes from playing a major role to basically no role and now an important role together with changes in language pedagogy In Vietnam, grammar teaching is obviously necessary mainly because learners need the knowledge of the target language to pass national examinations which still focus on grammar In addition, most learners and teachers agree that mastering the grammar of a language may form an important part of the knowledge of it However, grammar is often misunderstood

in the language teaching field and teaching English grammar can be hard going for the teacher and the students At HUA, grammar teaching plays an important role as it supplies students with basic knowledge for end-term exams and finish the ESP course in the second year In addition, before starting to enroll university subjects, all the fresh students have to take a BASED-ORIENTED TOEIC PLACEMENT TEST, in which grammar is tested The fact that majority of the students come from rural areas with low level of English

leads to the need of careful grammar teaching to heal their “grammatical holes” In this setting, the traditional way is commonly used so that the students can receive a systematic and accuracy of language The result of this kind of teaching and learning, of course, makes a grammar lesson boring and tiring and does not get students interested in learning

Furthermore, it has created the “production” of students who are structurally competent,

but communicatively incompetent

The questions of how to make the grammar lessons more interesting and how to make students interested in the grammar lessons have become a concern of teachers of English in general and those at HUA in particular

Teaching grammar in the light of CLT is becoming a new approach and designing suitable communicative activities to teach grammar is necessary

From my experience, my students are more interested in the grammar lessons when teachers use games, songs, pictures, and other communicative activities to present the new

items For the above reasons, I have decided to conduct a research entitled: “A study on the impact of the communicative approach to grammar teaching on students’ interest at IFL – Hanoi University of Agriculture” This study is an attempt to look into the matter of

how Communicative Language Teaching is applied in teaching grammar at IFL - HUA and

the impact of CLT on students‟ interest in grammar learning It is believed that the insights

into these areas will help to address the matter of teaching grammar effectively at universities and at foreign language centers as well

II AIMS OF THE STUDY

To investigate how CLT is applied in teaching grammar at IFL-HUA and the impact of CLT to students‟ interest in learning grammar

III RESEARCH QUESTIONS

To achieve the aims of the thesis, the following questions were proposed:

1 What is the fact of grammar teaching and learning at IFL – HUA?

2 To what extent does CLT affect students’ interest in the context of IFL –HUA?

IV SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study only focuses on the impact of the communicative approach to grammar teaching on students’ interest at IFL – Hanoi University of Agriculture, so the results of

the study are not for all students of all universities

V METHODS OF THE STUDY

The aims of the study are to find out how teachers apply CLT to teach grammar as well as its effectiveness to the students‟ interest in learning, so it is inevitable to investigate into teachers‟ and learners‟ attitudes towards, difficulties of, preferred techniques and their evaluation of teaching and learning grammar To do so, the main methods of study is survey questionnaire, in which two types of questionnaire are designed and distributed to the learners and teachers

In addition, the writer also collected information based on her class observation and 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

VII DESIGN OF THE STUDY

The thesis consist of three parts

Part A is the introductions, which presents an overview of the study in which the reasons

for choosing the study is focused It also includes the aim, research questions, scope, methods and design of the study

Part B: is the development of the study, aiming at building the theoretical background for

the thesis This part consists of three main chapters

Chapter I: namely literature review, starts with an overview of some methods in grammar

teaching – their advantages and disadvantages in applying in the classroom The next is about Communicative Language Teaching which includes the definition, characteristics, status and how to apply this approach to teach grammar The third part deals with students‟ interest in learning Here concepts of students‟ interest and factors affecting students‟ interest are mentioned The final part discusses the impact of CLT to grammar teaching on students‟ interest, which includes the concept of students‟ interest and the factors affecting students‟ interest in grammar lessons

Chapter II: aims to describe background information about the current teaching and

learning of English at IFL –HUA and to present the methodology underlying the research including data collection instruments, procedures A detailed data analysis and discussions are also given

Chapter III: proposes some recommendations for teaching grammar in the light of CLT to

the students at IFL – HUA

PART C: CONCLUSION gives a summary of the study, the limitations and suggestions

for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

I.1 An overview on language teaching methods in teaching grammar

I.1.1 The Grammar – Translation method (GTM) in teaching grammar

Traditional method was rooted in the formal language of Latin and Greek and become popular in the late 19th century and early 20th century It was considered to be the key to the thought and literature of a great and ancient civilization As the name suggests, the Grammar – Translation method requires students to translate whole texts word by word and memorize numerous grammatical rules and exceptions as well as enormous vocabulary lists The goal of this method is to enable learners to read and translate literary masterpieces and classics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar_translation)

Under the Grammar –Translation method (Richards and Rodgers, 1986:3) grammar

is taught deductively through detailed analysis of grammar rules and translations of sentences and texts into the target language or vice versa The Grammar –Translation method lays the focus on teaching the form rather than the use of the target language According to Prator and Celce-Murcia (1979:3), the key features of the Grammar-Translation method are as follows:

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

(2) Much of vocabulary is taught in 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 paid to pronunciation

In this method, the learners are the passive recipients of the explicit grammar rules and engaged in practice activities and translation exercises which requires the application of those rules Listening activities take in form of dictation and speaking practice is

accomplished by having students read a passage aloud in front of the class In other words, communication skills are ignored Consequently, students learn rules of grammar without much feeling of progress in the mastery of the target language which will lead to the lack

of motivation in learning it because they have little opportunity to express themselves in it They just passively learn what they are taught And after several years of studying, students may have a fairly good knowledge of grammar and translating skills, but can hardly communicate Besides, in the Grammar-Translation method, the teacher holds an authoritative role, or he is seen an ideal language model and commander of the classroom activities

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 teachers correct immediately to make them produce grammatically correct sentences, which makes the learners reluctant to speak English

As the name suggests, grammar is the key component, and taught deductively from rules to example which cause boredom to many learners

The Grammar-Translation method dominated from the late 19th century to the early 20thcentury and although it has been generally acknowledged as the least effective teaching methodology, the method is still widely used in many countries including Vietnam Obviously, the best point of this method is that it helps learners become good translators and use English accurately In addition, it requires few recourses and it is also easy to apply and cheap to administer That is why the method is still used in many classrooms where there is a great shortage of teaching and learning facilities and equipment aids, where the class is large of about 30 students, and where the teachers‟ inadequate speaking skill are accustomed to teaching procedures and where the exams still emphasize knowledge of grammar Nevertheless, the biggest disadvantage of this method is the learners find it difficult to communicate in real-life situations, or their utterances are correct but inappropriate This is the result of the process of learning 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

I.1.2 The Audio – Lingual Method

The Audio – Lingual Method was derived from “ Army Method” during the World War II where there was a need for people to learn foreign languages quickly for military purposes It later developed into the so called Audio – Lingual method, which then has had considerable influence on English language teaching all over the world This method puts listening and speaking in the first place It uses sentence pattern as the base of teaching and tries to avoid mother tongue as in class Attention is paid to the need for mechanical practice rather than explanation about the language because the ability to use the language as a means of communication is the mastery of the linguistic system of the target language

For a number of reasons the ALM enjoyed decades of popularity The first strong point of this method is to develop students‟ listening comprehension and fluency in speaking in the target language Students are encouraged by the sense of being able to use what they have learned on the very early day of their study In addition, the knowledge learned is reinforced by repetition, so students have good memory of what they learn and this is suitable for learners of different abilities Another point is that, this method provides

a good systematic material

However, the popularity finally faded away due to the shortcomings of this method Firstly, the success or failure of this method depends largely on the qualities of the teachers and the availability of resources It can be clearly noticed that if the teacher does not diversify his techniques to make the lessons more interesting and meaningful, his students will get bored with mechanical repetition or become “well-trained parrots” as commented

by Rivers (1981: 47) Furthermore, the teacher must be a fluent speaker as most of his work is done orally in the target language And more importantly, ALM failed to teach long-term communicative proficiency because the language it taught was de-contextualized and carried little communicative function

I 2 Communicative language teaching (CLT) in teaching grammar

I.2.1 An overview of 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 American Linguist Noam Chomsky demonstrated that the current standard structural theories of language were incapable of accounting for the fundamental characteristics of

language -the creativity and uniqueness of individual sentences Then, British applied linguists emphasised another fundamental dimension of language that was inadequately addressed in current 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 (CLT) emerged as a response to that judgment The term CLT covers a variety of approaches that all focuses on helping learners to communicate meaningfully in target language Brindley (1986: 11) pointed out that: “ the 1970‟s and 1980‟s could be regarded as the era of communicative teaching.” And it is probably the approach most used by trained teachers today (Paul Davies, 2000: 193)

Yalden (1987: 61) summarized the essence of CLT thus: “ It is based on the notion

of the learners as communicators, naturally endowed with the ability to learn language It seeks to provide learners with the target-language system It is assumed that learners will have to prepare to use the target language orally and in written form in many predictable and unpredictable acts of communication which arise both in classroom interaction and in real world situations, whether concurrent with language training or subsequent to it” According to Richard and Rogers (1986: 64), CLT focuses on “communicative proficiency rather than mere master of structures”

Clearly, Communicative Language Teaching emphasizes communicative competence which, according to Canale and Swain (1980), consists of four dimensions: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence Grammar competence 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 places: the roles of participants, the information they share, the functions of interaction Discourse competences indicates the ability to interpret series

of sentences or utterances to form a meaningful whole and to achieve a coherent text that is relevant to a given context Strategic competence refers to the copying strategies that

communicators employ to initiate, terminate, maintain, repair and redirect communication I.2.2 Characteristics of CLT

In CLT, meaning is paramount Wilkins (1972) classifies meaning into notional and functional categories and views learning a second language as acquiring the linguistic

means to perform different kinds of functions According to Larsen-Freeman (1986: 132)

the most obvious characteristic of CLT is that “ Almost everything that is done is done with

communicative intent” Students use the language through communicative activities (e.g

games, role-plays and problem-solving tasks)

From Morrow‟s point of view (in Johnson and Morrow, 1981), activities that are truly communicative have three features: information gap, choice and feedback An information gap occurs when one person exchange the information he has (facts, opinions, ideas….) with the one who does not have In other words, as Scrivener (1994:62) further explains, the aims of an information gap activity is to “get learners to use the language they are learning to interact in realistic and meaningful ways, usually involving exchanges of information” While doing this they will draw available vocabulary, grammar, and communication strategies to complete a task In communication, the speaker has a choice

of what to say and how to say If this activity is tightly controlled and there is one way to say something, the speaker has no choice and, therefore, is not communicative In addition, true communication is purposeful A speaker can thus evaluate whether or not his purpose has been achieved based on the information he receives from the listener

Another characteristic of CLT is the introduction of authentic material In CLT, it is considered desirable to give learners the opportunity to genuine communicative needs in realistic second language situation so that they develop strategies for understanding language as actually used by native speakers (Canale and Swain, 1980)

In addition, “activities in the Communicative Approach are often carried out by students in small group” (Larsen – Freeman, 1986: 132) Students are expected to interact with one another, either through pairs and group works or in their writing (Finicchiaro & Brumfit, 1983) CLT favors interaction among small numbers of students in order to maximize the time each student has to learn to negotiate meaning Teachers therefore select learning activities according to how well they encourage the students in meaningful and authentic language use rather than in the merely mechanic practice of language patterns

Another dimension of CLT is “its learner-centered and experience –based view of second language teaching” (Richard & Rogers, 1986: 69) According to CLT theory, individual learner posses unique interests, styles, needs and goals that should be reflected

in the design of instructional methods (Savignon, 1983) Teachers are to develop materials

based on the demonstrated needs of a particular class Students must be made to feel secure, unthreatened and non-defensive in a CLT classroom, so teachers using CLT should avoid adopting a teacher-centered authoritarian posture (Taylor, 1983)

Thus, Li (1998: 679) reviews CLT characteristics based on the work of other researchers such as Larsen-Freeman (1986), Richards and Rogers (1986) and Thomson (1986) as follows:

1 A focus on communicative functions

2 A focus on meaningful tasks rather than on language form

3 Efforts to make tasks and language relevant to a target group of learners through an analysis of genuine, realistic situations

4 The use of authentic, from life materials

5 The use of group activities

6 The attempt create a secure, non-threatening atmosphere

I.2.3 Status of Grammar in CLT

Many linguists and researchers have advocated grammar instruction in language teaching and learning The communicative competence model of Canale and Swain (1980) clearly illustrates the significance of grammar In this model grammar is seen as one component of communicative competence One person cannot master a language without the knowledge of its grammar Thanks to grammar language partly can function as a means

of communication, especially in written language In speaking, though grammatical mistakes are sometimes acceptable, good grammar makes one‟s speech better and more attractive, especially in formal situations Referring to the importance of grammar teaching, Smith (2001) worries that if we do not pay attention to grammar or create opportunities for learners to improve their grammar, they are likely to stand the risk of fossilization or “ reach a point where they can cope with level of communication that is demanded of them by making use of their existing grammatical resources and communication strategies and probably with sufficient fluency not to see the need to develop their linguistic abilities any further.”

Rutherford and Smith (1988) report that grammar teaching can be beneficial to learners in the sense that raises learners‟ consciousness concerning the difference and the similarities

of L1 and L2 Therefore, grammar teaching can be used as “a linguistic map” with road and signs to help students as they explore the “topograph” of the new language

The list of supporters of grammar is still going on Hannan (1989) argues that grammar is highly valuable as an important part of the study of language Also, he points out that grammar reflects the power and order of the human mind and, besides, it helps us

to understand the diversity of human culture Like Hannan, Lewis (1986), Garner (1989) gives strong support to grammar teaching Garner believes that grammar gives us a means

to analyze and describe our language

To sum up, the rationale for teaching grammar is multifaceted and grammar is acknowledged to be of importance in language study in general and in language teaching and learning in particular

I.2.4 Teaching grammar in the light of CLT

For a few decades, there have been so many disputes on different approaches to teaching grammar To date, teachers of English as a Second Language (ESL) are still confronted with the crucial issue of choosing the best approach to improve their students' grammatical accuracy It cannot be denied that there has been a lot of progress in English language teaching since the introduction of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) Many teachers embrace CLT because CLT represents a modern and progressive way of language teaching and their belief is to teach students to be able use the language And since then 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 does not reflect CLT principles (Siaw-Fong Chung, 2005) 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 Nunan (1991) in the section “Focus on form: the role of grammar” discusses the place of grammar in the recent language teaching According to him, there has been a shift in the role of grammar as the view of language learning changed at different times While grammar played a dominant role in traditional classroom, it was just of marginal importance in earlier communicative classrooms, which drew merely on meaning rather than form Recent years have seen the returning of grammar in the second language classrooms as an indispensable tool to achieve communicative goals Unlike in traditional approaches, where grammatical mastery was ultimate learning objective, grammar now is important but just as a means to the end and hence, is always put into context and learned for the sakes of social functions

Communicative language classrooms, which focus on both form and meaning, truly reflect the view of learning grammar as both processes and products

The deep basic 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 grammar structures

It is worth mentioning here some researchers 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 refers to the application of CLT to grammar teaching when she states 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 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 play 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 in dispensable in order to improve the drawbacks of the traditional ways of teaching grammar

There are two main approaches to teach grammar These are the deductive and inductive approach In deductive approach, the teachers give the rules and then students give examples In contrast, an inductive approach is when the rule is inferred through some forms of guided discovery The teacher gives example and asks the students to find out the rules from themselves A deductive approach often fits into a lesson structure known as

PPP (Presentation – Practice – Production) And PPP approach is a common one to communicative language teaching that works through progression of three sequential stages The teacher present the target language and then gives students the opportunity to practice it through controlled activities The final stage of the lesson give the students opportunity to practice the target language in freer activities

Presentation stage:

Presentation is where the teacher presents the new language, and necessarily requires the creation of realistic “situation” in which the target language is learned This can be achieved through using pictures, charts, dialogs, songs, story telling, visuals, or actual

In the production stage, the students do the work

I 3 Students’ interest

I.3.1 Concept of students’ interest

Ellis (1994) (cited in Keller, 1984) states that interest is one of the main elements of motivation and a positive response to stimulate based on existing cognitive structures in such a way that learners‟ curiosity is aroused and sustained In other words, interest shows

learners‟ desire to learn the target language It can be seen that students who are given opportunities for communication will be interested in the lesson

Ellis (cited in Dickinson, 1987) also points out that “ interest is engendered if learners become self-centered” This means they are able to determine their learning objectives, choose their own way of achieving these, and evaluate their own progress

I.3.2 Factors affecting students’ interest in the class

- Students’ learning style

Students‟ learning style is one of the factors we should take into consideration to see the particular approach by which students try to learn According to Keefe (1979:4), learning style can be seen as cognitive, affective and physiological features that are relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with and respond to the learning environment Major factors conditioning the ways learners think and study are the educational system, the socio-cultural background and personality variables

Undoubtedly, it is very necessary to understand the learners‟ learning styles because this will help teachers design suitable activities for all of them so that they can learn effectively There are students who prefer to do grammar exercises after learning grammatical structures and their rules But others like to exploit grammatical rules through games, pictures and puzzles They approach the target language items differently Moreover, their ability to grasp is also different, so the teachers should know their learners‟ learning style to bring about their learning effectively

- Students’ motivation

Motivation is popularly considered to play a very important role in learning In Jeremy

Harmer‟s view (1991) “Motivation is some kind of internal drive that encourages

somebody to pursue a course of action”

Language learners‟ motivation is basically originated from goals of various kinds and needs Goals include long-term ones which might be related to a learner‟s wish to become

a member of the target language community or to obtain a better job and short-term ones which might come from a learner‟s urge to pass an end-of-semester exam or complete a lesson with success Ausubel (1968) pointed out six types of needs including the need for exploration; for manipulation; for activities; for stimulation; for knowledge and for ego enhancement

I.4 The impact of CLT on students’ interest in grammar learning

CLT appearing between the 1960s and 1970s marks the beginning of major innovation within language teaching and it has been widely accepted nowadays because of its superior principles Obviously, grammar plays an important role in ELT because learners cannot communicate effectively without grammar Furthermore, the understanding

of grammar helps us build up confidence in using the target language and encourages us to use the language accurately and appropriately Grammar is an integral part of language, so the more we can find out about how grammar is learned and used, the more effectively we will teach it In fact, there have been many researches on grammar as well as grammar teaching The problem here is that how to teach grammar and which approach to grammar

is appropriate Nowadays, CLT, with its foundation and on recent achievements in the field

of linguistic and psychology, has been considered to be the most effective approach to grammar teaching In fact, teaching grammar in the light of CLT makes the grammar lesson more exciting and more communicative Students are equipped with vocabulary, structures and functions as well as strategies, which enabled to interact successfully Consequently, students are much more interested in the lessons

I.4.1 Grammar teaching techniques in CLT

It is obvious that different techniques create different degree of students‟ participation and interest in the lesson For example, techniques which focus on grammatical and phonological like choral repetition, drilling substitution, content explanation will result in learners‟ passiveness and limit their participation in learning In contrast, the techniques that involve students in communicative activities such as role-play, games, problem-solving, pair and group work, discussion etc can encourage students to participate in the lesson

I.4.2 Teachers’ personal qualities and characters

Teachers are considered as a significant source of intrinsic motivation Wilkins (1974: 53) stated that teachers‟ skills, knowledge, personality and proficiency in the target language play important role in the class A teacher‟s personality matters a lot because if it matches learners‟ expectations, it helps build the learning environment with good relationship between teacher and learners, one which may increase learning motivation

In addition, in order to get students involved in the lesson, teachers should be ones that students trust and respect In other words, when students feel “safe” in class, they will be interested in the lesson and also will be willing to participate in class activities Barry (1993) points out some characteristics a teacher should have as follows:

 Being natural: if the teacher behaves naturally, the relationship between him and his

students will be closer, which increases students‟ participation and interest in the lesson

 Being warm: the teacher considers students as his friends Students therefore will

find it easy to express themselves in the class

 Being pleasant: this characteristic will make the classroom‟s atmosphere relaxing

and interesting, which of course increases students‟ creation and participation

 Being tolerant: the teacher should be fair and consistent with all students so that he

can encourage all his students to participate in the lesson

In fact, no teacher has all characteristics and personal qualities listed However, these characteristics and qualities can help much in increasing students‟ motivation, creating positive learning environment, and enhancing students‟ participation in the class activities as well

Summary

In this literature review, the writer has presented different basic issues relating to some methods of teaching grammar which serves as the theoretical framework for the study Different grammar teaching methods such as Grammar-Translation method, Audio-lingual method have been reviewed to find out advantages and disadvantages of each method The author also has a brief look at CLT, its characteristics, the status of grammar

in CLT as well as the teaching of it in the light of CLT To serve the study, at the same time, the writer has paid attention to the concept of students‟ interest, factors affecting students‟ interest in class as well as the impact of CLT to students‟ interest in grammar learning In the next chapter, the writer reports the study for the answer to the proposed research questions

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses the contextual conditions that determine the study of motivation The author begins with the description of the situation where the study was conducted and informants involved in the study After that, the research method followed

by the data collection procedures and scheme for data interpretation are mentioned

II.1 Setting of the study

The study was carried out at the Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL) – Hanoi University

of Agriculture (HUA), which was established in 2004 in order to meet the growing demand for learning English of students as well as to help them improve their English Since then IFL, the official language center of HUA, has become a reliable address for all students in HUA It offers

a wide range of English courses from general to specific courses with elementary to advance level Besides, students can take other courses in French, Chinese and Japanese

At HUA, the Department of Linguistics and Foreign Culture is in charge of teaching document compilation and English language skills Here, students have to study English as a compulsory subject during 3 semesters with 45 periods each By the end of the course, students are expected to be able to communicate in English in both spoken and written English at the pre-intermediate level Moreover, the final years students have to get

400 marks of TOEIC test before they graduate Therefore, grammar teaching and learning English at HUA are very important With 3 periods (45 minutes of each) per week, it is difficult for the students to reach their final goal of learning In addition, most students of HUA come from rural and remote areas so their proficiency in English is low However, there has been an increase in the demand of learning English from these students and IFL was established as a “supporter” with a view to offering evening English classes, which they can take after their lessons at university Surprisingly, the courses they enroll in the most are grammar ones The materials for grammar courses here are the Round-up series (beginner to upper-intermediate level) (Virginia Evan, Person Longman) The Round-up is especially designed for different students who study English in different ways It can be used in class with a course book including a variety of communicative activities such as pair work, group work, role play, games in both oral and written forms In addition, students can use it after class to practice what they have learned in the classroom Besides, various other books such as Oxford Practice Grammar (John Eastwood, Oxford University Press), English Grammar and Vocabulary (Michel Vince with Peter Sunderland, Macmillan) are used as references New Headway, Life Line, English Know How are used for General English courses In addition, the University has always equipped good conditions for teaching and learning English Overhead projectors, videos, cassettes are available which enable the teachers and the students to perform their teaching and learning More than that, a variety of English books, magazines, and newspapers are provided in the library

However, there are some problems that should be solved As mentioned above, most of the students of HUA come from rural and remote areas so their English level is low and of mixed-abilities There are even some students who have never learned English before These students also have different learning styles Some active students are interested in communicative activities while others are influenced by traditional method of teaching and learning They are not aware of their language needs in terms of communication in real life situations As a result, it is difficult for the teacher to monitor

the class and engage them in communicative activities In addition, all the classes at IFL are held in the evening when the students have just finished 8 or 10 periods of learning at the university Consequently, they sometimes feel tired and have no energy for further study

II.2 Research Methodology

II.2.1 Subjects

The subjects of the study were 100 students who were studying at IFL at that time and 10 teachers who were both at IFL and The Department of Linguistic and Foreign Culture They were selected randomly by the researchers

The students

The author chose randomly 100 students who were taking different English courses at IFL They come from different faculties of HUA They age from 18 -21 Among them, 70 % are female and 30% are male Their English level is not equal Some of them have learned English for 7 years at high schools, some others have 3 years of learning English and the rest did not learn English before

The teachers

10 teachers involve in the survey aged from 25 to 50 Their experience of teaching varies from 3 to 26 years Of these teachers, five got M.A degrees and the others are attending the post-graduate courses at College of Foreign Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University

II.2.2 Methods and Procedures

The researcher used both quantitative and qualitative methods in the study As mentioned in the above section, to collect information and data, three instruments: questionnaire, interview and observation were used All the subjects were informed of the purpose of the study and willing to help the researcher to fulfill the author‟s task

There were 100 survey questions delivered to students of different faculty at HUA In order to collect reliable data and information from the subjects, questionnaires for students were designed in Vietnamese and the students were given 45 minutes to finish their answers The teachers were given 30 minutes to finish their answers Both teachers and students were given any explanation if necessary The completed questionnaires were also collected by the writer herself

In the next step, information collected from two types of questionnaires were consolidated and categorized The results were analyzed and presented in forms of tables

and figures The observation notes were jotted down to provide the findings in forms of reflections Besides, to make the data more valid and reliable, the classroom observation and interview were conducted in order to gather further information and to witness the reality in which the teachers applied CLT in grammar teaching process

II.2.3 Survey instruments

II.2.3.1 Questionnaires

To gain data for the research, two kinds of questions were designed One was designed for 100 students who were taking different English courses at IFL and the other was for the teachers Some open-ended questions were also provided so that the respondents could have opportunities to express their own ideas about the items raised in the questionnaires The questionnaires are enclosed in the appendices

The first questionnaire includes 10 closed and open-ended questions in Vietnamese

so that students can understand the questions fully The questionnaire emphasizes on:

- The students‟ experience of learning English before university

- The students‟ attitude to learning English generally and grammar particularly,

- The students‟ evaluation of CLT in teaching grammar

- The students‟ ways of learning grammar

- The students‟ difficulties in learning grammar

- The students‟ suggestion for better grammar teaching and learning

The second questionnaire was delivered to 10 teachers of English at HUA The questionnaire emphasizes on:

- Their teaching experience

- Their ways of teaching grammar

- Their problems in teaching grammar

- Their evaluation to communicative activities they experienced in teaching

- Their suggestions for better grammar teaching

II.2.3.2 Class observation

The information obtained from the questionnaires, however, might be subjective and biased To make the data more valid and reliable, the class observations were conducted in order to gather further information and to witness the reality in which the teachers applied CLT in their grammar teaching progress and how the students get

interested in the activities in the lesson Then, the results of the observations would be compared with the results of questionnaires

The class observations were conducted in two different classes of about 40 students each class

A lesson observation was developed so that the author would take notes of the procedures, good points and bad points of the lesson

II 3 Data analysis and findings

This part presents and discusses the findings which are resulted from the analysis of three sources of data collected: questionnaires, classroom observation and interviews The data collected from these sources This part also gives the answers to two research questions

What is the fact of grammar learning at IFL – HUA?

 The students’ experience of learning before university

Table 1 presents the students‟ English background before they started their study at HUA

The results are presented as follows:

Years of learning English before entering

0 < 1 1 – 3 3 – 5 >5

Provinces and mountainous areas

Cities

Numbers of

Table 1: Student’s profile

The total of students chosen in the study was 100 of which 65 were male and 35 were female The majority was aged 20, some were 18 and the rest belongs to the groups of

18 -21

More than a half of students learned English for over 5 years (64%), while only 5% learned English less than one year 15% spent from 3 to 5 years studying this language and 13% have experience of 1 – 3 years of learning English There are even 3 students who have no experience of learning English because they did not have it as a compulsory subject at schools or they studied other languages such as French or Russian before

Most of the study subjects (90%) come from the countryside and mountainous areas where they were taught English in traditional ways and had no opportunity to use the target language to communicate Only 10% come from the city Their different places of domicile leads to a greatly various experience in their learning English Therefore, it is hard for them

to get acquainted with the approach of learning English through communicative activities

 The students’ attitudes towards grammar learning

Very important Important Neutral Not important

Table 2: Students’ awareness of the role of Grammar in learning English

It can be seen clearly from the table 2 that there is a high level agreement about the significance of grammar in learning English Maybe it is because their final tests are often

in written form and focusing mostly on grammar Remarkable, 40% and 56% considered it

to be very important and important respectively Only 1 % had neutral idea about importance of grammar learning However, 3% claimed that it was not important to learn grammar

Very interesting Interesting Not interesting

Table 3: Students’ attitudes towards learning grammar

From the students‟ reply, we could see that they all recognized the importance of learning grammar, an indispensable part of learning English at university Interestingly, three – fourths of the students (75 %) were interested in learning grammar and found grammar interesting and very interesting However, one-fourth of the students (25%) thought that it was not interesting to learn grammar and found their lessons boring, not understandable

Table 4: Students’ reasons for learning grammar

Information from the survey reveals that the largest proportion of the students (43%) found learning grammar help them improve their communication skills Obviously, they had more motivation to learn grammar than other groups who learned grammar just to get good marks on the exams (12%) or just because learning grammar was compulsory at university (7%) These figures expressed the impact of CLT in grammar learning There has been a change in the role of grammar in EFL The second choice of the students was to read and translate materials better (30%) For students in HUA, reading ESP documents requires good grammar understanding abilities and vocabulary knowledge In addition, 8%

of students learned grammar for a variety of different reasons They learned grammar due

to the fact that it is necessary and useful for their further study and future jobs Some said

that learning grammar provided them basic background to develop four English skill consisting of speaking, listening, reading and writing

The way of expressing ideas in English is different from in

Vietnamese

Table 5: Students’ difficulties in learning grammar

The data in table 5 show that the biggest problem faced by the students when learning English is the way of expressing ideas in English is different from in Vietnamese

In fact, most students when learning English often think in Vietnamese first and then translate into English That is the reason why 85% students complained that they found it difficult to express their ideas in English

As can be seen from the table the second biggest challenge that 80% students have

to cope with is the large size class The fact that about 50 -60 students in an English class

at HUA causes the students difficulties in learning English They have little opportunity to take part in communicative activities or tasks In addition, large class also creates good conditions for the students to make noise, use the mother tongue and do something else but not learning English

60% of the students were not satisfied with the teacher‟s methods Obviously, many

of the students want to improve grammar but not by the old methods In other words, they expect an innovative and more effective method

Also, 50% of the students responses showed that they found the course books boring and not attractive As far as the materials are concerned, “New Head Way”

“English Know How” textbooks, workbooks are used for teaching General English at IFL These course books are complained to combine the best traditional methods with current teaching techniques They causes difficulties for teachers when teaching as well

Grammar is quite difficult to most of the students so 20% asked complained that they had little time for grammar in class Only 18% demanded more learning facilities and

a small number of the students thought that the teachers were not enthusiastic

What is the fact of grammar teaching at IFL –HUA?

 The teachers’ experience of teaching

25-30 31-35 36-40 > 40 < 50 < 5 5-10 11-20 >20

Table 6: Teachers’ profile

As can be seen from the table, teachers of English at HUA are rather young with 6 teachers aged from 25-35, 3 are aged from 36 to more than 40 and 1 is aged more than 50

It shows that the English teachers group of HUA are enthusiastic and willing to acquire new methods and approaches in teaching to help their students gain the essential knowledge They are also experienced teachers, so it is easier for them to face with the difficulties when applying CLT to grammar teaching and how to get students interested in the lessons

 The teachers’ attitudes towards grammar teaching

Very important Important Neutral Not important

Table 7: Teachers’ awareness of the role of grammar in teaching

Sharing the same opinions with the students, all the teachers (90%) questioned except one considered teaching English grammar to be important They thought it was obligatory for the students to grasp basic grammatical structures and later use them in particular contexts

Both teachers and students realized the importance of grammar as well as grammar teaching and learning This could result from the fact that the teachers and the students have to learn grammar seriously to prepare for the exams Grammar always play a central role in the general English stage‟s exams This role is reinforced by the fact that there is no listening and speaking test in the exams In other words, grammar teaching and learning at

HUA are exam-oriented Another explanation is that most of students at HUA comes from rural and remote areas, learning English mainly means learning and grammar and vocabulary

Very interesting Interesting Not interesting

Table 8: Teachers’ attitudes towards the grammar teaching

Strangely, the data show that none of these teachers found grammar teaching very interesting We could see that grammar teaching was not the subject that inspired the teachers so much Even though they considered grammar teaching to be important, they found that it was not easy to hold a grammar lesson especially in a communicative way Two out of ten teachers asked were fed up with teaching grammar, which could be explained that in the traditional grammar lesson Luckily, 8 out of 10 teachers were interested in teaching grammar They shared the experience and techniques for grammar teaching They also claimed that to have a good and interesting lesson need great efforts of the teachers

What’s your purpose of grammar teaching? (No) (%)

To help students to get good results in the exams 2 20%

To help students to read and translates materials

better

Table 9: Teachers’ aims of teaching grammar

Surprisingly, 80% of the teachers questioned agreed that their aims of grammar teaching was to help their students to communicate better For a long time, grammar was taught in the traditional way with the sole purpose of getting good marks in the exams But now students‟ attitudes towards learning and teaching English in general and grammar in particular have changed And their final goal of learning English is to communicate successfully not only to get good results in the exams That is the reason why only 20% of teachers questioned thought their purpose of grammar teaching was to help the students to get good marks in the exams Half of the teachers interviewed believed that good knowledge of grammar helped the students to read and translate materials better

Teachers‟ problems (No) (%)

Students‟ preference of speaking Vietnamese in classes 7 70% Students‟ lack of good attitudes to learning grammar 7 70%

Table 10: The teachers’ difficulties in teaching grammar

According to the table 10, one of the biggest problems for teachers of English is dealing with a passive class where students are unresponsive and avoid interaction with the teacher Supporting for this finding is also found in the researcher‟s observation The majority of the students sit in silence or do other things and they rarely raise their voice unless their teachers ask them to do so and they are often reluctant to take part in activities Another difficulty for the teachers is a multi-level class All the teachers asked agreed that they found it hard to design the lesson so that it would be suitable for the mixed-ability classes

Students‟ low English proficiency and over - crowded classes are the second biggest problems in teaching grammar 8 out of 10 teachers agreed that they found it hard

to carry out the activities and control in such large –size classes

70% of the teachers in the survey complained that their students were not motivated when learning They were lack of good attitudes to grammar learning In addition, they often used mother tongue in stead of the target language during the lesson

A small proportion of participants (2 out of 10 teachers) had difficulty with the reference books because now these books are available in book stores, libraries and internet Also, only 30% of the teachers thought teaching facilities were poor

Research question 2: To what extent does CLT affect students’ interest

in the context of IFL –HUA?

In order to work out the answers to research question 2, the data collected from the questionnaires analyzed into three aspects (a) the students‟ opinions, interests in learning grammar through communicative activities as well as their frequency to these activities (b) the teachers‟ frequency of communicative activity application in grammar teaching (c) the teachers‟ and the students‟ evaluation of the effectiveness of communicative activities in teaching and learning grammar

 The students’ opinions about learning grammar through communicative activities

Do you find it is easier to understand and the lesson more

attractive when learning grammar through communicative

activities?

Table 11: Students’ opinions about learning grammar through communicative activities

The results in Table 11 show that 90% of students find that it is much easier to understand and remember grammar structures and rules through communicative activities and for these students the lessons seem to be more attractive and understandable Clearly, application of CLT in teaching grammar makes the classroom atmosphere friendlier and happier so many students feel that they have no obsession of learning rules Nonetheless, there still remains 10% of students who claim that learning grammar through CA is not really effective They find no motivation in this way of learning In addition, these students need grammar to take their examinations Even if the teachers are devoted to teaching communicative grammar, they reluctant to act on because their purpose is to get good results in the exams only It is, thus, the teacher‟s role to find ways to stimulate the students to take part in the learning in the class

Students’ interests in learning grammar through communicative activities

Do you like learning grammar

through communicative activities?

Strongly like

Like Neutral Dislike

Table 12: Students’ interests in learning grammar through communicative activities

`According to table 6, more than a half of the students (61%) strongly involve in the process of learning grammar through communicative activities and 35 % have neutral opinion about this Only 4 out of 100 students say that they do not like this way of learning Maybe the small rate of students are not really in full awareness of the importance of learning grammar through communicative activities and still hold their passive learning habit

How often do you take part in the communicative activities in grammar lessons?

Students’ evaluation of the effectiveness of communicative activities in grammar teaching at IFL