adapting speaking tasks in the text book tieng anh 11 to improve the 11th form students speaking achievement at dai mo upper secondary school

ABSTRACT In the teaching context of Dai Mo upper-secondary school in Nam Tu Liem, Ha Noi, the adaptation of speaking tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 11 is necessary because teaching and

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

*****

HÁN THỊ VĨNH HÀ

ADAPTING SPEAKING TASKS IN THE TEXT BOOK TIENG ANH 11 TO IMPROVE THE 11TH FORM STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ACHIEVEMENT AT DAI MO

UPPER-SECONDARY SCHOOL

Điều chỉnh các nhiệm vụ nói trong sách giáo khoa Tiếng Anh 11 nhằm nâng cao khả năng nói cho học sinh lớp 11 trường THPT Đại Mỗ

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Assoc Prof., PhD Nguyễn Văn Độ

HA NOI, 2015

DECLARATION

I hereby certify the thesis entitled “Adapting speaking tasks in the text book Tieng Anh 11 to improve the 11th form students’ speaking achievement at Dai Mo upper-secondary school” is my own study in the fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi

Signature

Hán Thị Vĩnh Hà

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have benefited a great deal of support from a number of people during the time carrying out this thesis

I would like first and foremost to express my profound gratitude and appreciation to

my supervisor, Dr Prof Nguyễn Văn Độ for his invaluable and insightful comments, his deliberate guidance and wholehearted supervision without which the thesis would not have been possible

My thanks are offered to all my respected lecturers in the M.A course, Assoc Prof Dr

Lê Hùng Tiến, Prof Dr Nguyễn Quang, Dr Lê Văn Canh, Dr Kiều Thị Thu Hương, Dr, Lâm Quang Đông…., for their informative and valuable lectures that have enlightened my research path of the study I also take this opportunity to express my gratefulness to the administrative staff of the Department of Post Graduate Studies, CFL,VNU-Hanoi, for their help, guidance and support

Special acknowledgement is also given to my students from classes 11A1 Dai Mo upper-secondary school for their participation in the lessons My appreciation is also extended

to my colleagues in the English division of Dai Mo upper-secondary school for their assistance and work sharing so that I could concentrate on doing the research

Last but not least, my heartfelt thanks go to my family and my close friends for their understanding, love, and support during the entire period of my study

ABSTRACT

In the teaching context of Dai Mo upper-secondary school in Nam Tu Liem, Ha Noi, the adaptation of speaking tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 11 is necessary because teaching and learning speaking is not usually efficient The students could hardly take part in speaking tasks seriously because they had difficulty expressing their ideas though they have the desire

to speak English This mini action research was conducted in order to investigate how adapted tasks helped students of low level to get more involved in speaking, as well as improve their language accuracy, fluency and complexity Oral tests together with survey questionnaire and observations was the main instrument of data collection They were delivered to 40 grade-11 students to collect individual scores before and after each of the two cycles, their opinions about speaking tasks in the textbook and their behaviors while doing speaking tasks Based on the data, the speaking tasks were adapted and speaking activities were implemented then pilot teaching was employed to check their effectiveness The results indicated that most of the adapted tasks resulted in some clear improvement in the students’ participation and their language proficiency without omitting available textbook tasks or overloaded supplemented materials Finally, some suggestions and implications for teaching speaking, task adaptation were offered to support students’ speaking skills at Dai Mo upper-secondary school

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Table 1: The students’ motivation in learning English speaking

Table 2+3: The students’ opinions about English speaking skills in the textbook Tieng Anh 11 Table 4: The students’ general evaluation of their current speaking lessons

Table 5: The students’ participation in speaking lessons

Table 6: Factors prevent the students from participating in speaking in the class

Table 7: The students’ opinion about the way their teacher taught English speaking

Table 8: The students’ evaluation of their teacher’s task adaptation

Table 9: The students’ scores in the Pre-test

Table 10: The students’ opinions about the vocabulary relating to the topics in the speaking tasks

Table 11+12: The students’ opinions about the topics of speaking tasks

Table 13+14: The students’ opinions about the speaking tasks

Table 15: The students’ response to the adapted tasks for Unit 15

Table 16: The students’ response to the adapted tasks for Unit 16

Table 17: The students’ scores in Post-test in cycle 1

Table 18: The students’ scores in Post-test in cycle 2

Figure 1: The students’ motivation in learning English speaking

Figure 2: The students’ opinions about the textbook’s topics in the textbook Tieng Anh 11 Figure 3: The students’ opinions about the textbook’s speaking activities in the textbook Tieng Anh 11

Figure 4: The students’ general evaluation of their current speaking lessons

Figure 5: The students’ participation in speaking lessons

Figure 6: : Factors prevented the students from participating in speaking in the class

Figure 7: The students’ opinion about the way their teachers taught speaking

Figure 8: The students’ evaluation of their teacher’s adaptation

Figure 9: The students’ scores in the Pre-test

Figure 10: The students’ opinions about the vocabulary relating to the topics in the speaking tasks

Figure 11: The students’ opinions about the topic’s familiarity of the speaking tasks

Figure 13: The students’ opinions about the speaking tasks’ ease

Figure 14: The students’ opinions about the speaking tasks’ interesting organization

Figure 15: The students’ response to the adapted tasks for Unit 15

Figure 16: The students’ response to the adapted tasks for Unit 16

Figure 17: The students’ scores in the Post-test in cycle 1

Figure 18: The students’ scores in the Post-test in cycle 2

MỤC LỤC

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES iv

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Methods of the study 2

6 Design of the study 4

PART II: DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1.1 An overview on the teaching of speaking 6

1.1.1 The speaking 6

1.1.1.1 The role of spoken English 6

1.1.1.2 Nature of spoken discourse 6

1.1.1.3 Functions of speaking 7

1.1.1.4 Implications for teaching 8

1.1.2 Related factors affecting students’ speaking 9

1.1.2.1 Context 9

1.1.2.2 Teachers 10

1.1.2.3 Learners 10

1.1.2.4 Materials 10

1.2 Tasks and task adaptation 11

1.2.1 Tasks in FL/SL learning and teaching 11

1.2.2 Task adaptation in FL/SL learning and teaching 11

1.2.2.1 The need of task adaptation 11

1.2.2.2 What is adaptation? 11

1.2.2.3 Reasons for adaptation 12

1.2.2.4 Approaches to task adaptation 12

1.3 Summary 14

CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 15

2.1 Situation analysis 15

2.1.2 The learners 15

2.1.3 Speaking materials 15

2.2 Instrumentation and Procedures 16

2.2.1 Instrument 1: Preliminary Survey 16

2.2.2 Instrument 2: Oral tests 16

2.2.3 Instrument 3: Survey Questionnaire 17

2.2.4 Instrument 4: Survey for Response to Adaptation 17

2.2.5 Instrument 5: Class Observation Sheets 17

2.3 The adaptation of speaking tasks in Tieng Anh 11 17

2.3.1 Unit 15 (Page 171, the textbook Tieng Anh 11) 18

2.3.2 Unit 16 (Page181, the textbook Tieng Anh 11) 19

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS 22

3.1 Data analysis of Preliminary Survey (See Appendix 1) 22

3.1.1 Personal information of the students’ taking part in the survey 22

3.1.2 The students’ awareness of studying English in general 22

3.1.3 The students’ opinions about English speaking skills in the textbook Tieng Anh 11 23

3.1.4 The students’ evaluation of their current speaking lessons 25

3.1.4.1 The udents’ general evaluation of their current speaking lessons 25

3.1.4.2 The students’ participation in speaking lessons and the reasons 26

3.1.4.3 The students’ opinions about the way their teachers taught English speaking 28

3.2 Data analysis from initial observations (see appendix 5) 29

3.3 Data analysis of Pre-tests (see Appendix 2) 32

3.4 Data analysis of Survey Questionnaire (see Appendix 3) 33

3.4.1 In terms of language (vocabulary) 33

3.4.2 In terms of topic 34

3.4.3 In terms of speaking tasks 36

3.4.4 The students’ suggestions for the teacher’s adaptation of speaking tasks 37

3.5 Data analysis of Survey for response to adaptation (see Appendix 4) 37

3.5.1 Data analysis of response to task adaptation of Unit 15, delivered on April 17th, 2014 (Number of participants: 40) 38

3.5.2 Data analysis of response to task adaptation of Unit 16, delivered on May 14th, 2012 (Number of participants: 41) 39

3.6 Data analysis from while-observation 40

3.6.1 While-observation ( See Appendix 5) 40

3.6.2 Reflection 40

3.6.2.1 Reflection on adaptation 1 41

3.6.2.2 Reflection on adaptation 2 42

3.7 Data analysis from Post-tests 43

3.7.2 Cycle 2 44

PART III: CONCLUSION 46

1 Major findings and discussion 46

3 Suggestions for further study 47

4 Implications: 47

1.4.1 Problem-solving: 47

1.4.2 Re-written dialogues: 48

1.4.3 Games: 48

1.4.4 Pair interview: 48

REFERENCES 49 Appendix 1 I Appendix 2 IV Appendix 3 VIII Appendix 4 X Appendix 5 XI Appendix 6 XX Appendix 7 XXIII

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

In the past ten years, teaching English speaking at school has earned a lot of attention and investment from both experts and teachers as well as learners and their communities The three main reasons must be: first, the key practical role of English speaking has received the social awareness; second, tape-recording and the Internet has enabled learners to access to native speakers’ talks; third, many methodology courses sponsored by the government have helped teachers to approach some new teaching methods As a result, students’ speaking ability has improved much in general

Despite all of the above advantages, I see no much progress in the case of Dai Mo upper-secondary school, class 11A1 in particular By observing, I notice most of the students hesitate to participate in English speaking tasks Even as the teachers have managed to engage them in, their talks show some problems of using accurate, fluent and complex language

Some researchers have been particularly interested in the same situation in teaching English skills and tried to improve it by adaptation (Phùng Thị Hoa Mơ, 2010; Nguyễn Thị Trang, 2012) However, most of them concluded that poor textbooks and students’ low motivation were the main reasons Whereas the students in class 11A1 confirmed that they wanted to speak English much more than reading, writing, grammar, and they found almost all the topics interesting Especially, to grant comparatively equal achievements among students from different schools, a set of compulsory textbooks have been published The textbooks have several strong points, that is task-based contexts are available and communication practice is carefully guided

Considering their English scores at the beginning of the course, the writer realized that most of them were of low level, some were better but no one was advanced Therefore, she did a preliminary research, searched the Internet and read ESL/EFL studies She found that spoken discourse has its own characteristics and, thus, the teaching must be distinctive She wondered if she could help them by providing them with more language input together with knowledge background, and by adapting some speaking tasks in the textbook Tiếng Anh 11 The writer did hope that these changes would help them to have such achievements as participating more in speaking activities and producing somewhat more accurate, fluent and complex language

All of these above have inspired the writer to conduct the study titled “Adapting speaking tasks in the text book Tieng Anh 11 to improve the 11th form students’ speaking achievement at Dai Mo upper-secondary school.”

2 Aims of the study

The study was designed to help the students of low levels in class 11A1 to participate more in speaking activities and produce more accurate, fluent and complex language through the adaptation of the textbook Tieng Anh 11

The study is aimed:

1 To find out approaches to adapt speaking tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh

11 for low-level students

2 To investigate whether the adaptation increases the students’ participation and improves the accuracy, fluency and complexity of their language performance

4 Scope of the study

Task adaptation is such a broad topic that it cannot be wholly discussed within the framework of this paper; therefore, only one specific aspect will be central to the speaking tasks’ adaptation

With the focus on speaking tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 11 (the basic textbook), the study was carried out to adapt them for the students

The study focuses on one class of grade-11 students, so the results of the study are not generated to all students at Dai Mo upper-secondary school

5 Methods of the study

The study in fact is an action research According to Nunan (1992: 19), an action research includes seven steps They are: initiation, preliminary investigation, hypothesis,

intervention, evaluation, dissemination and follow-up The applied steps in details are as follows:

Step 1- Initiation: In the process of teaching the textbook Tieng Anh 11, the writer

observed that most of the students hesitated to participate in speaking tasks Even as the teachers had managed to engage them in, their talks showed some problems of the accuracy, fluency and complexity of their language performance The students confirmed that they want

to speak English much more than reading, writing, grammar, and they found almost all the topics interesting, though What should be done?

Step 2- Preliminary investigation: the writer carried out the preliminary survey and

did some initial observations to find out how speaking tasks were managed, how often the students took part in speaking activities and how the language produced was Also, she searched the Internet and read academic studies on ESL and EFL

Step 3- Hypothesis: By collecting and reviewing the baseline data, the writer came to

the hypothesis that the students’ speaking achievement was not high because they often encountered problems associated with language and background knowledge due to their low English speaking levels; and that the adaptation of some speaking tasks by ‘making accuracy-based practice meaningful’ and ‘adapting fluency-based activities’ can help them improve the accuracy, fluency and complexity of their language performance

Step 4- Intervention: The research had two cycles

First, the students were asked to take an oral pre-test The students’ scores were counted into percentages by following students’ score intervals

Second, the writer conducted Cycle 1: Before the new speaking lesson, the writer asked the students to answer some questions to find out their opinions about the topic and speaking tasks in the coming lesson After collecting the results, teaching plans for adapted tasks were delivered She observed the class and took notes the teaching-learning activities and the students’ behaviors When the students finished the tasks, she provided them with survey for response to the adaptation Then, an oral post-test was delivered to the students Data analysis, reflection and comparison were done to investigate the students’ speaking improvement in terms of participation, language accuracy and fluency

Because the successful result was not reached yet, it was needed to do another cycle Final, Cycle 2 was conducted with the same procedure as that of cycle 1

Though the students’ speaking achievement was not improved to advanced level, it was accepted in this case Therefore, no more cycle was conducted

Step 5- Evaluation:

Before adaptation, the students’ scores showed their low speaking achievement because of such problems as they did not have enough vocabulary, feeling shy when they spoke in front of others, they were still rigid to express their ideas

After cycle 1, the students found the adapted tasks less challenging and achievable They responded in English more freely, had the feelings of being understood and took part in speaking lessons more actively However, the complexity of theỉ language had not been achieved yet

After cycle 2, the students felt more confident in controlling their English language while speaking They verified expressions, which were exchanged among partners Though this improvement was considerable and valuable, it did not reach the goal of producing their own language

Step 6- Dissemination: the writer discussed the effectiveness of the adapted tasks to

the students and colleagues

Step 7- Follow-up: the writer suggested some more adapted activities to teach other

speaking lessons basing on the textbook Tieng Anh 11 to the students

6 Design of the study

The study titled “Adapting speaking tasks in the text book Tieng Anh 11 to improve the 11th form students’ speaking achievement at Dai Mo upper-secondary school.” consists of three main parts namely Introduction, Development and Conclusion

In the first part, Introduction, the reasons for the research, aims, research questions, scope and methods of the study are mentioned

The second part, Development, contains four chapters

- Chapter One focuses on theoretical background of the study, which is about features, and functions of spoken discourse, implications for teaching, and purposes as well as two main approaches of adaptations: accuracy-based practice and fluency-based activities

- Chapter Two not only describes the context of teaching and learning English

at Dai Mo upper-secondary school but also presents the instrumentation of the study,

- Chapter Three deals with a comprehensive data analysis

The last part, Conclusion, provides major findings, discussion, limitations and recommendations for follow-up action

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 An overview on the teaching of speaking

In order to help students to develop their English speaking ability we need insights about the nature of spoken discourse, so we will be able to find a useful methodology to select and design appropriate classroom activities

1.1.1 The speaking

1.1.1.1.The role of spoken English

The mastery of English speaking skills plays a very important role for many foreign language learners Consequently, learners tend to evaluate their success in language learning

as well as the effectiveness of their English lessons basing on how well they feel they have improved in their speaking ability or proficiency

In addition, teachers and textbooks make use of a variety of approaches in the teaching

of oral skills, which shows that “ oral skills have hardly been neglected in EFL/ESL courses” Therefore, it is observed that “ how best to approach the teaching of oral skills has long been the focus of methodological debate”, Richards (2009:21)

Reflecting on the textbook Tieng Anh 11, the writer thinks teachers can take a great deal of advantages in methodology

1.1.1.2.Nature of spoken discourse

According to McCarthy and Carter, 1997 (cited in Richards, 2009:21), it is recent advances in discourse analysis that have revealed the nature of spoken discourse and its differences from written discourse Luoma, 2004 (cited in Richards, 2009:22) points out some of the following features of spoken discourse:

 Conjoined short phrases and clauses

 May be planned or unplanned

 Employs more vague or generic words than written language

 Employs fixed phrases, fillers and hesitation markers

 Contains slips and errors reflecting on-line processing

 Interactions are jointly constructed

 Shows variation, reflecting speaker roles, speaking purpose, and the context Among them, the writer pays much attention to the two following features:

First, “spoken discourse is usually unplanned and often reflects the processes of constructions”, Richards (2009:2) Thus, errors must be carefully chosen to be treated in order that the correction does not ruin fluency In my opinion, errors that impede communication should be directly corrected Tricia Hedge (2000:289) gives an example of such error: “ They ate smoked worm” is not immediately apparent as “They ate smoked eel”, and “long trees” can be misunderstood as “tall trees” Besides, the assessment of fluency should be much more flexible, which will be discussed in detail in the part of adaptation

Second, “interactions are jointly constructed”, which asks for shared background, active and intelligibility participation It implies that in addition to fluency, accuracy must be put in consideration and speaking activities must be well designed so that engaging students

in can be successful Moreover, the topic of speaking tasks in textbooks should be familiar to students, or else some preparation must be made before each lesson

1.1.1.3.Functions of speaking

Richards uses a three-part framework, which is expanded from Brown and Yule’s one,

to classify the interaction functions of speaking: talk as interaction, talk as transaction, and talk as performance Their forms and functions are quite different and therefore they require different teaching approaches

a Talk as interaction

This refers to “conversation” which serves as primarily social function The focus is more on speaker’s wish to present themselves other than on the message Brown and Yule,

1983 (cited in Richards, 2009:25) describe its main features as follows:

 Has a primarily social function

 Is jointly constructed

b Talk as transaction

The focus of this kind of talk is on what is said or done The message and making oneself understood clearly and accurately are focused on rather than the participants and their interacting manner

Some main features are given by Richards (2009:29):

 It has a primarily information focus

 Linguistic accuracy is not always important

c Talk as performance

This type of talk refers to public talk transmitting information in front of an audience According to Richards (2009:32), the main features of talks as performance are:

 It reflects predictable organization and sequencing

 Form and accuracy is important

1.1.1.4.Implications for teaching

a Talk as interaction

Though mastering such skills is difficult and may not be the most important to most students at school, I think they should practice a wide range of topics to present good images

of themselves in situations which call for interaction talks

Two simple activities Richards use to practice topic management are “in the hot seat” and “question time” In the first activity, a student sits on a chair in front of the class and makes a statement about something he or she did recently The other members of the class have to ask three or more questions about the topic which the student has to answer quickly Then another student takes the hot seat With the activity called question time, before students begin a lesson on a new theme, he prepares up to 15 questions related to the theme and put them on a handout First, he asks students around the class to answer the questions quickly Then students practice asking and answering the questions in pairs

b Talk as transaction

In terms of the level of linguistic accuracy that students achieve when carrying out tasks as transaction, some scholars like Thornbury,1998 and Kumaravadivelu,1991 state that practicing these tasks focuses on task accomplishment rather than grammatical practice and a gradual modification of their language output over time takes on more and more target-like forms However, Higgs and Clifford, 1982 (cited in Richards 2009:37) claim that communication tasks often develop fluency at the expense of accuracy Richards (2009:39) recognizes that low-level students often heavily rely on vocabulary and memorized chunks of language while carrying out communication tasks Therefore, to improve the quality (accuracy and fluency) of language produced as students practice, he suggests:

 Pre-teaching certain linguistic forms

 Reducing the complexity of the task

 Giving time to plan the task

 Repeating performance of the task

c Talk as performance

According to Johns,1996 (cited in Richards, 2009:42), teaching this type of talk requires a different teaching strategy which involves providing examples or models of speeches, oral presentation, stories,etc through video or audio recordings or written examples Guiding questions are:

 What is the speaker’s purpose?

 Who is the audience?

 What kind of information does the audience expect?

 How does the talk begin, develop, and end? What moves or stages are involved?

 Is any special language used?

1.1.2 Related factors affecting students’ speaking

Students’ participation in classroom speaking activities and their English output can be affected by a variety of factors originating from context, learners, teachers, materials and classroom activities In the following sections, some of the major factors will be discussed

1.1.2.1.Context

Most of factors are “ outside the teacher’s control but they will bear heavily on decisions about choice of resources and classroom procedure” (Hedge, 2000:24) She mentions the following factors:

 Social attitudes

Social attitudes towards English learning partly determine teachers’ effort to motivate students and exposure to the language as well

 Educational system

Whether educational system provides potential or constraint depends on:

- The extent to which the materials in use train for public examinations

- The hours available for teaching

- The existence of institutional or departmental policies

- The physical constraints of the classroom

- Class size

- The resources available

- The cohesion that exists among English language teachers

- The status of teachers in the hierarchy

- The financial/contractual status of teachers

- The interest of management in continuing professional development

in giving instructions for the pair work, initiating it, monitoring it, and organizing feedback;

as prompter while students are working together; and as resource if students need help” All

of these are common to a wide range of classroom methods Hedge (2000: 22-31) says that they can be seen in lesson plans but only can the ability to manage activities and interactions put them in practice Only when teachers have competence in management of interaction can the mentioned roles create beneficial conditions for language learning

1.1.2.3.Learners

Individual differences exist and play a significant role in language learning However, they are just the useful distinctions to classify them in order to have some possible implications for teaching Because there are not “certain attitudes, personality characteristics, emotional disposition, and learning strategies that somehow create the generically ‘good language learner’” (Hedge, 2000:24)

Addition to individual differences, students in Dai Mo upper-secondary school share some common characteristics that affect their learning in general and speaking in particular They are of low-level, which leads to limitations in language output (accuracy, fluency and complexity) and anxiety (participation)

1.1.2.4.Materials

O’Neill, 1982 (cited in Hedge, 2000:36) outlines the benefits of textbook materials:

“they can offer a grammatical and functional framework which provides for the common needs of a group of learners; they allow students to prepare in advance; they provide quality

of presentation, and they do not necessarily prevent a creative spinning-off in the classroom into all kinds of other activities.” Nevertheless, because of all the factors of teachers and learners mentioned above, textbooks should be learning guides for students, and “good teachers have always taken a positively critical approach to appraising and developing their work”

1.2.Tasks and task adaptation

No course book will be total suited to a particular teaching situation The teacher will have to find his own way of using it and adapting it if necessary So we should not be looking for the perfect course book which meets all our requirement, but rather for the best possible fit between what the course book offers and what we as teachers and students

need Two approaches that guided this research were making accuracy-based practice meaningful and adapting fluency-based activities

1.2.1 Tasks in FL/SL learning and teaching

Many linguists argue whether tasks can involve learners in working with particular kinds of language Brumfit, 1984a (cited in Carter and Nunan, 2001:19) stresses that students should be provided the freedom to improve in fluency activities Skehan, 1998 (cited in Carter and Nunan, 2001:19) believes that tasks can only provide conditions for influencing the level

of learners’ complexity, accuracy or fluency In contrast, Loschky and Bley-Vroman, 1993 (cited in Carter and Nunan, 2001:19) argue that tasks can target language features Therefore, Carter and Nunan (2001:19) state that the key question is how tasks operate and how to make tasks operate effectively within classroom contexts

1.2.2 Task adaptation in FL/SL learning and teaching

1.2.2.1.The need of task adaptation

No certain set of activities can ensure that different groups of students practice the speaking and problems can be found around the activities Hedge (2000:281-283) believes that whenever a problem occurs, which leads to students’ failure, they can feel frustrated to perform and they do not behave in them as the activities suggest they should This usually obstacles the possible contributions to speaking activities and presents limitations to the development of English speaking ability It suggests to us the need to create range and variety

in language activities to adapt to the teaching and learning context

1.2.2.2 What is adaptation?

According to Tomlinson (1998: xi), adaptation is “making changes to materials in order to improve them more suitable for a particular type of learner.” In the aspect of adaptation techniques, Madsen and Bowen (1978: ix-xi) mentions adaptation as the action of employing “one or more of a number of techniques: supplementing, editing, expanding, personalizing, simplifying, modernizing, localizing, or modifying cultural/ situational content.” Differently, Stevick (1972), cited in Mc Donough and Shaw (1993: 83) emphasizes

teachers’ role of bridging a gap between materials and learners: “the teacher must satisfy the demand of the textbook, but in ways that will be satisfying to those who learn from it.”

In brief, adaptation requires teachers to change and revise materials to make them more accessible to the teaching context

1.2.2.3 Reasons for adaptation

There are always some practical reasons for adapting materials in order to make them as accessible and useful to learners as possible However, reasons for adaptation have varied and changed as the field has developed and views on language acquisition and teaching practice have become better informed by research and experience There are two most frequently cited purposes for adaptation:

to make the material more suitable for the circumstances in which it is being used, i.e

to mould it to the needs and interests of learners, the teachers’ own capabilities and such constraints as time, or as Mc Donough and Shaw (1993:85) put it: “to maximize the appropriateness of teaching materials in context, by changing some of the internal characteristics of a course book to better suit our particular circumstances”

to compensate for any intrinsic deficiencies in the materials, such as linguistic inaccuracy, out-of-datedness, lack of authenticity (Madsen and Bowen 1978) or lack of variety

Look deeper into McDonough and Shaw’s definition of purpose we see that maximizing the appropriateness of teaching materials (by, e.g., modifying them in such a way that they seem more relevant to learners’ interests and needs) is important because when teachers make changes to a course book “to better suit our particular purposes” what teachers are really trying to do is to improve students’ participation to increase the effectiveness of the learning experience

1.2.2.4 Approaches to task adaptation

Brumfit, 1984a (cited in Hedge, 2000:283) suggests that beginners “need a strong focus on learning to use grammar, vocabulary, and features of pronunciation in more controlled, intensive forms of practice, but that they will then need opportunities to use the resources they have acquired in fluency work which stimulates real language use.” However, Carter and Nunan (2001:19) prefer “to engage learners’ fluent processing to begin with and only subsequently lead them to integrate accurate language features into that fluent ‘base’”

The writer herself bases on types of activities to decide whether fluency-focus or accuracy-focus And she also tends to practice accuracy work within fluency activities; thus, complexity can be achieved later; because John and Liz Soars in the Introduction to Headway Upper Intermediate Teacher’s book (page iii), argue that students who have passed through the ‘intermediate stage of a programme and who have ‘sufficient linguistic confidence an ability to survive in a target language environment and understand the gist of what is going on around them’ will still have inaccuracies and a relatively narrow range of vocabulary Therefore, “maintaining or even increasing the amount of accuracy work might eliminate some of these mistakes and enrich their language repertoire” (ibid.)

The writer believes the two following approaches can produce effective adaptation:

a Making accuracy-based practice meaningful

Learners in communicative classrooms need to be exposed to input that they can attend to, and given opportunities to produce output in activities with more control Controlled activities may deal with “a grammatical structure, a phonological feature, a conventional gambit, a communicative function, or the time sequencers that might be needed in telling a story”, all of which have a conscious focus on language (Hedge, 2000:273)

Hedge (2000:273-276) gives two suggestions:

 Contextualizing

Contextualized practice “aims to make clear the link between linguistic form and communicative function”, which “means finding a situation in which a structure is commonly used.” [ For the example of contextualizing, see appendix 6-1]

 Personalizing

Personalizing “the language enables students to express their own ideas, feelings, preferences, and opinion”, which “makes the language more memorable” To make it motivating, students must be allowed to choose what they say in some degree so that they can

“make use of language resources in interpersonal situations” [ For the example of personalizing, see appendix 6-2]

b Adapting fluency-based activities

In textbooks, we can see a lot of available fluency-based activities Making use most

of them and adapting some is what the writer chooses to contribute to the development of students’ speaking skills

Hedge (2000:277-281) suggests three basic types of activities used for adaptation:

 Free discussion

In free discussion, students can cover a wide range of topics and practice strategies required in interpersonal communication such as taking and holding turns, encouraging responses, etc However, more proficient or more confident students may dominate over anxious ones, thus participation from all members of the group may not take place

To overcome this, teachers need to support students with material that can focus the discussion, provide content and linguistic resources Reporting stage after taking note the discussion accurately also makes students follow the arguments In addition, goals should be established Group roles can ensure equality of opportunity for all group members [ For the example of group roles, see appendix 6-3]

 Role-play

Role-play can be an effective “fluency activity if it is performed in pairs or groups rather than one group acting in front of the class” and it should be based on real-life situations Thus, role-play encourages a large number of students to participate in the activity Another advantage is that as students take on different roles they will have a chance to practice language that varies according to the setting [ For the example of role-play, see appendix 6-4]

 ‘Gap’ activities

‘Gap’ activity “involves each learner in a pair or group possessing information which other learners do not have The learners’ information must be shared in order to achieve an outcome” One value of this fluency-based type is that it can push students to more accurate output while negotiating meaning and adjusting the conversation [ For the example of ‘gap’ activities, see appendix 6-5]

1.3.Summary

To conclude, with the awareness of factors affecting students’ participation and language performance together with two main approaches to adaptation, the writer adapted some activities in Tieng Anh 11 to make them more communicative, suitable to her students’ ability in class 11A1 at Dai Mo upper-secondary school Contextualizing, group roles, role-play and personalizing were popular adaptation techniques used in the research Details of these above contents will be presented in chapter 2 and 3

CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

2.1.1 Setting of the study

The study was conducted in class 11A1 at Dai Mo upper-secondary school in Nam Tu Liem, Hanoi City At Dai Mo upper-secondary school as well as other secondary schools all over the country, English is one of the three compulsory core subjects in the national examination for GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education)

The students have three 45-minute periods of English a week, that is, 51 periods in term 1 and 54 periods in term 2 However, there are only seven speaking lessons in each term

At the time of the study, the students were in their second term of the school year The second term began with Unit 9

2.1.3 Speaking materials

The textbook Tieng Anh 11, edited by Prof Hoang Van Van and written by Hoang Thi

Xuan Hoa, Dao Ngoc Loc, Vu Thi Loi, Do Tuan Minh and Nguyen Quoc Tuan, published by

Nha xuat ban giao duc, is a theme-based textbook, and a continuance of the textbooks Tieng Anh 10 It is intended to provide students with thorough coverage of basic grammatical and

lexical items and language skills

The textbook is used for grade-11 students It consists of 16 units Each unit has one speaking lesson All the speaking lessons in the textbook follow three stages of pre-speaking, while-speaking and post-speaking The speaking tasks are not too difficult with coherent stages They are intended to be suitable for all levels of students However, they are beyond the students’ level in Dai Mo School

2.2 Instrumentation and Procedures

The data collected from student-based evaluation and respond-based evaluation (Ellis, 1997: 39-40) helped conduct this mini action research The former was to check whether the speaking tasks are useful, based on the students’ attitudes to the speaking tasks Thus, the data was practical and reliable Doing the later, the teacher had to see the actual outcomes by examining not only the products but also the processes of the tasks

Oral tests were utilized as the main data collection instruments, questionnaires and class observations were functioned as supplementary sources of information Because the students’ scores were counted into percentages and all the informants answered the same questions, the data collected were easy to be summarized, analyzed and reported Furthermore, the subjects were free to give their ideas without having to provide personal information For that reason, the researcher has more uniform and accurate data

To avoid misunderstanding and ensure the accuracy of the data, both types of questionnaires were written in Vietnamese and distributed with the researcher’s clear explanation

The researcher let the participants read the tasks before hand and let them respond to a survey questionnaire one period before each reading lesson, and set aside 15 minutes after each speaking lesson so that they were not under pressure of time

The instruments and procedures used to gather the information for the study will be described as follows:

2.2.1 Instrument 1: Preliminary Survey

The Preliminary Survey Questionnaire (see Appendix 1) was delivered to the students

at the beginning of the second term, after they have finished the first term It was designed with four parts Part 1 with 3 questions seeks information about students’ sex, time of learning English and English result of the previous semester The questions in part two was designed

to find the students’ general attitudes towards speaking: the role of speaking (Question 4) Part three has two questions to find out students’ attitudes towards the textbook Tieng Anh 11: the topic (Question 5), the tasks (Question 6) Part four includes four questions learning about the way the speaking lessons takes place (Question 7,8,9,10) and one question about their attitudes towards adaptation (Question 11)

2.2.2 Instrument 2: Oral tests

Oral tests included a pre-test and two post-tests The pre-test and one post-test was for cycle 1, the rest is for cycle 2

Each oral test (see Appendix 2) consists of 2 parts Part 1 lasts about 5 to 6 minutes In this part of the Speaking test, each candidate interacts with the interlocutor, using the language normally associated with meeting people for the first time, giving factual information of a personal kind, for example, name, place of origin, study, family, etc Candidates are also expected to be able to talk about their daily life, interests, likes, etc Part 2 lasts 3 or 4 minutes Prompt cards are used to stimulate questions and answers of a non-personal kind The interlocutor reads out instructions and gives a question card to one candidate and an answer card to the other After the candidates have asked and answered the questions, they change roles

2.2.3 Instrument 3: Survey Questionnaire

These questionnaires (see Appendix 3) were designed with three parts of open and closed questions They were delivered one day before each new speaking lesson in each circle and after the teacher had asked the students to read its tasks beforehand It is aimed at finding out the students’ opinions about the speaking tasks in the aspects of topics, language (vocabulary), speaking tasks, and activity organization in each unit

2.2.4 Instrument 4: Survey for Response to Adaptation

Two surveys for response to adaptation (see Appendix 4) were given to the students after each speaking lesson in each circle to see how effective the adapted tasks were Each has six questions The students were asked to self-rate their seriousness in preparing the lesson and doing the tasks as well as the effectiveness of the adapted tasks

2.2.5 Instrument 5: Class Observation Sheets

The class observation sheets (see Appendix 5) were used to note down the students’ performance in the classroom This was a useful tool to measure the students’ attitudes, behavior and interaction when working in speaking activities and when dealing with adapted tasks Initial observations including some field-notes, taken during my previous teaching which initiated the idea of doing this study, and an anecdotal record were used to have a deeper sight into students’ behaviors in speaking lessons without much adaptation Two while-observations helped me to reflect on effectiveness of adaptation in the two cycles 2.3 The adaptation of speaking tasks in Tieng Anh 11

Basing on the findings from the students’ statement of the way they often do their speaking activities and from my pre-observations, together with the knowledge of some teaching approaches acquired through reading, some adaptation techniques were employed to involve the students in the English speaking and make the tasks more accessible to them The tasks of Unit 15 and Unit 16 were adapted, using common adapting techniques such as

‘contextualizing, personalizing, role-play, group role” The writer remained all the language materials in the textbook because of my limited ability Furthermore, the textbook had been written by a group of linguistic experts, so it was a reliable and useful source of language Only the organizing of speaking activities was in concern

 Samples of adaptation

2.3.1 Unit 15 (Page 171, the textbook Tieng Anh 11)

Rationale for adaptation:

Task 2-as a while speaking one was considered rather long and with many pieces of information Low level students tended to be confused with time-consuming work and become bored with repeated language or activities Therefore, the adapted version of Task 2

in the textbook was aimed to enhance every student’s participation, verify their language and improve their accuracy as well as fluency through all of their presentations in a given limited period of time

Adapted version plan:

- Task: while-speaking, task 2

- Aims and objectives: maximize students’ listening and speaking time on the important events in space exploration

- Type of activity: Contextualizing, Role-play, Group roles and Personalizing

- Preparation:

+ Teacher: 40 cards with such names as from Sputnik 1 to Sputnik 5, from Laika 1 to Laika 5, from Yuri 1 to Yuri 5, from Valentine 1 to Valentine 5, so on + Students: drafts

- Time: 25 minutes

- Procedure:

After finishing the pre-speaking task 1 with the whole class:

a Group roles in group work

- The teacher divided the class into 8 groups, each of which has 5 students

- Each group discuss one of the eight events in the textbook

+ One student is appointed as the leader: to control the speaking turns

+ One student is the secretary: to take notes all expressions

+ The others correct the expressions to have the best ones

+ All the members take notes

+ the teacher goes round to help

b Contextualizing and Role-play in group work and reporting

- The teacher give each group a set of 5 cards, e.g the group who are talking about Yuri Gagarin get 5 cards with from Yuri 1 to Yuri 5, which are delivered to the group members at random

- With the teacher’s instruction, all students with cards number 1 move to form a new group of eight students with eight different events

- The teacher sets the context: “ You are now in a Press Conference on important events in space exploration You are very famous journalists In turn, please, report your event Ask any questions about the events Try to be the best journalist of the Conference.”

- The students introduce their events in turns

- The others listen to, take notes to report one of the partners’ events later

c Personalizing the reporting

- The teacher ask such questions as “ Who is interested in your friend’s speaking about Sputnik/ Laika/ Yuri/,etc.?”

- Some students choose one of the partners’ most impressive talks to report

2.3.2 Unit 16 (Page181, the textbook Tieng Anh 11)

Rationale for adaptation:

In stage Intervention in cycle 1, the writer adapted Task 2 Unit 15 Though the students’ participation, language accuracy and fluency were improved, I saw little progress in language complexity

Task 3-as a while speaking one was interesting, and requires much imagination leading to the use of a wide range of vocabulary and expressions An adapted version of this task was presented to meet that demand and to help the students generate ideas and present them in English illegibly and fluently

Homework was given as the follow-up of Task 3 to solidify this main speaking task of the lesson

Adapted version plan:

- Task: while-speaking, task 3 and homework

- Aims and objectives:

+ To improve the students’ participation and language accuracy, fluency and complexity + Students can talk about possible theories involved the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza

+ Homework can help students to solidify their language and presentation skills

- Type of activity: Contextualizing, Role-play, Group roles, Personalizing

- Preparation:

+ Teacher: 8 sets of cards, each of which had 5 numbers from 1 to

+ Students: drafts, large-sized pieces of paper

- Time: 20 minutes

- Procedure:

After finishing the pre-speaking task 1 and while-speaking task 2:

a Contextualizing and Role-play

- The teacher sets the context of a competition to choose the most possible theory involved the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza in

- The teacher divides the class into 5 groups as representatives of 5 nations

- The teachers casts the roles and lets the students to choose their group names

b Group roles

- Each group work out their theory prepared for the competition

- One student, who controls the speaking turns, is appointed by the teacher as the leader

- The others present, take notes all the possibilities

- The whole group chose the best possibility and correct the language mistakes

c Role-play in reporting and discussing

- The teacher gave each group a set of card numbered from 1 to 5, which is then delivered to group members

- With the teacher’s instruction, all of the students with cards number 1 moved to form

a new group of eight students with eight different theories The same to the other 4 groups

+ The others listen to and try to debate the others’ theories whenever and wherever they can

d Reporting

- The students remain in their later groups

- Each of the 5 groups vote for 1 theory Therefore, the competition has 5 votes

- The winner is the one having the theory with the most votes

e Personalizing the homework

- Each group draw a picture describing their theory at home

- They are supposed to present their theories demonstrated by the picture in the next

lesson

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS

This chapter presents the data analysis from Preliminary Survey, Pre-test, Post-tests, Observations, Survey Questionnaire and Survey for Response to Adaptation To make it easier to understand the data, the percentage for each choice was calculated per the number of participants choosing that choice The number of participants was 40

3.1 Data analysis of Preliminary Survey (See Appendix 1)

3.1.1 Personal information of the students’ taking part in the survey

According to the statistics, more than half of the students taking part in the survey (60%) are male They all have been learning English for 9 years However, only 25 students got above average results in the first term, and only 8 students got good grades (over 6,5)

3.1.2 The students’ awareness of studying English in general

4 Why do you want to study speaking English?

a because English is a compulsory subject at school and the final exam 57%

c to listen to songs, read books, magazines and watch movies in English 31.6%

f because of the interest in English language, people and culture 35%

Table 1: The students’ motivation in learning speaking English

As it is indicated clearly in the table

the students “have to” learn English

modern life as more than a half (50.6%) of

job in the future The high percentage of these students

English does not imply a low motivation among them

English because they were interested in English

English for songs, books, magazines and movies in English

(14%) affirmed that they were learning English because they wanted to get good marks The lowest percentage of the respondents (4%) claimed that th

is to study aboard

3.1.3 The students’ opinions

5 In your opinion, are the topics for speaking in the textbook relevant to you?

Options

a very relevant

b some are relevant, some are not

c little relevant

d not relevant at all

6 In your opinion, are speaking

57

14 31.6

clearly in the table, the most common reason ( 57 % of the learners) is students “have to” learn English Obviously, these students knew the role of English in the

than a half (50.6%) of the students want to learn English to job in the future The high percentage of these students who have this reason for learning

a low motivation among them when 35 % of the students learn English because they were interested in English, correlatively to 31.6% students who learn English for songs, books, magazines and movies in English The lower percent of students

they were learning English because they wanted to get good marks The lowest percentage of the respondents (4%) claimed that the reason they tried to study English

opinions about English speaking skills in the textbook Tieng Anh 11 In your opinion, are the topics for speaking in the textbook relevant to you?

Result (%) 12%

good jobs

Enlish language, people and culture

the most common reason ( 57 % of the learners) is that

, these students knew the role of English in the students want to learn English to get a good

this reason for learning

% of the students learn students who learn The lower percent of students they were learning English because they wanted to get good marks The

e reason they tried to study English

ls in the textbook Tieng Anh 11 In your opinion, are the topics for speaking in the textbook relevant to you?

compulsory subject good marks songs, books and movies abroad study

Enlish language, people and

c little interesting

d boring

Table 2+3: The students’ opinions about

Topics in Tieng Anh 11 were compiled in term

affirmed that some topics such as friendship, party, hobbies, celebrations and recreation are suitable for them and they found volunteer work, illiteracy, nature in danger, wonders of the world difficult for them to practice

speaking activities to draw students’

opinions about English speaking skills in the textbook Tieng Anh 11

Topics in Tieng Anh 11 were compiled in terms of themes 74% of the students affirmed that some topics such as friendship, party, hobbies, celebrations and recreation are suitable for them and they found volunteer work, illiteracy, nature in danger, wonders of the world difficult for them to practice speaking Yet, there are not many kinds of interesting speaking activities to draw students’ attention (58%) That is the reason why 9% of

English speaking skills in the textbook Tieng Anh 11

of themes 74% of the students affirmed that some topics such as friendship, party, hobbies, celebrations and recreation are suitable for them and they found volunteer work, illiteracy, nature in danger, wonders of the

speaking Yet, there are not many kinds of interesting

That is the reason why 9% of

very relevant some are relevant little relevant not relevant at all

very interesting not very interesting little interesting

comprehensible because all the tasks

fact requires teachers’ investment in appropriate activities so as to raise students’

in classroom activities, which then lead to higher language proficiency

3.1.4 The students’ evaluation of

3.1.4.1 The udents’ general evaluation

7.What do you think about your current speaking lessons?

Options

a Boring Most of students do not

b Interesting Students speak a lot

c Normal

Table 4: The students’ general

The table reveals that the majority of the students (74%) found the speaking lessons were boring and they did not

speaking lessons were normal

classes

12

The students' evaluation of their current

comprehensible because all the tasks in the textbooks are just guidelines, on purpose.fact requires teachers’ investment in appropriate activities so as to raise students’

in classroom activities, which then lead to higher language proficiency

evaluation of their current speaking lessons udents’ general evaluation of their current speaking lessons

.What do you think about your current speaking lessons?

14 %general evaluation of their current speaking lessons

The table reveals that the majority of the students (74%) found the speaking lessons

not participate in speaking 14 % answered that their current speaking lessons were normal In addition, the 12 % left were interested in their speaking

74 14

The students' evaluation of their current

speaking lessons

on purpose This fact requires teachers’ investment in appropriate activities so as to raise students’ involvement

Result (%) 74%

12%

14 % ssons

The table reveals that the majority of the students (74%) found the speaking lessons

participate in speaking 14 % answered that their current

ested in their speaking

The students' evaluation of their current

boring interesting normal

3.1.4.2 The students’ participation in speaking

8 How often do you speak English in English class time?

Options

a often

b sometimes

c rarely

d never except when asked by the teacher

Table 5: The students’ participation in speaking lessons

Table 5 presents that only 7% of the

class Whereas 44% spoke it rarely and 7% never spoke if they were not called by their teachers 42 % of students sometimes spoke when they found

and suitable

There are many different reasons that cause students to be reticent in the

English classes

44

The students' participation in speaking class

participation in speaking lessons and the reasons speak English in English class time?

d never except when asked by the teacher

tudents’ participation in speaking lessons

t only 7% of the respondents were always willing to speak in the class Whereas 44% spoke it rarely and 7% never spoke if they were not called by their teachers 42 % of students sometimes spoke when they found speaking activities

There are many different reasons that cause students to be reticent in the

7

42 7

The students' participation in speaking class

often sometimes rarely never, except asked

Result (%) 7%

speaking activities interesting

There are many different reasons that cause students to be reticent in the speaking

The students' participation in speaking class

often sometimes rarely never, except asked

9 What prevent you from speaking in the English speaking class?

Factors

a I fear mistakes

b Speaking activities are difficult

c Speaking activities are not various

d I don’t like the teacher so I don’t want to speak

e I am not accustomed to speaking

Table 6: Factors prevent

As shown in the table, there

to speak in class 67 % of the respondents said that the most influential reason was speaking activities The requirements were

have enough words and structures to express what they wanted to share The second highest percentage of students expressed that undiversified activities

made them bored with speaking English Nearly half of

acquainted with speaking English The reason may lie in the fact that traditional learning style which focuses on mastering all the rules and vocabulary rather than to be able to communicate

in English, and the effect of writte

English in the classroom A smaller percentage of students (20%) did not participate in

: Factors prevent the students from participating in speaking in the class

As shown in the table, there were some main factors that made the students reluctant

to speak in class 67 % of the respondents said that the most influential reason was speaking

were too far from their real English proficiencyhave enough words and structures to express what they wanted to share The second highest percentage of students expressed that undiversified activities carried out in the classroommade them bored with speaking English Nearly half of them (41%) stated that they were not acquainted with speaking English The reason may lie in the fact that traditional learning style

on mastering all the rules and vocabulary rather than to be able to communicate

f written exams prevent students from being familiar to speaking English in the classroom A smaller percentage of students (20%) did not participate in

Factors prevent the students from speaking

The students' unfavor with the teacher

The students' unfamiliarity to speaking in English

Percentage (%) 13%

to speak in class 67 % of the respondents said that the most influential reason was speaking

too far from their real English proficiency They did not have enough words and structures to express what they wanted to share The second highest

carried out in the classroom also them (41%) stated that they were not acquainted with speaking English The reason may lie in the fact that traditional learning style

on mastering all the rules and vocabulary rather than to be able to communicate

students from being familiar to speaking English in the classroom A smaller percentage of students (20%) did not participate in

fear of mistakes and derision speaking activities' difficulty speaking activities' invariability The students' unfavor with the The students' unfamiliarity to speaking in English

speaking activities because of their teachers and 13% admitted that they were afraid of making mistakes and being derided

In short, there were various factors that

classroom These factors came from

order to be better in speaking class, the changes ne

students and the speaking activities

3.1.4.3 The students’ opinion

10 In what way does your teacher teaches speaking in Tieng Anh 11?

a The teacher always taught us activities in the textbook

b The teacher usually changed, adapted activities in the textbook

c She/he sometimes adapted activities in the textbook

d She/he sometimes replaced textbook activities by

Table 7: The students’ opinion about the way their teachers

85 5

The students’ opinion about the way their

teacher taught speaking

speaking activities because of their teachers and 13% admitted that they were afraid of

and being derided

In short, there were various factors that restricted the students’ English speaking in These factors came from the students, the teacher as well as speaking activities In order to be better in speaking class, the changes need be done among the

speaking activities

tudents’ opinions about the way their teachers taught English

10 In what way does your teacher teaches speaking in Tieng Anh 11?

Options teacher always taught us activities in the textbook

b The teacher usually changed, adapted activities in the textbook

c She/he sometimes adapted activities in the textbook

he sometimes replaced textbook activities by other activities

opinion about the way their teachers taught speaking

0 10 5

The students’ opinion about the way their

teacher taught speaking

always taught activities in the textbook

usually adapt sometimes adapt

sometimes replace by outside ones

speaking activities because of their teachers and 13% admitted that they were afraid of

restricted the students’ English speaking in teacher as well as speaking activities In

the teachers, the

aught English speaking

Result (%) 0%

10%

85%

5%

speaking

The students’ opinion about the way their

always taught activities in the usually adapt

sometimes adapt sometimes replace by outside

* The students’ evaluation of

11 Do you like your teachers’ adapted speaking activities?

Options

a No, I don’t like I’d like her/ him to follow all

the textbook

b Yes, I like these adapted activities

Table 8: The students’

Most of the students stated that their teachers

replace-5%) activities in the textbook And nearly all of them liked the way the teacher had done to the original activities in the textbook

The students’ approval to adaptation determined me to do this research To have a better insight into speaking activities in the classroom,

3.2 Data analysis from initial

* Observation 1: Field-notes

During her teaching,

research The brief reflection was done during or right after the lesson in order that no events

or ideas would be left Following are some of them

The students’ evaluation of their teacher’s

n of their teacher’s task adaptation

11 Do you like your teachers’ adapted speaking activities?

a No, I don’t like I’d like her/ him to follow all the activities in

b Yes, I like these adapted activities

tudents’ evaluation of their teacher’s task adaptation

Most of the students stated that their teachers just sometimes adapted

activities in the textbook And nearly all of them liked the way the teacher had done to the original activities in the textbook-95%

The students’ approval to adaptation determined me to do this research To have a better insight into speaking activities in the classroom, the writer did some observations

initial observations (see appendix 5) notes

teaching, the writer took some field-notes that could be useful for The brief reflection was done during or right after the lesson in order that no events

Following are some of them

The students’ approval to adaptation determined me to do this research To have a

did some observations

notes that could be useful for her The brief reflection was done during or right after the lesson in order that no events

The students’ evaluation of their teacher’s

like don't like

1 Field-note 1: Unit 11- B Speaking- Task 1

Field-note: “Students work quietly or discuss and ask for new words in Vietnamese Their work is completed by putting ticks in either column A or D There is not much English speaking involved.”

Reflection:

- Students may mistake this activity for a reading one Therefore, they are not willing to speak English

- Suggested adaptation: the Magic Hat

+The 7 above statements are printed in 7 pieces of paper and put in the Magic Hat + 7 students in turn pick out 7 pieces of paper and read aloud the sentences

+ The rest of the class listen to and decide they are A or D

2 Field-note 2: Unit 12- B Speaking- Task 1

Field-note: “ After I gave the students some useful language, helped them practice pronunciation, almost all of them could ask and answer about Asian Games However, after several pairs reported, they got bored with the monotonousness No more volunteers for reporting.”

1 2

3 4

- In terms of participation: the students are much more engaged in the speaking activity

- In term of language performance: Students can speak more fluently and in length

* Observation 2: Anecdotal record

To have a triangle sight, the writer invited one of my colleagues to teach her class, 11A1 As for observation 1, brief reflection was done during or right after the lesson in order that no events or ideas would be left Following is what was observed and reflected during his teaching procedure

- “Ss answered the same: “I like… ”

Sometimes T added: “Why?””

Reflection: The students may have had difficulty answering or the repeated answers made the studying atmosphere dull

- “Sometimes, T appointed some pairs to stand up and read aloud These pairs, side by side, also with handouts, read their parts No pairs face to face.”

Reflection: Without eye-contact, Ss seem not to take part in the lesson actively Whereas, eye-contact plays an important role in dialogues addition to language This makes the communication more naturally Ss need to be asked for this skill in following lessons In addition, Ss just read English, which means their English level is rather low

- “ The whole class spoke loudly Several Ss spoke fluently, many Ss stumbled during their speaking Some Ss seemed to retain nothing when they looked at nowhere.”

“After 1 minute, some groups reported what they could remember Ss had much difficulty.”