CHUYÊN đề hội THẢO các TRƯỜNG CHUYÊN VÙNG DHĐBBB lần THỨ VIII năm 2015 môn TIẾNG ANH TRƯỜNG CHUYÊN bắc NINH

However, both teaching and learning English in Vietnam are said to be not effectivebecause, as a matter of fact, the traditional method is still commonly applied in many highschools, col

PART A: INTRODUCTION 4

1 Rationale 4

2 Aims 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

1 Language teaching methods in teaching grammar 4

1.1 The Grammar- Translation method (GTM) in teaching grammar 4

1.2 The Audio- Lingual method 6

2 Communicative language teaching (CLT) in teaching grammar 7

2.1 An overview of communicative language teaching (CLT) 7

2.2 Characteristics of CLT 9

2.3 Status of Grammar in CLT 10

3 Teaching grammar in the light of CLT 11

4 Students’ interest 14

4.1 Concept of students’ interest 14

4.2 Factors affecting students’ interest in the class 14

5 The impact of CLT to grammar teaching on students’ interest 15

6 Practical application 16

6 1 Using games and problem-solving activities 16

6 2 Using songs 17

6 3 Role play 18

6.4 Interview 18

6.5 Telling stories 18

PART C: CONCLUSION 19

REFERENCES 20

APPENDICES 21

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

English has been used as a tool of communication among native speakers as well asnon-native ones No one can deny the important role of English in every field of life.Therefore, the demand for learning English is increasing in Vietnam where English is one

of the main subjects at school, and among the compulsory subjects of the entrance exams

to a number of universities

However, both teaching and learning English in Vietnam are said to be not effectivebecause, as a matter of fact, the traditional method is still commonly applied in many highschools, colleges as well as universities, which fails to get students involved in the lessons,especially in grammar lessons

The question of how to make the grammar lessons more interesting and how to makestudents interested in them have become a big concern of every English teacher

Teaching grammar in the light of Communicative Language Teaching Approach(CLT) is becoming a new approach and designing suitable communicative activities toteach grammar is necessary

From my experience, the majority of students are more interested in the grammarlessons when teachers use games, songs, pictures, and other communicative activities topresent the new items For these above reasons, I have decided to conduct this paper

With the aforementioned rationale, the aims of the study are:

- To give an overview of CLT in teaching grammar

- To suggest some communicative activities to improve students’ motivation in a grammarlesson

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

1 Language teaching methods in teaching grammar

The Grammar- Translation method (GTM) in teaching grammar

Traditional method was rooted in the formal language of Latin and Greek andbecome 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 wordand memorize numerous grammatical rules and exceptions as well as enormous vocabularylists The goal of this method is to enable learners to read and translate literarymasterpieces and classics.

Under the Grammar- Translation method (Richard and Rodgers, 1986: 3) grammar

is taught deductively through detailed analysis of grammar rules and translations ofsentences and texts into the target language or vice versus The Grammar – Translationmethod 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 context of texts, which are treated as exercises ingrammatical analysis

(7) Often the only drills are exercises in translating disconnected sentences from the targetlanguage 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 rulesand engaged in practice activities and translation exercises which require the application ofthose rules Listening activities take in form of dictation and speaking practice isaccomplished 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 withoutmuch feeling of progress in the mastery of the target language which will lead to the lack

of motivation in learning it because they have few opportunities 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 canhardly communicate Besides, in the Grammar- Translation method, the teacher holds anauthoritative role, or he is seen an ideal language model and commander of the classroomactivities.

It is worth noticing that mistakes and errors are seen as a failure and they must beavoided at any cost Whenever the learners make mistakes or errors, the teachers correctimmediately to make them produce grammatically correct sentences, which makes learnersreluctant to speak English

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

The Grammar – Translation method dominated from the late 19th to the early 20thcentury and although it has been generally acknowledged as the least effective teachingmethodology, 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 translatorsand use English accurately In addition, it requires few resources and it is also easy toapply and cheap to administer That is why this method is till used in many classroomswhere there is a great shortage of teachers and learning facilities and equipment aids,where the class is large of about 30 students, and where the teachers’ inadequate speakingskills are accustomed to teaching procedures and where the exams still emphasize theknowledge of grammar Nevertheless, the biggest disadvantage of this method is thelearners find it difficult to communicate in real-life situations, or their utterances arecorrect but inappropriate This is the result of the process of learning form and usage, butnot use, and learning about the language, not using the language to learn through authentictasks Furthermore, this method makes the learners really passive in the process of gettingknowledge They just listen to the teacher’s explanation and do not participate in theexploration of new knowledge

The Audio- Lingual method

The Audio- Lingual Method was derived from “Army Method” during the WorldWar II where there was a need for people to learn foreign languages quickly for militarypurposes It later developed into the so called Audio- Lingual method, which then has hadconsiderable influence on English language teaching all over the world This method putslistening and speaking in the first place It uses sentence patterns as the base of teachingand tries to avoid mother tongue in class Attention is paid to the need for mechanicalpractice 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 strongpoint of this method is to develop students’ listening comprehension and fluency inspeaking in the target language Students are encouraged by the sense of being able to usewhat they have learned on the very early day of their study In addition, the knowledgelearned is reinforced by repetition, so students have good memory of what they learn andthis 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 teachersand the availability of resources It can be clearly noticed that if the teacher does notdiversify his techniques to make the lessons more interesting and meaningful, his studentswill 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 hiswork is done orally in the target language And more importantly, ALM failed to teachlong-term communicative proficiency because the language it taught was de-contextualized and carried little communicative function

2 Communicative language teaching (CLT) in teaching grammar

An overview of communicative language teaching (CLT)

Towards the end of the 1960s there was a growing dissatisfaction among appliedlinguists 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 oflanguage- the creativity and uniqueness of individual sentences Then, British appliedlinguists emphasized another fundamental dimension of language that was inadequatelyaddressed in current approaches to language teaching at that time- the functional andcommunicative potential of language Consequently, the teaching produced structurallycompetent students who were often communicatively incompetent CLT emerged as aresponse to that judgment The term CLT covers a variety of approaches that all focuses onhelping learners to communicate meaningfully in target language Brindley (1986: 11)pointed out that: “the 1970s and 1980s could be regarded as the era of communicativeteaching ” And it is probably the approach most used by trained teacher today (PaulDavies, 200: 193).

Yalden (1987: 61) summarized the essence of CLT this: “It is based on the notion ofthe learners as communicators, naturally endowed with the ability to learn language Itseeks to provide learners with the target- language system It is assumed that learners willhave to prepare to use the target language orally and in written form in many predictableand unpredictable acts of communication which arise both in classroom interaction and inreal world situations, whether concurrent with language training or subsequent to it”.According to Richard and Rogers (1986: 64), CLT focuses on “communicative proficiencyrather than mere master of structures”

Clearly, Communicative Language Teaching emphasizes on communicativecompetence which, according to Canale and Swain (1980), consists of four dimensions:grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategiccompetence Grammar competence is the knowledge of the language code, includinglexical items, rules of morphology and syntax, sentence- grammar semantics andphonology Sociolinguistic competence refers to an understanding of the social context inwhich communication takes place: the roles of participants, the information they share thefunctions of interaction Discourse competence indicates the ability to interpret series ofsentences or utterances to form a meaningful whole and to achieve a coherent text that isrelevant to a given context Strategic competence refers to the copying strategies that

communications employ to initiate, terminate, maintain, repair and redirectcommunication.

Characteristics of CLT

In CLT, meaning is paramount Wilkins (1972) classifies meaning into notional andfunctional categories and views learning a second language as acquiring the linguisticmeans 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 withcommunicative 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 aretruly communicative have three features: information gap, choice and feedback Aninformation 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) furtherexplains, the aims of an information gap activity is to “get learners to use the language theyare learning to interact in realistic and meaningful ways, usually involving exchanges ofinformation” While doing this they will draw available vocabulary, grammar, andcommunication 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 tosay 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 purposehas been achieved based on the information he receives from the listener

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

In addition, “activities in the Communicative Approach are often carried out bystudents in small group” (Larsen- Freeman, 1986: 132) Students are expected to interactwith 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 thereforeselect learning activities according to how well they encourage the students in meaningfuland authentic language use rather than in the merely mechanic practice of languagepatterns.

Another dimension of CLT is “its learner-centered and experience- based view ofsecond 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 materialsbased on the demonstrated needs of a particular class Students must be made to feelsecure, unthreatened and non-defensive in a CLT classroom, so teachers using CLT shouldavoid 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 task 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

Status of Grammar in CLT

Many linguists and researchers have advocated grammar instruction in languageteaching and learning The communicative competence model of Canale and Swain(1980) clearly illustrates the significance of grammar In this model grammar is seen asone component of communicative competence One person cannot master a languagewithout the knowledge of its grammar Thanks to grammar language partly can function

as a means of communication, especially in written language In speaking, thoughgrammatical mistakes are sometimes acceptable, good grammar makes one’s speech

better and more attractive, especially in formal situations Referring to the importance ofgrammar teaching, Smith (2001) worries that if we do not pay attention to grammar orcreate opportunities for learner 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 isdemanded of them by making use of their existing grammatical resources andcommunication strategies and probably with sufficient fluency not to see the need todevelop their linguistic abilities any further”

Rutherford and Smith (1988) report that grammar teaching can be beneficial tolearners in the sense that it raises learners’ consciousness concerning the differences andthe similarities of L1 and L2 Therefore, grammar teaching can be used as “a linguisticmap” with roads and signs to help students as they explore the “photograph” of the newlanguage

The list of supporters of grammar is till going on Hannan (1989) argues thatgrammar is highly valuable as an important part of the study of language Also, he pointsout 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 isacknowledged to be of importance in language study in general and in language teachingand learning in particular

3 Teaching grammar in the light of CLT

For a few decades, there have been so many disputes on different approaches toteaching grammar To date, teachers of English as a Second Language (ESL) are stillconfronted 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 Englishlanguage teaching since the introduction of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT).Many teachers embrace CLT because CLT represents a modern and progressive way oflanguage teaching and their belief is to teach students to be able to 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 ofgrammar is concerned, most textbooks do not reflect CLT principles (Siaw- Fong Chung,2005) Obviously, applying CLT to grammar teaching is necessary in order to deal with thedisadvantages of Grammar Translation method when being used to teach grammar such asthe learners’ inappropriate utterances and passive learning style Nunan (1991) in thesection “Focus on form: the role of grammar” discusses the place of grammar in the recentlanguage teaching According to him, there has been a shift in the role of grammar as theview of language learning changed at different times While grammar played a dominantrole in traditional classroom, it was just of marginal importance in earlier communicativeclassrooms, which drew merely on meaning rather than form Recent years have seen thereturning of grammar in the second language classrooms as an indispensable tool toachieve communicative goals Unlike in traditional approaches, where grammaticalmastery was ultimate learning objective, grammar now is important but just as a means tothe 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, trulyreflect the view of learning grammar as both processes and products.

The deep basic of this application is that CLT aims at developing communicativecompetence 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 ofgrammar is not an end in itself and learners are helped to recognize the communicativevalue of grammar structures

It is worth mentioning here some researchers into teaching grammar in the light ofCLT Celce- Murcia and Hilles (1988) propose that “grammar should never be taught as anend in itself, but always with reference to meaning, social factors, or discourse or acombination of these factors” (cited in Celce- Murcia, 1991) Fuyuko Kato (1998) alsorefers to the application of CLT to grammar teaching when she states that teachers arerequired to create a chance of real communication in the classroom so that learners canactually use the target grammar form in a meaningful way Furthermore, when referring to

the limitations of Grammar Translation method (form-based) and CommunicativeApproach (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 “integrativegrammar teaching” (or EEE method) which consists of three major stages : exploration,explanation and expression Recently, Siaw- Fong Chung (2005) in an attempt to find outwhether CLT principles are incorporated into grammar exercises in textbooks hassuggested five methods so that grammar activities can be made more communicative Thefive methods relate to games, natural contexts, balancing skills, personalization andadjustment of teacher role.

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

“how to teach grammar” is far from being satisfactorily answered Nevertheless, thetendency of applying CLT to grammar teaching s indispensable in order to improve thedrawbacks of the traditional ways of teaching grammar

There are two main approaches to teach grammar These are deductive and inductiveapproach In deductive approach, the teachers give the rules and then students giveexamples In contrast, an inductive approach is when the rule is inferred through someforms of guided discovery The teacher gives examples and asks the students to find outthe rule form themselves A deductive approach often fits into a lesson structure known asPPP (Presentation- Practice- Production) And PPP approach is a common one tocommunicative language teaching that works through progression of three sequentialstages The teacher presents the target language and then gives students the opportunity topractice it through controlled activities The final stage of the lesson gives the studentsopportunity to practice the target language in freer activities

Presentation stage:

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

In the presentation stage the teacher does the work

Practice is where the students are made to practice the new language with theteacher and their peers The teacher gives student different sorts of exercises to practice:drilling followed by pair work is the most common way of organizing practice One of theuseful techniques for this stage is games They provide a relaxing environment for thestudents to practice the new grammatical items effectively At this stage practice iscontrolled and the teacher emphasizes on accuracy

In the practice stage the teacher and the students do the work

Production

Production is where the teacher makes the students “produce” the new languagethey have learned on their own (without the teacher’s help) This is usually done with aspeaking activity, a game, a discussion, a role-play, “find someone who” In this activitythe students must add the new grammar or vocabulary they have just learned to the Englishthey have already known At this stage practice is not controlled by the teacher Thestudents learn to speak by themselves to get fluency

In the production stage, the students do the work

4 Students’ interest

4.1 Concept of students’ interest

Ellis (1994) states that interest is one of the main elements of motivation and apositive response to stimulate based on existing cognitive structures in such a way thatlearners’ 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 forcommunication will be interested in the lesson

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

4.2 Factors affecting students’ interest in the class

- Students’ learning style

Students’ learning style is one of the factors we should take into consideration tosee 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 arerelatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with and respond to thelearning environment Major factors conditioning the ways learners think and study are theeducational system, the socio- cultural background and personality variables.

Undoubtedly, it is very necessary to understand the learners’ learning stylesbecause this will help teachers design suitable activities for all of them so that they canlearn effectively There are students who prefer to do grammar exercises after learninggrammatical structures and their rules But others like to exploit grammatical rules throughgames, pictures and puzzles They approach the target language items differently.Moreover, their ability is to grasp is also different, so the teachers should know theirlearners’ 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 kindsand needs Goals include long- term ones which might be related to a learner’s wish tobecome 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 orcomplete a lesson with success Ausubel (1968) pointed out six types of needs includingthe need for exploration; for manipulation; for activities; for stimulation; for knowledgeand for ego enhancement

5 The impact of CLT to grammar teaching on students’ interest

CLT appearing between the 1960s and 1970s marks the beginning of majorinnovation within language teaching and it has been widely accepted nowadays because of

it superior principles Obviously, grammar plays an important role in ELT because learnerscannot communicate effectively without grammar Furthermore, the understanding of