Using communicative activities to develop english speaking skills for elementary level student at pasal english center

DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES USING COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS FOR ELEMENTARY LEVEL STUDENTS AT PASAL ENGLISH CENTER HANOI, 2016... 20 CHAPTER II: THE STU

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH

GRADUATION THESIS

B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES

USING COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS FOR ELEMENTARY LEVEL STUDENTS AT

PASAL ENGLISH CENTER

HANOI, 2016

DECLARATION

I here acknowledge that this study is mine The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates, and have not been published elsewhere

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would foremost like to thank my supervisor, Nguyen Thi Mai Huong M.A for giving me support, guideline and feedback when I carried out my study

I would like to thank all of teachers in Faculty of English at Hanoi Open University who provideme with necessary help as well as good suggestions whenever I get into trouble

I would also like to send my special thanks to all the teachers and students at Pasal English center who help me carry out the research

Last but not least, I would like to extend my gratefulness to my family,

my friends and many others who continuously offer spiritual support and encouragement during the process of doing this study

TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 The research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Methods of the stud 2

6 Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Speaking skills 4

1.1.1 Definition of speaking skills 4

1.1.2 Types of speaking skills 5

1.1.3 The importance of speaking skills 6

1.1.4 Students’ motivation to participate in a speaking lesson 6

1.2 A speaking lesson 7

1.2.1 Stages of a speaking activity 7

1.2.2 Shape of a speaking lesson 8

1.3 Communicative activities 10

1.3.1 Definition of communicative activities 10

1.3.2 Characteristics of communicative activities 11

1.3.3 The advantages and challenges of communicative activities 13

1.3.4 Elements for successful communicative activities 14

Before Class 14

1.3.5 Some types communicative activities 18

1.4 Roles of teacher in communicative activities 20

1.5 Some techniques for effective communicative activities 20

CHAPTER II: THE STUDY ON USING COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS OF ELEMENTARY LEVEL STUDENTS AT PASAL ENGLISH CENTER 23

2.1 Settings 23

2.2 Participants 23

2.2.1 The students 23

2.2.2 The teachers 23

2.3 Data collection methods 23

2.3.1 Class observation 23

2.3.2 Questionnaires 24

2.4 Research procedures 24

2.5 Findings 25

2.5.1 Results from class observation and student’s questionnaire 25

2.5.2 Results from class observation and teachers’ questionnaire 31

2.6 Discussion 36

2.6.1 Students’ awareness towards four skills and speaking skills in learning English 37

2.6.2 Teachers’ and students’ favourite communicative activities 38

2.6.3 Teachers’ and students’ perception towards the aims of communicative activities 39

2.6.4 Teachers’ sources of communicative activities used in speaking lessons 39

2.6.5 Difficulties the teachers encounter when conducting communicative activities in teaching speaking skills 40

CHAPTER III: SOME SUGGESTIONS IN RESOLVING

DIFFICULTIES THE ENCOUTERED BY THE TEACHERS AND STUDENTS WHEN CONDUCTING COMMUNICATIVE

ACTIVITIES 43

3.1 Solutions for teachers 43

3.1 1 Students’ poor abilities of English 43

3.1.2 Students’ shyness and passiveness 44

3.1.3 Class size 45

3.1.4 Class time limitation 45

3.1.5 The lack of facilities 46

3.2 Solutions for students 46

3.2.1 Improving English ability 46

3.2.2 Improving confidence 49

PART C: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 51

APPENDIX 54

REFERNCES: 64

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

It is admitted that speaking a foreign language in general and English in particular represents one of the essential requirements of today´s society Besides other skills and knowledge, speaking is considered as one of the most influencing factors while applying for a job or sustaining in a particular work position under the condition of advancing the language level Thus, the question of how to teach English effectively becomes more and more necessary and requires relevant answers English teaching and learning have the goal of focusing students so that they are able to use English for communication and as a tool for furthering their studies In the process of teaching and learning, the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) are simultaneously performed Many Vietnamese learners tend to concentrate so much on grammar or writing that they possess inability in communicating appropriately and naturally This leads to learners’ lack of self-confidence and avoidance when communicating with native English speakers

According to many teaching theorists, speaking skills can be developed through communicative activities which include an information gap, a jigsaw puzzle, games, problem-solving, and Role-playing In addition, supporting this idea that there are some activities that can assist better speaking skills are free discussion and role-playing.Also, stated that the language activities are important factors in teaching language for communication Activities help create interaction in the language classroom Additionally, communicative activities can motivate the learners and establish good relationships between the teacher and the students as well as among the students thereby encouraging a supportive environment for language learning

On basis of these theories, I would like to conduct a research to clarify the influences of using some communicative activities on teaching English speaking skills for elementary students at Pasal English center in order to apply in other teaching environments

2.Aims of the study

The research aims to:

- Realize the reality of applying communicative activities in speaking classes of elementary level students at Pasal English Center – benefits and challenges

- Find out some solutions for difficulties in teaching and learning process

- Suggest some implications for practicing communicative activities

3 The research questions

- What is the real practice of teaching and learning English in speaking classes of elementary level students at Pasal English Center?

- What are the benefits and challenges of applying communicative activities in speaking lessons?

- How to apply communicative activities to learning English?

4 Scope of the study

In the frame of the study, the application of communicative activities will be studied but the writer would not mention all fields related to communicative activities Particularly, the study focuses on the benefits and challenges of the application for elementary level students at Pasal English Center

5 Methods of the study

The study has employed some research methods as main means for the fulfillment The first one is the literature search to clarify some definition

refer to speaking skills and communicative activities The second one is the collective method Some famous author’s opinion about communicative activities will be viewed The third are qualitative and quantitative methods used in this paper to analyze and summarize documents In addition, the statistic method has been applied with the purpose of giving a brief look at communicative activities to readers by collecting materials and systematizing information from these materials

6.Design of the study

The study is divided into three parts with three chapters and references:

PART A: INTRODUCTION includes rationale, aims and objectives, scopes of the study, methods of the study, design of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT consists of three chapters entitled as follow:

- Chapter I: Literature review: deals with the concepts relevant to the study: speaking skills, speaking lesson and communicative activities

- Chapter II: The study on using communicative activities to develop English speaking skills of elementary level students at Pasal English Center, the current situation of teaching and learning speaking skills at Pasal English Center

- Chapter III: Some suggestions in applying communicative activities

to teach English speaking skills

PART C: CONCLUSION:Summarizes all the key issues as well as the limitations of the study and suggestions for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1.Speaking skills

1.1.1.Definition of speaking skills

Oxford dictionaries define “Speaking is the action of conveying information or expressing one’s feelings in speech” In addition, Speaking is

"the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" (Chaney, 1998)

According to Ladouse (in Nunan, 1991: 23) speaking is described as the activity as the ability to express oneself in the situation, or the activity to report acts, or situation in precise words or the ability to converse or to express a sequence of ideas fluently

Wallace (1978:98) stated that oral practice (speaking) becomes meaningful to students when they have to pay attention what they are saying Thus, the students can learn better on how to require the ability to converse or

to express their ideas fluently with precise vocabularies and good or acceptable pronunciation

Speaking is the productive skill It could not be separated from listening When we speak we produce the text and it should be meaningful In the nature of communication, we can find the speaker, the listener, the message and the feedback Speaking could not be separated from pronunciation as it encourages learners to learn the English sounds

Speaking ability is the students’ ability in expressing their ideas orally which is represented by the scores of speaking Speaking is only an oral trail

of abilities that it got from structure and vocabulary, Freeman (in Risnadedi, 2001: 56-57) stated that speaking ability more complex and difficult than

people assume, and speaking study like study other cases in study of language, naturalize many case to language teachers

Speaking skills has many different aspects including two major categories – accuracy, involving the correct use of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation practiced through controlled and guided activities; and, fluency considered to be “the ability to keep going when speaking spontaneously” (Harmer, 2001) Bryne, D (1986) additionally declares that accuracy refers to the use of correct forms where utterances do not contain errors affecting the phonological, syntactic and semantic or discourse features of a language; fluency may be defined as the ability to get across communicative intent without too much hesitation and too many pauses to cause barriers or a breakdown in communication In this case, instant correction may be inappropriate and could interfere with the aims of the speaking activity

1.1.2.Types of speaking skills

Interactive:There are three kinds of speaking skills in which we find ourselves

Interactive speaking situations include face-to-face conversations and telephone calls, in which we are alternatively listening and speaking and in which we have chance to ask for clarification, repetition, or slower speech from our conversation partners

Partially interactive:Some speaking situations are partially interactive, such as when giving a speech to a live audience, where the contention is that the audience does not interrupt the speech The speaker, nevertheless, can see the audience and judge from the expressions on their faces and body language whether or not he or she is being understood

Non-interactive: Some few speaking situations may be totally interactive, such as when recording a speech for a radio broadcast

non-1.1.3.The importance of speaking skills

The capacity to put words together in a meaningful way to reflect thoughts, opinions, and feelings provides the speaker with these important advantages:

• Ability to inform, persuade, and direct Speaking clearly and

confidently can gain the attention of an audience, providing the golden opportunity for the speaker to make the message known Wise is the speaker who gains and then holds the attention of an audience, with well-chosen words in a well-delivered presentation, forming a message that is effective, informative, and understood

• Ability to stand out from the rest The ability to stand before others

and speak effectively is not an ordinary ability Many people are afraid of public speaking; others have little ability to form thoughts into sentences and then deliver those words in a believable way A speaker whose skills are honed and developed with constant application and hard work can stand out

• Career enhancement Employers have always valued the ability to

speak well It is, and always will be, an important skill, and well worth the effort in fully developing

Speaking skills are important for career success, but certainly not limited

to one’s professional aspirations Speaking skills can enhance one’s personal life, thereby bringing about the well-rounded growth we should all seek

1.1.4 Students’ motivation to participate in a speaking lesson

When students learn a foreign language, they very often accumulate a lot of knowledge (grammatical rules, lists of vocabulary items), but then they find out that they cannot actually use this language to communicate when they want to Scrivener (2005, 147) claims that there seems to be some difficulty in moving language from passive knowledge into active usage Without

experience in using the language, learners may tend to be nervous about trying to say things Partly they may fear seeming foolish in front of others, they may worry about getting things wrong they may want to avoid teacher’s comments or correction and so on It takes quite a long time for some students

to express themselves, which leads to long embarrassing pauses while learners are trying to find out how to say what they really want to say

1.2 A speaking lesson

1.2.1 Stages of a speaking activity

A teacher plays specific roles in different stages of learning process:

The Presentation Stage:

This is also known as the pre-activity of the lesson where the teacher introduces something new to be learned At this stage, teacher’s main task is

to serve as a kind of informant

+ You know the language

+ You select new material to be learned

+ You present this in such a way that the meaning of the new language

is as clear and memorable as possible

Students listen and try to understand Although they can say very little

in this stage, except when invited to join in, they are by no means passive The teachers should take notice of spending so much time on presenting so that students do not have enough time to practice speaking themselves

The practice stage:

At the practice stage, it is the student’s turn to do most of the talking, while teacher’s task is to divide and provide the maximum the amount of practice, which must at the same time be meaningful, authentic and memorable This stage is also called While (or Main) Activity or Speaking Activity Stage

At this stage, the teacher should do the minimum amount of talking yourself Be a skillful conductor, giving each performers chance to participate and monitoring theirs performance to see that it is satisfactory

Production Stage:

At any level of attainment, the students need to be given regular and frequent chances to use language freely, even they sometimes make mistakes This is not to say that mistakes are unimportant, but rather the free expression

is more important

It is through opportunities to use language as they wish that they are aware that they have learned something useful and are encouraged to go on learning Thus, in providing the students with opportunities for free expression, teacher should play the role of a manager, guide or adviser

1.2.2.Shape of a speaking lesson

Three main stages of a speaking lesson are: pre-speaking, speaking and post- speaking There is no exact time for each stage in a skills lesson in general and a speaking lesson in particular; however, the teacher should notice that most of the time must be for while stage, which gives students enough time for practicing speaking skill

- Pre-speaking stage (Presentation stage):

The stage prepares students for getting them to think about the topic or situation before they speak about it Pre-speaking tasks can be: discussion or brainstorming, where students collect all their ideas on the topic; vocabulary preparation, where the teacher pre-teaches key vocabulary to aid comprehension; prediction, where students guess what they may learn about A good pre-speaking is also necessary to involve integrating skills, maybe listening and sometimes reading (for example, an information gap text) This stage should be kept short, about 10 minutes equivalent the presentation stage

of a Grammar lesson, but giving enough time for students to assimilate to what they are going to speak Warm-up activities may be included in this stage

In this stage, the teacher’s role is to get students think about what they are going to speak before they speak The teacher will have to set up the Pre-task and his/her clear instructions are required

- While-speaking stage (Practice stage): This stage is the time for

students to practice speaking The teacher does not have to do a lot of things because students will be working on the while tasks individually or in pairs, in groups When working on the tasks, they may have some difficulties because

of a lack of language variety; therefore, during this stage, the teacher may monitor and assist weaker students with their difficulties in completing while tasks instead Also, the teacher needs to evaluate how well students have completed the tasks and whether they are ready to go to the next stage or not

Activities called communicative ones are truly essential to be applied

in this stage for the purpose of helping students practice speaking skill They can be a role play, a game or a discussion Depending on the lesson and the classroom condition, the teacher will choose and set up the suitable activities for students

- Post-speaking stage (Personalization stage):

After students have practiced speaking skill in the while stage, they may do an extension activity in this stage This helps students take the information or whatever they have produced in the previous stage and do something meaningful with it The post task is usually “an information transfer” – a production type of exercise where they respond to what they have just learnt They respond in the way that relating what they have learnt

to their own experience For instance, if they talk about a world famous football player in the while stage, they may talk or write about their own

favorite one in this follow-up stage Writing is a very appropriate integrating skill for this stage If students conduct a questionnaire on their friends in the while task, they may write up the results in a short paragraph, for example

1.3 Communicative activities

1.3.1 Definition of communicative activities

Richards defines that CLT can be understood as a set of principles about the goal of language teaching, how learners learn a language, the kind

of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the role of teachers and learners in the classroom

The term CLT, in fact, covers a variety of approaches that all focus on helping learners to communicate meaningfully in a target language rather than

a single methodology These approaches parade under the general label

“communicative”, all of which characterize language teaching as the development of communicative skills (Nunan, 1991: 78) CLT sets its goal to teach the learners the communicative competence and this approach does a lot

to expand on the goal of creating communicative competence compared to earlier method that focused on the same objective Teaching students how to use the language can be seen as important as learning the language itself

According to Brown “We are exploring pedagogical means for ‘real life’ communication in the classroom” and “We are concerned with how to facilitate lifelong language learning among our students, not just with the immediate classroom task”( 1994: 77)

There are many interpretations of what CLT actually means and involves However there are still some misconceptions about CLT “Many teachers of English believe that CLT means not teaching grammar, or CLT means teaching only speaking not writing, listening and reading” (Thompson, 1996) As a result, this approach may be applied inappropriately

Although the various definitions of CLT have been offered, all of these also claim that the goal of teaching language is to develop learners’ communicative competence which involves the ability to use the language appropriately to a social context These components can be seen as linguistic competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence In order to help readers see what CLT means deeply and completely, some characteristics of CLT would be addressed in the next section

1.3.2 Characteristics of communicative activities

Savignon (2001) claims that “the problem at present is that some of the activities being introduced as communicative activities are not communicative

at all but structure drills in disguise” Thus many teachers may think that the activities they design and use in class are communicative, but actually they are not Therefore the features that make a real communicative activity should

- Communicative activities are learner-centered The emphasis of teaching activity is on students’ initiation and interaction Students are expected to participate in the activities as real people and take responsibility for their learning

- Communicative activities emphasize the use of authentic language input and the teacher’s native or near native language competence in order to produce communication in the classroom Activities that are truly

communicative also have three features in common; they are

information gap , choice and feedback (Morrow, 1981)

- An information gap exists when one person in an exchange knows something the other person does not For instance, if two students both know today is Tuesday and one asks the other “What is today?” and he/she answers

“Tuesday”, their exchange is not really communicative

- Speakers’ choices in communication are very important Speakers should have a choice of what they will say and how they will say it If the teacher’s activity is tightly controlled so that students can only say something

in one way; they have no choice and the exchange; therefore, seems not to be communicative

- True communication is purposeful A speaker can thus evaluate whether or not his/her purpose has been achieved based on the information he/she receives from his/her listener If the listener does not have an opportunity to provide the speaker with such feedback, then the exchange is not really communicative

From these features, it may be easier to distinguish between communicative activities and non-communicative activities In a communicative activity, students must have a desire to communicate, and there must be some communicative purposes to their communication Their attention, of course, will be focused on the content of what they are saying rather than the form They will use a wide variety of language, and the teacher will not intervene by telling students they have made mistakes in their English

or correcting their pronunciation The teacher would not expect the materials which students were using would control their language For non-communicative activities, there will be no desire to communicate, nor will students have a communicative purpose Students are involved in repetition or

substitution drills so that they can be motivated by the need to attain accuracy, not by a desire to achieve a communicative objective In these activities, the emphasis will be on the form of the language, not the content As a result, the teacher will ensure accuracy, and the materials used will often designed to concentrate on a particular item of language We can represent the distinguishing features between the two types of activities in the following ways:

Communicative activities Non – communicative activities

One language item Teacher intervention Materials control

1.3.3 The advantages and challenges of communicative activities

• More exposure to Target Language

• More authentic opportunities to

USE the language

• Fun and interesting for learners

• Provides opportunity to use

authentic materials

• Teachers need to know how to offer support and what support needs to be offered This can mean more time is needed for planning and preparation of activities

• Communicative activities can pose challenges in assessment

• Learners can be resistant- especially

if they are accustomed to centered styles of teaching

teacher-1.3.4 Elements for successful communicative activities

According to Steven Tait, M.Ed TESOL

Most of us recognize that communicative activities are great opportunities for learning But what goes in to making a communicative activity a success? The truth is, the success of communicative pair and group work activities is almost always determined by the work the teacher does before the students begin the activity itself This includes both what is done by the teacher before the class starts and what is done in class to set up the task

Before looking at the role of the teacher, it might be worth clarifying what is meant by "communicative activities" These are fluency-based activities While such activities may involve students practicing a particular grammatical form, they are likely to do more than this The key element is that the activity is based around a realistic situation This could be anything from an encounter in a department store, to a group of friends discussing holiday plans Within this kind of context, the students should be required to negotiate for meaning This is likely to require multiple turn taking

Before Class

It is often helpful for teachers to ask themselves a few questions when preparing for communicative activities:

What can I do to set the scene/create a context?

Try to picture a realistic situation where the language forms you have been teaching might be used Try to imagine both the location of the conversation and the relationship between those involved

What is the purpose of the task?

Within the context that you have thought of, try to imagine why the participants would be talking What would their objectives be? How do you think they would respond to each other? For example, if the task involves

giving advice to a sick friend, perhaps he or she has already considered some

of the friend's suggestions

How can I generate interest in the activity?

There is no doubt that activities go better when students are interested

in them Depending on the activity, there are various ways you can generate student interest Providing personal examples may be helpful Modeling the activity in an enthusiastic way may help Having students reflect on similar experiences they are familiar with may also work

Will the students require preparation time?

Most research these days suggests that students perform better if they have been given preparation time This is pretty logical when you think about

it Without preparation time, students are required to do two things at once: use their English language resources effectively and be creative Preparation time can often take care of some of the pressure that comes with having to be creative while using the language spontaneously

What type of groupings will be appropriate?

Would the activity work best with students in pairs or groups? Should they be seated or stood? Should they be faced to each other?

What type of exchanges should the students is expected to produce?

This may well be the most crucial element of the planning process Perhaps the best way to gain a sense of the language the students will need to produce in order to complete the activity is to write out a sample dialogue Communicative activities often throw up language needs for which the class work has not prepared the students Writing out a sample dialogue can often highlight these needs It can also enable the teacher to get a sense of potential demands/pitfalls in the activity This kind of planning allows the teacher to

identify potentially useful conversational gambits, and to consider what is needed to ensure a reasonably natural flow to the conversation

In Class

Once the teacher enters the classroom, the process of preparing the students for the activity begins Following are a few stages that teachers (and students) might find helpful

• Set the scene and generate interest: For example, this might be the time to introduce a personal anecdote related to the communicative activity It

is also important to make sure students know where they will be talking, who they will be talking to, and why they will be talking

• Model preparatory task: If the teacher has decided to allow planning time, it might be worth demonstrating how this time is to be used For example, the teacher might begin creating a list of suggestions for a sick friend

• Student preparation time: The students write while the teacher monitors

• Modeling: T-S, S-T, S-S This is perhaps the most crucial element for successful communicative activities It can be used:

- To show target language in action and elicit relevant language

- To clarify/illustrate the requirements or the objective of the task

- To add useful/necessary conversational gambits

- To highlight the type of conversational framework needed

- To identify potential problem areas

- To gauge the students' readiness to begin the activity

- To build student confidence

• Pair working: Monitor, interrupting only if students really get stuck Monitor in order to:

a) aid the flow of conversation when necessary,

b) identify any common errors or areas of breakdown,

c) offer encouragement, and

d) recognize when best to change the pairings

• Deal with problems: While you do not want to interrupt students in the middle of a conversation, error correction can still be done effectively Write typical problems that you have heard on the board After conversations have been completed, draw attention to these problems Encourage the students to offer suggestions for solving the problems

• Pair working: New pairings By repeating the activity with a new partner, students can attempt to incorporate the corrections and suggestions made during the previous stage

• Conclusion: Have students report on their findings They can either report to a new student or to the teacher This final stage tends to bring a sense of closure to the activity

Communicative Activities: Some Useful Ingredients

Every communicative activity is different It will not always be necessary (or appropriate or practical) to use all of these "ingredients" Finally, it is also worth remembering that the way a lesson actually unfolds will always be influenced by the students themselves It pays to be alert and flexible

• Identify a "realistic" communicative context or situation

• Identify a clear objective or purpose

• Ensure there is an "information gap" or "opinion gap"

• Generate student interest

• Allow student preparation time if necessary

• Be aware of the likely conversational framework or format

• Be aware of any useful/relevant conversational gambits

• Model, model, model

• Determine appropriate student groupings

• Monitor

• Involve students in the self-correction of errors

• Provide a sense of conclusion

1.3.5 Some types communicative activities

- Information gap activities

Using a broad definition for the concept, information gap activities require students to communicate with each other to solve a problem or complete a task In these activities, individual students do not have all of the information needed to achieve the activity’s goal, which creates a “gap” that can only be overcome by speaking with other students to exchange information The missing information required to complete the activity can

be facts, opinions, or details related to textual, audio, or visual content

The most common information gap activity is spotting the differences

in the pictures, exchanging personal information, guessing games and also creating the story based on flashcards shown to the students in random order, for a few seconds and one flashcard per group only This makes the students cooperate and communicate with each other to find the lacking information

- Discussions

Discussions are commonly used activities in speaking lessons A topic

is introduced to the students via a reading or a listening passage and then they are asked to discuss a related topic in order to come up with a solution or a response Celce-Murcia (2001) mentions that students need to be reminded that each person within a group should have a specific responsibility in the discussion – either keeping time, taking notes or reporting the results made by the group members

- Role plays

A widely spread and one of the best communicative activities is a role play which trains students in the classroom to deal with unpredictable real-life conversation in an English speaking environment Ladousse (1987) points out the special reasons for using the role play in the lessons It puts students in situations in which they are required to use and develop language necessary in social relationships and also helps them to build up their social skills Using role plays is useful especially while teaching shy students who have difficulty

to participate in conversation about them Through this activity they are put into various roles and no longer feel that their own personality is implicated

A role play is an essential communicative activity which develops fluency, promotes interaction in the classroom and increases motivation

- Class surveys

A class survey is an activity where all the learners in the group need to ask each other questions to find information, which they then need to analyze and report back to the class Doing surveys can be a useful way of getting students to interact, produce question forms, collect and analyze real information In the classroom, class surveys can have various aims and functions: as warmers, as ice-breakers for new classes, as pre-reading activities, to provide freer practice of target language, as tasks etc The key qualities of surveys are that they are communicative and dynamic

- Games

Games and fun activities are a vital part of teaching English as a foreign language Whether teachers are teaching adults or children, games will liven up their lesson and ensure that their students will leave the classroom wanting more

Games can be used to warm up the class before lesson begins, during the lesson to give students a break when teacher are tackling a tough subject,

or at the end of class when they have a few minutes left to kill There are literally hundreds, probably thousands, of games that teachers can play with their students EFL games are used to test vocabulary, practice conversing, learn tenses - the list is endless

1.4 Roles of teacher in communicative activities

- Be a manager of classroom activities In this role, one of his major responsibilities is to set up activities that promote communication During the

communicative activities he acts as a consultant answering students´

questions, offers advice and provides necessary language items

- Be a conductor and a monitor One of the most important roles is

to make sure that students know what they are supposed to practice and check

if they do it effectively

- Be a goodorganizer should be an ability possessed by every skillful teacher

It can be concluded that the teacher’s personality in a learning process

is very important not only while participating in the activities but also while monitoring students The teacher’s less dominant role in communicative activities offers students the opportunity to be involved in conversation and improves their speaking skill to be able to cope with the real-life situations

1.5 Some techniques for effective communicative activities

There are various drawbacks that can ruin a lesson using communicative activities It is important for teachers to anticipate these problems, and to plan their lessons so that these pitfalls can be avoided Wilson, C (2009) states some problems and techniques for avoiding the pitfalls and improving the teaching and learning quality as follows:

- If students tend to use native language

The main problem of trying to use communicative activities in monolingual classrooms is that students will often revert to their native language, especially at the point when they become really interested in what they are talking about Setting “No Native Language” rule from the first day and enforcing it strictly but kindly is the best way to get around the problem

It should be a default rule except when there are some parts of the lesson that the teacher thinks that it is better to be in native language

- If students tend to show their friends any information they have

This can be a problem when doing an activity like jigsaw reading or if students work individually They may want to show their friend to compare their passages and this defeat the purpose of the activity This can be overcome by having pairs rather than individuals as the starting unit Having a pair as the starting unit has several advantages They can help each other understand the original vocabulary or information, meaning that this part of the lesson also becomes communicative, instead of having students individually checking their dictionaries

- If students tend to not talk

There is a tendency that students may stop speaking after amount of speaking time because they think that is adequate Other students may stop to open up their dictionary as soon as they do not know a word There are also students who have a fear of making mistakes when they leave their mother tongue, so they do not continue the conversation When these problems occur, the teacher can set up the five following rules at the beginning of the activity

to avoid students not to talk during the practice time They are “No Silence”,

“No Dictionary”, “Ask Follow-up Questions”, “Giving Long Answers” and

“Mistakes are Okay” By the second rule, the teacher may first explain that

dictionary can be used at some other points but not the actual speaking activity “Ask Follow-up Questions” and “Give Long Answers” may need to

be practiced For example, the teacher may first stipulates that: with the question like “Do you like football?”, they cannot answer with a simple answer “Yes” or “No” but a further answer is required like “Yes, I usually play football every evening with my friends at school” The “Mistakes are Okay” rule may help students feel more confidents in communicating They know that it is completely acceptable to make mistake in speaking English

- If students tend to become cliquey

Some students may tend to become exclusive that they do not want to speak to certain members in class The best solution may be having partner-changing or seat-changing arrangements as a regular of the class Thanks to this basis, students will have more chance to talk to many other classmates They can share a topic with a lot of friends without boring As a result, the class atmosphere becomes better and better

CHAPTER II: THE STUDY ON USING COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS OF ELEMENTARY LEVEL STUDENTS AT PASAL ENGLISH CENTER 2.1 Settings

The survey was carried out at Pasal English center which focuses on communication skills and has exclusive rights to use Effortless English(designed by Aj Hoge) in Vietnam It was done in cooperation with English teachers and students in some Match class (class for elementary level students) at the center The teachers had experience on teaching English; and most of students are university students form different university in Hanoi

city but are at the same level

2.3 Data collection methods

2.3.1 Class observation

Class observation was the first method to be carried out in this study The class observation was conducted on the 100 students from 4 Match classes for 12 lessons (3 lessons per class) from 5th March to 23rd March The observer not only paid attention to the teachers’ methods, lesson plans, or the ways that they conducted activities but also put an eye on students to aim

at find out both difficulties of both teachers and students English speaking

period was the prior one for the purpose of finding out some information related to communicative activities Those were: whether or not communicative activities were applied in English speaking lessons, if they were applied correctly and effectively, and how students’ participations in the lessons The communicative activities mainly used were also explored by means of observation To prevent the teachers and students from preparing themselves, the exact objectives of the class observation was not announced

to them in advance

2.3.2 Questionnaires

Two questionnaires were provided to the subjects Questionnaire one (Q1) was delivered to the teacher respondents and Questionnaire 2 (Q2) to the students respondents Q1 (see Appendix 1) consisting of 13 questions was delivered to the teachers and Q2 (see Appendix 2a) comprising 10 questions was distributed to the students Both open-ended questions and close-ended questions were exploited To make sure all students catch the main ideas of questionnaires, the Vietnamese versions (see Appendix 2b) were delivered with similar structures and contents Careful attention was paid to the clarification of each question to ensure validity The questionnaires were constructed within Vietnamese contexts, aiming to provide a general picture

of background to each situation and to capture the participants’ own response and reflections toward the issues The technical terms were simplified so that the questions can be understood exactly Moreover, all the questions were arranged in a logical order so that they could lead the respondents to the themes of the study The questionnaires were designed and developed based

on the author knowledge, observation and experience

2.4.Research procedures

To sum up, the following steps will be used to reach the aims of the research:

- Collecting data through questionnaires, class observations

- Clarifying the data into intended groups

- Doing statistic calculation

- Describing the collected data presented in tables and figures

- Generalizing and giving comments and evaluations

2.5 Findings

2.5.1 Results from class observation and student’s questionnaire

Students’ awareness towards four skills and speaking skills in learning English

In order to find out students’ attitude and motivation in learning English and speaking skills, the first four questions were set Questions 1,2,3 and 4 will show the brief description of the survey results

The result of question 1 indicates that a majority of the respondents (65%)

ranked speaking skillas the most important skill in learning English Listening is the second place with 15% The third place is 13% of writing skill Surprisingly, only 7 students (9%) placed their choice on reading skill The result from the

survey shows a reality that many students care for their speaking ability and they are aware of the importance of speaking skill

The question 2 is raised to find out whether they like learning this skill It

is easy to see that most of the students (92%) confirmed that they are interested

in the speaking skill Meanwhile, only 8% of students found no interest in this skill

From question 3, the finding reveals that 54% of the informants confessed that they felt embarrassed and nervous when taking part in the speaking activities and 8% of them said they were uncomfortable with the activities whereas 6% were bored with these activities Nevertheless 27% of students show their interest in speaking activities and 4% confirmed that they were confident with these activities

When being asked whether they enjoy speaking classes at Pasal, many students (66%) expressed positive attitudes towards speaking classes Among which, 13% of the informants present their complete approval of speaking classes, and 53% said that they enjoyed it meanwhile 25% said that they did not really enjoy, and 9% of them found no interest in their speaking classes

Factors related to students’ interest in speaking lessons

Question 5 and 6 ask about factors related to students’ interest in speaking lesson

of students agreed on their enjoyment because speaking lessons at Pasal meet their demand of using English to communicate And others idea (13%)

showed that they liked English speaking lessons simply because they wanted

to enrich his background knowledge

Factors de-motivating students in speaking classes are shown by question 6 The result shows that 43 students admitting no enjoyment to English speaking lessons blamed themselves for this reason (characteristic)

27 ideas of participants among 100 students found no interested in English speaking lessons at Pasal because of their teachers’ method Too much vocabulary and many new structures are also a factor preventing them from speaking, taking up to 25% Another obstacle to students’ interest is teachers’ instruction 20% did not satisfy with the teachers’ instructions which are not clear and motivating

In addition, 60/100 students revealed that their English knowledge was not sufficient which caused trouble to them in learning speaking skills Boring topic somehow affected students’ speaking with 17% Furthermore, 21% shows their disapproval to English subject It can be concluded from the results of the survey that some subjective and objective factors had an influence on students’ motivation in learning English language speaking skill

Students’ difficulties in speaking lessons

Students’ difficulties in speaking lessons will be indicated by question 7

A, Your knowledge of English (such as vocabulary, grammar,

pronunciation, etc) is poor

73

D, Teacher do not encourage you much 17

Regarding students’ fondness to speaking lessons at schools, they still get difficulties in participating in the lessons 65% students said that the fear

of making mistakes brought them troubles in learning the English language speaking skills The number of 45% of students commented that their shyness makes them less confident to speak to their partner or teacher The poor knowledge of English (such as vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, etc) is also a problem to many students (73%) Moreover, 17% of students thought that their teachers did not encourage them much Especially, one student shared his difficult in understanding teacher’s instruction

Students’ opinion about teachers’ design of communicative

According to the results, it can be seen that the teachers’ favorite

activity was games (53%), discussion was ranked behind (47%) Meanwhile, survey (52%) and guessing games (34%) were seldom used by the teachers

Especially, 25.8% ideas from students believed that their teacher never used

interview (21%) and survey (24%) while teaching speaking skill

Students’ attitude towards communicative activities

Besides that, the research also tries to discover kinds of communicative activities students preferred The results are presented in table below:

As for communicative games, the majority of students, making up 54%

considered communicative games as their most favorite activity Secondly,

discussion was the next choice by 37% of students Through observations of some classes, it can be seen that many teachers preferred to organize the speaking task as discussion activity and students were eager to participate in communicative activities in which they could have the same opportunity to share their ideas with their friends and practice in English

Role playimproves its benefits when it was ranked as the third favorite activities with 25% In reality, this activity is quite easy to prepare and apply

in classes In addition, most of students showed their enjoyment when taking part in this game

The investigation also discovered that guessing game occupied the next position with 23% The other activities such asinterview (15%), information gap (9%) and survey (7%) did not get much approval from students.Yet, it

cannot be concluded that these activities were not interesting and they were not welcomed by the students

According to observation, most of students are eager to join some activities that are fun, interesting and energetic

Students’ feedbacks to the implementation of communicative

activities

Concerning the benefits which communicative activities brought to students, the data of question 10 indicated that students understood and appreciated them very much

Practicing language in appropriate context 30 Helping students be familiar with social situations in English

in real communication

45

As shown in, the biggest number of learners (73%) chose the benefit

“Increasing confidence, help students communicate in English fluently” as the

first advantage of communicative activities A large percentage of informants (45%) were aware of the function of communicative activities which help

them to be familiar and raise their ability to adapt to similar context in real life 35% of informants thought that they were motivated to speak if their

teachers conducted CAs in the lessons In addition, 30% of students voted for

communicative activities because these activities help them to practice language in appropriate context 23% of students were conscious that with

communicative activities they have chance to communicate and express