Improving students ability to describe charts in tieng anh 11 through question systems combined with games

“What can I do to help my students?” “In what way do my students describe them well?” “What should I do to make these writing tasks easier and more attractive?” The best way I did to ass

SỞ GIÁO DỤC & ĐÀO TẠO THANH HOÁ TRƯỜNG THPT LƯƠNG ĐẮC BẰNG

SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ ABILITY TO DESCRIBE CHARTS

IN TIENG ANH 11 THROUGH QUESTION SYSTEMS

COMBINED WITH GAMES

Người thực hiện: Hồ Thị Minh Thái Chức vụ: Tổ trưởng chuyên môn Tiếng Anh Đơn vị công tác: Trường THPT Lương Đắc Bằng

SKKN thuộc môn: Tiếng Anh

THANH HÓA NĂM 2017

BOOK MAP

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Reasons for choosing the topic

1.2 Aims of the research

1.3 Subjects of the research

1.4 Methods for implementation

2 MAIN CONTENT

2.1 Theoretical background

2.2 Practical background

2.3 Solutions and methods for implementation

2.4 Result after applying the research

3 CONCLUSION

3 3 4 4

4 6 8 13 15

CONTRACTED WORDS

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Reasons for choosing the topic.

Nowadays, in the integration period and with the globalization trend, foreign languages, especially English, play a very important role in society English becomes an international language It is used in many fields such as business, trade, communications, tourism and diplomatic activities, etc More than fifty countries in the world use English as their official language and it is used as the second language in nearly eighty nations Therefore, English is an ology which is never saturated due to its newness and popularity in all fields Our Party and government showed their particular interest in teaching and learning foreign languages.English is considered as a main subject at upper secondary school

Teaching English with the communicative approach is our aim How to improve all skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) completely for our students is our duty All skills are important and it is necessary for us to develop them Curriculum and textbooks are issued with a view to carrying out this aim successfully However, writing skill seems to be one of the most difficult skills for students Most writing tasks, for example describing charts, are not interesting enough to attract them They do not even know how to deal with these tasks Their writings are only simple descriptions without comparisons “What can I do to help

my students?” “In what way do my students describe them well?” “What should I

do to make these writing tasks easier and more attractive?” The best way I did to assist them is that I used the eliciting questions combined with games to guide them

I would like to share my teaching experience “Improving students’ ability to describe charts in Tieng Anh 11 through question systems combined with games”

in the hope that my colleagues can apply in teaching and we can discuss more to get the best result in teaching how to describe charts

1.2 Aims of the research

- Helping students alleviate difficulties while practicing graph descriptions in English 11

- Presenting a new method to develop the writing performance of students at high schools

- To introduce how to apply the question systems combined with games in teaching describing charts in English 11 at high school

- To introduce the advantages of the application of question systems combined with games in teaching describing charts

- To explore the effectiveness of the method of teaching students to represent the graph with the question systems combined with games in describing the graphs of Tieng Anh 11

- Presenting new techniques for English teachers in teaching grammatical structures

in writing

- To make easier for students to produce acceptable structures in their writing tasks Therefore, this method seems to serve as an influential tool for both the learning and teaching of writing (for both students and teachers)

1.3 Subjects of the research.

Describing charts is one of the most difficult writing tasks for high school students Students often do not have enough vocabularies, structures, and do not even know how to describe a chart In this research, I want to offer a useful method for high school students to write a pasage describing the chart By this method, students will feel more comfortable and interested in learning to write That research is

“Improving students’ ability to describe charts in Tieng Anh 11 through question systems combined with games”.

1.4 Methods for implementation.

* Scope: Researching in the process of teaching English at Luong Dac Bang High

school

* Research methodology: making survey, reading reference books, researching

information in Internet, applying in teaching, observing and drawing out experiences

2.MAIN CONTENT

2.1 Theoretical background

a.Charts

A chart is a graphical representation of data, in which "the data is represented

by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart" A chart can represent tabular numeric data, functions or some kinds of qualitative structure and provides different info

The term "chart" as a graphical representation of data has multiple meanings:

* A data chart is a type of diagram or graph that organizes and represents a set of numerical or qualitative data

* Maps that are adorned with extra information for some specific purpose are often known as charts, such as a nautical chart or aeronautical chart

* Other domain specific constructs are sometimes called charts, such as the chord chart in music notation or a record chart for album popularity

Charts are often used to ease understanding of large quantities of data and the relationships between parts of the data Charts can usually be read more quickly than the raw data that they are produced from They are used in a wide variety of fields, and can be created by hand (often on graph paper) or by computer using

a charting application Certain types of charts are more useful for presenting a given data set than others For example, data that presents percentages in different groups (such as "satisfied, not satisfied, unsure ") are often displayed in a pie chart, but may be more easily understood when presented in a horizontal bar chart On the other hand, data that represents numbers that change over a period of time (such as

"annual revenue from 1990 to 2000") might be best shown as a line chart

b Describing a chart

In textbooks at upper secondary school, there are bar charts and pie charts so I only mention two these types These types of charts are usually used for comparison purposes (unlike line charts, which describe changes)

When you write about a bar chart it is important to look first at the Chart Title This tells you what information the chart displays and you can use this information in your description

Then look at the X and Y axes The titles of these axes sometimes give you information you can use in your description It is important also to look at the UNITS

Bar charts show similarities and differences When describing these charts you need to make comparisons You also need to group together any columns which have broad similarities

To write a short description of the chart, ask yourself (and answer!) the following questions:

1 What exactly does the chart show? (Use the chart title to help you answer this question)

2 What are the axes and what are the units?

3 What similarities are there?

4 Is it possible to put some of the columns into one or more groups?

5 What differences are there?

Answering these questions will help you to write a short description of this simple bar chart

Pie charts normally show proportion, which can be measured in percentages or fractions This type of charts shows the relative size of something So we can only make comparisons; we cannot say anything about change

2.2 Practical background

In the writing tasks in Tieng Anh 10 and Tieng Anh 12 textbooks there are eliciting questions so students can have some ideas for their writings to make comparisons but in the tasks in Tieng Anh 11 there is not any eliciting questions for them to write except for the chart, useful language and the requirements Students find it difficult to write

In writing section of Unit 7 – World population (Tieng Anh 11-Page 86), a pie

chart is given with the requirement “Study the chart carefully then write a paragraph of 100-120 words, describing the information in the chart”

South Asia 32%

East Asia 26%

Europe 15%

Africa 11%

Latin America 8%

Northern America 6%

Oceania 2%

Students have to do the task with the following suggestions of useful language:

- It can be seen that

- distributed unevenly

- account for… per cent

- more than double the population of

- half as much as/ nearly half of

- rank first/ last

And the beginning “The chart shows the distribution of world population by region …”

With all these cues, the student wrote:

The chart shows the distribution of world

population by region It can be seen that

population distributed unevenly South Asia

account for 32 percent and more than double the

population of Europe Latin America more than

double the population of Europe Northern

America nearly double the population of Africa.

Oceania account for 2 percent Rank first South

Asia, second East Asia and seventh Oceania.

→ lack “the world” and verb

→ form of the verb → lack the verb and wrong information

→ form of the verb

→ spoken language

In Unit 11 – Sources of energy (Tieng Anh 11-Page 130), a bar chart is given for students to write the description of it

In Task 2, they are required to write the same writing as Task 1 However, they gave some mistakes in their writings

The chart shows the energy consumption in

Highland in 2005 As can be seen, the total

energy consumption was 170 million ton.

Petroleum made up the largest amount of this

figure (50 million tons) This was followed by the

consumption of smallest (45 million tons).

Nuclear and hydroelectricity made up the

biggest amount of energy consumption (75

million tons)

→ spelling mistake

→ wrong information

→ wrong answer

→ wrong word

The chart shows the energy consumption in

Highland in 2005 As can be seen, the total

energy consumption was 170 million tons.

Petroleum made up the largest amount of this

figure (75 million tons) This was followed by the

consumption of nuclear and hydroelectricity (50

million tons) Coal made up the smallest amount

of energy consumption (45 million tons)

→ wrong information

→ wrong information

And many students did like these

After doing Task 1 and Task 2 with the requirements in textbook, students did Task

3 by combining two these tasks in turn

2.3 Solutions and methods for implementation

In order to improve writing skill in describing charts for students, I carried out a few techniques at classes 11A5 and 11 A10 in this school-year (2016-2017), I gave out posters and handouts with the eliciting questions for these writing tasks In order to make them more interesting and help students concentrate to the lessons, I used these eliciting questions in games such as “lucky number” or “typhoon”

Lucky number

- Divide the class into two teams

- Representatives of each team choose the numbers in turn

- If they get a “lucky number”, they will have 2 points without any questions

- If they have a correct answer, they will get 2 points

- If they don’t answer the question, the chance will be for the other team

Typhoon

- Divide the class into two teams

- Representatives of each team choose the numbers in turn

- They will get 5 points with a correct answer

- If they get a “star”, they will get 5 points without a question

- If they get a “plus…” the point given will be added for them when they have

a correct answer

- If they get a “minus…”, they will lose the point which the number gave

- Unluckily, they will lose all the point they got when they get the word

“typhoon”

Demonstration 1

Unit 7: World population (Page 86)

- Aim: help students have comparisons among the regions about the distribution

of world population

- Time: 15 minutes

- Preparation: + a poster and handouts with eliciting questions

+ a poster presenting game “Typhoon”

-Procedure:

Pre-writing Activity 1: Discussion (5’)

- Deliver handouts (Appendix 1)

Eliciting questions (Tieng Anh 11 – Unit 7 – Page 86)

1 How great is the percentage in total?

2.Which region contributes the largest in world population? What is the proportion of it?

3 Which region makes up the smallest in world population? What is the percentage?

T

is it?

5.How is Northern America in comparison with Oceania?

6.Which region has nearly double the population

of Northern America?

7.Which region has the contribution to the world population more than that of Africa?

8.Which region makes up nearly half of Europe?

- Discuss to find out the information which the

questions ask (Appendix 2) Suggested answers:

1 100%

2 South Asia contributes the largest in world population It accounts for 32%.

3 Oceania makes up the smallest in world population with 2%.

4 East Asia ranks second, accounting for 26 %

5 Northern America has three times of the population of Oceania

6 Africa has nearly double the population of Northern America

7 Europe has the contribution to the world population more than that of Africa

8 Latin America makes up nearly half of Europe

Activity 2:Game “Typhoon” (10’)

- Hang the poster with eliciting questions out

(Appendix 1)

- Stick the poster presenting game “Typhoon” on the board

- Divide the class into 2 teams

- Ask Ss to play the game

- Feedback

Pairs

T

Teams T-Ss

Demonstration 2

- Aim: help students have comparisons about the energy consumption between two certain points of time

- Time: 15 minutes

- Preparation: + a poster and handouts with eliciting questions

+ a poster presenting game “Lucky number”

-Procedure:

Pre-writing Activity 1: Asking and answering (3’)

- Ask Ss some questions to recognize the chart

(Appendix 3)

1 What exactly does this chart show?

2 How many colors are there?

3.What color stands for coal, nuclear and hydroelectricity and petroleum in turn?

4 How many points of time are given? What are they?

- Observe the chart and give the ideas

Expected answers:

1 It shows the energy consumption in Highland

in 2000 and 2005.

2.Three 3.Green stands for coal, red for nuclear and hydroelectricity and purple for petroleum.

4.Two They are 2000 and 2005.

Activity 1: Discussion (4’)

- Deliver handouts (Appendix 4)

1.How was the trend in energy consumption between 2000 and 2005?

2.Which energy made up the largest amount of energy consumption in 2000? How was it in 2005?

3.Which energy had the smallest amount of this figure in 2000? Did it increase or decrease in

T-Ss T

Ss

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