SKKN MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPS

SKKN MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPSSKKN MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPSSKKN MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPSSKKN MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPSSKKN MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPSSKKN MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPSSKKN MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPSSKKN MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPSSKKN MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPS

-MOTIVATING STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASS

WITH THE HELP OF ENGLISH SHORT CLIPS

n: PHAN

-6- 2017

I INTRODUCTION

As a teacher of Luong The Vinh High School for the Gifted and having taught different classes for the past few years, I the majority of the students of the school just focus on their major subjects This means only students of English classes really have strong motivation to study English while those in other classes such as Math,

he subject There are many reasons accounting for this, but one of them can be narrowed

observation, the students get fed up with the amount of excessive grammar in each unit Furthermore, although there have been revisions and updating, the lessons in their course books, somehow, lack authenticity, or in other words, fail to stimulate them Having identified the problem, I have tried showing some English clips in my classes The result

is quite promising- the students did show more enthusiasm and excitement in engaging in the lessons

II RESEARCH QUESTION

This mini paper aims to clarify the following identified issue among students of Luong The Vinh High School for The Gifted:

- The possibility of using English clips in the classroom as an effective way to motivate students in English class.

III IMPLEMENTATION

Step 1 Define the theme/main topic of each lesson in the course book.

Step 2 Search for appropriate clips.

Step 3 Show clips

Once the teacher has found the appropriate clip to show in front of the class, he or sheshould decide the right time to do this- whether before the lesson as a warm-up activity,

in the middle of the lesson as a listening task, or as a sum-up activity at the end of each unit This depends as whether the teacher wants to use the clip as a catchy introduction to

a new lesson, as a part clarifying an important point in a lesson, or as a wrap-up for a lesson

Before showing the clip to the class, the teacher writes a few questions on the board:

1 What is special about this dancer?

2 How old was he when he started tap dancing?

3 How old was he when he figured a problem with a part of his body?

4 What was actually the problem?

5 How many surgeries did he have totally?

6 What do we learn from this dancer?

After showing the clip for the first time, the teacher write some key new words on the board to help the students understand the clip better

IV LITERATURE REVIEW, FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATION

The recent years have witnessed a shift in English teaching approaches To be more specific, it has been clearly stated by the Ministry of Education that English teachers should now pay more attention to communicative skills when teaching English as a compulsory subject in schools For the past few years speaking and listening skills have been put into official assessment scale for 10th graders nationwide At Luong The Vinh High School, 10 graders and 11 graders have oral final exams together with paper-based exams which include listening tasks Therefore, I believe it is high time English teachers put more emphasis on bringing more listening and speaking tasks into the classroom One

of the most possible and effective ways, in my own opinion, is to introduce English clips

to our students

the advantages of using English clips as teaching material in the

those which have been produced for purposes other than to teach language" (Nunan 1988, p 99) As for me, I usually download short clips from some talk shows hosted by famous people such as Ellen DeGeneres, or sometimes short inspirational clips for some advertising campaigns The point is these clips, since not made for the purpose of teaching, are

, and are therefore, natural in terms of real life and meaningful communication (Rogers, 1988) When it comes to the benefits of using authentic materials

in the classroom, according to Philip, Shettlesworth, and Clarke (as cited in Richards,

use in my classroom, as authentic materials, are really helpful in my teaching.

I have been showing several clips for my students in different classes and their feedbacks are, to a certain extent, positive The students all agree that with the audio and visualeffects, these clips can instantly grab their attention In addition, to make sure that students are engaged in the activity, I try to choose clips of interviews with celebrities or about popular issues everyone knows of (see attached clips for reference) One good point about this new material is that although the students always understand all the words and phrases, they still can have a general idea of what the whole clip is about And this is

of no doubt very close to the well-known communicative approach As a result, all of the students show great enthusiasm and engagement Even for those who admit that they

understand the whole content of a clip express their eagerness for more clips Besides that,

Brown, 2000) When students sit in the classroom, ready for a new lesson or task with positive attitudes, they are likely toexperience success, or at least, to produce better performance of their language ability

So as to illustrate the points I made above, lt of a survey I conducted among 100 random students I was teaching last year The questionnaire consisted of 8 different questions asking for their opinions about the importance of Speaking and Listening skills as well as about the English clips I showed to them

Statement Strongly

Disagree (1)

Disagree (2)

Neither Agree nor Disagree (3)

Agree (4)

Strongly Agree (5)

3 I wish that I could

speak fluent and

accurate English

4 I wish that the teacher

could give more

speaking and listening

tasks in class

5 English speaking

clips shown in class are

too difficult for me to

8 Other than improving

speaking and listening

skills, English clips give

Secondly, as I earlier mentioned, it may be time-consuming for the teacher to choose a suitable clip to show to the students Searching for a clip that suits the content of a unit in the course book, or one with enough entertaining factors but without exceeding the limit

eresting message but still within st

a lot of time Given that a teacher has already a great deal of work to do and

a number of different classes to teach, this may be an unreasonable request to make That

is not to say even when the teacher is willing to go all the way to find the best clips for his

or her students, he or she has another obstacle to deal with: the restricted time for each unit that standardized English tests still put a lot of emphasis on grammar and structures, meaning that the teacher has to make sure the students master all grammar points with enough exercises to practice This leaves little time for activities to improve speaking and listening skills

In terms of subjective difficulties, although in the same class, students have various levels

of English competence This is definitely something to take into consideration when

should be thoughtful and flexible enough when it comes to using it as a teaching aid On

saying this, I mean the teacher may need to pause a clip several times to help with some vocabulary, or to make questions to make sure that all students understand what is going

on Definitely, a good teacher should never leave any student feeling lost in this additional activity

V CONCLUSION

Being well aware of this, teachers all over the world have been trying to put more effort in choosing suitable approaches and teaching styles to help their students achieve the best results out of school Each and every approach and technique has their own effects and

choices for his or her students Using English short clips in classroom as a way to

worth a try

REFERENCE

Brown, H D 2000 Principles of language learning and teaching 4th ed White Plains,

NY: Addison Wesley Longman

Nunan D (1988) The learner-centered curriculum Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press

Richard, J.C (2001) Curriculum development in language teaching Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press

Scarcella, R (1990) Teaching language minority students in the multicultural classroom:

Prentice Hall Regents

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp_uj7mom1Q

- -

- - - -

-15