Create apositive environment for primary students to acquire english

EDUCATION AND TRAINING THANH HOATHACH THANH DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE CREATE A POSITIVE ENVIRONMENT FOR PRIMARY STUDENTS TO ACQUIRE ENGLISH Performed b

EDUCATION AND TRAINING THANH HOA

THACH THANH DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND

TRAINING

INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE

CREATE A POSITIVE ENVIRONMENT FOR PRIMARY

STUDENTS TO ACQUIRE ENGLISH

Performed by: Do Thi Ha

Job title: Teacher Unit of work: Thanh Truc Primary School Initiatives in the field of (subject): English

THANH HOA, 2018

TABLE OF CONTENT

7 2.1 Theoretical foundations of the experience. 3

8 2.2 The real situation before applying the

experience initiative.

3

10 2.4 The effectiveness of experience initiatives. 13

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Reasons for choosing topic.

According to the perspective of Party and State, education is aimed at fully developing people to satisfy the common demand of industrialization and modernization Foreign languages in general and English in particular play an important role as an active means supporting for our country’s integrating process most effectively Therefore, improving the education quality in general and the English in particular are considered as one of the most concern of the current education

English has been taught in primary schools with the guidance document

of Ministry of Education and Training since 1996 In 2003, the Ministry issued the English teaching program of primary education guiding targets and contents

in nationwide However, there have been lots of existed shortages of facilities in classrooms, teaching materials such as books, tapes, CDs, Cassettes, etc Especially, almost all teachers are only trained for “Introduction and guidance to use the set of books” in one day without being trained on primary education professionally Hence, there is still a range of difficulties in teaching skills for students at primary school

The primary environment is the fundamental place forming habits and communication capacities Frequent communication results in braveries for students without fears of making mistakes in public speaking As for students lacking proficiency in the mother tongue language, they had a lot of difficulties

in getting access to a foreign language Their timidity makes oral communication limited greatly From my own teaching experiences, I’m pleased

to introduce: “Create a positive environment for Primary students to

acquire English”, and I expect to contribute a part to English teaching more

effectiveness and attract more students in loving this subject

1.2 Research purposes

For years, the teaching method for kids has been similar to one for adults apart from supplementing some songs and games into lectures It’s clear that the receptive process of our mother tongue language and the next process in the school period are natural Language capacity is generated by imitating, unconscious learning through different forms such as communicating with relatives, reading stories, connecting with communities, singing, reading poems, painting, etc The difference of children’s receptive process in comparison with adults is that adults’ receptiveness is conscious and annalistic but children’s one

is natural via intuition

There are two kinds of material languages which almost every learner needs develop: receptive language and productive language Receptive language is the language factor possibly realized and not produced by learners Productive language is the language factor possibly used in speaking or writing Students will become familiar with realizing new factors through situations if those are repeated many times To practice using the receptive language, students have to learn how to reflex with new words naturally In curriculums, grammars are sentences or questions and answers practiced more than once It is essential that samples are given clearly and fully for students to understand what they have to

do in some class activities

1.3 Research subjects

To learn English well, the learning environment in general is very important Studying and practising in the friendly and positive arts center will held students to practise and apply their knowlegge while enhancing their confident in using English Hence, my research in this subject is the most exciting environment to engage in language communication in the English language

1.4 Research methods

The methods I use in my experience include:

- Method of study through research

- Methods of analysis and aggregation of reference documents

- The method is very strict through teaching in my lessons

- Interactive methods of communication

2 THE CONTENT OF THE EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE.

2.1 Theoretical foundations of the experience initiative.

Today the party and the state are very interested in learning English, especially in the primary school, foreign language projects have been proposed

to teachers in primary school And to make good progress in that project, the major learning environment of English is even more important For students of primary school children learn through play, play to learn, the more complex environment they are attracted to participate in their interaction to help children learn more effectively In fact, during the lecture, students will remember words and phrases faster when they are communicated in a positive environment

2.2 The real situation before applying the experience initiative.

According to the regulation of Ministry of Education and Training, every child is permitted to study two lessons with 40 minutes per lesson Several qualified schools could have more lessons, four lessons per week Hence, the period for students to get access to English is obviously short in comparison with the total communicating hours every week Moreover, English environment

is restricted in classroom hours and students use Vietnamese when lessons end Children don’t actually need to use English except for the requirement of studying and examination All the requirements using English are practical and there isn’t other natural English environment for children

Children are unable to concentrate on what teachers are delivering in a long period Consequently, they should be engaged in different activities, to perform various tasks by themselves with exercise types always changed and diversified communication situations

Children often obtain and imitate knowledge quickly and also forget what have learned quickly They are naturally curious, dynamic and creative Children always demand to discover outside environment and interact with others It cannot be denied that they are interested and creative in games

In fact, even native children run into difficulties in pronouncing several

English sounds like r, l, sh, and th and their pronunciation could be fully

correct when they grow up The importance of the initial stage is developing

simple communication capacity in a new language without creating fears of making mistakes, which significantly affect on students’ motivations for studies There is one factor basically impacting on language studying process: children will not study without motivation

- Almost all students pronounce word stress incorrectly

Example: ‘wonderful, ‘Sunday, No‘vember, etc.

- In addition, they haven’t been able to pronounce words with s, z, p, k

Example: /s/ -> its, excuse…

/z/ -> please, she’s…

/p/ -> puzzle, people, puppet…

/k/ -> clock, book, like…

- Students also read incorrectly Most of them do not remember vocabulary, especially long words

Example: good afternoon, school library, bathroom, interesting, difficult…

- Students’ communication is not fluently due to fears of making mistakes Their ability to form a completed sentence is not still good They still confuse with the position of word class (verbs, preposition, adjectives, nouns and questioning words, etc.)

Example: My brother’s name’s Peter.

That is my friend

There’s a bed in the room

When’s Children’s Day?

The statistic result at the beginning of this school year through directly interviewing students at grade 3, 4 and 5 at Thanh Truc Primary School

Total Number

of students

Good Quite good Medium Weak

No % No % No % No %

With the result above, from this early school year, I always try to find the best methods to design interesting lectures inspiring students so that they could turn what they have learned into productive language via oral communication, integrate with the developing tendency of foreign language subject: learning a foreign language is learn how to communicate but not focusing on grammar as

in the past

2.3 The solutions used to solve the problem.

2.3.1 Chant to learn:

Chants can be really useful, and the primary students enjoy them A chant

is simply vocabulary spoken over a background of music or rhythm They are useful because something about the music energizes the students, and they have

to pronounce the word in a rhythm Also, if we are not comfortable with singing

in front of our students, chants are great

For children, teachers need to have the right method, to develop learning styles

so that the class is more lively fun, the more excited the students are, the higher the efficiency.Teaching the integration of subject knowledge into games, chant lessons will help students become more active, remember vocabulary and sentence structure, more excitement with the lesson

Each language lesson can create a chant corresponding to the content of the unit So in the process of teaching, I always create a chant to help them review the class just to create a comfortable atmosphere for children ready to acquire knowledge

Example: English 3 - Unit 19: Lesson 2.

When finished teaching weather words and practice the sample questions and answers about the weather I designed the following chant:

What's the weather like? It's sunny It's sunny.

What's the weather like? It's rainy It's rainy.

What's the weather like? It's cloudy It's cloudy.

What's the weather like? It's a lift It's a lift.

What's the weather like? It's snowy It's snowy.

What's the weather like? It's stormy It's stormy.

By guiding the children to learn chant, I noticed that my students remember the vocabulary, remember the pattern in the classroom Also remember the tone of the chant as well as the intonation of the sentence The most important point is to create excitement in language lessons The children are attracted to the paper, learn more and more self-conscious

2.3.1.1 Vocabulary chants:

Example: Unit 8 : This is my pen – grade 3

( ruler, sharpener, pen…)

Ru/ler - 2 sounds, shar/pe/ner - 3 sounds, pen/ - 1 sound

Ruler, sharpener, pen.

Ruler, sharpener, pen.

Ruler, sharpener.

Ruler, sharpener.

Ruler, sharpener, pen.

The teacher claps to the rhythm of the word, asks the students to follow, the teacher claps to the rhythm - the students read the word Follow up for the students to practice the whole class, pair With the use of "vocabulary chant" to help students excite more when learning and remember faster

2.3.1.2 Grammar chants:

Example:

English 3: Unit 15: Do you have any toys?

- Team A: Do you have any puzzles?

- Team B: Yes, I do (looking at the pictures hanging down on the board)

- Team A: Do you have any dolls?

- Team B: No, I don’t (looking at the pictures hanging upside down on the board)

2.3.2 Sing to learn:

The use of songs in English classes has been suggested since it is believed that these will make young learners get more benefits There are many types of songs and one of these is action song type A fun and joyful class atmosphere is

a situation that is beneficial for learners, but only fun is not enough Teachers should be able to create a fun but educating English class Action songs are songs which are completed with particular body movements that support the meaning of the song English songs often have simple, repetitive, playful, healthy lyrics Songs are often easy to learn and can quickly become your fa

Example: Action song

Sing with me!

Na Na Na

I’m so happy!

Oh, so happy!

Sing with me!

Clap, clap, clap your hands

Clap, clap, clap your hands.

Stomp, stomp, stomp your feet.

Stomp, stomp, stomp your feet.

Swing, Swing, Swing your arms

Swing, Swing, Swing your arms.

Dance everybody and sing with me!

Besides, the songs are also a bridge to make our students more sociable in class When the melody is heard, all can join together, including those who are shy or afraid to communicate and can sing along or can participate in a song performance in front of the class Especially if we know how to be skilful, give our students confidence in expressing yourself in English singing, or even in communication

Many English songs for children also contain simple cultural content Or many other songs increase their ability to develop memory and concentration, or have physical connections: they can play characters, or mimic the actions of the characters in the song sing This helps them to memorize her language longer and to act flexibly, avoiding her sitting or listening in English

Certainly, if we can start our students' lesson with an English-themed song with the right topic, we will be engaging in a faster and more effective lesson

2.3.3 Play games to learn:

A new teaching method could create an amount of inspiration and creativities for teachers Each teacher has his own unique creativities during teaching process If teachers repeat the same method in every lesson, students will get bored and even feel that lessons come as normally without inspiration and expectation

Games are also considered to be an important entertainment form In fact, they could be used to consolidate material languages as shown above by the method attracting students In all every form, games could perform functions of exercises of practicing skills because we can review and introduce material languages in funny and well-organized ways through games The method of skill practicing section often goes with repeating with teacher-centered The method takes effects when students learn new words and sentence structures On the contrary, games are often open-ended and student-centered

There are various types of games Several ones focus on vocabularies or sentence structures And there are games promoting both vocabularies and sentence structure Here are several games that I usually apply into my lecture in

my class:

2.3.3.1 Word - practicing

Requirements: At least two players and if need a dictionary In the classroom teachers can be divided into two groups and the teacher or student is the referee

How to play: Take any English word (this teacher can do), eg yesterday Use the letters that make up the word, specifically: y, e, s, t, e, r, d, a, y to create other words, who make more words than win In the example above we can generate words like: yes, trader, year, steady-state Encourage integration With this game, students have to try to remember all the words in their minds, while helping to forget words can learn new words among the words that the player creates Teachers think and find words with letters that can form other words within the content they have learned or to test the student's vocabulary

2.3.3.2 Guessing - word

This game is basically the same as the "Hidden Hats" game on TV The master (teacher or student) chooses a name or a word for a subject, then draws the number of squares corresponding to the number of letters of that name or word From the given hint, the player will guess one letter at a time, if the letter

is in the letter, then the character will write the letter in the correct place Anyone who finds out the name wins In contrast, after 5 wrong guesses (the number of times determined by the host and the player) but not found, the player will lose There may be two or more students in charge of the game Whoever wins multiple times wins

These games help students to play and learn not only in class, but also in every place, and at the same time, while studying vocabulary effectively The games attract students to take lessons, especially reading comprehension, conversation to introduce the topic The games also train the children to be able

to judge, to create, to train the quick reflexes, decisiveness, confidence, create a happy atmosphere.The reality is that with teacher classes organizing English games, students are very excited to come to class, understand deeper and more natural, less shy of inherent With some classes, teachers do not put the game in the classroom, students may be afraid to speak, knowledge is not deep, afraid to attend school, not really interested in the subject However, in order for the game to be effective, teachers need to be well-prepared and flexible to schedule the time, and choose a game that matches the content of the lesson Teachers also need to be prepared for the necessary equipment In the process of organizing the game must go from easy to difficult, should not reverse it When the student loses a penalties should be gentle, delicate, encouraging students to try more next time When playing, do not be biased or discriminated against sexually, or try to punish you While playing an English game, the clutter in the classroom is unavoidable This is likely to affect other classes, so the teacher must really be a dynamic host, solving every situation Surprisingly, it can happen that the game can be performed effectively

2.3.3.3 Matching game:

Two students run to the board, and match the pictures to the words on the board The faster is the winner

Example:

English 4: Unit 17: How much is the T- shirt?

2.3.3.4 Acting game:

This activity could be implemented in different forms but all the forms are aimed at expressing meaning through gestures The simplest way to play the game is that word cards or pictures are upside down in a pile One student takes

a card at the top of the pile without reavealing what the word is to the classmates and the rest of the students guess the words In another more simple method without using word cards or pictures, the teacher will whisper the word to a student Then, the student continues to do the same steps above

Example: English 5: Unit 11: What’s the matter with you?