Sử dụng các hoạt động có khoảng trống thông tin để nâng cao khả năng nói cho học sinh lớp 12 không chuyên anh tại trường THPT chuyên thái nguyên

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGTHAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THANH XUAN USING INFORMATION-GAP ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE SPEAKING PERFORMANCE OF NON - ENGLISH MAJORS GRADE 12 AT THAI NGUYE

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THANH XUAN

USING INFORMATION-GAP ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE SPEAKING PERFORMANCE OF NON - ENGLISH MAJORS GRADE 12 AT THAI

NGUYEN HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE GIFTED

Sử dụng các hoạt động có khoảng trống thông tin để nâng cao khả năng nói cho học sinh lớp 12 không chuyên Anh tại trường THPT Chuyên Thái Nguyên

MASTER THESIS RESEARCH

Field: English language

THAI NGUYEN- 2018

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THANH XUAN

USING INFORMATION-GAP ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE SPEAKING PERFORMANCE OF NON - ENGLISH MAJORS GRADE 12 AT THAI

NGUYEN HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE GIFTED

Sử dụng các hoạt động có khoảng trống thông tin để nâng cao khả năng nói cho học sinh lớp 12 không chuyên Anh tại trường THPT Chuyên Thái Nguyên

MASTER THESIS RESEARCH

Field : English language Supervisor: Dr Bui Thi Huong Giang

THAI NGUYEN- 2018

The writer fully declares that this research paper is composed by the writer herself and

it does not contain materials written or having been published by other people and thatfrom references

A THESIS USING INFORMATION-GAP ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE SPEAKING PERFORMANCE OF NON- ENGLISH MAJORS GRADE 12 AT THAI

NGUYEN HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE GIFTED

Submitted by:

Nguyen Thanh Xuan

Approved by Supervisor,

Dr Bui Thi Huong Giang

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor – Dr.Bui Thi Huong Giang for her valuable guidance, critical feedback, and enormousencouragement Without her support, this thesis could not have been completed

My thanks also go to all my lecturers from Thai Nguyen University, School ofForeign Languages - Postgraduate Department for their valuable lectures which help

me to orient the topic

I would like to express my thanks to all my classmates who were willing to help

me in sharing materials and ideas when this thesis is worked on

My sincere thanks also go to all my colleagues and students at Thai Nguyen High

School for the Gifted, for their assistance during the process of data collection

Particularly, I find myself in debt to all members of my family for their love,care and tolerance when I was in the process of writing this thesis

This study aims at using information activities to enhance speaking performance

of non- English majors grade 12 at Thai Nguyen High School for the Gifted It alsodescribes students’ perception and feeling after experimenting Information Gaptechnique This research is an action research which was carried out in Thai NguyenHigh School for the Gifted in the second term of the academic year 2017-2018 Itconsists of six main steps: Initiation, Hypothesis, Intervention, Evaluation andDissemination The data were gained through questionnaires, semi structuredinterview, observations and mini projects The results show that information gapactivities can improve students’ speaking performance significantly Hopefully, thisstudy will make a contribution to the implementation of Information GapActivities in improving speaking skills for students at Thai Nguyen High School forthe Gifted in particular and other high schools in general

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION……….………i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 The rationale of the study 1

1.2 The objectives of the study 2

1.3 The scope of the study 2

1.4 The significance of the study 2

1.5 Organization of the study 2

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Theoretical framework 4

2.1.1 The nature of speaking 4

2.1.2 The role of speaking in foreign language teaching and learning 4

2.1.3 Motivation- the key factor affecting English speaking performances 5

2.1.4 Information gap activities 6

2.1 4.1 The definition of information gap activities 7

2.1.4.2 The benefits of information gap activities 8

2.1.4 3 Some popular information gap activities 9

2.1.5 Action research……….……….10

2.2 Previous studies……… 11

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 14

3.1 Research questions……….14

3.2 The study design……….14

3.3 The context and participants of the study……… 14

3.4 Procedures……….16

3 5 Data collection instruments……… 19

3.5.1 Questionnaires……….19

3.5.2 Semi-structured interview………19

3.5.3 Observation……… 19

3.5.4 Mini projects………19

3.6 Data analysis……… 20

3.6.1 Data collected from preliminary investigation stage 20

3.6.1.1 Data from questionnaire 1 20

3.6.1.2 Data from the semi- structured interview 22

3.6.2 Data collected from the intervention stage 23

3.6.2.1 Data collected from Observation sheets 23

3.6.2.2 Data collected from Questionnaire 2 25

3.6.2.3 Data collected from mini projects………29

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 31

4.1 Findings……… 31

4.2 Discussion……… 32

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS 36

5.1 Conclusion 37

5.2 Suggestions for teachers and further research ………37

REFERENCES I

APPENDIX 1: Questionnaire 1 III APPENDIX 2: Semi- structured interview……….…IV APPENDIX 3: Questionnaire 2………V APPENDIX 4: Observation sheet……….VI APPENDIX 5: Video speaking rubric………VII APPENDIX 6: Sample of a speaking lesson plan………IX APPENDIX 7: Samples of the information gap activities……… XII

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 The rationale of the study

With its essential role in international communication, English has proven to bethe most effective means to involve Vietnam in the process of globalization Studentswith good command of English and know to make use of it will have better jobprospects and many other interesting opportunities in their lives Being fully aware ofits importance, the Ministry of Education and Training has made English a compulsorysubject at secondary schools and developing students’ communicative competence isgiven the top priority

Speaking plays a fundamental role in communication because without it,communication cannot take place directly between people According to Fauziati (cited

in Handayani, 2011), mastering “the art” of speaking is regarded as the single mostimportant aspect of learning a second or foreign language, and success is measured interms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the target language However, to teachthe students to speak English so that they become more interested in speaking Englishand maintain their interest during the lessons is not an easy job at all Richards andRenandya (2002) also believe that speaking in a foreign language is challenging forforeign language learners because the effectiveness of oral communication requires theability to use the language appropriately in social interaction

With regard to Thai Nguyen High School for the Gifted, non-English majorstudents have to learn English as a compulsory subject Most of the students have learntEnglish for seven years and realized the significant roles of English to their future.However, as an English teacher, the researcher finds that although the students do nothave much trouble with English grammar, many of them tend to be silent and passive inEnglish speaking Many of the students fail to communicate in English They seem todepend heavily on the textbooks and just read them in the speaking class They arehesitant and anxious if they have to speak and perform using English

One of the reasons for this situation is that they lack practice in using English inreal communication situations Putri (2014) states that speaking activities should providesufficient time for students to practice the target language The activities also shouldmotivate students so that they can enthusiastically engage on the learning process Inour daily life, communication occurs naturally when there is a lack of informationbetween

people, and they have a demand for exchanging the information In the same way, ifEnglish teachers want to motivate students to speak, they should provide a diverseenvironment where meaningful communication can take place.

In the researcher’s opinion, one possible solution that can encourage students touse English for communicating is utilizing Information Gap Activities The benefits ofthis technique to the students have aroused my interest and encouraged the researcher to

carry out this research “Using information-gap activities to motivate speaking performance of non – English majors grade 12 at Thai Nguyen High School for the Gifted.” Hopefully, this study will make a small contribution to the implementation of

Information Gap Activities in improving speaking skills for students at Thai NguyenHigh School for the Gifted in particular , and at other high schools in general

1.2 Objectives of the study

The aim of this study is to improve students’ speaking performance by applyinginformation-gap activities and change students’ attitudes towards speaking learning

1.3 Scope of the study

In the school year 2017- 2018, the researcher was in charge of teaching Englishfor grade 12th students During English lessons, many students were very passive inmaking interactions in English when they are required to work in pairs or groups Infact, there are various effective speaking activities to motivate students to speak;however, due to the limit of the thesis, the study cannot cover all, but focus oninformation gap activities

1.4 The significance of the study

The study is hoped to be beneficial to both teachers and students at the ThaiNguyen High School for the Gifted in particular and at other high schools in general.English teachers will be able to enrich their techniques in teaching speaking skills,which can greatly improve students’ speaking performances In addition, this study isbelieved to be a good source of references for other researchers who want to conduct aresearch on the related topic

1.5 Organization of the study

Chapter 1 is Introduction which consists of the rationale of the study, objectives ofthe study, scope of the study, the significance of the study and organization of the study.Chapter 2 is Literature Review which discusses the theoretical framework and previous

studies Chapter 3 is Research methodology which consists of research questions, thestudy design, participants, materials, and procedure, data collection instruments,techniques of data analysis Chapter 4 describes the result of the study It consists ofresearch findings and discussion Then, chapter 5 is the conclusion and suggestions ofthe research.

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2 1 Theoretical Framework

In this section, the researcher will consider what we mean by “speaking” In Englishstudy, speaking can be considered as a major component or an inseparable part of anylanguage learning process Therefore, speaking has been the object of numerous studieswith varieties of definitions

According to Brown (1994); Burns & Joyce (1997) speaking is an interactiveprocess of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving andprocessing information Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which itoccurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physicalenvironment, and the purposes for speaking It is often spontaneous, open-ended, andevolving Chastain (1998) believes that speaking is a productive skill ‘Speaking is morethan making the right sound, choosing the right words or getting the constructions’(pp.330-358) Indeed, in order to speak accurately and fluently, in the researchers’opinion, students should not only focus on mechanical elements such as pronunciation,grammar, and vocabulary but they should also pay attention to the communicativesituations that they may come across in the real life In addition, they need to widentheir social and cultural knowledge in order to have an efficient interaction As a result,it’s advisable for the teachers to help students get access to varied authentic speakingmaterials and activities

Based on the above definitions, the researcher supposes that the nature of speaking

is interactive and productive It is the process of sharing knowledge, interests, attitudes,opinions with the others It is fundamental to human communication Speaking skill isthe ability to perform the linguistics knowledge and to make ourselves understood inthe actual communication It is considered as one of the macro skills that foreignlanguage students should be helped to improve their communicative abilities

2 1.2 The role of speaking skill in teaching and learning a foreign language

English is a tool for international communication Nowadays, teaching and learningEnglish is of great importance in Vietnam as well as in other countries in the world Inthe past several years, although a variety of approaches for language teaching hasexisted, CLT is always the popular approach and has strongly influenced on thelanguage teaching

in Vietnam It emphasizes that the goal of the language learning is to developcommunicative competence that consists of grammatical competence, sociolinguisticcompetence, discourse competence and strategic competence (Canale and Swaine,1980) In other words, students learn English in order to communicate well in English.

Speaking seems intuitively the most important of all four skills that help students

to communicate effectively because speaking is regarded as the first step to confirm whoknows or does not know a language Ur (1996) also indicates that people who know alanguage are referred to as “speakers” of that language so almost all of foreign languagelearners are interested in learning to speak Teaching speaking means helping studentsdevelop their ability to interact successfully in the target language

In order to improve students’ speaking ability, teachers should play a positiverole in helping students get involved in speaking activities in the classroom Dua (2011)claims, “rather than leading students to pure memorization, the teacher can provide arich language environment where students have real communication, authentic materialsand meaningful tasks that promote oral language.” (p.12) Related to this study, theresearcher intends to implement information gap activities with a hope that graduallystudents will know how to use their target language correctly and communicatively ineveryday conversations

2 1.3 Motivation – the key factor that affects speaking performances.

Speaking comes naturally to human, but in fact it is not as simple as it seems Thereare several factors that influence the success or failure in learning English speaking.However, Gardner (1985) claim that the most important factor is motivation – a termoften used with respect to second language learning as a simple explanation ofachievement He says that the term “motivation” has very distinct characteristic and has

a clear link with the language learning process Motivation in the present context refers

to the combination of the effort plus desire and positive attitude to achieve the goal oflearning Sharing the same point of view, Harmer (2001) defines motivation as somekind of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to achieve something.The more motivation a learner has, the more time he or she will spend on learning asecond language Language achievement chiefly depends on the amount of exposure tothe target language Motivation not only plays an important role in learning, it alsohelps the teacher Lite’s study (as cited in Dua, 2011) reveals that motivation is thebackbone of

any classroom When the students are motivated, the teacher can perform his/her job thebest.

There are two basic types of motivation: extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation.Harmer (2001) states that extrinsic motivation is caused by such outside factors as theneed to pass an exam, getting good marks and the hope of a better job prospect, etc Incontrast, intrinsic motivation is the learners’ eagerness and interest to take part inlearning process itself because they feel that the learning activities are attractive anduseful Many researchers agree that to be successful in language learning students needintrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic one For them what happens in the classroom(classroom

activities, learning atmosphere…) will be of vital importance in determining students’attitude to the language

Motivation is the key factor in language learning in general and in thedevelopment of speaking skills in particular One who has strong motivation usuallytake part in speaking activities enthusiastically One who has strong speakingmotivation will take every chance to practice speaking in class and improve himself tospeak more fluently and accurately On the contrary, one who has low motivation inspeaking will rarely practice or even keep silent all the time Because of the importance

of motivation to the teaching and learning English speaking skill, in this study, theresearch will try to explore the reasons why the students often have low motivation inspeaking lessons and then offer possible solutions

In conclusion, the researcher strongly approves that motivation plays a significantrole in foreign language learning in general and in developing speaking performances inparticular Once learners have set the goal of learning, motivation will certainly helpthem produce effort and have a positive attitude to obtain the goal Therefore, in order

to be successful, language teachers should be well aware of the importance ofmotivation and design authentic communicative speaking activities in which thelearners get enthusiastically involved

2 1.4 Information gap activities.

Teachers are often searching for activities to make their classroom more interactive;language teachers in particular are also looking for activities that promote targetlanguage use Information Gap activities are excellent activities as they force the

students to ask each other questions; these activities help make the language classroomexperience more

meaningful and authentic This section will explain in more detail what Information Gapactivities are and why they are useful; it will also give some examples of InformationGap activities for any language classroom.

2 1.4.1 The definition of information gap activities

The Meaning of Gap

In current studies, researchers state that “gap” means the difference Rania (2011)claims that if there are two students, A and B, and if A has some information which Bdoes not, and possibly vice-versa, then there is a difference or gap between the twostudents A task which requires B to find out the information that A has (i.e a taskwhich closes the gap) will provide a reason for communication

Information gap activities

The concept of information gap is an important aspect of communication in aCLT classroom This essentially is based on the fact that in everyday life peopleusually communicate in order to get information they do not possess If the speaker andhearer are both in possession of the same information prior to beginning theircommunication, communication cannot take place

According to Harmer (2002) one type of speaking activity is called “informationgap”-where two speakers have different parts of information making up the whole.Because they have different information, there is a “gap” between them As a result,they need to communicate to each other to bridge this gap In the same respect, Richardsand Schmidt (as cited in Fuqaha, 2015) claim that an Information-gap task is anactivity in language teaching where students are missing information necessary tocomplete a task or solve a problem, and must communicate with their classmates to fill

in the gaps

Although there are various definitions about information gap activities, mostresearches agree that information-gap is the activity in which the students may be inpairs or in groups of two or more students They can be given different pieces ofinformation about the same topic which creates a “gap” of knowledge that requirestudents to communicate with each other to solve a problem or complete a task

There are two types of information gap activities: one-way and two-way McKayand Tom in their study which was cited in Rania (2011) give a definition that one-wayoccurs when one person holds all information which other group member(s) do not have

An example of a one-way information exchange is one in which one person has apicture

and describes it to his/her partner who tries to draw it Ellis (as cited in Rania 2011)asserts that in a two-way information gap activity, both learners have information toshare to complete the activity e.g., both have some information about directions to alocation, but they have to share the information that they have to complete thedirections.

To sum up, both one-way and two-way information activities involve aninformation gap which must be exchanged between members in order for the activity to

be completed Regarding to the research, the author will design both one-way and twoway information gap activities to give students plentiful opportunities to practicespeaking English

2 1.4.2 Benefits of information gap activities

In Communicative Language Teaching in order to promote real communicationbetween students, there must be an information gap between them and between themand their teacher Without such a gap, the classroom activities will be mechanical andartificial Johnson and Morrow (1981, p.62) recognized the value of information gapactivities in the language classroom 20 years ago, calling the concept "one of the mostfundamental in the whole area of communicative teaching" The researcher believes thatinformation gap activities are used in class; students can gain big profits in developingtheir speaking performance

Firstly, the activities create plenty communication among students Kayi (2006)says that in information gap activities, students are supposed to be working in pairs or ingroups One student will have the information that other partner does not have Hence,they have opportunities to talk extensively in the target language because they need totransfer the information in order to finish the task

Moreover, Information gap activities tend to provide equal participation amonglearners Dua (2011, p.15) reports, “Information gap activities allow each student to usethe time effectively They do not need to sit on their chairs and wait until one-to-one orgroup-to-group presentation is finished Instead, the classroom activities are fairlydistributed, every student has chance to speak” Each partner plays an important role.Each of them has the task of finding out certain information, and therefore must find away in which to ask for this information Classroom will not be dominated by talkativestudents.”

Last but not least, the motivation is quite high in these activities because studentsare forced to communicate in “real” English The situations are authentic and theactivities can be motivating and fun to students “The learners interact freely with oneanother to gather information from their peers, thus creating a casual atmosphere, inwhich everybody feels comfortable and non- threatened to offer their contributions”(Harmer,

1991, p.49) In addition, information gap activities provide the students a desire tocommunicate with their partners or classmates because they don’t know and are curiousabout the information needed to complete the communicative task

Because of the above advantages, language students should be involved in asmany situations as possible where one of them has some information and anotherdoesn't, but has to get it-in other words, situations containing an information gapbetween the participants

2.1 4.3 Some popular information gap activities

Underhill (as cited in Dua, 2011) asserts that variety of techniques can be used ininformation gap activity Firstly, they may be peer or group interview Two students inturn set out questions and answers to get certain things about each other Secondly, theymay be peer or group description and recreation information in which one describes apicture or a design to another student who has constructed the model from thedescription alone without seeing the original Thirdly, they can be games like such asdescribing and drawing, describing and guessing, finding the differences andcompleting a story, etc (Harmer, 1998) More specifically, Dua (2011) in her studysummarizes some of common information gap activities with typical examples for eachkind including: Filling the gaps, completing the picture, finding differences, talkingabout yourself, giving directions and problem solving/role play

*Filling the gaps: Partner A holds an airline timetable with some of the arrival and

departure times missing Partner B has the same timetable but with different blankspaces The two partners are not permitted to see each other's timetables and must fill inthe blanks by asking each other appropriate questions

*Completing the picture: Student A has an incomplete picture of a living room He/

She has to ask student B who has a complete picture to find out where the things in thegiven box go and then draw them in the correct place Student B answers student A’squestion about the things in the box to help him/ her complete the picture

*Finding differences: The two students in each pair have pictures which are identical

except for some important differences They do not look at each other’s pictures, but try

to find the differences by describing their picture

* Personal interview: For example, the teacher puts the students in pairs and asks them

to tell each other how they feel about their name and what name they would choose forthemselves if they had to choose one that was different from the one they have

* Completing a Map/ Giving Directions: Two or more sets of maps are used Some

details are given on each of the maps, but on each student’s map certain places would bedeleted and the names of these places would be listed at the bottom The task is to askeach other where the places are located to complete the map

* Problem-solving

As students are put in some situations that are similar to the real life, they actively join

in the activities because of the feeling that they are doing with their language, taking therisks of experimenting what they have learnt Moreover, the lessons can become morepractical and interesting to them

* Guessing: In addition to the above activities, guessing is also a common type of

information gap activities that are often used in class For example: Students work inpairs or small groups One student chooses an object or a person and keeps it a secret.The other students must ask yes or no questions to determine what that object/person is

In conclusion, there are various forms of information gap activities All theactivities listed above will give the researcher a good orientation in designing differentinformation gap activities for her own study later

2.1.5 Action research.

Action research is actually suitable for any person who wishes to improve his orher performance For years, action research has been widely used in education,especially by teachers who use it to improve their teaching According to Glickman,action research in education setting is a study conducted by teacher researchers toimprove problems in their classrooms Steps in action research vary from differentpoints of view Creswell (as cited in Hien, 2009) asserts that action research is adynamic, flexible process Hence, it is really impossible to assert this or that researcher

is right with exact four, five, six, seven or eight steps in their action research

Nunan’s action research model is discussed in more details in the researcher’s study since its steps seem to clear- cut enough for the researcher to follow The model includes seven steps In the first step, a problem in language classroom triggers the idea

of action research In the second step, a preliminary investigation is carried out in whichbaseline data are collected to help understand the nature of the problem Next, a

hypothesis is formulated after reviewing the initial data In the fourth step, a number of strategies are devised for intervention The next step is Evaluation in which an

assessment is carried out to evaluate the intervention The sixth step is Dissemination

In this step, a report of the research is published and ideas emerged from the researchare shared The final step is Follow-up with the continual investigation of alternativesolutions for the problem

2.2 Previous research Studies

This Section explores previous studies related to information gap activities Theresearcher has benefited from all the following studies in how to design, use properly,act in different roles, choosing the suitable organization of group -work and pair-work,

adapt the implementation of information gap activities in Tieng Anh 12

Siwi’s study (2011) was conducted with the first year students of a university in

Salatiga, Indonesia in the Academic Year 2011-2012 The study analyzed theimprovement in students’ speaking competence through information gap strategy Themethodology of the study is collaborative classroom action research In this research thewriter was the teacher and assisted by an observer She noted all of the process inlearning activities To find out the improvement of students’ speaking ability she usedtest, namely pre test and post test She used Kemmis’ action research model with twocycles Each cycle of an action research has four steps: plan, act, observe and reflect.The study showed that the students got involved in activities in the teaching process,they were more confident to speak in English than before Information gapstrategy has benefited students’ speaking competence in class

Dua’s study (2011) aimed to work out the causes of students’ low motivation, the

importance of using information activities to motivate students at Phuong DongUniversity to speak English To find the answers to these questions, an action researchbased on Nunan’s action research model was carried out through six main steps, using acombination of 3 data collection instruments (questionnaire, observation, pre-tests and

post-tests) The results showed that the students’ motivation increased significantlywhen

the intervention was implemented

Another research was done by Putri (2014) The objective of the research was toimprove the speaking skills of students grade 8 in Indonesia by using information gapactivities to develop students’ speaking ability in story telling performance Theresearcher used an action research that consists of four steps as proposed by Kemmisand McTaggart The data were quantitative and qualitative The qualitative data wereobtained through observations and interviews The quantitative data were obtained fromtests (the pre-test, the progress test, and the post-test) The result of the research showedthat the use of information gap activities was able to improve the students’ speakingskills The students were more confident to speak in English They could retell the storyfluently and their vocabulary also increased Furthermore, the students were activelyengaged in the teaching learning process

Fuqaha (2015) study was carried out with 41 students of Twelve Grade of MAN

1 Pamekasan Based on the researchers’ observation, he noticed that students’ speakingskill was very not very good because of the classroom mixed ability and the teacher’smonotonous teaching activities To cope of this problem, the researcher employed theInformation gap activities and used an action research to see how it worked In thestudy, the researcher and the collaborator worked together, the researcher acted as theteacher while the collaborator observed the students during the implementation of thestrategy This study was conducted in one cycle consisting of six meetings usingthe four procedures; planning, implementing, observing and reflecting according toKemmis and McTaggart’s model The data of the study were collected through theobservation checklists, field notes, and questionnaires The research findings reveal thatthe Information gap activity has proved very effective to improve students’ speakingskill

Rahimi’s study (2016) investigated the effectiveness of Information Gap

technique in improving students’ speaking skill A quasi experimental research designwas used in this study The population of this study was the eleventh graders of MAN 2Semarang in the academic year 2014/2015 with the number of population around 210students Two classes were taken as the samples with around 60 students The data werecollected by using several activities They were pre-test, treatment, and post-test The

result of this study shows that the use of Information Gap technique in teachingspeaking was better than the conventional method in improving students’ speaking skill.Having studied previous studies on related issues, the researcher comes to severalconclusions To begin with, although the above studies were conducted by differentresearchers in different countries, universities, and schools, administered on differentstudents in different levels, most of the them employed action research method Datawere both quantitative and qualitative Data collection instruments were often in theforms of observation, questionnaires, interviews, and tests The research finds that steps

in action research in the studies vary from different researchers’ points of view Thisidea is supported by Creswell (2005) when he asserts that “action research is a dynamic,flexible process” and there is “no blueprint exists for how to proceed.” In general, most

of the previous research employed either Kemmis & McTaggart’s model or Nunan’smodel because these models are basic and simple ones whose steps are clear to follow.Secondly, most of the studies showed that more care should be given to teachingspeaking skills and indicated that speaking skills needed to be more practical byadopting the communicative approach methods Lastly, most studies revealed thesignificance of using information gap activities in teaching/learning speaking skills

Reviewing previous studies directly relevant to the theme of this study hasenriched the researcher’s background and extended her scope in this issue At the sametime, it can light the way for the researcher to decide the best methodology used in herstudy

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research questions

The study aims to answer the following research questions:

1 What are the causes of the students’ low participation in English speaking activities?

2 To what extent can information gap activities increase the students’ participation

in speaking activities?

3.2 The study design

Action research was utilized in this study because it’s convenient and time

efficient The researcher can combine two duties - teaching and researching at the sametime More importantly, it is beneficial to both teachers and learners since it is

concerned with improving the immediate learning environment (Wallace, 2001) The researcher can apply and test new teaching ideas which are expected to make better changes in her own classroom contexts In this study, Nunan’s action research model (1992) was applied because it is easy to carry out in the researcher’s own classroom in limited time and the steps in Nunan’s model are clear-cut to follow Quantitative data were obtained via questionnaires while qualitative data were mainly collected from observation, semi structured interview and mini projects

3.3 The context and participants of the study

3.3.1 The context of the study

This study was conducted at Thai Nguyen High School for the Gifted where theresearcher works Although the school has received special attention from parents andstudents in local for its education and training quality, it is still a medium- sized school

in the mountainous northern of Vietnam Students have mixed English levels andbackground knowledge as they come from different parts in Thai Nguyen province such

as Thai Nguyen city, Pho Yen town, Phu Binh district, Dai Tu district, Song Cong city

A small group of them are ethnic minority

At Thai Nguyen High School for the Gifted, English is considered an extremelyimportant subject to all students regardless the majors they are learning; hence, thestudents have to study English during three years at Thai Nguyen High School for theGifted and must complete 105 periods of English a year A three-level English languageset of textbooks for Vietnamese upper secondary school are used They follow thesystematic, cyclical and theme-based curriculum approved by the Minister of Educationand Training

The textbook consists of two volumes with 5 topic- based units for each Each unithas a 45 minute- speaking lesson in which only speaking skill is taught However,speaking skill as a tool of discussion is integrated in almost all of other lessons andskills.

Thus, it’s important that students should be well motivated to speak English in class

To begin with, the majority of those students started to learn English when theywere in grade 3 Most of them revealed that they followed the traditional curriculumwhereas only a small number of students from several schools in Thai Nguyen city such

as Nha Trang or Chu Van An had opportunity to get access to the new textbook withtheme- based curriculum This means they all have learnt English for quite a long timebut they had various linguistic background and achieved different levels of Englishproficiency Most of them claimed that they got used to focusing on English grammarrather than skills Moreover, when the investigated students attended the entrance exams

to Thai Nguyen High School for the Gifted, their average English test results werecomparatively lower than ones in other specialized majors such as Math, Chemistry,Physics, Biology and Literature Another important feature that is worth mentioning isthat all of them use Vietnamese in their daily conversations, and they rarely havechances to use English as a means of communication, except for some time in theclassroom with teachers and classmates Almost all of students also said that they hadnever joined any English clubs as well as English extracurricular activities

The researcher was responsible to teach English for Geography class in all threeacademic years In the year 2017- 2018, the researcher began to teach English forHistory

class From the researcher’s own experience and observation, along with the ideas of the

researcher’s colleagues, the researcher found that although many of the students aregood at grammar, they tend to be silent and passive in speaking English They had littlemotivation in speaking lessons Because of the scope of the study, the researcher tries tosketch one small aspect of teaching and learning English of the non-English majors at

Thai Nguyen High School for the Gifted It is speaking skill and how to motivate

students to speak in class

3.4 Procedures of the research

This research was officially carried out over a period of 32 weeks (from January

2018 to August 2018) Based on the selected research model, the following steps weredone one after the other The description of the six-step procedure is presented asfollows:

* Step 1: Initiation (from week 1)

Observing the speaking lessons, the researcher realized that the students’ learningmotivation and their participation in speaking activities were low Therefore, shedecided to identify factors affecting the students’ learning motivation in speaking

lessons and the first research question formed was: "What are the causes of the students’ low participation in English speaking activities?" The survey questionnaire

for preliminary investigation was then developed and piloted

* Step 2: Preliminary investigation (From week 2 to week 3)

Having analysed pilot work, the researcher then revised questionnaires After thatthe survey for preliminary investigation was sent out The data about the learners whichmay be factors affecting students’ motivation in English speaking activities werecollected in order to confirm the problems stated in step 1 and find out the causes ofstudents’ low motivation in speaking lessons (see Appendix 1: questionnaire 1) Withthe aim of collecting further insight information about the factors that inhibited studentsfrom speaking, the researcher, along with the assisted observers had an informalsemi- structured interview with a number of random students from both classes

* Step 3: Hypothesis (From week 4 to week 5)

The analysis and discussion of the initial data led to the possible solution: Using information gap activities to motivate students in speaking lessons

* Step 4: Intervention (from week 6 to week 18)

The intervention was planned with the aim to answer the question: To what extent can information gap activities increase the students’ participation in speaking activities?

The intervention of information gap activities

Based on the information from Questionnaire 1, the researcher found that thestudents were rather silent and passive in speaking English She felt the way to teachEnglish was monotonous or not interesting The students had little motivation to interactand share the information with one another As a result, there should be interestinglearning activities such as information gap activities which create a need for them tospeak English Once students have a reason to speak, they will make every effort toimprove their speaking performance During the implementation of information gaptechniques, various activities have been designed and used to improve students’speaking performance in 5 speaking lessons At the time when information gaptechniques were utilized, students were studying Unit 8: ‘The World of Work’ and Unit9: ‘Choosing Career’ according to the curriculum All the speaking lessons were taught

in April, 2018

In lesson 1, a guessing game was used The purpose of the game is to givestudents free practice about asking Yes/ No questions to guess the job To carry out thegame, students were divided into groups Each group was given a set of job cards,which were placed face down in a pile on the desk Each student in turn took a card

randomly and kept it secret Other students tried to guess the secret job by asking about

10 Yes/ No questions The first student to correctly guess the job was the winner The

missing information The activity was designed to give practice about asking andanswering questions about jobs skills and qualities In this task, students worked inpairs One student has table A, the other has table B (see appendix) Each tablecontains different missing information which could be found in the other Students had

to keep their paper secret while asking and answering questions about jobs skills andqualities Finally, based on the information collected, students made a report on thequalities of each job and told the class about their choice of future job The third lessongave students chances work in pairs in which one student will be the job seeker, theother will be the job advisor They had a personal interview with their partner aboutlikes or dislikes at work and then gave their partner useful advice on their appropriatefuture jobs In lesson 4, students moved around the

classroom freely, asked their classmates to find someone who… and fill in the blanks.After that they should be ready to report the answers in front of the class For example,students needed to find out someone who wants to works on a boat, someone who thinks

working is more fun than studying, or someone who had a part-time job last summer.etc.

They could also ask more questions to find out additional information and noted down.

In the last speaking lesson, the students had opportunity to practice speaking through areal life situation - a job interview In order to carry out the task, the teacher divided herstudents into two major groups: groups of employers (travel agency, shop owner,restaurant owner) and group of candidates by having them randomly pick up a cardwhich told them who they would be After that, the teacher asked the students toprepare for their interview by asking and answering common interview questions.Finally, students acted out the conversations as employers and applicants During theintervention, the speaking lessons were handed in different ways The lessons wereobserved using observation sheet (appendix 4) After the implementation, questionnaire

2 (appendix 2) was conducted to gather information about students’ attitudes towardsinformation gap activities Besides speaking information gap tasks in class, the teacheralso gave students further speaking practice through mini projects

* Step 5: Evaluation (From week 19 to week 25)

Questionnaire 2 was analyzed to gather information about the students’ attitudetowards using information activities in speaking lessons Through the students’responses, the researcher could evaluate the effectiveness of these activities exactly Atthe same time, mini projects from students were collected and given assessments

* Step 6: Dissemination (From week 26 to week 32)

The action research procedure and its results were reorganized and presented inform of a thesis, which was shared with the researchers’ colleagues and some otherteachers, especially younger ones

3.5 Data collection instruments

In order to collect the data, the researcher used a combination of 4 instruments:Questionnaires, interviews, Observations and mini projects to guarantee theobjectiveness of the data

3.5 1 Questionnaires

Questionnaires are used to get the opinions and ideas of our learners and we dothis by asking questions The answers are usually recorded in some ways so that theybecome available for subsequent reflection and analysis (Wallace, 2001) In this study,two questionnaires were designed because they provided the researcher with responseswhich could be easily quantified and analyzed.

Questionnaire 1 contains 4 questions designed to gather information about the students’

reasons for learning English speaking, their attitudes towards learning English speaking,their frequency of unwillingness to speak English in class and the factors leading to theirlow participation in English speaking

Questionnaire 2 contains 6 questions designed to gather information about the students’

attitude towards using information gap in teaching speaking after the six weeks of planimplementation To make sure that the students understood the questions, the researcherspent about 20 minutes guiding them to answer and explaining difficult terms when shedelivered the questionnaires to the students

3.5.2 Semi- structured interview

Semi- structured interview “allow researchers to develop in-depth accounts ofexperiences and perceptions with individuals” Cousin (2009, p 71) Related to thisstudy, with the aim of collecting further insight information to answer the first research

on factors that inhibited students from speaking, the researcher, along with the assistedobservers had an informal semi-structured interview with a number of random studentsfrom both classes

3.5.3 Observations

Observation sheet adapted from Peacock (1997) was used to explore the level of

students’ motivation including the learners’ involvement in the tasks, and the interactionwith other learners to fulfill the tasks

3.5.4 Mini projects

The teacher gave the students opportunities to create their own information gap activities about the topic they have already learnt, making projects in groups The videomade by students are considered a reliable and valuable means to evaluate students’ speaking performances A speaking rubric for fluency activities was used (see

Appendix 6)

3.6 Data analysis

3.6.1 Data collected from preliminary investigation stage

3.6.1.1 Data from Questionnaire 1

Questionnaire 1 was designed to collect general information about students’attitudes towards speaking skills in class and the corresponding factors causing students’low motivation in speaking English The analysis and discussion of these initial datawould help the researcher with the hypothesis to deal with the problem

Question 1: How important is English speaking skill to you?

On being asked about the importance of English speaking skills, 95% of studentsclaimed that speaking skill was important to them Only 5% of them believed thatspeaking skill was not very crucial No student thought that English speaking was notessential at all In brief, almost all of students were well aware of the importance ofEnglish speaking and had positive attitude towards speaking skills

Question 2: Why do you think you need to learn English speaking?

The question was designed to work out the reason why students need to learnEnglish speaking In response to this question, students can choose more than oneanswer Besides, they can freely add their own ideas In response to this question, only 8out of 61 students stated that they were interested in English speaking skill and 12students wanted to be able to communicate in English 20 students believed thatEnglish speaking was necessary for their future job whereas 45 students claimed thatthey learned English speaking because it was mandatory at school A few students(about 6 students) said that the reason for their studying English was their desire to goabroad after finishing secondary education In brief, most of the students were wellaware of the necessity of English for their future job However, the number of studentswho admitted that they studied English because it was a compulsory part in schoolsyllabus accounts for the highest rate, nearly 6 times as many as the ones who are reallykeen on English speaking skill itself

Question 3: How often do you feel unwilling to speak English?

The question aims to find out the frequency of students’ unwillingness to speakEnglish To answer the question, students can choose the most appropriate option Theanswers of the students reveal how often students feel unwilling to speak in English.According to the collected data, 54 students equivalent with 88% always, usually orsometimes felt unwilling to speak English in class Only 7% of the students said thatthey were seldom unwilling to speak A very small portion of students (about 5%)answered that they always looked for chances to interact with their partners in the targetlanguage From the data, the researcher can come to the conclusion that most of themwere not willing to speak English in class although they realized the significance ofEnglish speaking skills So what are the reasons for this situation? The answer can befound through question 3 and question 4 in Questionnaire 1.

Question 4: What factors make you unwilling to speak English in class?

In an attempt to find out factors leading to the students' low motivation, theresearcher gave out the question “What factors make you unwilling to speak English inclass?” To deal with this question, students can provide more than one response.Furthermore, they are able to produce their own answer

Chart 1: Factors causing students’ low participation in

A Being afraid of making mistakes and being laughed at by my classmates and

teachers B Sometimes, speaking learning goal in class is not to communicate in real life situations.

C I have little motivation to talk with my friends in English because I can help myself with the answers when dealing a lot of tasks.

D Monotonous speaking activities.

Chart 1 deals with factors causing students’ low participation in English speakinglesson From the data, it can be clearly seen that there are two key factors raised by themajority of students To begin with, sometimes speaking tasks’ goal was not tocommunicate in ‘real’ English Moreover, many students had little motivation to talkwith their friends in English because they could help themselves with the answers whendealing tasks Another factor reported by one third of students includes the phobia ofmaking mistakes then being laughed at by other classmates In addition, 10 out of 61students revealed that the reason why they did not have a good motivation to speak was

monotonous speaking activities in class About 5 students added their own reasons for

their passiveness in English speaking class They admitted that they sometimes feltunpleasant with the atmosphere in the classroom

3.6.1.2 Data from semi- structured interview

Semi-structured interview gives the researcher some supplementary information

on the above questions In this interview, the researcher collaborated with her assistedobservers randomly interviewed 15 students from two classes Most of them agreed withthe factors listed in the 1st questionnaire However, 7 out of them provided other reasonsfor their low participation in learning speaking skills “We have little time to speak inpairs or groups”, said student A Besides, they often felt unpleasant and stressful withthe atmosphere in the classroom “I don’t like the stressful atmosphere in speakinglessons Most of us are afraid of speaking”, student B and C revealed Anotherimportant reason reported by the students was that they felt bored because the teacherdid not make any changes with the materials and activities in the textbook Student Dsaid “I don’t like some speaking activities in the textbook as they are so boring and Ihad nothing to say about them” These students wished to be included in moreinteresting and authentic speaking activities They also recommended more pair-workand group-work so that they had more time to speak with their classmates Havinggathered students’ ideas and suggestions to the problem, the researcher found that theseopinions are quite reasonable

and they helped to reflect additional causes of students low participation in speakinglessons.

3.6 2 Data from the intervention stage

The application of information gap activities was observed with Observation sheets (seeAppendix 3, 4, 5) to assess the overall motivation and the students’ participation Thestudents’ opinions about the implementation of using information gap activities werecollected through Questionnaire 2

3.6.2.1 Data collected from Observation sheet

Observation sheets adapted from Peacock and (see appendix 3, 4 )look at the data

(between two classes) on students’ participation in terms of two main criteria: students’involvement in the speaking activities and students’ interaction with one another tofulfill the tasks

In order to have a comparison data between some certain points of time duringthe process of information gap activity implementation, the researcher decided tocollaborate with two assisted observers to observe the class in lesson 1 ( the beginningperiod), lesson

3 (the middle period) and lesson 5 (the final period) In speaking lesson 1, students wereasked to work in groups and played a guessing game Speaking lesson 3 dealt with apersonal questionnaire in which students worked in pairs, asking about their partners’likes or dislikes at work Based on the responses, the students gave their friends adviceabout the suitable future career In lesson 5 students had opportunities to work in groupsand took a role play on a job interview

After the implementation period, the data were then collected and analyzed asfollows

Lesson 1 Lesson 3 Lesson 5

not very involved involved strongly involved

Chart 3: Students' interaction in information gap activities

Lesson 1 Lesson 3 Lesson 5

Often keep silent or hesitate too often when speaking Try to communicate and generally respond appropriately always actively stay on the task and communicate effectively

Chart 2 and chart 3 presents data on students’ motivation in terms of students’involvement and students’ interaction with one another in information gap activities

It is clear from the chart that the students’ motivation in information gapactivities was high because a big proportion of students were involved in the speakinglessons and most of the students paid attention to the activities and communicated quiteeffectively

Looking at the information in more detail, in lesson one, a small number ofstudents (corresponding to 8 students) were not very involved in the speaking activities,among which 6 students were reported to be passive in the guessing game On the

contrary, the majority of students were involved in the lesson Especially about onefourth of them (corresponding to 15 students) were strongly keen on and actively tookpart in the lesson 55 out of 61 students were able to interact with their group membersand fulfill the task According to the comments of observers, as the speaking activitieswas a guessing game, the atmosphere in class was quite comfortable and exciting withalmost all of the participation of students in class The passiveness of several studentswere believed to be the result of the over predominance of better students in class.

In lesson 3, there was a slight drop in the number of students who were not veryinvolved and a noticeable increase in the number of strongly involved students (from 20

in lesson 1 to 26 in lesson 3) Simultaneously, only 4 out of 61 students were supposed

to keep silent and hesitate too often when speaking Generally, the rest of studentsmanaged to communicate with their partners They often stayed on the task andresponded quite suitably The teacher’s self evaluation and the ideas from the observersrevealed that the better motivation from the students was derived from the careful pre-teaching stage and a suitability of the activities with the students’ levels

The last lesson provided students chances to practice speaking freely Studentswere divided into groups to act out an interview role-play Overall, 52 out of 61 studentswere seen to be involved and strongly involved in the activity and 25 out of the totalwere able to interact actively and efficiently with their friends to complete the task Onthe contrary, compared to the third lesson carried out in the the middle period, therewere a few more students who were not very involved in the activities and hesitated inspeaking, which interfered with communication Having gathered the comments andsuggestions of the assisted colleagues in the observation sheet, the researcher believedthat the higher degree of challenge of this speaking activities was the main reason.Furthermore, students should have been given more time to discuss and preparecarefully in advance

3.6.2.2 Data collected from questionnaire 2

After observing the implementation of information gap activities, the researchergave survey questionnaire 2 to 61 students with questions about their attitudes towardsthe information gap activities and the effectiveness of the activities when beingexperimented in class