Some certain suggestions to movitate speaking in speaking lesson of 10th grade student

- to investigate students’ difficulties in learning English oral skills and the current situation of teaching the speaking activities to the 10-form students by teachers at Nong Cong 2 H

Part I: INTRODUCTION

I Rationale

With the development of society and the need to integrate into the international economy Vietnam Government has set strategic goals for its own, in which education is considered as one of the leading goals As a result, many changes and amendments to educational policies have made The new set of textbooks, for example, has been modified and applied officicially in high schools nationwide And up to now, the new textbook

‘Tieng Anh 10’ has been officially put in application for five years for 10th grade students The pilot period may be long enough for administrators and teachers to draw out some suitable adaptations, especial speaking skill

However, we can not deny a fact that many Vietnamese students after seven years learning English at schools still feel confused when communicating with foreigners or they even could not say a simple utterance like an offer Obviously, the ability to communicate

in a foreign language clearly and effectively contributes to the success of the learner in school and success later in every phase of life

At Nong Cong 2 High School (NC2.HS), like many high schools in Vietnam, English has been a compulsory subject in its curriculum for many years and the English speaking skill is one of five official parts in a unit However, due to the demand of the high and get them involved in speaking effectively

Moreover, improving speaking skill for 10th form students proves essential because most students have not learned how to speak English when they were at lower secondary school and their speaking ability is extremely poor

All the above mentioned reasons lead to the choice of the study about exprerience

initiative in teaching ‘Some certain suggestions to movitate speaking in speaking lesson of 10th grade students at Nong Cong 2 high school, Thanh hoa” , which means

little attention has been paid to the speaking skill Sometimes, they feel bored with the difficult and uninteresting topics in the textbook ‘Tieng Anh 10’ With 6 year – experience

in NC2.HS, the author finds that the English lessons with speaking activities adapted or designed by teachers always motivate students

II Aims of the study

The aims of the study are:

- to investigate students’ difficulties in learning English oral skills and the current situation of teaching the speaking activities to the 10-form students by teachers at Nong Cong 2 High School

- to adapt some speaking activities based on “Tieng Anh 10” to reduce 10th grade students’s difficulties in learning English oral skills at Nong Cong 2 high school

III Scope of the study

This initiative is carried with no hope that can cover all kinds of English speaking activites because this is a board aspect investigated by many authors The authors’s attempt is only to adapt some difficult speaking activities in “Tieng Anh 10” to reduce students’s difficulties and make them more interested and active in English lesssons, thus, improving their speaking ability

IV Research questions

1 What are students’ difficulties in learning the current English speaking activities

in ‘Tieng Anh 10’?

2 Which speaking lessons (in 16 units of Tieng Anh 10) are difficult for the

students at NC2HS?

3 What speaking activities in the textbook “Tieng Anh 10”should be adapted to reduce students’ difficulties?

V Research methodology

To achieve the aims mentioned above, the study employed survey questionnaire for students, interview for teachers and classroom observations to collect information on the the students’ difficulties and seeks a way to reduce those difficulties by adapting some unsuitable textbook pre-designed English speaking activities in “Tieng Anh 10”

Part II: DEVELOPMENT

I The purpose of material adaptation.

In reality, a textbook can never totally be an effective tool for teachers to follow without any adaptation because of its intrinsic deficiencies such as linguistic inaccuracies, out-of-datedness, lack of authenticity or lack of variety Thus, I favor Madsen and Bowen’s (1978) and Tice’s (1991) view that is the purpose of material adaptation is to compensate for those deficiencies This is important to all teachers of English because it can activate learners and stimulate their motivation, and increased motivation, in turn, is likely to create

a more conductive classroom atmosphere

II Categories of English speaking activities

 Discussion * Conversation

 Telephoning * Announcements

 Role play * Interviews

 Informal Debate * Co-operative learning

III Problems with English speaking and speaking activities

1 Problems with English speaking

Everything has bad and good sides Speaking also has its own problems

According to Brown (1994: 256), the characteristics of spoken language can make oral performance easy as well as in soe cases difficult There are following problems with speaking:

 Clustering * Redundancy

 Reduced forms * Colloquial language

 Stress, rhythm and intonation * Affective factors

 Interaction

2 Problems with English speaking activities

It is more difficult to design and adminster such activities than to do so for listening, reading or writing Teachers often come across the problems that Ur (1996:121) lists out:

 Inhibition * Nothing to say:

 Lows or uneven participation * Mother-tongue use:

Basing on these views, an action research is to caried out on adapting some English speaking activities for the ‘Tieng Anh 10’ to reduce these difficulties

PART III – DATA ANALYSIS

1 Questionnaires.

The questionnaires for teachers and students consist of 5 and 7 questions respectively to collect information focusing the following categories: (see appendix 1 and appendix 2)

- The effectiveness of communicative activities in the textbook ‘Tieng Anh 10

- Students’ perceptions of their difficulties in English speaking skills

- Necessity of changing or adding English speaking activities

- Students’ attitudes towards applying changing or adding English speaking activities and their effectiveness

- Changing or adding English speaking activities applied by teachers and the ones chosen by students

2 The effectiveness of communicative activities in the textbook ‘Tieng Anh 10.

Question 1 in both questionnaires asks about the teachers’ and students’ viewpoints on the effectiveness of the speaking activities presented in 16 units of ‘Tieng Anh 10’

0

20

40

60

80

100

2

72

21

5 6.25

81.25

12.5

0

students teachers

Chart 1 The effectiveness of communicative activities in the textbook ‘Tieng Anh 10.

Most of the teacher (81.25%) and the students (72%) agree that they are not very effective when being taught at NC2 HS, although the new textbook ‘Tieng Anh 10’ is interesting According the teachers, there are some reasons for this First, some activities in the text book are not suitable to rural students of NC2 HS, for example some topics are unfamiliar to them

3 Changing or adding English speaking activities applied by teachers and the ones

chosen by students.

The next two questions in the questionnaire for students aim to investigate the types

of changing or extra oral activities the teachers have applied in the classroom with the textbook ‘Tieng Anh 10’ and the types students believe to be effective when applied in this textbook

Types of English speaking activities Changed by

teachers (%)

Supported by students(%)

Table 4: The English speaking activities adapted by teachers and the changing

activities in tasks of speaking lessons in ‘Tieng Anh 10’ chosen by students.

The table reveals that the teachers have applied most categories of the speaking

activities above This is very helpful because students can provide the designer with

helpful information about the effectiveness of each activity when applied in ‘Tieng

Anh 10’ As seen in the table, students show their most interest in the categories of

information gap, discussion, role play and interview

4 Changing or adding English speaking activities chosen by teachers and their reasons.

Question 3 and 4 in the questionnaire for teachers were designed to get their advice on the types of changing or extra speaking activities for the textbook

‘Tieng Anh 10’ and the reasons for these

Types of English

speaking activities

by teachers(%)

Games It is very interesting but time-consuming and not

profitable

12.50%

Information gap It is easy to prepare and carry out It is also

reasonable for students’ language level

56.25

Discussion Many students can participate in speaking

activities Students like this way It gives students high motivation of brains

68.75

Role play This activity is very useful Students can practice

English phrases or structures in certain situations

75.00

Story telling It is time-consuming to prepare and practice at

class

10.50

Oral report It takes much time to prepare and carried out 8.25

Drama in context It is difficult for students and they have to cope

with the lack of vocabulary

0

Informal Debate It is time-consuming and difficult 0 Co-operative learning It helps students work together and support each

other

45.50

Solving – problem It is quite interesting and give students high

motivation of brains but students sometimes lack vocabulary of English and social knowledge

12.50

Interviews The activity is profitable and it makes students

more confident It is a good way to provide students chances to practice speaking English

56.25

Table 5: The English speaking activities for ‘Tieng Anh 10’ chosen by teachers.

5 Follow-up class observation

In 8 speaking periods which author visited, English speaking activities such as

information gap, role playing, describing pictures and co-operative learning always applied (7 periods) instead of task 2, or 3 in textbook

The class observation also reveals that teachers need to have good preparation for pre-speaking to make the pre-speaking activities more effective such as providing students key words relating to the topic, giving clear instructions

6 Feedback of students towards applying changing or adding English

speaking activities and their effectiveness.

6% 3% 4%

little not at all

Chart 3 Students’ feedback towards applying changing or

adding English speaking activities and their effectiveness.

PART IV - SUGGESTED ADAPTATIONS OF TEXTBOOK ENGLISH SPEAKING ACTIVITIES

In this part, some most common and effective activities such as role play,

discussion, information, telephoning, co-operative learning, interviews are presented The author’ own experience suggests that these activities work effectively when applied to

textbook ‘Tieng Anh 10’ to motivate the 10th form students at NC2.HS in speaking lessons

V.1 ROLE PLAY

V.1 1.Activities 1

Application: Task 3 - Unit 6: An excursion

Aims: Giving opinions, expressing agreement and disagreement

Class time: 20 minutes

Materials: English textbook 10, page 66

Source: Section cards and role cards (See Appendix 6)

Procedure:

1 Copy and cut the 4 role cards of each people and the 6 section cards

2 Divide the class into group of four (or three if there are only three students left)

Give each group one set of role cards and one set of situation cards (for group of three, leave out role card D)

3 Ask the students to sit round the table with the situations cards face down in a pile in the middle of the table The cards should be in order from 1 to 6 Each student should have a role card 1, 2, 3 or 4

4 Tell the students that it is Sunday morning and Tim’s class is going on a boat on

Lake Michigan in Chicago Read the seat plan You suggest the best seat in each

section for each person

5 The object of the game is using structures ‘… think …‘should’ or should not…

because’ Or giving opinions via answers ‘Yes’, ‘No’ basing on the content of textbook

‘Tieng Anh 10’

6 The game is finished when they have successfully decided on each people’s seat Ask groups their decision on some sections and check with the whole class

V.1.2 Activities 2

Application: Task 2 – Unit 3: People’s background

Aims: to encourage students to find out information related to their friends’

background for their presentation next task

Level: Elementary

Class time: 10 minutes

Materials: English textbook 10, page 35

Source: English Textbook 10, Education Press, 2006 (See Appendix 7)

Procedure:

1 The teacher elicits situation and ask students to make questions basing on given information, for example:

2 The teacher introduce some special expression for students to do the natural

conversation

3 Students work in pairs to do the interview

4 Teacher walks around to encourage and help students if necessary

5 Teacher calls some pairs to do the interview before class

After doing this task, students can collect information to talk about the friend they have interviewed for reporting at the end of the lesson Most students are eager to do the task because they can do it in role of the interviewers

V.2 INFORMATION GAP

V.2.1 Activities 1

Application: Task 3 – Unit 1: A day in the life of …

Aims: Talking about daily activities

Class time: 10 minutes

Materials: English textbook 10, page 14

Source: Role cards (See Appendix 8)

1 Copy the two role cards They are the same but some information is missing from each

2 Ask students to work in pairs Give each pairs the 2 role cards

3 Tell the students to complete the form by asking and answering their partner’s questions

e.g A: What does Tom do after school?

B: He often does exercise.

4 Tell the students to write the answers in the boxes or draw the picture

5 Ask the students to write his/ her partner’s name in the last box and ask him/ her the same questions to complete the boxes

6 The activity is finished when students have completed all the missing information Tell students to stand up and make full sentences about the characters in the cards

V.2.2 Activities 2

Application: Task 2 – Unit 15: Cities

Aims: Comparing two cities

Class time: 15 minutes

Materials: English textbook 10, page 159

Source: Role cards – Cities (See Appendix 9)

Procedure:

1 Copy the two role cards - cities They are the same but some information is missing from each

2 Ask students to work in pairs Give each pairs the 2 role cards

3 Tell the students to complete the form by asking and answering their partner’s questions

e.g When was New York founded?

What is population of New York?

How many national holidays are there in New York?

5 The activity is finished when students have completed all the missing information in their cards

6 Ask some students to stand up and talk about the person they have asked their

partners to get the information about their cities

V.3 CO-OPERATIVE LEARNING

V.3.1 Activity 1

Application: Task 1 – Unit 5: Technology and You

Aims: Asking for and giving information about the uses of modern inventions

Class time: 10 minutes

Materials: English textbook 10, page 56

Source: Modern inventions Cards (See Appendix 10)

Procedure:

1 Copy and cut out the 18 modern invention cards above

2 Divide the class into groups of six (or five if there are only five students left) Give

each group one set of job cards

3 Tell the students to put cards face down on the table

4 Ask students to take it turn to pick up a card and ask and answer about the uses of

modern inventions Put some helpful language on the board for them to refer to:

A: Can/ Could you tell me what ……… is used for?

B: It is used to ………

5 The activity is finished when each student has said at least one thing about each of the cards

6 Ask one group to stand up and say about one of the modern inventions in the cards

Ask the other groups to add more information

V.3.2 Activity 2

Application: Task 2 – Unit 11: National Parks

Aims: Expressing regrets (using the conditional sentence type 3)

Class time: 15 minutes

Materials: English textbook 10, page 115

Source: Situation cards - List of wishes (See Appendix 11)

Procedure:

1 Copy the list of wishes and the situation cards, cut out the situation cards

2 Divide the class into groups of six (or five if there are only five students left) Give

each student a list of wishes and two situation cards