Applying some techniques to teach speaking skill through adapting activities for while speaking part in english 10

Learning English is to communicate; however, in while - speaking lessons, students are mostly passive, only write and hardly say, after theSpeaking lesson, students do not know how to ap

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

BIM SON UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

&

Applying some techniques to teach speaking skill through adapting activities for while -speaking part

in English 10 at Bim Son UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL

Teacher: Vu Thi Thanh Nhan

Post: The leader of the foreign language group

School: Bim Son upper secondary school

Subject: English

THANH HOA, YEAR 2018

Part A- INTRODUCTION

I Reasons for choosing the research

Nowadays English has become an international language because it is widelyused in many parts of the world In the tendency of integration of the global economy,English is one of the effective communicative tools for everybody The role of English

is considered to be indispensable in the fields of economics, politics, science, cultureand education, and more and more people want to learn English for communicatingwith foreign partners, tourism, study tours, etc

According to the project "Teaching and Learning Foreign Language in the

National Education System for the period 2008-2020", with the objective is that by

2020 most Vietnamese youth graduated from secondary schools, colleges anduniversities, can use foreign language as a second language to speak independently, to

be confident in communication, to learn, and to work in an integrated, multi-lingual,multi-cultural environment; Foreign language becomes Vietnamese’s strength servingthe cause of industrialization and modernization of the country

Speaking is one of the most important and essential skills that must be practiced

to communicate orally By speaking, people are able to know what kinds of situationsthe world People having ability in speaking will be better in sending and receivinginformation or message to another Speaking is the process of building and sharingmeaning through the uses of verbal and non verbal symbol in various contexts

And speaking skill is an important part of the curriculum in language teachingand speaking has its own way of assessment; according to the Common EuropeanFramework of reference for languages (CEFR), describing students’ level They areC2, C1, B2, B1, A2, A1 and students graduating from high school gain A2

Recognizing that importance, so teaching and learning English in the society areincreasingly concerned; programs and teaching methods are increasingly innovative inorder to meet the needs of the schools The teachers have applied teaching tips andactivities to promote the positive and proactive of the students and create optimalconditions for teaching students, developing and enhancing language skills However,for various reasons, most teachers make use of the textbooks, not invest for the design

of a variety of useful activities Learning English is to communicate; however, in while

- speaking lessons, students are mostly passive, only write and hardly say, after theSpeaking lesson, students do not know how to apply the knowledge in specificsituations This imposes a requirement for the teachers is that people have to organize avariety of activities to improve English speaking effectively and make Sts feel easierand more interested in this subject For those reasons, With all my effort inthinking, exploring, exchanging, discussing with other colleagues in the educationsector along with the rubbing practical work experience in teaching English in high

school for nearly 18 years, I strongly share some ideas, thoughts through the initiative:

Applying some techniques to teach speaking skill through adapting activities for while -speaking part in English 10 at Bim Son upper secondary school.

Hopefully that the results of this study would be shared with any colleagues whohad the same problem or anyone who is interested in this study

II The objectives of the study:

+ Improve the quality of teaching and learning of English at Bim Son uppersecondary school.

+ Increase the duration of the student says (students' talking time) during schoolhours in the classroom and check out the old lessons

+ Improve communication skills of students

+ Promote the central role of the learner

+ Develop thinking language for students not only in English but also in thelearning activities and other activities in daily life

III Scope of the study

The study focuses on some classes of the 10th grade students (from 2014 to 2016 atBim Son upper secondary school

IV Measures carried out:

Study the textbook English 10, read the relevant documents, design some speaking activities in English 10, practice on classes, observation, get feedback fromstudents, based on the results achieved, learn by experiences

while-PART B - CON TENT

I Theoretical basis:

1 Material Adaptation

1.1 Definition of Adapting

Naturally, adaptation is the action or process of adapting or fitting or the stage

of being adapted or fitted Being considered in the points of view of linguistics andeducators, course book adaptation means changing existing course books in order tomake them more suitable for specific learners, teachers or situations (Tomlinson,2000) In addition to this issue, Peacock (1996) states that adaptation is essentially aprocess of ‘matching’ to maximize the appropriateness of teaching materials incontext, by changing some of the internal characteristics of a course book to bettersuit particular circumstances

1.2 Reasons for adapting textbook

The textbook is a stimulus or instrument for teaching and learning.Cunninsworth (1995) makes the statement that:

Textbooks are an effective resource of self-directed learning, an effectiveresource for presentation material, a source of ideas and activities, a reference sourcefor students, a syllabus where they reflect pre-determined learning objectives, andsupport for less experienced teachers having yet to gain in confidence

However, there is no perfect suitable material Therefore, teachers adapttextbook to match it with their teaching environment, their learners, their ownpreferences, the course objectives and the text, tasks and activities

1.3 Types of textbook adaptation

Tanner, R & C Green (1998) estimate that changes of some sort made byteachers are inevitable in order to fit a book with their aims, their setting and most oftheir learners These authors also give various actions teachers can take to tailor a

selected textbook to fit their teaching situation.

You can’t always get what you want

Changes of some sort are inevitable if you want take a book to fit your aims,

your setting, and most of all your learners There are various actions you can

take to tailor a selected textbook to fit your teaching situation

CHANGE

Make small changes to the existing

materials in the textbook

REMOVE

Remove a textbook activity from thelesson

REPLACE

Replace one activity with another

related one which is more suitable

ADD

Add an extra activity in an area notcovered sufficiently in the textbook

(Tanner, R& C Green 1998 Tasks for Teacher Education Harlow: Longman, p 122)

2 An overview on the teaching of speaking

In order to help students to develop their English speaking ability we need insightsabout the nature of spoken discourse, so we will be able to find a useful methodology

to select and design appropriate classroom activities

2.1 Principles for Teaching Speaking

In the communicative model of language teaching, the teacher helps the students

in real life communication They help their students develop the ability to producegrammatically correct, logically connected sentences that are appropriate to specificcontexts According to Nunan (2003), there are some principles for teaching speaking.Some of which are described below:

2.2 Give students practice with both fluency and accuracy

At the beginning and intermediate level of studies, learners must be givenopportunities to improve their fluency as well as accuracy Accuracy means using thetarget language correctly and fluency is using language quickly and confidently Theteacher should not emphasize on any one aspect of speaking Rather, students shouldget practice on both accuracy and fluency

2.3 Use group work or pair work

To improve students’ speaking, they should be given enough opportunities tospeak in class So, teachers talk time should be less and students talk time should bemore It is important for language teachers do not take up all the time According toNunan also, “Pair work and group work can be used to increase the amount of time thatlearners get to speak in the target language during lesson.” In this way, the studentswill get chance to interact and practice the language with other students

3 Challenges in the English Speaking Classroom and the solutions

3.1 Students do not want to talk or say anything

One of the problems is students feel really shy about talking in front of otherstudents, they are suffer from a fear of making mistakes and therefore “losing face” infront of their teacher and their peers Speaking in front of other people needs courage,

motivation from inside, and outside such as joyful atmosphere in the conversation andinteresting topic Further is because there are students who dominate and almostintimidate Another reason for students silence may simply be that the classroomactivities are boring or pitched at the wrong level Many people have a good ability inEnglish language skills but when they should communicate with English, they fail inexpressing their ideas They are afraid and anxious of saying something wrong orincomprehensible One way to encourage students to speak in English is simply tospeak in English as much as possible in classroom

3 2 Students keep using their own language

One problem may teachers face is that students use their native language ratherthan English to perform classroom tasks This might happen because they want tocommunicate something important, and so they use language in the best way theyknow They have difficulty saying something and because they do not want to losetheir face in front of their peers, they think that they better use their native languageand so others can understand them This problem also connected with students do notwant to talk or say anything in the foreign language but they keep using their ownlanguage In this situation, teacher can create an English environment and keepreminding them always use English

3.3 It is difficult to handle students in large classroom

If the classroom is big, for example 30 or 40 students in a classroom, it is clearlythat the students hardly got a chance to practice the language, and difficult for them toask and receive individual attention they need It is hard for the teacher to make contactwith students at the back, to keep good discipline, also to organize dynamic andcreative teaching and learning sessions But there are advantages of a large classroom:when there are many students in a classroom they can share many different ideas,interesting life experiences, learn to share responsibility and help each other duringproject work which can bring variety and speeds up the work

3 4 Students are not discipline in classroom

Some students do not pay attention to the lesson given; they just talk with eachother and make some noises The problems may be because the students are bored withthe activities or they feel unable to cope with the task given They show theirfrustration by disruptive behavior and loud outbursts The discipline of the students inthe classroom is related also to the motivation of the students themselves If they havelow motivation, it means they have low enthusiasm in following the classroom whichmakes them indiscipline in the classroom In this situation, the teacher can createactivities that make students feel enjoy themselves in the class

3 5 The materials do not fulfill the need of students

Language teacher should attempt to associate the language they are teaching withthe situation outside the classroom Smith (1983) in Freeman (1999) has explained thatpeople do not learn if they are confused or bored When school topics do not relate tostudents‟ lives, they may find themselves confused or bored Moreover, when studentscannot understand the language instruction, they may become frustrated Goodteaching-texts for classroom use are not there simply in order to be read, they lead tocomment and interpretation by learners, and illustrate typical pragmatic uses of lexis

and structure They have to be fairly short, so that other activities besidescomprehension can occur They have to be “appropriately accessible” This means ''nottoo difficult for learners to understand but difficult enough to encourage them todevelop further in the language” There are four alternatives when the teacher decidesthe textbook is not appropriate The teacher can omit the lesson, teacher can replace thetextbook lesson with one of the teacher’s own, teacher can add to what is in the book,and the last is teacher to adapt what is in the book (Harmer, 1998:111).

3 6 Students have low motivation to learn English

Nunan (1991) wrote in Lawtie (1999), “Success is measured in terms of theability to carry out a conversation in the (target) language” Therefore, if students donot learn how to speak or do not get any opportunity to speak in the languageclassroom they may soon get de-motivated and lose interest in learning Nevertheless,

if the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking classroom can be a lot of fun,raise learner motivation and make the English language classroom a fun and dynamicplace to study English Their motivation is more likely to increase if the students cansee how their process of classroom learning achieves the objective, and helps them toaccomplish the success The development of communicative skills can only take place

if learners have motivation and opportunity to express their own identity and to relatewith the people around them One key to increasing motivation is to use activitiesmatched to the personalities, learning styles and characteristics of the learners as often

as practically possible

4 How to encourage students to speak

It is very important for teachers to encourage students to speak in the classroom

If they do not encourage them to use the language the students’ speaking ability willnever improve Students usually do not use the target language beyond classroom That

is why they need to speak up in the classroom If the students make any mistake, theteacher can help to correct their mistakes According to Philips, the teacher can do thefollowing things to help their students to speak:

4.1 Encourage students interact

Most of the students feel very shy to speak because they do not acquire the targetlanguage and they are not used to take part in classroom discussion Students do noteven interact with other students or keep silent when they are asked to speak Englishall the time Therefore, it is important to create a comfortable atmosphere in theclassroom where students are not afraid to speak and enjoy communicating with theteacher Students have to be given such atmosphere where they can speak without anypressure and stress

4.2 Make speaking activities communicative

Speaking activities need to be very interesting to encourage meaningfulinteraction between students If the speaking activities are not interesting enough and

do not provide opportunity for students to speak then there is no use of giving speakingactivity According to Philips, “The aim of communication activities is to encouragepurposeful and meaningful interaction between students Communicative tasks aredesigned so that students have a reason or purpose for speaking.” Therefore, teacher

should give such activities so that students can share their thought, express theirfeeling, find out the real information, discuss and argue

4.3 Plan speaking activities carefully

According to Philips, “Speaking activities need to be very carefully structured atfirst at lower levels, thus the students have few demands on them.” At the beginningstage, activities should be easy but good enough for students can use the targetlanguage Students might not be fluent and accurate in speaking but they should notremain quite When they get used to communicate then the teacher can introduce moredifficult activities such as role-plays, discussions, debate and problem-solving tasks

4.4 Speak, speak and speak

No matter what vocabulary or pronunciation you have, you should be as confidentand speak as possible when you have the opportunity Nobody laughs when you make

a mistake, otherwise they can be more enthusiastic to help you fix more The only way

to practice as much as possible is to help you improve fluency, vocabulary Remember that speaking skill is like playing music or playing sports, you will be better

if you practice more

II Practical basic

1 Rationale

Speaking is a crucial part of second language learning and teaching Therefore,the aim of teaching and learning in the classroom is developing students’ ability inspeaking The goal of teaching speaking should improve students’ communicativeskill because students can express themselves and learn how to use language

However, the fact shows that most of the students have difficulties in speaking.The problems are: (1) the students have low motivation to speak English, (2) thestudents are too shy to express their ideas in English, (3) the students feel worried iftheir friends will laugh at them, (4) the students have low ability in masteringgrammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, (5) only few students have greatwillingness to speak in front of the class, and (6) the monotonous teaching approachused by the teacher

The ultimate goal of language learning is communication Grammar and otherskills are also important but high achievement is also intended to support thisobjective The main testing, evaluation has grammar, reading comprehension andwriting are invisible obstacles to teaching and learning for skills, this led to learningand teaching the deadly

Teachers adapt while - Speaking in speaking lessons because of the followingbasic reasons:

- Ask sts to practice skills, apply the knowledge they have learned in class

- Help students to deepen knowledge

- To help students become familiar with the work in the big topic, the method, inpairs, in groups, to share ideas demographic interactive, these activities take time andneed to search external sources of information (such as information on the library, onthe website, or information from the students)

2 Current status of teaching and learning English at Bim Son upper secondary school.

Bim Son upper secondary school is located in Bim Son town, which isconvenient for students to learn English But, in fact hardly almost of the students areaware of learning English because they think that English is a difficult subject andonly learn to pass the national exam so just learn to cope, subjective leads to loss of the

root, and are getting worse and worse In English, many students do not know how to

write and say a word in English, even distinguish words of type: noun, verb, adjective.Most of students are surprised and unresponsive, only a few students know how toanswer Therefore, teachers’ teaching is extremely difficult

First, except for lessons with the teachers attended observing, teachers oftencling to the Tasks of textbook With this request form, the students are all passive,under develop thinking language, abuse of "good book" to cope, or students using theold books have answers already, even the teachers are doing on behalf of the students,too

Secondly, sometimes teachers have organized a number of activities to supportbut does not test, do not score, or check but fail to attract all students

Thirdly, teachers haven’t applied strictly communicative approach to teaching,teachers like saying too much, many control classes , at promoting the initiative,students' positive Teachers organize activities Pair work, Group work ineffective sothey can support each other We are afraid that they will be passive and weak to donothing and students will use their mother tongue when exercising This fix is onlybecause we can call her students to pay all groups and get points for the team, so theyhave to help each other to do well the Tasks that teachers make

Finally, one of the content of GCSE exam and entrance examination that allstudents are worrying is type of the communicational questions It only has a fewquestions; it also helps the students to get marks easily if they try their best to study it

To do well this kind of exercise, they need to have extensive and various knowledgeand apply it in a current situation

The most important factual situation that has urged me to choose this topic isthat the English speaking ability of students in high school is extremely bad thoughspeaking skill is necessary, most students do not like it The achievement of speakingtest is low Moreover, Through teaching process, I have realized that most of them areunable to say English fluently and clearly One of the reasons for this bad situation isthat they have not been guided clearly by their teachers, and they have no ideas, lack

of vocabulary and background knowledge Even they are lazy to give point of view,The teachers cannot control the students’ contribution in group work; Moreover, theteachers always speak Vietnamese and occasionally give a task but do not sayanything, only sit silently, which leads to the inability to figure out the ideas forspecific topic Therefore, each speaking lesson of teachers and pupils are usuallystressful and students just feel very disappointed about their speaking skills, and they

do not want to learn this speaking lesson

3 Description of the solution of the subject

3.1 Notes the new features for adapting

Instead of a fixed grip on the Tasks of the textbook, I designed a number of otheractivities for while-speaking part in English 10 such as:

+ Interview: Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various

people A student will forward to playing a doctor, a teacher, a player and the otherstudents will give the new questions It is a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric

to students so that they know what type of questions they can ask or what path tofollow, but students should prepare their own interview questions Conductinginterviews with people gives students a chance to practice their speaking ability notonly in class but also outside and helps them becoming socialized After interviews,each student can present his or her study to the class Moreover, students can intervieweach other and "introduce" his or her partner to the class

+ Role play/simulation: One other way of getting students to speak is

role-playing Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety ofsocial roles In role-play activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such aswho they are and what they think or feel Thus, the teacher can tell the student that

"You are David, you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and…"(Harmer, 1984)

Role play provides the opportunity for students to develop and revise theirunderstanding and perspectives by exploring thoughts and feelings of characters ingiven situations The teacher may take a role, becoming an active participant inpromoting independent thinking and co-operative learning

Role play helps students to develop empathy as they examine others’ ideas,feelings, and points of view as well as oral expression and interpretation skills as theyuse language to describe perceptions, emotions, and reactions In addition, it also helpsstudents to improve decision-making, problem-solving skills as they gain experienceindependence thinking and co-operative learning

+ Improving a dialogue: The teachers give the topics and ask students improve

the dialogues based on their ideas and expressions This activity can be difficult forstudents, so the teachers have to guide clearly to help them make the dialogues moreeasily

+ Report - Presentation: Report can be made more meaningful to the audience

through the use of visuals such as charts, maps, diagrams, and overheadtransparencies Oral reports should emerge from other English language arts processes

If some students are not comfortable with reporting, they can develop more confidence

by taking part in other oral activities before they are ready to give a report

Students will report back on what we've learned, we've read, what we havediscussed Obviously this is a difficult operation, so students must be prepared andreported in groups or take turns reporting

+ Mapped dialogue : This activity can be done through the use of visuals such

as charts, maps, diagrams The teachers present the map and then students act out andpractice in pairs or in groups

+ Discussion: Discussion differs from conversation in that it generally has an

identifiable purpose, such as coming to clearer understanding of characters’ roles in adrama or exploring the possibilities for publishing student writing Discussion is

similar to conversation with regard to listening carefully, considering what others say,being courteous, and speaking so that all can hear Many of students’ conversationalabilities will transfer to discussion situations

Discussion assists students in the development of reasoning, critical thinking,and problems-solving skills It gives them practice in expressing ideas orally in anorganized manner and enables them to arrive at conclusions, clarity or modify ideas,resolve differences, and find alternative solutions

Groupings of three to five are good for effective discussion Everyone is able tocontribute to the discussion as a listener and as a speaker In addition, a small groupdraws out quieter students who many not contribute to larder group discussions Students will discuss and give opinions on a given topic based on the knowledge theyhad just learned

+ Ranking : Students may rank (put in order of importance) the items on a list

they have made For example, after students have made a long list of clothing words,you can ask those questions “Which are the most important clothes to wear inwinter?” Or after making a list of countries, “Which coun- tries would you like tovisit? Where would you go first?” After making a list of hobbies, “Which of thesehobbies are the most fun?” You can use this active ty to learn nouns during thelesson With a list of character adjectives, like: kind, smart, quite you could ask

“Which of these character do you have? Which of these characteristics describesyour best friend?” To learn the adjectives use this activity making a list of some moreadjectives which you had at the lesson Students may answer their partners or in turn

to the whole class The level of the activity depends on difficulty of the words on thelist

+ Problem - Solving: Present a problem to the students Students work in pairs

or as a whole class to solve the problem For example “Jasur never does hishomework What should his teachers do? What should his parents do?” or “Ranowants to buy a beautiful dress but she doesn’t have much money” Use this activity

to get better results in teaching of “Modal verbs: should, can, must,……”

+ Games: Games are popular activities that teachers often use Those are any

activities that are also considered games when we want students to do and want to findout the winner Obviously, Games are very positive and are highly promoted Teacherscan design the game to suit each specific class, each specific audience to entice morestudents to participate

+ Questionnaire: Teachers will prepare students for a poll Students read the

information, mark, finishing the on-demand content and reporting

3.2 Demonstration: Adapting activities through while-speaking part

- This research will be indicated in speaking lessons for while -speaking part This

is an integral part to gain the target of the lesson

ACTIVITY 1: INTERVIEW - SPEAKING OF UNIT 3

Imagine you are a journalist, use the cues given to interview a classmate abouthis or her background or that of a person he /she knows well Change the roles whenyou have finished

- T asks students to work in pairs to play

- T gives students the following sheet and ask them to study carefully Both the teacherand students get this form and interview

INTERVIEW FORM Order (Interviewer) Guide students to answer

(Interviewee) 1.Greeting (use the starting a conversation in Unit

- What’s your birthday/date of birth?

- When were you born?

My birthday/date of birthis……

I was born………

3 Date of place: - What’s your date of place?

- Where were you born?

- Where do you live?

My date of place is ……

I was born in……

4 Home address

- Where do you live?

- Where are you from?

- Where do you come from?

- I live in…

- I am from/I comefrom… /I hail from…

- I have lived in…….for

….years

5 Family

- How many people are there in your family?

- Can you tell me about your parents? (name/age/job)

- How many brothers and sisters do you have?

- I come from a family of

………./ There are ……./I

do not have any siblings Iwould like to have a……./ I

am the only child …

- They are …… or myfather is …… He is a(an)

……/he works as a(an)

…/he earns his living asa(an)…

6 Subjects:

- What subjects do you study at school?

- What subjects do you like best? Why do you like it?

- I study many subjectssuch as:…

- Among subjects, I like

… most/best because…

7 School work/Experience

- What experience do you have at school? - I like English but I do not

like my English teacher,

- How do you work at school?

+ How long have you worked as a monitor/a leader

of ?

homework,…

8 Thanking: - I think it’s time to stop Thanks a lot.

- Thank you for giving me time

- Not at all/you’vewelcome/…

ACTIVITY 2 : ROLE PLAY/SIMULATION - SPEAKING OF UNIT 11

One student will go to the front and act the role of Nga, the rest of class will askher questions

Suggested questions: - Did you have a good excursion to Huong Pagoda ?

- Did you go by bus? - What did you do there? - What happened?

- Students play the role and act out in front of the class

Model as an example:

Nga’s friend: Last Saturday, I phoned you but you weren’t at home Your dad said that

you were going on an excursion Where did you do?

Nga.I went to Huong Pagoda with my class.

Nga’s friend: Really? Was that fun?

Nga.: Not really?

Nga’s friend: Why so?

Nga.: Most of the things we did went wrong

Nga’s friend: Tell me, how did you do there?

Nga.: If we had not gone by coach, we would not have got carsick ………

SPEAKING OF UNIT 16: One student will go to the board and take the role of the

person who comes from the city which has the historical place Others students inclass will ask him/ her questions

Some suggested questions:

1 What are you proud of your city?

2 Is it important to people in your city?

3 Location: Where is it located/situated?

4 Construction: When was it constructed/ built?

In what year did the construction begin? How many floors are there?

What is each floor used for?(the first floor/the second floor)

What interesting things can we find there?