Challenges in teaching new textbook “english 6” at a secondary school in rural area in hanoi a survey study

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* TRẦN THỊ HẢI YẾN CHALLENGES IN TEACHING NEW

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

TRẦN THỊ HẢI YẾN

CHALLENGES IN TEACHING NEW TEXTBOOK “ENGLISH 6” AT A SECONDARY SCHOOL IN RURAL AREA IN HANOI: A SURVEY STUDY

(Những thách thức trong việc dạy sách giáo khoa Tiếng Anh 6 mới tại một

trường THCS ngoại ô Hà Nội- một nghiên cứu khảo sát)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231,01

HANOI – 2019

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

TRẦN THỊ HẢI YẾN

CHALLENGES IN TEACHING NEW TEXTBOOK “ENGLISH 6” AT A SECONDARY SCHOOL IN RURAL AREA IN HANOI: A SURVEY STUDY

(Những thách thức trong việc dạy sách giáo khoa Tiếng Anh 6 mới tại một

trường THCS ngoại ô Hà Nội- một nghiên cứu khảo sát)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231,01

Supervisor: Dr Tran Thi Thu Hien

HANOI – 2019

DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “ Challenges faced by English teachers in teaching new textbook “English 6” at a secondary school in rural area in Hanoi: a survey study” is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Linguistics This is the result of my own work Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‟s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Approved by Signature

Tran Thi Hai Yen

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my thesis supervisor,

Dr Tran Thi Thu Hien for her appreciated advice, her gradual assistance and her useful correction, without which I would find it difficult to fulfill my thesis

I am grateful to my colleges at secondary school, who are enthusiastic to help me in my data collection process as well as a lot of students who are willing to become participants in my research and support me with valuable responses

Finally, I wish to appreciate my close friend, my classmates, my family who were supportive and helpful to give me necessary advices and stimulation during

my thesis completion

ABSTRACT

This research emphasizes on examining the challenges encountered by English teachers in teaching the new English textbook for 6th grade learners at a secondary school in rural area of Hanoi, and comes up with essential recommendations for the issues For serving as the data sources of this study, three English teachers and 146 grade-6 students at the school have been surveyed and interviewed By triangulating data collected from 3 instruments namely interviews, questionnaires and classroom observations, the challenges faced up with by English teachers were found out, including the learners‟ poor studying habits, learners‟ low level of English proficiency, time constraint, inadequacy of school facilities, shortcoming of supplementary teaching materials, immovable classroom setting and large class size To get better teaching practice with the new textbook “English 6”, the recommendations were proposed as an inevitable part of the study In other words, variety of suggestions for better teaching and using of the new textbook

“English 6” were proposed with regard to the authoritative, the teachers, the learners, and the textbook designers

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATION vi

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Textbooks 4

1.1.1 Definitions of textbooks 4

1.1.2 Roles of textbooks 4

1.1.3 Advantages and disadvantages of textbooks 5

1.2 Communicative language teaching (CLT) 6

1.2.1 Definitions of CLT 6

1.2.2 Principles of CLT 7

1.2.3 Peculiarities of communicative methodology 8

1.2.4 CLT in Vietnamese teaching context 10

1.3 Review of previous related studies 12

1.3.1 Previous oversea studies 12

1.3.2 Previous studies in Vietnam 13

1.4.Chapter summary 14

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 15

2.1 Setting of the study 15

2.2.1 Students 16

2.2.2 Teachers 17

2.3.Research methods 17

2.4 Data collection instruments and procedures 18

2.4.1 Interviews 18

2.4.2 Questionnaires 19

2.4.3 Classroom observation 20

2.5 Data analysis 20

2.6 Chapter summary 20

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 21

3.1 Challenges faced by teachers in teaching new textbook “English 6” at a secondary school in rural area of Hanoi 21

3.1.1.Challenges related to students 21

3.1.2 Challenges related to teaching skills and language components 22

3.1.4.Other challenges 32

3.1.5 Challenges in teaching the new textbook “English 6” compared with teaching the former textbook “English 6” 34

3.2 Implications 34

3.2.1 For school authorities 35

3.2.2.For teachers 35

3.2.3.For students 38

3.2.4.For textbook designers 38

3.3.Chapter summary 38

PART C: CONCLUSION 39

REFERENCES 41 APPENDICE I APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 VI APPENDIX 3 VII APPENDIX 4 XI

LIST OF ABBREVIATION

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching MOET: Ministry of Education and Training CEFR: Common European Framework of Reference NFL: National Foreign Language

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 2.1 The lessons‟ focus of the new textbook “English 6” 16

Table 2.2 The teachers‟ background information 17

Figure 3.1 Students‟ studying habits in English 21

Table 3.1 Lessons ranked according to their levels of difficulty in teaching 22

Table 3.2 Skills ranked according to their degree of difficulty in teaching 23

Figure 3.2.Students‟ challenges in studying listening skills 24

Firgure 3.3 Students‟ challenges in studying speaking skill 25

Firgure 3.4 Students‟ challenges in studying reading skill 26

Figure 3.5 Students‟ challenges in studying writing skill 27

Table 3.3 Language components ranked according to their level of difficulty in teaching 28

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

With the purpose of enhancing English communicative competence effectively among Vietnamese youth, the National Foreign Language (NFL) project has been issued since the year of 2008 To satisfy the objectives set in the NFL project, the need of reformulating English teaching and learning serves as a requirement As a result, since 2012, the series of English textbooks from grade 3 to grade 12 has been published and piloted in a number of Vietnamese institutions The new textbook series has been designed after the communicative approach with the hope of developing communicative competence of the learners This is considered a remarkable change from the former textbook series which also worked with 4 skills but let teachers tend to focus more on grammar Since the series of the new textbooks has been piloted in several schools in Vietnam, most of teachers who teach the books in this series held positive attitude on the books‟ design, content and the book approach In addition, English teachers are encouraged to take part in training courses in new teaching methodology to adapt themselves well with the expected teaching and learning approach of the new textbooks

Beside the positive features of the new textbooks recognized by most of English teachers, the new textbook requires the English teachers a lot of effort to cover all its aspects with expected method within the time bound Being a teacher who has used the new textbook “English 6” in teaching for 2 years, the researcher realized that English teachers faced a number of challenges in teaching the new textbook with the expected teaching method For that reason, the study is carried out with the purpose of revealing the challenges that English teachers face up with in teaching the new English textbooks “English 6” at a secondary school in rural area

of Hanoi, and come up with possible suggestions to solve the stated difficulties

2 Objectives of the study

The interrelated objectives of the study are indentifying the challenges that teachers have faced up with in teaching new textbook “ English 6” issued by

Education Publishing House co-operating with Pearson Education in the rural teaching context in Hanoi, and finding out the solutions to overcome the challenges stated in the research

3 Research questions

In order to identify the teaching challenges as well as work out the implications for the challenges found, it is necessary to solve the answers for the following questions The first question is the main focus of the study

1 What are the challenges faced by English teachers in teaching the new textbook “ English 6”?

2 What are possible suggestions to overcome the challenges found?

4 Methods of the study

The main purpose of this study is to explore challenges teachers encountered

in using the new “English 6” textbook, and propose the recommendations to overcome the challenges To achieve this purpose, a mixed research method with greater emphasis on qualitative and quantitative approach was employed

5 Scope of the study

Due to time constraint and the shortcoming of the minor thesis, the researcher only concentrates on the challenges that teachers coped up with in teaching the new textbook named “English 6” Accordingly, the focus on the other subject matters including the other new textbooks in the new series with other types

of teachers and learners is out of the scope of the study

6 Significance of the study

Theoretically, due to the fact that the new textbook is designed after the communicative approach, this study involves in discovering the challenges in conducting communicative teaching methodology in Vietnamese teaching context

In particular, the finding of this research is supposed to make a significant contribution to the development of the pedagogical practice of teaching and studying with the new textbooks in the new series in general, and with the new textbook “ English 6” in specific

In addition, the study can also be a practical source of reference for teachers who are teaching English in the same context

7 Design of the thesis

The study consists of 3 parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion

Part A Introduction, presents the general introduction of the study,

consisting of rationale, objetives of the study, research questions, methods, scope,

significance and design of the study

Part B Development, consist of three chapters: Literature review,

Methodology, Findings and Discussion

Chapter I Literature review, presents the most important works related to

the textbooks and communicative teaching methodology, including: textbook definitions, roles of textbook, merits and demerits of the textbooks, communicative language teaching definitions, communicative teaching principles, perculiarities of communicative languaguage teaching, communicative language teaching in Vietnamese pedagogical context

Chapter II Methodology, provides information about research methods,

setting, participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedures, data analysis procedure

Chapter III Findings and Discussion, analyses and discusses the data

collected from teacher interviews, survey questionnaires, classroom observations

At the same time, the implications are proposed as an inevitable part of the study

Part C Conclusion , presents the major findings, limitations of the study

and ends up with ideas for further studies

References and indexes serve as the last components of the thesis

aiding students with their studying in a specific branch After that, it was claimed by

Byrd (2001: 415-427) that textbooks were considered as the main source for teaching and learning procedure, which served as the centralized desicion –making agents prescribed by Ministry of Education Further, it was also defined clearly in Longman dictionary that textbooks were books containing series of lessons frequently used for the specific subject

Above all, it can be concluded from the definitions mentioned above that textbooks serve as the main document that assisted the studying of the learners in a particular academic domain In Vietnam, textbooks are regarded as the major coursebooks that teachers and students followed in their teaching and studying at school They are promulgated by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) and irreplacable without the permission of MOET

1.1.2 Roles of textbooks

A number of researchers have claimed that there was a great amount of necessity that textbooks brought about First, according to Hutchinson and Torres (1994: 315-328), text books could serve as supporting teaching tools for teachers and as the instruments of modification and alteration Also, learners need text books

to guide them towards the hard process of learning Besides, McGrath (2002: 8-10) mentioned that textbooks provide teachers and learners with a structure of teaching and learning, methodological support, opportunities for revision and preparation

Gelfman, et al (2004) provided a basic outline for the intermediary role of the textbooks, including: (i) instructing learners in forming the new knowledge, (ii) making a balance between the detail and precision of the information, (iii) including

a systematic knowledge,(iv) suggesting new ideas, (v)supporting learners with dimensional information

To sum up, the textbooks serve as important source for both teachers and learners in their teaching and studying process Textbooks provide teachers with specialized help, including preparation, modification and review activities For learners, textbooks accompany them with instruction in forming and evaluating knowledge systematically This study also affirms that textbook plays a crucial role

in processing the studying of learners as well as backing up the teaching procedure effectively

1.1.3 Advantages and disadvantages of textbooks

The value of using textbooks is apparently undeniable The subsequent explanations were obviously made for the importance of using textbooks in teaching Firstly, according to Ur (1996: 184), the advantages of textbooks were mentioned as followed: (i) textbooks role as a visible map for teaching and learning process, which ensured that the teachers and learners were going on right track; (ii) textbooks serve as syllabi in which the language content was scientifically organized and calculated, (iii) textbooks encompass ready-made texts and tasks in appropriate levels for saving teaching time and effort; (iv) textbooks are at affordable price for users; (v) teachers could make use of textbooks as an insurance

of knowledge on every occasion that they were undecided or whensover they were inexperienced teachers; (vi) for learners, textbooks could be exploited as an elemntary source for their self-studying in which they were provided with available drills for reevaluation and constructing original ideas

According to Richard (2001: 2), the disadvantages of textbooks were included as followed: (i) textbooks comprise inauthentic language; (ii) the subject matters encompassed in the textbooks could be biased for eluding debated issues;

(iii) textbooks are incompatible with learners‟ needs; (iv) the exploitation of textbooks could contribute to teachers‟ tendency of de-skilling themselves; (v) the cost of textbooks could be expensive for several learners

All in one, the benefits of using textbooks were various, including the capacity of giving lessons to learners methodically, and offering essential assistance for novice teachers Besides , there are drawbacks that could be seen in using textbook for teaching and studying, which include the mismatch of the textbooks and learners‟ needs, the matter of controversial topics, inauthentic inputs, teachers‟ skills or the textbooks‟cost

1.2 Communicative language teaching (CLT)

1.2.1 Definitions of CLT

There have been a number of theorists who have claimed the definitions of CLT According to Richard (1974: 2), CLT could be understood as a system of principles about the goals of language teaching, the method learners learned a language , the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the roles

of teachers and learners in the classroom CLT begins a movement away from conventional lessons formats where the focus is on fluency of variety of grammar items which are recyled through controlled activities toward the employment of co-operative work and project work Teachers are assumed to be the facilitator and monitor of the students‟ learning process Learners now have to promote their activeness to take part in cooperative rather than individualistic approach to learning

Further, Nunan (1989: 194) emphasised that CLT embraces a series of meaningful expressions for meaning, which also emcompasses activities for strengthening oral communication In term of objective, CLT developes not only learners‟ linguistic but also communicative competence Teachers take responsibilities as the facilitators of the learning process; the learners roles as negotiators, and integrators Resources which are supplied in communicative teaching are authentic and task-based

Brown (2007: 44) defined CLT as an approach to methodology of language teaching that focuses on authenticity, communication, student-centered studying, task based activities, and communicative transaction for the real world with meaningful functions

In summary, CLT focuses on meaningful tasks that create the communication opportunities through collaborative works Further, according to CLT approach, teacher‟s role and students‟ role have been transformed significantly compared with the traditional teaching method In particular, teachers and students interact considerately in teaching and learning process; learners actively participate

in their studying activities; teachers are facilitators, supporters, inspirers in their students‟ learning process

1.2.2 Principles of CLT

There were a numbers of theorists who have made an effort to work out the principles of CLT For circumstances, Nunan (1991: 279-295) stated 5 principles of CLT consisting of: (i) the weight of interactive activities, (ii) the significance of authentic materials, (iii) the individual learning progress, (iv) the personal experience reflection, (v) the practice of the target language in the social context Xiaoqing (1996: 14-24) included 5 principles of CLT, which were: (i) produce interactive activities and present the information gap, (ii) provide brief explanation and diverse drills, (iii) focus on both accurateness and smoothness, (iv) stimulate the use of English and use of mother tongue when necessary, (v) promote integration of all four skills with varying stresses on specific skills of different stages

Doughty and Long (2003:89) defined a series of principles which can be used as a guideline for applying CLT, which included: (i): using tasks as systematics principles, (ii) learning by doing, (iii) input needs to be diverse, (iv) input needs to be significant, apprehensible and particular; (v) enforcing coordinated learning; (vi) emphasizing on form; (vii) producing error corrective feedback; (viii) accepting affective factors of learning

In conclusion, CLT encompasses of a variety of principles which in general focus on the collaborative learning, the meaningfulness of the inputs, the integration

of skills, the significance of target language environment, and personal studying progress

1.2.3 Peculiarities of communicative methodology

The practice of four language skills including: listening, speaking, reading and writing plays an important role in developing learners‟ communicative proficiency With respect to that, it was mentioned by Richards and Rodgers (1991: 66) that CLT aims at : (a) making communicative competene the target of language teaching ; (b) developing procedures for teaching of four language skills including productive skills ( speaking and writing) as well as receptive skills ( listening and

reading) that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication

In addition, according to Semistraitis (2003: 7-10), the peculiarities of the Communicative Approach were characterized by promotion of learners‟ communicative ability through a wide range of language skills and communicative assessment system

1.2.2.1 Developing reading skills

Reading is a cognitive form of perception through printed word It is an individual work First, in every circumstance, teachers have to explicit the reason for reading for learners, and learners need a sense of interest in the reading text Second, reading must be purposeful when the students use their cognitive ability to analyze the reading questions, solve the question logically base on what they read Finally, because reading enriches the vocabulary, teachers must associate what is read with the students‟ personal experience and personal emotional impressions It can be a topic for discussions in the class

1.2.3.2 Developing listening skills

Oral forms of language communication are listening comprehension and conversation That was the reason why listening and speaking sort should be taught interchangeably, and one skill should be the base for developing the others For

teaching effective listening, it is teachers‟ determination to direct students to comprehend the gist of particular listening texts despite its kinds of text or speed of recordings

1.2.3.3 Developing speaking skills

It is vital that teachers make the freedom of the frame of communicative abilities clear to the students In another words, it is necessary to stimulate students

to act together to the highest degree in class regardless to their failure or success For obtaining this goal, first and foremost, the interactive activities should be reinforced The basic spoken communication including imitating, retelling should come first, and go along with more challenging tasks as soon as students grasp significant amount of lexicon and sentence structures Specifically, the grammatical rules, by any means, should not impede comprehension as well as transmittance of the conversation In another word, forms are used in their grammatical correctness; nevertheless, it is advisable to prioritize the smoothness of the speech

1.2.3.4 Developing writing skills

In developing writing skill for learners, teachers are suggested to take into account the significance of writing For circumstance, firstly, writing is an evident that represents the learners‟ personal advancement, though it might be not always reflects the existent condition Moreover, writing develops learners‟ logical thinking which its concentration is on the major viewpoints Last but not least, writing is effective to learners whose dominant studying manner was writing

1.2.3.5 Testing

Testing is an integrated part of the learning process Henceforth, testing must

be completed in terms of communication Testing is necessary to cover full aspects

of language: listening comprehension, reading comprehension, writing abilities, speaking abilities

Above all, the perculiarities of CLT supposed that language skills must be promoted with the purpose of enhancing learners‟ communicative ability Additionally, the testing system should be in communicative form for matching

with the communicative requirements In this study, the researcher also investigated thoughtfully the teaching of skills in the new textbook for the reason that this provided one of the most essential evidence for CLT implication in Vietnamese teaching context

1.2.4 CLT in Vietnamese teaching context

According to Greg (2000: 24), CLT is not familiar practice in Vietnam until the educational reform of teaching and learning English Since CLT was implemented in Vietnamese teaching context, several constraints have arisen, which hindered English teachers in teaching English after communicative approach A number of studies have been conducted to discover the difficulties of implementing

CLT in Vietnamese teaching environment

The study of Greg (2000: 25, 26) inserted that the difficulties in applying CLT in Vietnamese teaching contexts derived from the students, teachers and educational system Regard to difficulties started from students, they are said to be lack of incentive for communicative competence; make resistance to class presence, have low English aptitude, use mother tongue during collaborative work; the challenges related to teachers constitute of feeling of inadequacy, absence of training in CLT, failure to access communicative competence; in term of educational system, the problem of lack of conductive facilities, sizable and mixed-level classes act under CLT constraints

According to Le Van Canh (2001:36), 3 obstacles that impede the CLT application are: (i) the challenge in establishing a realistic second language situation; (ii) the conventional language testing system; (iii) the class capacity and teaching schedule It was mentioned that the students have no real-life communication requisites in the target language; testing system which focuses on memorization of language rules causes tension for students Besides, class size ranging from 45 to 53 students with the long rows of fixed desks caused inconvenience for any classroom interaction In addition, the teaching timetable of 3-5 hours per week was said to be few

The article of Hoang Van Van (2018: 16) mentioned 6 difficulties that hinder

teachers in teaching, which encompass of the following factors: (i) English teachers‟ proficiency; (ii) the classroom constraints, (iii) materials constraints; (iv) the teaching time limitation; (v) the misapplication of CLT in practical classroom; (vi) the discrepancy between the teaching and testing requirement in English It was mentioned that most of the English teachers at middle school, in particular, were disqualified; classes are populous together with poor –equipped libraries; materials for teaching and serviceable rooms for learning English are not available in most of schools; the teaching time was few which allowed 2-3 hours a week; conducting CLT by Vietnamese English is unable since the focus of the examinations were on passing the end-of school and university entrance; the teaching and testing types did not match properly since the focus of the test was on lexical-grammatical knowledge, regardless of communicative competence

Above all, the researchers have showed that in trying to use CLT in teaching English in Vietnam, English teachers have run into many problems The result implied that the challenges in using CLT in teaching English as foreign language are associated with both institute and impartial factors, which included limited teachers and students‟ aptitude, the substandard institute‟s furnishing, large class capacity, time bound and discrepancy of teaching and language assessment system

In this study, the stated factors were considered thoughtfully for the reason that they might be the challenges that teachers of English encounter in their teaching process

1.2.5 Definitions of “Challenges”

According to Cambridge dictionary, challenge was defined as the

circumstance that needs great mental or physical effort so as to be completed successfully and therefore evaluate a person‟s capacity Besides, it was stated in the Merriam-Webster dictionary that challenge was the act or process of inventing or testing physiological activity by exposure to a specific substance Further, in

and difficult which demands great effort and determination

All above, Challenge in the context of this study constitutes the problems that

teachers are encountering while teaching the new textbook “English 6”, which affect their teaching negatively

1.3 Review of previous related studies

1.3.1 Previous oversea studies

In this part, the researcher presents the studies conducted with the purpose

of investigating the use of the textbooks by teachers, and exploring the challenges they might come up with in using the books They are the studies by El-Helou (2010), Srakang & Anchalee (2014), Andreas (2017)

The study of El-Helou (2010) investigated the difficulties facing English teachers in teaching literature in English with Palestine grade twelve textbook which has been prescribed by the Ministry of Education, and suggested recommendations for overcoming the difficulties The basic instrument used in the study included questionnaires The finding of the study was that the challenges in teaching Literature in English comprised of learners‟ weakness in English skills, the learners‟ ignorance of language skills, absence of essential teaching appliances, the learners‟ disregard of literature, the learners‟ inability in analyzing the text, and the hard exam The suggestion for the stated issues was the support from the supervisors for teachers with training courses

In 2014, Srakang et al explored the use of English textbooks, including difficulties teachers encountered in using them The major instruments used in the study consist of questionnaires, classroom observations, se-mi structured interviews The problems in teaching with the textbook showed in the study were attributed to the mismatch of the learners‟ language proficiency and the level of language input

in the textbook Further, the textbook did not familiarize their learners with examination-type questions Besides, sizeable classes were other significant problem in using the textbook

The study of Andreas (2017) discovered the use of the digital textbook among teachers The instruments used in the study included the interviews with teachers, the Hybrid model which the researcher collected data from wide range of sources (representatives, conferences, colleagues) The result showed in the study was that the teachers, despite being willing to use the digital textbook, they were lack of knowledge of using them The suggestion for the issues was providing more training courses for the teachers

1.3.2 Previous studies in Vietnam

In Vietnam, the topic of textbook has received the attention of a number of researchers Some most recent studies which are presented in this part are the studies by An Thuy Linh (2007), Dinh Thi Minh Huong (2007), and Bui Thi Thu

Ha (2010)

The study of An Thuy Linh (2007) expored the use of the new textbook English 9 among the English teachers in some schools in Hanoi By using questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations as major data collection instruments, it was presumed that the challenges teachers faced were mainly in teaching listening, speaking and grammar in the new textbook The reason was that the classrooms were cramped, the teaching time was inadequate, and the grammar is sometimes irrelevant to the topics

In 2007, Dinh Thi Minh Huong concerned with investigating the potency and downside of using new textbook English 10 among English teachers in Hanam province The instruments used in this study were survey questionnaires, classroom observations and interviews for the teachers Above all, the author decideded that teachers encountered some difficulties related to the classroom conditions which caused teachers troubles in using the recent textbook with the supposed method The study of Bui Thi Thu Ha (2010) dealt with the challenges facing teachers and learners in working with the textbook English 8 The researcher has exploited questionaires, interviews and class observations as the major study instruments The result of the study showed that the difficulties involved in inferior classroom conditions and facilities, class extent, time allowance, and constraints on applying CLT

In summary, both the oversea and Vietnamese studies have identified a number of problems that hindered English teachers‟ use of the textbook The difficulties primarily originated from teachers‟ proficiency, students‟ language competence, school infrastructure, class capacity, teaching time bound In this study, the researcher also tries to explore the difficulties that hinder the teachers of English in their teaching procedure with the new textbook

1.4.Chapter summary

In this chapter, the theoretical background and previous studies related to the thesis topic are presented They are the basis for the researcher to design the interview questions, the questionnaires, and classroom observation task to find out

challenges faced by English teachers at the secondary school was conducted

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1 Setting of the study

The study is conducted at a secondary school founded in 2006 in a rural area

of Hanoi The school has 15 classes There are 4 classes of grade 6 and each class has approximately 40 students The classes are not well equipped with just a blackboard and 2-seated desks Modern teaching facilities such as projectors, interactive boards or even speakers, cassettes are not available

For teaching English in this school, the new textbook “English 6” has been given into use since 2016 English is considered a compulsory subject with one hour and twenty five minutes for schooling every week The time running for one lesson

in an individual unit lasts for 45 minutes All the teachers of English at this school are Vietnamese

Before the new textbook “English 6”, the book “Tiếng Anh 6” published by Vietnam Education Publishing House has been used authioritatively as English textbook for grade- 6 students at secondary schools in Vietnam This is a structural-approach textbook which contains a chain of tasks for students to practice with the vocabulary and grammar in each unit The book contains 16 units at diverse topics:

Greetings, At school, At home, Big or small, Things I do, Places, Your house, Out and About, The body, Staying healthy, What do you eat, Sports and past time,

Activities and seasons, Making plans, Countries, Man and the environment

Since 2013 , the new textbook “English 6”, compiled by Vietnam Education Publishing House co-operating with Pearson Publishing House has been taught in a number of secondary schools in Vietnam as the new English textbook This is the first book of the four-level English language textbook for Vietnamese students of middle schools studying English as a foreign language The themes included in the

new textbook “English 6” are: Our communities, Our heritage, Our world, Vision

of the future In contrast to the former English textbook, the newly introduced

textbook is a communicative-approach document which centers in developing

learners‟ English communicative competence through practice of four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing, the concentration on cultural speciality, the evaluation of learners‟ soft skills Further, the book takes learners as the centeres of the learning process It is expected that grade-6 students‟ English competence will be equal to level of A2.1 according to CEFR ( Common European Framework of Reference ) after they complete program English 6

The new textbook consists of 12 units; each unit subsists of 7 lessons The time allotted for teaching each lesson lasts for 45 minutes The following table presents the focus of each lesson within one unit included in the new textbook

“English 6”

Table 2.1 The lessons’ focus of the new textbook “English 6”

vocabularies and grammar practice

countries around the world

and project

A revision of language and skills in the unit through a

wide range of tasks, exercises, activities

2.2 Participants

2.2.1 Students

The study was carried out with the participation of students from four 6thform classes At their primary school, students have studied English as an obligatory subject since they were in grade 3 The English textbooks used for

teaching and learning English were “Tieng Anh 3,4,5” published by Education

Publishing House In other words, students had 3-year experience in studying English before engaging in studying curriculum with the new English text book in the middle school Conjointly, augmenting materials for studying English at

primary school were not varied Likewise, parents did not pay considerable care for their children‟s studying English at this age

2.2.2 Teachers

The study was operated with the involvement of 2 female and 1 male teachers of English in the intended school All of them are experienced teachers who had approximately twenty years teaching English in secondary school They have taught the new textbook “English 6” for 2 years

Table 2.2 The teachers’ background information

- Certificate of English language teaching

methodology

-Certificate of IT application in English teaching -Certificate of English language teaching

methodology

-Certificate of IT application in English teaching -Certificate of English language teaching

methodology

2.3.Research methods

The objectives of this study are to investigate the challenges that faced by English teachers in teaching the new textbook “English 6”, as well as propose possible suggestions to overcome the mentioned challenges The researcher employed both the quantitative and qualitative methods in this study It is believed that a combination of varied methods to collect data will provide more reliable and valid result for the study

Survey research is a commonly used method of collecting information about a population of interest The benefit of using survey research is that it is inexpensive, flexible, extensive Data collection is much simpler with surveys, which tend to use

easy tool to read data sources that can be compiled and analyzed There are many different types of surveys Questionnaire is one form of survey method In this research, the data was collected through questionnaires since it was useful in collecting data from a large number of population

While the data collected from the questionnaire was analyzed quantitatively, the data obtained from the interviews and classroom observations were analyzed qualitatively The researcher displays the quantitative data in forms of charts The qualitative data obtained from the interviews and classroom observations was thoughtfully analyzed and integrated by the researcher

2.4 Data collection instruments and procedures

This study is conducted at a secondary school which consisted of 3 English teachers and 146 students in 4 classes of grade 6 For that reason, the interviews with English teachers were conducted to obtain the data on the challenges faced by them in teaching the new textbook “English 6‟ In order to interpret thoughtfully the results obtained from the teachers‟ interviews, the questionnaires for students were employed to investigate their habits of studying English as well as their difficulties

in studying skills in the new textbook Further, classroom observations were employed as an additional data collection instrument for investigating the challenged faced by teachers in teaching different lessons in the new textbook Finally, all the data were analyzed later on statistical and descriptive basis

2.4.1 Interviews

In order to explore the confrontations faced by English teachers in teaching the updated textbook “English 6”, a list of interview questions for three teachers was designed by the researcher determinedly The semi-structured interviews with the teachers were carried out to gather data on the teacher‟s assumptions on challenges withstanding them in teaching new textbook, and work out the suggestions for conquering the challenges The interview questions were designed

by the researcher herself at week 4 of the school year, and conducted at week 5 of the school year There were 8 interview questions for the teachers In details,

question 1 -7 aims at finding out challenges related to their teaching of the new textbook such as their learners, the skills taught, the language components, teaching procedure , and the school infrastructure, etc The last question of the interview asked for the teachers‟ recommendation for better teaching and using of the new textbook All of the interviews were carried out in Vietnamese, so that the interviewees could explicit their opinions more precisely and specifically The

responses were taken note under the permission of the interviewees

2.4.2 Questionnaires

The survey questionnaires were designed based on the results obtained from the teachers‟ interviews with the purpose of verifying and triangulating the data collected Since the new textbook “English 6” is the main document used for studying English among grade-6 students and the teacher has to work directly with students and the new textbook itself; for that reason, the questionnaire for students was designed in order to discover the students‟ English studying habits and their difficulties in dealing with studying skills in the new textbook “English 6” The difficulties obtained from the questionnaire for students reveals the challenges in teaching the new textbook “English 6” faced by English teachers Without the questionnaires for students, the study is deprived from essential source which discloses the challenges faced by English teachers in teaching the new textbook

“English 6”

The questionnaires for students were written in Vietnamese in the most advisable way for them to comprehend the questions The questionnaires were constructed with 2 main parts with 12 questions The first part (from question 1 to question 7) were to investigate students‟ studying habits; the other one (from question 8 to question 12) were to explore the problems that students face up with in learning language skills in the new textbook English 6 The researcher implemented the survey for students with the population of 146 grade-6 learners who used the new textbook English 6 for one year They were distributed at week 7

of the school year

2.4.3 Classroom observation

The researcher attended all English lessons: Getting started, A closer look 1,

A closer look 2, Communication, Skills 1, Skills 2, Looking back and Project, and

then noted down reflections on the issues that teachers and learners faced up with in each lesson Each classroom observation lasted for 45 minutes Two teachers participated in teaching the lessons because the other was not responsible for teaching English 6 in recent school year The classroom observations were carried out at different weeks, including week 5,6,7 of the school year The descriptions were saved to serve the purpose of analyzing later

2.5 Data analysis

To avoid discrepancy or possible bias, the data obtained from the questionnaires and the interviews was organized and analyzed by the researcher unassisted The result from the teacher interviews and classroom observation was analysed, integrated, and categorized into varied groups The data from student questionnaires was analyzed statistically, and illustrated in form of charts for better comprehension Above all, three sources of data including interview, questionnaires and classroom observation were evaluated triangulately with the purpose of clarifying the challenges coped up with by teachers of English in teaching the new textbook “English 6”

2.6 Chapter summary

This chapter reviewed the setting of the study, the research methods, the research instruments, and data collecting procedure as well as data analysis procedure The research methods are considered as the guidelines for the researcher to follow in order to find out the answer for the research questions raised in the first chapter

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Challenges faced by teachers in teaching new textbook “English 6” at a secondary school in rural area of Hanoi

3.1.1.Challenges related to students

Question 1 in the interview aims at investigating challenges encountered by teachers arisen from their learners According to the results from the teachers‟ interviews, all three teachers informed that one of the biggest obstacles that they had to overcome in teaching the new textbook “English 6” originated in students‟ competence in rural area This was caused by both subjective and objective reasons Objectivelly, in suburb of Hanoi, most of the students had limited chance to access

to study opportunities outside classrooms such as taking part in an English club, learning English with foreigners or having Internet connection available most of the time More than that, their parents spent unconsiderable care for their studying at home Subjectivelly, most of students had poor habits of studying English outside classrooms

Figure 3.1 Students’ studying habits in English

The above chart showed the result obtained from the students‟ questionnaires It can be easily seen from the chart, a relatively small number of

students had a good studying habit in English In detail, just nearly haft of the students (46.7%) responded that they owned an Internet- connected computer at home; the similar number of students (46%) joined in an extra English class; and an average number of students (44%) had the custom of watching films, videos, or reading stories in English at home As we can see, nearly one third of learners (31%) recieved assitance in studying English from their parents Further, 27% and 23% of the students used reference books in studying English and e-book or websites to learn English respectively- the figures which were slightly low

The result gained from the classroom observations supported that almost students did not have the habit of speaking and discusing in target language In another words, due to the fact that they were not exposed frequently to an English surrounding as well as because of their poor habits of learning English, the use of English among students in class is attributed to be at low level

3.1.2 Challenges related to teaching skills and language components

Question 2,3,4 of the interview revealed the challenges that English teachers coped up with in teaching skills and language components in the new textbook

“English 6” Being asked to rank the lessons from the most difficult to the least difficult in teaching with the new textbook, the result was recorded as following

Table 3.1 Lessons ranked according to their levels of difficulty in teaching

6 Getting started, Listen and Read

7 Looking back and Project

In the interview, Communication ranked the most challenging lesson to teach

by two third of the teacher In another word, two in three teachers informed that half

of the communication lessons end up without achieving the objectives of the lessons due to time constraint and students‟English levels One third of the interviewees reported that the reason of integrating skills in this lesson made it the most demanding lesson to teach

The result obtained from the classroom observation in Communication lesson revealed that due to time constraint, communicative event which is the main focus of the lesson was forced to be reduced by both teachers and students Consequently, one of the biggest obstacle that teacher has to overcome is the time limitation in teaching Communication lesson

3.1.2.1 Challenges related to teaching skills

In the new textbook “English 6”, four language skills are intergrated to teach

in lessons “Skills 1” containing Reading and Speaking , and “Skills 2”, consisting

of Listening and Writing

According to the interviews with teachers, 100% of the participants reported that they encountered a several challenges in teaching language skills in the new textbook “English 6” Being asked to rank the skills according to their level of difficulty in teaching , the result showed as follow

Table 3.2 Skills ranked according to their degree of difficulty in teaching