Sử dụng các trò chơi giao tiếp để tăng cường sự tham gia của học sinh trong các giờ học kỹ năng nói tại trường THPT hoành bồ, quảng ninh

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES NGUYỄN HỒNG THẮM USING COMMUNICATIVE GAMES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN ORAL ACTIVITIES AT HOANH BO HIGH SCHOOL, QUANG NINH

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

NGUYỄN HỒNG THẮM

USING COMMUNICATIVE GAMES TO ENHANCE

STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN ORAL ACTIVITIES AT HOANH BO HIGH SCHOOL, QUANG NINH PROVINCE

SỬ DỤNG CÁC TRÒ CHƠI GIAO TIẾP ĐỂ TĂNG CƯỜNG

SỰ THAM GIA CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG CÁC GIỜ HỌC KỸ NĂNG

NÓI TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT HOÀNH BỒ, QUẢNG NINH

M.A THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201

THAI NGUYEN – 2019

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN HỒNG THẮM

USING COMMUNICATIVE GAMES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN ORAL ACTIVITIES AT HOANH BO HIGH SCHOOL, QUANG NINH PROVINCE

Sử dụng các trò chơi giao tiếp để tăng cường sự tham gia của học sinh trong các giờ học kỹ năng nói tại trường THPT Hoành Bồ, QuảngNinh

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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I hereby declare that this submission of the minor thesis entitled “Using

Communicative Games to enhance Students’ Participation in Oral Activities at Hoanh Bo High School, QuangNinh Province” is my own work To the best of

my knowledge, it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at SFL or any other educational institutions The thesis has not been submitted to any other examining body and has not been published Any contribution made to research by others is explicily acknowledged in the thesis

Thai Nguyen, July 2019

Nguyen Hong Tham

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Supervisor 1: Dr Nguyen Thi Mai Huong

Supervisor 2: Dr Nguyen Thi Que

Date: July, 2019

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DEDICATION

To my parents who taught me to be more patient,

My siblings,

My husband, Nguyen Ngoc Binh

My two sons, Nguyen Duy Phuong, Nguyen Hai Nam

And my friends For their endless support And being my constant sources of inspiration

I am indebted to all the teachers at School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University for their invaluable lessons, suggestions, moral support and prayers for the completion of this study;

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Mrs Dang Thi Hien, the Headmaster of Hoanh Bo High School for her permission to conduct the study

Thanks are due to all the teachers of English at Hoanh Bo High School for their suggestions and validation of the test items and questionnaires

Last but not least, I would like to send my sincere thanks to all the students

in 10A5 class at Hoanh Bo High School, the respondents of the study, for their willingness in joining the experimental learning period and answering follow-up questionnaires

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ABSTRACT

The goal of this study was to evaluate the impacts of communicative games and activities on students’ participation in oral lessons as validated through teachers’ classroom observations and perceived by students participating in the program The respondents of the study include 30 grade 10A5 students and two teacher observers at Hoanh Bo High School in Quang Ninh province during their second semester of the school year 2018-2019

The study was conducted during 8 weeks in which different communicative games and activities were introduced to teach speaking skill Students’ participation was evaluated through 8 classroom observation sheets marked by two teacher observers during class visits In addition, a set of questionnaire was delivered to students upon the accomplishment of the experimental teaching period regarding their perception on level of participation in speaking as well as their evaluation of the whole learning period after being exposed to communicative activities and games

The result of the study has shown that Communicative Games used in the pilot teaching enhanced students’ participation in oral activities and students’ attitudes towards Communicative Games used in the experimental teaching period were positive Therefore, Communicative Games are recommended in classroom teaching to enhance students’ participation in oral activities

10 1.1 Introduction and rationale for the stud 1

17 CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATUREAND

21 2.1.1.2 Characteristics of successful oral activities 8

22 2.1.1.3 Students’ participation in oral activities 10

23 2.1.2 Factors impacting on students’ participation in oral

activitie

11

28 2.1.3.1 The nature of communicative language games 12

29 2.1.3.2 The benefits of communicative language games 13

37 3.4.1 Results of classroom observations 19

38 3.4.2 Results from students’ questionaire 20

39 3.4.2.1 General information of the student respondents 20

40 3.4.2.2 Students’ perceptions on communicative activities 21

41 3.4.2.3 Students’ evaluation towards the experimental

learning period being exposed to the use of communicative

games

21

43 4.1 Results of Classroom observations 24

44 4.2 Results from Students’ questionnaire 24

45 4.2.1 General information of the student respondents 24

46 4.2.2 Students’ perceptions on communicative activities 25

47 4.2.3 Students’ evaluation towards the experimental learning

period being exposed to the use of communicative games

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50 5.1.1 Results of the classroom observations 33

51 5.1.2 Results of the students’ questionnaire 34

57 APPENDIX B: A LETTER TO THE RESPONDENTS II

58 APPENDIX C: A LETTER TO TEACHER OBSERVERS III

60 APPENDIX E: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS VI

61 APPENDIX F: THE RESULTS OF QUESTIONNAIRE FOR

STUDENTS

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

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LIST OF TABLES

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction and rationale for the study

With the trend of globalization, English has been asserting its significant and dominant role as a lingua franca, an international language, and a tool for integration and development among all countries in all fields ranging from politics, diplomacy, economy, education, travel to culture etc And Vietnam is not an exception

Since Vietnam’s participation in WTO in 2007 and particularly the launch of ASEAN community in 2015, the global and regional integration has necessarily led

to the arising requirement of fostering English teaching and learning across the country so as to prepare for future generations of Vietnamese citizens who can possess good English communication skills to be able to work cooperatively and competitively in global markets Therefore, English has been made a compulsory subject in most of public schools in Vietnam In addition to that, much attention has also been paid into the improvement of English teaching methods to upgrade the quality of teaching English in the entire educational system As a result, the teaching and learning of English have also been changing from the traditional grammar-centered approach focusing on students’ ability to use correct grammatical rules into communicative approach emphasizing communicative competences in four main skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing

Of all the mentioned skills, speaking seems to play the core function in a foreign language and also the main purpose that most of English learners desire to achieve According to Pattison (1992), a majority of language learners in the world study English with the target of attaining good English-oral competence In this regard, the mastery of English speaking requires the learners to be good at both linguistic knowledge and communicative competence to deal with each specific situation Due to these requirements, teaching and learning English in Vietnamese high schools has often encountered with a lot of challenges and difficulties

As an English teacher at Hoanh Bo High School in Quang Ninh province for over ten years, the researcher has identified one of the challenges deterring the

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development of communication skills, that is, the students here are reluctant to participate in oral activities, which has led to their poor speaking performance The result of which may cause students a lack of confidence in learning English at higher education or, even worse, a fear in communicating with foreigners in their future workplace, which is extremely counterproductive in the context of globalization Hence, it is essential to find out the factors affecting students’ participation in classroom speaking lessons so that appropriate solutions will be offered to tackle the problem

Of all aforementioned observations, together with the researcher’s own interest in helping her students to become competent global citizens in the future, a study on “Using Communicative Games to enhance students’ participation in oral activities at Hoanh Bo High School, Quang Ninh province” was chosen as a topic of her research

1.2 Aims of the study

The main purpose of this research is to improve students’ participation in oral activities through the use of Communicative Games (CGA) in Hoanh Bo High School, Quang Ninh province

More specifically, the study aims to find the answers to the following questions:

1 How does Communicative Games enhance students’ participation in oral activities?

2 What are the students’ attitudes towards Communicative Games?

1.3 Scope of the study

The research is concerned with the strategies to enhance students’ participation in oral activities to the students in the author’ own teaching context Accordingly, the research scope included a total of thirty students in class 10A5 of Hoanh Bo High School, Quang Ninh province They were selected as the

in speaking skill Speaking skill is the productive skill of English teaching and learning goal but the result of the teaching and learning process was not maximal Most of the students found difficulties in speaking such as they could not use English based on the target language The monotonous activities and their failure in mastering the skill causes them had low motivation, so they sometimes get bored or uninterested in the lesson

In the teaching of speaking, both teachers and students are influenced each other in that process The teacher is a facilitator learning personal and social change

by assisting the developing person at those points where help is requested Teacher should have a set of exercises, tasks or other activities for the students in their classes It is really beneficial and positive experience to try various classroom activities in CLT approach By using the communicative games and activities, the teacher will easily motivate students to communicate in English in classrooms She/he has to be creative to prevent student’s boredom because of decreasing interest and motivation

Any solutions must be acquired to solve problem appeared in the teaching and learning process Communicative language games are the good way to solve the problems that have been discussed in this case in which teachers can use effective communicative games to teach students while these were having fun In addition, by using communicative language games, students will have more opportunities to practice their speaking ability They also will be more creative in improving their

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ideas to speak up Consequently, the speaking class activities will better enhance students participation in class

1.5 Significance of the study

The findings of this study would be beneficial and of great help to the following:

In the past time, the students learned English with the main focus on grammatical issues; however, four English skills in general and English speaking skill in particular are concentrated as much as grammar So most of the teachers at high schools do not realize the importance of oral communication skill in the full development of the four English skills In the textbook, English speaking skill is designed separately, and each oral skill lesson is taught within 45 minutes every week However, practicing English activities does not still end after speaking lessons It is because that both reading lessons and listening ones often contain some post-reading and post-listening activities relating to speaking skill Therefore, the enhancement of students’ contribution in English oral activities is very important There is much hope that this would be useful and practical for both the teachers and learners of English

For teachers at Hoanh Bo high school in particular and teachers of English in

Vietnam in particular, this study will shed light on common communicative games and activities that are interesting, effective and appropriate to students’ level of English to motivate students to communicate in English and enhance their participation in speaking lessons

For high school students, the research will benefit them directly as the center

of learning process as they will be experiencing different games and activities in learning speaking As a result, it is expected that they will find motivation to improve their speaking ability

For administrators, it is obvious that the results of the study will evoke

possible policies from authorities to encourage teachers of English to try various

Communicative games refers to a set of well fun-design activities can be

stimulated students’ interaction in the classroom

Students’ participation refer to students’ involvement in classroom activities,

which emphasizes on the interaction between teachers and students, students and

students, and students to the materials

Speaking is defined as the productive skill in the oral mode.

1.7 Structure of the thesis

This minor thesis is divided into five main parts

Chapter 1: Introduction

This part aims to provide an introduction about the dissertation, which includes the rationale of the study, aims of the study, research questions, significance of the research, research scope and definition of terms

Chapter 2 is the Literature review The purpose of this chapter is to present a theoretical framework for the research It consists of the related literature to the research problem, including overview of speaking, students’ participation in oral activities, the influencing factors and the CLT method to enhance the students’ involvement in communicative activities

Chapter 3 is Research Methodology Accordingly, the chapter aims to deal with the suitability of methods, the characteristics of respondents, the sample size, data collection instruments and data analytical methods

Chapter 4 is Analysis and interpretation of data In this chapter, data collected will be analyzed to draw related findings, along with the discussion on these findings will be also presented to fulfill the research objectives

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Chapter 5 includes summary of findings, conclusion and Recommendations Based on the above analysis, this part aims to propose the recommendations to enhance the students’ participation in the Hoanh Bo High School A conclusion is also presented to generalize all the findings in the study

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CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter aims at presenting a theoretical framework for the research, which consists of related literature to the research problems Accordingly, its contents can be structured into three main parts The first part will discuss the aspects of speaking such as the definitions of speaking, characteristics of successful oral activities and students’ participation in oral activities The second section deals with factors impacting the students’ involvement into oral activities that consists of students’ factors, teachers’ factors and classroom environment Last but not least, the final part presents the issues of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), and strategies used in the trial teaching to enhance the students’ participation in oral classes

According to Widdowson (1978), speaking can be understood in two ways: in terms of usage, and in terms of use In terms of its usage, speaking is producing bits

of language such as words and sentences that are grammatically correct by means of the vocal organs Here, speaking is simply a productive skill that is expressed through the aural medium However, in terms of its use, speaking is both productive and receptive In this sense, it is a communicative activity which occurs in natural

to co-operate in the management of turns It also typically takes place in real time” This idea was also supported by J Harmer (2001: 269) who claimed that in order for a learner to speak fluently, he or she has not only to have linguistic knowledge, but also to have the ability to communicate appropriately

The ability to speak in a foreign language is a very difficult and hard task It is

so because, as Pawlak, Kimczak, and Majer (2011) argued, it requires the learner to have a good mastery of language subsystems, and to use them automatically and without much thinking in a natural communication focusing on both producing and understanding others’ speech Speaking also requires the learner to have a sufficient knowledge about the purpose, the manner, and the time to communicate, and to be skilled in manipulating and controlling interaction (Pawlak et.al, 2011) Therefore, speaking skill should be given much focus in the language classroom

2.1.1.2 Characteristics of successful oral activities

Having explained the term of speaking from the linguistic point of view, another step to present the principles of a good lesson is devoted to interaction between students Needless to say, the key to a successful speaking lesson is a successful speaking activity Nonetheless, it might not be easy to design and that is why teachers should be familiar with the basic characteristics of a profitable oral exercise

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According to Ur (1996), the successful oral activities have common the following characteristics First of all, learners talk a lot as much as possible, in which a majority of time allocation is taken up with learner’s participation Second, participation is fairly distributed among the learners, meaning that all of them have the chance to practice speaking equally Third, motivation is high It means that learners are interested in the speaking lesson and willing to contribute to complete

an oral task Fourth, language is of an acceptable level The language expressed among the speakers is easily understood to each other, in an acceptable level of accuracy and validity

Another feature of a successful speaking activity, pointed by Brown (2001) is even participation All students should get a chance to speak; moreover, contributions ought to be fairly evenly distributed Therefore, teachers’ task is to strive towards engaging the less active learners and make sure that all students are involved in an equal way Additionally, a task ought not to be dominated by a few students who like to take control over an exercise Dobson (1989) suggests that in order to make sure that every learner has a possibility to practise the target language; the teacher can appoint a group representative responsible for equal participation among peers Motivation also plays an important role in a successful lesson devoted to speaking Without showing a genuine concentration on performing a task, the class faces no efficiency To meet learners‟ eagerness in a lesson, the teacher ought to choose topics that are of genuine interest among the suitable group of students Topics which appeal to teenagers, however, may not appeal to adult learners and thus they may not willingly take part in an activity There are two main kinds of motivation: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation According to Harmer (2001), “extrinsical motivation is caused by any number of outside factors, for example, the need to pass an exam, the hope of financial reward, or the possibility of future travel.” A student feels obliged to acquire a language because outside factors motivate him or her to learning The second kind of motivation − intrinsic motivation, on the contrary, stands in total contrast to extrinsic one since it comes from within the person (Harmer, 2001) The

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last but not least important principle, mentioned by Ur (1996), is the acceptable level of the language used An educator can achieve it by selecting activities whose language level is similar to students‟ linguistic level Such oral tasks empower students and give learners the possibility to clearly express their ideas and opinions through fluent speech

2.1.1.3 Students’ participation in oral activities

According to Lee (2005), participation usually means students speaking in class which consists of answer and asks questions, make comments, and join in discussions Students who do not participate in those ways mentioned above are often considered to be passive in the classroom Besides that, according to Zolten and Long (2006), paying attention, being on task, responding to questions, participating in group discussions, asking questions, seeking help and making good use of class time also considered as classroom participation This is also similar with O’Brien (2007) who stated that participation means completing the assigned readings, asking questions about anything in the readings or discussion that needs clarification or expansion, offering ideas and responses, listening to the ideas and responses of others, and paying attention and showing respect in the classroom to the teacher and to other students

Accordingly, students’ participation refers to students’ involvement in classroom activities, which emphasizes on the interaction between teachers and students, students and students, and students to the materials In case of oral activities, teachers interact with students through instructing, supporting and co-operation, in which students become the self-centered in the class activities Students also interact with other students in the form of group discussion, co-operation and contribution to the task given In the interaction between students and materials, good, interesting and clear materials will promote students to participate

in the speaking lessons From these interactions, it can be said that students’ participation in oral activities is influenced by the factors sourced from teachers, students and classroom (Ellis, 1994)

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Thus, in general, classroom participation requires students to interact in the classrooms to indicate that they are learning and paying attention Hence this study defines students’ participation in English language classroom as interacting with teacher or peers in form of answering and asking questions, making comments, and join in discussion by giving opinions and responds Besides that, it also emphasis students’ attention to the teacher and peers to make sure they understand their questions or opinions so that they can express their thoughts and feeling to make sure their active participation in the classroom and also in the lesson

2.1.2 Factors impacting on students’ participation in oral activities

2.1.2.1 Students’ factors

Students’ learning styles, which can be categorized into four groups: concrete,

analytical, communicative and authority-oriented learners With each learning style, students contribute different degree of participation into oral activities Among the styles, communicative learners show much more willingness to take part in speaking tasks, while authority-oriented learners tend to work independently and prefer non-communicative activities (Willing, K (1988); Ellis, 1985; Brown, 1994)

Students’ language level It is common that students get lower English

proficiency will express more fear of errors and as a consequence, they become unconfident and reluctant with participating oral activities (Tsui, 1996) Similarly, students’ anxiety also causes negative impacts on the students’ participation in speaking lessons, which results from their self-doubt and unwillingness (Scovel, 1978)

Students’ motivation Ur (1996) stated that the degree of motivation influence

directly on the learners’ involvement in speaking activities, meaning that more motivated students feel, more actively they participate in these tasks

2.1.2.2 Teachers’ factors

In the teachers’ interaction, the factors that can influence students’ involvement include teachers’ methods, roles and characteristics First of all, a

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teacher can play the roles as a controller, organizer, assessor, leader, motivator, instructors and observer (Harmer, 1999); or depend on the stages of speaking process: the presentation, the practice and the production (Byrne, 1986) In specific, the most important teachers’ role is a motivator in the practice stage with the purpose to facilitate students’ participation in oral activities Second, teachers’ method, which refers to the techniques used in teaching English lessons Obviously, applying appropriate teaching methods helps promote students to be more actively involved with the given tasks And third, the teachers’ characteristics It means that

in order to motivate students’ participation, the teachers first need to be one that students can trust and respect, which also create a good relationship between teachers and students (Barry, 1993)

2.1.2.3 Classroom’s factors

Regarding to oral activities, classroom’s factors can consist of classroom atmosphere and size Underwood (1987) states that a good learning and teaching environment can encourage learners to be more willing and motivated into the lessons Besides, Ur (1993) also adds that a classroom with smaller size will decrease their fears or reluctance to participate in the oral activities, hence facilitate their contribution into speaking lessons

2.1.3 Using Communicative Language Games in teaching speaking

2.1.3.1 The nature of communicative language games

Communicative game is a set of well fun-design activities can stimulate students’ interaction in the classroom These games require them to take part actively in classroom by speaking and writing in order to express their own point of view or give information More than that, students’ confidence will be automatically formed due to its concept in building habits of interaction Game means “an activity with rules, a goal and an element of fun” (Hadfield, 1996) In addition, game is “an activity in which the learners play and usually interact with others” (Wright et al., 2006) They added that in order to express their own point of view or give

refers to the communicative approach in which teaching-learning activity avoids the

concentration towards grammar and vocabulary but emphasizes on the significance

of language function (Harmer, 200) In other words, these activities will involve students in real communication, where the achievement of their communicative task

is more important than the accuracy of language they use Therefore, it can give positive impact towards students’ motivation and classroom atmosphere which in line with Michael J Wallace (1987), language games are used for increasing emphasis on the importance of motivation and the appropriate kind of positive effective atmosphere in the classroom

2.1.3.2 The benefits of communicative language games

There are some advantages that student may get from the use of communicative language games:

1) Motivating students‟ learning with fun, enjoyment and excitement Games are highly motivating (Wright et.al, 1984) Enjoyment, excitement and passion are naturally generated from playing games As Haldfield (1990) indicates, games are enjoyable activates with a set of rules or terms against each other Lavery (2001) adds that learner forget they are studying They lose themselves in the fun of the game and the activity that motivates them When pupils are enjoying playing games, at the same time, they are learning language unconsciously

2) Giving chances to use language in authentic contexts In game situations, learners are exposing themselves to the target language environment It is supported

by Littlewood (1981) who says that games provide learners with chances and

5) Promoting interpersonal relations Games have benefit to construct cooperative activities involving communicative interaction which provides many opportunities for cooperative relationships The cooperative relationship can be both among students, and between the teacher and students Therefore, in game situations the class is often divided into pairs or groups, which make students naturally, interact with others (Littlewood, 1981)

2.1.3.3 Types of games

According to Hadfield (1999), games can be pictured as competitive games in which players race to be the first to reach the goal and co-operative games in which players work together toward a common goal He also classified the activity into two, linguistic and communicative games Linguistic games more concern the correctness of language in term of grammatical item, while communicative games

2) Information gap games: In such games, one or more people have information that other people need to complete a task For instance, one person might have a drawing and their partner needs to create a similar drawing by listening to the information given by the person with the drawing Information gap games can involve a one-way information gap, such as the drawing game just described, or a two-way information gap, in which each person has unique information, such as in a Spot-the-Difference task, where each person has a slightly different picture, and the task is to identify the differences It can be one side or reciprocal

3) Guessing games: The player with the information deliberately holds it while others guess what it might be These are a variation on information gap games One

of the best-known examples of a guessing game is 20 Questions, in which one person thinks of a famous person, place, or thing The other participants can ask 20 Yes/No questions to find clues in order to guess who or what the person is thinking

of

4) Search games: These games are yet another variant on two-way information gap games, with everyone giving and seeking information Find Someone Who is a well-known example Students are given a grid The task is to fill in all the cells in the grid with the name of a classmate who fits that cell, e.g., someone who is a vegetarian Students circulate, asking and answering questions to complete their own grid and help classmates complete theirs

5) Matching games: As the name implies, participants need to find a match for

a word, picture, or card For example, students place 30-word cards, composed of

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15 pairs, face down in random order Each person turns over two cards at a time, with the goal of turning over a matching pair, by using their memory

6) Matching-up games (Jigsaw principle): Each player is a group who has lists

of opinions, preferences or possibilities Only one of these is shared by everyone in the group Through discussion, the group must decide on a common preference, in order to agree on something such as a dinner date or choice of afternoon activity 7) Labeling games: These are a form of matching, in that participants match labels and pictures

8) Exchanging and collecting games: In these games, students have a certain card, other objects, or ideas as a group and then exchange those between groups The games are based on the barter principle

9) Puzzle-solving activities: The participants in the game pool information in order to solve a problem or a mystery For example: What happened on Friday at Tom’s party?

10) Role-play games: Role play can involve students playing roles that they do not play in real-life, such as dentist It is used as subordinate to the game for the purpose of language use

11) Simulation: These activities create an imitation in the classroom of total situation where the class becomes a street, a hotel, or a supermarket

2.2 Related studies

In this research, the design of its theoretical framework is based on some related studies of Vietnamese researchers as followings:

Doan Thi Van Yen (2014) conducted a research which focuses on using

lessons at Ly Thuong Kiet High School, Bac Giang province In this study, an action research was employed for data collection and analysis The research findings revealed that both students and previous teachers’ factors led to students’ poor participation, and using stimulation activities can help improve students’ involvement in oral lessons

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Similarly, Nguyen Thi Thu Hien (2013) also discussed the use of task-based language teaching to raise students’ engagement in speaking lessons among the pupils of Duc Thien Vocational School Through conducting survey and interview questionnaire, it is also investigated that the students’ participation is impacted negatively by both themselves and their English teachers

Taking communicative games into consideration, Nguyen Thi Huyen Trang (2015) made a research that emphasized the usage of pictures as a motivating factor

in speaking lessons In specific, the author designed some games and activities using pictures to motivate students speak up in speaking class such as: describing, matching, ordering, identifying, grouping, sequencing and memorizing Based on the result of pre and post-test, it is found that using pictures in communicative activities can enhance learning motivation of students in speaking lessons Some pedagogical implications of the study are also discussed for learning and teaching speaking to second or foreign language learners In the same regard, Nguyen Thi Thu and Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc (2017) also investigated the students’ opinions about communicative activities in English speaking class among 10students in Toan Thang high school, Ho Chi Minh City Accordingly, the research mentioned the usage of oral activities including: discussion, communication game, replaying instruction, problem-solving, role-playing, etc the results show that the success of a speaking lesson in general and a communicative activity in particular depended much on the teachers Without the teachers’ careful preparation, the lesson might not achieve success

a series of steps or in cycles as proposed by Kemmis & Mc Taggart (1988) which basically comprises four stages: plan, act, observe, and reflect Prior to the implementation of the CAR, the study did through procedural step which begin with the preliminary study in search for identifying the real problems in the teaching and learning English Suyanto (2008) states that a preliminary study starts from sense of dissatisfaction of the present practice which bears problems of teaching and learning The problems are identified, analyzed and formulated to search for alternative solutions

In this study, quantitative data were collected for analysis and interpretation First of all, a set of survey questionnaires was designed to gather essential data from a group of 30 students studying in class 10A5 at Hoanh Bo High School The questionnaire was conducted after an intervention teaching to identify the students’ feedbacks on whether the strategy used in the teaching period enhanced students’ participation in speaking

In addition, 8 classroom observations with specific criteria for evaluation were carried out during the trial classroom teaching by two colleagues of foreign language division to evaluate students’ level of participation during lessons

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Furthermore, open-ended questions in the survey questionnaires and observation sheets asking for suggestions and recommendations would serve as valuable ideas to support chapter 5 of the research

3.2 The participants

HighSchool, which is located in a mountainous rural district in Quang Ninh province Most of the students in this school are ethnic minorities; thus, they have less chance to practice English communication than those in other areas Therefore, their English proficiency seems to be low, especially speaking fluency Hence, the students’ participation in oral activities is also limited because majority of them seem be unconfident in their ability when practicing speaking To be more specific, the author conducted an intervention teaching with 30 students in 10A5 class using the textbook English 10, the only materials applied in the teaching curriculum for the students in grade 10 at Hoanh Bo High School

3.3 Data collection instrument

Data collection included two instruments: a survey questionnaire, and 8 observation sheets

The questionnaire concerns students’ evaluation and attitudes towards the Communicative Games used in the intervention teaching period

Observation sheets were employed during the intervention teaching whereby the researcher applied Communicative Games to increase their involvement within two months, which included several games such as role-playing, information gap, discussion, etc The observations were evaluated by two other colleagues during the trial teaching to check if students actively participated in classroom activities

3.4 Research Procedures

Following are the major steps which were implemented in the study:

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3.4.1 Planning

During the teaching at Hoanh Bo high school, the researcher discovered that students were passive and reluctant to participate in English classes, especially, they were afraid of speaking in class Therefore, the researcher browsed many ideas, suggestions, techniques or strategies on the internet to improve students’ participation Of all the strategies claimed to be effective to help students join oral lessons activities, communicative games seem to be the best choice Therefore, the researcher applied several language games in her teaching and examine its effects

on students’ participation in speaking classroom After that, the researcher developed 8 teaching plans with detailed lesson plans incorporating games in different parts of the teaching content

3.4.2 Acting

The intervention teaching using Communicative Games were implemented

minutes during each lesson to let students play different kinds of games and complete a variety of oral tasks During the teaching, observations were carried out

by the two other colleagues at her school regarding students’ level of participation

in the classrooms At the end of the period, a survey questionnaire was delivered to ask for students’ perception on their participation and their evaluation on the strategy used

3.4.3 Observing

Quantitative research method was employed to interpret the data The survey questionnaire was interpreted using frequency, mean and percentage while the observation sheets were analyzed using Mean and SD in Likert’s Scale The observers also filled eight observation sheets about students’ involvement in classroom activities By doing so, I could document and reflect upon the interaction and level of participation when participating in communicative games

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3.4.4 Reflecting

After doing the action, the researcher continued to the step namely reflection

In this step the researcher reflected how the teaching and learning process runs The function of reflection is to know the weaknesses and the strengths of the action The researcher made an evaluation from the results of the survey questionnaire and also from the observation done by the observers during the teaching and learning process

In this case, after the trial teaching period, data analysis and interpretation, the author summarized the results and gave some suggestions regarding the use of communicative games in teaching speaking The results and feedbacks were positive, I would then recommend the use of this technique to my colleagues at Quang Ninh province

3.4.5 Revising

Based upon the results and suggestions gathered, the author intended to further develop appropriate plans regarding the strategy used

4.1 Results of Classroom observations

The classroom observation results are illustrated in Table 3as follows:

Table 1.Classroom observation results

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Table 1 indicates the results of classroom observations during 8 experimental lessons taught with communicative games At first glance, it is noticeable that

teacher respondents generally evaluated the students’ level of participation as High

with an overall mean of 3.54 It is therefore obvious that most of the students in 10A5 class showed high learning interest and motivation when participating in the oral activities designed in their speaking lessons The finding poses a positive feedback for classroom teaching if involving communicative games in any part of a lesson

Looking at the figures in more details, questions 6 and 8 got the highest

Mean value of 4.13 that is also interpreted as High It means that teacher observers

agreed that a larger number of students actively joined in group discussions, and

their ideas, answers and questions were relevant and appropriate to learning activities Hence, the level of active participation into group-work activities among

10A5 students is high These findings are supported by the findings in researches conducted by Nguyen, T H T.(2015), Nguyen, T T and Nguyen, T B N (2017) which also state that group work is one of the activities that involve the highest level of participation among students in classrooms

Questions 3 and 5 got the same mean values of 3.63 while questions 7 and 10

also had the similar means of 3.50 which were all categorized as High The results

indicated that students’ high level of participation reflected in their strong focus on the learning activity, particularly communicative games with minimum disruptions,

in exhibiting confidence in answering questions given by teacher or other students,

in confidently offering ideas and responses to issues or problems during oral activities and in interest and enthusiasm while using positive humor in playing communicative games

In contrast, question 9 has the lowest Mean value of 3.0 with a verbal

interpretation of Medium, which reflects students’ moderate level of exhibiting

confidence in using English as a major means of communication during classroom activities It may result from the fact that most students are familiar with the traditional teaching method with Vietnamese as the main language of

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communication in English classes instead of communicative activities, thus they seem to be less confident when using only English in these activities Hence, it is suggested that the English teachers should consider adding the communicative activities in their lessons to raise the students’ confidence

4.2 Results from Students’ questionnaire

4.2.1 General information of the student respondents

In the first part of questionnaire, the students were asked about their personal information, including age, gender, level of English and the reasons why they like

or don’t like learning English The results can be described in the following table:

Table 2 General information of the student respondents

Section I: General information

Please fill out or check the necessary information asked

1 You are Male : 10 Female: 20

2 Your age: _15

3 Your level of English is Very good: 3 Good: 7

Fair: 15 Bad: 5

4 Do you like learning English? Yes: 25 No: 5

Why: interesting, useful/ why not: difficult?

It is apparent that half of the respondents were at the average level of English skills (15 people), and only 10% of them had very good English level (3 people) When being asked about their attitudes towards learning English, a majority of students claimed that they liked learning English (25 students), while the other 15 percents of the students did not enjoy the subject With more than 15 years of experiences teaching high school students, the researcher understood that some of the reasons that deterred the students’ interest in the subject include uninteresting teaching methods, lack of creative activities such as group-work, games, role-playing, or stressful classroom atmosphere which made them feel uncomfortable when learning English at schools

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4.2.2 Students’ perceptions on communicative activities

The second part of questionnaire aims at investigating the students’ perceptions on communicative activities designed in the experimental lessons Accordingly, the participants were asked about the communicative games used by their English teacher in teaching speaking, as well as their evaluation on the learning period being exposed to the use of these games

Students’ attitude towards playing games in English speaking lessons

Figure 1 shows the students’ attitude towards playing games when learning English speaking in the classroom:

Figure 1 Students’ attitude towards playing games in English speaking lessons

20

7

According to Figure 1, it is clear that a majority of students (20) showed high interest towards playing games in English speaking lessons, accounting for nearly 67% of the total respondents In contrast, the number of students who didn’t like communicative games when learning English speaking wereonly 3 students, accounting for 10% Thus, it indicates that the communicative games in speaking lessons seemed to be very attractive to the students in 10A5 class

Frequency of teachers’ using communicative games

With regards to the frequency of teachers’ using communicative games in teaching English speaking, the results are illustrated in figure 2 as follows

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As shown in the chart, most of students agreed that their English teacher used communicative games in oral activities frequently (27 students), and none of them answered Rarely or Never It clearly showed that during the experimental teaching, the use of communicative games was prevalent in all lessons and students were aware of the teaching strategies being experimented in the treatment period

Figure 2 Frequency of teachers’ using communicative games

The kinds of communicative games used by English teachers

The survey also investigated the kinds of games used by English teacher in English speaking lessons The results revealed that there was a combination of a variety of games used during her speaking classes including: discussion, information gap, story-telling, guessing games, competition games, competition, picture games, memory games, problem-solving, dramatization and role-play The results are specifically shown in the below table:

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Table 3 Kinds of communicative games used by English teachers

Ranking Kind of communicative games Frequency

From the collected data, it can be seen that discussion is the most popular kind

of communicative games with 28 votes, followed by information gap (26 votes) and story-telling (25 votes) The kinds of games less frequently used by the teachers included problem-solving (3 votes), dramatization (2 votes) and role-play (1 vote) The results reflect that during the experiment, different types of communicative activities were utilized to facilitate students’ mastery of speaking skills

4.2.3 Students’ evaluation towards the experimental learning period being exposed to the use of communicative games

The author also concerned to the students’ evaluation towardslearning period being exposed to the use of communicative games In specific, the question 4 in Section 2 asked the students to state their level of agreement to the statements related to their perceptions on their level of participation when participating in oral activities and communicative language games in terms of the games and activities, the teacher’s teaching method and the students’ attitudes It is based on a Likert’s scale with a range from 1 to 4, where 1 showed the LOWEST level of agreement (strongly disagree) and 4 is the HIGHEST (strongly agree)

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Factors affecting students’ participation in speaking lessons

Table 4 Participation due to speaking activities and games used

I participated in speaking activities and games

because

3 The games and activities were appropriate to

4 The games and activities allowed me to work

5 The games and activities were useful to

the treatment period Generally, students strongly agreed that they participated in

speaking because the games and activities were interesting and useful to improve

their speaking ability with an overall mean of 3.54 It is noticeable that all the

respondents claimed that the most reason made them to participate in the games and

activities was because they allowed them to work in pairs and in groups with the

highest mean of 4.0 and a verbal interpretation of Strongly Agree

However, the students disagreed that their participation in the speaking

lessons was because the games and activities were challenging, with a mean of

2.33 This means that not all students enjoyed difficult games and activities and they