PRACTICING ENGLISH GRAMMAR THROUGH CREATIVE ACTIVITIES FOR STUDENTS IN GRADE 10 AT LE CHAN HIGH SCHOOL

i THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES TRAN THI XIEM PRACTICING ENGLISH GRAMMAR THROUGH CREATIVE ACTIVITIES FOR STUDENTS IN GRADE 10 AT LE CHAN HIGH... ii THAI NGUYEN UNI

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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

TRAN THI XIEM

PRACTICING ENGLISH GRAMMAR THROUGH CREATIVE ACTIVITIES FOR STUDENTS IN GRADE 10 AT LE CHAN HIGH

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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

TRAN THI XIEM

PRACTICING ENGLISH GRAMMAR THROUGH CREATIVE ACTIVITIES FOR STUDENTS IN GRADE 10 AT LE CHAN HIGH

SCHOOL

(Thực hành ngữ pháp Tiếng Anh thông qua các hoạt động ngôn ngữ sáng tạo cho học sinh khối 10 tại trường Trung học phổ thông Lê Chân)

M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION)

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201

Supervisor: Dr Duong Duc Minh

THAI NGUYEN – 2019

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THE CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT

I hereby declare that this graduation project is based on my own original work except for quotations and citation that have been duly acknowledged I also declare that it has not been previously submitted for any other courses/degrees at Thai Nguyen University

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to those who gave me the

possibility to complete this dissertation

First and foremost, my gratitude goes to my supervisor, Dr Duong Duc Minh for his patient guidance and insightful advice throughout the duration of the study despite his busy schedule Without his assistance, motivation, enthusiasm and immense knowledge, this study would not have been completed

Secondly, I do appreciate the tremendous support from my school – Le Chan High School I would like to give many thanks to the students who directly engaged in the lessons throughout the process of data collection Their enthusiasm and serious contribution made the process of data collection effective and reliable I also acknowledge my thankfulness to my headmaster who helped facilitate my research conducted smoothly

Last but not least, my endless thanks approve to my parents, my husband, my son and daughter for their time, encouragement, motivation and support me on my way of study

Tran Thi Xiem,

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ABSTRACT

The present study aims to investigate the situation of learning English grammar among the students in grade 10 at Le Chan High School and to determine the effectiveness (if any) of the teaching English grammar with creative language activities A quasi-experimental research designs with pre-test and post-test as main data collection instruments A questionnaire was also administered to obtain students’ interest on using language games in teaching grammar Results show level of English grammar achievement in both experimental group and control group, and there were

no statistically significant differences in students’ score between experimental and control group However, results from the questionnaires show students’ interest and motivation in learning English grammar with language games In specific, it is found that creative language activities applied by the English teachers for 10th grade students have had better impacts on their learning motivation and interest Based on these results and findings, the study also proposes some recommendations for teachers to enhance the students’ motivation in learning English grammar

Key words: grammar, quasi-experimental research, high school students,

language games, CL

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF TABLES vivii

LIST OF FIGURES viii

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Significance of the study 2

5 Scope of the study 3

6 Structure of the thesis 3

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Overview of grammar 5

1.1.1 Definitions of grammar 5

1.1.2 Forms of grammar 5

1.2 Overview of grammar teaching methods 7

1.2.1 The grammar-translation method 7

1.2.2 The Direct Method 8

1.2.3 The Audio - Lingual Method 9

1.2.4 Communicative language teaching (CLT) 10

1.3 The application of creative language activities in teaching English grammar 12

1.3.1 Definition of creative language activities and learner’s motivation 12

1.3.2 The impacts of creative language activities to the learners’ motivation 12

CHAPTER2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 14

2.1 Research design 14

2.2 Participants 14

2.3 Instrument 14

2.3.1 Pre-test 14

2.3.2 Post-test 15

2.3.3 Questionnaire 15

2.4 Data collection and analysis procedures 16

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2.4.1 Data collection procedure 16

2.4.2 Data analysis 17

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 18

3.1 Findings from pre-test and post-test 18

3.1.1 Describing the implementation steps 18

3.1.2 Results from pre-test and post-test 19

3.2 Results from questionnaires 21

3.2.1 Students’ reaction to the teaching method 21

3.2.2 Students’ belief on the values of CLA application in English grammar teaching and learning 23

3.2.3 Students’ thoughts about the effectiveness of CLA in English grammar teaching and learning 25

3.2.4 Level of satisfaction with CLA methods 26

3.2.5 Students’ attitudes toward their English grammar learning 27

3.2.4 The current level of motivation for their learning English 28

3.3 Discussion on research’s findings 29

PART 3: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 32

1 Conclusion 32

2 Recommendations 33

2.1 Recommendations for English teachers 33

2.2 Recommendations for the students 33

3 Limitation of this study and suggestions for further studies 34

REFERENCES 36 APPENDIXES I APPENDIX 1: PRE-QUESTIONNAIRE I APPENDIX 2: POST-QUESTIONNAIRE III APPENDIX 3: PRE-TEST VII APPENDIX 4: POST-TEST IX APPENDIX 5: THE LESSONS PRACTICED WITH CLA XI

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLA: Creative language activities

CLT: Communicative language teaching

DM: Direct method

GTM: Grammar – translation method

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1: Description of the Pre-test and Post-test score 20 Table 3.2: The analysis of Independent Sample T-Test of pre-test grammar score 20 Table 3.3: The analysis of Independent samples T-Test of post-test grammar score between experimental and control class 20 Table 3.4: The analysis of Paired Samples T-test between pre-test and post-test score

on students’ grammar for the experimental group 21 Table 3.5: Students’ reaction to activities with communicative language games when learning grammar 22 Table 3.6: Students’ belief on the values of CLA application in English grammar teaching and learning 24 Table 3.7: Students’ thoughts about the effectiveness of CLA in English grammar teaching and learning 25

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3.1 : Level of satisfaction with the current method 27

Figure 3.2 : Students’ behaviors to their English grammar learning 28

Figure 3.3 : Students’ opinions to CLA methods 29

Figure 3.4 : The level of motivation with CLA method 30

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PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

Nowadays, there is no doubt about the crucial role of English in most of the fields

in the society such as economy, education, science, technology, etc… Along with the context of globalization, English has become one of the international languages that help promote foreign trade and integration among the countries, especially developing countries such as Vietnam

Recognizing the importance of the foreign language, currently in Vietnam teaching and learning English has been more and more considered significantly Accordingly, most of English teaching methods have been continually improved and learner-cantered, in particular, focused on enhancing the communicative skills for English learners besides the main skills such as Reading and Listening (receptive skills) and Speaking and Writing (productive skills) Besides, the grammar knowledge has been also played an important part in teaching and learning English as well as practicing it in the communicative purposes

However, teaching of English grammar in most of Vietnam public schools often only focuses on tasks and excercises in the textbook, lack of other creative language activities, which leads to the boredom and be difficult for motivating students Hence

in order to improve the teaching English grammar in the classes effectively and efficiently, it is time for us to innovate the English teaching methods through designing more creative activities for the students

Being aware of this urgent problem, I have had a great desire to research on applying the creative languages activities in teaching grammar, especially the students

in grade 10 at Le Chan high school To this date, there has been no single attempt to study on practicing these activities in teaching grammars in this school, hence it is the reason why I have chosen the topic: Practicing English grammar through creative activities for students in grade 10 at Le Chan high school As an English teacher, I expect that this study can contribute a part in enhancing the quality of teaching and learning English grammar for the 10th students in particular and all the students in Le Chan high school in general

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2 Aims of the study

Accordingly, this study aims to achieve the main objectives as followings:

 To investigate the current situation of learning English grammar among the students in grade 10 at Le Chan high school

 To determine the effectiveness (if any) of the teaching English grammar with creative language activities

3 Research questions

In order to achieve the above objectives, this study also needs to answer the research questions as followings:

1 What is the current situation of teaching and learning English grammar at grade

10 at Le Chan high school?

2 To what extent do creative language activities have effects on students at Le Chan high school?

4 Significance of the study

The significance of this study is expressed in its contribution to the innovation of English grammar teaching methods for the students in 10th grade at Le Chan high school in particular and Vietnam public schools in general It is also expected that the research findings in this study can help the English teachers as well as the administrators in Le Chan high school in evaluating the impacts of practicing grammar through creative language activities on the learning motivation of their students, as well as understanding the students’ perspective on the aspects of this teaching method And based on that, the recommendations given in this study will support for the English teachers in designing their teaching methods and programs, through adding creative language activities to enhance their students’ English learning motivation and interest The author also hopes that this paper will serve as a useful source of reference for other researchers and English teachers whole studies relate to the same topic

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5 Scope of the study

This study focused on practicing English grammar with creative language activities for the 10th students at Le Chan high school, Dong Trieu district, QuangNinh province Accordingly, the scope of this research included the students in 2 classes: 10A1 and 10A2 with a total of 80 students Besides, this study was also carried out within eight grammar lessons of which the English teachers applied some of the creative language activities in teaching English grammar for these students

6 Structure of the thesis

Part 1: Introduction

This part is the introduction which contains the rationale, aims and specific objectives of the study, research questions, methods, scope of study and proposed organization of the thesis

Part 2: Development

Chapter 1: Literature Review

This chapter is the literature review which includes a review of previous studies and of theoretical background with an overview of English grammar, teaching grammar approaches and other related concepts This chapter sets out the general theoretical issues as the basis for understanding the different teaching methods

Chapter 2: Research Methodology

This chapter presents the research methodology which presents in details about the method approaches used in the study, the sampling techniques, data collection, and analysis procedures

Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion

This chapter focuses on the results of the tests and questionnaires that aim to compare the impacts between traditional teaching and CLA methods to the students’ learning English grammar In addition, this section also provides discussion about the effectiveness of CLA on both English grammar teaching and learning in grade 10 at

Le Chan high school

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Part 3: Conclusion and recommendation

This part includes the conclusions, recommendation, limitations of the study and some suggestions for further research

of language to combine and order words Crystal (2004) also highlights the definition

of grammar through its importance in the use of a language Accordingly, “our awareness of grammar and its rules enable us to monitor the meaning and the effectiveness of the way we and others use language.In English, it can help promote precision, detection of ambiguity, and the exploration of English’s availability to express our opinion and thinking” (Crystal, 2004, pp.35-40) This definition also states the importance of teaching grammar, which is considered as a matter of getting grips with meaning

As can be seen from the above definitions, grammar is not an unimportant set of rules that can be ignored without consequences In general, it is a very complex phenomenon and even though learners may find it a difficult thing to master, the time devoted to that is certainly not wasted In the scope of this thesis, the definition of grammar is based on Ur’s (1991) view as the rule of language to arrange words into the meaning units

1.1.2 Forms of grammar

According to Thornbury (1999, pp.66-70), grammar is “not only the study of what forms (sounds, words, sentences, texts) are possible in a language but also the study of the meanings these forms convey” These two parts of grammar can be simply called “grammatical structures” and “grammatical meaning” (Ur, 1991, pp.73-85)

1.1.2.1 Grammatical structures

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Grammatical structures are texts, sentences, words, and sounds In linguistic metalanguage, these are called morphology and syntax, where morphology means a study of the form of words and syntax means a study of the way words and phrases are put together to form sentences (Hornby, 2000) Here are some examples of

grammatical structures: plurals of nouns (e.g house – houses, or mouse – mice), countability (e.g How much money? but How many coins?), present simple tense, and

others

In fact, all English teachers need to be aware that not all languages have the same structure A typical example is the differences in grammatical principles of English and Czech (Ur, 1991) Whereas Czech nouns have seven cases, English nouns have just two: common and genitive and where Czech distinguishes things of feminine,

masculine, or neuter gender, English uses only the neutral pronoun it Moreover, there

are also structures that are present in English and absent in Czech, such as perfect tenses, or the use of articles Clearly, each language has various grammatical structures, which make significant differences among the languages To illustrate this,

Ur (1991, pp.73-85) states that “those structures that are not present, or just less frequent, in a mother tongue tend to cause any learner more trouble than those structures he or she is used to”

present situation Therefore, if they say something like Thirsty! Drink!they will

probably be given a drink even without knowing the structures needed

However, in almost all written (and sometimes even with spoken) utterances, there is not enough context, and therefore, grammar needs to be used to communicate the meanings we mean This can be also illustrated through the example of the foreigner mentioned above If he or she had a wish to talk about this experience the

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next day and used the same words, the meaning would be out of the context of the situation In this case, he or she would probably be just given a drink again and would

be upset about not being able to communicate their ideas He or she would have needed

to use the correct sentence structures (with sentence elements in their proper places) and the correct forms of the verbs (in this case the past tense form) In other words, sometimes it is essential to use correct grammatical structures and to use those structures that convey the right meaning Otherwise, it would not be clear what the message of the communication was (Thornbury, 1999)

1.2 Overview of grammar teaching methods

1.2.1 The grammar-translation method

As being one of the most classical ones, the grammar-translation method (GTM) was applied popularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries The nature of this method is to focus on the grammatical rules into the translation process from the second to the native language Hence its main characteristics are the position of grammar in a lesson, in which teachers give long and form-focused explanations of the grammatical rules, and little attention to the context of texts

English was taught in the same way as the classical languages Greek and Latin, but of course, English as part of the European syllabuses was not accepted before the 1890s According to Richards and Rodgers (1986), GTM is a method without theory

in areas such as linguistics, psychology, or education Nonetheless, there are some typical characteristics of the GTM, some of which have survived to this day First and foremost, abstract grammar rules were taught deductively, i.e the rules were presented before practical examples of the rules were given This method is also referred to as explicit grammar teaching Lists of words and grammar rules were typically used in the classroom The point of departure in grammar was the sentence, whereas, before the GTM, the focus could be on the smaller parts of a sentence The GTM claimed that,

by focusing on the sentence, the process of language learning would be easier

Therefore, it can be stated that grammar plays the most important part of the method However, it has been limited in the effectiveness of the teaching language, as

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it has less focus on real language to promote communicativeness in grammar lessons, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and prepositions Although the method is still a standard method for a long time, it is essential to find out another method to innovate language teaching and learning

1.2.2 The Direct Method

A movement called the Reform Movement provided the impetus needed to considerably weaken the GTM At the end of the nineteenth century, teachers turned

to linguists because they believed the science of linguistics would offer them new ideas needed to develop new methods of teaching The material used by the proponents of the GTM was criticized as being unauthentic Hence, sentences were to be presented

in context Moreover, because of the naturalistic view of language learning, abstract grammar learning was considered unnecessary Grammar was to be taught inductively, i.e through sentences and text presented to the learner from which s/he would infer grammatical rules A last important point concerning the Reform Movement is its opposition to translation Out of this reforming approach, came a new method which was to be called the Direct Method (Richards and Rodgers, 1986)

Along with the Grammar – Translation Method (GTM), the Direct Method (or called the Natural Method) is also popular It is considered as a reply to the dissatisfaction with the older GTM, in which direct translations are applied in teaching English grammar through focusing on the written language Due to the limitations of the GTM in developing the learners’ communicative ability, the Direct Method was used widely (Freeman, 2000) There are some principles of the Direct Method as followings First of all, it includes an inductive approach to grammar Second, classroom instruction is conducted in the target language And third, the teaching covers every vocabulary Last but not least, pictures and objects are exploited to teach concrete vocabulary while the association of ideas is used to teach abstract vocabulary The DM had its drawbacks as well Despite the great popularity of Direct Method

at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, it seems to be challenging to use because of the obstacles in budget, time and classroom size Most importantly, since the aim was teaching in the second language, the teachers had to be

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very fluent in English, and preferably natives This was an unrealistic goal in itself, given that the English language had a status far from what it has today and, as a result, the competence of the average non-native English teacher was normally far from native-like Since it was very teacher-oriented, the method was in addition criticized for its complete neglect of the textbooks In the DM, the presentation of grammar was totally abandoned, which could have been adequate at elementary levels, but what about more advanced learners? Thus, the method declined after a period of time, leading to the introduction of a new method, the Audio-lingual Method

1.2.3 The Audio - Lingual Method

Due to the perceived decline of the Direct Method in the 20th century, the lingual method was adopted and used popularly in the 1950s and 1960s In an attempt

audio-to overcome the limitations of the former methods, the Audio-lingual Method is still similar to the Direct Method but it leads learners in the use of grammatical sentences patterns Being an oral-based approach, it was also based on linguistic and psychological theory and one of its main premises was the scientific descriptive analysis of a wide assortment of languages (Freeman, 2000)

According to Freeman (2000), the American method had a lot in common with the British Oral Approach, but also differed from it in a substantial way; it had strong links to structural linguistics and applied linguistics In structural linguistics, attention

is paid to sentences and their constituents Grammar was again open for explanations, albeit shorter explanations, and of course not before the sentences had been practiced orally Sentences were put into substitution tables and practiced over and over again, preferably in language laboratories, in order to let the learners listen to their own pronunciation as well Dialogues were also a favored form of classroom activity Thus, the goal was not accuracy, but fluency in the language Language skills were ranked according to their importance: listening, speaking, reading, and writing

However, the audio-lingual method also met with criticism from several points

of view Firstly, the techniques used were considered monotonous and hence boring

by the learners In the audio-lingual context, learners were more like parrots than creative and critical language learners Secondly, learners were not appropriately

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prepared for communication outside the classroom They could follow instructions in the classroom without difficulties, but when they were faced with the real-life situation their language performance was unsatisfactory

Therefore, the audio–lingual method was still ineffective in motivating the learners’ communicative ability because there was a shortage of right attention to memorization and drilling Moreover, it also ignored the involvement of language context, the world knowledge in grammar and language learning Additionally, it was investigated that language didn’t depend on the habit formation and errors Since its obstacles were explored in performing, along with the attack of the theories on language learning as a set of habits, the audio-lingual method became unpopular and rarely used as the method of instruction today

1.2.4 Communicative language teaching (CLT)

According to Richards and Rodgers (1986), CLT is defined as an approach rather than a method because comparing with most methods it is expressed in much more aspects for individual interpretation at the levels of design and procedure In specific, the communication process is highlighted in this approach instead of the mastery of language forms, in which the learner’s role will be different from those of other traditional language teaching

Sharing the same opinion, Freeman (2000) also refers to CLT as an approach, not a method, which aims to develop the learners’ communicative competence and support procedures for the teaching of four main language skills including reading, listening, writing and speaking, and help promote the integration of language and

communication

In a different viewpoint, Lewis (2002) stated that the nature of CLT is illustrated through terms such as authenticity, cooperative learning, and task-based instruction Similarly, Harmer (2001) believe that the communicative approach or CLT is the name which was given to a set of beliefs which included not only a re-examination of what

aspects of language to teach but also a shift in emphasis on how to teach

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In general, CLT is well defined as the teaching approach rather than a teaching method The approach is mostly used by foreign language teachers today in widely varying contexts, which is in line with the definition of Davies and Parse (2000)

For the goals and objectives of CLT, Saengboon (2006) summarized that the fundamental goal of CLT is to promote the learners’ communicative ability However, Larsen & Freeman (2000) affirmed that CLT aims to help students be aware of choosing the best forms that meet their needs because a lot of different forms can be used to perform a function and a variety of functions can be served with a single form

According to Widdowson (2003), the objectives of CLT are in line with the development of learners’ responsibility In the viewpoint, through the application of CLT, the language teachers can develop the students’ ability to cope with naturally occurring language in various contexts In addition to this, the students will also feel motivated in self-learning and team-working with the content which is drawn from natural and authentic occurrences Generally speaking, in the scope of this study, the main purpose of CLT is to help students produce authentic language and communicate with others, which does not mean developing speaking skills only but integrates multiple skills, such as listening and writing

According to Rashtchi & Keyvanfar (2007), CLT has numerous techniques; some of the major ones can be listed in the followings:

 Games, role-playing, discussion, and problem-solving tasks are often used in the language practice to help students experience real-life interactions

 Article, news, movies, telephone conversations, books, magazines, online courses, etc are applied in presenting authentic language

 Interactions among students are to encourage the learners’ motivation in cooperative learning with each other such as pair-work, group-work or class discussing, etc

 The role of teachers as a facilitator and advisor is one of CLT techniques in the case of group activities among the learners

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1.3 The application of creative language activities in teaching English grammar

1.3.1 Definition of creative language activities and learner’s motivation

There are a variety of related studies in the field of learners’ motivation As mentioned above, motivation is said to have a significant influence on students’ language learning Accordingly, it is investigated that there is a correlation between learners’ motivation to learn a foreign language and their results in this learning process, which can be positive or negative (Kouritzin, Piquemal& Renaud, 2009) The definition of learning motivation is also various in many different types of researches According to Kouritzin et al., (2009), learners’ motivation refers to their positive attitude toward his or her interest in a target language’s community and its culture, which is their desire to be a part of this community In addition, motivation is also distinguished between integrative and instrumental motivation, especially in terms

of a learner’s objective or orientation (Carrasquillo, 1994; Krashen, 1981)

Regarding creative language activities (CLA), there are also various definitions about the teaching method In the scope of this study, CLA is understood as the teaching strategies or methods used for making up for lack of language in a communicative situation e.g miming, drawing, paraphrasing used for getting meaning across, which is applied creatively and in the imaginative ways of expression

In summary, several research studies were conducted to discover students’ beliefs concerning the importance of foreign language learning, and moreover, which is in line with their motivation and arguments for studying

1.3.2 The impacts of creative language activities to the learners’ motivation

In regard with the application of creative language activities in teaching English grammar, it is stated that these activities help maintain learners’ interest with learning and motivate them to sustain their efforts in a long period of time (Wright et al, 1984) Concerning the importance of creative language activities with English grammar teaching, a number of related studies and works were conducted in various context Most of them agreed that the involvement of creative activities not only help teachers have their better lectures but also benefit students a lot (Cameron, 2001; Borg, 1998;

in the activities and enjoy the fun Hence, the games add interest to what students might not find interesting Sustaining interest can mean sustaining effort (Wright et.al, 2005) And second, they promote interaction among learners As Jacobs & Kline Liu (1996) express, many activities can be carried out in pairs or in small groups, thereby providing a venue for students to develop their skills in working with others such as the skill of disagreeing politely and the skill of asking for help Naturally, when participating in these activities, students are trying to win or to beat other teams for themselves or on the behalf of their team They are so competitive while playing since they want to have a turn to play, to score points and to win In the class, learners will definitely participate in the activities Therefore, in groups or in pairs, they are more willing to ask questions, communicate and discuss with their partners and think creatively about how to use English to achieve the goal

In conclusion, this chapter has provided related theories to research subject based

on a variety of previous studies and literature review Through these theories, the definition, form, and structure, along with the teaching method of grammar can be clarified In addition to this, this chapter also mentioned the use of creative language activities as an English grammar teaching method in the related studies and emphasized that CLA has positive impacts on students’ learning motivation when it is applied in teaching English grammar The research methodology used in the research would be illustrated in the following parts

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CHAPTER2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2.1 Research design

Regarding the research methodology, this study employed the

quasi-experimental research methodology, which is defined as “not true experiment” to estimate the causal impact of an intervention on target population without random assignment (Dinardo, 2008) In this research, the quasi-experimental methodology was conducted in the form of pre-test and post-test design and the students as participants for this study were not randomly chosen

2.2 Participants

The participants in this study comprised of 80 students in grade 10 (40 females and 40 males) at Le Chan high school Most of these students come from mountainous villages in Dong Trieu district Their parents are mostly farmers, their living condition

is very low, their parents only pay attention to earning a living so these students receive very litle caring from them As mentioned above, the selected classes in this research including two classes 10A1 and 10A2, with the total number of 80 students The reason why I choose those two classes is that I was appoited to teach English at the beginning

of the school year by my boss and I have chances to work with them everyday and find out if their English grammar is improved or not after being learned with CLA

2.3 Instrument

2.3.1 Pre-tests

As mentioned in the above, a pre-test was conducted at the beginning of the research In specific, the 10th graded students were required to do a teacher-made grammar test to help the teacher evaluate their current level of mastery in English grammar This test consists of two exercises The first one is using the correct verb form task which includes 10 items, in which the learners put the verbs in brackets into the first or second conditional The second one includes 10 items that ask the participants to choose the best answers with the correct form of verbs In order to ensure the Content Validity Index of the test, three English teachers in Le Chan high school, who have taught English for more than 10 years and also the teachers at the

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10th grade, were invited to give the comments on the test and made some necessary changes to match with the contents of the 10th graded English curriculum Accordingly, all of them agreed with the contents of the tests and had no opinion about the correction The allotted time is 30 minutes and each correct answer receives one point

2.3.2 Post-tests

The second instrument used in this research is a post-test, which is conducted after completing the application of CLA in teaching and learning English grammar among 10th graded students in Le Chan high school In specific, after eight grammar lessons taught with the use of CLA in class, the participants in the class were asked to take an English grammar exam The purpose of this post-test is to determine the impacts of CLA on teaching and learning English by grammar, through comparing the results of students at the pre-test and post-test Hence, the questions in both pre-test and post-test are required to follow-up the students’ learning programs and the grammar knowledge in their English textbook Both of the tests are similar in their format and completing time, but have some differences in their contents depending on the curriculum prescribed by the school and the Department of Education and Training Each test has a total 30 minutes to complete and students must not use any materials

2.3.3 Questionnaire

The last instrument is the questionnaire, according to Greenfield (1996),which should be short and easily understood This will ensure that the right answers are elicited for the questions posed A good questionnaire has to have clear and comprehensible questions and contains mainly closed questions with a four-point scale

to avoid middle-of-the-road responses and suitable questions in relation to the research Moreover, it needs to be concise and should not take much time to complete In addition, the questionnaire should provide respondents with unambiguous instructions and ask only those questions that are pertinent to the research And last but not least, it must ensure to acquire all the necessary data wanted by the researcher, including objective questions that do not recommend answers

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In this study, the questionnaire designed was very simple, brief and easy to understand The questionnaire consists of two main parts: The first part is personal information which includes the student name, gender, class, and their English teacher’s name The second part includes closed questions In specific, the first question asks the students about their feelings after joining in the CLA lessons The next questions aim

to investigate their behaviours, attitudes and opinions when learning English grammar after CLA’s application In the last two questions, students were also asked about their satisfaction and learning motivation Statements in the questionnaires are written by both English and Vietnamese which are short and easy to understand All questions and statements are written in simple and plain language Accordingly, the 10A1 students, who were taught English grammar lessons with CLA method, participated in the survey

2.4 Data collection and analysis procedures

2.4.1 Data collection procedure

About data collection procedures, they consisted of main data collection instruments including pre-tests, post-tests and survey questionnaires,

Step 1: Collecting data from the pre-tests As mentioned above, a 30-minute grammar test was conducted by the 10th-grade students in 2 classes at Le Chan high school to investigate their current level of grammar proficiency

Step 2: Practice teaching English grammar with the application of the creative activities In specific, the author designed grammar lessons basing on Unit 8, Unit 9 and Unit 10 in English 10 textbook, with adding the games and other CLA activities which asked students to work in pairs or in groups For example, a student could give

a sentence and the other had to make the conditional sentences responding with the given one as quickly as possible

Step 3: Collecting data in post-tests The contents of post-tests are different from that of pre-tests, but they have the same number of items Similar to the pre-test, the students were scored

Step 4: Collecting data from survey questionnaires During the grammar lessons with the application of CLA, the author and her colleagues delivered the questionnaire

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CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Findings from pre-tests and post-tests

3.1.1 Describing the implementation steps

As mentioned in above, the first step was to conduct a pre-test for investigating the current situation and challenges that the 10th students in Le Chan high school are facing in their English learning grammar Accordingly, the pre-test was designed under the form of a 30-minute grammar test, by the author and her colleagues who are English teachers in grade 10 at Le Chan school The contents of the tests are in English 10 curriculum and included two questions The first question asks students to put the verbs into the first-or-second conditional forms in the conversations, which consists of 10 items Next, the second question also checks students’ mastery on grammar structures

in conditional sentences through by choosing the best options for each sentence During the test, students were not allowed to use any textbooks or materials After finishing the 30-minute test, the teachers collected students’ answer sheets, marking the points and recorded the test result in the observation sheet The description of pre-test would be inserted in the Appendix 3

From the results of the pre-test, the author could evaluate the current situation of the 10th students’ English grammar learning, and find out the common mistakes or difficulties they might encounter with Based on these research findings, she and her colleagues designed some lectures with the application of CLA In specific, the author conducted some of the games in each lesson taught Each game is usually controlled for 5 minutes - 7 minutes and the other teachers can apply to start the lesson, check the student’s vocabulary or review the lesson

In the final step, the author and other teachers also conducted a post-test to examine the level of grammatical mastery of these students after participating CLA activities in English grammar lessons, and based on that, compare with the results of post-test to identify the impacts of CLA on teaching and learning English grammar in

10th grade at Le Chan High School The contents of post-test are different from that of pre-test, but they have the same number of items The description of post-test is also included in Appendix 4

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3.1.2 Results from pre-test and post-test

Table 3.1.below shows the description of the pre-test and post-test scores:

Table 3.1 Description of the Pre-test and Post-test score

Ctr Students' Pretest 40 2.00 8.00 186.50 4.66 1.614 Ctr Students' Posttest 40 3.00 8.50 205.50 5.13 1.436 Exp Students' Pretest 40 1.00 8.00 187.50 4.68 1.799 ExptStudents' Posttest 40 3.00 9.50 260.50 6.51 1.308 Valid N (listwise) 40

As can be seen from Table 3.1, it can be determined that the number of participants of the experimental group is 40 with pre-test standard deviation (1.79), post-test standard deviation (1.30), with pre-test mean score (4.68) and post-test mean score (6.51), and the number of participants of the control group is 40 with pre-test standard deviation (1.61), post-test standard deviation (1.43), pre-test mean score (4.66), and post-test mean score (5.13) It is clear that in the pre-test, both control class and experimental class has similar pre-test score (4.66 and 4.68) whereas, there is a difference in the post-test score which is 5.13 and 6.51 respectively

Table 3.2 The analysis of Independent Sample T-Test of pre-test grammar

score between experimental and control class

is 0.12, its df is 36, standard error difference assumed is 1.64 and 1.79 respectively

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So, in the conclusion p = 0.326 which is bigger than 0.05 It can be determined that the subjects in both classes are equivalent before being given the treatment Therefore, it can be concluded that “There is no significant difference of students’ pre-test mean scores between an experimental class and a control class”

Table 3.3 The analysis of Independent samples T-Test of post-test grammar

score between experimental and control class

be concluded that “There is no significant difference in students’ post-test mean scores between an experimental group and a control group”

The inferential statistics procedures start with the statistical test between pre-test and post-test score on students’ grammar for the experimental group The result of the effect on implementing the treatment of CLA through language games on students’ grammar mean scores for the experimental group of the composite comparing score for both pre-test and post-test is analyzed by using Paired Sample T-test and presents

at the following Table 3.4

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Table 3.4 The analysis of Paired Samples T-test between pre-test and post-test

score on students’ grammar for the experimental group

3.2 Results from questionnaires

As mentioned above, the researcher and her colleagues also delivered the pre and post-questionnaires to 10th students during the above teaching process The main part

of each questionnaire includes 4 questions with the purpose to help the researcher to compare the students’ perspective between the use of the current method and CLA in teaching English grammar The questionnaires were administered to the experimental class with 40 students It is presented in the Appendix

3.2.1 Students’ reaction to the teaching method

In the first question, six statements were given about the feeling of students about the current teaching method in pre-questionnaire and CLA activities in post-questionnaire such as working in pairs, working in groups, whole-class discussion, taking part in CLA games and interacting with the teacher in the classroom The results

of students’ reaction to these methods are presented in Table 3.5

As can be seen from the table, it is clear that with CLA methods, most students like working in pairs, interacting with the teacher, interacting with classmates and working in small groups They are likely to work in group discussions as it gives them