Applying some useful speaking activities to enhance the 10th form students’ activeness at 4 tho xuan high school

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HOÁTRƯỜNG THPT 4 THỌ XUÂN EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE APPLYING SOME USEFUL SPEAKING ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS’ ACTIVENESS AT 4 THO XUAN HIGH SCH

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HOÁ

TRƯỜNG THPT 4 THỌ XUÂN

EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE

APPLYING SOME USEFUL SPEAKING ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS’ ACTIVENESS AT

4 THO XUAN HIGH SCHOOL

Người thực hiện: Đỗ Thị Sen Chức vụ: Giáo viên

Đơn vị công tác: Trường THPT 4 Thọ Xuân SKKN thuộc lĩnh vực (môn): Môn Tiếng Anh

THANH HOÁ NĂM 2018

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

1 INTRODUCTION……… 1

1.1 Reasons for choosing the research……… 1

1.2 Aims of the research……… 1

1.3 Object of the research……… 2

1.4 Methods of the research……… 2

2 CONTENT……… 3

2.1 Theoretical background……… 3

2.2 The reality of the problem……… … 5

2.3 Measure implementation……… 8

2.3.1 Brainstorming ……… 9

2.3.2 Information Gap Activities……… 11

2.3.3 Playing Cards………. 13

2.4 Result……… 14

3 CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS……… 15

3.1 Conclusion……… 15

3.2 Suggestions……… 15

REFERENCES……… 16

APPENDIX……… 17

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Reasons for choosing the research

English nowadays has become more and more popular and has been widelyused in Viet Nam It is one of the major subjects in many schools and anindispensable means of communication at present It is also a "useful tool" and a

"master- key" to discover the world of science, technology, education, culture,business and diplomacy With such a trend of development, learning English is,therefore, important than ever before It is of such great importance that manystudents are more and more interested in learning English All learning is active in acertain sense, but some kinds of learning are more active than others Here, activelearning is defined in one sense to mean that the learner uses opportunities todecide about aspects of the learning process The stimulation of learning activitiesand regulation processes, or teaching students how to learn, is likely to lead to thebest performance in the long run

Speaking skill is a very important skill when learning English Today’s worldrequires that the goal of teaching speaking should improve students’communicative skills, because, only in that way, learners can express themselvesand learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in teachercommunicative circumstances Many language learners regard speaking ability asthe measure of knowing a language These learners define fluency as the ability toconverse with others, much more than the ability to read, write or comprehend orallanguage

The real situation of English language teaching in Vietnam shows thatspeaking is the skill students usually neglect and are not good at even though theyhave very good grammatical knowledge Students’ learning methods depend much

on teachers; students still are quite passive in their learning process In order toimprove the students’ speaking ability, teachers can use many kinds ofcommunicative activities

Being aware of this urgent problem, I have a great desire to study the currentactiveness of students especially the 10th form students at 4 Tho Xuan high schooland to investigate the learning activities in speaking lesson That is the reason why

I choose the topic “Applying some useful speaking activities to enhance the 10 th

form students’ activeness at 4 Tho Xuan high school”.

1.2 Aims of the research

The aims of the research are:

- To investigate the situation of teaching and learning speaking to the 10th graders

in classroom

- To investigate the effectiveness of using games in teaching speaking to the 10th

graders at 4 Tho Xuan high school

- To provide some suggestions and implications for the improvement of speakingteaching at 4 Tho Xuan high school by using games in addition to other techniques.

1.3 Object of the research

The research focuses specifically on using games in warm up activity inteaching speaking to the 10th graders at 4 Tho Xuan high school, namely, 3 classes10A2, 10A4 and 10A5

1.4 Methods of the research

In the process of carrying out this research, the survey questionnaire is used tocollect data The survey questionnaire including pre-task and post -task surveyquestionnaire is for students from 3 classes 10A2, 10A4 and 10A5 at 4 Tho Xuanhigh school

2 CONTENT 2.1 Theoretical background

Speaking, as Bygate (1997) definites, involves not only the use of the rightsound in the patterns of rhythm and intonation, but also the choice of words andinflections in the right order to convey the right meaning

O’Malley and Pierce (1996) states that speaking seems to be an important skillthat a learner should acquire It is very important in order to enable students tocommunicate effectively through oral language because the disability of thestudents to speak may lead them to be unable to express their ideas even in a simpleform of conversation

Common speaking activities

A variety of activities can be used to develop speaking skills Below are somecommon ones:

Oxford and Shearin (1996) points out: “Motivation is important because it directly influences how often use L2 learning strategies, how much students

interact with native speakers, how much input they receive in the language being learnt (the target language), how well they do on curriculum-related tests, how hightheir general proficiency level becomes, and how long they preserve and maintain L2 skills after language study is over…”

Language games

Language games mean games related to language Hadfield (1987) classifieslanguage games into may categories as follow:

+ Sorting, ordering, or arranging games

+ Information gap games

Definition of “Teaching speaking”

- The goal of teaching speaking skill is communicative efficiency

- Learners should be able to make themselves understand, using their currentproficiency to the fullest They should try to avoid confusion in the message due tofaulty pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, and to observe the social and culturalrules that apply in each communicative situation

- To help students develop communicative efficiency in speaking, teachers can use

a balanced activities approach that combines: language input, structured output andcommunicative output

- To use language as a means of expressing values and judgments and organize their thought in a meaningful and logical sequence

- To produce the English speech sounds and sound patterns

- To use word and sentence stress, and intonation

- To select appropriate words and sentences

- To use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, which is called as fluency?

Guiding principles

The following principles are important to keep in mind when teaching speaking:

* The techniques should cover the range of learner’s needs from accuracy to

fluency

* Speaking activities should be motivating to learners

* Correction of learner errors should occur during speaking activities which

are accuracy-oriented not fluency oriented

* Speaking activities should be integrated with other language skills

* Students should be encouraged to not only answer questions but also to

initiate conversation and to take risks

* Students should be provided with speaking strategies such as

negotiating meaning, asking for clarification, turn-taking etc

* The teacher should design speaking activities which simulate real-life situations

so that students can learn how to speak naturally

How to teach speaking

- The teachers help students learn to speak so that the students can use speaking to learn

2.2 The reality of the problem

General reality

English as a foreign language in Vietnam is taught in high schools as acompulsory subject Therefore, it is of great importance that we should takestudents' English language learning into consideration The implementation ofEnglish teaching at present is based on the content standard Its target is to helpstudents to reach an informational level It means that school learners are expected

to be able to have adequate knowledge to use it to communicate with others inEnglish In fact, the English instruction in some High schools does not demonstrate

a satisfactory result Many students fail to reach the goal of the English teaching.They are not able to communicate with the language either orally or in written formalthough they have learned English for many years Many of the learners in aspeaking class are reluctant speakers This reluctance is partly due to their priorlearning experience Many of them were educated in a large class in schoolssituated in noisy neighborhoods where opportunities to speak are severely limited.Others were taught in schools where speaking was simply not encouraged.Moreover, in Viet Nam, many students are not fully interested in learning English

in class On the one hand, they seem to be shy and fearful of making mistakes Onthe other hand, we lack a language environment and sufficient learning activities

In that reality, there have many problems catching pedagogues' attention, i.e.,how to organize learning activities effectively, how to develop interesting studyatmosphere in the classroom in order to enhance students' activeness in Englishlanguage learning

The 10 th form students at 4 Tho Xuan high school

Table 1: Result of the quality test at the beginning of the school year

The research was carried out at 4 Tho Xuan high school with the participation

of 135 the 10th form students All of the surveyed students have learned English for

6 years However, most of them have difficulties in mastering four language skills

Of the four skills, as many of them revealed, they find speaking especially

important yet challenging one That was the reason why most of the students feel bored and unmotivated in speaking classes

The survey questionnaire used for students from 3 classes 10A2, 10A4 and10A5 at 4 Tho Xuan high school

Table 2: Students’ attitudes and perspectives towards speaking lessons

Are you willing to speak in speaking classes?

A Yes, I like speaking very much

B Yes, sometimes

C No, I’m never willing to speak

As can be seen clearly from the above table, a lot of the surveyed studentsthink that speaking is the most difficult skill meanwhile there are only 8 % considerspeaking very important More specifically, 46 % find speaking topics introduced

in English 10 textbook boring and 62% find speaking activities introduced inEnglish 10 textbook very difficult Moreover, there are so many students who arenever willing to speak in speaking classes (71%) In summary, the students arelosing their interest during the lesson Therefore, an effective technique should beexploited to motivate students in these speaking lessons

Table 3: A summary of students' activeness in English speaking learning

Students' activeness in Students' responses

1 The level of students' involvement in the

speaking lesson

2 The reasons for students not involving in

English speaking activities

3 Students' willingness for communication and

discussion the tasks with others

4 The frequency of finding chances to

practice English inside and outside

Obviously, students nowadays have a clear awareness of English learning; they learn it not because they are forced to study but because they are conscious of the

importance and necessity of English at present Therefore, in order to help studentslearn English effectively, the enhancement of students' activeness in Englishspeaking learning is of paramount importance.

2.3 Measure implementation

Traditional classroom speaking practice often takes the form of drills in whichone person asks a question and another gives an answer The question and theanswer are structured and predictable, and often there is only one correct,predetermined answer The purpose of asking and answering the question is todemonstrate the ability to ask and answer In contrast, the purpose of realcommunication is to accomplish a task, such as conveying a telephone message,obtaining information or expressing an opinion In real communication, participantsmust manage uncertainty about what the other person will say Authenticcommunication involves an information gap; each participant has information thatthe other does not have In addition, to achieve their purpose, participants may have

to clarify their meaning or ask for confirmation of their own understanding

To create classroom speaking activities that will develop communicativecompetence, teachers need to incorporate a purpose and an information gap andallow for multiple forms of expression However, quantity alone will notnecessarily produce competent speakers Teachers need to combine structuredoutput activities, which allow for error correction and increased accuracy, withcommunicative output activities that give students opportunities to practicelanguage use more freely

In classroom, besides active students some of them are still passive in thelearning process It is the teachers' duty to evoke these students' interests,encourage their involvement in classroom activities

To lessen the students' fear of making mistakes and shyness, teachers shouldincrease students' confidence by encouraging them to contribute their ideas to thelesson Teachers may give them some cues for the answers and express satisfactionand excitement about their ideas even silly answers It is essential that teachersshould use open- ended questions as much as possible that many answers areacceptable This makes students to be more confident and less afraid of makingmistakes

* The following activities are used frequently in speaking lesson:

- Discussions - Simulations

- Reporting - Story telling

- Role-play - Picture describing

- Interviews - Picture narrating

During my teaching time, I realized that the above activities are sometimes toodifficult for “weak” students to participate In this initiative, therefore, I mentionsome other speaking activities in order to enhance the 10th form students’activeness.

2.3.1 Brainstorming

On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time Depending on thecontext, either individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners generate ideas quickly and freely The good characteristics of brainstorming are that the students are not criticized for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas

- It is used to work through ideas to find a solution to a problem or situation

- It is a powerful way to generate, share and maximize new ideas

- Brainstorming provides many advantages to the process of sorting

through problems

+ Example:

Unit 1: A day in the life of … - Lesson B < Speaking >

Task 3: Tell your classmates about your daily routine

Aim: Let the students practice talking about daily life.

Teaching aids: extra-board

Time: 15 minutes

Procedure:

- Step 1 (1 minute): The teacher divides the class into groups of five or six Each

group selects a leader who controls the group and takes notes the ideas of the otherstudents