In an attempt to increase students’ motivation in English speaking activities at Thai Nguyen High School for the Gifted, the researcher aims to find out the causes of student[r]
Trang 1USING INFORMATION GAP ACTIVITIES TO MOTIVATE SPEAKING
PERFORMANCE OF NON-ENGLISH MAJORS GRADE 12
AT THAI NGUYEN HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE GIFTED
Nguyen Thanh Xuan 1 , Bui Thi Huong Giang 2*
1
Thai Nguyen High School for the Gifted,
2
International Cooperation Department - TNU
ABSTRACT
Speaking plays a fundamental role in communication because without it, communication cannot
take place directly between people In an attempt to increase students’ motivation in English
speaking activities at Thai Nguyen High School for the Gifted, the researcher aims to find out the
causes of students’ low motivation, the importance of using information activities to motivate
students to speak English at Thai Nguyen High School for the Gifted To find the answers to these
questions an action research was carried out through several steps using a combination of four data
collection instruments (questionnaire, observation and mini projects) The results showed that the
students’ motivation increased significantly when the intervention was implemented This study
will make a small contribution to the implementation of Information Gap Activities in improving
speaking skills for students at Thai Nguyen High School for the Gifted in particular and other high
schools in general
Keywords: information gap activities, motivation, English speaking activities, on-English major
students, Thai Nguyen High School for the Gifted
INTRODUCTION*
According to Fauziati [1], mastering “the art”
of speaking is regarded as the single most
important aspect of learning a second or
foreign language, and success is measured in
terms of the ability to carry out a conversation
in the target language However, to teach the
students to speak English so that they become
more interested in speaking English and
maintain their interest during the lessons is
not an easy job at all Richards and Renandya
[2] also believe that speaking in a foreign
language is challenging for foreign language
learners because the effectiveness of oral
communication requires the ability to use the
language appropriately in social interaction
With regard to Thai Nguyen High School for
the Gifted, non-English major students have
to learn English as a compulsory subject
Most of the students have learnt English for a
long time and realized the significant roles of
English to their future However, as an
English teacher, the researcher finds that
although the students do not have much
*
Tel: 0943 228280; Email: bhgiang@tnu.edu.vn
trouble with English grammar, many of them tend to be silent and passive in English speaking Many of the students fail to communicate in English They seem to depend heavily on the textbooks and just read them in the speaking class They are hesitant and anxious if they have to speak and perform using English
One of the reasons for this situation is that they lack practice in using English in real communication situations Putri [3] states that speaking activities should provide sufficient time for students to practice the target language The activities also should motivate students so that they can enthusiastically engage on the learning process In the researcher’s opinion, one effective solution that can encourage students to use English for communicating is utilizing Information Gap Activities The benefits of this technique to the students have aroused my interest and encouraged the researcher to carry out this
research “Using information-gap activities to
motivate speaking performance of non – English majors grade 12 at Thai Nguyen High School for the Gifted.” Hopefully, this
Trang 2study will make a small contribution to the
implementation of Information Gap Activities
in improving speaking skills for students at Thai
Nguyen High School for the Gifted in
particular, and at other high schools in general
LITERATURE REVIEW
According to Brown [4], speaking is an
interactive process of constructing meaning
that involves producing and receiving and
processing information Its form and meaning
are dependent on the context in which it
occurs, including the participants themselves,
their collective experiences, the physical
environment, and the purposes for speaking
It is often spontaneous, open-ended, and
evolving Chastain [5] believes that speaking
is a productive skill ‘Speaking is more than
making the right sound, choosing the right
words or getting the constructions’ [5, p
330] Indeed, in order to speak accurately and
fluently, in the researchers’ opinion, students
should not only focus on mechanical elements
such as pronunciation, grammar, and
vocabulary but they should also pay attention
to the communicative situations that they may
come across in the real life In addition, they
need to widen their social and cultural
knowledge in order to have an efficient
interaction As a result, it’s advisable for the
teachers to help students get access to varied
authentic speaking materials and activities
In order to improve students’ speaking ability,
teachers should play a positive role in helping
students get involved in speaking activities in
the classroom Dua [6] claims, “rather than
leading students to pure memorization, the
teacher can provide a rich language
environment where students have real
communication, authentic materials and
meaningful tasks that promote oral language.”
[6, p 12] Related to this study, the researcher
intends to implement information gap
activities with a hope that gradually students
will know how to use their target language
The concept of information gap is an important aspect of communication in a classroom, which is essentially based on the fact that in everyday life people usually communicate in order to get information they
do not possess If the speaker and hearer are both in possession of the same information prior to beginning their communication, communication cannot take place
According to Harmer [7] one type of speaking activity is called “information gap” where two speakers have different parts of information making up the whole Because they have different information, there is a “gap” between them As a result, they need to communicate to each other to bridge this gap METHODOLOGY
The research was carried out at Thai Nguyen High School for Gifted students with the participation of 61 students from 2 classes: Geography 12 and History 12 All
of those students were born in 2000 They come from different parts of Thai Nguyen province such as Tuc Duyen, Pho yen, Song Cong, Dai Tu Eleven out of the total are ethnic minority and they have to learn English as a compulsory subject
This research was officially carried out over a period of 32 weeks (from January 2018 to August 2018) Based on the selected research model, the following steps were done one after the other In this study, Nunan’s action research model [8] was applied because it is easy to carry out in the researcher’s own classroom in limited time and the steps in Nunan’s model are clear-cut to follow The study used questionnaires, observation, and mini projects to work out the importance of using information gap activities in motivating students in speaking lessons
FINDINGS
Data collected from Questionnaire 1
Chart 1 deals with factors causing students’ low motivation in English speaking lesson From the data, it can be clearly seen that there
Trang 310
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Chart 1 Factors causing students’ low motivation in speaking English
Data collected from Observation sheet
Observation sheets look at the data on students’ motivation in terms of two main criteria: students’ involvement in the speaking activities and students’ interaction with one another to fulfill the tasks
Chart 2 and chart 3 presents data on students’ motivation in terms of students’ involvement and students’ interaction with one another in information gap activities
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Chart 2 Students’ involvement in information gap activities
Trang 46 4 8
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Often keep silent or hesitate too often when speaking Try to communicate and generally respond appropriately always actively stay on the task and communicate effectively
Chart 3 Students’ interaction in information gap activities
It is clear from the chart that the students’
motivation in information gap activities was
high because a big proportion of students
were involved in the speaking lessons and
most of the students paid attention to the
activities and communicated quite effectively
Data collected from questionnaire 2
After observing the implementation of
information gap activities, the researcher gave
survey questionnaire 2 to 61 students with
questions about their attitudes towards the
information gap activities and the
effectiveness of the activities when being
experimented in class
In response to question one, 85 percent of
students believed that the information gap
activities were easy for them to practice in
pairs and groups 94 % of the respondents
agreed that the information gap activities
were suitable or rather suitable in comparison
with the students’ level This made students
motivated to speak English In spite of this,
four students (accounting for 6%) confirmed
that some of information gap activities were
not very appropriate to their level
All the students agreed that they were keen on
said that they liked the information gap activities a bit
The majority of students found information gap activities were beneficial to them Specifically, 100% of the students claimed that they had more chances to practise speaking in class 49 out of 61 students admitted that they enjoyed the comfortable learning atmosphere in class 54 out of the total believed that real life communicative situations were attractive to them 58 students revealed that the information gap activities always gave them a need or a demand to make conversation with their friends because without speaking with their classmates, the speaking tasks could not be fulfilled Besides the mentioned good points, some students also added other advantages including the improvement in their speaking confidence, the encouragement of their critical thinking skills and teamwork They said that during information gaps, they had to exercise problem-solving skills, determine what data was missing, seek clarification from others, and collaborate with classmates to successfully achieve the activity’s objectives
In terms of the disadvantages, a very large
Trang 5obstacles when taking part in information gap
activities in class Nevertheless, a small
number of students (24%) pointed out several
disadvantages during the process of learning
speaking skills in class As a result, some
students talked a lot more than their partners
or ignored what the partners said Another
problem was that students might look at their
partner’s worksheet to copy the answer The
classroom was sometimes too noisy and out of
control Some students preferred using
Vietnamese to deal the tasks
Data from mini projects
Related to this study, students were asked to
work in groups and have further practice on
information gap activities related to the topics
they have learnt in class They could modify
the tasks to fit their own interests and
abilities Each group had to make a video to record their speaking performance The teacher gave them a two-week deadline (from
15th April to 30th April) At this time, students had finished four out of five speaking lessons They were explained clearly about information gap activities and how to carry out them
The use of information gap in mini projects was effective to most of the groups In general, the students almost always tried to keep the interaction with the others in the speaking tasks Besides, since every member was an important part in the project, they tended to be more collaborative and responsible Hence, the students’ motivation was significantly improved
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Chart 4 Speaking videos rating
DISCUSSION
To begin with, students’ motivation, in general, increased significantly during the implementation
of information gap activities Almost all of students would prefer to be involved in the information gap activities It’s also worth discussing the question of how to help all students benefit from information gap activities In the classroom, teachers need to use information gaps
to give students a chance to communicate with each other, just like people do in real life Firstly, teachers should design a suitable information gap by considering students’ language levels A wide variety of different materials and activities should be used in the classroom as well Sometimes teachers can use a picture, in which one student tries to describe to another student
Trang 6Alternatively, teachers can use a written text
with information gap so that the students must
talk to each other to get the answers
Sometimes, guessing games, picture
describing, interviews as well as role plays
can also be effective Secondly, to help all
students eagerly involved in an information
gap activity, the students should be explained
to get a full understanding of Information Gap
technique at the beginning In addition, the
speaking task needs a careful organization In
the researcher’s opinion, the pre-speaking
stage is of great importance In this stage, the
teacher must think carefully about the
instructions he or she will give to the students
so that they are very clear about what they
have to do Students should be equipped with
essential vocabulary and structure to ensure
that the flow of communication is not
interrupted Besides, the demonstrations for
the activities must not be ignored The
instructions of the teacher should be clear
enough for students to know exactly what
they have to during the tasks Finally,
students should be given chance to work with
different classmates and play different roles
Hence, it’s necessary to flexibly reorganize
the groups or pairs in order to well adapt
various information gap activities For
students with lower English level, it would be
better for them to have facilitators who can be
either the teacher or their better classmates
During the speaking process, the teacher
should go round and have a good overall class
management in order to avoid the use of the
mother tongue in class or the rule disruption
of a few students
RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the findings of the study, it can be
concluded that the high motivation of students
in speaking lessons is strongly related to the
use of Information Gap activities in the
teaching process It is evident that
or in groups can provide students with more opportunities to practice their speaking by communicating certain information to other friends The activities require students to use the target language to fill in the gaps, to guess the information or to solve the problem Hence, by using the target language continuously, students felt more motivated and confident to speak in English Secondly, the results of the study reveal that using information gap activities has a significant impact on motivating students to speak English As a result, real life communicative situations should be established using pair work and group work because those situations can help to create a more comfortable learning atmosphere and reduce affective barriers to language learning Thirdly, information gap activities could facilitate most of the students to interact with others by asking and giving required information in the target language The high overall class motivation after each lesson also reflected the teaching and learning process Students are active and strongly involved in the speaking class Besides, they actively take part in the mini projects and many of the students could
be able to communicate effectively However,
a small portion of the investigated students sometimes find it not easy to take part in the information gap activities Thus, the teacher should do the pre-teaching part very carefully
in order to make sure that students know what
to do and how to do Last but not least, based
on the discussion and findings, it can be stated that the use of information gap activities is much more effective than conventional techniques Students are more eager to learn, and often more excited, in contrast to those who only followed book activities The approach is especially beneficial in mixed ability classroom, as it supports cooperative learning, where students working together can help each other
REFERENCES
1 Fauziati, E (2010) Teaching of English as a
Trang 72 Richards, J C & Renandya, W.A (2002)
Methodology in Language Teaching: An
Anthology of Current Practice Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
3 Putri , A Y (2014) Using information gap
activities to improve the speaking skills of grade
VIII students at SMP N7 Yogyakarta English
Education Department Faculty of Languages and
Arts Yogyakarta state University
4 Brown, H.D (1994) Teaching by principles:
an interactive approach to language pedagogy
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents
5 Chastain, K (1998) Developing Second Language Skills Chicago: Harcourt Brace Publishers
6 Dua, L T (2011) Using information gap activities to motivate students in speaking lessons for the first year non- English major students at Phuong Dong University MA Thesis
7 Harmer, J (2002) How to Teach English
London: Longman Press
8 Nunan, D (1992) Research Methods in Language Learning Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
TÓM TẮT
SỬ DỤNG CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG KHOẢNG TRỐNG THÔNG TIN ĐỂ NÂNG CAO KHẢ NĂNG NÓI CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 12 KHÔNG CHUYÊN ANH TẠI
TRƯỜNG PTTH CHUYÊN THÁI NGUYÊN
Nguyễn Thanh Xuân 1 , Bùi Thị Hương Giang 2*
1 Trường PTTH Chuyên Thái Nguyên, 2 Ban Hợp tác Quốc tế - ĐH Thái Nguyên
Kỹ năng nói đóng một vai trò cơ bản trong giao tiếp bởi vì không có nó, giao tiếp không thể diễn
ra trực tiếp giữa người với người Nhằm tăng cường động lực cho học sinh trong các hoạt động nói tiếng Anh tại trường PTTH Chyên Thái Nguyên, với mục tiêu tìm hiểu nguyên nhân khiến cho động lực của học sinh thấp cũng như tầm quan trọng của việc sử dụng các hoạt động khoảng trống thông tin nhằm thúc đẩy học sinh nói tiếng Anh tại trường PTTH Chuyên Thái Nguyên Để tìm câu trả lời cho những câu hỏi này, một nghiên cứu hành động được thực hiện qua nhiều bước sử dụng kết hợp bốn công cụ thu thập dữ liệu (bảng hỏi, quan sát và dự án mini) Kết quả cho thấy động lực của học sinh tăng lên đáng kể khi can thiệp được thực hiện Nghiên cứu này sẽ đóng góp một phần nhỏ vào việc thực hiện các hoạt động của khoảng trống thông tin trong việc cải thiện kỹ năng nói cho học sinh tại trường THPT Chuyên Thái Nguyên nói riêng và các trường PTTH khác nói chung
Từ khóa: khoảng trống thông tin, động lực, các hoạt động nói tiếng Anh, học sinh không chuyên
Anh, trường PTTH Chuyên Thái Nguyên
Ngày nhận bài: 28/11/2018; Ngày hoàn thiện: 19/12/2018; Ngày duyệt đăng: 28/12/2018
*
Tel: 0943 228280; Email: bhgiang@tnu.edu.vn