A study on the application of communicative language teaching in english classrooms challenges and possible solutions

This study focusses on the application of Communicative Language Teaching CLT to the 11th graders at Bac Lieu High school.. LIST OF TABLES Table 1 General information of the participan

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

CHALLENGES AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

NGHỆ AN, 2017

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I, Ngo Trung Hieu, hereby declare that I am the sole author of this master thesis and that

it has not been submitted for any other purposes before

of motivation throughout this thesis Without his guidance, comment, and suggestions during all stages of the work, my thesis would still be far from completed

Secondly, I would also like to express my gratitude to all lecturers of the Department of Foreign Languages, Vinh University as well as all lectures of other universities who teach me much valuable knowledge, share best teaching experiences and methods, and supply me with the good conditions to conduct this thesis and finish this TESOL M.A cohort

In addition, my special thanks also go to Department of Postgraduate Studies, Dong Thap University that give good support and conditions to my K23 class This study may not have been completed without this support

Furthermore, my deep appreciation goes to teachers and students at Bac Lieu High School They showed their enthusiasm and good support to help me conduct

my survey Without their help, this project could not been a success

Last but not least, my warmest thanks go to my beloved family, my colleagues,

friends for their kindness, helpful supports and useful encouragements

ABSTRACT

Because of its international demand and recognition as a world language, English has always been a part of our education system from Class 3-12 In the recent years, the use of English language has been increasing in administration, education and other sectors in Vietnam This study focusses on the application of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) to the 11th graders at Bac Lieu High school The study employed questionnaire survey as the principle method of data collection Questionnaires were administered to 8 teachers and 168 11th graders, and then analyzed by means of descriptive statistics The data of survey was analyzed qualitatively The findings of the study indicates that the majority of the teachers really have not applied CLT in their teaching appropriately while most of students’ responses presented their positive opinions toward the benefits of CLT The application of this approach is not popular in this local high school context and there are some issues in its implementation Based on the findings, a number of recommendations have been proposed to make CLT become more and more practical and effective in teaching and learning

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 General information of the participants 23

Table 2 General information of the participants 25

Table 2 Teaching English in classrooms 32

Table 3 Students experiences of being corrected 36

Table 5 The Use of the Language 41

Table 6 Teachers’ feedback in class 45

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: The purpose of learning English 31

Figure 2: Learning and teaching behavior 33

Figure 2.1: Using English in communication 34

Figure 2.2: The extent of student participant in Pair work and Group work 35

Figure 3: General ideas about Communicative Competence .37

Figure 4: Teachers’ knowledge and belief about Communicative Competence and Communicative Language Teaching 40

Figure 5: The Use of the Language 41

Figure 6: Aspects of English Language Teaching 44

Figure 7: Activities 46

Figure 8: Teachers’ beliefs about the objective of teaching English at high school .48

Figure 9: The process of teaching 48

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP 1

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 3

LIST OF TABLES 5

LIST OF FIGURES 5

1.1 Problem Statement 9

1.2 Rationale 10

1.3 Aims of the study 11

1.4 Significance of the Study 11

1.5 Organization of the thesis 12

CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 13

2.1 Introduction 14

2.2 Definition of CLT 14

2.2.1 Characteristics of CLT 17

2.2.2 Communicative Competence 21

2.3 CLT application in Vietnam 22

2.4 Role of Teacher in Communicative Language Teaching 23

CHAPTER THREE 25

METHODOLOGY 25

3.1 Setting 26

3.2 Research questions 26

3.3 Research participants 26

3.3.1 Students 27

3.3.2 Description of participants 28

3.4 Data collection 29

3.5 Procedures 29

3.5.1 Designing questionnaire 29

3.5.2 Data collection procedures 30

3.5.3 Data analysis 33

CHAPTER FOUR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 33

4.1 Results of the Students’ Questionnaire Survey 34

4.1.1 Students’ purpose of learning English 34

4.1.2 Teaching English in classrooms 35

4.1.3 Learning and teaching behaviour 36

4.1.4 General ideas about communicative competence 41

4.2 Results from the Teachers’ Questionnaire Survey4.2.1 Teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about Communicative Competence and 43

Communicative Language Teaching 43

4.2.2 The Use of the Language 46

4.2.3 Aspects of English language teaching 47

4.2.4 Communicative Competence 49

4.2.5 Activities 51

4.2.6 Beliefs about aspects of English language teaching 52

4.3 Summary 54

CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION 55

5.1 Summary of the study 55

5.2 Limitations of the study 57

5.3 Recommendations 57

5.4 Further studies 59

REFERENCES 60

APPENDIX A QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS 63

APPENDIX B QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS 65

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

The interest in teaching and learning foreign languages has spread throughout the world As a result, the digital age and migratory movements underpin the globalization There are many reasons for this phenomenon, and among these are the entry into an enlarged labor market, access to information, increased trade between countries or the establishment of relations between cultures and societies

In addition, a wide range of theories has emerged related to the teaching and learning of foreign languages and various methods and approaches have been defined They certainly differ from each other in how to teach and learn a target language, and the use of one approach or another by foreign language teachers is a matter of controversy In any case, it can be corroborated that teachers tend to favor the use of an eclectic methodology

Nevertheless, a lot of attention has been paid to how to teach a foreign language for real and meaningful communication Grammar-Translation Method has been proven as an unsuccessful method in teaching the English language Although the learners of this method have some knowledge of the target language, they have failed to use it according to their need Therefore, the attempt to replace this method was taken and an Audio-Lingual Method or Army Method - a foreign language teaching method often abbreviated as ALM was introduced in the United States in the 50s and 60s of the twentieth century It focused on teaching the structure of the sentence and vocabulary through repetition and exercise It included the development of reading and writing skills He also understood literature and poetry

However, this method failed as well, and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) was introduced As a result, various communicative approaches have emerged, although the nucleus of each of them seems to be the approach to

communicative language teaching This study attempts to explore whether the CLT principles are applied by Vietnamese teachers of English as a foreign language in a particular school called Bac Lieu High School This study is carried out to investigate the application of Communicative Approach of some English teachers and the students ‘study based on an overview of the CLT theory and the Vietnamese educational system From that, the study will suggest some possible solutions A description of the school environment and the method used to collect and analyze the data

To meet the demand for our literate literates to be in national and international communication, the desirableness for English communication skills is increasing at a rapid pace Most of the countries have adopted the communicative approach of language teaching to make people proficient in English and Vietnam is not exceptional

The CLT aims to focus on four competences (listening, speaking, reading and writing) as learner-centered activities in the communicative context This method makes language learning more relevant, interesting, enjoyable and effective But it is a great sadness that after completing the high school program, learners can not use the English language correctly, especially they are very weak in listening and speaking

Although they have completed their high school curriculum under CLT, their receptive and productive skills show that they have learned in Grammar Translation Method These show the ineffectiveness of CLT at the high school program Some

researchers have said that CLT is not appropriate for Vietnamese culture because it requires any ideal - ideal classroom environment, limited students, trained teachers, and so on

1.2 Rationale

In the recent years, some schools, especially Bac Lieu High School have applied CLT in teaching English Some language teaching facilities such as language laboratory rooms, audio visual aids are equipped for the sake of improving listening and speaking skills In spite of those advantages, the effectiveness from application

of CLT in teaching English in Bac Lieu high school has not been obvious

Firstly, all students in Bac Lieu high school are almost taught only reading and writing skills Teachers often have a tendency towards teaching for final examination With about five to six class hours for a unit according to Curriculum

of Ministry of Education and Training, teachers only aim at teaching two main skills for final examination – reading and writing The content in this final examination only focus on reading and reading skills Because of this, students rarely have an opportunity to practice their English The communication of English maybe happen between teachers and students through some short commands or suggestions Secondly, as for geographical location, Bac Lieu province is far from other big city (over 200 km from Ho Chi Minh City), students do not have more chances to communicate with foreigners Moreover, some local small and medium business do not require English communicative competence as a ultimate condition Thus students’ motivation in communication is not stimulated

As an English teacher, the author is always interested in how to improve all skills, especially listening and speaking skills through the application of CLT, the author also found that teachers encounter various challenges and difficulties in teaching with this approach As observed subjectively, after many years of its launch, it was not as successful as expected and learners can not take advantage of CLT and many teachers are not interested in adapting this approach The students do

not learn English in an English speaking environment Within this background, the author would like to conduct a study on application of CLT in 11th graded English classroom at Bac Lieu High school in order to work out current and potential challenges, examine teachers’ solutions to these difficulties, then suggest appropriate solutions

Hopefully, the study will benefit teachers who want to apply CLT in their English teaching in an effective ways

1.3 Aims of the study

The aim of this study is to analyze the reasons for the ineffectiveness of the CLT in teaching Bac Lieu High school students and to find some possible solutions

to make this approach more effective not only in Bac Lieu High school but also in some other places of the nation This approach is used to increase the four skills of learners (reading, writing, writing and speaking) in English by different countries There is a fact that Bac Lieu High school’s students are very weak at English and can not apply English in their practical life successfully , therefore It was hoped that CLT would be able to reduce the weakness of English of students Although CLT has been introduced and applied in most schools in Vietnam for a long time, the target has not been reached

1.4 Significance of the Study

It is important to study the causes behind the ineffectiveness of CLT in teaching and learning at high school level, especially in the school I have been teaching Also it is important to increase the learners’ four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) in English At the high school curriculum in Vietnam, English is taught in three years However, after 12 years of schooling of English, many students can hardly speak and listen in a fluent way

Although Ministry of Education and Training has enacted “National Foreign Language 2020 Project", one of the aims of the project is that English competence

of students graduating from high school must be equivalent to level Bl belonging to the Common European Framework They cannot speak fluently and naturally They cannot comprehend the spoken discourses They do not have ability to express their feeling and thought because they are habituated to memorize the notes given by their private tutors As a result, they learn only some parts of four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) in English They pass examination but actually they are unable to use the language

Learning a language does not mean to get pass marks but to learn to use the language practically It is found that almost 10 years of learning English appears as

a useless matter If the teachers read this research, they will be conscious about selecting materials, teaching techniques, methods, their role in the classroom etc to increase their students’ competence in English If the syllabus designers read it, they will be conscious about adding communicative activities in high school syllabus If the teacher trainers read it, they will be interested to teach the teachers how to apply Communicative Language Teaching Approach in classroom

Language policy makers will be conscious in constructing language policy if they read it It is not possible for us to finish our higher studies, spread business, and maintain relationship with the world etc without learning English properly For this reason, the researcher is interested to make the readers conscious about this approach to get maximum result in English in final exam and later in professional life

1.5 Organization of the thesis

This thesis consists of five chapters Chapter One, Introduction, includes problem statements, the aims, rationale for the study, research questions, significance of the study as well as design of the study Chapter Two comes the second, presenting a Literature review and theoretical background There are some main points such as definition of CLT, principles of CLT, communicative competences, and CLT application in Vietnam Chapter Three, the study comes next with the

responsibility for specifying the factors for the researcher to collect and process the study data This chapter also consists of findings and discussion, in which the data

is described in many specific tables and figures and discussed Chapter Four comes last A conclusion of the study, the limitations of the study, and suggestion for further research are also mentioned in the last chapter

CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL

BACKGROUND

This chapter will provide an operational definition and principles of CLT relevant to the study Then it will continue to present communicative competence as

well as CLT application in Viet Nam Finally, it presents some roles of teacher in CLT

2.1 Introduction

In the late 1960s, some British linguists questioned the traditional language teaching approaches implemented up to now These new approaches placed importance on grammatical competence as a basis for second language teaching but they also began to introduce the importance of language communication contrary to the predominance of grammatical translation

The rise of Communicative Language Teaching in the 1970s and early 1980s

in Great Britain was partly in response to the lack of success with traditional language teaching methods and partly due to the increase in demand for language learning Communicative Language Teaching replace the previous structural method, called language teaching as Situational Language Teaching This was partly

in response to Chomsky's criticisms of the structural theories of language and partly

on the theories of British functional language Communicative Language Teaching

is accepted as a preeminent approach to the teaching of languages by different countries of the world

2.2 Definition of CLT

The origin of "Communicative language teaching – CLT" was discovered in the process of changing the language teaching methods of the British tradition in the late 60s Omaggio-Hadley (2001) showed that CLT is results from the study of English, the language is received by linguists, typically such as Willkis, Widdowson, Candlin, Keith Johnson, and many other American educators as Savignon, etc

Answering to the question “What is CLT?” There have been many linguists offering different definitions Wikipedia defined as follows:

“Communicative language teaching (CLT), or the communicative

approach, is an approach to language teaching that emphasizes interaction as both the means and ultimate goal of study”

It is also referred to as “communicative approach to the teaching of foreign language” or simply the “Communicative Approach” With the definition of CLT from Wikipedia, language learner’s objective is to practice their target language through communication not only in class with partners or teachers but also in real life

According to Littlewood (1981) one of the most important characteristic features of CLT is that it emphasizes functional as well as structural aspects of language, combining these into a more fully communicative view

Hymes (1972: 281) argues that the requirement for a person with communication skills is to have the knowledge and language proficiency involved in:

* It is likely to be formal (and to what extent)

* It is appropriate for the effect of effective means available (and to what extent)

* It predominates in relation to the context in which the language is identified and used (and to what extent)

* Whether it is realistic and mandatory (and to what extent)

Richard and Rorger (1986: 66) defined CLT:

“CLT is an approach that aims to make communicative competence the goal of language teaching of four language skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication”

Thus this approach emphasizes the ability to communicate "Communicative Competence" of learners In view of Canale and Swain (1980), the communication abilities of learners includes:

* Grammatical Competence is the language ability, the ability of vocabulary and grammar

* Social Linguistic Competence is the ability to understand the social context in which communication takes place including the establishment of relations

to exchange information among members for the purpose of communication

* Discourse Competence is the self-explanation of elements wanted to convey information or communication with others with the extent of meaning expressed in the whole discourse or text

* Strategic Competence is handling strategies that individual uses to begin, complete, maintain, modify and conduce communication

Based on the implications of Canale and Swain's definition of communicative competence, developed for more than the a decade, Savignon (1991,

2002) stated that CLT emphasizes the learner: “Learner communicative needs provide a framework for elaborating program goals in terms of functional competence” (1991, 266)

To support CLT's theoretical and practical foundation, Sauvignon identified and described the following five components of a communicative training program:

(1) language arts (consisting of the factors which the teacher do best and

can be all they have learned to do) include exercises used in native language programs to draw attention to formal precision

(2) language for a purpose is the use of language for authentic

communication goals

(3) personal English language use relates to the emerging identity of

learners in English

(4) theatre arts provide learners with the skills they do need to perform in

a new language, such as by interpreting and expressing

(5) beyond the classroom refers to preparing language learners to use the

language they learn as a mean of communication outside the classroom

From the foregoing definitions, the main tenet of CLT is to develop the learner’s four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) that allow their independence of language and communication Furthermore, CLT’s aim advocates

go beyond teaching grammatical rules of the target language, and recommend that,

by using the target language in a meaningful way, learners will develop communicative competence

Language is used for communication and true communication is impossible without interaction The communicative approach in language learning and learning considers that the main objective of language learning is to develop a communicative competence and use authentic texts into the learning situation For example, newspaper, magazine, etc are authentic texts In a nutshell, the ultimate purpose of language teaching is to develop communication skills for learners This

is an important purpose in teaching and learning foreign languages as well as second language

2.2.1 Characteristics of CLT

Many researchers of linguistic methods such as Noam Chomsky, Firth, Hymes, and Widdowson have shown that the CLT is opposed to the Audio-lingual method and is an extension and development of the notional-functional syllabus If the Audio-lingual method emphasizes repetition of modeling and habits of language learning; the notional-functional syllabus focuses on notions and functions, CLT emphasizes communication ability That is, CLT emphasizes on not only enabling students to use language for their own purposes in different contexts, but also learning the language

The basic purpose of this approach is to help students create meaning rather than help them develop perfect grammatical structure as well as pronunciation of indigenous people

CLT is generally recognized as a teaching approach rather than a teaching method with a clear definition of how to organize classroom practice

According to Nunan (1991) and Richard and Rorger (1986) CLT has the following characteristics:

* Emphasizing on learning to communicate through interactive relationships in the target language

* Introducing authentic materials into case studies

* Creating opportunities for learners to concentrate on not only language but also self-learning

* Increasing personal experience for learners is extremely important in building the elements that meet the classroom’ demand

* Trying to associate language learning with classroom activities beyond the classroom

* Language is the system of expressing meaning

* The main function of the language is both interaction and communication

* The structure of language reflects the use of function and communication

* The basic element of language is not only grammatical features but also structure classification and communication

The above features of the CLT show that this approach focuses on the needs and desires of the language learner as well as the relationship between language in the classroom and the language beyond the classroom Thus, learning English through the use of effective communication language is more than just grammar or mechanical training The activities that language is used in are related to the actual communication process in order to provide meaningful tasks to control student learning The selected learning activity depends on how engaging students use meaningful and authentic language

2.2.2 Principles of CLT

The purpose of CLT is aimed at providing learners with not only language

skills but also more importantly, listening, speaking, reading and writing skills to develop learners' ability to communicate Highlighting the relationship between language and communication enables students to communicate In order to communicate, it is necessary to be able to use sensible language in each specific social context and to have knowledge of the form, meaning and function of the language

Based on that purpose, Freeman (1986; p.128-130) has outlined the principles of CLT as follows:

* Students must recognize the intention of the speaker and writer in the communication process

* Target language serves as a means of communication in the classroom

* A language function must be expressed in many different forms and languages

* It provides an opportunity for students to express ideas as well as his thoughts

* Error should be viewed as a natural result of the development of communication skills

* Ability to express fluently more important than accurately

* Creating situations to control the communication process is one of the duties of a teacher

* The teacher acts as the communication process's supervisor, the students' instructor, who manage classroom activities and give comments Students are individuals who communicate, actively receive

* Activities of communication must satisfy three conditions, namely: gaps of information, choices and responses

* Materials and syllabus serving the teaching and learning must be designed from the first step to learn and must be suitable for the level of students

Therefore, in class according to CLT the teacher acts as a facilitator of the student's communication process, as a facilitator, observer, analyst, and contributor Students are individuals who are active in the communication process; plays a dominant role and correlates with other members (Breen & Candlin, 1980: 110)

The document must bear the basic principles of using the communicative language in the direction of progress There are currently three commonly used documents in the CLT that are text-based materials, task-based materials, and authentic materials

Most of the materials used in CLT classrooms are authentic materials These documents include authentic language documents such as logos, magazines, advertisements, newspapers, graphs, and visual sources where interactions can be made, such as maps, pictures, photos, charts, and tables

Since then, Finocchiaro and Brumfit (1983: 107-8) have produced some of the commonly used strategies for CLT as follow:

* Before teacher provides materials for students, teacher should discuss

in advance the functions and situations, the rules, the setting, the topics, the information, and the types of languages that the case function requires

* Teachers should ask students to rearrange sentences in conversations or paragraphs

* Students play games or role-plays which are related to language

* Team work in classroom

* Teachers give instructions in target language

* Problem solving tasks should be used and exploited massively as a communication tactic

* Question and answer come in two forms: based on available materials

or related to the learners' personal experiences

CLT is considered a approach rather than a method Learning language with CLT will develop all four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, with the primary purpose of improving communication Students are the center of initiative

in all activities, and the teacher is just a instuctor, observers make appropriate suggestions to promote the creativity of the learner In addition, teachers must create motivation to motivate learners to achieve the purpose of teaching

2.2.2 Communicative Competence

Canale and Swain (1980) consider communicative competence as the interaction between grammatical competencies or knowledge of the rules of grammar and of sociolinguistic competence or knowledge of rules of use They identified grammatical, sociolinguistic and discursive competence in the context of communicative competence

Sociolinguistic competence is the ability of learners to use the language correctly in different social contexts This competency shows the ability of learners

to go beyond the literal meaning of the statement and to recognize whether it is the intent of such utterances in particular social situations

Sociolinguistic competence is crucial for interpreting utterances for their

"social significance" Discursive competence refers to the ability of learners to combine grammatical forms and meaning in an appropriate order for speech needs Discursive competence emphasizes that learners must also be aware of the speech patterns of the language they learn (Canale, 1983)

The four components of communicative competence are functional linguistic competence, expression, interaction and meaning negotiation involving the interaction of two or more persons belonging to the same vocal community or to others (Savignon, 1997)

Savignon (1997), cited by Aleixo (2003), characterizes communicative competence as having the following elements:

* Communicative competence is a dynamic concept rather than a static concept It depends on the negotiation of meaning between two or more people who share the same symbolic system

* Communicative competence applies to both written and spoken language, as well as to many other symbolic systems

* Communicative competence is context specific Communication takes place in infinity of situations and success in a particular role depends on understanding the context and previous experience of a similar genre

* Communicative competence is relative, not absolute, and depends on the cooperation of all participants

* There is a difference between having the knowledge to produce the sentence of a language and applying that knowledge It is a difference between what

a person knows, which is his or her linguistic skill and how he uses that knowledge

in the actual production of speech and understanding, which is his linguistic performance Communicative Language Teaching always gives importance on good performance

2.3 CLT application in Vietnam

Over the last twenty years, the demand for communication between people of different cultures has pushed English to its recent status as a popular world language English has become an official language in Singarpore, the Philipines, Hongkong and a popular foreign language in most Asian countries for economic and political reasons

The teaching profession of English in the region, therefore, receives more concerns for teachers, educators and linguists In integration with current trends in the teaching of the world's language, the teaching of English in Vietnam has also been inspired by a more effective alternative A communicative approach that have had a great impact on the English language learning and teaching for a long time Teachers were encouraged to use CLT in their English classrooms to improve the skills of their students

Several studies conducted with the aim of improving the quality of teaching and learning English in Vietnam show that “traditional pedagogy, emphasizing the

acquisition of grammar and vocabulary rather than communicative competence” (Pham, 2005) is one of the causes of the problem

Since the early 1990s, therefore, CLT has quickly become popular in Vietnam (Pham, 2005) Along with the popularity of CLT in the country, it seems that the only use of English in ELT is widely supported

Unlike traditional methods used for a long time in Vietnam, CLT has been considered as the most dominant and effective method to meet the Vietnamese students’ needs of communication in English and is the best method in Asian area (Liao, 2004)

According to the requirements from the scheme "Teaching and learning of foreign languages in the national education system stage in 2020”, the students’ English competence, especially the high school students ‘English competence must

be equivalent as B1 based on Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR)

To get this level, students must master four skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing With these requirements, the approach of CLT must be better and more effective than the traditional pedagogy

However, many other educators and researchers have also shown that it is not much easy for the teachers specially the EFL teachers to apply CLT as an asset to reach the final goal of language teaching in their context with their students

Based on a study that assessed the attitudes of Hong Kong educators toward using CLT in the local context, Chau and Chung (1987) stated that CLT was used only sparingly by teachers because it required too much preparation time In a study conducted in Vietnam, Ellis (1994) identified class size, grammar-based examination, and lack of exposure to authentic language as constraints on using CLT

2.4 Role of Teacher in Communicative Language Teaching

According to Zaman (2008), in communicative language teaching a teacher has two main roles:

* The first is to facilitate the communication process between all participants in the classroom and between these participants and the various activities and text

* The second role is to act as an independent participant within the learning teaching group

According to Breen (1985), it is important to consider different environments when a teacher adopts CLT for his students According to Bari (2011), the teachers and the parents force the learners to get good result They compel the learners to read always The students cannot learn any thing spontaneously and consider education as boundary For this reason, they read only to get good result and acquisition of the language skills are neglected

According to Littlewood (1981), many teachers correct errors that they observe

so that the students give more attention to form rather than the contents and it hampers their spontaneous use of target language The teachers can give clues to the students which will help them to correct their errors

According to Littlewood (1981), the concept of the teacher as `instructor’ is thus inadequate to describe his overall function He is a facilitator of learning and performs in a variety of specific roles, separately or simultaneously These include the following:

* As general observer of his students’ learning, he must aim to coordinate the activities so that they form a coherent progression, leading towards greater communicative ability

* As classroom manager, he is responsible for grouping activities into

`lessons’ and for ensuring that these are satisfactorily organized at the practical level This includes deciding his role within each activity

* In many activities, he may perform the familiar role of language instructor:

he will present new language, exercise direct control over the learners’ performance, evaluate and correct it and so on

* In others, he will not intervene after initiating the proceedings, but will let learning take place through independent activities This will frequently be communicative activity, but may also be pre-communicative

* While such independent activity is in progress, he may act as consultant or adviser, helping where necessary He may also move about the classroom in order to monitor the strengths and weaknesses of the learners, as a basis for planning future learning activities

* Sometimes he will wish to participate in an activity as communicator’ with the learners

CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY

This research seeks to know the application of CLT to the 11th graders at Bac Lieu High school in Bac Lieu city CLT is a sophisticated and effective approach to help students learn English in relation to the real-life situation

The researcher was interested in estimating the application of CLT the 11th graders at Bac Lieu High school and discovering the teachers and learners’ challenges as well as suggesting some possible solutions

3.1 Setting

Bac Lieu High School is located in Bạc Lieu City of Bac Lieu Province, South Western Vietnam There are about 100 teachers and over 1,500 students in 3 grades in Bac Lieu High school The facilities serving for teaching English are sufficient relatively The school has one Lab serving not only English but also other subjects Moreover, some MP3 players are equipped to support teaching Listening skills However, in every classroom there are almost 45 seats with solid furniture which is hard to be flexible or to move For this reason, it is difficult for teachers and leaners to get high effect in teaching and learning English The English teachers have three periods of English per week and one additional period Generally, all teachers have been trained about CLT and sometimes integrated the approach of CLT in their teaching methods and lesson plans

3.2 Research questions

This research project will try to address the following questions:

- What experiences and challenges do teachers and students have about the application of CLT in English language classes in Bac Lieu High school?

- What are teachers’ and students’ understandings in Bac Lieu High school about aspects of Communicative Language Teaching?

3.3 Research participants

The participants in this study consist of 168 11th graders (87 women, 81 men)

in 4 classes in random and 08 English teachers in Bac Lieu High school The students participating in this study ranged in age from 16 to 18 years They have their learning experience in English from 6 to 9 years, but their English proficiency

is approximately at level A1 They learn English as a major and compulsory subject

in the curriculum

The English teachers are those who are directly teaching in Bac Lieu high school They have taught English over 15 years; there is a group leader Their English level range from B1 to B2 belonging to the Common European Framework Two of them have got Master degree

The participants were informed that their responses to the questionnaire would remain confidential and would be used for research purposes only Every personal information is secret The completed questionnaires were collected immediately after the participants completed it

3.3.1 Students

The data collected in this study also provided some description of the learners This description consists of some general information such as Ages, Genders and Years

of learning English The information will be categorized in the following table

As can be seen from the data in the Table 1, the learners’ ages rank from 17

to 18 years old with 167 out of 168 (95.8%) and 7 out of 168 (4.2%) respectively The rate of gender is relatively equal Out of the 168 participants, there were 87 male students (51.8%) and 81 female ones (48.2%) participating in the study In the

last description, with regard to the years of learning English, the majority of respondents (60.1%) have learned English since they were about 12 years old, meaning that these students began to learn from Grade 6

The low ratio of participants who have learned English is between 7 and 8 years and more than 8 years, respectively 31% and 8.9% This data about years of learning English shows that most of the students have spent a long time studying English in general education system from Grade 6 or even Grade 3 to Grade 11 at the survey time

3.3.2 Description of participants

As for the participants, a total of eight English teachers participated in the current study Table 1 presents a summary of the participants profile and, as shown

in the grid; all of the participants are all female between the ages of 40 and 50

All of them graduated from University of Education in many forms from Full-time to Part-time program Six of these participants are more experienced teachers who have been working between 20 and 27 years, and the other two participants, Anna and Marcela, have less experience because they are the youngest English teachers of the group surveyed

The average age of the surveyed group is 45 and their average of years of teaching English is over 21 This data showed that all of the English Teacher who are in the survey are experienced and many skills in teaching English

The data collected in this study also provided some description of the teachers This description consists of some general information such as Ages, Genders and Years of learning English The information will be categorized in the following table

Table 2: General information of the participants (N=168)

Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in research method The main

data conducted for this study will be from survey questionnaires

Firstly, a questionnaire is designed focusing on teachers’ perceptions, attitudes, and application of CLT in teaching as well as students’ perceptions and attitudes toward their teachers’ methods Then, the questionnaire will also ask students to provide information regarding their preferred learning style for obtaining communicative competence relatively About 168 questionnaires for students and 8 questionnaires for teacher are collected

3.5 Procedures

3.5.1 Designing questionnaire

In questionnaire, there will be about 20 questions to get information from students

These questions will be presented in multiple choice questions with 4 choices These questions are categorized in some small themes Most of the questions focus

on students’ motivation and attitude in learning English as well as teachers’ method

in teaching English

To the English teachers, there will be 25 questions to get their information These questions focus on the use of English, aspects of English language teaching and some activities relating English teaching

3.5.2 Data collection procedures

3.5.2.1 Questionnaire survey for students

A 20-item questionnaire was administered to 168 students from four different mixed classes The questionnaire was designed focusing on students’ the purpose of learning English, Teaching English in classrooms, and General ideas about communicative competence, etc The questionnaires for the student are based on the five-point Likert scale, including Strongly Agree, Agree, Undecided, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree

Students were asked to put a cross to each suitable response in their questionnaire that best described their truth feeling toward the statement at the moment The Likert scale was used in order to provide a quantifiable means by which all participants’ answers could be compared All questions were written in Vietnamese to guarantee students’ accurate understanding as well as their full confidence in their responses shown in Appendix A The questionnaire was divided into five parts:

* Part 1 is students’ personal information which includes students’ ages, genders, and years of learning English

* Part 2 is students’ The purpose of learning English with five questions

* Part 3 focuses on students’ thought and observation of Teaching English in classrooms

* Part 4 is also about students’ comments on Learning and teaching behaviour

* Part 5 concentrates on students’ General ideas about communicative competence

3.5.2.2 Questionnaire survey for teachers

Each English teacher was given a questionnaire in Appendix B designed taking into account certain CLT characteristics described in the first part of this study The aim of this qualitative instrument was to verify the knowledge that

English teachers have about this approach to language teaching, as well as the perception and beliefs of their teaching methods of English

The questionnaire was divided into five parts The first part is teachers’ personal information which includes students’ ages, genders, and years of teaching English The next part was two open-ended questions The participants were asked

to present two definitions in their own perceptions and belief according to Communicative competence and Communicative Language Teaching

In this part there are also nine statements (from 1 to 9) extracted from a source written by Richards (2006) The next section presented nine statements, which were extracted from a book written by Richards (2006) Most of these statements underlie the principles of the CLT approach and were used in the questionnaire to learn the beliefs of teachers about them In this way, according to the answers provided by the teachers, they would support or refuse the main principles of CLT and they could use these ideas while implementing lessons in English

The measurement of the elements observed in the questionnaire is based on different types of scales, depending on the block of information that it has referred

Therefore, a type of scale used to collect data consisted of I agree or I disagree with

the response (from 1 to 9) Another kind of items were evaluated with the use of

The Likert scale which included the following options: Always means that the element / situation occurs very often; Almost always this means that the situation happens often, but not every time; Usually this means that this happens normally;

Almost never does this mean that it almost never happens; And Never what happens

on no occasion (from 10 to 24) The last block of information studied was evaluated

by choosing the direct response

Regarding the use of language, next two questions (from 10 to 11) were examined to learn the language used by teachers while developing English courses According to the CLT approach, the objective of language teaching focuses on the

teaching of communicative competence and this can not be achieved without the use

of the foreign language This section has strongly made it possible to understand what teachers think about the application of the foreign language and the mother tongue

One of the main principles of the CLT approach emphasizes the teaching process with respect to linguistic aspects that relate to communicative rather than grammatical competence Therefore, the next block of information was based on the verification of which parts of the language concentrated the teaching process This

is aimed at comprehending the response that show whether the teachers concentrate

on their teaching on the form of the language and its rules or, on the contrary, that they focus on the function of the language

With respect to these two different perspectives, fluency and accuracy play

an important role and, as the approach advocates teaching more fluency than accuracy, these two aspects have also been taken into account in this section

In addition, the teaching of the form and function of language is done throughout listening, speaking, reading and writing CLT emphasizes that the four skills should be linked whereas language teaching and this aspect were also included

in this part of the questionnaire (from question 12 to question 24)

As indicated in the description of the approach, activities can be carried out adequately according to CLT and depending on the characteristics of the tasks and their operation, they can become CLT or not Thus, in the next part of the last part

of the questionnaire, teachers must respond if they have implemented activities that include certain features, such as actual communication, real and meaningful practice and working with a group

The final section in the questionnaire underlies the process of teaching (from

25 to 26) In this part, teachers were asked to present their standpoint and perceptions in their teaching Their responses could help to see if activities are supported by CLT’s typical features

3.5.3 Data analysis

The survey data will be analysed statistically, using computer software Microsoft Excel The results will be presented in the form of percentage and frequencies Some mean scores will also be considered to be carried out

CHAPTER FOUR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter deals with the analysis and interpretation of key survey results through questionnaires for students and teachers The data from questionnaires

collected were examined, compiled and analyzed to answer the research questions Tables and graphs are used to illustrate the results For complete reference purposes, survey questionnaires are attached as an appendix

4.1 Results of the Students’ Questionnaire Survey

4.1.1 Students’ purpose of learning English

According to Likert scale, the data surveyed about students’ purpose of learning English surpasses the mean value In this section, there are 5 questions given to the students

As can be seen in this chart, most of the students agree that learning English subject at school is to pass the exam, especially the final exam English is considered as a compulsory subject so passing exam in English is very important

Basing on the exam’s structure mostly including Reading and Grammar, students only focus on these vital parts in each unit Question 2 in the questionnaire investigates another factor in purpose of learning English is that learning English at school is not aimed at developing Communicative Skills As for Communicative skills, the main objective of learning English is to able to communicate in English

However, the questionnaire survey shows that most of the students comment that learning English at school is not aimed at communication skills

Although students emphasize to pass the exam, they still want to use English

as a mean of communication and especially use English to communicate with foreigners as in the question 3 and 4 respectively In response to Question 5, the majority of students agree that textbooks is useful for developing communicative skills

Figure 1: The purpose of learning English