Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of using oral practice activities in teaching grammar at vocational training schools in đong thap

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY --- DUONG HUYNH VU NGUYEN TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF USING ORAL PRACTICE ACTIVITIES IN TEACHING GRAMMAR AT VOCATIONAL TR

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY -

DUONG HUYNH VU NGUYEN

TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS

OF USING ORAL PRACTICE ACTIVITIES IN TEACHING GRAMMAR AT VOCATIONAL TRAINING SCHOOLS IN ĐONG THAP

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Nghe An, 2017

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

-

DUONG HUYNH VU NGUYEN

TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS

OF USING ORAL PRACTICE ACTIVITIES IN TEACHING GRAMMAR AT VOCATIONAL TRAINING SCHOOLS IN ĐONG THAP

Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching

Code: 60.14.01.11

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Supervisor: Ngo Dinh Phuong, Assoc Prof., Ph.D

Nghe An, 2017

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted entitled “Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of using oral practice activities in teaching grammar at vocational training schools in Đong Thap” as the statement of requirements for thesis in

Master’s Programs at Vinh University

Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis does not contain materials published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis

by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma

No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis

This thesis has not been submitted for any degree in any other tertiary institution

Author

Duong Huynh Vu Nguyen

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my special thanks to my supervisor, Assoc Prof., Ph.D Ngo Dinh Phuong, a senior lecturer of Vinh University, for his endless and tireless support, guidance, and encouragement He spent his valuable time and effort to read my work with much care and gave me sound and insightful comments in order

to help me deeply understand the problems Without his devoted assistance, this thesis could not have been completed

Besides, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to colleagues and students at vocational training schools in Dong Thap who have participated in this research and many others who helped me during my study

Last but not least, I would like to convey my deepest gratitude to my parents and my friends for their constant support and thorough understanding Their great encouragement and love have helped me to overcome the difficulties during my study

ABSTRACT

This study is conducted with the hope to find out whether communicative approach helps students change their attitudes towards grammar learning The study was set out to investigate teachers’ and students’ perceptions of using oral practice activities to practice grammar structures The participants included 10 English teachers and 100 students at three vocational training schools in Dong Thap The data were collected through questionnaires, class observations, and interviews The findings show that students have positive attitudes towards the use of oral grammar practice activities in the production stage of grammar lessons Moreover, students can absorb grammar rules as they hear and use the language through oral communicative activities And they also remarked that the use of communicative activities in grammar lessons helps them acquire grammar more efficiently Based

on the findings of the study, some practical implications are given for the application of oral practice activities to facilitate grammar teaching and learning

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pages

Statement of authorship

Acknowledgements

Abstract

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations

List of Tables

List of Figures

CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and Objectives 3

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Scope of the study 4

1.5 Significance of the study 4

1.6 Outline of the study 4

CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction 6

2.2 An overview of teaching and learning grammar 6

2.2.1 Definitions of grammar 6

2.2.2 The role of grammar in teaching and learning English 7

2.2.3 Overview of grammar teaching approaches 9

2.2.4 The shape of the grammar lesson 11

2.3 Oral practice activities in teaching and learning grammar 14

2.3.1 Definitions of oral practice 14

2.3.2 Characteristics of a successful oral activity 14

2.3.3 The role of oral practice activities in the production stage of English grammar lessons 16

2.3.4 Barriers to adopting oral practice activities in production stage of English grammar lessons 17

2.3.5 Classification of oral practice activities in production stage of English grammar lessons 19

2.4 Conclusion 26

CHAPTER 3 – METHODOLOGY 3.1 Overview 28

3.2 The setting of the study 28

3.3 The subjects 28

3.4 Research approaches 29

3.5 Data collecting tools 30

3.5.1 Questionnaires 31

3.5.2 Interviews 31

3.5.3 Observations 31

3.6 Data analysis 32

3.7 Conclusion 32

CHAPTER 4 – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Overview 34

4.2 General Pedagogical Context 34

4.2.1 English courses at vocational training schools in Dong Thap 34

4.2.2 The teachers at vocational training schools Dong Thap 35

4.2.3 The students at vocational training schools in Dong Thap 36

4.3 Data from questionnaires 37

4.3.1 Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of teaching and learning English grammar 37

4.3.2 Difficulties faced by teachers and students in teaching and learning English grammar 40

4.3.3 Teachers’ and students’ opinions of the production stage of a grammar lesson 42

4.3.4 Oral practice activities to practise English grammar structures 45

4.3.5 Difficulties faced by teachers and students in using oral practice activities in the production stage 50

4.4 Interview analysis 52

4.4.1 Teachers’ and students’ opinions of using oral practice activities to practice English grammar structures 52

4.4.2 Advantages and disadvantages of using oral practice activities 53

4.4.3 Oral practice activities held in the production stage of grammar lessons 53

4.4.4 Teachers’ and students’ suggestions for better use of oral practice activities 54

4.5 Observations analysis 55

4.5.1 Classroom description and procedure of the activities 55

4.5.2 General comments 57

4.6 Discussions of the Findings 58

4.7 Summary 60

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 5.1 Overview 62

5.2 Summary of the key findings 62

5.3 Implications 63

5.3.1 For teachers 63

5.3.2 For students 65

5.4 Limitations of the study 66

5.5 Suggestions for further study 66

References 68

Appendices 69

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

TV: Television

LIST OF TABLES

Pages

Table 4.1: Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the role of English grammar

in language teaching and learning 39 Table 4.2: Teachers’ perceptions of the difficulties in teaching English grammar 40 Table 4.3: Students’ perceptions of the difficulties in learning English grammar 41 Table 4.4: Activities to practice new grammar structures in the production stage 44 Table 4.5: Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of using oral practice activities to practice grammar structures 45 Table 4.6: Benefits of using oral practice activities to practice grammar structures 48 Table 4.7: Teachers’ difficulties in using oral practice activities 50 Table 4.8: Students’ difficulties when oral practice activities 51

LIST OF FIGURES

Pages

Figure 4.1: Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of English grammar 37

Figure 4.2: Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the importance of English

grammar 38

Figure 4.3: Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the difficulty of production stage 42 Figure 4.4: The teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards activities to practice

new grammar structures in the production stage 45

Figure 4.5: Frequency of oral practice activities in the production stage 47

Figure 4.6: Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards using oral practice

activities to practice grammar structures 48

CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION 1.7 Rationale

Nowadays, English is considered as one of the most important language because

it bridges people in the world together Teaching and learning English is paid much attention all over the world, especially in the developing countries like Vietnam Recently, teaching English has been improved in methods in light of communicative approach, learner – center approach which is adaptable to require objectives and helps students have more opportunities to communicate in English However, at many vocational training schools, teaching English still has not developed students’ ability, activeness and motivation, especially teaching grammar

Grammar is central to the teaching and learning of languages because it makes

up the skeleton of a language Without grammar, words hang together with no meaning or sense Students, with good grammar mastery, not only produce sentences grammatically but also acquire the ability to apply grammatical knowledge in certain context to express their thoughts and their feeling as well as to receive feedback By teaching grammar, teachers not only give students the means

to express themselves, but also fulfill students’ expectations of what learning a foreign language involves However, how to teach grammar effectively is not easy and it is one of constant concerns of teachers of English So far, a great number of studies have been conducted to assist teachers and students in teaching and learning English grammar

In fact, teaching and learning English grammar at vocational training schools in Dong Thap have not achieved high results as expected Almost students do not have motivation in learning English, especially English grammar They feel it so bored to the subject Therefore, they cannot follow the teacher’s lessons and even apply the knowledge they have learnt in real situations

Moreover, the teachers of English at vocational training schools in Dong Thap seem to prefer traditional teaching methods in which grammar structures are taught

deductively when teaching English grammar The most common activity the teachers use to help students practice is just giving the explanation of new words and grammar structures, asking students to repeat and in general making students passive Even younger teachers of English rarely organize communicative activities

in their lessons because they are afraid of making noise which may influence the neighboring classes and also they find it difficult to control the class That is the reason why teachers of English seem to prefer giving students a lot of written exercises to do in class This makes students have no interests in learning grammar

at all Students often practice their grammar exercises reluctantly and passively The fact is that the first-year students at vocational training schools in Dong Thap have a lot of difficulties in learning grammar They are taught grammar though repetition and written exercises Students are required to repeat the models and memorize the rules These activities are boring and not effective Furthermore, many teachers approach grammar far too seriously, with unsmiling faces, particularly during the first phases of a new lesson when students are trying to grasp

an initial understanding of the form and meaning of the grammar structure

In class, students do not have many opportunities to practice grammar structures

in communicative activities They are just asked to do grammar exercises in the textbooks after the teacher’s presentation and explanation of a new grammar point and at home they have to do grammar exercises in the workbooks without correction from the teachers because the teachers have no time for it It is difficult for teachers to finish their teaching successfully because of the time constraint, the large class size, and the students’ mixed level As the result, the students can produce correct forms when doing exercises and taking tests, but consistently make errors while trying to produce their own free writing or speech It is obvious that students do not master grammar structures thoroughly and this way of teaching and learning may result in the students’ negative attitudes towards English grammar acquisition which surely hinders their language learning conduct

This situation also provides another good reason for the study to be conducted with the hope to investigate the teachers’ and students’ perceptions of using oral

practice activities in the grammar lessons in order to help the students of vocational training schools in Dong Thap practice English grammar structures effectively

1.8 Aims and Objectives

The study aims at exploring the teachers’ and students’ perceptions of using oral practice activities in teaching and learning English grammar at vocational training schools in Dong Thap To achieve this aim, three specific objectives are targeted:

 To investigate the teachers’ and students’ perceptions of using oral practice activities in teaching and learning English grammar, especially in the production stage of grammar lessons

 To explore the difficulties faced by teachers and students when using oral practice activities in teaching and learning English grammar at vocational training schools in Dong Thap

 To suggest some possible oral practice activities which are thought to

be effective for practicing English grammar structures for the year students at vocational training schools in Dong Thap

first-1.9 Research questions

The study seeks the answers to the following research questions:

1 What are teachers’ perceptions of using oral practice activities in teaching and learning grammar?

2 What are students’ perceptions of using oral practice activities in learning grammar?

3 May oral practice activities help students improve learning grammar

at vocational training schools in Dong Thap?

1.10 Scope of the study

Due to the limited time, the researcher is unable to carry out the investigation on

a large scale Therefore, the study focuses on production stage of grammar lessons

in the real teaching and learning English grammar at vocational training schools in Dong Thap The study is concerned only with learning of first-year students and teaching of teachers of English at three vocational training schools in Dong Thap

1.11 Significance of the study

The study is conducted with the expectation that its results will be useful for teachers of English at vocational training schools in Dong Thap Based on the findings, conclusions can be made on the teachers’ and students’ perceptions of using oral practice activities in teaching and learning grammar, whether these activities should be applied or not, the difficulties the teachers and students face when using these activities to practice English grammar structures and how to deal with these difficulties Therefore, it could be a considerable contribution to teaching and learning English grammar effectively and enjoyably at vocational training schools in Dong Thap

1.12 Outline of the study

The study is organized around five chapters:

Chapter 1 – Introduction – provides an overview of the study background This gives a brief description of the thesis topic and information related to English grammar teaching and learning at vocational training schools in Dong Thap Moreover, the aims, the research questions, the scope of study, the significance, the methods of study, and the outline of study are also included in this chapter

Chapter 2 – Literature review – reviews the relevant literature related to the communicative language teaching method, especially oral practice activities in English grammar teaching and learning

Chapter 3 – Methodology – presents the actual procedures of the study such

as, study design, subjects of the study, the data collection method, instruments as well as process of data collection and data analysis

Chapter 4 – Data analysis and discussion – focuses on presenting, analyzing and discussing the results obtained from the study

Chapter 5 – Conclusion – provides the summary of the findings, some recommendations on how to teach English grammar through oral practice at vocational training schools in Dong Thap

CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Overview

This chapter focuses on some theoretical grounds of teaching and learning grammar as well as oral practice activities in teaching and learning grammar It consists of two parts The first part is concerned with major issues regarding teaching and learning grammar The second one discusses about oral practice activities in teaching grammar

2.2 An overview of teaching and learning grammar

Ur (1991:4) says, “Grammar is the way language manipulates and combines words (or bits of words) in order to form longer units of meaning.” This definition

is quite close to the common understanding of what grammar is The main difference is that it tells us how the rules of language actually work – they arrange and shape words Nevertheless, knowing that these rules do is not a very motivating factor alone

In a word, it can be understood that grammar is not only the rules and the structure of a language, it is a means of communication and it helps people succeed

in communicating with others

As it can be seen from the above definitions, grammar is not an unimportant set of rules that can be ignored without consequences 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 Making students realize it, however, is only the first step in teaching grammar, and the following activities can take many different forms, based on a selected approach and method

2.2.2 The role of grammar in teaching and learning English

Nobody can doubt that a good knowledge of the grammatical system is essential to master a foreign language and it is also one of the most important parts

of communicative competence Thus, grammar is a framework without it a language cannot be structured and a message cannot be conveyed smoothly and fluently

According to Jim Scrivener (2003), people use grammar to communicate

more effectively, more precisely with others That communication may be in a conversation or an essay or a notice or a hundred other things People use grammar

to ‘fine-tune’ a meaning, to make it more precise Moreover, it is quite reasonable to see the importance of grammar according to Harmer’s viewpoint (1987: 12):

Without some understanding of Grammar, students would not be able to do

anything more than utter separate items of language for separate functions The expression of functional language is only possible through the use of the Grammar of the language

Firstly, teaching grammar helps students understand how the language works Apart from vocabulary, students need to know grammar to understand how

it is written or how words are combined together to understand the proper meaning Without grammar or with a poor knowledge of grammar, they may get confused with complicated expression In other words, the teaching of grammar means providing students with opportunities to use English in a variety of realistic situations to learn to communicate effectively Appropriate grammar techniques are embedded in meaningful, communicative contexts then contribute positively to communicative goals and they also promote accuracy within fluent communicate language use

Secondly, according to Smith (2001: 15), if teachers neither pay attention to grammar nor create opportunities for learners to improve grammar, learners are likely to stand the risk of fossilization or reach a point where they can cope with level of communication that is demanded of them by making use of their existing grammatical resources and communication strategies and probably with sufficient fluency Surely, they do not see the need to develop their linguistic abilities any further

In favor of the importance of grammar, Larsen – Freeman (1986) affirms that grammar is regarded as a skill rather than an area of knowledge Learners do not simply store knowledge about the language and its use; they need also develop an ability to do something They must have a chance of learning situations to overcome the knowledge problem It is true to say that grammar is the fifth skill besides four skills reading, writing, speaking, and listening Skill development as well as learning grammar takes practice Grammar might not be taught only when the students already possessed the knowledge and the ability to use the grammar item in speech, writing and listening comprehension In fact, grammar is the basis for mastering four language skills When we have concrete foundation of grammar, we feel easy to advance

In general, grammar is acknowledged to be of importance in language study and in language teaching and learning in particular Grammar is acquired naturally from meaningful input and opportunities to interact in the classroom More especially, learners can improve their grammar competence in a suitable environment without conscious focus on language forms However, this partly depends on the learning circumstances As a result, grammar teaching gains its significant role in English Language Teaching because highly developed language skills are difficult to achieve without some knowledge of grammar

2.2.3 Overview of grammar teaching approaches

There are some milestones which chart the journey in the development of teaching English methodology through recent history in which a language item is grammar taught in various approaches which have their own positive and negative

aspects Yet, it is necessary to have a review of all the approaches in order that we can understand more clearly about the development and the history of grammar teaching and each approach’s aspects as well

2.2.3.1 The Grammar -Translation Method

The Grammar Translation Method is one of the most traditional methods, dating back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s, which offered little beyond an insight into the grammatical rules attending the process of translating from the second to the native language According to Brown (2000: 15-16), long and detailed explanations of the intricacies of grammatical rules and forms are supplied for students to memorize and apply the syntactic rules to other examples.”

We can conclude that in the method, grammar stays an important position However, its contribution to language learning has been limited, since it has shifted the focus from the real language to a "dissected body" of nouns, adjectives, and prepositions, failing to generate the communicativeness in grammar lessons Although the method is still a standard method for a long time, it is necessary to find a new method for an innovation in language teaching

2.2.3.2 The Direct Method

As with the Grammar Translation Method, the Direct Method, sometimes called the Natural Method is not new The Direct Method, an answer to the dissatisfaction with the older Grammar Translation Method, teaches students grammar and vocabulary through direct translations and thus focuses on the written

language In the Direct Method, “Grammar is not of as importance as in Grammar_

Translation Method.” (Larsen -Freeman, 1986), grammar is taught by inductive analogy from the examples presented orally in the target language Little of analysis

of grammatical rules is given Structural patterns are given through the repetition drills and sequenced by means of contrastive analysis and taught one at one time

(Brown, 2000)

2.2.3.3 The Audio-lingual Method

According to Skinner (1957), “In the Audio-Lingual Method, grammar is most important for the student; the teacher drills grammar, the student must repeat grammar patterns after the teacher.” The method fell short of promoting communicative ability as it paid undue attention to memorization and drilling, while downgrading the role of context and world knowledge in language learning in general and in grammar in particular After all, it was discovered that language was not acquired through a process of habit formation and errors were not necessarily bad or pernicious Due to weaknesses in performance, and more importantly because of Noam Chomsky's theoretical (1959) attack on language learning as a set

of habits, Audio-Lingual Method is rarely the primary method of instruction today

2.2.3.4 Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

In Communicative Language Teaching, grammar can be taught inductively

or deductively It is the fact that some learners learn better by being given the context and then are presented with the grammar rules afterwards while others need the rule in order to understand the rationale for the new grammatical structure Besides, it depends on the kinds of grammatical points, which help teachers decide the ways of presenting grammar effectively The teacher spends less time on the structures of the language and more time encouraging the learners to use the language It is frequent that communication activities such as games and puzzles which are often carried out in pairs or group are encouraged in teaching with no much correction or intervention during the activity

From all the above, it can be seen that through the history of grammar teaching, the ways teachers have gone about the teaching of foreign languages have seen enormous changes over the past centuries Each method has its own strengths and weaknesses, and it provides a 'recipe' for various practical classroom ideas and procedures; a good method that stems from a good theory can produce a number of ideas Depending on the content and the purpose of the lesson, teachers choose and combine many methods in a lesson as long as these methods are suitable and affective in their grammar teaching

2.2.4 The shape of the grammar lesson

Grammar lessons are usually composed of three phases: Presentation, Practice, and Production One of the best ways of helping students to reach the objectives of the lesson is to introduce the new language well in the first phase of the lesson, which is the Presentation phase Then, students need to have plenty of activities to help them to practice the new language: the Practice phase Lastly, the students need time to use the new language they have learned in order to communicate with each other: the Production phase

2.2.4.1 Presentation phase

The first and the most important stage in teaching grammar is presentation This phase is controlled by the teachers Therefore, teachers should pay attention to some guidelines regarding the way of the presentation of grammatical structures Rod Ellis (1997) believed that learners can acquire a new grammatical structure only very gradually and slowly It can, in fact, take several months for them to master a single grammatical structure For this reason, grammar instruction,

no matter how well designed, is unlikely to achieve immediate success This suggests that grammar teaching needs to emphasize awareness of how grammatical features work rather than mastery Learners who are aware of a grammatical structure are more likely to notice it when they subsequently encounter it Thus, awareness can facilitate and trigger learning

Doff (1990: 33) believed that in dealing with the complexity of grammar there are two aspects that must be dealt with in the presentation phase of the lesson He believed, “When we present a structure, it is important to show what the structure means and how it is used, by giving examples; show clearly how the structure is formed, so that students can use it to make sentences of their own.”

The presentation phase involves explaining the aims of the lesson so that children know what they will learn and why It is also during this stage that the teacher explains the new language either inductively or deductively, including both its meaning and form, and how to say or write it correctly A good presentation will

be understandable, interesting and in a context the children can understand, such as

a song, game or story

2.2.4.2 Practice phase

The next phase of the grammar lesson is (controlled) practice phase In this phase, learners practice saying or writing the language structure correctly Typical practice activities include drills, multiple choice exercises, gap – and – cue exercises, transformations, etc In this phase, the teacher’s role is to direct the activities, to provide positive feedback to students, correct mistakes and model the correct forms According to Ur (1996), the activities should be planned in such a way that begins with controlled activities and move toward less controlled activities

 Controlled practice activities

This is the stage at which learners are given intensive mechanical practice of the new structure under the teacher’s strict control so that they can produce sentences with correct forms of the structure and reduce the possibility of their error

to the minimum The common controlled activities in this stage are repetition drill,

substitution drill, conversion or transformation, matching, rearrangement, questions and answer, etc, which help learners consolidate the forms of the structure and gain

fluency in the reproduction of it

 Less controlled practice activities

In this stage, learners are given opportunities to practice the use of new structure

in situation close the real life They do the practice more freely and meaningfully, basing themselves on their opinion experience or knowledge of real life They focus

on meaning and use rather than on the accurate form of the structure

There are some less controlled techniques which can be used in this stage such as guessing, find someone who, noughts and crosses, mapped dialogue, chain game, etc

2.2.4.2 Production phase

When the learners have completely mastered the form and have learnt how to produce it without mistakes in controlled exercises, they can move on to the production phase In this phase, they use the newly learnt language structure to produce oral or written texts Typical production activities include dialogues, oral presentations, and production of sentences, paragraphs or longer texts The teacher does not generally intervene or correct in this phase: after all, the students should not make mistakes by now If mistakes are made, they are pointed out after the exercise has finished

The learners have a chance to use the structures to express their own ideas or talk about their experiences through some meaningful practice activities There are two kinds of useful topics According to Doff (1988: 78), the learners can talk about real life, for example themselves, friends or anything in the world They can also imagine a situation which is not real to practice speaking

In this phase, role play and communicative games are often used Free practice offers students a chance to talk freely; hence, it is in this stages that errors often occur Nevertheless, teachers should not interrupt students to correct their mistakes because the main purpose is to develop fluency and confidence Important errors can be corrected during giving feedback after this stage

In the production phase, several answers will be acceptable whereas practice activities typically will have only one correct answer Furthermore, in the practice phase emphasis is on accuracy (the ability to produce the correct form), whereas the production phase is supposed to develop fluency (the ability to speak naturally)

2.3 Oral practice activities in teaching and learning grammar

2.3.1 Definitions of oral practice

A grammar lesson consists of different stages, which are suggested differently

by different methodologists Ur (1988) organizes grammar teaching into four stages: presentation, isolation and explanation, practice, and test, whereas according to Celce- Murcia and Hilles (1988), a grammar lesson goes through four following

phases : presentation, focused practice, communicative practice, teacher- feedback and correction Harmer (1987) discusses the question of how to teach grammar in three aspects: presentation, practice and testing

Thus, however different such suggestions are, practice as a stage is always present, it comes after the initial presentation and explanation when learners have taken knowledge into short term memory but have not really mastered it yet Practice may be defined as any kind of engaging with the language on the part of the learners, usually under the teachers’ supervision, whose primary objective is to consolidate learning Practice involves both spoken and written practice Oral practice is the spoken performance at repeatedly so as to acquire or maintain proficiency in a language structure

2.3.2 Characteristics of a successful oral activity

According to Ur (1996: 120), a successful oral activity consists of the following characteristics:

o A lot of learners talk: learners speak as much as possible during the period of time allowed Time taken up with the teacher talk or pauses is minimized

o Even participation: every learner takes part in the speaking activity The participants’ contributions are fairly distributed

o High motivation: The topic makes them interested and eager to speak or learners want to fulfill the task to get the goal

o An acceptable language level: Learners use relevant and comprehensible expressions Language accuracy is of an acceptable level

In addition, Pattison (1987) points out the characteristics of classroom oral communication practice as follows:

o The content or topic is highly predictable and decided by teachers, textbooks, tapes, etc The meaning of what they say may not always be clear to the speakers

o Learners speak in order to practice speaking, to follow teachers’ instructions or demands and to get good marks

o The extrinsic motivation is satisfied as the foreign language is practiced,

as teachers accept or correct what is said, as teachers give marks to learners

o Participants are often a large group in which not everyone is facing the speakers or interested in what they say except for the teacher

o Language from teachers or tapes is closely adapted to learners’ level All speech is as accurate as possible and usually in complete sentences Learners are often corrected if their speech deviates from standard forms Problems in communicating meaning are often solved by translation

The characteristics of classroom oral communication practice as shown by Pattison (1987) reveal a lot of deficiencies learners learning to speak do face in the reality of the classroom However, this does not mean that enhancing learners’ communication skills in the classroom is impossible Teachers must ensure life-like communication to be emphasized and encouraged inside the classroom to develop

learners’ speaking skills

2.3.3 The role of oral practice activities in the production stage of English grammar lessons

Eagly and Chaiken (1993) claimed that students’ attitude in language learning in general and grammar in particular may be influenced by oral practice because oral practice not only brings students favorable feeling but also the belief in learning Attitude reflects an individual is like or dislike for an item Meanwhile, oral practice provides students positive attitudes in learning In other words, the relationship between interests and positive attitudes is claimed

Nunan (2007) emphasized that students’ interests may derive from oral grammar practice because when involving in oral practice activities, students may change the emphasis or intonation of their sentences as they wish, use their facial expression,

physical movement etc This makes the lesson not only livelier but also more interesting, and it also makes students more interested in learning Besides, personalization will increase students’ interest if students provide responses that are true for them

Grammatical patterns are matched to particular communicative meanings so learners can see connection between form and function Learners learn how to choose the right pattern to express different communicative meanings They will incorporate various grammatical structures in their performance Students, for successful language use, need not only to be exposed to the structures and functions

of communication but also to practice applying grammatical knowledge in real contexts To reach the goals, the application of grammar in the classroom should be more creative and open-ended Creative language activities provide more opportunities for the learners to use language more flexibly than receptive language tasks Creative language use involves learners in recombining familiar words, phrases, and structures in new and unfamiliar ways When students have enough time and enough opportunities to communicate and to receive feedback on attempts

at producing meaningful language, the errors will gradually diminish (Corder, 1981; Selinker, 1972, 1992) Thanks to that, students will learn grammar better

According to Ur (1988: 15), “Interest is an essential feature of successful oral practice.” Without properly getting involved in practicing grammar orally and communicatively, students feel bored and find it difficult to concentrate, their attention wanders, and they may spend much of the lesson time thinking or dreaming of other things Therefore, the poor quality of effort and attention will reduce their learning results Besides, because of boredom, students may start out -of- focus talks often talk or produce unruly behavior, therefore more valuable learning time may be wasted on coping with discipline problems On the contrary, if students are interested in what is done, they will not only learn efficiently, they are also likely to enjoy the process and want to continue learning

Nunan (2007) emphasized that oral practice activities, in grammar learning and teaching, not only maintain learners’ interests but also sustain their attention in the

long term process of acquiring grammatical knowledge and skills in English Oral practice will offer students opportunities to practice and use grammar realistically and meaningfully in order to activate learners’ knowledge of grammar Oral grammar practice also increase the realism and usefulness of grammar lessons Moreover, for many teachers, correcting grammar errors in students’ written work is quite a time consuming task

In brief, grammar should be taught through oral practice activities to increase students’ interests, which results in more effective grammar acquisition

2.3.4 Barriers to adopting oral practice activities in production stage of English grammar lessons

Teaching grammar communicatively or using communicative activities means teaching grammar effectively In other words, oral grammar practice provides for effective grammar acquisition However, how to organize oral practice successfully

is a hard question Some difficulties can occur when adopting oral practice activities

in production stage of English grammar lesson These barriers can be divided into three categories: those caused by the teacher, those caused by the learners, those caused by the educational system

2.3.4.1 Difficulties from teachers

Most teachers favored a more traditional way of teaching, and resisted change

to the new teaching environment required by oral practice activities The teachers also reported that they found a lack of support from the administration and they did not have much training to practice using oral practice activities in their English grammar lessons Most of the teachers made comments on the fact that using oral practice activities was taught as knowledge and theory, and they had no practical

experience in the methodology or its applications

Another difficulty is the use of language Teachers did not use the target language in the classroom, and believed students were not ready to use and produce

it Apart from this, teachers believed that since communicative activities require the

use of the target language, without explicit directions from teachers, it was inappropriate for English teaching in vocational training schools

2.3.4.2 Difficulties from learners

Most of the students come from rural areas so they are lack of necessary conditions for their studying It is one of the most important reasons that make the students’ levels of English are unequal In addition, most of the students are afraid

of speaking in front of the class They are afraid of making mistakes Some students have not had studying awareness yet They have not recognized the importance of learning English in their real life and their job in the future Most of them considered English as a compulsory subject in the training program They do not apply the knowledge they have just been studied in their real life and even do not participate in the activities in the class

2.3.4.3 Difficulties from the educational system

In the Vietnamese educational context, it is difficult to change the large classes, grammar based examinations Also, there is insufficient funding for equipment and facilities

Firstly, the large class size makes it almost impossible to use oral practice activities because of problems with class management, noise, giving individualized attention to students, keeping students on task, and lack of space for teachers and students to move around or get into groups In addition, the examination also put pressure on teachers to teach the materials covered in this exam Because the exam concentrates on grammar knowledge, a communicative competence development does not meet the needs of students

2.3.5 Classification of oral practice activities in production stage of English grammar lessons

Many researchers discuss classroom activities and a lot of activities are

adapted or designed based on the theory and characteristics of CLT

Littlewood (1981) distinguishes between “functional communication activities” and “social interaction activities” In his views, the former includes such tasks as learners noting similarities or differences in sets of pictures, discovering missing features in a map or picture, one learner communicating behind a screen to another learner and giving instructions on how to draw a picture or shape, or how to complete a map, following directions, and solving problems from shared cues The latter includes conversation and discussion and sessions, dialogues and role-plays, simulations, and improvisations and debates

There are many oral practice activities that can be used in a grammar lesson However, this study just focuses on presenting some oral practice activities that can

be used in production stage

Friederike Klippel (1985) arranges communicative fluency activities under three headings: “Questionings and answers”, “Discussions and decisions”, and

“Stories and answers”

2.3.5.1 Questionings and answers

a Interviews

Interview is a good way to gain information and provide the participants with practice in improving speaking and listening skills Because they force students to listen carefully and they are so versatile in their subject matter Results of interviews can be prepared for publication in reports or in the school newspaper, thus supporting the writing component of the language arts program

Before asking students to use interview activities, the teachers should give the students know the topic choosing from the topics of the lessons in class or any topic taking from recent news stories Moreover, the teachers need to make sure that the learners have acquired a basic set of structures and vocabulary the interviews can be used A few sample sentences on the board may be a help for the less able With advanced learners language functions like insisting and asking for confirmation (Did you mean that ? Do you really think that .? Did you say ? But you said earlier that .), hesitating (Well, let me see ), contradicting and interrupting (Hold on a minute , Can I just butt in here?) can be practiced during interviews When students report back on interviews they have done, they have to use reported speech

For example, students are asked to work in pair and ask their partner the following questions:

What’s your favorite TV program?

Why do you like to watch this program?

How often do you watch this program?

When did you last watch this program?

After interviewing, the students using reported speech in order to report their partner’s answers

b Guessing games

According to Friederike Klippel (1985), the basic rule of guessing games is

simple: one person knows something that another one wants to find out How this is done is determined by an additional set of rules These rules lay down, for example, the type and number of questions The thing to be guessed differs greatly from game

to game It can be something one player is thinking of, an object seen only by one person, a word, an activity - or lots of other things

Before the teachers try out a new guessing game, make sure that the students know all the words and structures necessary for the game If the teachers are not sure, a trial run through the game may refresh the students' memories and show

whether any revision is needed before the teachers start the guessing games A trial run also has the advantage that the rules are demonstrated to all the players If the teachers let their students play a guessing game as a team contests it may be necessary to damp down the very competitive-minded Games are a lot of fun even

if they are not played in order to score points

For example, the class is divided into groups One member of each group

leaves the room The remaining group members decide on how the person who is

outside spent the previous day They draw up an exact time schedule from 8 a.m to

8 p.m and describe where the person was, what he did, who he talked to

The people who waited outside during step 2 are called in and return to their groups The group tries to find out what he really did - by asking only yes/no

questions in the past tenses (“Did you stay at home yesterday?; Did you meet your friend?; etc.)

c Questioning activities

Friederike Klippel (1985) stated that “Questioning activities can focus on the learners themselves, their attitudes and values, the cultural background of the target country” Many of these activities are quite flexible, not only as regards their

content but also in terms of procedure By simply introducing a few new rules, e.g

a limit on the number of questions or a time-limit, they are transformed into games

Among the questioning activities, the teachers can use “What would happen

if….” and “Find someone who…” in the production stage of their grammar lessons

c.1 What would happen if…

This activity can help the students practice if clauses structures Every student receives one or two slips of paper with sentences like the followings:

- “What would happen if a shop gave away its goods free every Wednesday?”

- “What would you do if you won a trip for two to a city of your choice?” etc

One student starts by reading out his question and then asks another student

to answer it The second student continues by answering or asking a third student to answer the first student's question If he has answered the question he may then read out his own question for somebody else to answer The activity is finished when all the questions have been read out and answered

c.2 Find someone who…

This activity can help the students practice relative clauses structures Each student receives a handout Everyone walks around the room and questions other people about things on the handout As soon as somebody finds another student who answers 'yes' to one of the questions, he writes his name in the space and goes

on to question someone else, because each name may only be used once If a student overhears somebody answering 'yes' to another person's question he is not allowed to use that name himself After a given time (15 minutes) or when someone has filled in all the blanks, the questioning stops

Students report what they have found out by using the relative clauses structure “……is a person who……” Moreover, they can preface their report with:

“Ί was surprised that ”, “Ί never thought that .”

2.3.5.2 Discussions and decisions

a Discussion games

The main intention of all discussion games is to get the students to talk and

to stimulate their interest and imagination The teachers could ask the students to hand round an object and agree on the rule that whoever is holding the object has to contribute something to the discussion It is not to be expected that each student will

be able to think of something new to say, but in order to be able to say things like “I agree with ” or “I don't agree with.… because…”, he has to listen carefully throughout the discussion

As regards their language learning aims, the discussion games differ quite substantially from one another However, a common feature is that students have to give reasons for their views The teachers can also use discussion games to improve the atmosphere in their class and help students cooperate better with each other Sometimes certain people subconsciously adopt particular roles in discussion If the teachers feel that is the case, ask a few students to observe some of the others during the next discussion and to note down who takes which role

For example, the teachers can use the following discussion game in order to

help students practice past tense and present tense The class is divided into groups

of three to four students Each group receives a photo and is asked to write curriculum vitae for the person in the picture The students should mainly imagine the person's present interests and lifestyle When they have finished with the first picture, photos are exchanged between groups Each group works with three

pictures The results of the group work are reported and discussed Which lives

were seen in a similar way by the three groups? Which pictures were interpreted

differently? If the teacher uses photographs of people she knows, she could tell the students how far off the mark they are

b Problem-solving activities

In the problem-solving activities the learners have to find solutions to various types of problem Sometimes, there is just one correct solution However, most of these activities lead to a discussion of several ways of solving the problems The

problem tasks range from the imaginary to the more realistic The latter provide

situations which the learners might conceivably have to face outside the classroom

Apart from the activities focusing on the likes and dislikes of individual learners, which therefore need an initial phase where each student works on his own, most of the problem-solving tasks in this section require pair or group work throughout The language which is needed for problem-solving activities depends on the topic of each exercise, but in general students will have to make suggestions, give reasons, and accept, modify or reject suggestions and reasons given by others

For example, the teachers can use the following problem-solving activity in

order to help students practice conditional sentences and adverb clauses of reason The teacher describes the situation to the class: “A fire has broken out where you live You have a few minutes to grab five of your belongings and rescue them

Which five things would you take? Remember, you have to carry them all.” Each

student writes down up to five things he would rescue from the fire Some students read out their lists and explain why they would take these things The others should ask questions like “Why wouldn't you take ? What about your ?”

2.3.5.3 Stories and scenes

a Role plays

According to Friederike Klippel (1985), role plays improve the students' oral performance generally, and simulations quite often train all four skills The complexity of simulations, which run over several stages, prevents the teacher from exactly determining beforehand which structures, words and language skills will be needed by the players Therefore simulations mainly constitute practice sessions where the participants draw on everything they have learnt so far

For instance, the class is divided into five groups One group represents Lindon Borough Council, each of the four remaining groups, one of the four applicants Lindon Borough Council group receive the full handout; each of the other groups get the advertisements and their own application The Borough Council group works out the questions they would like to ask each applicant The applicants prepare the answers/statements for the questions they think will be asked The Borough Council group split into two groups, each interviewing two of the

applicants (these are chosen by the group who prepared the interview) simultaneously while the other members of each applicant's group watch and listen The Borough Council group come together again and report on the interviews they have conducted Then they decide which applicant to accept Meanwhile the applicants talk about the interviews and give their impressions of what was said

b Chain stories

The aim of these activities is to get the students to produce longer connected texts For this they will need imagination as well as some skill in the foreign

language Stimuli are given in the form of individual words or pictures

Story-telling activates more than a limited number of patterns and structures and these activities are best used as general revision Similar exercises, in terms of their

comprehensive scope, although these differ in their structure (dialogue)

For example, each student receives a word slip with one noun/verb/adjective

The teacher starts the story by giving the first sentence, e.g “It was a stormy night

in November.” A student (either a volunteer or the person sitting nearest to the teacher) continues the story He may say up to three sentences and must include the word on his slip of paper The next student goes on

2.4 Conclusion

Briefly, this chapter presents the literature related to the study Not only the definitions, the role of oral activities in grammar teaching as well as the characteristics of an oral activity, but also teaching approaches are viewed to figure out the most suitable techniques for effective English grammar lessons

CHAPTER 3 – METHODOLOGY 3.1 Overview

Chapter 3 is concerned with the methodology of carrying out the study and the procedures of the research Therefore, the issues such as participants of the study, instruments for data collection, reasons for choosing those instruments, procedures of doing the research and data analysis are all presented in detail in this chapter

3.2 The setting of the study

The study is conducted at three vocational training schools in Dong Thap Most of them are located in rural areas Therefore, they have to cope with many difficulties in teaching and learning process In spite of difficulties and challenges, English is always considered of great importance by all the leaders and teachers because it equips students with additional skills to supplement and upgrade their knowledge and then find better jobs after their graduation Therefore, teachers of English at vocational training schools in Dong Thap are making great efforts to find out appropriate approaching methods to teach English more effectively

According to the training curriculum, the total time of 120 periods of General English learning is divided into 2 terms of first year at vocational training school This means that students have 60 periods each term and the test takers have 2 final tests at the end of each term

3.3 The subjects

The subjects of the study consisted of 100 first-year students and 10 teachers from three vocational training schools in Dong Thap The students were non-English majors aged from 16 to 23 and they were both male and female Most of them came from comparatively poor families so their learning condition was not good enough The number of students in each class was about 40 students and with such big class sizes both teacher and students have many difficulties in teaching and learning process Moreover, most of the students just finished the learning program

at secondary schools Just a few students graduated high schools attended studying

at vocational training schools in Dong Thap Therefore, the levels of students were variable, ranging from elementary, pre-intermediate to intermediate They also had different learning styles Some active students liked communicating and participating in communicative activities Some were still influenced by traditional method of teaching and learning They were not aware of their language needs in term of communication in real life situations They often kept silent and were not willing to participate in class activities As a result, it was difficult for the teacher to monitor the class and engage students in communicative activities in the class

Besides, English was one of compulsory subjects at vocational training schools in Dong Thap but it was not the main subject and the traditional exams-written exams were being used Their major is not English so they did not devote themselves to English learning They just wanted to be given exercises to practice grammar to pass the final exams Some even thought that communicative activities were not necessary and just took time, not helping them get high marks at the end of the term

Moreover, 10 teachers of English at vocational training schools in Dong Thap were also invited to be the subjects of the study All of them were trained in Vietnam and none of them studied abroad Most of them were so young In teaching, they usually used traditional method They preferred using Vietnamese in class because it was easy to explain the knowledge to the students Furthermore, most teachers were not qualified enough to conduct communicative activities in a foreign language lesson

3.4 Research approaches

Both quantitative and qualitative methods are employed to carry out this study Quantitative method helps to provide the quantified background data The collected data and information lay the foundation of the study In order to obtain in-depth and rich data, the study used a variety of research instruments and sources of data: questionnaires, classroom interviews, and observations

3.5 Data collecting tools

3.5.1 Questionnaires (Appendices 1, 2 and 3)

According to Bill Gillham (2000), questionnaires are one of a range of ways of getting information from people for the research by asking questions There are many reasons for using questionnaires in a research Firstly, it is easy to get information from a lot of people very quickly by using questionnaire If it is efficiently organized, responses to even a large-scale questionnaire can be pulled in within a matter of weeks Secondly, respondents can complete the questionnaire when it suits them Interviewing can be a complicated business as far as finding mutually convenient times is concerned But the researcher can just leave a questionnaire for someone to complete when he or she has the time In addition, using questionnaire is less pressure for an immediate response Respondents can answer in their own time and at their own peace If they want to think about their answers they can do so Finally, the information about respondents will be anonymous This will make the respondents feel more comfortable when giving their answers

To gain data for the research, two kinds of questionnaires were administered - the questionnaire for teachers (Appendix 1), and the questionnaire for students (Appendix 2,3) The questionnaires were given to 10 teachers and 100 first-year non-major English students of Accounting, Electronic and Computer Science They came from three vocational training schools in Dong Thap Among 12 questions for the teachers (Appendix 1) and 12 questions for students (Appendix 2, 3), questions

3, 4, 11, 12 more than one choice is acceptable Therefore, the results for the questions are presented in the percentage of the options chosen

In which, questions 1, 2, 3 are designed to ask about the teachers’ and students’ perceptions of teaching and learning English grammar Question 4 is about the difficulties the teachers and students at vocational training schools in Dong Thap face in the process of teaching and learning English grammar Questions 5, 6, 7 ask about the production stage of a grammar lesson On the other hand, questions 8, 9,

10, 11 are about teachers’ and students’ perception of using oral practice activities

to practise English grammar structures Finally, question 12 asks about the

difficulties the teachers and students face when using oral practice activities in the production stage of a grammar lesson

3.5.2 Interviews (Appendices 4 and 5,6)

An interview was carried out for more in-depth data The interview was carried out after weeks of observation The interviewers were 5 teachers of English and 10 first-year students of vocational training schools in Dong Thap They were chosen randomly from 10 teachers and 100 students Each of them was asked 5 questions The first question focused on the teachers’ and students’ thoughts of using oral practice activities in order to practice English grammar The second question is about the advantages and disadvantages of using English oral grammar practice activities in comparison with traditional written practice The next two questions mentioned on the oral practice activities which were held in the production stage of a grammar lesson and teachers’ and students’ thoughts of these activities The last question asked about teachers’ and students’ suggestions to make the students practice English grammar structures through oral practice activities better and more enjoyable The researcher designed questions carefully before interviewing The aims of the interview were to investigate teachers of English and students at vocational training schools in Dong Thap about their perceptions of using oral practice activities in teaching English grammar and their expectations of this issue All the answers were recorded and transcribed for data analysis

3.5.3 Observations (Appendix 7)

Class observation is a very important way to get an overview of the situation

of teaching and learning English grammar at vocational training schools in Dong Thap It will be carried out weekly during the students’ class hours when the course

is running The aims of the class observation are to investigate whether oral practice activities were held in the production or not And how these activities were used if yes

Before observing, the researcher designed observation sheet which only focused on some aspects of using oral practice activities in the production stage of a