The effectiveness of implementing the 4cs principles in english grammar lessons for ket learners at an english language center

DECLARATION  I hereby declare that the thesis titled “The effectiveness of implementing 4Cs principles in English grammar lessons for KET learners at an English language center” repr

AN GIANG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

VÕ THỊ HUỲNH DIỆU DAV167049 | DH17AV

AN GIANG, JULY 2020

DECLARATION



I hereby declare that the thesis titled “The effectiveness of implementing 4Cs principles in English grammar lessons for KET learners at an English language center” represents my own work and that it has not been previously submitted to any other university or institute in application for admission to degrees or other qualifications

_

July 2020

Võ Thị Huỳnh Diệu

Secondly, I would like to thank my head teacher, Ms Nguyen Thi Anh Guong for always updating me with latest news at university I owe An Giang University a big thank for offering

me the best place to study and grow up

Thirdly, I am thankful to Mrs La Ngoc Huong, director of the Europe Vietnam Australia International English Center (EVAS) for providing me such a professional working place Mrs Huong has helped me to gain lots of English teaching experience and become confident in life I also do not forget to thank the staves at EVAS for their contribution during the time I have been working there Next, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my senior, Mr Nguyen Buu Dang for his assistance when I worked with him at MMW- an Educational Consultancy Company

as well as his encouragement in conducting my thesis

Especially, I want to send my sincere gratitude to my parents, who always care for me and are always by my side They are always the biggest motivation for me to finish this thesis and try my best in life

Last but not least, thank you my KET 22A students for their cooperation in class and participation in this thesis

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii

ABSTRACT ix

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale of the research 1

1.2 Research aims and questions 3

1.3 Research hypotheses 4

1.4 Significance of the research 4

1.5 Research limitations 4

1.6 Organization of the thesis 5

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 The definition of grammar 7

2.2 Approaches and principles for grammar instructions 7

2.2.1 Approaches of grammar instruction 7

2.2.1.1 Deductive Approach 7

2.2.1.2 Inductive Approach 8

2.2.2 Grammar teaching principles 9

2.3 Grammar teaching in the Vietnamese educational context 9

2.4 The 4Cs of the 21st Century Skills 10

2.4.1 The definition of 4Cs 10

2.4.1.1 Critical Thinking Skill 11

2.4.1.2 Creativity Skill 11

2.4.1.3 Collaboration Skill 11

2.4.1.4 Communication Skill 12

2.4.2 The importance of the 4Cs 12

2.4.2.1 The importance of Critical thinking 12

2.4.2.2 The importance of Creativity 12

2.4.2.3 The importance of Collaboration 12

2.4.2.4 The importance of Communication 13

2.5 Instructional Design Principles for 4Cs Skills Learning 13

2.5.1 Framework for the 4Cs 14

2.5.2 The 4Cs teaching in ESL classrooms 16

2.6 The 4Cs implementation in English grammar teaching in the other investigation 16

2.7 Summary of the Literature review 17

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 Research design 18

3.2 Participants 18

3.3 Research Instruments 19

3.3.1 Classroom Observation 19

3.3.2 Questionnaires 20

3.3.3 Interview 21

3.3.4 Pre-test/ Post-test design 22

3.4 Procedures 23

3.4.1 Designing grammar activities 23

3.4.2 Administering the observation 23

3.4.3 Administering the questionnaires 23

3.4.4 Administering the interview 24

3.4.5 Administering the pre-test and post-test 24

3.5 Data analysis 24

3.6 Summary 25

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 26

4.1 How are the grammar lessons designed using the 4Cs principles? 26

4.2 What is the effectiveness of grammar lessons using the 4Cs principles on learners’ skill development and test results? 34

4.2.1 The effectiveness of grammar lessons using the 4Cs principles on learners’ skill development 34

4.2.1.1 Results from Classroom Observations 34

4.2.1.2 Results from the descriptive statistics 42

4.2.2 What is the effectiveness of grammar lessons using the 4Cs principles on learners’ test results? 48

4.3 What practical recommendations can be provided to help English teachers teach grammar effectively? 49

4.3.1 The grammar activity should encourage communication, collaboration, creativity and

develop critical thinking skills 50

4.3.2 The grammar activity designed should be based on learners’ levels of English proficiency, vocabulary range and interests 51

4.3.3 The grammar activity should follow the grammar content and be put in a meaningful context 52

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 53

5.1 Summary of the discussions 53

5.1.1 How are the grammar lessons designed using the 4Cs principles? 53

5.1.2 What is the effectiveness of grammar lessons using the 4Cs principles on learners’ skill development and test results? 53

5.1.3 What practical recommendations can be provided to help English teachers teach grammar effectively? 53

5.2 Implications 54

5.3 Recommendations for further research 55

5 4 Conclusions 55

REFERENCES 56

APPENDICES 60

APPENDIX A: OBSERVATION FORM 60

APPENDIX B: QUESTIONNAIRE 62

APPENDIX C: BẢNG HỎI 66

APPENDIX D: PRE-TEST 70

APPENDIX E: POST- TEST 82

APPENDIX F: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 89

APPENDIX G: RUBRIC FOR REFINING STUDENTS’ COMMUNICATION, COLLABORATION, CRITICAL THINKING AND CREATIVITY 90

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: Traditional grammar lessons in Vietnam (Anh, 2013) 10

Table 2: Instructional Design Principles for 4Cs Skills Learning (Greenhill, 2009) 14

Table 3: Framework for 21st century Learning: Summary of Key points (Greenhill, 2009)14 Table 4: The aims of interview questions 22

Table 5: Optimize KET Grammar Syllabus for learners 27

Table 6: Framework for designing grammar lesson at an English center 29

Table 7: Communication Skill Observation Scale 35

Table 8: Collaboration Skill Observation Scale 36

Table 9: Collaboration Skill Observation Scale 37

Table 10: Critical thinking Skill Observation Scale 37

Table 11: Leaners’ communication skill development 42

Table 12: Leaners’ collaboration skill development 45

Table 13: Leaners’ critical thinking skill development 46

Table 14: Leaners’ creativity skill development 47

Table 15: Paired Sample Test of the Pre-test and Post-test 49

Figure 1: Canale and Swain’s model of communicative competence 14

Figure 2: Percentage for gender and students’ grades 18

Figure 3: The framework of language teaching 24

Figure 4: Model Scenario, from Optimize KET, p.41 29

Figure 5: Communication skill Observation Result 36

Figure 6: Collaboration skill Observation Result 37

Figure 7: Critical Thinking Skill Observation Result 38

Figure 8: Creativity skill Observation Result 38

Figure 9: Leaners’ communication skill development 41

Figure 10: Leaners’ collaboration skill development 42

Figure 11: Leaners’ critical thinking skill development 43

Figure 12: Leaners’ creativity skill development 44

Figure 13: Learners’ opinions about 4Cs Skills importance 46

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL: English as a foreign language

The P21: The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

PPP: Presentation- Practice- Production

KET: Key English Test

ELT: English Language Teaching

ABSTRACT

The 21st century learning is generally described as an education reform that aims to equip every student with the essential skills to face 21st-century challenges According to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2009), the main skills of learning and revolution in the 21stCentury were presented including communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking, which is known as the 4Cs Skills of the 21st Century This study was conducted to find out the ways to adapt the principles of 4Cs in designing grammar lessons for KET learners at an English center and determine the effectiveness of the activities implemented the 4Cs The research instruments involved were pre-test and post-test, classroom observation, questionnaires, and semi-structured interview A total of 13 KET learners sat for pre-test and post-test before and after the interventions Five grammar activities integrated the 4Cs principles were adapted and assessed with the observation forms Questionnaires were delivered to learners and a semi- structured interview consisting of five questions was conducted after the learners completed the post-test The collected data was synthesized and analyzed The findings showed that learners were able to form and develop the 4Cs Skills after studying the activities with 4Cs The findings from pre-test and post-test indicated that the intervention conducted has effectively helped learners improve their test scores The study provided some practical suggestions as a reference for English language teachers to take in order to teach effective grammar lessons

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

There are six sections in the first chapter: (1) rationale of the research, (2) research aims and questions, (3) research hypotheses, (4) significance of the research, (5) research limitations and (6) organization of the research

1.1 Rationale of the research

The emergence of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 in the 21st century has brought dramatic changes to various aspects in almost every society, and one of which is education With remarkable development of automation, the demand for a higher-skilled, better-educated workforce rose in different employment sectors (Casner-Lotto & Barrington, 2006; Fandiño Parra, 2013; Harshbarger, 2016) Leopold and Zahidi (2015) estimated that 80 percent of jobs

in 2020 would require creativity, logical reasoning and problem sensitivity In reality, 21stcentury students really need academic opportunities that can challenge themselves to make rational decisions, present arguments or seek solutions to their problems in order to become future highly-qualified employees (Pink, 2006) As a result, it is the teacher who will help learners develop a strong foundation of knowledge and language skills through appropriate selection of teaching methods and classroom instructions

In the context of English language teaching and learning, how grammar is effectively acquired and taught has been a controversial issue in second language acquision research A great number of studies and discussions on grammar teaching can be characterised by three dimensions: form, meaning and function In form-based instruction, the target language is divided into separate linguistic units and presented through explicitly introduced grammar rules and immediate correction of errors in a sequential manner (Long, 2000) Focus-on- meaning, on the other hand, emphasises the natural acquisition process in which learners would subconsciously analyse the forms and eventually deduce the rules from the language input themselves with no direct instruction on grammar and explicit error correction (Krashen, 1982; Larsen-Freeman, 2003) The function-based instruction is more concerned with communicative competence in the way that the meaning of language is always considered in its social circumstances In other words, learners try to match forms to function and meaning

in context (Fusco et al., 1999) These three dimensions are interconnected, but nonetheless can be described discretely (Schmitt, 2013) However, the development in English language teaching and learning has not made a concensus over language policy and classroom pedagogy

in most EFL/ESL contexts in the world For example, recently many large-scale national curriculum reforms around the globe have targeted mainly the meaning-focused communicative approach by encouraging implicit learning of grammar in many regions such

as Europe (Nikolov & Curtain, 2000) and Asia-Pacific region (Nunan, 2003) This type of grammar teaching can lead to weak grammar competence and insufficient for developing academic English skills, which are centered on accurate and appropriate grammatical abilities (Swain & Lapkin, 1995)

In Vietnamese secondary and high schools, English has become a compulsory subject

in the new general curriculum, and is taught 3 periods a week/ 35 weeks/ year, making the total of 315 periods The main purposes of Vietnam’s English language teaching at general educational level are to help students use English as a means of communication at certain level

of proficiency in four macro skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), able to read and understand materials at the equivalent levels, master basic English grammar and phonetics, and gain fundamental understanding of English and American cultures in order to become better communicators (Nguyen, 2011) In the classroom, teachers have afforded different instructional methods from focus-on-forms to meaning-focused communicative approach to teach grammar Yet, this radical shift could not be applied successfully owing to some of the primary reasons Grammar learning is perceived to be artificial, boring, and not allowing meaningful interaction for learners and many learners fail to use even common and simple sayings to communicate (Phuong & Uyen, 2014) In addition, they quickly forget the grammar rules and could not apply them in tests and examinations This may result in the fact that more students have been attending extra classes at English centers for the purpose of having more time to practise English, getting better at communication, receiving new teaching and learning methodologies which could bring them more effectiveness and interests, and when coming back to their schools, they are able to improve the scores

Recently, the ‘4Cs model’ (Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration and Creativity), a range of attributes which is proposed and developed within the context of teaching core subject areas including English The ‘4Cs’ model is based on the assertion that

21st century challenges will demand a broad set of skills focusing on the individual’s capabilities in core subject skills, social and cross-cultural skills, proficiency in languages, and an understanding of the economic and political forces that affect societies (Joynes et al., 2019) Halverson (2018) suggested that for many busy teachers, these new skills and concepts may be new but may indeed help them deal with English lessons productively, especially grammar lessons

As a part-time teacher for an English center, I have been attending many workshops and training courses about innovative teaching methods and activities for young learners After witnessing the classroom organization from the presenters and reading related materials, I became particularly impressed about the implementation of 4Cs Skills in English classrooms Therefore, this inspires me to conduct the study to examine how effective this could be applied

to my students at the center

1.2 Research aims and questions

This study aims to explore the effectiveness of applying the 4Cs principles in grammar lessons for KET learners at a foreign language center to answer the following research questions:

1 How are the grammar lessons designed using the 4C’s principles to teach KET learners?

2 What is the effectiveness of grammar lessons using the 4C’s principles in enhancing learners’ skill development and improving their results?

3 What practical recommendations can be provided to help English teachers to teach grammar effectively?

1.3 Research hypotheses

Based on the research questions accompanied with the theory of the 4C’s principles as well as the literature review indicated in relevant studies and references, the hypotheses in this research are formulated as follows:

1 The framework of 4C’s principles can be redesigned to implement 4Cs in the grammar lessons

2 Grammar lessons implemented the 4C’s principles help learners to form and develop the 4C’s Skills through the participation in the lessons

3 After learning the grammar lessons implemented the 4C’s principles, learners are able to improve their test results

1.4 Significance of the research

First and foremost, this study offers some important insights for pre-service teachers, in-service teachers and educators into the effectiveness of using the 4Cs Skills in designing English grammar lessons, particularly grammar lessons for KET learners Furthermore, this study provides an important opportunity to advance an understanding of how to adapt grammar lessons using the 4C’s principles in a particular context to engage and support young learners effectively It also aims to suggest some practical recommendations for English language teachers to teach grammar effectively, so teachers can adopt these ideas to create good language lessons Last but not least, it is expected to inspire more future teachers to implement the 4Cs Skills as a favorable method not only in their grammar lessons but in other language skills ones

To the researcher, this investigation is a first valuable opportunity to get to know the ways to conduct an examination and read a variety of research materials to gain knowledge and apply them in her present study The skills that the researcher forms after the completion

of the study will definitely support her work and future contribution to English teaching career

1.5 Research limitations

Although this is the first time carrying out a scientific research, the researcher had made such efforts to find and read a great number of relevant materials to be better at writing and

organizing ideas At first, she struggled with making her ideas clear and understandable, but finally she spent a lot of time solving the problem Moreover, she used to think that it was impossible for her to use the SPSS system to analyze the data, on the other hand, she attempted

to successfully make it However, this study still exists limitations in some aspects Firstly, because of the limited periods for conducting grammar lessons teaching, the results of learners determined from the post-test may not reflect the progress and improvement of learners fully Secondly, due to the context at the English center, the researcher was in charge of two classes

at the time of researching, one was KET and another was FLYERS She was also not allowed

to invite other KET learners from other classes, so there was only a small number of participants available Thirdly, the activities designed in the lessons may not bring the same effectiveness in bigger classrooms because it may become difficult for teachers to control, students have lesser opportunities to practise and perform their activities More importantly, the study was carried out under the unexpected spread of Pandemic Covid-19 which made all centers and academic institutions remain closed for a long time; therefore, the process of collecting data described in the study was changed totally compared to the planning The researcher faced difficulties in getting in touch with students and collecting their responses via phone calls Finally, since this is her first time doing a small study, the researcher may make some minor mistakes and does not gain strong research skills as she is still learning to become a better one

1.6 Organization of the thesis

The overall structure of the study takes the form of five chapters:

Chapter 1, Introduction, introduces the rationale of the research, the research aims and

questions, the significance, hypotheses, limitations and organization of the research

Chapter 2, Literature Review, presents the theoretical background to the study and

reviews the literature of key issues relevant to the study

Chapter 3, Methodology, is concerned with the methodology used for this study,

describes the research design, participants, research instruments, data collection techniques, and research procedure in depth

Chapter 4, Findings and Discussions, analyses and discusses the results of the collected

data from the observation forms, questionnaires and model test to answer the research questions

Chapter 5, Conclusions and Recommendations, the final chapter of the study, draws

upon the entire thesis, mentions conclusions and suggests some implications as well as ideas for English teachers and future investigations into this area

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Chapter 2, Literature Review, consists of four sections Section 1 introduces the definition of English grammar Section 2 reviews common approaches and principles of teaching English grammar Section 3 describes the grammar teaching in Vietnamese educational context Section 4 presents the 4Cs Skills of the 21st Century, including the definition, the importance, instructional resources and principles, the framework and the 4Cs teaching in ESL classrooms The summary of the literature review is briefly written in Section 5

2.1 The definition of grammar

The word ‘grammar’ has been perceived different things to different people For many, the term suggests a list of do’s or don’ts that tell us what we should say or use correctly in

spoken language, for example, we should say It is I, not It is me Grammars with rules that

highlight differences between correct and incorrect forms are defined as ‘prescriptive’ grammars For others, the term may refer to the rules of grammar found primarily in written language This type of grammar is called ‘descriptive’ grammars and serves to describe language as it is actually used For linguists, a descriptive grammar refers to a more detailed look at language, including syntax, morphology, phonetics, phonology, semantics and lexis

In the EFL settings, the focal point is more on ‘pedagogical grammar’, the type of grammar designed for the needs of second-language or foreign-language students and teachers Pedagogical grammars are typically developed on the insights from formal and functional grammars together with work on discourse analysis and pragmatics (Dirven, 1990)

In this study, the researcher was concerned with this type of grammar for the purpose that learners must be able to use them meaningfully and appropriately

2.2 Approaches and principles for grammar instructions

2.2.1 Approaches of grammar instruction

Generally, there are two common approaches in teaching grammar: deductive and inductive

2.2.1.1 Deductive Approach

In this approach, grammar rules are clearly presented to students and followed by controlled and less-controlled practice of using the learned rules Specifically, teachers lead

in the lesson by presenting grammatical rules, and then giving examples through model sentences Once learners understand rules, they are told to apply them given to various sentences and exercises Eisenstein (1987) believes that with this approach, learners will be

in control during practice and have less fear of drawing an incorrect conclusion related to how the target language is targeting However, Widodo (2006) points out some benefits and drawbacks of this approach While the deductive approach goes immediately to the grammar point which could be time saving, it will delay learner involvement and interaction Furthermore, although a number of direct practice and application as well as examples are straightforwardly provided, the explanation is not as easy to memorize as other forms of presentation, for example

In other contexts, deductive grammar teaching method may be substituted by the term traditional grammar teaching method The problem is that with this approach, students know the rules but do not necessarily apply them when communicating (Mammadova, 2016) On the other hand, the approach seems undemanding for some EFL teachers as they only need to take advantage of ready-made textbooks or other materials (Widodo, 2006)

2.2.1.2 Inductive Approach

In this sense, teachers teach a grammar point by eliciting some examples of sentences (Eisenstein, 1987) This approach involves learners’ active participation with the help of the teacher’s instruction Moreover, it encourages a learner to develop her or his own mental set

of strategies and skills for dealing with tasks (Widodo, 2006) The approach is highlighted with an opportunity of providing learners a favorable environment to facilitate pattern- recognition, problem solving abilities, collaboration and extra language practice

Eisenstein (1987) presents major evidences collected from a study of various language learners, that is some learners accomplished given activities better in deductive language instruction whereas others achieved better in induction-instructed lessons This difference in cognitive styles may be linked with different neurological mechanisms in learners Thus,

teachers could successfully employ both of the approaches but should remember to take the language learning and context of the EFL (Widodo, 2006)

2.2.2 Grammar teaching principles

In a study entitled Teaching and Learning in the Language classroom, Hedge (2001)

pointed out that grammar should be presented to provide accurate English forms, introduce high-frequency grammar items clearly to motivate learning, create the communicative use of the grammar units in spoken and written form as well as give understandable information through exposure to examples Grammar teaching refers to any instructional technique that attract learners’ attention to some specific grammatical units in a way that helps them either

to comprehend it and/or process it in comprehension and/or production so that they can internalize it (Ellis, 2002) Thornbury (1999) gives a short explanation about some rules of grammar teaching as follows:

(1) Context: Teachers instruct grammar based on the context, for example grammatical

structure is associated with meanings

(2) Use: the purpose of teaching grammar is to make it easy for learners to comprehend

and produce real language

(3) Economy: this rule is to fulfill the rule of use Teachers economize presentation time

so that students have maximum time for practicing

(4) Relevance: Teachers teach only the grammar that students deal with problems To do

this, teachers begin with figuring out what students have already known and do not believe that English grammar is completely different from the students’ mother tongue

(5) Nurture: Language learning should not be as flashes Teachers should support the

suitable conditions for grammar learning instead of teaching grammar all the time

(6) Appropriacy: Teachers clarify the five above rules according to the particular needs,

interests, needs, learning styles and expectations of students

2.3 Grammar teaching in the Vietnamese educational context

As grammar is considered to be an indispensable part and contributes to success in a language learning process, there is considerable effort from teachers and educators to make

grammar lessons become more meaningful and engaging to learners However, from the researcher’s experience, as well as according to problem statements of many relevant studies, the present grammar instructions in Vietnamese classrooms have still followed the Grammar- Translation method and PPP (Presentation-Practice-Production) (Anh, 2013) A typical traditional grammar lesson in Vietnam is briefly described in Table 2.3 as follows:

Table 1 Traditional grammar lessons in Vietnam (Anh, 2013)

1 The teacher writes down the name of the grammar point on the board

2 The teacher presents the rule and structure

3 The teacher gives examples (in English) to illustrate the rule given

4 The teacher gets students to make up their own sentences using the rule they have just been given

5 The teacher gets students to do some translation from L2 (English) to L1 (Vietnamese) and vice versa Very often these are only at sentence level and are disconnected and decontextualized

6 For homework the teacher often gets students to learn the grammar rule by heart and make some further sentences with them

In this model, the grammar teaching method is teacher- centered As a result, students

do not have many opportunities to develop their communication competence in the classrooms In addition to that, learning grammar in this way do not stimulate the learners’ interests or create their self-confidence, but cause fear in grammar learning among learners The PPP procedure is criticized for not reflecting the teaching and learning because it is considered learning as straightforward and teaching as rigid

2.4 The 4Cs of the 21st Century Skills

2.4.1 The definition of 4Cs

The Partnership for the 21st Century Skills started to look at the skills students need to succeed after school in 2002 After being interviewed in a variety of fields and working with schools to apply the P21 framework, leaders and administrators identified a set of four

important skills called the 4Cs, including critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication

2.4.1.1 Critical Thinking Skill

Critical thinking skill refers to the ability to analyze, interpret, evaluate, summarize and apply the results to develop solutions (Trilling & Fadel, 2009) Critical thinking skill empowers students to assess and evaluate the accuracy and value of information, make reasonable decisions and take purposeful action (Erdoğan, 2019)

Students should be able to reason effectively by using different types of reasoning suitably to the situation and problems Moreover, with critical thinking skill, they are able to analyse the interaction of the parts to come up with outcomes They could make sound judgements and decisions through the abilities in evaluating evidence, arguments and opinions, making good connection between the information and arguments In addition, students should also be able to explain information and provide best solutions to the issues and tasks Last but not least, critical thinking skill allows students to reflect themselves after the processes of learning

2.4.1.2 Creativity Skill

According to Erdoğan (2019), creativity is the skill that students are able to think and work creatively with others The skill refers to the ability that students use a range of idea creation techniques as brainstorming, create new and valuable ideas as well as evaluate their ideas to improve and make more creative attempts Students could implement and communicate their new ideas to other people efficiently When working with others, they could also be responsive to perspectives and consider failure a chance to study new things to conquer the successes

2.4.1.3 Collaboration Skill

Trilling and Fadel (2009) defines Collaboration Skill the ability to respect diverse team members, value each member’s contributions and share responsibility Students are able to work effectively and respectively, be willing to make agreement to complete a goal and make sure they share duties for collaborative missions As working with others, they know how to respect different team members and are always willing to help others to accomplish a goal

Students with good collaboration skill are able to share responsibilities for collaborative work and value the contribution of others

2.4.1.4 Communication Skill

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills refers communication skill to clearly expressing ideas, including oral, written and nonverbal forms, along with listening without judging and identifying cultural differences Those who are good at communication know to articulate the ideas and perspectives in a wide range of contexts and ways Additionally, they listen to others to get the knowledge and intentions Moreover, they know to use communication for a wide range purposes, including informing, instructing, motivate or persuading other people Besides, communication skill makes them feel encouraging to communicate effectively in diverse environments and circumstances

To equip students with 4C’s Skills for the future, these skills need to be implemented into classrooms, schools, and districts to make citizens and employees effectively prepared for the 21st century (Erdoğan, 2019)

2.4.2 The importance of the 4Cs

2.4.2.1 The importance of Critical thinking

According to An Educator’s Guide to the “Four Cs” (Association, 2012), the connection between critical thinking and education is undeniable, that one cannot learn well without good thinking Learning critical thinking allows students to develop other skills, for example a high concentration intensity, deeper analytical proficiency and enhance thinking processing (Dennis, 2010) AMA Critical Skills Survey in 2010 (Association, 2010) measured that 73.3 percent administrators in business considered critical thinking as a priority for employee improvement, talent supervision and progression arrangement

2.4.2.2 The importance of Creativity

Bedir (2019) strongly believes that creativity is as necessary in education context as literacy Individuals who have creative skills tend to be successful, in order to provide a vision for making a better world

2.4.2.3 The importance of Collaboration

According to An Educator’s Guide to the “Four Cs” (Association, 2012), collaboration skill is of utmost importance in our classrooms because it is characteristic in nature of how work is completed in the social and workforce lives Bedir (2019) underlined that collaborative attempts not only suggest more universal findings than individual’s but come up with knowledge for a bigger number of people as well

2.4.2.4 The importance of Communication

In 2006, a report called Are they really ready to work? (Casner-Lotto & Barrington,

2006) found out that employers noted even though spoken and written communication are one

of the top four skills they are looking for when hiring, most graduates do not meet the requirements in these areas In today’s global world, effective communication in both linguistically and culturally is vital to contribute to “global teams” that cooperate with each other Moreover, good communication is particularly critical in the developing service economy (Dennis, 2010)

2.4.3 The overall importance of teaching the 4Cs

There are many studies supporting the idea of teaching the 4Cs Skills for a number of reasons The National Education Association (2015) explained that eighty percent executives consider mastering the 4C’s would enable students to become well-prepared to move into the working class In relation to these managers, reading, writing or calculation proficiency is not enough if employees do not have the ability to think critically, be creative, collaborate or communicate efficiently The AMA 2010 Critical Skills Survey carried out by the American Management Association indicated that the 4Cs will turn out to be more crucial to the society

in the upcoming time, especially since the economy improves in an international marketplace According to Educational Leadership (as cited in Oliver, 2016), more administrators and educators will demand learners to meet the requirements of “21st Century Skills” Therefore, teachers today are requested to determine how to integrate these 4Cs Skills in their lessons in order for students to have sufficient time to prepare and be competent at them The Partnership for 21st Century (2009) highlighted that an emphasis on critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication is a need to make students ready for the future

2.5 Instructional Design Principles for 4Cs Skills Learning

In order to successfully implement the 4Cs Skills into classrooms, educator and teachers need to consider the instructional design principles so that they can adapt the rules of the 21stCentury Learning (Halverson, 2018) Table 2 introduces the instructional principles

Table 2: Instructional Design Principles for 4Cs Skills Learning (Greenhill, 2009) Design principles Content

Goal analyses Define the goals and associate them with 4Cs

Define Learners Consider the “digital native” characteristics of the leaners

Instructional strategy

development

Choose the strategies with students that force them to develop the

21st century learning skills Implementation Focus on the leaners and learning, not the instruction Create a

student centered, collaborative and technology intense learning environment

Media selection Choose the state-of-art technology and media with leaners Ensure

the media make the learner active and productive Student evaluation Use e-portfolios and let the students evaluate themselves and each

other

2.5.1 Framework for the 4Cs

Because of the changes in the current educational system, Greenhill (2009) proposes the framework for the 21st Learning or the 4Cs Skills Learning Table 3 summarizes the framework for the 21st Century Learning

Table 3: Framework for 21st century Learning: Summary of Key points (Greenhill,

 Known by key stakeholders

 Regularly reviewed and used to guide educational policy and practice

 Recurring cornerstone performance assessments anchor the curriculum around authentic transfer tasks

 Use of ongoing assessments provide feedback to teachers and learners

Instruction

 Actions guided by a set of agreed-upon learning principles

 Emphasis on active learning and the use of based strategies

constructivist- Emphasis of teaching and coaching on understanding and transfer

allocation, curriculum and staff development practices, and

so on) aligned in support of 21st century outcomes

 Supportive federal and state guidelines, financial incentives, and content standards for implementation of 21st century outcomes and a teaching-for-understanding approach

2.5.2 The 4Cs teaching in ESL classrooms

To develop English learners with the 4Cs Skills, Fandiño Parra (2013) recommended that ESL teachers need to organise their classrooms with significantly intelligent, encouraging activities and procedures that allow learners to not only express their beliefs and opinions effectively with communication skills but also to comprehend complicated perspectives, come

up with judgements, decisions and work innovatively with others

In order to accomplish these goals, teachers can design a series of activities, shape the lessons and develop the materials (Erdoğan, 2019) There are many tasks such as making short films, interviewing, role playing, preparing presentations, debating, finding solutions to a particular problem which help to promote the 4Cs practices in EFL classrooms Besides, The National Education Association (Association, 2015) suggested that EFL teachers can implement 4Cs into their lessons effectively if they “put forward” questions to guide for themselves “while putting objectives and planning their activities” (Erdoğan, 2019)

2.6 The 4Cs implementation in English grammar teaching in the other investigation

In a study about integrating the skills of 21st Century Education into the English lessons, Anugerahwati (2019) gave an example of implementing 4Cs in teaching the structures and situation in the English lesson A conversation with grammar structures were extracted from the course book The activity allowed students to fulfill their skills, not only to be able to get

to know the structure but practice and develop the 4Cs Students were aimed to use their potentials of critical thinking to think about the situation and infer some important aspects in the context Students showed their collaboration in the way of working in pairs or groups, answering the questions as well as performing in front of the class For the last C, which was Creativity, students were asked to create another conversation using the grammar structure,

with the provided conversation as the model Through the 4Cs implementation, teachers and

students could be expected to work better in learning and teaching the grammar

2.7 Summary of the Literature review

This chapter has presented a review of relevant literature to the research issue Firstly, because the researcher focuses on English grammar lessons, the grammar definition and current teaching situation of grammar are carefully explained The term “The 4Cs Skills of the 21st Century” and its importance are highly recommended in today’s generation because

it provides learners with good preparation and necessary skills for successes in their future Therefore, teachers and educators are encouraged to implement these 4Cs Skills in their classrooms When integrating, the P21 presents the instructional design principles, resources and framework that teachers and educators have to follow in order to sufficiently provide learners with accurate contexts of the 4C’s and ensure successful rates There are totally ten instructional design principles and six main content for the framework summarized Moreover, how to implement the 4Cs Learning in EFL classrooms are instructed by many relevant studies Secondly, the fact is that grammar teaching in Vietnam is mostly based on Grammar Translation Method or PPP Besides, the essential principles of grammar instructions are examined in order to be used in redesigning lessons The implementation of 4Cs skills was tested to be successful in the other investigation, which builds up the rationale for this undergraduate thesis

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes the methodology used to collect and analyze data in the thesis Firstly, the mixed method is presented in the research design Secondly, the participants section shows the characteristic of the population and participants Next, the research instruments including observation, questionnaires, interview and pre-test/ post-test design are provided Thirdly, the procedures of data collection and analysis are fully described Finally, the last point summarizes the whole chapter

3.1 Research design

Because the purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of implementing the 4Cs in grammar lessons for KET learners at an English center in a short period of time, it needs both quantitative and qualitative data to clarify the answers and guarantee the reliability

as well as validity of the study Therefore, this study was conducted with the mixed method First, students took the pre-test which followed the model test of Cambridge KET in order to evaluate the current level of students Then the researcher designed five grammar lessons with different grammar points extracted from the OPTIMISE A2 course book in which activities implemented the 4Cs Skills were used The lessons were taught to one class at an English center While teaching these lessons, the observation form with 4Cs elements and criteria was created to assess the students’ activities as well as language and skill development After that, all students took the final test to see how they progressed after studying the lessons with 4Cs integration The questionnaires were sent to all students in the class via online google sheet forms to get their background information, opinions about the 4Cs Skills and the agreement level towards skills formation and development after studying the grammar activities implementing the 4Cs Lastly, they each were all again invited to participate in the phone call interview

3.2 Participants

There was a number of KET learners in the English center, at around 50 However, because the researcher was only in charge of one 13- student KET class during the research

period and it was impossible for the researcher to arrange her teaching in other KET classes

in the center, the participants in the study were 13 students in her KET class

Most participants are secondary students from grade 6 to grade 9 studying in Vietnamese public schools Only one participant is in grade 5 The age group of participants

is from 11 to 15 years old 12 out of 13 participants are studying at schools in Long Xuyen City and one of whom is from Chau Thanh District, near Long Xuyen City However, they have similar English level in Cambridge Assessment as they have assessed at the center after they finished the FLYERS course and are learning KET Figure 2 describes the percentage for the gender and grades of participants

Figure 1: Percentage for gender and students’ grades

Moreover, according to what was found out, the participants’ English average grade last semester ranged from fair to good marks, the lowest one is 7.3 while the highest is 9.5

3.3 Research Instruments

3.3.1 Classroom Observation

Because the researcher carried out grammar lessons using the 4Cs model, observation was of utmost importance as it directly evaluated how learners were involved in the lessons Patton (2014) also explains that observation is a good way to describe the behavior of participants in a study from an open, inductive, and holistic perspective – such a perspective

Male 38%

is vital in that it allows the researcher to see behavior in a new light and to discover new aspects to a context that has not been described before

The observation form was designed basing on the criteria of refining students’ communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity developed by the Partnership for the 21st Century Skills (Greenhill, 2009) and the foundation of model of communicative competence proposed by Canale & Swain (1980)

The observation form included the 4Cs components and the target elements for each skill The items created for observing the four skills (communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity) were 5, 5, 4 and 5 respectively The participation of learners in each item were assessed by three levels: high (3), average (2) and low (1)

3.3.2 Questionnaires

Although many researchers for example Foddy and Foddy (1994) and Peterson (2000) agree that a questionnaire is suitable for data collection from a big number of research samples, this study also employed structured questionnaires as the researcher believed that with limited participants in the small-scale investigation, the study would collect reliable data for the research Moreover, in spite of the small sample, the questionnaires contributed an important position to gauge learners’ thoughts on how the activities implementing the 4C’s that the researcher designed helped to form and practice their 4C’s Skills, so that she could find the answer for the second research question

There are three parts in the questionnaire The first part with five questions is to collect background information of the participants, including the learners’ gender, age, their current studying grade and name of the public school along with English level shown through English average grade point in the last semester at school The second part contains 25 statements which students answer by giving their level of agreement based on the Likert scale with regard

to skills formation and development while and after studying the grammar activities implementing the 4Cs, from Strongly Disagree (1), Disagree (2), Neutral (3), Agree (4), and

to Strongly Agree (5) The 25 statements are divided into four categories which are the 4Cs Skills For each skill, there is a number of items asking for learners’ thoughts about their

abilities and evaluate their participation in the grammar lesson activities There are 9 items in Communication skill, 6 items in Collaboration skill, 5 items in Critical thinking and 5 items

in Creativity skill

3.3.3 Interview

The semi-structured interview was designed to collect learners’ opinions on the grammar lesson activities implementing the 4Cs Also, it aimed to find out their thinking about the changes they had in terms of test effectiveness after studying these lessons At first, the researcher planned to arrange participants to take part in the group interviews since she thought that at a young age of KET learners, they might not take into deep considerations about the hidden meaning in each activity and did not aware much of the characteristics of the 4C’s Skills, which is still a new definition to many people, especially the young Therefore, group interviews enabled them to not feel stressful and receive supports from each other or even be able to think of answers thanks to their peers’ ideas Unfortunately, the Pandemic Covid-19 made this impossible so the researcher made individual phone-call interview to get the data

There were five questions in the interview Table 5 describes the specific aim for each question

Table 4: The aims of interview questions

1 Do you feel interested in taking part in the

activities implementing the 4Cs Skills? Why?

2 How do you feel about the differences between

the activities in grammar lessons you have ever

participated before and after the lessons

implementing the 4Cs Skills?

3 Do you think you learn communication,

collaboration, critical thinking and creativity skills

from the activities? If yes, please state how?

4 How was your post-test result changed after

studying the grammar lessons implementing the

4Cs Skills compared to the result of the pre-test?

5 Would you like to learn more grammar lessons

with the activities like those in the future?

Learn students’ interest in the activities and their reasons

Ask for students’ thoughts towards the differences between grammar activities they have ever participated in and that with 4Cs

Ask about learning the 4Cs Skills from the activities of students

Learn about students’ changes in test results

Ask for students’ expectations for further 4Cs activities

3.3.4 Pre-test/ Post-test design

The participants in the research were tested two times with the pre-test and post-test to measure the effectiveness of implementing the 4C’s Skills in grammar activities Pre-test or post-test instrument owns a dominant advantage that its analyses tend to be more powerful so require considerably smaller samples This research has a small number of participants; therefore, it becomes easier to analyze and count results afterwards

The pre-test was taken from the latest model Cambridge Key English Test in the Website

of Cambridge English The post-test was designed following the format of the pre-test and referred to the Cambridge Key English Test KET course book and the sample key test papers from the website Also, the post-test mentioned the grammar units and relevant knowledge instructed in the grammar lesson activities implementing the 4C’s Skills Both two tests were about reading and writing skills The reason for redesigning this test was that the researcher

wanted to understand how much learners could remember and apply the knowledge from the activities to the test as well as the effectiveness that the activities could help improve the learners’ test results

3.4 Procedures

3.4.1 Designing grammar activities

Before carrying out the instruments, the researcher designed five grammar lessons with different activities in which the 4C’s Skills of the 21st Century were implemented The activities were planned referring to the speakers’ presentations during the workshop entitled

Disrupting traditional views in ELT: A new Approach to Teaching English in National Geographic Learning Day Also, the activities were created with careful considerations from

many ELT sources, books, websites and materials about the 4C’s to make sure that the activities meet the requirements of supporting 4C’s Learning in grammar lessons The topics for the lessons are as follow:

(1) Period 1: Review past simple and past continuous tense

(2) Period 2: Infinitive of phrasal verbs about travel

(3) Period 3: Review Wh-words

(4) Period 4: Using linking words

(5) Period 5: Language in Use

3.4.2 Administering the observation

As each grammar lesson and responding activity were conducted, the researcher recorded learners’ attitudes, behaviors, expressions, ideas, interests and participation during the period The observation form was completed by the researcher as soon as the lesson finished When the activities require group work participation, the students in the class were divided into 3 groups of three and 1 group of four The learners’ English proficiency was also well taken into consideration so that groups are formed suitably

3.4.3 Administering the questionnaires

The questionnaire in English were first created and sent to the supervisor to check Next,

it was translated into Vietnamese to make it easy to understand by KET learners Then, to make sure that the questionnaire was reliable and possible to survey, it was used in a pilot

study Seven printed copies of the questionnaire were delivered to seven randomly chosen KET students to see whether the questionnaire was clear and understandable

The questionnaire was then sent to students via google sheet form to collect their answers It was expected to take about 5 minutes to complete each

3.4.4 Administering the interview

After students had finished the questionnaires, they were all invited to take part in the phone call interview section There were 13 phone calls with 13 students To make sure that KET learners could understand the questions thoroughly, the researcher asked the questions

in English and then explained again in Vietnamese The participants answered the questions

in Vietnamese Each phone call lasted for about 10 minutes Before interviewing, the researcher introduced the purposes of the interview and reminded participants of the activities implementing the 4Cs After that, she spoke out the questions one by one and students answered The phone calls were recorded and the researcher noted down the answers that participants provided After finishing interviewing, a script was transcribed from the recordings

3.4.5 Administering the pre-test and post-test

The pre-test was carried out before the first grammar lesson was conducted in the classroom while the post-test was provided to learners after the five grammar lessons had been taught For the pre-test, learners were delivered a test paper and an answer sheet downloaded from the Cambridge website For post-test, the test paper was provided to participants by way

of pdf file and the answers were resent back to the researcher A commitment set was that the students took the test by themselves with no help from any materials, dictionary or someone While doing the tests, students were asked to provide both their English and Vietnamese name

in the answer sheet to make it convenient for analyzing the results After completing, they kept the test paper for reference

3.5 Data analysis

Firstly, test answer sheets were marked, analyzed, counted to get the results and then the results were compared to find similarities or the differences The notes from observation sheets were evaluated by the researcher and her supervisor Secondly, the data from

questionnaires were synthesized with the software IBM SPSS Statistic 26 and demonstrated into graphs and charts The two test results were also examined for the validity using this software Answers collected from interviews were also transcribed and explained

3.6 Summary

In conclusion, this study employed the mixed method design The participants took part

in the pre-test, then the five grammar lessons with the activities implementing activities were designed based on the material of OPTIMISE A2 course book The observation forms were created to evaluate the learners’ participation and skill development in each lesson After finishing the lessons, the participants took a post-test to see their improvements they made compared to the pre-test Eventually, they were invited to do a questionnaire and phone call interview to examine their skill development

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter presents the results collected from the research instruments and present the results of the research questions Based on the findings, the researcher comes up with relevant discussions

4.1 How are the grammar lessons designed using the 4Cs principles?

In order to conclude the framework for designing a 4Cs grammar lesson, the principles and framework of 4Cs in the 21st Century Learning are carefully examined and adapted based

on the framework of language teaching In any language teaching program, there is a range of features to focus on, however, the goals to learn that language should always be put into the priority for educators to organize a syllabus which can address a particular need McDonough and Shaw (2012) described this design as in Figure 3

Context

Figure 2: The framework of language teaching

To help learners meet the requirements of 4Cs Skills, the course book Optimize KET

needs to be adapted to prepare learners with environment to practice the skills they need to be successful in the 21st Century While the course at the center particularly focused particularly for communicative language learning, the grammar activities in the book did not promote much communicative performance In addition, just a small part of grammar lessons in the book encourage 4Cs learning made the language input more engaging As a result, adaptation should be taken to create these grammar lessons using the 4Cs principles All grammar points

in the course book Optimize KET were fully gathered into the Syllabus in the following table

Learners

Educational setting

Implementation of goals

Syllabus construction

Materials, classroom methods (lessons, tests…)

Table 5: Optimize KET Grammar Syllabus for learners

19 Present continuous for future use

PROGRESS CHECK, UNITS 1-2

What’s for dinner?

GRAMMAR 1

28 Past simple: regular verbs, Wh- words

What’s for dinner?

41 Past simple and past continuous

PROGRESS CHECK, UNITS 3-4

PROGRESS CHECK, UNITS 5-6

The future of learning

GRAMMAR 1

72 Going to

The future of learning

GRAMMAR 2

75 Will and going to

It’s only a game

Whatever the weather

GRAMMAR 1

95 Zero conditional, first conditional

Whatever the weather

GRAMMAR 2

97 Second conditional

Looking after yourself

GRAMMAR 1

104 Present perfect simple: for, since,

already, just, yet

Looking after yourself

GRAMMAR 2

107 Verb patterns: verb + infinitive / -ing

PROGRESS CHECK, UNITS 9-10

The world of work

129 Past simple passive and by

PROGRESS CHECK, UNITS 11-12

As can be seen, there were two periods specifically for grammar lessons in each unit and one period for consolidation at Progress Check after every 2 units The Syllabus offered enough time for activities using the 4Cs principles The techniques used to design the grammar lessons included reordering, expanding, replacing materials so that learners were provided with chances to communicate, collaborate, think critically and become creative Applying the 4Cs principles and framework of teaching to KET learners, the framework for designing the grammar lessons could be modified as presented in the following:

Table 6: Framework for designing grammar lesson at an English center

Goals Each grammar activity adapted using the 4Cs has some particular

objectives for the skill It could be designed for the practice and development of one skill or a combination of the skills

Curriculum + Focus on the grammar application in context

+ Emphasis on the practice of the 4Cs Skills + Take advantage of technology, using video clips, visual aids in learning

Methods The activity must be meaningful, create opportunities to apply

vocabulary and grammar points in activities

Learning

principles

Practice and Cognitive view of learning

Assessment See how learners perform the skills and participate in the lessons

Grading learners’ performance with regard to the grammar understanding through tests

One model scenario is suggested below:

Period 1

Rationale for Adaptation

The Grammar 2 in Unit 4 of Optimize KET (See Figure 4) presents the theory on how

to distinguish the usages of Past simple and Past continuous Three different kinds of exercises

are given to help learners practice the two tenses The Think activity offers opportunity for

spoken interaction However, it is apparent that learners lack environment for 4Cs Skills practice and the activities are not much engaging their interests This lesson could be adapted

by putting the second task into the first one, replacing the first task into the activity named

Five Whys With this activity, leaners have the opportunity to apply the two tenses in context,

communicate and collaborate as working in groups It requires critical thinking skill to think

of the reasons and conclusions It also needs creativity to make different between groups and answers The activity offers enough sets of objectives and 4Cs practice

1 Students work in groups of four Teacher raise the problem

Problem: I was on my way home from work and my car suddenly stopped

2 Students give 5 reasons and then come up with Five Whys for each reason (Students answer using the Past simple tense and Past continuous.)

Guiding questions:

 It ran out of gas Why?

 I didn’t buy gas on my way to work in the morning Why?

 I didn’t have any money Why?

 I didn’t go to the ATM yesterday Why?

 I was in a hurry to go to a party last night

3 Students think of the conclusions and lessons learnt after the problem

For example, we should:

 Plan ahead more (time management)

 Have better priorities

Figure 3: Model Scenario, from Optimize KET, p.41

Similarly, to assess the effectiveness of grammar lessons using the 4Cs principles, 4 more grammar activities were designed and taught to learners in five grammar periods