Twelfth graders perceptions of communicative and non communicative activities in efl classroms in bac ly high school

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Theoretical background of Communicative Language Teaching CLT 6 1.1.2 Characteristics of communicative language teaching 7 1.2 Comm

-NGUYỄN THỊ THU HƯƠNG

TWELFTH GRADERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF

COMMUNICATIVE AND NON-COMMUNICATIVE

ACTIVITIES IN EFL CLASSROOMS

IN BAC LY HIGH SCHOOL

( Nhận thức của học sinh lớp 12 về các hoạt động giao tiếp

và phi giao tiếp tại trường Trung học phổ thông Bắc Lý)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10

HANOI – 2011

-NGUYỄN THỊ THU HƯƠNG

TWELFTH GRADERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF

COMMUNICATIVE AND NON-COMMUNICATIVE

ACTIVITIES IN EFL CLASSROOMS

IN BAC LY HIGH SCHOOL

( Nhận thức của học sinh lớp 12 về các hoạt động giao tiếp

và phi giao tiếp tại trường Trung học phổ thông Bắc Lý)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10

Supervisor: Dr Tô Thị Thu Hương

HANOI - 2011

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Theoretical background of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) 6

1.1.2 Characteristics of communicative language teaching 7

1.2 Communicative and non-communicative activities in language teaching

1.2.1 Definition of communicative and non-communicative activities 8 1.2.2 Characteristics of communicative and non-communicative activities 9 1.2.3 Roles of communicative activities in language teaching and learning 10 1.2.4 The roles of teachers in communicative activities 11

1.3 Students’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Students’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities 23

3.1.1 Students‟ preference of communicative and non-communicative

3.1.2 Students‟ opinions of the usefulness of these activities 27

3.2 Students’ perceived difficulties in practicing communicative activities 29

3.2.3 Little motivation for communicative competence 31

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT = Communicative Language Teaching

DOET = Department of Education and Training

ELT = English Language Teaching

MOET = Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training SLA = Second Language Acquisition

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

page

Table 1: Students‟ enjoyment of non-communicative activities

Table 2: Students‟ enjoyment of communicative activities

Table 3: Students‟ opinions of the usefulness of non-communicative activities

Table 4: Students‟ opinions of the usefulness of communicative activities

Chart 1: Students‟ difficulties in practicing communicative activities

PART A- THE INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

The field of second or foreign language teaching has undergone many paradigmatic shifts and methodological trends over the last few decades We have seen the Audiolingual Method, Cognitive-based Approaches, the Total Physical Response, the Natural Approach, Communicative Language Teaching and many others Within the debate on English teaching methodology, the study of Vietnamese students‟ response to CLT, especially classroom activities deserves particular attention Do they enjoy activities involving communication and real use of language? Do they agree that real language activities emphasizing language content are more effective than non-communicative activities that stress formal correction? Do they believe that such activities are helpful to them as language learners? Do they face with any difficulties in practicing these activities?

According to Kumaravadivelu (1991, p 107) "the more we know about the learner's personal approaches and personal concepts, the better and more productive our interactions will be." We as teachers should be aware of our students' perceptions and beliefs about language learning in order to facilitate desired learning outcomes in the classroom As suggested by Bada and Okan (2000), there is a need for closer cooperation between students and teachers It is important to remember that learners already critically evaluate what they do (Breen, 1989) Teachers can use different strategies to build learners choices into their lessons Teachers and students can have a dialogue and negotiate alternatives, which would definitely lead to more learner involvement and could, therefore, lead to more positive attitudes towards language learning As teachers, at every single moment, we should observe our students' reactions and consider their attitudes and preferences in order to promote a more inclusive climate that will enhance learning In order to deepen our understanding of how students react to communicative and non-communicative activities, Barkhuisen (1998:86) has called for “teachers to discover their learners‟ feelings and beliefs about their language learning experiences and consequently

to review and possibly change their teaching process”

Moreover, Vietnamese high school syllabi now keep promoting CLT in an attempt

to enable the students to use the target language for communicative purposes instead of mastering its grammatical rules and structures Vietnamese twelfth graders in upper secondary school had five-year experience studying English “communicatively” as English

is among the compulsory subjects at secondary schools However, the fact is that after those years of learning English, not many pupils have a clear cut purpose of learning English in their mind and they are likely passively motivated to learn English basing on the textbooks and teachers‟ method of delivery Consequently, most of pupils find themselves unable to use English for day-to-day communication after having passed the

English national examination as a requirement for the General Education Diploma

In brief, all of the reasons mentioned above have inspired the present study on:

“Twelfth graders’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in EFL classrooms in Bac Ly high school” as the title for the thesis in the hope that I can

contribute a small part in helping my students and my colleagues to improve their learning and teaching English

2 Aims and objectives of the study

With the above-presented rationales, the specific aims and objectives of the study are the followings Firstly, the study carries out an investigation into twelfth grade students‟ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in terms of preference and usefulness Secondly, through the investigation the research will find out the difficulties the students encounter in practicing communicative activities Thirdly, the study will provide possible solutions to these difficulties, thereby improving the quality of English language education in the context of an urban high school

3 Research Questions

1 What are twelfth graders’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in the EFL classrooms?

2 What are students’ perceived difficulties in practicing communicative activities?

3 What are the possible solutions to these difficulties?

4 Scope of the study

Due to time constraint, the study limits itself to the investigation on twelfth graders‟ perceptions of non-communicative and communicative activities in EFL classroom in the context of an urban high school, Bac Ly high school Therefore, subjects of the study were

teachers of English and students in the twelfth form at Bac Ly high school in Ha Nam province Within the scope of the study, the following issues were addressed:

- Students‟ preference of communicative and non-communicative activities (Research question 1)

- Students‟ opinions of the usefulness of communicative and non-communicative activities (Research question 1)

- Students‟ difficulties in participating in communicative activities (Research question 2)

- Implications and recommendations for overcoming these difficulties (Research question 3)

5 Methods of study

In this study, a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods were utilized A questionnaire survey was conducted on a sample of students to find answers to research questions 1 and 2 Furthermore, in order to address the limitations of the questionnaire in exploring students‟ perceptions, and to find out their constraints and possible solutions (research questions 3), student semi-structured interviews and teacher group discussions were conducted following the analysis of the questionnaire data Questionnaire data were analyzed quantitatively for descriptive statistics while the interview and discussion data were processed qualitatively following an “interpretive model” (Hatch 2002) for recommended solutions The answers to three research questions provided a picture of students‟ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities as well as their difficulties in doing communicative activities in EFL classrooms and possible solutions

6 Significance of the study

English is used more and more to communicative throughout the world MOET have provided a series of new textbooks in order to develop students‟ communicative competence It is said that the textbooks are more useful than the older version, but most of students hardly communicate in English after graduating from high schools and that teachers and authors should adapt and revise these books In such a circumstance, the findings will hopefully aid teachers in their choice of classroom activities and in deciding

how learning activities should be arranged and implemented in the classroom while waiting for MOET to make some changes in these books

Although the study is intended to investigate students‟ perceptions of communicative and communicative activities in EFL classrooms in an urban high school, which is not researched adequately in the context of Ha Nam-based high schools, the outcome of the study can contribute significantly to our understanding of the issue in high schools with a similar context As such, this study will serve as a reference material not only for teachers of English in Bac Ly high school but also for teachers elsewhere who wish to continually improve the quality of teaching and learning English

non-7 Structure of the Thesis

This paper is divided into three main parts:

Part A is the INTRODUCTION In this part, the rationales of the study, the aims,

research questions, the scope of the study, methods of the study and also its design are presented

Part B is the DEVELOPMENT which includes 4 chapters

Chapter I, Literature Review, deals with a theoretical background about the

definitions of CLT and its characteristics; definitions, characteristics, roles, types of communicative and non-communicative activities in the process of learning and teaching; the roles of the teacher in communicative and non-communicative types of communicative activities, and previous studies on students‟ perceptions about classroom activities

Chapter II, Research Methodology, describes the situation where the study was

conducted and the informants involved in the study It includes the teachers of English, the students, and the textbook The data collection instruments, procedures of data collection and data analysis were also presented in this chapter

Chapter III, Results and Discussion, presents and discusses the results finding

out the students‟ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities and their difficulties in participating in communicative activities

Chapter IV, Implications and Recommendations, presents some pedagogical

implications of the study and suggestions for overcoming difficulties in practicing communicative activities in the way, which helps students develop their communicative competence in Bac Ly high school

Part C is the CONCLUSION which summarizes the main points of the study, limitations

and suggests for further research

REFERENCES and APPENDICES are presented in the last pages of the study

PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews the literature on Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), and previous studies on students‟ perceptions of non-communicative and communicative activities First, it presents definitions and the main characteristics of CLT that is followed

by a discussion of con-communicative and communicative activities in language teaching and learning process Finally, it presents previous studies on students‟ perceptions of non-

communicative and communicative activities

1.1 Theoretical background of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

1.1.1 Definitions of CLT

Despite the widespread advocacy of CLT, there is a lack of agreement about what communicative is According to Harmer (1981: 165): “In the teaching and learning and methodology of a foreign language, it is only activities within the syllabus and methodology that can be classed as communicative”

According to Lightbown & Spada (1999:172), “CLT is based on the premise that successful language learning involves not only a knowledge of the structures and forms of the language, but also the functions and purposes that a language serves in different communicative settings This approach to teaching emphasizes the communication of meaning over the practice and manipulation of grammatical forms (emphasis added).”

This definition as it can reflect the nature as well as the target of CLT CLT focuses not only on forms but also on meaning When CLT is successfully applied, students feel very confident in different communicative contexts

According to Richards and Rodgers (2001) CLT which is generally regarded as an approach to language teaching means little more than an integration of grammatical and functional teaching As such, CLT reflects a certain model or research paradigm, or a theory (Celce- Murcia 2001) It is based on the theory that the primary function of

language use is communication Its primary goal is for learners to develop communicative competence (Hymes 1971), or simply put, communicative ability Communicative

competence is also defined as the ability to interpret and enact appropriate social

behaviors, and it requires the active involvement of the learner in the production of the

target language (Celce-Murcia et al 1995) Such a notion encompasses a wide range of abilities: the knowledge of grammar and vocabulary (or the linguistic competence); the ability to say the appropriate thing in a certain social situation (the sociolinguistic competence); the ability to start, enter, contribute to, and end a conversation, and the ability to do this in a consistent and coherent manner (discourse competence); the ability to communicate effectively and repair problems caused by communication breakdowns (strategic competence)

Although the above authors present different aspects of CLT, there is overwhelming agreement that CLT is directly connected to developing communicative competence The authors concur that CLT has as its primary objective to help students develop communicative competence in the target language

1.1.2 Characteristics of communicative language teaching

According to Littlewood (1981:1), one of the most characteristic features of CLT is that it plays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language Furthermore, Nunan (1991: 279) offers five features to characterize CLT:

1 An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language;

2 The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation;

3 The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on languages but also

on the learning process itself;

4 An enhancement of the learner„s own personal experiences as important contribution elements to classroom learning;

5 An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activities outside the classroom

These five features are claimed by practitioners of CLT to show that they are very interested in the needs and desires as well as the connection between language as it is taught in their class and as it is used outside the classroom From what Nunan states about the prominent features of CLT, we can see that any teaching practice that the students develop their communicative competence in an authentic context is acceptable and beneficial form of instruction Thus, in the classroom, CLT often takes the form of pair and group work requiring negotiation and cooperation between learners, communicative

activities in which students practice and develop language functions and encourage learners to develop their confidence

These characteristics will be the principles for teachers to choose appropriate techniques as well as activities in class to improve the students‟ communicative competence All learning activities should be selected according to how well they engage the students in meaningful and authentic language use rather than only mechanical practice

of language patterns to achieve accuracy in language forms

1.2 Communicative and non-communicative activities in language teaching and learning process

1.2.1 Definition of communicative activities and non-communicative activities

The goal of language teaching has undergone remarkable changes in recent years Recently, CLT has become predominant with the goal of learning a language for the sake

of being bale to use it for communication in real life Along this line, in the language classrooms, both teachers and students try their best to control over the language that students use by organizing it into manageable portions to be developed though communicative and non-communicative activities Then, the question “what are communicative and non-communicative activities?” should be taken into consideration Harmer (1991:50) defines: “Communicative activities are those which exhibit the characteristics at the communicative end of the continuum Students are somehow involved

in activities that give them both the desire to communicate and a purpose that involves them in a varied use of the language Such activities are vital in the classroom since here the students can do their best to use the language as individuals, arriving at a degree of language autonomy”

Non-communicative activities are defined by Snider (2005) as classroom activities that do not require the kind of unpredictable exchanges communicative activities produce, including activities that require the learner to comprehend the stimulus without focusing on meaning and drills Nunan (1987) typifies non-communicative activities in terms of grammatical focus, error correction, the extensive use of drill and controlled practice, and interaction which are pseudo-communicative, rather than genuinely communicative Littlewood (1981) attempt to reconcile non-communicative and communicative activities

by suggesting that such things as drills, question-and-answer practice and controlled

practice have a valid place in the language class as pre-communicative activities which provide learners with the necessary prerequisite skills for more communicative language work

1.2.2 Characteristics of communicative and non-communicative activities

Communicative activities are designed to encourage the purposeful and meaningful interaction between students in a language lesson It is, therefore, important for teachers to

be fully aware of their characteristics so that they can use them effectively

According to Mulling, Sylvia S (1997), activities which are truly communicative meet almost all of the five following criteria:

 The information transfer principle, whereby some information must be transferred from a sender to a receiver

 The information gap principle, which requires that the receiver does not already possess the information he or she receives

 The jigsaw principle, whereby students begin with different pieces of information and finish with the same information

 The task dependency principle, which requires to create whenever students practice at the levels of controlled and semi-controlled communication before they are ready to perform the activity at the level of free communication

 The correction for content principle, which argues that during communication the students‟ language production should be judged on its communicative efficacy in relation to a specific task

In addition to that, Harmer (1981) lists six distinctive characteristics of communicative activities when they are contrasted with non-communicative ones They are presented in the following way:

Non-communicative activities Communicative activities

1 No desire to communicate

2 No communicative purpose

3 Form not content

4 One language item

As can be seen from the above table, in communicative activities, students must have

a desire to communicate, and there must be some communicative purpose to their

communication This implies that the students‟ attention will be focused on the content of what they are saying, rather than the form They will use a wide variety of language, and

the teacher will not intervene like telling students they have made mistakes in their English, correct their pronunciation, etc in a communicative activity it is not expected the materials which the students were using would control their language (e.g restrict it to the use of one grammatical form, etc.)

These characteristics can apply at one end of a continuum At the other end of the continuum lie non-communicative activities There will be no desire to communicate, nor will students have a communicative purpose Where students are involved in repetition or substitution drills, for example, they will be motivated not by a desire to achieve a

communicative objective, but by the need to attain accuracy The emphasis will be on the form of the language, not the content, the teacher will intervene too ensure accuracy, and

the materials used will often be designed to concentrate on a particular item of language

In summary, it is of great importance to distinguish the characteristics of these two kinds so that teachers and students of a language can make the best use of communicative and non-communicative activities in the process of learning and teaching In addition, language learning can then be judged not according to whether it is communicative, but according to the balance of activities that students are involved

1.2.3 The roles of communicative and non-communicative activities in language teaching and learning

Communicative activities are considered as the most useful forms of foreign language practice in the classroom Thanks to them, learners are provided with many opportunities to practice the language they have learnt in a communicative way According

to Littlewood (1981), communicative activities are indispensable in the process of language teaching and learning for the following roles Firstly, communicative activities provide “whole-task practice” With such advantage, language teachers should design various activities in order to suit the learners‟ level of ability Secondly, communicative activities provide motivation The learner‟s ultimate objective is to participate in communication with others They will be motivated to learn if they can see how their

classroom learning is related to this objective and helps them to achieve it with increasing success Thirdly, they can provide natural learning Language learning takes place inside the learner and it also consists of many aspects that sometimes they are beyond the teachers‟ pedagogical control Finally, communicative activities can create a context which supports learning They provide opportunities to promote relationship among learners and between learners and teachers

The role of non-communicative activities is to give the learners fluent control over linguistic forms, so that the lower-level processes will be capable of unfolding automatically in response to higher-level decisions based on meanings Although the activities may emphasize the links between forms and meanings, the main criterion for success is whether the learner produces acceptable language On other words, they provide learners with a fluent command of the linguistic system, without actually requiring them to use this system for communicative purposes Accordingly, the learners‟ purpose is to produce language which is acceptable rather than to communicate meanings effectively

In short, with these most important roles, communicative and non-communicative activities contribute a crucial part to the success of language teaching and learning Moreover, they develop a basic of language structures and a pattern of language interaction within the classroom, which is as close as possible to that used by competent performers in normal life Therefore, students feel comfortable and confident, feel free to take risks and have sufficient opportunities to speak

1.2.4 The roles of teachers in communicative and non-communicative activities

Littlewood (1981) states three roles of teachers in communicative activities Firstly, teachers function as providers of advice and necessary language items in case students find themselves unable to cope with the situation Secondly, the teacher plays the role of observer While learners are performing, the teacher can monitor their strengths and weaknesses Teachers can also encourage students to get over their difficulties by seeking other ways to express their ideas Thirdly, sometimes the teacher can exercise an immediate influence over the language used

Through non-communicative activities, the teacher isolates specific elements of knowledge or skill that compose communicative ability, and provides the learners with

opportunities to practice them separately The learners are thus being trained in the skills of communication rather than practicing the total skill to be acquired

part-To conclude, the teachers in communicative activities will find themselves talking less and listen more; however, this does not mean that once an activity is in progress, the teacher should become a passive observer In con-communicative activities, teacher plays a crucial role in controlling classroom activities Although his function becomes less dominant than before, his role is not less important

1.2.5 Types of communicative activities

According to Celce-Murcia (1991) “there are as many activities and materials available as there are creative teachers”; therefore, communicative activities can be applied

in the teaching of any skill, at any level, and because of the large variety of classroom activities and exercise types, description of typical classroom procedures used in a lesson basing on CLT principles is not feasible There is one framework which receives the most agreement of the majority of practitioners is the methodological framework on communicative activities given by Littlewood (1981:85) depicted in the following figure: Pre-communicative activities : Structural activities

quasi-communication activities which are intended to help learners relate the forms and structures they are studying to the use of the language like communicative function, specific meaning, and social context Some quasi- communicative activities include (1) Situational dialogues; (2) Open-ended dialogues; (3) Timetable, map, food list, shopping list, etc It can be concluded that the pre-communicative activities have the intention of making students practice using acceptable language fluency, without being concerned to communicate meanings effectively

The most remarkable consideration should be taken to communicative activities These kinds of activities require learners to integrate his knowledge and skills of the pre-communicative activities into full activities of communicative meanings Littlewood (1981) divides communicative activities into functional communication activities and social interaction activities For the functional communication activities, the main purpose

is that learners should use the language they know in order to get meaning across as effectively as possible Success is measured primarily according to whether they cope with communicative demands of the immediate situation Some examples of these activities are questions and answers, interviews based on a text, information-gap activities, role-play, etc

In addition, the social interaction activities place emphasis on social as well as functional aspects of communication Learners must not only aim to convey meanings effectively but also pay greater attention to the social contexts in which the interactions take place Success is now measured not only in terms of the functional effectiveness of the language but also in terms of the acceptability of the forms that are used In the early stages

of learning, acceptability may mean little more than a reasonable degree of accuracy in pronunciation and grammar Later, it will increasingly come to include producing language appropriate to specific kind of social situations because of the limitation of the classroom; simulation and role-playing are now important techniques for creating a wider variety of social situations and relationships

There is no clear dividing in reality between these different categories and subcategories: they present differences of emphasis and orientation rather than distinct divisions Similarly, it would be arbitrary if we tried to specify how much attention must

be paid to communicative function before an activity can be called functional communicative, or how significant social meaning must become before it falls into the

social interaction subcategory In any case, in the last resort these distinctions depend on the varying orientations of individual learners

1.3 Students’ perceptions of non-communicative and communicative activities

Lindsay & Norman (1999) state that perception is the process by which organisms interpret and organize sensation to produce a meaningful experience of the world In practice, sensation and perception are virtually impossible to separate, because they are part of one continuous process Thus, perception in humans describes the process whereby

sensory stimulation is translated into organized experience

The results from previous studies on learners‟ views about classroom activities have suggested that the dominant trend among learners is a preference for traditional activities like pronunciation practice, error correction, and teacher‟s instruction In some studies, the learners enjoyed communicative activities but were reluctant to abandon traditional activities Nevertheless, in a study by Green (1993) learners express a preference for communicative activities More positive results can be found in Spratt‟s (1999) study at Hong Kong University who reported that students in this study generally rated communicative activities higher than learners in other studies of the kind and that teachers in the studies underestimated the learners‟ preferences for the communicative activities (p.143)

Barkhuisen (1998) surveyed perceptions of around 600 students in a high school in South Africa about the enjoyment and usefulness of 15 classroom activities and again reported learners‟ resistance to participating in communicative-type activities and their preference for more „traditional‟ classroom work (p.95) The two communicative activities

„class discussion‟ and „class debates‟ which were acknowledged to bring enjoyment were, however, ranked low in their usefulness Oksana (2006), in her study of the perceptions of university students about classroom activities, found that students from both Australia and Ukraine greatly valued the traditional activities like doing grammar exercises and having their errors corrected At the same time, they also favored communicative activities such as

discussing various topics and making dialogs

Until now, few studies about students‟ perceptions of classroom activities, even teachers‟ perceptions, have been carried out in Vietnam In a recent study of Vietnamese learners by Tomlinson & Dat (2004), 69.7% of the student respondents said that they

enjoyed group work but claimed that some factors like „linguistic limitations‟ ,

„performance anxiety‟, and „classroom atmosphere that doesn‟t stimulate discussion‟ inhibited them from taking active roles in class and student-centred activities (p 208: 211) Lewis and McCook (2002) and Phan Le Ha (2004) asking teachers from Vietnam about their teaching practice in university and secondary classrooms found that both communicative activities and traditional activities were highly valued in Vietnamese classrooms

In general, previous studies on learners‟ perceptions of classroom activities showed that non-communicative activities were preferred by students, especially those at lower levels, appreciated more „traditional‟ activities In some research, the students at higher proficiency level enjoyed communicative activities, but the reasons often accounted for enjoyableness rather than usefulness

1.4 Summary

In this chapter, the researcher tried to provide a brief description of the theoretical knowledge relating to the study Included are CLT and its characteristics Most of the linguistics agree that CLT is directly connected to developing communicative competence and its characteristics will be the principles for teachers to choose appropriate techniques

as well as activities in class to improve the students‟ communicative competence This chapter also included a discussion of communicative and non-communicative activities in language teaching and learning Definitions, characteristics, roles are discussed in order that distinguishing the characteristics and roles of these activities can make the best use of communicative and non-communicative activities in the process of learning and teaching The role of the teacher in communicative and non-communicative activities is also mentioned in order to point out teacher‟s importance in organizing classroom activities Moreover, types of communicative activities are grouped according to the classification of Littlewood (1981) Other previous studies on students‟ perceptions about classroom activities which have suggested that the dominant trend among learners is a preference for

non-communicative activities

In this study, the combination of Harmer‟s (1981) six distinctive characteristics and Littlewood‟s (1981) classification of classroom activities is used as the methodological framework for data analysis Harmer‟s (1981) six distinctive characteristics of

communicative and non-communicative activities are used as criteria to distinguish these two kinds of activities In addition, Littlewood‟s (1981) classification of classroom activities is taken as a gauge for communicative classroom procedures, which is the continuum of pre-communicative and communicative activities Furthermore, the term

“non-communicative activities” of Harmer‟s (1981) is considered as “pre-communicative

activities” in Littlewood‟s (1981)

CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the writer provides some information about research approach, the basic settings for the study The following section describes in details how the data for the research were collected and analyzed to answer the three questions set for this research, namely:

1 What are twelfth graders’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in the EFL classrooms?

2 What are students’ perceived difficulties in practicing communicative activities?

3 What are the possible solutions to these difficulties?

2.1 Research Approach

As this research aims to find out twelfth graders‟ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities and their perceived difficulties in practicing communicative activities, it employed mixed methods for data collection and analysis Data collected by means of questionnaire, semi-structured interview and group discussions were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively Questionnaire data were analyzed quantitatively for descriptive statistics while the interview and discussion data were processed qualitatively Within the scope of this study, such a combination of both research paradigms was believed to gain more in-depth data

The researcher chose questionnaire because it is one of the most popular instruments It is quite easy to prepare and it can be used with a large number of subjects What is more, the information collected is not very difficult to tabulate and to analyze (Brown, 1995) It helped “seek facts or causes of social phenomena without regard to the subjective states of the individuals” (Nunan, 1989:4) Moreover, thanks to the large number of participants in the study, that was, 200 twelfth grade students, the information acquired was believed to be relatively “reliable and generalisable” (Nunan, 1989:4) Following are interviews with students and group discussions among teachers in order to address the limitations of the questionnaire in exploring students‟ perceptions, as pointed above, and to find out if there is a mismatch between teachers and students‟ views of classroom activities

2.2 Research setting

The study was carried out in Bac Ly high school, Ha Nam during the second term

of the school year 2010 – 2011 The school, which is located in remote area in Ly Nhan District of Ha Nam province, consists of sixty five teachers and twenty - nine classes with more than 1,200 students in the school year There are ten 12th grade classes in Bac Ly High School in the school year 2010 – 2011 Because of living in remote area, the students here often lack of proper learning materials when they were at primary and secondary schools Most their entrance marks were very low; their knowledge is really at the medium level Teachers have to work harder than their colleagues at other upper secondary schools

in the province to help their students study effectively, because their students are struggling

to catch up with general knowledge of most subjects English here is one of the compulsory subjects The students study English in order to pass the examinations and some students like learning English to use it in the future

2.3 Subjects

2.3.1 Selection of subjects:

As stated in Cohen et al (2007:92), “the quality of a piece of research stands or falls by the suitability of the sampling strategy that has been adopted”, it is of great importance to decide on the key factors of sampling before conducting any kind of data collection The very first factor to be considered was the sample size As Bechhofer and Paterson (2000) stated “in order to find out characteristics of that whole population, it was not necessary to measure the whole population but a relatively small one [sample]”, the researcher chose to deliver questionnaires to 200 out of 450 students and interview 15 students and 8 teachers of English This number of subjects guaranteed the representativeness of the whole population The second factor to be taken account of was the sampling strategy Random Sampling was found to be the most suitable one for the situation of the study The key characteristic of this strategy is the equal and independent chance of being selected of each member of the population (Cohen et al., 2007, p.100) Therefore, random sampling provides “a degree of generalizability” (Cohen et al., 2000, p.99) which substantially contributed to the precise findings of the study

2.3.2 Students

In order to get information to fulfill the aims of the study, survey questionnaire for learners was designed The questionnaire was administered to 200 students (97 girls and

103 boys) of grade 12 at the school Their ages vary from 17 to 19 All of students started learning English at grade 6 They all had basic knowledge about English and began to learn the new English textbook for at least 6 years Therefore, this period would be the most suitable time for the study

2.3.3 Teachers

There are eight teachers of English at Bac Ly high school Their ages range between twenty-five and fifty years old Most of them have at least 3 year experience of teaching English in high school and responsible for their teaching All of them have got the University Bachelor of Art‟s Degree in English As rural teachers, they have few opportunities to upgrade their teaching and do not have a lot of teaching facilities and materials to help their work Despite all these disadvantages, they are helpful, friendly and dedicated teachers They all have a great desire to acquire knowledge of how to teach English well and are always willing to help their students tackle with difficulties in learning

2.4 The Textbook English 12

High school teachers have been using the textbook - English 12 for three years There are many changes in this new textbook in comparison with the old version This textbook has five lessons focusing on four skills such as Reading, Speaking, Listening and Writing and Language Focus of grammar and pronunciation There are 16 units in the textbook and they consist of two kinds of practicing activities: non-communicative and communicative activities Although the new textbook is claimed to be more communicative, more interesting, and more motivating to the students than the old one, it provides more non-communicative activities than communicative ones as Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh (2007) says, “The limitations lie in the predominance of mechanical practice and a corresponding inadequacy of communicative practice” There are often three tasks in one lesson; however, two-thirds of tasks are usually non-communicative activities which ask students to listen and answer questions, choose the correct answers, fill in the blank with right words, decide True/ False statement, choose the best answer, etc The other,

often in task 3, is pair or group work to discuss some given questions, and then report to the class

2.5 Research instruments:

2.5.1 Survey Questionnaire

To make sure that students understand the items in the questionnaire, students' native language (Vietnamese) was used

The questionnaire consisted of three parts (See Appendix 1)

Part A was about the students‟ background, English proficiency and their opinion

of teaching methods in class

Part B was composed of 20 items asking about communicative (10 items) and communicative (10 items) activities These questions related to student-student and student-teacher interactions, grammar activities, grammar instructions, teachers‟ error corrections and students‟ obedience to the teacher Items involving communicative activities included student-to-student interaction with little or no monitoring of student output by the teacher (items 9, 12 and 16); student–teacher interaction with the teacher monitoring and sometimes responding to student output (items 5 and 13); role play (item 10); classroom discussion (items 6 and 20) and the use of songs in the classroom (items 3 and 18) Singing and listening to songs were included in the communicative group because such activities tend to focus on the meaning rather than the grammatical form of what is being sung or listened to, and because singing and listening to songs are real use of language Non-communicative items emphasizing formal correctness included pronunciation practice (item 1); practice exercise and workbook type drill (items 4 and 19); audio-lingual style substitution drills (items 7 and 8); dictionary work on a list of words before reading a selection containing the words (item 17); explicit grammar instruction conducted entirely in English (item 15); explicit grammar instruction conducted

non-in Vietnamese with examples non-in English (item 14); teacher correction of errors non-in the students‟ journals (item 11); and students‟ obedience to the teacher (items 2)

Part C invited students to choose their difficulties in communicative activities in their classes

2.5.2 Semi-structured Interviews

This interview was conducted to help the researcher gain an in-depth understanding

of the students‟ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities and their perceived difficulties in using communicative activities in the classroom 15 students were randomly chosen from the sample for interview In this partially structured interview, the researcher posed a few predetermined questions but had considerable flexibility concerning follow-up questions pertinent to their learning experience, then listened to their response for clues to which question to ask next, or whether it was important to probe for additional information (Maykut and Morehouse, 1994) While formulating interview questions, the researcher made sure that the questions were clear, precise and motivating (Denzin, 1989)

All the interviews were audio taped and transcribed verbatim

2.5.3 Group Discussions

Group discussions were organized among eight teachers of English to help the researcher find out if there was a significant difference between students‟ preferences and instructors‟ perceptions of those preferences in language learning and students‟ difficulties

in practicing these communicative activities In this group discussion, the researcher raised some questions about their perceptions of students‟ preferences, evaluation of usefulness of classroom activities and perceived difficulties their students may face in practicing communicative activities In addition, the group also discussed some recommendations of how to overcome these difficulties All the discussions were audio taped and transcribed verbatim

2.6 Procedures of data collection:

To make it easy for the researcher to carry out the study, the procedure of data collection was planned as follows:

In the beginning of the second semester, the researcher issued questionnaire to 200 students and received the 200 answered questionnaires back at the same day The respondents were also required to indicate their position in the class list in order to guarantee that the chosen samples truly reflected the random sampling procedure All students returned the questionnaire Information from the questionnaire was then summarized and presented in the form of statistic information (tables and charts) for