Applying board games to teaching grammar practive at high school in binh duong province m a thesis

ix LIST OF TABLES Chapter 1 Table 1: The contents of English 6 Table 2: The contents of Grammar Practice in English 6 Chapter 2 Table 3: Aspects of grammatical structures teaching a

HO CHI MINH CITY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

FFGG

APPLYING BOARD GAMES

TO TEACHING GRAMMAR PRACTICE

AT HIGH SCHOOL IN BINH DUONG PROVINCE

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL

Submitted by Löông Bích Hoàng

SUPERVISOR

TÔ MINH THANH, PhD, Senior Lecturer

HO CHI MINH CITY – AUGUST 2009

STATEMENT OF AUTHORITY

I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled

APPLYING BOARD GAMES

TO TEACHING GRAMMAR PRACTICE

AT HIGH SCHOOL IN BINH DUONG PROVINE

in terms of the Statements of Requirements for Theses in Master’s Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee

This thesis has not previously been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institution

Ho Chi Minh City, August 17th, 2009

i

RETENSION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Löông Bích Hoàng, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for care, loan or reproduction

of theses

Ho Chi Minh City, August 17th, 2009

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This M.A thesis was written as a special gift for my young students, especially my lovely twins –– who was born at the time I began to submit the proposal for this M.A thesis with the hope that young learners can learn English grammar interestingly and effectively I, therefore, would like to express my sincere appreciation to all of those people who have helped to shape this thesis

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Dr

Tô Minh Thanh, for her insightful discussions, constructive criticisms, valuable comments, great encouragement and careful proof-reading and line-by-line comments on my writing Without her help, this M.A thesis would still be far from finished

I am greatly indebted to all the lecturers of the TESOL graduate program at the University of Social Science and Humanities for their dedication and helpful instruction during the course from the year 2004 to 2007

I would like to thank the teaching staff of Hung Vuong, Nguyen Thi Minh Khai and An My High School - without their assistance this thesis would not have been possible

Further I would like to extend my thanks to my students, who has responded to much of this material and who has taught me much about the problems encountered in the first stage of carrying

my research

Last but not least, my deepest gratitude and special thanks are sent to my mother, my husband and especially my lovely twins, who cared, encouraged, supported, and motivated me greatly during the time of completing this study

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ABSTRACT

This thesis dealt with Communicative Approach and Learners Centeredness towards learning English at high school in Binh Duong Province The purpose was to investigate potential difficulties facing teachers in dealing with Grammar Practice and then to raise a number of feasible solutions to the problem in question Another aim was to find out the effectiveness of the application of Board Games in teaching Grammar Practice Finally, the motivation of Board Games was examined in the study

Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were applied to conduct this study The research started with a survey in which the 8 teachers and 225 students from three schools in Binh Duong were asked to reply the questionnaires at the end of the first term of 2006 In the second term, the experiment class, the 41 sixth E graders of Hung Vuong, was conducted for four months to investigate the comparative effectiveness of teaching Grammar Practice with the help of Board Games through the collection of the tests The statistical procedure was the Independent samples t- test and Pair samples t-test, with the level of significance set at the.05 level Data were also collected from class observations and interviews to inspect the attitude of the experimental participants towards Board Games as well as to confirm the results from a different angle

Findings specific to the research is that most students today are expected to learn grammar not only for the purpose of getting high scores at school but also for the desire to use the target language orally Although there were some obstacles in grammar teaching and learning that need to

be overcome such as the stresses on cognitive input of The Grammar-Translation Method and Deductive application of rules, the out of date design of the textbook, the class size, the limit of time

…etc, the teacher must be active to conduct a successful Grammar Practice period to benefit the young learners’ need; and Board Games prove to be a useful teaching aid By one word, it was strongly suggested from the thesis with the use of Board Games

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality i

Retention and use of the thesis ii

Acknowledgements iii

Abstract iv

Table of contents v

List of tables xi

List of charts xii

List of abbreviations xiii

CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Background to the study 3

1.2.1 Reform of the curriculum 3

1.2.2 Syllabus of English 6 4

1.2.3 Grammar Practice of English 6 7

1.2.4 Assessment of high schools 9

1.3 Aims of the study 10

1.4 Significance of the study 10

1.5 Delimitations and limitations 11

CHAPTER 2 : LITERATURE REVIEW 12

2.1 What is grammar? 12

2.1.1 The place of grammar in language teaching 14

2.1.2 The aspects of grammar learning 15

2.1.3 The organization of grammar teaching 15

2.1.4 Grammar Practice 16

2.1.4.1 Pre- learning 16

2.1.4.2 Volume and repetition 16

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2.1.4.3 Success-orientation 17

2.1.4.4 Heterogeneity 17

2.1.4.5 Teachers’ assistance 17

2.1.4.6 Students’ Interest 18

2.2 How to teach grammar? 18

2.2.1 Deductive and Inductive approaches 18

2.2.2 Learner centeredness 20

2.2.3 Communicative language teaching 21

2.2.3.1 An overview of Communicative language teaching 21

2.2.3.2 Classroom activities used in Communicative language teaching 22

2.2.3.3 Teaching Grammar Practice communicatively 23

2.3 What are Board Games? 24

2.3.1 An overview of Board Games 25

2.3.2 Board Games as a tool to teach Grammar Practice 26

2.3.2.1 Use of games in language teaching 26

2.3.2.2 Teaching grammar with games 27

2.3.2.3 Value of Intrinsic Motivation 28

2.4 Summary 29

CHAPTER 3 : METHODOLOGY 30

3.1 Research questions 30

3.2 Methodology 31

3.3 Research design 32

3.3.1 The survey on teachers 32

3.3.1.1 Time and setting 32

3.3.1.2 Instrumentation 32

3.3.1.3 Procedures 33

3.3.2 The survey on students 33

3.3.2.1 Time and setting 33

3.3.2.2 Instrumentation 33

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3.3.2.3 Procedures 34

3.3.3 The experiment 34

3.3.3.1 Time and setting 34

3.3.3.2 Sample population 35

3.3.3.3 Pre test and post test 36

3.3.3.4 Board games application 49

3.3.4 The class observations 40

3.3.5 The interviews 40

3.4 Method of data analysis 41

3.5 Summary 41

CHAPTER 4 : RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 42

4.1 Data collected from the two sets of survey questionnaires 42

4.1.1 Data on the study’s subjects 42

4.1.1.1 Teacher subjects 42

4.1.1.2 Student subjects 44

4.1.2 Data on participants’ viewpoints on grammar 44

4.1.2.1 Role of grammar in language acquisition 44

4.1.2.2 Role of grammar in high school’s curriculum 45

4.1.2.3 Teachers’ opinions on teaching grammar 47

4.1.2.4 Students’ opinions on learning grammar 49

4.1.3 Teaching and practicing grammar 51

4.1.3.1 Approaching grammar at high school 51

4.1.3.2 Effectiveness of drills in practicing Grammar Practice 52

4.1.3.3 Teachers’ current activities in practicing Grammar Practice 53

4.1.3.4 Students’ preferred activities in practicing Grammar Practice 54

4.1.3.5 Pair and group work in practicing Grammar Practice 55

4.1.3.6 Duration of conducting Grammar Practice 57

4.1.4 Class size 58

4.1.5 Factors affecting students’ acquisition of English grammar 59

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4.1.6 Students’ interest in practicing the textbook’s Grammar Practice section 61

4.1.7 Participants’ opinions on improving Grammar Practice 62

4.1.7.1 Teacher subjects’ opinions 62

4.1.7.2 Student subjects’ opinions 63

4.2 Data collected from the experimental project 63

4.2.1 The two groups’ first semester test and second semester test 64

4.2.1.1 First semester test’ s scores 64

4.2.1.2 Second semester test’s scores 65

4.2.1.3 Difference in the two groups’ first-semester and second-semester test scores 66 4.2.1.4 Classification of first-semester and second-semester test scores 67

4.2.2 The experimental group’s pre-oral test and post-oral test 69

4.3 Classroom observations 70

4.3.1 Problems noticed and suggestions for improving GP teaching and learning 70

4.3.2 Strengths of teaching Grammar Practice by playing Board Games 72

4.3.3 Class observations’ photographs 72

4.3.4 Results of class observations 76

4.4 Interviews 76

4.4.1 Experimental teacher’s remarks 77

4.4.2 Students’ feelings 78

4.4.3 The reason why Board Games got the best price in the teaching aid competition in Binh Duong in 2005 78

4.5 Summary of the findings 79

CHAPTER 5 : CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 82

5.1 Conclusions 82

5.1.1 The current situation of Grammar Practice teaching and learning at high school in Binh Duong Province 80

5.1.2 Strengths of Board Games in the teaching and learning of Grammar Practice 84

5.2 Recommendations 84

5.2.1 Reform the testing system and training teachers’ speaking ability 84

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5.2.2 Intensifying Game in GP teaching and learning at high school …….……… 87

5.2.3 Applying Board Games to teaching GP at high school in Binh Duong……… 88

REFERENCES: 90

APPENDICES 92

Appendix 1: Grammar Practice 1 92

Appendix 2: Questionnaire for teachers 96

Appendix 3: Questionnaire for students 99

Appendix 4: The first semester test of the school year 2006- 2007 101

Appendix 5: The second semester test of the school year 2006- 2007 102

Appendix 6: A set of six Board Games 103

Appendix 7: Class observation Report 1 117

Appendix 8: Class observation Report 2 119

Appendix 9: Class observation Report 3 121

Appendix 10: The control group’s scores of the first and second semesters 123

Appendix 11: The experimental group’s scores of the first and second semesters 124

Appendix 12: The experimental group’s scores of pre oral and post oral tests 125 Appendix 13: Certificate of merit 126

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LIST OF TABLES

Chapter 1

Table 1: The contents of English 6

Table 2: The contents of Grammar Practice in English 6

Chapter 2

Table 3: Aspects of grammatical structures teaching and learning

Table 4: The organization of grammar teaching

Chapter 3

Table 5:Procedures of the experimental project

Table 6: The student subjects’ levels of English

Table 7: Three levels of Cambridge Young Learners English Tests

Table 8: Grade 6 Level vs Starters’ Level of Cambridge Young Learners English Tests

Table 9: Schedule for the in-class application of Board Games

Chapter 4

Table 10: Teachers’ characteristics

Table 11: Teacher’s age

Table 12: Teacher’s numbers of years of teaching experience

Table 13: Students’ characteristics

Table 14: Teachers’ and students’ opinions on the importance of vocabulary, grammar

and four basic language skills in high school’s curriculum

Table 15: Teachers’ opinions on how difficult teaching vocabulary, grammar

and four basic language skills is

Table 16: Students’ opinions on how difficult learning vocabulary, grammar

and four basic language skills is

Table 17: Current activities used by the teacher subjects for practicing Grammar Practice Table 18: Students’ preferred activities in practicing Grammar Practice

Table 19: Reasons for the teachers’ failure to conduct pair work or group work

Table 20: Factors affecting students’ acquisition of English grammar

Table 21: The control group’s and the experimental group’s first semester test scores

Table 22: Comparison of the two groups’ first semester test scores

Table 23: Comparison of the two groups’ second semester test scores

Table 24 : The control group’s and the experimental group’s second semester test scores

Table 25:Comparison of the first-semester and second-semester test scores

within each of the two groups

Table 26: Comparison of the two groups’ first-semesterandsecond-semester test scores

Table 27: Classification of the two groups’ first-semester and second-semester test scores

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Table 28: Comparison of the experimental group’s pre-oral and post-oral test scores

Table 29: Comparison of pre-oral and post-oral test scores within the experimental group

Table 30: F our analytical criteria of the experimental group’s pre-oral and post- oral test scores

Table 31:Problems noticed and suggestions for improving GP teaching and learning

Table 32:Class observations’ photographs

Table 33:Schedule for the interviews

Table 34:Data from students’ interview

Chapter 5

Table 35: Strengths of Board Games in the teaching and learning of Grammar Practice

Table 36 : The suggested tests’ structure at high school

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LIST OF CHARTS Chapter 4

Chart 1: Grammar’s importance in language teaching and learning

Chart 2: Ways of teaching and studying Grammar Practice

Chart 3: Teachers’ judgment on the effectiveness of drills in practicing Grammar Practice Chart 4: Teachers’ and Students’ choice of activities employed in Grammar Practice Chart 5 : Pair and group work’s application during six periods for Grammar Practice Chart 6: Duration of teaching Grammar Practice

Chart 7: Current class size at Binh Duong high schools

Chart 8: Students’ interest in practicing Grammar Practice

Chart 9: Classification of the two groups’ first-semester and second-semester test scores

xii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ELT English Language Teaching

EFL English Foreign Language

JHS Junior High School

MOET Minister of Education Training

CLT Communicative Language Teaching

HVHS Hung Vuong High School

AMHS An My High School

NTMKSS Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Secondary School

SIT School of International Training

GP Grammar Practice

CG The control group

EG The experimental group

FST The first semester test

SST The second semester test

FSTCG First-semester test score of the control group

FSTEG First-semester test score of the experimental group

SSTCG Second-semester test score of the control group

SSTEG Second-semester test score of the experimental group

PSAEG Pretest speaking ability scores for the experimental group

EGPTSA Posttest speaking ability scores for the experimental group

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

The chapter begins with the rationale of the study Then comes a background to English Language Teaching (abbreviated to ELT) in Vietnam together with a short description of the textbook for English 6, especially the section named “Grammar Practice” Last comes the aim and the significance of the study, along with limitations and delimitations which are to supply background information for the expected role

of this study in high school classrooms in Vietnam nowadays

1.1 Rationale

Teaching grammar is an indispensable part of ELT in an English Foreign Language (abbreviated to EFL) context Compared with classroom teaching innovations in the four basic language skills, i.e listening, speaking, reading and writing, those for grammar teaching have often been forgotten The newly published curriculum standard for teaching English at high school points out that the general aim of the English curriculum is to enable students to clarify the aims of English learning, to develop autonomous learning and cooperative learning, to establish efficient learning strategies, and to develop integrated skills in using the target language Knowledge, skills, learning strategies, and culture awareness have attracted more attention in teaching and learning [Junior High School (abbreviated to JHS) English Teacher Training Material: 2002]

The publication of this new standard leads the ELT in all the high schools in Vietnam in general and in Binh Duong Province in particular to a new direction Correspondingly, grammar teaching should not just maintain its rule-listing routine Instead, some new attempts should be involved and are of great urgency

Due to the requirements of Ministry of Education and Training (abbreviated

to MOET), classroom teaching innovations have officially been implemented since the school year 2002-2003; accordingly, both Communicative Language Teaching (abbreviated to CLT) and Learner Centeredness are compulsorily applied

in the new English textbooks and all teachers have made great efforts to design many communicative activities for teaching EFL classes

As a teacher of Hung Vuong High School (abbreviated to HVHS), I have observed for 10 years that many colleagues of mine in both my high school and the others of Binh Duong Province identified their numerous difficulties in employing the CLT and Learners Centeredness for language skill training as well as for grammar teaching in order to motivate their students to study English well

Although the new series of English textbooks, including the textbook for English 6, is much better than the old one, my colleagues keep complaining that they can hardly help their students master Grammar Practice in only 6 forty-five minute periods for the whole school year: some fail to make teaching Grammar Practice interesting while others admit not applying CLT to teaching Grammar Practice at all Such a gloomy setting raises a big question of how to teach Grammar Practice effectively at high school within the given time constraints

In the thesis named “Making the most of the English 6”, Nguyen Thi Bich Thuy (2001) writes that some lessons seem to take more time than the time allotted This makes teachers confused in designing their lesson plans in concordance with the syllabus How can teachers and students deal with the six periods of consolidation for Grammar Practice while this especially designed section is so condensed, containing many important grammar points as well as upgraded grammatical exercises? As the result of the time pressure, teachers have to cut off some parts and students certainly lack opportunities to revise and

In brief, the theoretical and practical study done for the M A thesis aims at:

• Giving high school teachers flexible and appropriate understanding of how

to apply CLT and Learners Centeredness in Grammar Practice teaching;

• Supplying a set of Board Games to teach Grammar Practice of English 6 communicatively;

• Motivating students to learn English for practical applications in the future

It is the contention of this thesis that the whole situation in which the section named Grammar Practice of English 6 need to be changed in a positive way in order to provide students with better chance to practice speaking what they have learned

in class, i.e to guarantee that students’ conscious learning is later supported by appropriate practice

1.2 Background to the study

1.2.1 Reform of the curriculum

Educational reform in Viet Nam is linked to the major national initiative whose goals require a supportive, reinforcing education program The existing socio-economic, political and cultural climate of the country calls for a redesign

of educational objectives, contents and teaching methods in order to meet the human resource needs for the projected industrialization and modernization period The aim is to complete the basic modernization and industrialization of the country by the year 2020 Vietnam seeks to join international communities, while still preserving and developing its national traditions Reforms to curricula have come about due to both the government’s recognition of these global pressures and the demands of teachers, students and parents, who are aware of the outdated state of the curriculum and the need for on-going curriculum change (Nguyen Thi Minh Phuong and Cao Thi Thang on http://www ibe.unesco.org/curriculum/Asia%20Net

workpdf/ndrepvn.pdf on Jan 12th, 2007)

Officially started in the school year 2002-2003 is the reform of the Especially, the curriculum and the new series of English textbooks focus on equally developing all the four basic language skills (JHS English Teacher Training Materials; 2002: 9) These skills are combined tightly in in-class activities, ranging from presentation to practice In other words, integrated skills are considered as a must for English teaching and learning Besides, teaching and learning methods are currently being reformed with the intention of fostering under the teacher’s supervision and guidance as well as self-directed discoveries

of student’s individual learning abilities Truong Viet Hanh Huyen (2006: 5) says that “in the new curriculum, a skill-based approach to instructional objectives, i.e the communicative approach, is highlighted New language items are presented through natural communicative contexts, ranging from controlled

1.2.2 Syllabus of English 6

English 6 has officially been used in almost all the high schools in 61 provinces and cities throughout Vietnam since the school year 2002-2003 It is generally assumed that after approximately 99 forty-five-minute periods in one school year, students are supposed to master the knowledge of basic general English The aims and objectives of the Vietnamese secondary school ELT curriculum are as follows (JHS English Teacher Training Materials, 2002: 5-7):

• To develop a certain level of primary knowledge in the four skills and be able to use English simply like a means of communication through listening, speaking, reading and writing;

• To develop knowledge and attitudes towards using English in order to learn about other cultures and interact with members of those cultures in order to develop mutual understanding, friendship and cooperation;

• To help students to build up language learning ability and to develop various ways of thinking These abilities will carry over to their use of the first language and produce a better overall linguistic competence

Designed to train students in all the four language skills, Grade 6 focuses on the six following main themes: (1) personal information, (2) learning and education, (3) community, (4) health, (5) recreation, and (6) the world around us; all being to relevant to students’ interest, age and level Especially, these themes are communicatively and contextually oriented and sometimes deal with basically cultural features of some English-speaking countries

English 6 consists of 16 units corresponding to 16 topics expended from the

six main themes, as presented in Table 1 Developed in order in each of the units

of English 6 are the three sections: Presentation of the new language, Practice, and

Production and consolidation Presentation is introduced to students through such

activities as Listen and repeat, Listen and read, and Read

To provide students with background information on the context in which new material is used, the very material is presented in the form of either a reading passage or one or more dialogues, both being illustrated by pictures served to define the meaning of new words A cassette tape recorded by native speakers of English is also available Including all the dialogues and listening tasks, the tape serves as a useful teaching aid for teachers as well as a reliable voice model for students to imitate

Unit 1 Greetings

Hello Good morning How old are you?

Unit 2 At school

Come in Where do you live?

My school Unit 3 At home

My house Numbers Families Unit 4 Big or small? Where is your school?

My class

Our house

In the city Around the house Unit 7 Your house

Is your house big?

Town or country?

On the move Unit 8 Out and about

What are you doing?

A truck driver Road signs

Faces Unit 10 Staying healthy

How do you feel?

Food and drink

My favorite food Unit 11 What do you eat? At the store

At the canteen Unit 12 Sport and pastimes

What are they doing?

Free time How often?

Unit 13 Activities and the seasons The weather and seasons

Activities in seasons Unit 14 Making plans

Vacation destinations Free time plans Suggestions Unit 15 Countries

We are the world Cities, buildings and people Natural features

Unit 16 Man and the environment Animals and plants

Pollution Table 1: The contents of English 6

Furthermore, visual channels and colorful pictures are deliberately designed throughout the course books to facilitate not only the presentation language and communicative context but also the practice of the four basic language skills On the one hand, the teacher is supposed to understand the aims and requirements of each section included in all of the units of English 6 to focus

on main points of the units On the other hand, the textbook can be used creatively in concordance with students’ varied levels In a word, it is possible to

use supplementary material and up date new teaching activities to meet the students’ interests as well as their psychological states while still guarantying the aims and the main content of each of the units (JHS English Teacher Training Materials; 2002: 12)

1.2.3 Grammar Practice of English 6

Besides 16 units, English 6 contains a “Grammar Practice” after 2 or 3 units The purpose of this section is to systematize, consolidate and practice some grammar points as well as vocabulary the students had learnt before

There are six Grammar Practice sections accompany with sixteen units of English 6: Grammar Practice 1 after units 1, 2 and 3; Grammar Practice 2 after units 4 and 5; Grammar Practice 3 after units 6, 7 and 8; Grammar Practice 4 after units 9, 10 and 11; Grammar Practice 5 after units 12, 13 and 14; and Grammar Practice 6 after units 15 and 16

Most of the Grammar Practices’ contents in the series are based on a grammatical syllabus in which grammatical structures are divided into sections

graded according to difficulty and/or importance (enclosed as Appendix 1) There

is no recommended task in the six Grammar Practices That is the reason why some teachers are very confused of giving the students activities to practice Most of them ask their students to fill in blanks by reading the sentences aloud or write them down in their books Rarely are pair and group works established during the class time spent on Grammar Practice Therefore, teaching Grammar Practice effectively is a current problem that needs to be solved at high school

In brief, language and contents in Grammar Practices are selected according to the topics of the previous units In the main, however, the whole set of Grammar Practice is more grammatically oriented and less communicatively oriented as is illustrated by the schematic format of the units below:

Sections Topics

Grammar Practice 1

to be Imperative (Commands) How many ?

Question words Numbers Greeting This and That

Grammar Practice 3

Present simple tense Present progressive tense Prepositions

Question words Contrast: Present simple and Present progressive tenses must and must not/ mustn’t

Can and cannot/ can’t

Grammar Practice 4

Present simple tense

a, an, some, any Adjectives Questions words Contrast: Present simple and Present progressive tenses

Grammar Practice 5

Present simple tense Adverbs of frequency Present progressive tenses Future: going to

What is the weather like?

Future plans

Grammar Practice 6

Present simple tense Present simple and Present progressive tenses Adjectives: comparatives and superlatives Indefinite quantifiers: a few, a little, a lot/lots Table 2: The contents of Grammar Practice in English 6

JHS English Teacher Training Materials (2002: 8) states that as an important part of the textbooks, Grammar Practice reveals students’ strengths and weaknesses after two for three units done; accordingly, teachers modify their lesson plans for the following groups of two or three units on hope of improving their students’ acquisition of the correspondent grammar sections Furthermore, the collection of the language contends aims at the need of appropriate communication situations It means that grammar and vocabulary of English 6 serve as a tool of communication and information exchange, not as the main requirement of the syllabus; that is why the grammar and vocabulary teaching demands the connection with the usage and meaningful contexts It is also one of the reasons why grammar and vocabulary must be taught through the practice of four skills rather than their own teaching; then the knowledge of language material will be built up thanks to the process of practicing

Obviously, the general aims of Grammar Practice teaching and learning have been pointed out clearly However, no guided methods can be found in the teachers’ book except for the keys of Grammar Practice That has made a lot of teachers lose the direction of how to teach Grammar Practice as being asked by the new textbook Instead of teaching Grammar Practice through the practice of four basic language skills, Grammar Practice is taught like ‘teaching grammar’ by the traditional way

1.2.4 Assessment of high schools

In addition to two semester examinations, the continuous and regular assessment for every school year at high school includes 2 review lesson tests, 6 fifteen-minute tests and 4 forty-five minute tests done by teachers The six fifteen-minute tests concentrate on separately measuring either three basic language skills — listening, reading and writing or vocabulary and grammar The four forty-five-minute tests consist of measuring both language skills and language

knowledge, which include grammar and vocabulary The tern or year tests share their structure with the forty-five-minute tests Because of their only main focus on grammar, the forty-five-minute tests fail to correspond to both structure validity and content validity Consequently, these tests cause a harmful backwash effect on the current teaching process in JHS (Truong Viet Hanh Huyen 2006: IV) In addition, the fact that rarely is speaking tested in class neither inspire students to use language for a communicative purpose nor draws teachers’ attention to teaching speaking skills

end-of-Moreover, students’ progress in learning English at high school is officially assessed through one and the same national examination — the high school

graduating examination, also known as the National Baccalaureate, in which

English is a compulsorily test by the exam paper set by MOET The exam paper typically focuses on reading comprehension and writing production, employing students’ knowledge of grammar and vocabulary in English This examination, therefore, has also a backwash effect on the method of teaching and learning of English at secondary level

1.3 Aims of the study

With the situation of teaching English in a high-quality school of Bình Döông province, the aims of this study are targeted at investigating the difficulties teachers and students face in Grammar Practice teaching and learning, as well as providing an example of the application of CLT and Learner Centeredness to teach Grammar Practice by Board Games

1.4 Significance of the study

The grammar teaching and learning has been playing an important role in teaching English for a long time With the current development in Vietnam, the

need of using English to communicate is very necessary As required by teachers’ textbook in which grammar and vocabulary are introduced for communicative purposes, not for linguistic knowledge, grammar teaching helps students not only pass the exams but also speak English together in daily life

“What can teachers do to teach grammar interestingly and effectively?” and “What can students do to speak the target language fluently?” are two important questions needing to be addressed at high school now This study focuses on the difficulties that interfere with high school teachers to teach Grammar Practice, and mainly recommends one of the ways to teach Grammar Practice communicatively and interestingly

Therefore, the study done for this M.A thesis may be significant to teachers and students at high school as well as to those who would like to teach grammar communicatively This study helps the researcher not only seek suitable ways to apply appropriate methods of teaching grammar at high school but also make the learning atmosphere interesting and pleasurable Moreover, the thesis is intended to contribute a little to a flexible understanding of the application of CLT and Learner Centeredness to teach Grammar Practice of English 6 in this present situation as well as to provide an illustrative sample of actual classroom discourse

1.5 Delimitations and limitations

Because of the constraints of the time and resources, this study is delimitated to the subject of teaching Grammar Practice of English 6 in Binh Duong Province

Selected to redesign the way to teach Grammar Practice are only Board Games to give students practice exposure to a collection of varied grammatical structures in only forty-five minutes communicatively in big classes

Unfortunately, Board Games require teachers not only time to prepare but also creativeness and enthusiasm in teaching In addition, playing Board Games make noise and sometimes result in a lack-of-control classroom management This study, therefore, may not be highlighted to some teachers who are used to applying Grammar Translation for a long time

There also exists the limitation of generalization for the thesis is carried out

in a rather small scale: issued as the instruments to collect data necessary for the survey are two sets of questionnaires the respondents of which are only 8 teachers of English and 225 Grade-6 students from 6 classes of three schools in three different areas in Binh Duong Province Hopefully, the pedagogic recommendations from this study are really beneficial to other teachers of the same situations to some extent

2.1 What is grammar?

Notions of grammar have changes over the years Early last century, Cobbett (1819, as cited in Nunan, 1999: 96) wrote: “Grammar teaches us how to use of words, that is to say, it teaches us how to make use of them in the proper manner to be able to choose words which ought to be placed, we must be acquainted with certain principles and rules; and these principles and rules constitute what is call grammar.”

Defined by Richards et al (1992: 161), grammar is “a description of the

structure of a language and the way in which linguistic units such as words and phrases are combined to produce sentences in the language It usually takes into account the meanings and functions these sentences have in the overall system

of the language It may or may not include the description of the sounds of a language.”

These days, at least, grammarians are a little more careful than in Cobbett’s day to focus on describing language as it is used, rather than describing how it should be used Ur (1988: 5) states that grammar may be roughly defined as “the way a language manipulates and combines words (or bits of words) in order to form longer units of meaning.” He affirms that there exists “a set of rules which

govern how units of meaning may be constructed in any language: it may be said that a learner who knows grammar is one who has mastered and can apply these rules to express him in what would be considered acceptable language forms.” Particularly, Larsen-Freeman (1995, 103) produces a new perspective on grammar teaching which sees grammar as “a higher-order concept within linguistics, arguing that it has three interrelated dimensions: form, meaning and use.” Her model thus attempts to integrate “three aspects of linguistics that have traditionally been kept separate: syntax (study of form), semantics (the study of meaning), and pragmatics (the study of use).” It therefore shares a great deal in common with the model of systemic-functional linguistics developed by Halliday (1985): that Grammar is “the study of syntax (form), semantics (meaning), and pragmatics (use) work together to enable individuals to communicate through language.”

A more developed and practical view of grammar is from DynEd on (http://www.dyned.com/), a courseware designed to help learners to acquire English language in a natural but accelerated mode of learning This refers to grammar of English like the trunks and branches of a tree “The vocabulary and expressions are like the leaves on the tree As the branches are exercised, they become ‘sticky’ and new vocabulary items have a place to go Without the branches, the leaves are forgotten and drop away.” This definition emphasizes the significant role of grammar practice of English learning

In brief, grammar has been defined in many ways by different linguists: a set of components including morphology (the study of forms, or how elements are combined to create words), syntax (how words are strung together into sentences), and semantics or meaning Because all languages are characterized by these components, by definition, language does not exist without grammar

That is why EFL material over the last 25 years has varied in the emphasis grammar has given to accuracy of form as opposed to the meanings of the forms (Williams, 2000) Accompany with these changes, the need for a communicative approach to grammar for teachers is obvious Clearly, the goal of language learning in the communicative classroom is for learners to acquire the grammar

of the foreign language in its broadest sense, to enable them to understand and make meaning; that is, to become proficient users of the language In this thesis, communicative grammar is based on the communicative approach to the teaching of a foreign language Language structures must not be taught in isolation but integrated

to the four basic language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing

2.1.1 The place of grammar in language teaching

Grammar has traditionally had a central role in language teaching Theories

of grammar and grammar learning have provided justifications for approaches to syllabus design and teaching methodology for many years, as confirmed by Long

and Richards (1997: 279): “Although grammatical proficiency and language

proficiency are no longer considered to be one and the same thing, grammar plays a role in speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills, rather than as a separate skill itself.” This means that particular grammatical items are deal with when they are needed for specific kinds of communication tasks and functions There is no doubt that knowledge of grammatical rules, either implicit or explicit, is essential for the mastery of a language But there has been some discussion in recent years of the question: Do we have to have “grammar exercises”? Isn’t it better for learners to absorb the rules intuitively through

“communicative activities” than to be taught through special exercises explicitly aimed at teaching grammar? Ur (1988: 5) points out that grammar may furnish the basis for a set of classroom activities during which it becomes temporarily

the main learning objective The learning of grammar should be seen in the long term

as one of the means of acquiring a thorough mastery of the language as the whole, not

as an end in itself He concludes that grammar activities will be superseded eventually by general fluency practice, where the emphasis is on successful communication, and any learning of grammar takes place only as incidental to this main objective

Fortunately, with the emphasis on a communicative approach and a wealth

of stimulating resources nowadays, teaching grammar does not necessarily mean endless conjugation of verbs or grammar translation

50 2.1.2 The aspects of grammar learning

Before planning the organization of the teaching, the teachers need to have clear in their minds exactly what sorts of things are included under the heading

“grammar” and what is involved in “knowing a structure”?

Ur (1988: 6) suggests that when teaching structures, the teachers should get students to learn quite a large number of different, though related, bits of knowledge and skills: how to recognize examples of a grammatical structure when spoken, how to identify its written form, how to produce both its spoken and written form, how to understand its meaning in context and produce meaningful sentences using the grammatical structure All are presented in the following table:

LISTENING Perception and recognition of the

spoken form of the structure

Comprehension of what the spoken structure means in context

SPEAKING Production of well-formed examples in

Table 3: Aspects of grammatical structures teaching and learning

2.1.3 The organization of grammar teaching

Any generalization about the “best” way to teach grammar — what kinds

of teaching procedures should be used, and in what order — will have to take into account both the wide range of knowledge and skills that need to be taught, and the variety of different kinds of structures subsumed under the heading

“grammar” The following organization suggested by Ur (1988: 6-7) is only a general framework into which a very wide variety of teaching techniques will fit

1 PRESENTATION

The aim is to get the learners to perceive the structures — its form and meaning — in both speech and writing and to take it into short- tern memory

Table 4: The organization of grammar teaching

2.1.4 Grammar Practice

The practice stage comes after the initial presentation and explanation, when the learner is assumed to have perceived the material and taken it into short-tern memory, but can not be said to have really mastered it yet

Practice may be defined as any kind of engaging with the language on the part of learner, usually under teacher supervision, whose primary absorbed into long-tern memory and the learner enabled to understand and produce examples

of it with gradually lessening teacher support

A practice technique may involve reception — “passive” exposure to spoken or written input — or “active” production of language items and discourse According to Ur (1988: 11-16), some factors that definitely contribute

to successful practice are the following:

2.1.4.1 Pre-learning

Practice is the second or third stage in the process of learning a structure The function of practice procedure is to familiarize learners with the materials they have learned If effective pre-learning has not taken place prior to the practice, that is not to say, if the material has not been clearly perceived and taken into short-tern memory by the learners; then much time will be wasted on incomprehension or unacceptable responses, forcing the teacher to interrupt the procedure for explanations and corrections, and lessening the time available for real practice

2.1.4.2 Volume and repetition

By “volume” Ur (1988: 12) refers to “the sheer amount of (comprehensible) language that is spoken, heard, read, or written in the course of activities.” The author asserts the more language the learners are exposed or to

to be learnt, realized by different examples of the structure’s form and meaning,

as many times as possible in speech and writing

2.1.4.3 Success-orientation

Although it is certainly true that correction of mistakes does contribute something to learning, the kind of thorough, semi-intuitive absorption of material which is aimed for in language teaching can only be achieved if, after mistakes have been eliminated, students have plenty of experience of doing it right Thus practice in general is more effective if it is based on more or less successful performance, and practice activities should be designed and presented in such a way that student responses will be acceptable

2.1.4.4 Heterogeneity

A “heterogeneous” exercise according to Ur (1988: 13) is one which may

be done at different levels The use of heterogeneous exercises provides teachers with more reliable feedback on students’ performance It not only ensures that a higher proportion of the class get learning value out of the practice; it also, like success-orientation, has a positive effect on learner attitude and motivation Since most classes are in fact composed of mixed-ability groups,

it is desirable to design practice tasks that can be interpreted and performed at whatever level the individual student feels appropriate

2.1.4.5 Teachers’ assistance

Having presented a certain practice task, teachers need to make sure that students do in fact perform it successfully, and fairly briskly Ur (1988: 15)

advises that there should be very little correction of mistakes if there has been proper pre-learning, and if the task is really success-oriented Teacher activity in the course of practice should therefore be largely directed towards supporting and assisting students in their production of acceptable responses rather than towards assessing and correcting

2.1.4.6 Students’ Interest

Students’ interest in Ur’s belief (1988: 15) is an essential feature of successful practice, not just an optional extra A well-designed practice procedure may fail to produce successful learning simply because it is boring Learners who are bored find it difficult to concentrate; their attention wanders; they may spend time thinking of things other than the learning task in hand Moreover, because boredom, particularly in younger classes, often produces unruly behavior, more valuable learning time may be wasted on nonsense If, however, the class is interested in what it is doing, its members may not only learn more efficiently, they are also likely to enjoy the process and to want to continue

In one word, effective practice procedures are usually characterized by the features of pre-learning, volume and repetition, success-orientation, heterogeneity, teachers’ assistance and students’ interest Ur (1988: 15) concludes that any one particular exercise may of course lack one or more of the above-mentioned factors and still be effective in gaining specific objectives; but

if too many are absent, the practice is likely to become a virtual test, and provide little learning value

2.2 How to teach grammar?

Teaching grammar plays a central role in every ESL/EFL teacher's classroom

At first look, teachers might think that teaching grammar is just a matter of explaining grammar rules to students However, teaching grammar effectively is

a much more complicated matter, which requires the teacher to select the suitable method not only to their teaching purposes at a certain time but also to their students’ optimal success

2.2.1 Inductive and Deductive approaches

Inductive and deductive reasoning are two polar aspects of the generalization process Brown (2000: 25) wrote that “in the case of inductive reasoning, one stores a number of specific instances and induces a general law or rule or conclusion that governs or subsumes the specific instances Deductive reasoning

is a movement from a generalization to specific instances: specific subsumed facts are inferred or deduced from a general principle Classroom learning tends

to rely more than it should on deductive reasoning.”

Traditional methods, especially the Grammar-Translation, have overemphasized the use of deductive reasoning in language teaching While it may appropriate at times to articulate a rule and then process to its instances, evidence in communication second language learning points to the superiority of

an inductive approach to rules and generalizations However, both inductively and deductively oriented teaching methods can be effective, depending on the goals and contexts of a particular language teaching situation Herschensohn (1988: 411) advocates that students will have less trouble with grammar when they are given simple rules without unnecessary textbook explanations:

An inductive grammar presentation which requires student participation in the target language and student formulation of a simple grammar rule (preferably in the target language — possible only if the rule is simple) is at

once an exercise in formal grammar and in communication Grammar itself

is not an intrinsic barrier to the acquisition of a second language Rather, focusing on grammar at the expense of communication is what should be criticized This reminds us that grammar does not need to be viewed as the most difficult part of language learning by the students It is the unnecessary explanations of grammar terminology that make grammar hard to comprehend.

Since knowledge of grammar is essential for competent users of a language, it is clearly necessary for our students Harmer (1991) stated that “our aim in teaching grammar should be ensure that students are communicatively efficient with the grammar they have at their level.” It has also been the orientation of teaching grammar at high schools since the reform of English course books beginning in 2002

In brief, grammar teaching has often been regarded as a structure-based formal activity After the integration of several sources and techniques, which are mainly based on communicative activities, the teaching of grammar gained a new insight In grammar teaching, technique-resource combinations are often modified to structure-discourse match1, and if well developed, they can be used effectively for all phases of a grammar lesson In order to make a grammar lesson effective, beneficial, and interesting teachers should use in class some currently-developed techniques one of which the use of Board Games clarified and exampled later in the thesis

2.2.2 Learner centeredness

1 The activities in which the grammatical structures are practiced to produce spoken

language

are included in the series of textbooks named English designed to provide

Vietnamese junior high-school pupils with chances to develop their linguistic competence in all four language skills This leads to teachers’ challenges of how

to apply Communicative approach and Learner-centeredness conformably in the current teaching situation in Vietnam junior high-schools

The teaching of EFL in Vietnam has been dominated by a teacher-centre, book-centre, grammar-translation method and an emphasis on rote memory for a long time, resulting in passive learners who are not motivating enough to get involved in practice of one kind or another right in class The reform of the teaching-learning of English in Vietnam follows the trend in contemporary English language teaching pedagogies which have focused on developing learners’ communicative competence and on promoting learning strategies and learner autonomy in language classrooms

Learner-centeredness is based on the idea that learners can learn better when they are aware of their own goals Thus, this model for language

curriculum development shifts from what should be done in a course of study to what is specifically done by language teachers in their classes, through

negotiation between teachers and learners in the planning, implementation and evaluation of language courses (Nunan, 1988:12)

In recent years, Learner-centeredness has been considered as a must in the educational reforms for classrooms However, this method requires a big effort from

teachers because of the lack of suitable policies from MOET to schools, of trained teachers who can overcome the overuse of established traditional methods Teachers can apply only the dimension of Learner-centeredness as stated by Nunan (1999: 14):

well-Learner centeredness is when it refers to classroom, not in which learners are involved in making choices about what and how to learn, but in which learners are actively involved in the learning process, classroom in which the focus

is on the learners in the sense in which they do all the work

In brief, teachers try their best to apply Learner-centeredness in class in order

to create a teaching and learning setting which is more interesting and thus effective

2.2.3 Communicative language teaching

2.2.3.1 An overview of Communicative language teaching

Adapted to the primary and secondary levels the communicative approach has supplied different teaching methods known under a variety of names, including notional-functional method, teaching for proficiency, proficiency-based instruction, and communicative language teaching (abbreviated to CLT) As an extension of the notional-functional syllabus, CLT also places great emphasis on helping students use the target language in a variety of contexts and on learning language functions

CLT is usually characterized as a broad approach to teaching, rather than as

a teaching method with a clearly defined set of classroom practices As such, it is most often defined as a list of general principles or features The most recognized list

is by Nunan (1991: 279), of five features:

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

• The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation