Some group activities to enhance the effectiveness of teaching english for students in grade 4

THANH HOA EDUCATION & TRAINING DEPARTMENT THANH HOA CITY EDUCATION & TRAINING OFFICE EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE SOME GROUP ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TEACHING ENGLISH FOR STUD

THANH HOA EDUCATION & TRAINING DEPARTMENT

THANH HOA CITY EDUCATION & TRAINING OFFICE

EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE

SOME GROUP ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TEACHING ENGLISH FOR

STUDENTS IN GRADE 4

The implementer : Nguyen Thi Lan Position : English Teacher School : Ba Dinh primary school Subject : English

THANH HOA 2021

1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Reasons for choosing the topic

For the recent years, English has become an international means of communication which has been used everywhere and in every field Having recognized the importance of English in life, schools and families have increasingly devoted special attention to this subject For some past years, at many primary schools, English has been chosen as an elective subject with the duration of 2 to 4 periods per week

Previously, under the old teaching method, teachers play the central role

in conveying knowledge, whereas students only receive the knowledge passively This method is not only little effective but also not suitable for the present development situation of our country Requirements for the innovation

of teaching methods that promote learners’ activeness are that students must present their own self-discipline and creativity in order to master and dominate the knowledge For teachers, the exploration and application of new methods is

a frequent requirement set out in teaching process

The group activity is an essential requirement in methodological innovation in school education today Each teacher has different ways of organizing the class, depending on the purpose, requirements and knowledge which need conveying in each different lesson However, to achieve the true quality of the group work in which all students in the class can actually work, avoid depending on and waiting for the other students is not absolutely simply

In the school year of 2013 - 2014, being assigned to teach English in the Grade 4

at Ba Dinh primary school, with such thoughts and concerns, I have tried on applying some group activities to enhance the effectiveness of English teaching for students in grade 4 and achieved certain positive results

1.2 The purpose of research

The purpose of my research is to find the best ways of teaching students in grade 4 who follow the English program of ten years to learn actively and effectively

1.3 The subject of research

I have applied alternately to the lessons in English textbook grade 4 and have performed for students in classes 4A6, 4A7 at Ba Dinh Primary school

1.4 The methods of research

In order to implement this initiative, I have chosen some of the following methods:

- Reading documents that relate to the research issue

- Survey method for comments.

- Testing method

- Pedagogical observation method

- Method of assessment

1.5 The new points of the research

With certain achievements in the iniative of the school year 2013- 2014 for students in grade 4, I have continued to use and adjust key points in the initiative as well as developed more new points for students in grade 4 in the school year 2020- 2021 I have added one more group activity in order to vary the solutions in this initiative (see 2.3.6)

2 CONTENT 2.1 Rationale

The group activity, a teaching activity has been applied in the training of students with the aim of helping students learn actively as well as reduce the habit of learning passively The current reformed English teaching program has focused on developing communication skills for students; in the other words, Listening and Speaking skills are put in the first place of the concern After many years of teaching English in accordance with the new method, I myself have drawn experiences that the group activity can help enhance the communication, exchange and cooperation among students Organizing the group activity in English teaching periods will help students be dynamic, positive, attract the their attention and save time and as well as facilitate teacher's work as a guider or advisor

English 4 textbook is designed according to four themes: Me and my friends, Me and my school, Me and my family, Me and the world around Each theme consists of five units with three lessons

Thanks to the process of researching the structure of English 4 textbook, the teaching process as well as the practical test in grade 4 at Ba Dinh primary school, Thanh Hoa City or the training courses held by Thanh Hoa Department

of Education and Training, I myself have drawn some group activities consistent with the content of English 4 textbook

2.2 The situation of the problem

Through practical observation, estimates for the colleagues’ teaching periods I have realized there is a current situation that while teaching English at the primary schools, some teachers have not paid enough attention to the group

activities in the class or some teachers, despite focusing on group activities, have not had various ones to attract their students The following is the first term result of the quality of students in classes 4A6, 4A7 at Ba Dinh primary school

in the school year of 2020- 2021:

Classes

Total

number

of student

s

Excellent students Good students Fair students

Quantit y

Percentag e (%)

Quantit

Quantit

This result is not really as good as I expected, which has motivated me to think and find new activities so as to attract students’ attention and interest to the subject In my opinion, teachers of English need to base on the actual characteristics as well as students’ ability, the content of the knowledge to design the appropriate group activities so that the group performance has actually achieved teaching purposes From the current situation, in the process

of teaching English for students in grade 4, I have concerned and thought carefully to apply some group activities that I consider to be quite consistent with the structure of the program

2.3 The solution to the problem

English 4 textbook is designed in the direction of innovation with the

topic quite close to students such as: “Me and my family”, “Me and the world around” Depending on the content of each lesson and each activity, teachers can design appropriate group activities Below I outlined several group activities applicable to the parts in a number of lessons:

2.3.1 “Answers’ prediction” group activity

This activity can be applied to such parts: “Listen and tick”, “Listen and number” The purpose of this activity is encouraging students to discuss in English in groups on paintings given so that they can practise the learnt vocabulary, sentence patterns to predict the correct pictures or the correct order

of appearance of the pictures After predicting, students will have a certain number of words associated with each picture so that while listening, they will focuse on listening to the key words as well as make them more interested in listening activity Here are a specific example:

Part 2: “Listen and number”, Lesson 2, unit 16 “Zoo animals”, page 44,

English 4:

For this part, before listening, the teacher divides the class into groups of

4 members to discuss the animals in the pictures towards answering the question: “What animal is it?”, “What does it look like?”, “What is it doing?” After answering, students have had some words or phrases related to the pictures such as: “bear”, “bulky”, “honey” Each group will write the prediction of their own correct picture order When listening, students will focus on the key words and be eager to know if the correct answer would be the same with their prediction The winner group will get a small present and good comment from the teacher or other students in the class

2.3.2 “Braining storming” group work

This group activity can be applied to the “Listen and repeat” part when the teacher expect to set the scene for the content of the conversation by asking students to work in group and discuss on its picture This activy can motivate students’ ability of brainstorming, observing, precdicting and especially, students can brainstorm the vocabularies that will probably appear in the

coversation Here is a specific example:

Part 1: “Listen and repeat”, Lesson 3, Unit 17: “My area”, page 52,

English 4:

For this part, before teaching the conversation, the teacher devides the class into groups of 6 to 8, and asks the groups to look at the picture carefully and list all the words or sentence patterns that would be possibly related to the conversation between Mai and Nam

Nam & Mai

zoo

Let’s go to the zoo

post office

After 5 to 7 minutes, the teacher collects the result of groups The group which brainstorms the most correct related words or sentence patterns will be the winner

2.3.3.“Words and phrases pairs” group work

This activity is very suitable with “Look and say" part because it helps students remember the words and phrases that have just been learnt as well as find the words and phrases pairs which will go with each other in a sentence pattern When practising, they would no longer use the wrong ones Here is a specific example:

Part 2: “Look and say”, Lesson 3, Unit 15 “Festivals”, page 34, English 4:

For this part, before executing the practice, the teacher devides the class into groups of 8 and prepares 8 cards in which the festivals’ name are written on

4 cards and the activities for festivals are written on four other ones for each group In each group, 4 students keeping the cards with the name of the festivals will be asked to read the names of festivals by the group leader When a card is shown, the student with the card in which there is the phrase of the corresponding activity will show his/ her card for the whole group to read aloud

The group finishing the task the most correctly and fastest will be the winner.

2.3.4 “Letter, sound, word” group work

This activity is quite suitable for teaching pronunciation Especially, at

Ba Dinh primary school, students in the grade 1, 2 are those who are taught Phonics English program Thus, this will be very close to them and enable them

to distinguish the sound and the letter easily (the sound is how to pronounce and the letter is how to write) because some English sounds have a variety of the ways to pronounce For instance, the letter “e” in the words “pen”, “women”,

“be” is pronounced in quite different ways Here is a specific example:

Part 1: “Listen and repeat”, Lesson 2, Unit 11: “My daily activities” page 8, English 4:

For this part, after teaching the sounds /i:/ và /i/ in the words: “fift een” and “fifty”, the teacher may help students to practice and remember with a group activity as follows: The class is devided into groups of 10 in which a student is chosen to be the group leader, 9 other students will chosen into 3 smaller groups: “letter”, “sound”, “word” at random When the group leader points at any word and says “letter”, the “letter” group will stand up and say aloud the underlined letter(s) quickly If the group leader says “sound”, the

“sound” group will stand up and say aloud the sound of underlined letter(s) If the group leader says “word”, the “word” group will stand up and say aloud the word which has the underlined letter(s) The smaller group in each group does the task the most perfectly will be the winner and come to the board to perform their task

2.3.5 “Pictures/ Words matching” group work.

This acctivity is comparatively suitable for "Talk" part because there are no words or phrases given in this part, which may make students confused Before practising this part, if the teacher organize this type of group work, students will be helped to recall learnt words and phrases Here is a specific example:

Part 3: “Talk”, Lesson 1, Unit 13: “My favourite food and drink”, page

19, English 4:

For this part, before asking students to practice in pairs, the teacher asks them to work in groups of 4 Each group is given a card in which there is the picture of the food and drinks and their corresponding words In the given time

of 3 to 5 minutes, the groups will match the pictures with the correct words as quickly as possible The group finishing the task the most quickly and correctly will be the winner

2.3.6 “Written Storytelling” group work

random words from a bag and must incorporate each word into a short story Depending on your students’ levels of English acquisition, you can assign specific numbers of characters, amount of dialogue, length, etc to be included in the story

At the end of the lesson, groups can take turns reading stories aloud For increased participation and extra practice with speaking, you can ask the students who are listening to the story to comment on their classmates’ work

For beginning students, sentence starters like, “I liked….” or “what did you mean by…?” can be helpful to encourage feedback

Both the written storytelling and the small group discussion that follows are valuable practice time Together, they’ll help students practice written and spoken English in one swoop As in the oral storytelling suggestion above, assign topics that require students to discuss American customs or cultural norms, like privacy, personal space, hygiene or dining This adds an additional challenge for more advanced students and gets all students to improve their cultural literacy

This activity is comparatively difficult for students in grade 4 and is often applied in “Short Story” in Review after 5 units Here is one example:

2.4 The practical test

During the English teaching years at Ba Dinh primary school, I have applied, improved the familiar group activities as well as created, tested the new ones Resultedly, the effectiveness English teaching for my students has been apparently improved The group activities in the class are logically organized to

attract the help and participation of all the students, therefore, each group activity is quite attractive and practically effective After a period of learning English, students are more excited about learning the language At the end of the second term of the school year of 2020- 2021, in classes of grade 4 I am teaching English, the number of good and excellent students has ranked over 90% This number has increased in comparision with the one of the first term in the same school year The specific result is shown in the following data table:

Classes

Total

number

of student

s

Excellent students Good students Fair students

Quantit y

Percentag e (%)

Quantit

Quantit

In addition, the group result is given according to the students’ monthly marks with comparatively good quality In my point of view, when the group activities are held logically and suitably, students will be more active and interested in the subject Especially, the group activity will help to attract the participation of all the students Morevover, good and excellent students will have the chance of helping fair ones

3 THE CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

3.1 The conclusion

in group activities, students have opportunities of listening, showing their ideas, discussing, cooperating with other students Furthermore, the communication skills, the ablity of brainstorming, dealing with a problem or being independent and self- confident have been considerably improved As a result, learners are more active in getting the knowledge

In group activities, students are put in the small group in which they will discuss and work together to deal with a given task This can motivate the cooperation and help among all the members in the group and require all of them to work in a strict and effective way

For all these above reasons, the group activities should be applied