The application of communicative activities to develop speaking skills for 10th graders at trieu son no2 upper secondary school

THANH HOA SERVICE OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGTRIEU SON No2 UPPER-SECONDARY SCHOOL EXPERIENTIAL INITIATIVES “THE APPLICATION OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES AT TRIEU SON No2 UPPER-SECONDARY SCH

THANH HOA SERVICE OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

TRIEU SON No2 UPPER-SECONDARY SCHOOL

EXPERIENTIAL INITIATIVES

“THE APPLICATION OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES

AT TRIEU SON No2 UPPER-SECONDARY SCHOOL

Researcher: Lê Đình Thắng Post: Vice headmaster

Field: English

THANH HÓA NĂM 2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

I INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 1

3 Scope of the study 1

4 Research methods 2

4.1 Description of the subjects 2

4.2 Data collection instruments 2

4.2.1 Questionnaire 2

4.2.2 Classroom observation 2

4.2.3 Procedures 2

4.2.4 Methods of data analysis 3

II CONTENTS 4

1 Theoretical basis of the initiatives 4

1.1 Teaching speaking 4

1.1.1 The speaking needs and goals of language students 4

1.1.2 Approaches to teaching speaking 5

1.2 Communicative activities 6

1.2.1 What are communicative activities? 6

1.2.2 Purposes of communicative activities 8

1.2.3 Types of oral communicative activities 8

1.2.3.1 Communication games 9

1.2.3.2 Songs 9

1.2.3.3 Discussion 10

1.2.3.4 Problem solving 10

1.2.3.5 Simulation and role-play 10

2 The real situation of teaching speaking skills at Trieu Son No2 upper-secondary school 11

2.1 An overview of Trieu Son No2 upper-secondary school 11

2.2 The teachers of English in Trieu Son No2 upper-secondary school 11 2.3 The students in Trieu Son No2 upper-secondary school 12

2.4 The syllabus of teaching and learning English 12

2.5 The teaching and learning English speaking skills 12

3 The used measures to solve the problems 13

3.1 Some kinds of effective communicative activities 13

3.1.1 Using song 13

3.1.2 Communicative games 13

3.1.3 Role play 14

3.1.4 Class discussion 14

3.1.5 Problem-solving activity 15

4 The effectiveness of experiential initiatives on educational activities, on themselves, their colleagues and the school 15

4.1 Results of teachers’ survey questionnaire 15

4.1.1 Teachers’ attitudes towards communicative activities 15

4.2 Results of students’ survey questionnaire 17

4.2.1 Students’ attitudes towards communicative activities 17

III CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 19

1 Conclusions 19

2 Recommendations 20

REFERENCES………

APPENDICES

I INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

The introduction of the new textbook “English 10” into teaching atTrieu Son No2 upper-secondary school in 2006 has marked real renovation inlanguage teaching and learning from the traditional approach-grammartranslation method, which only concentrates on the ability of using grammarrules precisely, to communicative approach, which focuses on communicationability Nonetheless, the teachers of English at Trieu Son No2 upper-secondary school find it difficult to teach speaking successfully because of theclass size, the students’ language level, and additionally, students are notacquainted with CLT Moreover, the majority of the teachers were trainedunder the strong influence of the Grammar-Translation method, whichimpedes them from teaching speaking successfully even the new textbookfollows the communicative approach

As a teacher of English at Trieu Son No2 upper-secondary school, Ioften receive similar questions from many students For example, “I canunderstand grammar and sentence structures well, but I feel embarrassed totalk in English” or “What should I do to speak English well?” In my reality ofteaching, there are a lot of students who have perfect knowledge of grammarthat works wonderfully for reading and writing but cannot express themselves

to the teachers On the other hand, I often hear a lot of complaints from thecolleagues: “Students seem so quiet and lazy during speaking lessons It isvery difficult to make them participate in speaking activities” Therefore, theidea of doing something useful for my colleagues and students has urged me

to conduct the research

Another reason why the study was carried out lies in my love forteaching speaking By doing the study, I can know more about the challenges

in teaching and learning speaking skills so that I can find relevant techniquesalong with activities to improve my teaching speaking at Trieu Son No2upper-secondary school

The above reasons have inspired me to conduct a study on “The

application of communicative activities to develop speaking skills for 10 th

graders at Trieu Son No2 upper-secondary school” with the hope to make

a little contribution to the quality of teaching and learning speaking skills forGrade 10th at Trieu Son No2 upper-secondary school

2 Aims of the study

The aims of the study are to address the following issues:

teaching and learning speaking skills;

3 Scope of the study

This study is concerned with the application of communicative

No2 upper-secondary school The researcher is not planning on studying a

larger population of the whole students at Trieu Son No2 upper-secondary

communicative activities are applied and the obstacles experienced by thesestudents and teachers of English then offer some recommendations with thehope that teaching and learning speaking skills will be improved

4 Research methods

4.1 Description of the subjects

The participants in this study are 6 English teachers of Trieu Son No2upper-secondary school and eighty tenth-graders of the school

Participants in the questionnaire survey for teachers are 6 Englishteachers, ranged from 26 to 44 years in age and have a long time of teachingexperience, which varied from 3 to 23 years

The participants in the questionnaire survey for students are eighty oftwo English classes 10A1, 10A2 in Trieu Son No2 upper-secondary school.They are all at the age of fifteen They have learned English for four years atdifferent secondary schools in Trieu Son Most of them are good at English,because they had to take a difficult examination to be admitted into theschool In that examination, there is only English written test The problemhere is that all of them are good at reading and writing English but not all ofthem are good at listening and speaking since there is not any oral test forthem

4.2 Data collection instruments

4.2.1 Questionnaire

A questionnaire is considered the most appropriate research instrumentfor gathering information concerning the attitudes of the respondents Threereasons for this have been found out First, a questionnaire is confidential andthe respondents can remain anonymous Second, a questionnaire is easy toadminister enabling the researcher to survey a large number of respondents.Third, the respondents can complete the questionnaire when it suits them.Two sets of questionnaires were employed in this study: one for teachersincluding 7 questions and one for students which consists of 8 questions Thequestions are both close-ended and open-ended

4.2.2 Classroom observation

The researcher’s classroom observation was taken during her teaching

to help the researcher survey the real situation for triangulation purposes sothat reliability and validity of the data collected for this study could beachieved

4.2.3 Procedures

At the beginning of the second semester of the academic year 2020-2021,two sets of questionnaires were sent to those teachers and students at TrieuSon No2 upper-secondary school who agreed to take part in the research After one week, these questionnaires were collected Information fromthese questionnaires were then summarized and presented in the form ofstatistic information (tables) for analysis to make implications and

recommendations on the application of communicative activities to develop

Besides, the method of observation was carried out during the secondsemester Ten speaking lessons were observed All implementedcommunicative activities were noted down to see how effective they were

4.2.4 Methods of data analysis

In the data analysis stage, the researcher categorized the collected datafrom the two questionnaires into two groups, one for the teachers and theother for the students Two themes were established from the two set ofquestions:

- Questions for teachers

* Teachers’ attitudes towards communicative activities

* Teachers’ difficulties in using communicative activities to teach speaking skill.

- Questions for students

* Learners’ attitude towards communicative activities.

* Learners’ difficulties in taking part in communicative activities

The data was selected statistically in the form of percentages

II CONTENTS

1 Theoretical basis of the initiatives

1.1 Teaching speaking

1.1.1 The speaking needs and goals of language students

One of the aims of most of the language programs used by teacherstoday is to develop spoken language skills, and most programs aim tointegrate both spoken and written language However, the emphasis given tospeaking in a language program varies according to the needs and goals of thestudents and the focus of the course

According to Burns (1997), decisions about teaching speaking willinevitably depend on the learners’ goal and their needs in developingspeaking skills The most important starting point when deciding how to teachspeaking is to gather background data about students such as age, languagebackground and previous language learning, their goals, needs and thecontexts in which they will need to use English It also involves assessingtheir current level of spoken language competency or proficiency Sheils(1993) has suggested that the development of communicative ability has to berelated to the needs of learners They have both immediate and potentialcommunicative needs They need to know how to express their own meanings

in the here-and-now of the classroom as they share knowledge, experiences,interests, opinions and feelings Learners also need to be prepared to use thelanguage for real communication outside the classroom

Burns (1997) has also shown that in deciding what spoken language toinclude in a program, it is valuable to investigate the students’ purposes andgoals for improving their speaking skills This can be done through interviews,individual and class discussions and through class surveys

Harmer (1996) has shown that students may have “short-term goals”and “long-term goals” in learning a language Long-term goals might havesomething to do with a wish to get a better job at some future date, or a desire

to be able to communicate with members of a target language community.Short-term goals might include such things as wanting to pass an end-of-semester test or wanting to finish a unit in a book Some students may simplyconsider that learning a language involves learning to speak and may believethat it is up to the teacher to decide what they should learn

In considering students’ speaking needs, we should also consider therole of spoken language in the classroom Spoken language is central to themanagement of the classroom and we should be aware of the levels and types

of language we, as teachers, use to manage the classroom If we ask studentsparticipate in classroom activities, we need to make sure that we use spokeninstructions which they can understand We also need to familiarize studentswith types of texts which we use to manage the classroom and the texts whichdevelop classroom social interactions

When making realistic judgments about how quickly students willdevelop spoken language, it is important to consider the opportunities theyhave to practice spoken language outside the classroom, and their willingness

to take advantage of these opportunities Knowing how often students arelikely to engage in spoken interactions outside the classroom will influencedecisions about what spoken language texts to introduce into the program Itwill also influence the types of out-of-class tasks set to encourage the students

to interact outside the classroom

1.1.2 Approaches to teaching speaking

In this section we will consider some theoretical approaches whichhave informed language teaching in· the twentieth century and which havehad various implications for the teaching of speaking

The first approach we would like to mention here is the

grammar-translation approach The grammar-grammar-translation approach emerged in response

to a growing interest in the learning of foreign, generally European, languages

in the nineteenth century The focus of this approach in language learning is

on the knowledge of grammar and on applying this knowledge in the process

of translating from one language to another One of the central features of theapproach was the presentation of the new language through individualsentences which exemplified grammatical points A typical lesson wouldinclude the presentation of a new grammatical point, a list of new vocabularyitems to be learned and practice sentences for students to translate

The grammar-translation approach placed considerable emphasis onaccuracy and stressed the production of complete sentences As the approachwas based on written grammatical sources, the teaching of speaking was, ineffect, neglected and teaching itself took place through the medium of thelearner’s first language This approach also encouraged a word-by-wordconstruction of sentences, which ignored meaning and often producedunnatural sound in sentences One of the main goals of this approach was todevelop skills that would allow learner to read the works of great literature or

to experience the intellectual discipline of studying and analyzinggrammatical structure

Richards and Rodgers (1986) has shown that in the first half of thetwentieth century, the theories of American structural linguists such asBloomfield (1993) and Fries (1945) gradually replaced the more traditional

approaches of classical humanism and the structural approach became

influential in language teaching And it was considered one of the mostcommon approaches to teaching speaking and listening This approach wasbased on the view that language is acquired by stimuli and imitation It was anapproach which gave a much greater emphasis to speaking than the previousgrammar-translation approach This approach to teaching focuses on audio-lingual method of imitation, repetition and response Burns (1997) has alsoshown that, on the one hand, this approach to teaching speaking and listeningforms habits of speaking with good intonation and correct grammar Learnerswere trained in correct speech-patterns and expected to practice them Therewas a strong emphasis on repetition and on building up of linguistic itemsthrough drills and exercises which focused on grammatical structures andpatterns On the other hand, this approach places little interest in the context

for speaking Learners’ activities involved intense practice in aural-oral skillsand focused on activities such as drills and substitution exercises taken from agraded syllabus There was little interest in the contexts for speaking, whichwere used merely as a situational vehicle for the more important practice ofgrammatical structure Learners may find it difficult to perform in a contextdifferent from what they have been taught However, in the EFL contextwhere students lack opportunity to be exposed to the natural speakingenvironment for self correction, imitation of sounds, intonation andvocabulary plays a great importance in the early developmental stage oflanguage acquisition

Another approach to teaching speaking and listening is communicative

approach This approach based on the view that language must be seen in a

social context rather than as grammatical structures According to Burns et al.(1997), this approach emphasizes the idea about linguistic competence bytaking up the issue of the speakers’ performance or language use.Communicative competence includes not only linguistic knowledge, but alsoknowledge of the cultural and communicative systems available to thespeakers, and their relationship with the setting, participant, purpose, channel

of communication and topic Communicative approach of teaching focuses onteaching how to use language for communicative purposes

The main features of the communicative approach are the followings:

♣ First, language is viewed within social context rather than as asystem of grammatical patterns;

♣ Second, the teaching content is developed on the basis of studentneeds; a concern with all the four macro skills of language, rather thanprimarily with reading and writing

♣ Third, there is tolerance of learner errors as an inevitable aspect oflanguage acquisition

♣ Finally, this approach to teaching encourages students to learnindependently and emphasizes the role of the teacher as a facilitator ofthe learning process

Since the 1970s, communicative approach has had a major influence onteaching and learning in many parts of the world One of the major benefits ofcommunicative language teaching (CLT) is that it has brought about a morecomprehensive view of teaching and learning Methodologies based oncommunicative approach to teaching speaking tend to focus on spokenlanguage use rather than the form of the language This has meant that in theclassroom the teacher has been encouraged to focus on activities which willget students speaking and attention has been paid to providing them with themeans to interact As a result, there was often little guidance given to teachers

on how to integrate a focus on the form of spoken language

1.2 Communicative activities

1.2.1 What are communicative activities?

According to Harmer (1991), whatever activity the students areinvolved in, if it is to be genuinely communicative and if it is really

promoting language use, the students should have a desire to communicate Ifthey do not want to be involved in communication then that communicationwill probably not be effective The students should have some kind ofcommunicative purpose, in other words they should be using language insome way to achieve an objective Then their attention should be centered onthe content of what is being said or written and not the language form that isbeing used So, communicative activities are the ones which involve learningthrough using language for a communicative purpose

In communicative activities, the students will have to deal with avariety of language (either receptively or productively) rather than just onegrammatical construction While the students are engaged in thecommunicative activity the teacher should not intervene, which means he/sheshould not correct mistakes This would undermine the communicativepurpose of the activity The teacher may of course be involved in the activity

as a participant, and will also be watching and listening very carefully inorder to be able to conduct feedback

Thus for non-communicative activities there will be no desire tocommunicate on the part of the students and they will have no communicativepurpose In other words, where the students are involved in a drill or inrepetition, they will be motivated not by a desire to reach a communicativeobjective, but by the need to reach the objective of accuracy

Harmer (1991) has summarized those points in a figure called “Thecommunicative continuum”:

NON-COMMUNICATIVE

ACTIVITIES

COMMUNICATIVEACTIVITIES

* no communicative desire

* no communicative purpose

* form not content

* one language item

Of course not all classroom activities are either “communicative” or

“non-communicative” There are techniques that fall somewhere between thetwo extremes

Harmer has also divided work on the productive skills into three major

stages: introducing new language, practice and communicative activities The

introduction of new language is frequently an activity that falls at the

“non-communicative” end of the continuum Often here the teacher will work withcontrolled techniques, asking students to repeat and perform in drills At thesame time the teacher will insist on accuracy, correcting when the students

make mistake Practice activities are those which fall somewhere between the

two extremes the continuum While students perform them they may have acommunicative purpose, and while they may be working in pairs, there may

also be a lack language variety, and the materials may determine what thestudents do or say Practice activities, then, often have some features of both

non-communicative and communicative activities Communicative activities

are those which exhibit the characteristics at the “communicative” end of thecontinuum Students are somehow involved in activities that give them boththe desire to communicate and a purpose which involves them in a varied use

of language

1.2.2 Purposes of communicative activities

According to Littlewood (1990), communicative activities have beendesigned to provide an opportunity for learners to produce language that theyhave recently learnt The followings are some contributions thatcommunicative activities can make to language learning:

They provide “whole-task practice”: While non-communicative

activities provide training in the part-skills, communicative activities providepractice in the total skills, sometimes called “whole-task practice” Learning

to swim, for example, usually involves not only separate practice ofindividual movements (part-skills), but also actual attempts to swim shortdistances (whole- task practice) In foreign language learning, our means forproviding learners with whole- task practice in the classroom is throughvarious kinds of communicative activity structured in order to suit thelearners’ level of ability

They improve the motivation: The learners’ ultimate objective is to take

part in communication with others Their motivation to learn is more likely to

be sustained if they can see how their classroom learning is related to thisobjective and help them to achieve it with increasing success

They allow natural learning: Many aspects of language learning can

take place only through natural processes, which operate when a person isinvolved in using the language for communication If this is so,communicative activity (inside or outside the classroom) is an important part

of the total learning process

They can create a context which supports learning: Communicative

activity provides opportunities for positive personal relationship to developamong learners and between learners and teachers These relationships canhelp to “humanize” the classroom and to create an environment that supportsthe individual in his efforts to learn

1.2.3 Types of oral communicative activities

Different linguists have had different ideas on the distinction ofcommunicative activities Littlewood (1990) distinguishes them into two maincategories, which he calls “functional communication activities” and “socialinteraction activities” Harmer (1991) looks at the communicative activitieswith oral and written focuses So he distinguishes them into “oralcommunicative activities” and “written communicative activities” Harmer'sidea seems clearer to the researcher of this thesis when studying the types ofcommunicative activities

In this section we will look at those types of activities with a largelyoral focus (although we should not forget the points about skill integration).Those activities are all designed to provoke spoken communication between

students and/or between the teacher and the students

1.2.3.1 Communication games

Harmer (1991) has suggested that in communication games activitiesstudents are put into a situation in which they have to use all or any of thelanguage they possess to complete a game-like task This type ofcommunicative activities produces the simplest patterns of interaction Thesituation is always that one student (or group) possesses information whichanother student (or group) must discover

Communication games activities include finding the differences (orsimilarities); describe and arrange; story reconstruction and/or poemreconstruction (Bygate, 1987) In each case of this type of activities it is theovercoming of the information gap rather than the production of correctlanguage that signals the success of the performance In this respect, the focus

of the activity is on “meanings to be communicated” rather than “linguisticform to be learnt” (Harmer, 1991) The activities of this type provide theteacher with a convenient bridge between pre-communicative andcommunicative language use, students are engaged in communicatingmeaning for a purpose, but they are not yet made to dispense entirely with the

“structure crutches” provided by the teacher

• to present a topic, a language point, lexis, etc;

• to practice a language point, lexis, etc;

• to encourage extensive and intensive listening;

• to stimulate discussion of attitudes and feelings;

• to encourage creativity and use of imagination;

• to provide a relaxed classroom atmosphere and

• to bring variety and fun to learning

In order to choose a suitable song, the teacher should keep in mind that(1) Songs must be a reasonable length, range, and rhythm (2) Song shouldhave repetitive lyrics or chorus which is easy to learn This allows slowerstudents to follow (3) The emotional and conceptual content of a song should

be appropriate to the age and maturity of your students (4) Songs must bepedagogically appropriate to the lesson (Quan: 2004)

As demonstrated, songs are valuable in language teaching and learning Theteacher is obliged to successfully integrate songs into a language lesson

1.2.3.3 Discussion

In this type of activity students “have to pool the information in thediscussion” (Littlewood, 1990: 27) The discussion may be about a properproblem, addiction, for example or about a given controversial propositionsuch as “People who buy fur coats should pay a 100% tax” Students have toprepare arguments either in favor of the proposition or against theproposition

Sheils (1993) has indicated the value of discussion activities as follows:

“Discussion activities involve learners in personal and fluent use of the target language They require them to reflect, to evaluate data or arguments,

to listen carefully to others, to have an open mind and to develop the skills and expressions necessary for a real discussion The exchange of opinion or feelings should assist learners in getting to know themselves and their classmates better”

Harmer (1991) has said that many teachers can be heard complainingthat their students have nothing to say or that they have no opinions and arenot prepared to discuss anything Part of the problem here is the way in whichsome teachers approach discussion as an activity If students are asked toexpress themselves fluently on a difficult topic in front of their peers in aforeign language (often with no warning), they may find themselves reluctant

to do so So before asking students to discuss as a whole class, teacher shouldput them in groups to try out the topic This will allow them to give opinion in

a less threatening environment than in front of the whole class It will alsogive the teacher a chance to see if the topic is interesting for the students

Discussion activities are an important part of many lessons The mainthing to remember is that “proper organization can ensure their success Lack

of it can provoke their failure” (Harmer, 1991: 125)

1.2.3.4 Problem solving

Problem solving activities encourage students to talk together to find asolution to (a set of) problems or tasks According to Littlewood (1990), thistype of activity dispenses completely with the need to share information.Students now have access to all the relevant facts The stimulus forcommunication comes from the need to discuss and evaluate these facts, inpairs or groups, in order to solve a problem or reach a decision

Problem solving activities need not be based only on everydaysituations that arise inside or outside the classroom The teacher may alsopresent more unusual situations, in order to stimulate the students’ ingenuity

In these activities students must not only analyze information, but also argue,justify and persuade, in order to reach a common decision They thereforeprovide a context for a still wider range of communicative functions Theyalso make it still more necessary for students to develop skills in managingthe interaction at the interpersonal level This fact often produces a highdegree of personal involvement among the participants

1.2.3.5 Simulation and role-play

According to Harmer (1991), the idea of a simulation is to create thepretence of a real-life situation in the classroom: students “simulate” the real-world Thus we might ask them to pretend that they are at an airport, or wemight organize them to get together to plan an imaginary reunion What weare trying to do artificially of course is to give students practice in real-worldEnglish Students are asked to adopt a specific role in this situation In somecases, they may simply have to act as themselves In others, they may have toadopt a· simulated identity

There is some controversy about the usefulness of simulations,particularly where students are asked to play roles, but many teachers feel thatthey have certain advantages because students do not have to takeresponsibility for their own actions and words In other words, it is thecharacter who speaks, not themselves It has certainly been noticed that someshy students are more talkative when playing roles

Littlewood (1992: 49) says: “ simulation and role-play are established as techniques for organizing controlled, pre-communicativelanguage practice, which prepares students later to take part in fullyspontaneous interaction”

well-Bygate (1987) states that role-play may be allocated in several ways:

Role-play controlled through cued dialogues

Role-play controlled through cued situations and goal

Role-play controlled through cues and information

Role-play in the form of debate or discussion

This type of activity could be used for students at different levels ofproficiency in term of complexity of activities Ladousse (1987: 7) has

shown: “Role-play is one of communicative techniques which develops

fluency in language students, which promotes interaction in the classroom, and which increases motivation”.

2 The real situation of teaching speaking skills at Trieu Son No2 secondary school.

upper-2.1 An overview of Trieu Son No2 upper-secondary school.

Trieu Son No2 upper-secondary school is located in the West of ThanhHoa Founded in 1968, Trieu Son No2 upper-secondary school is one of theoldest as well as the biggest schools in the area At present, there are 22classes with over 900 students placed into three different grades: grade 10, 11and 12 The teaching staff composes of more than 60 teachers of 12compulsory subjects, of whom two-thirds are young, creative and well trainedwhereas the others are experienced and enthusiastic In recent years Trieu SonNo2 upper-secondary school is one of the schools which has high percentages

of high school graduate and gifted students

2.2 The teachers of English in Trieu Son No2 upper-secondary school

There are six teachers of English currently working at Trieu Son No2upper-secondary school, five of them have participated in this research fordiscussion Their ages range from late twenties to forty-five years old, three of