Through context to enhance grade 10 students’ gramamatical competence

This is one of the problems raised by Nunan 1998- teaching grammar without contexts prevents students from distinguishing the discrepancies in different use of forms for different meanin

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HÓA

TRƯỜNG THPT THỌ XUÂN 5

SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM

STUDENTS’ GRAMAMATICAL COMPETENCE

Người thực hiện: Phạm Thị Nga

Chức vụ: Giáo viên

SKKN thuộc lĩnh vực( môn): Tiếng Anh

THANH HÓA, NĂM 2021

CONTENT Page

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1.2 Purpose of the study and research questions 3

2.1.2 Kinds of context applied in the research 6

2.2.8 The numbers of the Students in the Two Groups 8

PART 3:CONCLUSION 11

3.1.3 Improvement of the control and experiment groups in the study 14

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale for the study

We use language as a means of communication in everyday situations Regarded as an international language, English is spoken in most parts of the world - and is considered the principle means of communication among the trade, diplomatic, and airline communities English has been a compulsory subject among Vietnamese students for many years Teaching English in Vietnam will help our students take advantage of globalization, and teachers are always seeking ways to improve their techniques for more effective lesson plans and higher cognitive retention among their students at all levels As a teacher of English at a high school, the author constantly faces the many problems inherent

in helping students absorb and apply a foreign language

• In discussion with grade 10 students, I know that they really want to learn English for communication However, they do not have many learning

strategies, especially strategies for using grammar accurately and

appropriately Contrary to my expectations, what they often do in the

language focus lessons is to copy language structures the teacher already writes

on the board They then translate everything into Vietnamese before completing exercises in their textbooks One of the reasons raised is that teaching grammar

in the school focuses on form, rather than the use of grammar in context This is one of the problems raised by Nunan (1998)- teaching grammar without

contexts prevents students from distinguishing the discrepancies in different use

of forms for different meanings in communication Therefore, though students are very good at grammar knowledge, most of them are unable to apply and communicate in real-life situations

• As a teacher of English , I recognize that teaching English for spoken and written communication is particularly important However, my personal experience of its methods or techniques is still limited due to the following reasons:

• The number of students of each class in most schools in Vietnam as well

as in my province is over 40 Besides, because of time limitations, the teacher would sometimes make use of grammar translation methods or lecturing methods for the sake of input completion Therefore, the students have very few opportunities for spoken or written communication; and they do not get familiar with natural responses to communicative situations except for question- answer activities between the teacher and student individuals For the above reasons, the students lack confidence and creativity to use grammar communicatively

For all the reasons mentioned above, I have decided to choose “Through context to enhance grade 10 students’ gramamatical competence ” as the

topic of my initiative titled

1.2 Purpose of the study and research questions

The purpose of this action research is to explore the effect of using context on the development of grade 10 students’ grammatical competence at Tho Xuân 5

School The study also aims to identify students’ problems with the hope that context will help improve their grammatical ability The research project includes a short introduction, a review of current literature related to the definition of context, its advantages , a description of data collection and data analysis methods in which the students will be provided with a questionnaire on their learning styles, learning habits, preferences and their views on activities The final parts of the research paper are sections discussing on anticipated outcomes and possible problems occurring during the research project together with a brief conclusion and some limitations of the research

In an attempt to achieve the above-presented aims, the study should to answer the following research questions:

1 Is teaching grammar through context more effective than teaching grammar without context?

2 Are there any necessary changes to the grammar lessons to foster the learning and teaching grammar through context?

1.3 Scope of the study.

Although there are many ways to motivate students to learn English, it is impractical to cover them all in this paper Due to the limited time and length of

a minor thesis, I chose to the focus of my investigation is on the students’

grammatical competence at Tho xuan 5 High school The student focus group is

comprised of 40 students of grade 10 at this school

1.4 Methods of the study.

This study involves 40 students at Tho Xuan 5 high school The study employs grammartical (pre test and post test) as the principal method of data collection Data are analyzed statistically, resulting in percentage of items

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 2.1 Literature Review

2.1.1 Meaning, Form, and Use.

There has been a great variety of research on language instruction in general and grammar instruction in particular One of the approaches focuses on forms, with the explicit grammar instruction This refers to of Skinner’s behaviorism and Piaget’s cognitivism theory, from which some methods originated, such as audio-lingual and the idea of universal grammar, respectively However, such approaches to grammar instruction have been inadequate The lack of language learners’ communicative competence has given the emergence of communicative approach in the 1970s Nevertheless, communicative language teaching discussed in (Celce-Murcia, Dornyei, & Thurrell, 1997), which emphasizes wholly on meaning with much neglect on form has proven to be insufficient As a consequence, the recent trend in teaching grammar, “Focus on form” (Doughty & Williams, 1998; Fotos, 1998) has referred back to the importance of form on the communicative competence The form enables the meaning to be expressed clearly and effectively It is considered as the means of negotiation of meaning in context Both form and

meaning all have a reciprocal relationship According to Van Lier (1988), “The middle way, covering both form and meaning, accuracy and fluency, would seem to be the most sensible way to proceed, and indeed there currently appears

to be a general consensus that it is unwise to neglect either area” (p 276)

The term “ teaching grammar through context” also refers to “focus on form” Teaching grammar through context is an approach which combines the teaching of both form and meaning in a specific context This combination of teaching grammar allows learners to figure out the meaning in the structures being instructed The instruction focuses on form, meaning and use, among which Nunan (1998) emphasizes “the systematic relationships” (p 102) This approach to teaching grammar is backed by Nunan (1998) as “offering different communicative meanings” (p 103) In other words, teaching grammar in context is not just confined to the form-based but also meaning-based instruction It is not only context-bound but also form-focused in a way that fosters communicative competence

Teaching grammar through context is beneficial theoretically and empirically Theoretically, there has been research on the benefits of teaching grammar in context Nunan emphasizes the “systematic relationships that exist between form, meaning and use” in teaching grammar (Nunan 1998, p 102) The importance of teaching grammar in context is emphasized by Halliday (1985) cited in Nunan (1998) because the connection between form and meaning or context is usually intertwined and interrelated to achieve the goal of communication

The essential relationship between form, meaning and the use of grammar provides the three following advantages for facilitating the effectiveness of producing and using the target language being learnt in communicative situations

First, teaching grammar through context provides opportunities for learners to

greatly explore and exploit the meanings underpinning grammatical forms (Nunan 1998, p 103-104) In his argument, Nunan (1998) gives the example of passive voice which is taught without context In this way, students are given transformation exercises to change from active voice to passive voice Consequently, the meaning of passive voice, in which the preference on the emphasis on action rather than the performer, is not properly addressed

Second, this approach in teaching grammar allows learners to comprehend the

use of grammar in authentic context and understand the relationship between forms and meaning (Nunan 1998, p.105) This approach helps learners understand and use different forms to address different meanings in different appropriate contexts

Third, teaching grammar through context also helps students apply and use the

language structures they are learning to negotiate meanings and feelings, which are important parts in communication

Despite its benefits, teaching grammar through context has its own constraints According to Fotos (1998), focus-on-form can be greatly exploited

in the ESL context where learners should be mostly exposed to ESL setting On the contrary, teaching grammar through context in EFL classrooms enables

learners to use the language in context while in real-life the target forms are not put in use frequently Although there is a constraint to teaching grammar through context, its benefits far outweigh its disadvantages Of all the advantages given,

it is worth researching into how students can benefit when grammar is taught through context They emphasize that by doing this, teachers can separate out the difficulties, allowing students first to concentrate on the problems, and then

on the social context

2.1.2 Kinds of context applied in the research

Context means a variety of things Context can be linguistic, involving the linguistic environment of a language item, as well as situational, involving extra

linguistic elements that contribute to the construction of meaning

2.1.3 Linguistic context

Linguistic context or verbal context refers to the linguistic environment in

which a word is used within a text As a matter of fact, understanding the meaning of vocabulary items using linguistic context may involve syntactic and morphological interpretation of the elements within a text In other words, to determine the meaning of an item, it is necessary to know whether the item is a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb, functioning as a subject, a predicate or a complement This information gives important clues to the meaning of the text But it is not sufficient to provide a full understanding of utterances

Although a sentence is grammatically correct, it is nonsensical , and thus demonstrates the distinction between grammar and meaning It shows that relying on only the linguistic elements in a text to get meaning is not enough Meaning involves more than the grammatical description and goes beyond the scope of grammar to an understanding of the situational context that involves individual beliefs and knowledge of the world

2.1.4 Pragmaticor situational context

Part of the pragmatic context is what makes it coherent, those elements that tell us who and what we are talking about This is achieved by using

features such as the use of deictic, anaphoric and cataphoric elements as well

as other information implied in the text Meaning can be inferred from the linguistic elements surrounding a word

2.2 Research Methodology.

2.2.1 The Subject.

The sample consists of two groups of year 16 students belonging to two different classes Each group has 20 students The group engaged in grammmar-in-context lesson will form the experimental group, while the other, which carries

on with normal lessons will form the control group.A grammar pre-test will be conducted in order to show that the two groups have the same level of proficiency I will teach both groups for the second term of the next school year , grammar in context activities with the experimental group and the control group will be taught as usual The two groups will be tested at the end of the second term so that I can get the scores for each students The test scores will be analyzed and considered as data for the findings The four teachers and I will make comparisons between the control group and the experimental group on their learning in order to see the effect of context on students’ development of

communicative grammar Data collection will be discussed with the principal and vice-principal of the school

2.2.1 The Subject

My research will be conducted with three different methods for data collection The first thing I will do is to prepare open-ended questions for the survey that I

am going to carry out A questionnaire seeking students’ attitudes to context, their views of their own abilities and perception and awareness of what context

is about

Then , I will interview the four teachers in my shool The second thing I will do as is that I get my students to fill the questionnaire I have made to find a better way to teach and learn grammar The next thing I will do is that I make a lesson plan in which context is made use of The purpose of the questionnaire and the interview and classroom observation will be clearly explained to the students before the research starts

2.2.3 Questionnaire.

As a questionnaire may play a central part in the data collection process, a well-designed questionnaire is needed In order do this, I have to make a draft plan, then consult my colleagues for some questions on the topic I want the questionnaire to be informative and appropriate to the subjects Before conducting the questionnaire, I will pilot it in another group that shares the same similarities to the sample The designed questionnaire is anonymous so that the students do not conceal their feelings when they give comments on their teacher and his or her teaching The questionnaire which uses closed-and open-ended questions covers different kinds of students, their views on teaching grammar through context

2.2.4 Interview.

Interviewing is chosen as one of the three main methods of data collection By asking 4 teachers questions about views or opinions on using context and the approaches of teaching grammar It will take an hour for each interview In order to make the interviewees comfortable, the place for the interview and the purpose of the interview will be made clear to the four interviewees The main part of the interview includes asking teachers 12 questions and recording their answers by a good Sony recorder Each teacher will be interviewed once at the

beginning of the study

2.2.5 Classroom Observation

I have designed 16 statements which describe the students’ learning styles, views and the teacher’s methods of teaching.The observer will observe and record concrete details of what the teacher does in the lesson, methods of teaching and context will be utilized in the classroom

2.2.6 Class Observation Data Analysis

Observations will be used to gain in-depth understanding and to avoid misinterpretation I will double read to gain the teacher’s views or beliefs about context in teaching and learning grammar, and the relationships among views, theories and practices

2.2.7 Interview Data Analysis

Each interview will be recorded, coded and then transcribed and analyzed critically In looking across cases, I will look for themes and patterns which emerge from the data and code for the emerging themes Each teacher’s data analysis includes classifying, categorizing, labeling and organizing the emerging classifications

2.2.8 The numbers of the Students in the Two Groups

2.2.9 Applied Tasks/Activities.

A.Grammar- Language Focus (Original Material): English 10- Unit 5

Original

materials

Adaptation Rationale

Exercise 3 (page

61) : Fill each blank

with who, which or

that.

1 A clock is an

instrument

_ tells you

the time

2 A fridge is a

machine

is used for keeping

food fresh

3 April 1st is the day

_ is called

April Fool ‘s Day in

the West

4 A nurse is a person

_ looks

after patients

5 A teacher is a

person

gives lessons to

students

6 A blind person is

the one _

cannot see anything

7 The man

Put in relative pronouns where necessary THIS CHARMING PROPERTY

People 1…who……… tell

the truth about the properties they are selling should be given prizes for honesty A house

2………… is described as

‘spacious’will be found to be too large Words like

‘enchanting’, ‘delightful’,

‘convenient’,‘attractive’,

3………….are commonly used,

all mean ‘small’ The words

‘small’and ‘picturesque’,

4….are not so frequently used,

both mean ‘too small’ A picturesque house is one with a bedroom

5…………is too small to put a

bed in and a kitchen

6………is too small to boil an

egg in

My prize for honesty goes to

someone 7…… recently described a house 8…… he

was selling in the following

The objective of this

part (Exercise 3) is

to teach students how to use relative pronouns , but it fails to provide

scaffolding of how

to make use of relative pronouns in defining or non-defining relative clauses.This

exercise focuses on forms , not on meaning and use Therefore, it must

be replaced with a task including context ( a written text) The students read to understand the text and make use of relative pronouns in written discourse

you visited last

month is a famous

scientist

8 Please think of a

word _

comes from a foreign

language into

Vietnamese

9 These are the

pictures _

my son drew when he

was young

10.Can you help me

find the man _

saved the girl?

way This house, 9……is

situated in a very rough area of London, is really in need of repair The central heating,

10……….is expensive to run,

is unreliable There is a handkerchief-sized garden

11………is overgrown with

weeds.The neighbours,

12…… are generally

unfriendly, are not likely to welcome you This property,

13……is definitely not

recommended, is ‘ ridiculously’

overpriced at $ 85,000

Answer key:

1.who 2.which/that 3.which 4.which 5.which/that 6.which/that 7.who 8.No relative pronoun

9.which 10.which /that 11.

which /that 12.who 13 which

B.Grammar- Language Focus (Original Material): English 10- Unit 16 Original materials Adaptation Rationale Exercise 2 (page 176 ) :

Put the words in the

correct order to make

sentences or questions.

1.family/the/am/my/in/I/old

est

>> I am the oldest in my

family

2

2.sister/me/my/than/younge

r/is

3.class/who/oldest/the/the/

in/is/?

4 passenger/plane/used to

Read the text and make use

of the right forms

Alternatives are possible

THE CHARM

The two men were sitting

at the bar.The one (near)

1……nearer……… to me was the (big) 2……… and (strong)3……… I have ever seen.The one (far) 4………

from me was the (small)

5………… and (weak)6… They

were having the

(violent)7………argument I

had ever heard

Suddenly the little man said, “ It is a case of the

(small)8…………brain in

The objective of

(Exercise 2) is to

help students to write sentences ,

comparison of adjectives , but it fails to provide students with context and opportunities to practise with meaningful

tasks.This exercise focuses

on forms , not on meaning and use Therefore, it