SOME ACTIVITIES TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL IN ENGLISH 11

However, today's world requires that the goal ofteaching speaking should improve students'communicative skills, because, only inthat way, students can express themselves and learn how to

DEPARTMENT OF THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HAU LOC I UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL

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EXPERIENCE REPORT

THEME:

SOME ACTIVITIES TO PROMOTE STUDENTS’

SPEAKING SKILL IN ENGLISH 11

Written by: Hoang Thi Hoa Position: Teacher

Field: English

THANH HOA, 2021

Contents Page

A INTRODUCTION 1

I Rationale 1

II Aims of the study 2

III Scope of the study .2

B CONTENT I Theoretical basis:……….….2

II Factual situation 2

III Goals and techniques for teaching speaking……….….3

1 Goals for teaching speaking 3

2 Suggestions for teaching speaking techniques 3

IV Students’ motivation to participate in a speaking lesson 4

V Assessment criteria for speaking 5

1 The four criteria 5

a Fluency and coherence b Lexical resource c Grammatical range and accuracy d Pronunciation 2 Approaches for students 7

3 Correcting students’ mistakes 8

a Fluency activities b Accuracy activities VI Methods of teaching spoken English… 9

1 Repeat 2 Conversation 3 Translation 4 Immersion VII Communicative activities to promote students’ speaking skill 9

1 The role of a teacher in communicative activities 10

2 Types of communicative activities 10

VIII Procedure and achievement……… 15

1 The context of the plan 15

2 Procedure 15

3 Achievement of data collection 18

IX Results after applying……… ………19

C CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION ……… ……… … ……….19

I Conclusion ……….………… ……… 19

II Recommendation ……….….……….…….……….19

1.For teachers ……… ……… 20

2.For school management committee ……….….….……….………….…….20

REFERENCE BOOKS……….……… … 21

A INTRODUCTION

I Rationale

Speaking is "the process of building and sharing meaning through the use ofverbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" (Chaney, 1998, p 13).Speaking is a crucial part of second language learning and teaching Despite itsimportance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and Englishlanguage teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills ormemorization of dialogues However, today's world requires that the goal ofteaching speaking should improve students'communicative skills, because, only inthat way, students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social andcultural rules appropriate in each communicative circumstance

English has become an international language in such many areas as science andtechnology, business and commerce, international relations and diplomacy inVietnam In recent years, with the national policy of renovation and expansion ofinternational relations, there has been an increasing need for learning English inVietnam

To meet the demand of learners of English, teachers of English in Vietnam havebeen trying to find out the most suitable and effective method of teaching English.They always try to catch up with the world’s latest frameworks of EnglishLanguage Teaching Therefore, as in other countries, teachers of English inVietnam are now using Communicative Language Teaching Approach to teachEnglish to learners of all levels They hope that by using this teaching method, theycan help their learners improve their English and use it effectively and fluently incommunication That is also the idea suggests and methodologists such as Nunan,

1991 and Das, B.K, 1985

Most of the students in Hau Loc I High school who took part in the surveyconducted in this study agree that the ability to express themselves freely incommunication is of great importance for their future career as many of them willsurely have to work with foreigners However, there still exist many difficultiesfacing English Language teachers in Vietnam in general and English Languageteachers in Hau Loc I High school in particular Many Vietnamese learners canwrite and read English quite well but they cannot speak fluently and correctly incommunication Certainly there are many reasons for this After teaching at theschool for several years, we have recognized some big obstacles which preventEnglish Language teachers and learners in Vietnam from reaching their aims.These obstacles are large and heterogeneous classes, students’ low level of facingEnglish Language proficiency, students’ low motivation, etc Unfortunately, this isnot only the situation in but also the case for many others in Vietnam

This has given us the desire to conduct a research to clarify the teaching andlearning English speaking skill as well as to find techniques and activities toimprove the quality of the teaching of speaking skill in Hau Loc I High school.

II Aims of the study

The study is aimed at:

- Investigating the current reality of the teaching and learning of speaking skill inhigh schools

- Identifying the difficulties and obstacles that the teachers and learners ofintermediate level of English language proficiency in high schools encounter whenteaching and learning speaking skill

- Suggesting some techniques and activities with the hope of helping Englishlanguage teachers in high schools improve the quality of their teaching, which laterhelps improve students’ learning quality

III Scope of the study

The study focuses on the difficulties that the English language teachers meetwhen teaching speaking skill to grade 11 students in high schools and somesuggested techniques and activities which help them improve the quality of theirteaching The study of difficulties, techniques and activities of other skills andlevels would be beyond the scope of the study

B CONTENT

I Theoretical basis:

In the current high school program, speaking skill is one of the four main skillsfor students to learn But in fact, both teachers and students must be ready topractice speaking skill in all parts of the lesson In both the entrance uppersecondary school and General Certificate of Secondary Education, speakingexercises are more and more stressed Instead of reading a specific word only,students now have to response to daily situations Therefore, to have an effectivespeaking skill, students should be encouraged to practice that skill in every lesson

of each unit

II Factual situation:

Teaching and learning English at high school in Vietnam still faces manyproblems such as: lack of teaching equipment, and adequate teaching methods.Furthermore, that the majority of students do not pay attention to acquiringknowledge is also a serious problem causing difficulties in raising the quality ofteaching and learning English

The innovative way of teaching and learning English has been conducted for along time, but only in the process of teaching formulas, many teachers still followthe path of reading and copying, not really apply active teaching methods tostimulate students’ creativity, self – promoting students to learn, explore andacquire knowledge Besides, teaching and learning English at schools also take

place in the communicative environment of teachers and students which has somany limitations: Teaching in a large group (usually each class has about 40students or more) , the levels of awareness are different Many students havedifficulty in learning a foreign language because they don’t realize the importance

of it These things not only distract students’ focus on the lesson but also have ahuge impact on skills trained for students They make the students’ process toacquire knowledge slow Moreover, in speaking lesson, problems students oftenencounter are: error worry and shame Students are often afraid of standing in front

of the whole class to speak because they lack of confidence

At the beginning of the school year 2020 – 2021 at Hau Loc I upper secondary school, the average speaking results inEnglish grade 11 of 2 classes that I am responsible for were:

III Goals and techniques for teaching speaking

1 Goals for teaching speaking

The goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency Learnersshould be able to make themselves understood, using their current proficiency tothe fullest They should try to avoid confusion in the message due to faultypronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, and to observe the social and cultural rulesthat apply in each communication situation

To help students develop communicative efficiency in speaking, instructors canuse a balanced activities approach that combines language input, structured output,and communicative output

In everyday communication, spoken exchanges take place because there is somesort of information gap between the participants Communicative output activitiesinvolve a similar real information gap In order to complete the task, students mustreduce or eliminate the information gap In these activities, language is a tool, not

an end in itself

In a balanced activities approach, the teacher uses a variety of activities fromthese different categories of input and output Learners at all proficiency levels,including beginners, benefit from this variety; it is more motivating, and it is alsomore likely to result in effective language learning

2 Suggestions for teaching epeaking techniques

Here are some suggestions for English language teachers while teaching orallanguage:

 Provide maximum opportunity to students to speak the target language byproviding a rich environment that contains collaborative work, authenticmaterials and tasks, and shared knowledge.

 Try to involve each student in every speaking activity; for this aim, practicedifferent ways of student participation

 Reduce teacher speaking time in class while increasing student speakingtime Step back and observe students

 Indicate positive signs when commenting on a student's response

 Ask eliciting questions such as "What do you mean? How did you reach thatconclusion?" in order to prompt students to speak more

 Provide written feedback like "Your presentation was really great It was agood job I really appreciated your efforts in preparing the materials andefficient use of your voice…"

 Do not correct students' pronunciation mistakes very often while they arespeaking Correction should not distract student from his or her speech

 Involve speaking activities not only in class but also out of class; contactparents and other people who can help

 Circulate around classroom to ensure that students are on the right track andsee whether they need your help while they work in groups or pairs

 Provide the vocabulary beforehand that students need in speaking activities

 Diagnose problems faced by students who have difficulty in expressingthemselves in the target language and provide more opportunities to practice thespoken language

IV Students’ motivation to participate in a speaking lesson

When students learn a foreign language, they very often accumulate a lot ofknowledge (grammatical rules, lists of vocabulary items), but then they find outthat they can not actually use this language to communicate when they want to.Scrivener (2005, 147) claims that there seems to be some difficulty in movinglanguage from passive knowledge into active usage Without experience in usingthe language, learners may tend to be nervous about trying to say things Partlythey may fear seeming foolish in front of others, they may worry about gettingthings wrong they may want to avoid teacher’s comments or correction and so on

It takes quite a long time for some students to express themselves, which leads tolong embarrassing pauses while learners are trying to find out how to say what theyreally want to say

One of the best ways of helping learners to activate their knowledge is to putthem in “safe” situations in class where they are inspired and encouraged to try tospeak a foreign language Teachers should try to create such activities in whichlearners feel less worried about speaking and less under pressure

Nevertheless, the teacher is not the only one whom the students’ success inspeaking is based on There are also motivational factors, differing from student tostudent, which influence his progress in the spoken language Harmer (1991, 4-6)distinguishes extrinsic and intrinsic motivation He claims that students´ attitude tospeaking the language may be affected by different factors from the outside, such

as people in close surroundings, previous speaking experience in a foreignlanguage or the job opportunities offered after mastering foreign languagecommunication All of these represent extrinsic motivation Although extrinsicmotivation is nowadays a driving force for most students, without intrinsicmotivation no goal in improving the speaking skill could be achieved Success isalso based on students´ willingness to learn to speak a foreign language, which may

be influenced by the teacher´s methods used in teaching communication and, aboveall, his or her personality Considering these, teachers should realize how importantrole they play in encouraging the students to learn to speak a foreign language Students’ personalities also play an important role in determining how quicklyand correctly they will manage a speaking task Those students who are risk-takers,unafraid of making mistakes, are generally more talkative but usually make manyerrors Those who are shy may take a long time to speak confidently, but when theyfinally manage it, their English contains fewer errors The aim of both types ofstudents is the same, indeed – to use the language correctly and fluently Toachieve this goal the teachers should try as much as they can to break the silence inthe classroom and get the students speak no matter how many mistakes they make

or how long it takes them to produce sentences In order to decrease shyness whilespeaking in front of the whole class, students may be offered the opportunity towork in groups or pairs, which is a suitable approach for enhancing the activelanguage use

To satisfy students’ expectations, teachers should be supplied with sufficientamount of authentic materials, such as newspapers and magazines The speakingtasks could be based on describing the photos to each other and guessing the place

in the world where the action has happened Connection between the picture andreality makes it even more tempting for students to express their points of view to aparticular event and, at the same time, the teacher’s goal is achieved as well –getting students to speak and communicate with each other

V Assessment criteria for speaking

1 The four criteria

a Fluency and coherence

• speaks fluently with only rare repetition or self-correction; any hesitation iscontent-related rather than to find words or grammar

• speaks coherently with fully appropriate cohesive features

• develops topics fully and appropriately

b Lexical resource

• uses vocabulary with full flexibility and precision in all topics

• uses idiomatic language naturally and accurately

c Grammatical range and accuracy

• uses a full range of structures naturally and appropriately

• produces consistently accurate structures apart from ‘slips’ characteristic of nativespeaker speech

d Pronunciation

• uses a full range of pronunciation features with precision and subtlety

• sustains flexible use of features throughout

• is effortless to understand

One of the most important among the 4 criteria of the IELTS Speaking module

is assessed on is fluency and coherence What does this mean?

- Fluency is the ability to maintain a flow of language without unnatural hesitation.

- Coherence is the logical organization, development and connection of ideas.

 Do you express ideas and opinions clearly and coherently (logicallyordered and easy to follow), without long pauses or hesitations?

 Do you use discourse markers appropriately and naturally (i.e you don’t

overuse the same few ones) to link your ideas?

 Do you stay on topic, develop your ideas but not “go in circles”

(repeating yourself) or “go off on a tangent” (moving off the topic)?

Accuracy versus fluency

Accuracy and fluency are terms characteristic for a successful and fecundconversation Scrivener (2005, 160-162) declares that accuracy is the ability tospeak correctly without making serious mistakes and therefore a greater use ofinstant teacher's correction within a speaking activity is appropriate On thecontrary, fluency is the ability to speak confidently without irrelevant pauses orhesitation, however, often with making major mistakes In this case, instantcorrection may be inappropriate and could interfere with the aims of the speakingactivity

Teachers should be aware of whether their main goal in a speaking activity isaccuracy or fluency and adapt their role in class eligibly If the main aim is to getstudents to speak, then one way to achieve that would be reducing teacher´scontribution It is supposed that the less he or she speaks, the more time and space

it will allow the students to If the main aim is accuracy, the teacher shouldconcentrate on students´ mistakes and devote time to their correction

However important speaking without mistakes is, a promoted trend at presentseems to be to lead students to a fluent conversation in everyday situations Takingthis into consideration, this approach best fits the needs of today´s society which is

based on fast exchanges of information Nevertheless, it would be injudicious toqualify accuracy as less important in communication and underestimate itsimportance It is also essential for the ability to speak a foreign language well.

2 Approaches for students

Unfortunately, there is no quick fix for this Fluency comes from a lot ofpractice speaking, so the best way to improve is to speak/engage in conversation

as often as you can! But you can really think about your strategy for coherenceand practice When answering a question remember to:

- Expand on your answer Think of logical details that the examiner would

want to know about If someone else were talking to you, you would naturallyhave questions to find out more What are those questions? Who? What?Where? When? Why? How? How much? How often? How good? How did youfeel? Expand on your answer by adding those details that make it interesting

-Where appropriate, explain how you feel about something – it gives

emphasis to your reasons and details

- Where appropriate, describe a person, thing or place

- Think of a logical order or sequence Don’t jump around from one part to

another The examiner doesn’t know what you’re thinking in your head, so youshould try to make your answer easy to follow

-Use common conversational discourse markers to signal how your sentences

and ideas are linked together Using discourse markers makes your spoken Englishsound more fluent and natural – and it may help fill in some of the “pauses” in yourspeaking!

Here are some examples of discourse markers:

1- well, – this has a lot of different uses, but mostly at the beginning of speaking in

response to the other speaker

Eg “Well, I would say my favorite trip was the one I took with my family to the Philippines for the first time.”

2- actually - used to state a fact or reality, or for stating a correction, or sometimes

to signal that what you’re going to say may be unexpected

Eg “Actually, I think it was the first time for my parents to go back to their home country in about 20 years.”

3- as for – used in the same sense as “regarding” or “in regard to” which can be

more formal

Eg “As for the food, I found it to be really fresh and light.”

4- basically – when you want to simplify or summarize a complicated or lengthy

Eg “It wasn’t at all what I expected I mean, I thought I knew a lot about the culture and the food, but it was so different being there.”

6- on the other hand – used to introduce a different view or alternative opinion

Eg “The big crowds on the streets made it really difficult to walk around On the other hand, it made it exciting to be surrounded by so many people.”

7- anyway – to move on to another point or close the conversation

8- as I was saying – to bring the topic back to the original point

9- the thing is – to raise an important point

Eg “The thing is, I think the trip was just as memorable for my parents as it was for me They were so proud to show off their hometown.”

10- at the same time – used to contrast what was previously said

Eg “It was fun enjoying summer weather during Christmas At the same time, it didn’t really feel like Christmas to me.”

3 Correcting students’ mistakes

a Fluency activities

In a fluency activity the teacher is expected to monitor the class andencourage the students to speak with minimum interfering and correction Thistechnique is called scaffolding Scrivener (2005, 162) states that “it is a way acompetent language speaker helps a less competent one to communicate byencouraging and providing possible elements of conversation.” In practice it means

to encourage the weaker one by nodding, eye contact, repeating the last word inorder to encourage the speaker to continue, asking tag questions, etc The aim ofthis encouragement is to make a student speak as much as he or she is able to

Considering a fluent activity, correcting the mistakes should be done afterfinishing this activity Suggested techniques are the following:

a) writing the sentences used during the activity on the board anddiscussing them with the whole class

b) writing incorrect sentences used during the activity on the board andencouraging the students to make correction

c) inventing and writing down the story that includes some errors theteacher overheard during the activity and students try to find them andcorrect them

d) writing out two lists A and B – each list contains ten sentences from theactivity but some of them are correct, some of them incorrect Studentswork in two groups and their task is to decide if the sentences are eithercorrect or incorrect and why

b Accuracy activities

In an accuracy based activity the teacher is required to correct students´mistakes whenever possible While practising accuracy, students become aware oftheir own mistakes in speaking straight away because the teacher does not wait

until finishing the task This approach is suitable while focusing on grammarmainly and enables the students to realize and correct their mistakes and alsoprevent their recurrence.

VI Methods of teaching spoken English

Spoken English is the type of English that native speakers learn first It comesfrom listening to caregivers and being present in society To teach spoken English

to nonnative English speakers, there are a few methods that you can follow SpokenEnglish can be taught to students of all ages, whether or not they are living in anEnglish-speaking country

1 Repeat

Babies learn to speak by repeating what they hear, so you can use this methodwhen teaching spoken English at any age level Simply say the words that you'dlike students to know, and have them repeat the words Point to objects or mimicactions; as students repeat what you are saying, they will learn what that word is.You can start with small words and common words, and work your way up tobigger and more complex words and ideas, in the same way that infants learnspeech

2 Conversation

Teach by conversation In a conversation, non-English speakers might notunderstand all of the words, and they might not know what is being said However,through the flow of conversation, and through actions and facial expressions,learners will begin to pick out pieces of the language that they do understand.Through enough conversation activities, students will begin to learn spokenEnglish

3 Translation

Translate sentences and ideas from the student's native language into English.Then have the student say the phrases back, both in their own language and inEnglish Although this process takes a long time, it can help students understandthe meanings of what they say, and might help them learn more quickly

4 Immersion

Immerse students into an English-speaking class or even an English-speakingarea, like a campus or a town Don't teach by using any type of translation, andeven ban dictionaries from your classroom Speak only in English Use the wordsthat they might already recognize to explain harder words Although this mightseem like a harder way to learn a language, it actually mimics most closely theways that babies and children learn to speak It can be a method to teach spokenEnglish quickly

VII Communicative activities to promote students’ speaking skill

Every speaking lesson should be based on communicative activities which fulfilltwo important language learning needs They encourage the learners to acquire