A study on communicatve activities for non anglish majors in english grammar classes at vinh medical university

Traditionalteachers often focus on grammatical rules rather than meaning when teaching agrammatical structure as they believe that learning a foreign language is aboutlearning to master

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 5

1.1 Rationale of the study 5

1.2 Aims and objectives: 5

1.3 Methods of the study 6

1.4 Scope of the study 6

1.5 Organization of the study 6

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.1 English grammar 8

2.2 Communicative Language Teaching 10

2.2.1 Traditional language teaching methodology 10

2.2.2 Communicative language teaching (CLT) 10

2.2.2.1 Characteristics of CLT 12

2.3 Teaching English grammar 13

2.3.1 Principles for teaching English grammar 13

2.3.2 Techniques for teaching grammar 15

2.3.2.1 Techniques for showing the Meaning of grammatical structures 17

2.3.2.1.1 Showing the meaning visually 18

2.3.2.1.2 Showing the meaning through a situation 18

2.3.2.2 Techniques for showing the Form of structures 19

2.3.3 Procedures for teaching grammar 20

2.3.3.1 The Presentation Stage 20

2.3.3.2 The Practice Stage 21

2.3.3.3 The Production Stage 22

2.3.3.4 Feedback and Correction 22

2.3.4 Procedures for teaching a new structure 23

2.4 Communicative activities 24

2.4.1 Communicative activities in language teaching and learning process 24 2.4.2 Characteristics of communicative activities 24

2.4.3 Types of communicative activities 26

2.4.3.1 Oral communicative activities 28

2.4.3.1.1 Reaching a consensus 28

2.4.3.1.2 Relaying instructions 28

2.4.3.1.3 Communication games 28

2.4.3.1.4 Problem solving 29

2.4.3.1.5 Interpersonal exchange 29

2.4.3.1.6 Story construction 30

2.4.3.1.7 Simulation and Role play 31

2.4.3.2 Written communicative activities 32

2.4.3.2.1 Relaying instructions 32

2.4.3.2.2 Exchange letter 32

2.4.3.2.3 Writing games 33

2.4.3.2.4 Fluency writing 33

2.4.3.2.5 Story construction 34

2.4.3.2.6 Writing reports and advertisements 34

2.5 Summary 35

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 36

3.1 Research questions 36

3.2 Research setting 36

3.2.1 The English teaching and learning situations at VMU 36

3.2.1.1 VMU 36

3.2.1.2 The teachers 36

3.2.1.3 The learners 37

3.2.1.4 The materials 38

3.3 Research methodology 38

3.4 Sample Population 39

3.5 Data collection instruments 39

3.5.1 Survey Questionnaires 39

3.5.1.1 Survey Questionnaires for students 40

3.5.1.2 Survey Questionnaires for teachers 41

3.5.2 Measurement through writing tasks 42

3.6 Study procedures 42

CHAPTER IV- DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 43

4.1 Data analysis 43

4.1.1 Questionnaires 43

4.1.1.1 Data analysis of the students’ experiment questionnaires 43

4.1.1.1.1 Data analysis of the students’pre-experiment questionnaires 43

4.1.1.1.2 Data analysis of the students’post- experiment questionnaire 50

4.1.1.2 Data analysis of the teachers’ questionnaires 59

4.1.2 Writing tasks 66

4.1.2.1 Analysis of students’ pre-experiment writing task 66

4.1.2.2 Analysis of students’ post-experiment writing task 67

4.2 Findings and discussion 67

4.3 Summary 69

CHAPTER V: IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 70

5.1 Introduction 70

5.2 Implications and recommendations 70

5.2.1 Suggestions for teaching English grammar communicatively 70

5.2.2 Some suggested communicative activities for English grammar lessons in the textbook “New Headway Elementary” (The third edition) by Liz and John Soars 73

5.2.3 Some teaching aids used for teaching English grammar lessons in the textbook “New Headway Elementary” (The third edition) by Liz and John Soars 76

5.2.4 Some considerations and suggestions on using oral communicative activities 78

CHAPTER VI: CONCLUSION 80

6.1 Recapitulation 80

6.2 Suggestions for further study 81

REFERENCES 82

APPENDIXES

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study

English as a foreign language has become one of the integral and compulsorysubjects of our secondary schools’ curriculum as well as of universities andcolleges The ultimate goal of teaching and learning English is learners’ ability touse English for communicative purposes In an attempt to obtain this aim, togetherwith mastering four language skills, improving your English grammar is essential inenhancing your communication skills It is undeniable that good grammar is thebasis of communication Good grammar makes you a better listener, speaker.Grammar allows you to develop ability of communicating It is a means oforganizing words, phrases and clauses into meaningful communication However,teaching grammar traditionally does not help learners meet this aim Traditionalteachers often focus on grammatical rules rather than meaning when teaching agrammatical structure as they believe that learning a foreign language is aboutlearning to master its linguistic system and if students know the grammar rules, theywill be able to communicate in the language The facts show that although studentscan learn and remember grammar rules very well, they cannot communicate in thetarget language and apply them in the writing smoothly at all

As a result, there has been great innovation in teaching and learning Englisheverywhere in Vietnam However, how to implement changes in the way ofteaching is a real challenge Up to now there have not any studies oncommunicative activities for English grammar classes at our university The author,

therefore, would like to introduce a study entitled “A study on communicative

activities for non-English majors in English grammar classes at Vinh Medical University”

1.2 Aims and objectives:

With the above-presented rationales, the specific aims and objectives of thestudy are the followings:

1 Discuss how to teach English grammar communicatively.

2 Provide some suggested communicative activities for non-English majors inEnglish grammar classes at Vinh Medical University

To achieve the aims, the study focuses on two research questions:

1 How can English grammar be taught communicatively?

2 What are some suggested communicative activities for non - English majors inEnglish grammar classes at Vinh Medical University?

1.3 Methods of the study

The approaches used in this study are qualitative and quantitative Surveyquestionnaires are used as a main data collection tool, supported by the two writingtasks (pre and post – experiment writing tasks) The collected data are then analyzedqualitatively and quantitatively

Samples of the study are: (1) 100 students as respondents to studentquestionnaires; (2) 5 teachers as respondents to teacher questionnaires

Information obtained from analysis of the collected data was then interpreted

to make implications and recommendations for teaching language in general andteaching English grammar in particular

1.4 Scope of the study

This study mainly focuses on communicative activities for non - Englishmajors in English grammar classes at Vinh Medical University Besides, due to timepressure and other inconveniences, the study is conducted among one hundredstudents at classes C7A, and D8A - Vinh Medical University

1.5 Organization of the study

This paper has three main parts: Introduction, development and conclusion The first part-introduction is a brief description of the research including thereasons for choosing topic, scope, aims and methods of the study

The second one includes three chapters: literature review, research methodologyand findings and discussion.

“Literature Review” presents theoretical background of the study includingconcepts and role of grammar, different approaches to teaching grammar,communicative activities to teach grammar

“Research methodology” presents the detailed procedure of the study: themethodology, population selection, data collection and analysis

“Findings and discussion” deal with the findings drawn out from the analysis ofdata The findings and discussion are based on problems happening during process

of teaching and learning grammar using communicative activities

The third part-conclusion summarizes what are addressed in the study, pointsout the limitations and provides some suggestions for further study

In “conclusion and implications”, main points and contents of the study will

be summarized based on the results of the study The implication of the study andthe recommendation for further research will be presented

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 English grammar

Grammar is understood in various ways There have been a lot of ways todefine grammar – a very common and familiar term in language teaching andlearning

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (quoted in Harmer: 1987;

1) defines grammar as “the study and practice of the rules by which words change

their forms and are combined into sentences” From this definition, there are two

basic elements to which attention should be paid to: the rules of grammar; the studyand practice of the rules

Nunan defines grammar as a set of rules specifying the correct words at thesentence level (Nunan, 2003:154) This definition represents a typical prescriptivegrammar view It lays down the law, saying what is right and what is wrong

Similarly, from Ur’s view (1996:87), grammar is considered as a set of rulesthat define how words (or parts of words) are combined or changed to formacceptable units of meaning within a language

All the ideas mentioned above agree on a point that is grammar is a set of ruleswhich form words and make sentences from words This help to orient languageteachers to the focus of grammar teaching

Most language learners and teachers agree that mastering the grammar of alanguage may form part of the knowledge of it However, there exist somecontroversial opinions about the teaching of grammar One of the biggestchallenges to the necessity of grammar teaching comes primarily from Krashenwhose insistence on the primacy of acquisition has tended to downplay the value ofdeliberate grammar teaching In Krashen and Tarrel’s influential Natural Approach,

it is claimed that learners need to be exposed to a lot of comprehensive andmeaningful input at a level just above their own for acquisition to take place Thestudy of grammar has only secondary role in the language program with the goal to

produce optimal monitor–user, programmers who can use grammar as a supplement

to acquisition when they have time, when the focus is on form, and when they knowthe rules (the Monitor Hypothesis, Krashen and Tarrel:1983) Put another way,grammar can be acquired naturally from meaningful input and opportunities tointeract in the classroom and grammatical competence can develop in fluency–oriented environment without conscious focus on the language forms

Admittedly, some learners acquire second language grammar naturally withoutbeing taught Immigrants to the United States (especially young ones) who attainproficiency in English on their own can be a good example of naturalisticacquisition (Lightbown and Spada: 1999: 60) But this is not true for all learners.Among the same immigrants are learners who may achieve the proficiency inEnglish but that English is far from accurate

In fact, grammar is one of the key components of a language Thus, one cannotmaster a language without the knowledge of its grammar Partly thanks to grammar,language can function as a means of communication, especially in written language

A person cannot write well if he lacks the knowledge of grammar From myobservation and my experience, I find it necessary to teach grammar in all types ofEnglish course and especially in a medical university like the one I intend to carryout my study The first reason is that almost all the students in Vinh MedicalUniversity come from the rural areas where they never have chance to learngrammar sufficiently Furthermore, the main objective of these students afterleaving the university is to read materials relating to medicine in English For thetwo reasons mentioned above, they can hardly do it without grammar Moreover,grammar exists to enable us to ‘mean’ and without it, it is impossible tocommunicate beyond a very rudimentary level because speech seems to be no morethan sounds, writing seems to be no more than hieroglyphics For all these reasons,the teaching of grammar is quite important in English language teaching (ELT)

2.2 Communicative Language Teaching.

2.2.1 Traditional language teaching methodology.

In the last over one hundred years, language teaching methodology has changed

in approaches and methods of grammar teaching From the mid to late 19th century,the dominant trend was a non-communicative approach It was GrammarTranslation Method Traditional method or GTM was rooted in the formal teaching

of Latin and Greek and become popular in the late 19th century According toLarsen- Freeman (1986:4), the GTM was used for the purpose of helping studentsread and appreciate foreign language literature Through studying the grammar ofthe target language, students would become more familiar with the grammar of theirnative language and this helps them use their language more grammatically

The strength of GTM is that it requires few resources so it is easy to applyand cheap to administer Thus, the method is still used in many places where theclass is large (more than 30 students), and there is a great shortage of teaching -learning facilities and equipment, the teachers with inadequate speaking skill areaccustomed to setting teaching procedures

This method, however, has certain disadvantages According to Richards andRogers (1986:3), GTM obviously focuses on the form rather than the use of thetarget language Students who are in this way did not have a chance to practice theirspeaking and listening Students learn rules of grammar and vocabulary withoutmuch feeling of progress in the mastery of the target language can lead to the lack

of motivation in learning a language for their having little opportunity to expressthemselves through it They just learn what they have to without any creativeness.The method creates frustration for students, for whom foreign language learning is atedious experience of memorization of new words and grammatical rules, while itmakes few demands on teachers (Richards and Rogers, 1986:4)

2.2.2 Communicative language teaching (CLT)

Since the mid–1970s the CLT has been the dominant language teachingapproach which aims at focusing on communicative proficiency by replicating

contextual features of real communication in the classroom There are two versions

in this approach One advocates grammar teaching and the other rejects grammarteaching

In fact, although emphasis on grammar teaching varies from method to method,for many teachers, grammar has never taken anything other than a central role intheir classroom methodology While the role of grammar in language teaching andlearning is no longer a matter of debate, the questions that follow are how tointegrate grammar teaching into a communicative methodology which paysattention to all aspects of communicative competence, and what precise form thatteaching should take And these imply further questions about the choice ofgrammatical structures to present, what kind of grammatical description to use,whether to teach grammar explicitly or implicitly, what the role of practice might

be, and what forms of practice are appropriate for different types of learners Inother word, there are two major different approaches to grammar: explicit andimplicit When we talk about an explicit approach to grammar we are talking aboutstarting directly, usually at the beginning of a particular activity, what the grammar

is On the other hand, an implicit approach to grammar is one where students are led

to the grammar through a series of steps- this is what is meant by the ‘discoverytechniques’, in other words, the ‘discovery techniques’ aims to lead studentstowards a generalized grammar rule or pattern

The latest influence on teaching methodology in Vietnam, at least in Englishclasses, is CLT A considerable number of books have been published bearing on

the label "communicative" in response to social pressures and evidence from

socio-linguistic and psychosocio-linguistic research In spite of the popularity of CLT, it isdifficult to define it in a satisfactory way There is a variety if definitions aboutCLT, Nunan (1989: 194) overviews the methods, which are adapted below, containaspects that are common to many definitions of CLT

CLT views language as a system for the expression of meaning Activitiesinvolve oral communication, carrying out meaning task and using language, which

is meaningful to the learners Objectives reflect the needs of the learners; theyinclude functional skills as well as linguistic objectives The learners’ role is as anegotiator and integrator The teacher’s role is as facilitator of the communicationprocess Materials promote communicative language use; they are task- based andauthentic.

2.2.2.1 Characteristics of CLT

In CLT, meaning is paramount Wilkins (1972) classifies meaning intonotional and functional categories and views learning a second language asacquiring the linguistic means to perform different kinds of functions According toLarsen- Freeman (1986:132), the most obvious characteristic of CLT is that

“Almost everything that is done with communicative intent” Students use the

language through communicative activities (e.g games, role- plays and solving tasks)

problem-From Morrow’s point of view (in Johnson and Morrow, 1981), activities thatare truly communicative have three features: information gap, choice, and feedback

An information gap occurs when one person exchanges the information he has withthe one who does not

Another characteristic of CLT is the introduction of authentic material InCLT, it is considered desirable to give learners the opportunity to genuinecommunicative needs in realistic second language situations so that they developstrategies for understanding language as actually used by native speakers (Canaleand Swain, 1980)

In addition, “activities in the Communicative Approach are often carried out

by students in small group” (Larsen-Freeman, 1986: 132) Students are expected to

interact with one another, either through pair and group work or in their writing(Finicchiaro and Brumfit, 1983) CLT favors interaction among small numbers ofstudents in order to maximize the time each student has to learn to negotiatemeaning Teachers therefore select learning activities according to how well they

engage the students in meaningful and authentic language use rather than in themerely mechanical practice of language patterns.

Another dimension of CLT is “its learner- centered and experience- based

view of second language teaching” (Richards & Rogers, 1986: 69) According to

CLT theory, individual learners possess unique interests, styles, needs, and goalsthat should be reflected in the design of instructional methods (Savignon, 1983).Teachers are to develop materials based on the demonstrated needs of a particularclass Students must be made to feel secure, unthreatened and non- defensive in aCLT classroom, so teachers using CLT should avoid adopting a teacher- centeredauthoritarian posture (Taylor, 1983)

Thus, Li (1998: 679) reviews CLT characteristics based on the work of otherresearchers such as Larsen-Freeman (1986), Richards and Rogers (1986) andThomson (1986) as follows:

1 A focus on communicative functions

2 A focus on meaningful tasks rather than on language form

3 Efforts to make tasks and language relevant to a target group of learnersthrough an analysis of genuine, realistic situations

4 The use of authentic, from life materials

5 The use of group activities

6 The attempt to create a secure, non- threatening atmosphere

2.3 Teaching English grammar

2.3.1 Principles for teaching English grammar

According to Lưu Quý Khương (2006), there are different ways ofpresenting grammatical structures: one is implicit, using carefully chosen examples

to explain a structure, and the other is explicit which uses grammatical terms todescribe the differences between the structures However, in comparing the implicit

and explicit presentations, it is note-worthy that presenting explicitly is morecomplicated, and may create difficulties for younger learners

Forseth, Tạ Tiến Hùng and Nguyễn Văn Đỗ (cited in Nguyễn Thị Vân Lam,Ngô Đình Phương, 2007) presented seven principles for teaching grammar

1 Most often teach grammar implicitly

Traditionally, teachers gave the rules and their explanation to these rules.Accordingly, they provided the examples of the rules However, this way ofteaching grammar appears not to be really effective Teachers, on the contrary, giveexamples of the structures and have students concentrate on the meaning instead ofteaching the rules

2 Present a grammatical item orally before presenting a written form and an explanation.

When the students listen to the structure, they will find it easier to focus onmeaning When they read that structure, it will turn out to be easy for them to takenotice at the form of the structure

3 Use visual aids to help students see the structure and the grammatical meaning.

Several offered visual aids for teaching grammar can be structure tables,wall-charts, etc These may facilitate the students with their leaning grammar

4 Connect the form to meaning

Form and meaning are the two sides of structures that students need tounderstand while acquiring a second language

5 De-emphasize the use of special items

Several grammatical terms like “gerund, transformation, assimilation, etc”may cause misunderstanding for students Teachers, thus, had better use morecommon words

6 Along with correction, give positive feedback and emphasize communication rather than just grammatical accuracy.

7 After practicing a structure in a controlled exercise, give students opportunities to use the structure in freer communication.

2.3.2 Techniques for teaching grammar.

Grammar teaching has often been regarded as a structure based formalactivity After integration of several sources and techniques, which are mainly based

on communicative activities, the teaching of grammar gained new insight In order

to make a grammar lesson more effective, beneficial and interesting ELT teachersshould use some well-developed and fascinating techniques in the classroom(Saricoban and Metin 2000) In this section, some of the techniques and resourcesuch as games, role plays, problem solving would be reviewed as follows:

To begin with, games play an extremely important role to make the learneruse the language communicatively Games help and encourage learners to sustaintheir interest and work Games also help the teacher create contexts in which thelanguage is helpful and meaningful Well chosen games are invaluable as they give

a break They allow students to practice language skills and grammar items Theyare highly motivating since they are amazing and at the same time challenging Itlowers anxiety and makes the acquisition of input (Rex2003, Celce-Murcia 1988and Rinvolvcri 1984)

Rinvolvcri (1984) elaborates the pedagogic aims of language games whichhelp the presentation of new language; controlled practice and train communication

of language Language games make students use the language in various ways.They also give shy students the opportunity to express their opinions andexperience They are indispensable part of grammar lesson since they reinforce aform discourse match Through well-planned games, learners can practice andinternalize the target language structure

Secondly, role play is one of the most known language teaching techniques

It is very useful to contextualize any grammar items Effective uses of role play helplearners to improve their communication skills in language learning It motivatesthem to use the target structure to describe a certain concept or ideas It createssituations for second language learners to express ideas using their own words It

can be funny and dramatic so students are able to pretend and learn a lot from eachother (Wright 1989:126)

Role play contextualizes the grammar lesson effectively There are severalways of using role plays at the classroom the level The interest and the age of thelearners should be given a due attention It can be used to practice specificgrammatical structure (Petrovitz1997:201) Through acting the structure orally inthe classroom learners become more deeply internalize it It provides learners theopportunity to internalize the meaning and use of the language It also provides anon-threatening atmosphere for students who are usually tense when they arespeaking English in a formal classroom setting It gives students a chance to reflectactual aspects of the structure of the language

Role play is advantageous from the point of view of maximizing studentstalking and providing natural situations for speaking Wright (1989) indicates thatrole play activities are usually based on real life situation This gives the learners theopportunity to practice the kind of language they need outside the classroom Itprovokes communication among the students since they may share backgroundknowledge on the issue and relate with the grammar item

When practicing a role play students should know what they are supposed to

do and be clear about the purpose For example if one wants somebody to report adirect speech they should have enough knowledge about how to change directspeech to indirect speech They have to have adequate rehearsal time to perform Inorder to do it effectively one of the students may say a sentence and the other askswhat the first students have said and then the other reports what the students havesaid They can perform different kind of activities in group or pairs (Saricoban andMetin 2000) All in all, role play can create a natural and meaningful situation tolearn and practice grammar

Another important technique is problem solving activities The problemsolving activities are task-based and have purposes beyond the production of correctspeech They are also the examples of one of the most preferable communicative

activities (Chen 1995) Such activities highlight not only competence but alsoperformance Problem solving activities require individual response or group worksand creative solutions Like games and role play, problem solving activities have acommunicative purpose In problem solving activities, the problems are either real

or imaginary situations They can be used to generate any specific grammar point(Rinvolvcri 1984) They can also be used at all levels It is also possible to integratewith all skills in such activities In short, problem-solving activities providefavorable conditions and usages for extended communicative practice of grammar(Saricoban and Metin 2000) They are also motivating and challenging Theyencourage students to interact and communicate They create meaningful contextsfor language use

So far the techniques are classified The teaching of grammar can besupported effectively by using such techniques Saricoban and Metin (2000) statethat teaching is a developing art, which requires innovative and creative ideas toenrich its effectiveness; we must not hesitate to use such ideas in our classroom.These techniques can assist our teaching of grammar by providing a relaxingatmosphere and motivating students Such techniques are student centered; hence,

by using them we give a chance to our students to express themselves and enjoythemselves during learning (Larson-Freeman 1986) In short, using different types

of techniques bring the structural, semantic and communicative aspects of languagetogether in our language classrooms ELT teachers should not only know thegrammar well enough to explain it to their students, but they should also know avariety of techniques for making it interesting and communicative Thus, teachersshould be able to choose techniques and resources available for them to teachgrammar in the classrooms and make teaching meaningful and communicative aswell

2.3.2.1 Techniques for showing the Meaning of grammatical structures

According to Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong (2007), themeaning of grammatical structures can be shown visually or through a situation

2.3.2.1.1 Showing the meaning visually

The meaning of a structure can be directly shown by using things thestudents can see – objects, the classroom, the teacher, the students themselves,pictures, or by using a blackboard drawing

E.g.: presenting the structure “short adjective-er + than”

T: Can you stand up Nam and Minh? How tall are you?

Ss: Minh: I’m 1.5m tall, Nam: I’m 1.6m tall

T: Please make a sentence about Nam and Minh

SS: Nam is taller than Minh/ Minh is shorter than Nam

2.3.2.1.2 Showing the meaning through a situation

The teacher can think of a situation in which the structure could be naturallyused The situation can be real or imaginary For example, the teacher can use animaginary situation to present a more advanced structure: “There is no point in

……… v-ing”

T: Listen Imagine you are with a friend You are going to visit your uncle, wholives quite near Your friend says, “Let’s go by bus” What will you say? Yes or no?Ss: No

T: Why?

Ss: Because he lives near

T: Yes, he lives nearby So you might say, “We can walk there in five minutes.There’s no point going by bus” There’s no point in doing it No point There’s nopoint going by bus

The teacher can give other examples and get students to give examples.T: Here is another example You want to read a book But I know it isn’t a goodbook I might say to you, “Don’t read that book There’s no point in reading it Itisn’t interesting.”

By giving several different examples, the teacher helps the class to build up aclear idea of what the structure means and how it is used After giving a fewexamples, the teacher can just give the situation and try to get the students to givethe example This checks how well the students have understood, and also helps toinvolve the class more.

2.3.2.2 Techniques for showing the Form of structures

Besides a clear presentation of the meaning and use of the structure, it isimportant to show clearly how it is formed There are two basic ways:

The first way is by giving a clear model and asking students to listen andrepeat two or three times, e.g showing the form: “It is too heavy to lift”

T: Listen It is too heavy to lift It is too heavy to lift, (gesture for repetition.)

Ss: It is too heavy to lift

The aim of this is just to give students the “feel” of the structure, andespecially to make them familiar with the way it sounds It should not be continuedfor too long – a few repetitions by the whole class, perhaps followed by one or tworepetitions by individual students

The second way is by writing the structure clearly on the board

To show the form “It is too heavy to lift”, the teacher writes it on the board,say the words as he writes them and underlined the “fixed” part of the structure:

It is too heavy to lift

An alternative technique is to get the students to tell the teacher what towrite The teacher quickly shows this: rub out the example, then get students to

“dictate” it to him and write it again (The teacher can prompt them with questions:What is the first word? And then?) This has the advantage of involving the classand focusing their attention on the structure

2.3.3 Procedures for teaching grammar.

In the preceding discussion, it has been proposed different types of grammarteaching tasks and ways of grammar teaching Celce-Murcia (1988) suggests thatgrammar should be presented gradually in step-by-step progression They commentthat when a teacher plans his work, he/she needs to take into consideration the stage

of presentation, practice, production, and feedback and correction

2.3.3.1 The Presentation Stage

This is the first stage of learning/teaching a new language item Here theteacher provides the new information, the new piece of language; the learnerconcentrates on understanding it and remembering it Celce-Murcia (1988) explains

at this stage, grammar can be introduced either inductively or deductively Thevariety of techniques can also be used Selections should be made according tostrengths and preferences, and the nature of the structure Ur (1988) also commentsthat this stage is the time of the introduction of grammatical structures or forms andmeaning in speech and writing It is possible to offer grammatical explanation, but itshould be short, clear and concise Harmer (1987:17) defines the presentation stage

as the stage which students are introduced to the form, meaning and use of a newpiece of language When students are learning how the new language is constructed,they learn what it means and how it is used He says the teacher should showstudents every aspect of rule to understand and internalize the new rule which isbeing presented

The best way of doing this is to present the language item in meaningful

context Widdowson (1990) suggests “In foreign language-learning situation this

relation could be established with the native language (L1) or with what is already known of the foreign language (L2) or it could be established with something non- linguistic such as picture, an object, an action, or a sound, course materials may use any or all of this procedures to structure and conceptualize the learning process”.

As Widdowson explains, the context for introducing new language shouldhave a number of characteristics It should show what the new language means andhow it is used It also should be interesting for students It must provoke thestudents’ needs A good context will provide the background for a language use sothat students can use the information not only for repetition of model sentences butalso for making their own sentences Harmer (1991:60) explains that the mainpurposes of this stage are to provide students with the opportunity to:

1 Realize the usefulness and relevance of the new language

2 Concentrate on the meaning of the new language

3 Pay attention to pronunciation, stress, intonation and spelling of the new language

Teachers can use different techniques to present the structure of a language.According to Ur (1988, 7), “… to get the learner to perceive the structure theteacher can use real objects, pictures, actions and context.” The presentation ofgrammar should be clear, natural, efficient, memorable, appropriate and productive

2.3.3.2 The Practice Stage

The practice stage is the second stage of the organization of teachinggrammar for communication purposes At this stage, skills are learned by doing orthrough constant practice This is the stage at which learners are given intensivepractice in new structure, but their production of the language is very carefullyguided and controlled by the teacher, so that correct form and meaning areconsolidated and the possibility of error is reduced to a minimum (Ur 1988) Asstated, learners have the opportunity to practice the language The teacher modelsthe language items The practice of the language items is more controlled by theteachers This makes the teacher’s role decisive The most common technique topractice the language is drilling The purpose of drills is to involve the whole classtogether in the practice of the grammar item This also helps students to learn theuseful grammar items by heart Therefore, teachers use repetition drills,transformation drills, substitution drills, question and answer drills, explanationdrills and situational drills For example, if we see situational drills, the teacher

brings facts of real world and invites students to express their point of view Thesetypes of drills are more natural and meaningful Then they can be suitable to teachEnglish in a communicative way and students can learn both form and meaning at atime We should bear in mind when using practice material, it is necessary to selectappropriate and helpful exercises Teachers should help learners avoid excessiveerror and gradually reduce the control Finally we have to move relatively freeproduction of the language (Ur: 1988).

2.3.3.3 The Production Stage

At the production stage, the learners use the language meaningfully tocommunicate and complete messages The focus is on fluency, the ability to use thelanguage rather than accuracy The dominance of the teacher at this level is limited.Students try to express their feelings and ideas freely They choose the direction oftheir conversation (Celce-Murcia 1988) At the production stage, students havefreedom to personalize the structure of the target language The teacher mayfacilitate situations for communication in pair and group works The teacher cangive individual work to improvise in the classroom that helps them enhance theircommunicative competence The teacher can use different types of activities likejumbled sequence, problem solving activities, using pictures, and so on that initiatestudents to practice grammar item (Ur 1988) Let us suppose the teacher teaches thelearner about the simple past tense where he/she facilitates his/her students to talk orwrite about their past experience The teacher can ask the question like: What didyou do last week? How did you spend you weekend? The students first discuss a lotwhat they did at the weekend in pairs or small groups Then students write one ortwo paragraphs They can present it orally In this process they can develop theircommunicative competence

2.3.3.4 Feedback and Correction

Feedback and correction must take place throughout the lesson Theteacher’s correction may vary according to the change of the phases of the lesson It

is very important to motivate learners for their correct responses After a teacher

introduces grammatical item, he/she asks them to practice the language At this timesupportive feedback is more useful to develop confidence to use the language.Markee (1997) says the focus of error correction should be on meaning, not merely

on grammatical form The teachers should tell how the meaning change occurswhen the form is changed There are different kinds of error correction peer, selfcorrection, teacher correction, and so on In the case of grammar, the first step withrespect to error correction is establishment of certain basic parameters (Tudor1996:215) Teachers use different means to correct their students’ errors such asguided corrections and controlled corrections The teachers can direct students toarrive at the right way of using the language by repeating the students’ sentencescorrectly Both accuracy and fluency are desirable and cannot be taught in isolation.Teachers should also tell their students exceptions and complications on grammarrules This may help them to avoid overgeneralization of the rule

2.3.4 Procedures for teaching a new structure

These are suggested procedures for teaching a new structure

1 Set the situation (using picture, realia or creating a situation)

2 Give a model and ask the class to repeat in chorus

3 Ask individual students to repeat the model sentence

4 Write the sentence on the board

5 Explain how the structure is formed and used

6 Ask the class to copy the sentence

7 Give other situations and ask students to give examples

8 Give students activities for practicing

Many variations are possible, e.g the teacher could give several different

examples at the beginning Many of the stages could be left out It might not benecessary to explain structure or ask student to copy it – this would depend on the

type of class However, it would be important to give the situation, examples andwrite the sentence on the board.

2.4 Communicative activities.

2.4.1 Communicative activities in language teaching and learning process

The goal of language teaching has undergone remarkable changes in recentyears Recently, CLT has become predominant with the goal of learning a languagefor the sake of being able to use it for communication in real life Along this line, inthe language classrooms, both teachers and students try their best to control overthe language that students use by organizing it into manageable portions to bedeveloped though communicative activities Then, what are communicativeactivities?

The definition of communicative activities was discussed by Klipple (1991)when he revealed that the term “communicative activities is used to refer to anyoperation which is used to consolidate language already taught or acquired andwhich occurs during the free stage of a lesson or students can produce meaningfuland authentic utterances without the controlling influence of the teacher or thecourse” It means that every time a learner uses a language that they are learning,say English, either productively or receptively, he or she involves in these kinds ofactivities

In a nutshell, communicative activities are those that involve learners in usingthe language for communicative rather than display purposes that focus on fluencyrather than accuracy and which involve learners in pair or group work as a settingfor that communication

2.4.2 Characteristics of communicative activities

Communicative activities are designed to encourage the purposeful andmeaningful interaction between students in a language lesson It is, therefore,important for teachers to be fully aware of their characteristics so that they can usethem effectively

According to Mulling, Sylvia S (1997), activities which are trulycommunicative meet almost all of the five following criteria:

- The information transfer principle, whereby some information must be transferred

from a sender to a receiver

- The information gap principle, which requires that the receiver does not already

possess the information he or she receives

- The jigsaw principle, whereby students begin with different pieces of information

and finish with the same information

- The task dependency principle, which requires to create whenever students

practice at the levels of controlled and semi-controlled communication before theyare ready to perform the activity at the level of free communication

- The correction for content principle, which argues that during communication the

students’ language production should be judged on its communicative efficacy inrelation to a specific task

In addition to that, Harmer (1991) lists 6 distinctive characteristics ofcommunicative activities when they are contrasted with non-communicative ones.They are presented as follows

Non-communicative activities Communicative activities

1 The students have no desire to

communicate

2 They have no communicative

purposes

3 The emphasis is on the form of the

language, not its content

4 Only one language item will be the

focus of attention

5 The teacher will often intervene to

1 The students should havecommunicative desire

2 They have communicative purposes

3 The attention should be centered onthe content not the language form

4 They will have to deal with avariety of language

5 The teacher should not intervene

correct mistakes, nominate

students and ensure accuracy

6 The materials will be specially

designed focus on a restricted

amount of language

6 No materials control

In summary, it is of great importance to distinguish the characteristics of thesetwo kinds so that teachers and students of a language can make the best use ofcommunicative activities in the process of learning and teaching

2.4.3 Types of communicative activities.

According to Celce-Murcia (1991) “there are as many speaking activities andmaterials available as there are creative teachers”; therefore, communicativeactivities can be applied in the teaching of any skill, at any level, and because of thelarge variety of classroom activities and exercise types, description of typicalclassroom procedures used in a lesson basing on CLT principles is not feasible.There is one framework which receives the most agreement of the majority ofpractitioners is the methodological framework on communicative activities given byLittlewood (1981) According to him, communicative activities can be classifiedinto two types: Pre-communicative activities and communicative activities The pre-communicative activities are preparatory steps towards communicative activities inwhich the teachers should analyze all the communicative abilities and let thestudents practice them one by one The aim is for learners to practice usinglanguage they will need when actually communicating The pre-communicativeactivities are sub-divided into structural activities and quasi-communicativeactivities

The first type mainly concerns structural activities These are much like thegrammar exercises in which the teacher shows the students how to use grammaticalrules in their communication which includes pronunciation, vocabulary andstructure practice

On the other extreme, the second type is quasi-communication activities whichare intended to help learners relate the forms and structures they are studying to theuse of the language like communicative function, specific meaning, and socialcontext Some quasi- communicative activities include (1) Situational dialogues; (2)Open-ended dialogues; (3) Timetable, map, food list, shopping list, etc It can beconcluded that the pre-communicative activities have the intention of makingstudents practice using acceptable language fluency, without being concerned tocommunicate meanings effectively

The most remarkable consideration should be taken to communicativeactivities These kinds of activities require learners to integrate his knowledge andskills of the pre-communicative activities into full activities of communicativemeanings Littlewood (1981) divides communicative activities into functionalcommunication activities and social interaction activities For the functionalcommunication activities, the main purpose is that learners should use the languagethey know in order to get meaning across as effectively as possible Success ismeasured primarily according to whether they cope with communicative demands

of the immediate situation Some examples of these activities are questions andanswers, interviews based on a text, information-gap activities, role-play, etc

In addition, the social interaction activities place emphasis on social as well asfunctional aspects of communication Learners must not only aim to conveymeanings effectively but also pay greater attention to the social contexts in whichthe interactions take place Success is now measured not only in terms of thefunctional effectiveness of the language but also in terms of the acceptability of theforms that are used In the early stages of learning, acceptability may mean littlemore than a reasonable degree of accuracy in pronunciation and grammar Later, itwill increasingly come to include producing language appropriate to specific kind ofsocial situations because of the limitation of the classroom; simulation and role-playing are now important techniques for creating a wider variety of socialsituations and relationships

Basing on medium of communication, communicative activities can also beclassified into two types: oral and written communicative activities according toNguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong (2007)

2.4.3.1 Oral communicative activities

There are various types of activity which help to promote oralcommunication in the classroom

2.4.3.1.1 Reaching a consensus

This activity enables a group of students or participants to reach a consensus

on a theme or idea proposed by the teacher Consensus activities have been verysuccessful in promoting free and spontaneous use

2.4.3.1.2 Relaying instructions

In this type of activities, a group of students has the necessary informationfor the performance of a task Without showing them these instructions they have toenable another group or groups of students to perform the same task

Making models

Stage 1 A small group of students are given material to make models with (e.g.

building bricks, Lego, etc) and are told to make a model

Stage 2 The original group now has to instruct another group or groups so that they

can duplicate the original model It is, of course, necessary for the original model to

be hidden from the second group or other groups at this stage

This type of activity can also, of course, be used for written communicationactivities

2.4.3.1.3 Communication games

Communication games are based on the principle of the information gap.Students are put into situations which are game-like and have to use all and anylanguage they possess to complete the game We will look at the examples:

Describe and draw

One student has picture which the other student cannot see The secondstudent has to draw an identical picture (in content, but not style!) by listening to hispartner’s instructions and/ or asking questions.

Stage 1: Students are told that they are going to work in pairs

Stage 2: Students in each pairs are given the letter A and B

Stage 3: Each student A is given a picture which he is told not to show to student B

until the end of the game

Stage 4: Students are told that B must draw the same picture as A: A should give

instructions and B should ask questions where necessary

Stage 5: When B thinks that he has completed the picture, he should compare his

work of art with the original to see how successful the activity was

Find the similarities

Students are put in pairs and given two pictures which are different butwhich contain a certain number of similarities Without looking at each other’spicture they must discover what these similarities are

First, students are told they will work in pairs

Second, students in each pair are given the letters A and B

Next, the students are told that A should find out from his partner aboutanywhere B has been on holiday, and what it was about, and what B thought of it,etc the teacher may suggest that B then asks a for the same information.

Finally, when the pairs have finished their conversations, the teacher maylead a feedback session by finding what was interesting about the conversationseach pair had

The same procedure may be followed with many other topics, such as whatstudents did last weekend, the films students have seen, etc

2.4.3.1.6 Story construction

The aim of this activity is to give students only partial information and thenask them, for example, to use that information as part of a story which they mustcomplete by asking other students (who have other bits of information) for otherparts of the story We can look at one example

First, students are put into groups (of five, for example)

Second, each member of the group is given a letter: A, B, C, D and E

Next, each group is given one of the pictures and told to study it for a shortwhile

After that, the teacher collects the pictures The teacher then asks thestudents to form new groups He tells all those students with the letter A to form anew group, all those students with the letter B to form a different group, and thesame for students with the letters C, D and E

Then, the teacher tells each group to try and piece together the whole story(since each student was originally in a group which saw different picture)

Finally, the teacher asks the different groups to say what their stories are.Very often, the stories will differ to a large extent The teacher finally shows all thestudents all the pictures

This technique is very enjoyable and produces a great deal of discussion andinteraction It has many variations Instead of pictures, the original groups may begiven parts of a written story This has the advantage of involving some reading aswell Another alternative is to ask students to write two sentences about theiroriginal pictures When the new groups are formed students have to produce awritten version of the story.

2.4.3.1.7 Simulation and Role play

The idea of simulation and role play is to create the presence of a real-lifesituation in the classroom: students ‘simulate’ the real world Thus, for example, weask our students to pretend that they are at an airport, or we ask them to get together

to organize a reunion What we are trying to do – very artificially– is give thestudents practice in real-world English, as it should be used in English-speakingenvironments

In the two examples mentioned above, we say to the students that they are inthis situation as themselves Sometimes, however, we may ask them either to besomeone else or to express views that are not necessarily their own: we may askthem to be a travel agent, a police, etc In each case, we will be asking them to play

a role Whether or not students are taking part in a simulation as themselves orwhether they are playing a role, they will need to do a certain amount of ‘acting’,that is they are prepared to enter into the activity with enthusiasm and conviction

During the simulation, the teacher may act as a participant The teacher canalso help to organize the direction of the simulation

After the simulation has finished the teacher will want to conduct feedbackwith students The object here is to discuss with them whether the activity wassuccessful and why certain decisions were reached

The simulation has the advantage of involving a large number of students atthe same time

2.4.3.2 Written communicative activities

There are also various types of activity which help promote writtencommunication in the classroom

2.4.3.2.1 Relaying instructions

They are similar to relaying instructions (oral communicative activities) in2.4.3.1.2., one group of students has information for the performance of a task, andthey have to get another group to perform the same task by giving them writteninstructions

2.4.3.2.2 Exchange letter

In this type of activity student write each other letters and then receive areply In the following example we will consider, the writing is based on simulationand role play

Inviting

Students write each other letters of invitation which they give to each other.The letters are then answered depending on what recipient’s plans are

Stage 1 The teacher asks students in his class fill in a diary for the following week

in which they should have at least three definite arrangements

Stage 2 The teacher puts students in pairs and asks each student to write a letter to

his partner inviting him to do something next week

Stage 3 The letters are exchanged and the teacher asks students to write replies to

the invitations depending on their diaries and their inclinations

This activity is particularly suitable, of course, if students have recently beenworking on the language of invitation

The complaining customer

In this activity students write complaining letters about goods they havebought after seeing an advertisement The students representing the company whomake the goods then have to reply these letters

Stage 1 Students are divided into small groups Each group is given an

advertisement It would be ideal if they could be given advertisements prepared bytheir classmates

Stage 2 The groups are told to imagine they have bought the item that is advertised

but are not satisfied with it for some reasons They should write a letter ofcomplaint to the company

Stage 3 The letters are then given to different groups The new group has to study

the letter of complaint and decide what to do about it When the decision has beenreached they can write a reply to the original letter

Stage 4 The letters are then returned to the original groups who read them and

discuss what they have been sent

This is an enjoyable and useful activity involving a number of differentskills It is particularly suitable for intermediate and advanced classes

2.4.3.2.3 Writing games

Games are enjoyable at all levels This activity is somewhat similar to theoral games We will look at the example:

Describe and Identify

Students write descriptions of people or places and the rest of the class have

to guess who the people are or what the places are

Stage 1: The teacher divides the class into two teams.

Stage 2: The students are all instructed to write a description of a famous person (or

a member of the class) without mentioning that person’s name

Stage 3: A member of one of the teams reads his description If someone from the

opposing team can identify the person the team scores a point If not there is noscore The teacher may take away a point from the team reading the description ifthe information about the person is wrong or English is totally unpredictable

2.4.3.2.4 Fluency writing

The aims of the activity we are going to describe are quite simple: to getstudents to write as much as possible in a definite period of time Research hassuggested that if this is done frequently, students are able not only to write greaterquantities, but the quality improves as well.

The picture story

Students are given series of pictures just as they were for oral composition.They are given a time limit and told to write as much as they can about the pictures

Stage 1: Students are told that they are going to do some free writing, and that the

objective is to write as much as they can within a certain time limit

Stage 2: Students are shown the picture sequence and told to write about it.

Stage 3: when the time limit expires the teacher stops the students and collects the

2.4.3.2.6 Writing reports and advertisements

There are many activities in which students write reports or advertisements:the news broadcast

The news broadcast

Students write items for a new broadcast which they then organize for

“transmission”

Stage 1: The teacher asks all the students in the class to write two news items on a

piece of newspaper

Stage 2: The teacher then collects all the pieces of paper and forms the class into

small groups

Stage 3: The teacher then distributes the pieces of paper between the groups in no

special order The students are asked to combine the items (making changes wherenecessary) to make up a complete news broadcast

Stage 4: Each group then reads its broadcast to the rest of the class Ideally, of

course, each group could record their broadcast to make it more realistic

This activity is attractive because it involves all the skills, as well as theability to order and organize ideas It also involves current events and is thusinteresting and motivating

2.5 Summary

In this chapter, I have already given the theoretical background of the study:English grammar, different approaches to teach English grammar, teaching Englishgrammar, and communicative activities with their characteristics, roles and types.This theoretical background of the study will be fully developed later in the thesis

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research questions

1 How can English grammar be taught communicatively?

2 What are some suggested communicative activities for non - English majors inEnglish grammar classes at Vinh Medical University?

In VMU, instructions, learning and teaching activities are mostly carried out

in the classroom Most of the lessons are developed in such a fixed condition thatthe teachers find it difficult to make a change in applying new ideas in languageteaching

- The class size: There are fifty students in each class The focus on creating

a communicative environment also means that there is a lot of unavoidable noise inthe classroom; it influences the learning of next- door class

3.2.1.2 The teachers

At VMU, there are 5 teachers of English They are energetic and willing todevote their time and energy to teaching Five of them are following an M.A course

At Vinh University However, none of the teachers have attended a training course

in English speaking countries

In aspect of language teaching method, the teachers at VMU used to applytraditional methods such as GTM in teaching grammar But nowadays, all of themhave a great desire to acquire knowledge of communicative competence and havebeen applying it in teaching English.

These five teachers of English aged from 23 to 37 The oldest teacher hasmore than 13 years of teaching experience and the youngest just has nearly oneyear All of them graduated from the Vinh University and Vietnam NationalUniversity, Hanoi They are teaching non-English major students at the university.All the five teachers of English are female They are taking an M.A course Theyare required to use the textbook New Headway Elementary by Liz and John Soars(the third edition) in 150 periods in the training program at VMU

3.2.1.3 The learners

On average, the age of students at VMU is from 18 to 25 Their English level

is low and of mixed- ability Some of them come from rural areas of Ngheanprovince Before entering VMU, some of the students have learned English for 7years; some has 3 years of learning English and some did not have a chance to learnEnglish at high school

Moreover, the students’ attitudes towards learning have much influence onthe effectiveness of teaching Some students think that English is not a majorsubject and not useful for their future job So the students have born in their mindthat the final goal is to pass the exams In addition, the majority of the students doesnot have appropriate learning strategies or have the habit to learn independently orcreatively As a result, they never prepare the lesson at home or review the lessonregularly

However, the students at VMU are rather highly motivated for somepractical reasons If they do not learn English carefully, they will fail the exams andcannot graduate from the school As a result, they may miss the chance to get a job

3.2.1.4 The materials

The teaching material is currently used for the non-English major learners isthe New Headway Elementary (The third edition) by John and Liz Soars Thistextbook contains the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, writing andgrammar They are designed in the light of the communicative approach The 14-unit textbook is programmed to be taught in one semester and in 150 periods as presented below in Table 1.

(The third edition)

Table 1: Distribution of time and units of the first semester

After 150 periods of the first semester, the students from classes C7A andC7F continue with specialized English (medical English) with the textbook namely

“English for nurses” and “English for pharmacists” with 45 periods in the secondsemester

In summary, a brief overview of VMU where the researcher has collected thedata for the research has been presented Some issues related to students, teachersand materials have been investigated, which provides the context for the research to

be undertaken The next part will shed light on the methodology applied in thestudy

- Conducting a survey on the real situation of teaching and learning Englishgrammar at VMU by using questionnaires for both the teachers and students there,having students do a writing task before and after applying some communicativeactivities in English grammar classes.

- Investigating and analyzing the results gained from the survey about thecurrent situation of teaching and learning English grammar at VMU and analyzinggrammar mistakes in the two writing tasks

- Synthesizing the survey results to make some suggestions for betterteaching and learning English grammar

3.4 Sample Population

The subjects in this study comprised 5 teachers and 100 students at VMU Thechoice and number of these participants was based on their consent to participate inthe research

The teachers of English at VMU are all females They all show their concernwith teaching English grammar especially on how to apply a variety ofcommunicative activities to improve English grammar for their students They wereasked to complete a questionnaire and hand it in one week

The target learners are non-major students and have been learning English for

at least two years that is enough for them to be aware of the language and theirlanguage learning They come from 2 classes C7A and D8A at VMU 50 of themare learning to become future nurses, the other 50 students are from the class ofpharmacists All of the two classes were in the first year Their age varied from 18

to 25 Among them, the ration of female students to male ones is 85/ 100 (85%compared to 15%)

3.5 Data collection instruments

3.5.1 Survey Questionnaires

In order to get information for the research, survey questionnaires for bothteachers and students were carried out