A study on using visual aids to teach grammar to the 10th form students at nghi loc III high school

To know about the useful of visual aids in teaching grammar, this graduation paper limits itself to “AStudy on using Visual Aids to teach Grammar to the tenth form students atNghi Loc II

bïi yÕn nhi

A Study on using Visual Aids to teach

at Nghi Loc III high school

(nghiªn cøu vÒ viÖc sö dông gi¸o cô trùc quan trong viÖc d¹y ng÷ ph¸p cho häc sinh líp 10

ë trêng thpt nghi léc III)

graduation thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Vinh - 2011

A Study on using Visual Aids to teach

at Nghi Loc III high school

(nghiªn cøu vÒ viÖc sö dông gi¸o cô trùc quan trong viÖc d¹y ng÷ ph¸p cho häc sinh líp 10

ë trêng thpt nghi léc III)

graduation thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Vinh - 2011

me the usefulness and validity of various sections of this work.

Furthermore, I also wish to convey my sincere thanks to the teachers ofForeign Language Department, Vinh University and my classmates for theirsuggestions, discussion and advices on the further reading in this area

Last but not least, my sincere appreciation and thanks go to my family,

my teachers and students at Nghi Loc III high school for their kind help andgreat contribution to my survey

Vinh, May 10, 2011

Bui Yen Nhi

Nowadays, in Vietnam, English is used more and more widely by boththe young and the old Therefore, the teaching and learning of English havebecome more significant

In any languages, grammar is considered one of the most essentialelements of language We can hardly comprehend the meaning exactly if we

do not use grammar appropriately So poor knowledge of English grammarcan effect both the learning and teaching of English

This thesis has been written with the intention of recording mystudents’ and my own reflections on and reaction to the theme Visual Aids inTeaching and Learning Grammar during the course To know about the useful

of visual aids in teaching grammar, this graduation paper limits itself to “AStudy on using Visual Aids to teach Grammar to the tenth form students atNghi Loc III high school”

Based on theoretical and practical findings, some kinds of visual aidsand their use in teaching grammar will be introduced The study suggests one

of the most effective and interesting ways in presenting, practicing andproducing a grammatical structure

It is hoped that this study may be useful for those who are seeking theteaching methods, which are aimed at improving the current English learningand teaching

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACKOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

PART I INTRODUCTION 1

1 Justification of the Study 1

2 Aims and Objectives of the Study 2

3 Method of the Study 2

4 Scope of the Study 3

5 Design of the Study 3

PART II INVESTIGATION 5

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5

1.1 GRAMMAR 5

1.1.1 Definition of grammar 5

1.1.2 Grammatical Structures 6

1.1.3 View on Grammar Teaching 7

1.1.4 What need to be taught? 8

1.1.5 Principles for Teaching Grammar 9

1.1.6 Procedures for Teaching a New Structure 11

1.2 VISUAL AIDS 11

1.2.1 Definition 11

1.2.2 Roles of Visual Aids in language teaching 11

1.2.3 Roles of using Visual Aids in teaching grammar 14

1.2.4 Types of Visual Aids 15

1.2.5 Criteria for choosing or making Visual Aids 26

1.2.6 Conclusion 27

CHAPTER 2: DATA ANALYSIS 28

2.1 INTRODUCTION OF THE SUBJECTS 28

2.1.1 Students, their background and learning conditions 28

2.1.2 Teachers and their working condition 29

2.2 THE PURPOSE AND THE CONTENT OF THE QUESTIONNAIRES 29

2.2.1 The purpose of questionnaires 29

2.2.2 The content of questionnaires 29

2.3 DATA ANALYSIS 30

2.3.1 Analysis of the data collected from students 30

3.3.2 Analysis of the data collected from the teachers 34

2.3.3 Findings 37

CHAPTER 3: TEACHING APPLICATION 39

3.1 AT THE PRESENTATION STAGE 39

3.1.1 Using the board 39

3.1.2 Using real objects 42

3.1.3 Using pictures 43

3.1.4 Using gestures- performance- facial expressions 47

3.2 AT THE PRACTICE STAGE 48

3.2.1 Using the board 48

3.2.2 Using real objects 51

3.2.3 Using word cards 53

3.2.4 Using pictures 55

3.2.5 Using gestures- performance- facial expressions 59

3.3 AT THE PRODUCTION STAGE 60

3.3.1 Activities with board 61

3.3.2 Activities with real objects 63

3.3.3 Activities with cards 64

3.3.4 Activities with pictures 65

PART III CONCLUSION 68

1 Recapitulation and Implications 68

2 Suggestions for Further Studies 69

REFERENCES 68 APPENDIXES

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

I LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Analysis of the data collected from students

Table 2: Analysis of the data collected from the teachers

II LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1: The chart about the students’ observation with the frequency of

using visual aid of their teacherFigure 2.2: The chart about using of visual aids in teaching grammar

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT: Communicative language teachingE.g: For example

Etc: Et ceterai.e : That’s to sayOHP: The Overhead Projector

PART I INTRODUCTION

1 Justification of the Study

English has become an indispensable language in internationalcommunication as it is widely used in diplomacy, science, technology foreigntrade, aviation and tourism It brings us chances to keep up with thedevelopment of the modern age Therefore, teaching and learning English,especially at upper secondary schools play a very important role in languageacquisition However, the training quality is too low to meet demands ofsociety It is partly because of the fact that the Grammar Translation Methodthat is still used widely at upper secondary schools Thus, it is necessary toapply new methods of teaching and learning to improve the situation

The English language is completely different from Vietnameselanguage system so students have a lot of difficulties in learning and usingEnglish in gereral and grammartical structures in particular Meanwhile,grammartical structures are basic units to build up sentences, paragraphs andessays How to make grammar lessons more interesting How can wemotivate students? The answers lie on teaching methods and the ways weexploit teaching materials

Visual aids are widely accepted to be one of the most effectivesupplemental means of language teaching It makes language class moreinteresting and communicative If visual aids are made full use of, bothteachers and students will benefit and results will be unexpected Therefore,

in this study, we would like to give some suggestions for using visual aidseffectively The effort of this study is try to give some contribution to

improve the quality of teaching English at high school by “A Study on

using Visual Aids to teach Grammar to the 10 th form students at Nghi Loc III high school”

2 Aims and Objectives of the Study

a Aims:

- To study the current visual techniques in teaching grammar lessons.

- To investigate the causes of difficulties that teachers are facing with

teaching grammar to the tenth form students with the help of visual aids, soteachers can both improve the advantages and limit the drawbacks oflanguage visuals in teaching grammar lessons

- To introduce some common kinds of visual aids and their roles in

foreign language teaching and learning

- To provide recommendations to the better process of teaching

grammar based on the data analysis Also, some sources of visual aids will berecommended to be exploited in order to help teachers teach grammar in thelight of the Communicative Language Teaching approach

- To increase the effectiveness in teaching English grammar.

b Objectives:

The thesis is carried out to answer the following questions:

- What is grammar in English?

- What are visual aids ?

- What are the roles of visual aids in language teaching and roles of it in

teaching grammar?

- How to use visual aids suitably in teaching and learning English

grammar

3 Method of the Study

In order to carry out this study, It is mainly based on the data andinformation collected from survey, observation and direct interview Besides,several books on language teaching, graduation papers of previous students

are consulted with my supervisor for her constructive ideas and guidance.Furthermore, my own teaching practice at high school provides the greatpractical contribution to the sudy.

4 Scope of the Study

In language teaching, Grammar may be taught in many ways such as:dialogues, text, translation and so on Within the scope of this study, wewould like to focus on teaching grammar with visual aids

As time is limited, the survey is carried out on a small scale so theresults may not wholly reflect the real situation of using visual aids inteaching grammar to 10th form students at upper secondary schools

In this study, only applicable visual aids are mentioned as some visualaids like overhead project, flannel boards and magnet boards are not feasible

in schools

5 Design of the Study

Except for the acknowledgements, abstract, the table of content, list oftables and figures, this thesis consist of three main parts, a list of referencesand appendixes

analysis Chapter 3 concludes in teaching application This chapter describes,presents and analyzes using visual aids in teaching English grammar.

PART II INVESTIGATION CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 GRAMMAR

1.1.1 Definition of grammar

The term grammar seems to be very common and familiar in languageteaching and learning In linguistics, grammar is the set of logical andstructural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words

in any given natural language The term refers also to the study of such rules,and this field includes morphology and syntax, often complemented byphonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics In general, when referring

to grammar, learners know that is the way to make a sentence depending onthe change of the form and the combination of words in the right order.However, grammar can be defined in various ways According to Oxford

Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, grammar is “the rules in a language for

changing the form of words and combining them into sentences” (1989: 1).

The definition means that grammar enables us to know how to change the

verb “look” into “looked” in the past tense and put the adjective before the

noun in such sentences as “that is a beautiful house”

Sharing the same view, Jeremy Harmer writes: “grammar is the way in

which words change themselves and group together to make sentences The grammar of a language is what happens to words when they become plurals, negative, or what word order is used when we make questions or join two clauses to make one sentences” (1989: 1) Although this definition is longer

and expressed in a different way, the main point is the same as that of OxfordAdvanced Learner’s Dictionary.

Penny Ur, the author of “Grammar Practice Activities” defines

grammar as “the way a language manipulates and combines words or bits of

words in order to form longer units of meaning” (1988:4) Later, in the book

“A Course in Language Teaching”, he makes it clearer: “grammar is a set of

rules that defines how words (or part of words) are combined or changed to form acceptable units of meaning within a language” (1996:87).

Each language has its own distinct grammar “English grammar” is theset of rules within the English language itself “English grammar” is a specificstudy or analysis of these rules A reference book describing the grammar of alanguage is called a “reference grammar” or simply “a grammar” A fullyexplicit grammar exhaustively describing the grammatical constructions of alanguage is called a descriptive grammar, as opposed to linguistic prescription,which tries to enforce the governing rules of how a language is to be used

Grammar, then, plays an important role in language teaching andlearning It involves two basic elements: the rules of grammar and the practice

of the rules

1.1.2 Grammatical Structures

Grammar is a wipe aspect of a language A specific instance of it called

a “structure” Structures are used in both oral and written discourse Such

rules of past tense, noun plurals, passive form are examples of grammaticalstructure Each grammatical structure has its own form, meaning, and use For

instance, the English comparison of adjective is expressed by “be + short

adjectives + er + than” and “be + more + long adjectives + than” in which

Eg: She is taller than me.

They are more intelligent than her

This structure is to compare the same quality of different things andthey are used with all adjectives

Grammatical structures are different from language to language.English adds “ed” to verbs to show the past tense whereas Vietnamese uses

“đã”, “rồi” and so on without changing the form of the verb This is thereason why many learners find it difficult when learning English

1.1.3 View on Grammar Teaching

In methodology history, there exist different methods Some of whichdisappeared after a time, others are still used by now such as GrammarTranslation Method, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) Althoughgrammar is indispensable in language learning, the place of grammar teaching

is not the same in different methods Considering the linguistic competence andlanguage form accuracy as the most important thing for language teaching andlearning, the followers of the Grammar Translation Method and other methods

of the structural approaches emphasize on grammar form and try their best toteach as much grammar of the target language as possible However, they onlyfocus on form but not meaning or use Therefore, there are long elaborateexplanations of the intricacies of grammar Then, learners will use them to readand translate texts On the contrary, with their strong emphasis on thecommunicative competence in language teaching and learning, the followers ofthe CLT and eclectic approach moderate the teaching of grammar They thinkthat learners need to learn how to make meanings within real contexts and how

to create longer units of language than single sentences for successfulcommunication Grammar teaching is useful in that way

Personally, some people deny the need of grammar teaching Theyconsider grammar as neither necessary nor sufficient thing for learning to use

a language This statement is probably true in some cases when one learns hismother tongue Others agree that teaching grammar is useful for effective

language learning “The evidence seems to show beyond doubt that though it

is by communicative use in real speech acts’ that the new language “sticks”

in the learner’s mind, insight into pattern is an equal partner with communicative use in what language teachers now see as the dual process of acquisition Grammar, approached at a voyage of discovery into the pattern

of language rather than the learning of prescriptive rules, is no longer a bogey word” (Eric Hawkin 1984: 150-1).

As a matter of fact, grammar is a prerequisite factor in mastering alanguage One can not communicate successfully without the help ofgrammar, especially in written form Listeners and audiences will not beattracted to the language without grammar In formal circumstances, it maycause bad impression

1.1.4 What need to be taught?

This is also a controversial question whose answer depends on the view

of the place of grammar teaching Some teachers think that they only needprovide learners with the form of the grammatical structures appearing in thetask For others, the teaching of grammar is synonymous with the practice of

common grammatical patterns Penny Ur claims: “Some teachers, and or the

course books they use, have a tendency to concentrate on some of these and neglect others: they may spend a lot of time on getting the forms right and neglect to give practice in using the structure to convey meanings, or they may focus on written exercises and fail to cover the oral aspects

satisfactorily It is important to keep a balance, taking into account, of course, the need of the particular class being taught” (1988: 6)

As it is mentioned above, each grammatical structure has its own form,meaning and use When learning grammar, learners must be provided with all

of these adequately “If we want our students to learn these things and to use

English both correctly and appropriately, we need to include in our grammar classes attention to both form and function” (Sandra L Mckay 1987: XIV).

“Form” means grammatical form such as verb tense and question formation.

“Function” includes meaning and use It refers to the purpose that language

serves such as asking for information, making a suggestion, refusing aninvitation and so on

In order to help learners fully understand a grammatical structure,Adrian Doff suggests some advice at the presentation stage “When wepresent a structure, it is important to complete the following tasks:

- Show what the structure means and how it is used by givingexamples

- Show clearly how the structure is formed, so that students can use it tomake sentences of their own

1.1.5 Principles for Teaching Grammar

The following seven principles are discussed in Forseth et al.(1996:120)

1 Most often teach grammar implicitly.

The teacher presents examples of the structure and allows students tofocus on the meaning without teaching grammar rules

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

When listening, it is easier to focus on meaning When reading, it iseasier to focus on the form Listening first will help the students understandthe meaning communicated by the grammatical item.

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

Teachers can use structure tables or anything that students can see inorder to make the structure easy and clear to notice

4 Connect the form to meaning.

Students should understand the meaning of the structures they arestudying To focus on meaning the teacher can use the structures in context(as in dialogues or paragraphs), show visual aids (pictures, photographs,graphs, etc.), or contrast with other similar structures which students alreadyunderstand

5 De-emphasize the use of special items.

The teacher should use common words but not a lot of grammaticalterms like ‘aspect’, ‘gerund’, ‘agent’ or ‘transformation’ to describe thelanguage

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

After checking students’ answers, the teacher should give thesecomments, agree or disagree so that students can know his errors and self-corrections The teacher also should let his students read aloud the anwers to

be corrected

7 After practising a structure in a controlled exercise, give students opportunities to use the structure in more free communication.

The teacher should give more activities or games to motivate students

in using the structures which have been learned This activity will helpstudent remember lessons longer

1.1.6 Procedures for Teaching a New Structure

Below are the 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 the model sentence

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 practising

1.2 VISUAL AIDS

1.2.1 Definition

Visual aids are anything visible to learners, which teachers use fordifferent teaching purposes in the class They can be photographs, flashcardsmoved from hand to hand, group to group, real things in the classroom orbrought into the classroom or something can be seen through window or theteacher and the students themselves

1.2.2 Roles of Visual Aids in language teaching

However simple and easy to prepare visual aids are, they contribute agreat deal of help to language classroom

Language is a means of communication so teaching a language should

be “as varied as living and include as many approaches as possible”

(Haycraft 1971:16) One of the most effective way to create languageclassroom more interesting is using visual aids As learning language is acomplex process, visual aids are great help in stimulating the learning of

foreign language It is true that students learn quicker through what they see.The more attractive the visual aids are, the more motivated students will be.

As a result, they will pay attention to the lesson and interest will last until theend of the class In other words, visual aids have favourable influence on thestudents’ motivation

One of the benefits of using visual aids that must be mentioned is that

they “vary the pace of the lesson” (Bowen 1982:1) Both teacher’s teaching

and learner’s learning will be facilitated in such different stages of a lesson aspresentation, practice, and production Traditionally, teachers keep givinglearners a list of vocabulary and grammar with translation then learners areasked to do exercises in the course book This method is boring and does notenhance learners’ ability to speak, to listen, to read and to write Conversely,visual aids offer enormous benefits Presentation, which is said to be one ofthe most difficult stages in language teaching now, becomes an easy task for

teacher As visual aids “help to provide the situation (context) which light up

the meaning of the utterances used”.(Lee,W.R and Helen Coppen 1970:1),

presentation is not a burden on teacher’s shoulder The teacher can use visualaids to explain exactly the form, the meaning and the use of language itemsand may be free from translation that does not bring prospective results Thus,teacher’s talking time is reduced significantly and learner’s participation isencouraged Visual aids can create real contexts in which language itemsappear so that they can stay longer in learners’ mind For example, whenteaching the present continuous tense, the teacher draws a boy who is running

on the board and says: “Look at the board!, this boy is running” or he can

draw attention of the class to the student who is talking or smiling and says

“Look! Nam is talking to An” This visual presentation, of course, attracts

students’ attention and can deal with the new language concepts as well as thelanguage items.

In practice and production stages, learners do not do poor and boringactivities day after day which is doing exercises in the book Contrarily, thereare various activities in which they can use words and structures they havelearnt to do the tasks such as making sentence with word cues, game play,describing the picture, writing about someone in the class and so on.Moreover, visual aids create more meaning language situations, context for

learners by “bringing in topics from the outside world which are made real

and immediate” (Betty Morgan Bowen 1982:1) Learning language means

learning that culture of daily life Therefore, letters, bus tickets, postcards,street signs as well as pictures of landscapes, of social setting can be used.They inspire the imaginativeness in both teachers and learners and learnersbecome less passive during the lesson The more important thing is that visual

aids encourage pair work and group work and force students to “lift their eyes

from their books”, so the speaking time increases dramatically and students

use natural language Through these real situations, not only all of the fourskill but also the background of learners are improved and learners are givenmore motivation and interest learning the new items

Reality has shown that in teaching language, visual aids producecountless unpredictable results which ordinary class without visual aids cannot A language classroom will be exciting and successful if visual aids arewell exploited and made use of The teacher can save a lot of time from trying

to present and explain a new language item for more learners’ practice Thelearners find it easy to perceive, understand, practise and use the item withconfidence and creativity

In conclusion, “One of the most important aspects of language

teaching is the roles of visual material: the importance of using visual media

to make one’s teaching more effective, communicative and interesting is well known” (Wright,A & Haleen,S 1991:1) Although visual aids have many

benefits, their value depends on how they are used to contribute to the class Itrequires teacher’ effort and careful preparation Therefore, the teacher shoulduse visual aids often and try to create as many activities as possible from thevisual aids The more important thing is that the teacher uses visual aidseffectively by using appropriate type of visual aids

1.2.3 Roles of using Visual Aids in teaching grammar

As a matter of fact, students usually find it hard and boring to learn andmemorize grammatical structures Meanwhile, some teachers have to spend alot of time explaining a grammar rule but sometimes, the results are not

satisfactory Therefore, Penny Ur suggests: “it is important for learners to

have plenty of contextualized examples of the structure and to understand them Visual materials can also contribute to understand” (1996:82).

To emphasize the roles of visual aids in grammar teaching, Andrian

Doff writes: “the simplest way to present a structure is often to show it

directly using things the students can see: objects, the classroom, yourself, the student themselves, pictures” (1998: 33).

It can be noticed that the presentation of grammar will be much easierand more effective through situations, contexts which visual aids provide.Students can understand fully and practise more effectively Moreover,students can communicate successfully as they are exposed to the reality andpractise orally more often with the help of visual aids On the other hand,visual aids motivate learners when they are tired of long drill of written

grammar As a result, they will be interested and pay attention to grammaractivities.

1.2.4 Types of Visual Aids

Visual aids are various in type Each type has its own advantages anddisadvantages in language teaching and learning but only popular and feasibleones are mentioned

1.2.4.1 The board

The board, black or white is popular in almost all classes It is thesimplest classroom aid In spite of being simple, it has great possibilities forpictorial representation and has various benefits as follows:

- Attracting learners’ attention

- Making lessons more interesting, understandable

- Giving flexibility to the teaching process i.e we can write, drawpictures and several people can work on at the same time

However, to what extent can the board be served for the purpose of thelesson depends on the teacher’s techniques of using it and organization of thelay out of what he writes The following points should be paid attention to:

- Keep the boards clean both before and after the class

- Write clearly and largely enough for the whole class to see

- When drawing use strong, bold colored lines to ensure visibility andconvey conviction

- Stand in a way that does not hide what you write on the board Standside away- half facing the board and half facing the class with the arm fullyextended In this way, the students can see what the teacher is writing and theteacher can see the students

- To draw the attention of students when writing, the teacher should sayaloud what he is writing and sometimes asks students to suggest what to write(e.g What is the next word? How do I spell that?).

The way the teacher organizes what he is writing is also important Ithelps both the teacher and students Seeing on the board, the teacher canknow where he is, what is going to be Thus, the teacher will feel confidentand follow the procedure he planned For students, they will be encouraged tolook at the board and find the necessary things The board should be dividedinto three parts- two smaller side panels and a larger central area One sidepanel is used for listing new words and phrases and is not cleaned out duringthe lesson Nothing else is put on this section The second small section issuedfor doodles, drawings, unexpected odds and ends, etc It may be cleaned outconstantly A large central area is used to present the main material of thelesson- grammatical examples, examples for exercises, etc This may also becleaned as required

The board is even useful if the teacher is able to draw on it Drawings

on the board need not be complex and beautiful because the teacher does nothave much time They can be used to show or practise the meaning ofgrammatical structures, new words about people, attitude, actions, etc in aquick, attractive way They can create various contexts for learners to imagineand use the language meaningfully

The simplest way to draw effectively on the board is to use stickfigures, potato figures, box figures and caricatures

The common feature among these figures is that they are easy to drawand appealing to look at They can convey exactly characters, actions andactivities that students will not misinterpret when describing them.

In conclusion, the board is always an aid in any situation during alesson from presenting new words to practise structures However, using it is

an art, needs careful thought and consideration

1.2.4.2 Objects

There are two types of objects: Real objects (Realia) andRepresentational objects

Realia or real objects - According to Doff (1988: 83), “real objects

are in many ways the easiest kind of visual aids to use in class” As they are

anything available inside or outside the classroom without special preparation

or materials that students can see from the simplest things such as books,pens, tables, teacher and students themselves, a scene from the window or real

objects need no special preparation They can be used for various purposes.For example, the teacher can use them to present vocabulary by pointing atthe object and call its name Besides, real objects offer great help indistinguishing vocabulary items such as tea and a packet of tea, sugar and a

bag of sugar Morever, as Doff says: “simple objects can be used not only for

teaching vocabulary but also as prompts to present, practise structures and develop situations” For example, in teaching comparison, the teacher can

create a dialogue like this:

Teacher (T): How tall are you, Viet?

Viet: I’m 165 cm

T: (turns to another student): How about you, Nam?

Nam: I’m 170 cm

T: So, Nam is taller than Viet

This kind of presentation is really interesting and realistic to students sothat they can find it easy to understand Depending on real objects, the teachercan create several kinds of language activities for students to take part in such

as describing objects, analyzing things’ orgin, developing dialogue basing onthings given, etc During these activities, the teacher may divide the class intopairs, groups to give them chance to have face to face talk, practise andproduce the words

Representational objects are objects that can replace real objects in

case the teacher and students can not prepare realias for use in classroom.When using representational objects, both teacher and learner should carefullymake a choice and well prepare to avoid misunderstanding of word meanings

In conclusion, this kind of visual aids is very beneficial in languageteaching Relevant attention and attempt should be made to this one More

detailed suggestions about principles and techniques of using real objects inteaching grammar will be made clear in the next part.

1.2.4.3 Pictures

In grammar teaching, pictures provide great help as a source ofillustration to show the meaning of new structure, as cues for drills, practice

or stimuli for oral and written work in the class

Pictures come from two sources: teacher’s drawings and cut out frommagazines In order to achieve the highest efficiency, the teacher should payattention to some following practical tips:

- Pictures used should be attractive and imaginative

- Pictures must contribute to the content and aims of the lesson

- Pictures must be large enough and visible from all place in theclassroom

- Magazine may contain distracting factors such as trade names, writing

on the advertisements, make sure to cut them out before using in the lesson

Pictures are divided into different kinds and each of them has their owncharacteristics

A.WALL PICTURES

Wall pictures are a large illustration of a scene or an event, of objectsand people of different kinds, which are intended for being used for the wholeclass

Example: to introduce the meaning of the structure S+ used to + V, the

teacher can show his students this picture, then make a dialogue like this:

T: Look at the picture This is Nam How did he look like last year?S: He looked fat

T: How about this year?

In short, it is advantageous to use wall pictures They can be used indifferent teaching stages, especially in production stage However, it isnecessary to bear in mind that wall pictures are more useful to be used withthe whole class.

B WALL -CHARTS

A wall chart is a large diagram or picture display card Most wall chartsconsist of combination of visual and verbal material Their aim is to giveinformation on a topic While wall pictures are designed for the whole classuse, wall charts are ideal for pair-work, group work in the intermediate andadvanced classes

Wall charts are also beneficial They can be sources of story tellingactivities, a table of different verb forms, a diagram showing the process ofmaking tea or a form of revision and consolidation Hence, wall charts playroles in all of four language skills Additionally, they help students memorizewords and structures easily and systematically

C WORKCARD AND WORKSHEETS

Workcards (about 15cm x 20cm) and worksheets are for individualstudents use or for use by students working in small group They can includevisual as well as text The clues are given to help students work out theanswer or to provide students with new words and structures Teachers prefer

to use workcards and worksheets and they even make their own materialsalthough course books provide a lot of this kind of material Workcards andworksheets provide an extremely useful base for the development of all fourskills without the teacher’s immediate involvement

The use of workcards and worksheets is very advantageous Firstly,they encourage students to work in pair, their attention is focus in the activity.Secondly, many types of activities can be done with workcards andworksheets such as describing picture, true/ false copy writing, picture / textmatching, jumbled texts, guided composition practice, etc On the other hand,

it helps teacher save a lot of time in the lesson because the teacher does nothave to write or to draw on the board Although it takes time to prepare, theycan be reused Moreover, the two sides of the card can be used for presentingdifferent information This separation of the information is useful in certaintypes of activity Therefore, workcards and worksheets are a great help to thelanguage class

D FLASHCARDS

Flashcards are those with simple words or pictures, which can be held

up by the teacher or given out to pupils to use in pair work and group work Ingeneral, flashcards are used for different purposes and they bring positiveresults Flashcard is divided into picture flashcards and word flashcards

10:15 Tonight in London

work for cueing response to question or in more open communicative workfor stimulating conversation, story - telling, etc.

In classroom, picture flashcards are suitable for the presentation of asingle concept, such as an object or an action For instance, when introducingthe preposition “by” + means of transportation such as: “by bicycle”, it is justsimple to show the picture in which a bicycle is drawn It is best to use pictureflashcards for the revision and practice of previously taught language, ratherthan for the presentation of new items Picture flashcards with pictures on oneside can be used to practice structures, ask and answer the content of them Asfor those with pictures on both sides, the teacher can use to reinforce contrast,

e.g “she can swim / she can’t play tennis; to compare two tenses, e.g a card

with a picture of a doctor on one side and the same women having a bath on

the other can be used to practise “she’s a doctor She’s having a bath ; to practise compound sentences, e.g “she was watching T.V when the door

opened”.

Picture flashcards have the advantage that the teacher can prepare them

at his leisure at home In this way, they can be made more attractive andcolourful and can include details impossible to include in a hastily drawnboard picture They also have the advantage of cutting down greatly on time

as well as providing variety

b Word flashcards

Word flashcards are cards on which words have been printed can be

held up rapidly or “flashed”, by the teacher before the class They are usually

about 8cm in height and are as long as if necessary for the text Easy to make,easy to store, the cards can be used to demonstrate exactly what the teacherwishes and can be flashed again to consolidate learning

Word flashcards have many uses They can be held up to highlight a

structure or function E.g “Could you tell me the way to +destination/Adv of

place ?” At the practice stage, it can save time and vary substitution work by

sticking flashcard cues onto a wall or display board instead of writing asubstitution table on a board As for reading, word flashcards are also helpful.For instance, commands can be printed on cards and held up for the class toread and obey Cards placed on display in random order can be used by thestudents to compose sentences The pupil write their sentences, then readthem aloud Specifically, word flashcards can be used to practise particularlanguage items such as adverbial clauses Words related to time clauses such

as “when”, “after”, “as soon as”, “while”, “before”, “till” and “until” areprinted on separate cards A story is drawn on the board or displayed aspictures and the students tell the story using the words as the teacher holdsthem up, or students may be given the flashcards in advance and asked toshow them to the class as they contribute parts of a story The same things can

be done with connectives such as “next”, “soon”, “then”, “suddenly”,

“gradually”, “eventually”, “after a while” A random collection of verbs,

nouns, adjectives and adverbs can be printed on flashcards and used forexercises in identifying parts of speech.

In conclusion, if fully exploited, word flashcards bring unexpectedresults to the language teaching process Although they need carefulpreparation, they can be reused in many activities as well as in all the stages

of a lesson

1.2.4.4 Action and Performance

Another common but very useful visual aid in a language class is the

teacher’s and his learners’ actions, performance As Bellow says “actual

representation of an action, dramatically, represents the action better than any picture can, because, with it, we have movement and the third dimension, for lack of which a picture is sometimes unsatisfactory” (1961: 147) For

example, the teacher can walk slowly in front of the class, trying to attracttheir attention, at the same time introduce the meaning of the verb “walk” atthe present continuous tense:

Teacher: Look, Iam walking now Iam not sitting at my table Now say

“walking”

Students: Walking, Walking

Teacher: Are you walking now?

Students: No, we are not We are sitting at the desks

Action and Performance by the teacher and students in class are alwaysuseful illustrations, cues, contexts for practising new language items: sounds,words, structures…The teacher needs some preparation for the effective use

of them in advance if not, the class may be noisy with the students’ argumentfor or against the action in use

1.2.4.5 The Overhead Projector (OHP)

Overhead projectors project horizontally - placed transparencies onto ascreen They can be used both in daylight and artificial light They are usedwith long rolls of acetate or special cellophane paper, which can be written ordrawn on during a lesson Material can also be prepared beforehand onacetate squares, and a library of these can be built up for future use It ispossible to write with either water - based pens (which can be rubbed out) orspirit - based (which are permanent) It is also sometimes possible tophotocopy directly onto acetate spares

The OHP is very useful with large classes as the teacher can face theclass as he writes The writing position is better than writing on a board, as youare writing on a horizontal surface The OHP is also less messy than chalk

Masking is very easy with the OHP The teacher simply needs to place

a piece of paper over whatever he wants to obscure Overlays can be used,where one transparency is placed over another, and so on increasinglycomplex picture can be built up Cut - outs can be used and these can be made

to move by being slid across the transparency

However, the use of OHP is very expensive so it is not popular inschools in VietNam Besides, it requires the users a lot of experience andOHPs are too heavy to bring from one class to another There is a hope that infuture, they will be become more popular

1.2.5 Criteria for choosing or making Visual Aids

The roles that visual aids play in language teaching are undeniable.However, in order to use visual aids effectively, it is important to chooseappropriate kinds of visual aids According to Bowen, before deciding which

aids to use in his lesson plan, the teacher should consider the followingpoints:

- The purpose of the lesson in relation to the scheme of work and thesyllabus

- The specific learning objectives of the lesson

- The characteristics of the class members (age, sex, educationalbackground and reasons for wanting to learn the language)

- Communication problems which might affect the lesson (hesitation orwithdraw caused by shyness, anxiety or difficulties in relationships within thegroup)

- The design of the lesson (i.e the lesson plan)

- Available resources (visual and audio)(1982: 4-5)

It is not good starting with a visual aid, however interesting andappealing, and then planning a lesson so as to use it The aims and content ofthe lesson must be decided first so that the visuals most appropriate for thoseends can be chosen

1.2.6 Conclusion

So far, a number of advantages of using visual aids as well as types ofvisual aids have been given out with the hope of encouraging the use of them

at schools Only a brief introduction of using visual aids in teaching language

is mentioned More details will be introduced in the next chapter

CHAPTER 2: DATA ANALYSIS

In theory, visual aids play great roles in teaching English grammar.However, whether the use of those at secondary school in Vietnam iseffective or not should be made clearer For is purpose, a survey usingquestions, interviews, observation and experiments is conducted

2.1 INTRODUCTION OF THE SUBJECTS

2.1.1 Students, their background and learning conditions

The informants for the study consists of 155 students in the tenth form(age 16-17) from three classes 10A1, 10A3, 10C3 (There are about 45- 53students in each class) and 8 teachers of English at Nghi Loc III High School

The first reason for my selection is that my selected participants areaccessible All these students have learnt English for more than four year atsecondary schools as they started to learn English when they were in grade 6.Most of them have got familiar with teaching and learning methods at middlelevel The second reason is our awareness of the completeness and reliability

of the data collected We must be well-informed about the real situation ofteaching and adopting visual aids in teaching and learning grammar at ourschool

In addition, the main method used was the Grammar TranslationMethod The students may be good at writing grammatically correct sentencesbut they can not communicate in that language During the process oflearning, students are not often given chances to work in pairs, groups or totake part in such activities as discussion or playing games, etc A number ofstudents even find it difficult to learn what they studied at junior secondaryschool and they almost do from scratch Students have to learn in very large

class without favourable conditions for learning a foreign language such asteaching aids: video, tapes, cassette, etc The lack of these facilities reduceseffectiveness of the teaching and learning process.

2.1.2 Teachers and their working condition

Most teachers in the survey are female aged from twenty- six to fifty.They have been teaching English for at least three years They usually teachclasses with 40 to 60 students and each of them is in charge of three or fourclasses Meanwhile, teaching facilities are poor and backward Therefore, themain teaching material of the teachers is the textbook for students

It can be found that the teachers have to work hard but the results seemnot to be satisfactory This is a great problem

2.2 THE PURPOSE AND THE CONTENT OF THE QUESTIONNAIRES 2.2.1 The purpose of questionnaires

Two kinds of questionnaires are designed, one for teachers, one forstudents (see the Appendices) These questionnaires are designed to gathernecessary data and information about the teaching and learning of Englishgrammar at high schools, which is done with the help of visual aids Teachersand students are encouraged to answer all questions and to express their ownopinions on grammar teaching and learning

Based on the data and information gathered, the most effective visualaids in teaching English grammar would be suggested

2.2.2 The content of questionnaires

The questionnaires have been distributed to 8 teachers of English and

155 students at Nghi Loc III high school Each questionnaire contains 12

Attitude towards teaching grammar.

Teacher’s grammar teaching method.

Teacher’s and student’s self- assessment on the techniques of teaching

grammar

The use of visual aids to teach grammar.

Effect of using visual aids to teach grammar.

Difficulties in using visual aids to teach grammar.

Interview and observation are also carried out to add and confirm theinformation collected from the questionnaires

2.3 DATA ANALYSIS

2.3.1 Analysis of the data collected from students

Variables

(%) Questions