An investigation into the use of communicative activities in teaching english speaking to 10th graders at upper secondary schools in nghe an luận văn thạc sĩ giáo dục học

This research investigates the students’ and teachers’ awareness of usingcommunicative activities in teaching English speaking skills to the 10th graders atsome upper secondary schools..

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I here acknowledge that this study is mine The data and findings discussed

in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates, and have not beenpublished elsewhere

Author

Nguyen Thanh Tra

I would also like to express my sincerest gratitude to all teachers at someupper secondary schools in Nghe An where the investigation was carried out fortheir endless enthusiasm, valuable advice and great cooperation.

At the same time, I would like to send my special thanks to all the 10thgraders at some upper secondary schools for their willingness to participate in mystudy and their valuable input

Also, I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to all of the friends in my groupfor their support and encouragement during the time this paper was written

Last but not least, I owe a great debt of gratitude to my beloved family whosupport me in various ways from time to time of my work

This research investigates the students’ and teachers’ awareness of usingcommunicative activities in teaching English speaking skills to the 10th graders atsome upper secondary schools The research addresses some issues of students’attitude towards learning speaking skills, the frequency of communicative activitiesteachers used in speaking classes, difficulties confronted students and teachers Alsosome useful implications are recommended to the teaching of speaking skills to the

10th graders at upper secondary schools in Nghe An and similar teaching contexts

The methods for empirical investigation in the study includes students’ andteachers’ questionnaire survey, teachers’ interview, classroom observation and pilotteaching Both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed to create arealistic and detailed description of the real teaching context and the attitudes,assessments of teachers and students involved It also presents an evaluation of thepilot teaching as an evidence of effective use of communicative activities in teachingspeaking skills to the 10th graders at upper secondary schools in Nghe An

The results of the study show that most of the teachers and students hadpositive attitudes and motivation to the uses of communicative activities in learningand teaching speaking skills, yet the scope was still limited It also indicates thatsome of difficulties and objective causes hindered them from extreme benefits whichdirectly impacted on the use of communicative approach in teaching Englishspeaking skills After students attended pilot teaching class, there was an obviousinterest in learning English The participants not only improved their Englishspeaking skills but also overcame some problems resulted from their personalcharacteristics

The author, therefore, hopes that the study is a small contribution to learningand teaching English speaking skills at upper secondary schools in Vietnam ingeneral and in Nghe An in particular

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SUB COVER PAGE i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ii

ACKNOWLEDEMENTS iii

ABSTRACT iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 5

LISTS OF TABLES 6

LISTS OF FIGURES 7

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 8

1.1 RATIONALE 8

1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY 9

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 9

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 10

1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY 10

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 12

2.1 OVERVIEW 12

2.2 PRIOR RESEARCHES RELATED TO THE STUDY 12

2.3 THE NATURE OF SPEAKING 13

2.3.1 Definitions of Speaking 13

2.3.2 Types and Elements of Speaking 14

2.3.3 Functions of Speaking 16

2.3.4 Principles for Teaching Speaking Skill 19

2.3.5 Steps of Teaching Speaking Skills 21

2.3.6 Stages for Teaching Speaking Skills 22

2.3.7 Problems with Speaking and Speaking Activities 23

2.4 COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT) 25

2.4.1 Definitions of CLT 25

2.4.2 Characteristics of CLT 26

2.4.3 Teacher’s and Learner’s Roles in CLT 27

2.5 COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES (CAs) 28

2.5.1 Definitions of CAs 28

2.5.2 Characteristics of CAs 29

2.5.3 Types of Classroom CAs 29

2.5.4 Purposes of CAs 33

2.6 INTERACTION IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOM 34

CHAPTER 3 REASEARCH METHODOLOGY 37

3.1 OVERVIEW 37

3.2 PARTICIPANTS 37

3.3 DATA COLLECTION 38

3.3.1 The Questionnaires 38

3.3.2 Pilot Teaching 39

3.3.3 Interviews 39

3.4 DATA ANALYSIS 39

3.5 RESEARCH PROCEDURES 39

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 41

4.1 OVERVIEW 41

4.2 FINDINGS 41

4.2.1 Students’ Awareness towards Four Skills and Speaking Skills in Learning English 41

4.2.2 Factors Related to Students’ Interest in Speaking Lessons 44

4.2.3 Students’ Difficulties in Speaking Lessons 46

4.2.4 Students’ Opinion about Teachers’ Design of CAs 47

4.2.5 Students’ Attitude towards CAs 48

4.2.6 Students’ Feedbacks to the Implementation of CAs 50

4.2.7 Teachers’ Opinion about Speaking Skills 54

4.2.8 Teachers’ Perception about the Use of CAs in Teaching Speaking Skills 55

4.2.9 Teachers’ Implementation of CAs 58

4.2.10 Teachers’ Assessments on the Contribution of CAs 59

4.2.11 Teachers’ Role in Designing and Managing CAs in Classrooms 61

4.2.12 Difficulties the Teachers Encounter When Conducting CAs in Teaching Speaking Skills 63

4.3 DISCUSSION 64

4.4 SUMMARY 74

4.5 PILOT TEACHING 75

4.5.1 Activities and Procedures 75

4.5.2 Students’ Feedback 85

4.5.3 Teachers’ Evaluation on the Lesson 86

4.5.4 The Researcher’ Comment 87

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 89

5.1 CONCLUSION 89

5.2 TEACHING IMPLICATIONS 90

5.2.1 Implication for CAs Application 91

5.2.2 Suggested Teaching Techniques 91

5.3 LIMITATION 925.4 SUGGESTED FURTHER RESEARCH 93

REFERENCES 94 APPENDICES

Appendix 1 : Questionnaire for Teachers

Appendix 2a : Questionnaire for Students (English version)

Appendix 2b : Questionnaire for Students (Vietnamese version)

Appendix 3 : Questions for Teachers Interview

Appendix 4 : Observation Sheet

Appendix 5a : Students’ Feedback to Pilot Teaching (English version)

Appendix 5b : Students’ Feedback to Pilot Teaching (Vietnamese version)

Appendix6 : Teachers’ Feedback to Pilot Teaching

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CAs : Communicative Activities

CLT : Communicative Language Teaching

C1 : Class 1

C2 : Class 2

N : Number of Informants

Q1 : Questionnaire Number One

Q2 : Questionnaire Number Two

S : Student

SS : Students

T : Teacher

% : percent

LISTS OF TABLES

Page

Table 3.1: Teachers’ Background Information 37

Table 3.2: Students’ Background Information 38

Table 4.1: Frequency of Using CAs in Speaking Lessons 48

Table 4.2: Benefits that Communication Activities Bring to Students in Speaking Classes 51

Table 4.3: Students’ Opinion on Interaction Patterns Used by Teachers in Classrooms 52

Table 4.4: Classroom Interaction Patterns Students Favor 53

Table 4.5: Teachers’ Perception towards the Aims of CAs 58

Table 4.6: Teachers’ Feedbacks on the Lessons without CAs 59

Table 4.7: Roles of the Teachers during the CAs 62

Table 4.8: Teacher Informants’ Opinion Ways to Promote CAs 63

Table 4.9: Teachers’ Comment on the Effectiveness of Activities 87

LISTS OF FIGURES

Figure 4.1: Students' Opinions on the Four Skills in Learning English 42

Figure 4.2: Students’ Attitude towards Speaking Skill 42

Figure 4.3: Students' Response towards Speaking Activities 43

Figure 4.4: Students’ Attitude towards Speaking Lessons at School 44

Figure 4.5: Factors Motivating Students in Speaking Classes 44

Figure 4.6: Factors De-motivating Students in Speaking Classes 45

Figure 4.7: Students’ Difficulties in Speaking Lessons 46

Figure 4.8: Students’ Opinion about the Ways Teachers Started a Lesson .47

Figure 4.9: Students’ Favorite CAs 49

Figure 4.10: Teachers’ Opinion about the Speaking Skill 54

Figure 4.11: Teachers’ Opinion about Teaching Speaking Skills 55

Figure 4.12: Teachers’ Perception about the Use of CAs 55

Figure 4.13: The Frequency of CAs Teachers Used 56

Figure 4.14: Teacher’s Assessment towards Speaking Activities in Textbook 57

Figure 4.17: Teachers’ Opinions about the Benefits of CAs 61

Figure 4.18: Teachers’ Difficulties in Implementing CAs 63

CHAPTER 1INTRODUCTION

1.1 RATIONALE

In the process of industrialization and modernization, learning English isbecoming the most concern of students in Viet Nam With more opportunities to useEnglish in the future jobs, students, especially, at upper secondary schools find thatthe need to enhance their language skills is becoming a matter of great urgency

In order to meet the need of the learners, teachers are constantly challenged by thematter how to make English teaching and learning more communicative andeffective For students at upper secondary level in Viet Nam, a general Englishcourse has been implemented which offers them different language skills includingreading, listening, speaking and writing skills Among these skills, both teachersand learners find it hard to use an effective way in teaching and learning speaking

skill According to Nunan (1995) “the single important aspect to learn English successfully is by mastering the art of speaking” Gaining communicative

competence is the last main goal of teaching and learning English at uppersecondary schools However, this aim is not always achieved There is a fact thatwhen students at upper secondary schools are required to talk in English, they seem

to get stuck or find it difficult to express themselves Normally, when the poorspeaking competence is reported, students tend to be blamed for having poor ability

or making insufficient effort Nevertheless, some other factors should be taken inconsideration They could be objective problems such as unsuitable teachingmaterial, insufficient class time allocated to speaking or some subjective reasonssuch as inappropriate attitude of the teachers the subject and students toward thesubject, teachers’ inappropriate teaching method In addition, teachers also find itdifficult to teach speaking skill They seem to find it hard to make their studentcommunicate much in English They do not know how to improve the motivation ofstudents in speaking English

A number of methods and techniques have been implemented in order toimprove the quality of teaching speaking skill However, the CommunicativeApproach to language teaching as well as the use of Communicative Activities(CAs) has shown its enormous advantages in teaching and learning They, therefore,will be discussed in this research in order to improve the quality of teachingspeaking skill for students at upper secondary schools.

Being a teacher of English at an upper secondary school, the researcher finds

it necessary to make an investigation of the reality of teaching and learningspeaking skill Besides, the reasons that lead teaching to difficulties in speakingteaching will be figured out and discussed as well as to seek an effective way toenhance the teaching and learning speaking process

Personally, the researcher hopes the study could be useful source for teacher

in their teaching process

1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

How to teach students communicatively speaking skill seems to be achallenge to teachers of English not only in my school but also at the other uppersecondary schools Therefore this paper is written to investigate the reality ofteaching speaking skill at some upper secondary schools in Nghe An Also, thisstudy intends to explore the application of CAs to develop the quality of teachingand learning English as well as to improve the language interaction of students inspeaking lessons Finally, it seeks to find out, to what extent, these CAs haveinfluence on students’ study achievements

Hopefully, the author, through the study, can provide some suggestions toapply CAs effectively which would be beneficial for teachers in teaching speakingskills at upper secondary schools

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In order to reach afore aims, the research attempts to answer the followingquestions:

1 What is the teachers’ and students’ awareness of using CAs to teachspeaking skills to the 10th graders at Upper secondary schools in Nghe An?

2 What are the CAs teachers often use to teach speaking skills to10th graders atUpper Secondary Schools in Nghe An?

3 What difficulties do the teachers encounter in using CAs to teach speakingskills to the 10th graders at Upper secondary schools in Nghe An?

4 What suggestions could be made to promote the application of CAs to the

10th graders at Upper secondary schools in Nghe An?

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has now improved its advantages

in teaching and learning English In order to help students to communicateeffectively in speaking class, teachers can conduct various CAs Many researchers

as well as teachers have drawn their attention to the role of CAs in teachingspeaking skills However, due to the limitation of time and knowledge, theresearcher does not have the ambition to cover all the aspects related to CLT inteaching and learning speaking such as the difficulties when adapting CLT tospeaking classes at Upper secondary schools, teaching material design andadaptation The study is restricted to investigating the CAs used to motivate the 10thgraders in speaking classes at Nghe An

1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

Beside the abstract, bibliography and appendices, the study is organized into

5 chapters as follows

Chapter 1, The Introduction presents the rationales for the research, defines

the specific focuses, objectives, research questions and organization of the study

In chapter 2, “Literature Review”, a brief summary of previous studies

related to the research is offered as a basis for the study The main theoreticalbackground of this paper is based on the opinions of researchers like Canale andSwain (1980), Swain (1985), Brown (1994), Ur (1996), Harmer (2001), and

Richards (2006), dealing with the nature of teaching speaking in foreign languagesuch as the definitions of speaking, principles of teaching speaking, and thesignificance of teaching speaking Also, concepts related to CLT, types of CAsused in teaching speaking, and the roles of teachers and students in speakingclasses, interactions in language classrooms are clarified Furthermore, factorsinfluencing students’ success in foreign language learning such as motivations,attitudes are mentioned.

Chapter 3, “Research Methodology”, addresses the subjects, and presents the

methods and procedures used to implement the study

Chapter 4, “Findings and Discussion”, shows the reality of using CAs in

teaching speaking at some Upper secondary schools in Nghe An, difficulties thestudents and teachers encounter in speaking classes, as well as the discussion ofresearch questions and the solutions to the teaching speaking at Upper secondaryschools in Nghe An The data collected from the survey are quantitatively andqualitatively analyzed

Chapter 5, “Conclusion and Implication” conveys an overall conclusion It

also suggests some solutions of using CAs effectively to the teachers forovercoming the existing difficulties and improving the quality of teaching speaking

at upper secondary schools Limitations of the study and the suggested furtherstudies are also included in this section

CHAPTER 2LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 OVERVIEW

In this chapter, the author will address issues related to teaching Englishspeaking as a foreign language, CLT and CAs used in teaching speaking Firstly, abrief summary of prior studies related to the research is presented as a basis for thestudy

Secondly, based on the opinions of researchers like Canale and Swain(1980), Brown and Yule(1983), Nunan (1995), Burkart (1998), Brown (1994),Harmer (2001), etc, concepts concerned with the nature of teaching speaking in aforeign language, CLT, CAs, interactions in language classrooms would beexamined and clarified

2.2 PRIOR RESEARCHES RELATED TO THE STUDY

Many researchers have written famous books about CLT and the use of CAs

in teaching English Littlewood (1981) in “Communicative Language Teaching”give the readers a detail view of CAs and functions of CAs The purpose of this

book is “to help teachers broaden their repertoire of techniques, so that they can enable learners to communicate more effectively in a foreign language”

(Littlewwood, 1981: ix) In the same view, Richards (2006) helps readers have adeep understanding of background of CLT, CAs in CLT and current trends in CLT.Along with them, Harmer (2001) supplies a clear distinction between CAs and non-CAs Their studies, somehow, inspire the author of this research the wish toinvestigate the use of CAs in teaching English speaking at upper secondary level

Many graduation papers and M.A theses in Vietnam have also discussed theimportance of speaking skill in English Language Teaching (CLT) and thedifficulties in teaching and learning speaking skill

Nguyen Thi Huong Giang (2008) addressed her study to the reality ofteaching speaking at upper secondary school In the study, the author discovered

some factors which came from teachers, students and learning conditions She alsosuggested some solutions to teach speaking effectively and communicatively.However, the concern of CAs in teaching is a small part in her study and it lackedthe influence of these activities on the learners.

Tran Trung Dung (2009) suggested the way to improve the quality ofteaching speaking at his Junior High School (Thuan Chau Junior High School).Role play is the activity that he studied and supplied in this study The benefit ofrole play can be seen clearly in this research However, this concern is not coverother CAs in communicative approach

Nguyen Thi Hoai Ly (2010) presented the effectiveness of using informationgap activities in teaching speaking for students at her college Yet, this work onlyfocused on one kind of CAs And this study was carried out at college; therefore itcannot be adapted to teaching speaking at upper secondary schools completely

From the aforementioned studies, difficulties in teaching speaking have beendiscussed In addition, teaching techniques, some useful activities have been dealtwith They are really significant for the speaking class However, some aspectsrelated to the use of CAs in teaching speaking at upper secondary schools have notbeen fully and systematically explored This thesis, therefore, focuses on thestudying the use of CAs in teaching speaking for students at upper secondaryschool

2.3 THE NATURE OF SPEAKING

2.3.1 Definitions of Speaking

Speaking can be seen as the key to human communication It is a crucial part

of second language learning and teaching There are many definitions of speaking

Speaking is “the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety contexts” (Chaney, 1998: 13) Another

definition is proposed by Nunan (1995) which states that speaking is the ability inusing oral language to explore ideas, intentions, thoughts and feelings to other

people as a way to make the message clearly delivered and well understood by thehearer.

Byrne (1976:8) describes speaking as “a two-way process between the speaker(s) and the listener(s) involving the productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill of understanding.” It can be transferred from his idea that both

speaker and listener have the function in the interaction The message has to beencoded by the speaker in order to convey it in appropriate language, while thelistener has to decode the message

Sharing this point of view Thornbury (2005) reveals that “speaking can be typified as an activity involving two or more people, in which the participants are both hearers and speakers having to react to what they hear and make their contribution.” The communication purpose can be broken when both participant do

not have intention to make their contribution to the conversation

In short, speaking can be seen as the way people interact and shareinformation By mastering speaking skills, students can improve the communicativecompetence which helps them much in the process of language acquisition

2.3.2 Types and Elements of Speaking

a Types of Speaking

The oral communication helps people convey their ideas Brown (2001)states that oral communication skills have two types namely monologues anddialogues

According to Brown and Yule (1983), the monologue involves the ability toperform an interrupted oral presentation such as speeches of a politician; a reporterreads news on the radio or TV This type corresponds with one-direction oftransferring the information from the speaker to the listeners It is used as a writtenform which suggests no reaction and response from the listeners

The dialogue involves two or more speakers for transactional and ininteractive purpose Turn taking happens in order to change the roles of speakersand listeners in this type Participants exchange ideas directly and quickly Using

dialogue to teaching speaking skill for students seems to be a good choice for

educators and teachers as Byrne (1986) says: “Dialogues seem to be best suited to the teaching of the spoken language.” This technique will be discussed more in next

chapters

b Elements of Speaking

According to Harmer (2001), in spoken language some elements should be

included: the first one is being connected speech This means that a good speaker

should have ability to sound words correctly and connect the sounds to words to

each other The second element is an expressive device We can use pitch change, intonation, and stress to convey different meanings The third is Lexis and grammar This reflects the speaker’s ability of using phrases in appropriate way depending on the language function The last is negotiation language It means that

the speaker can make clarification and display good talking structure by creatingeffective speaking

Brown (2001) also indicates that rhythm and intonation, fluency, and accuracy are three aspects of speaking The speaker’s ability to articulate the words

clearly shows his or her fluency while accuracy reflects the speaker’s ability inusing the word naturally

Along with Brown, Burkart (1998) mentions three knowledge areas of

speaking: mechanics, function, social and cultural rules and norms He claims that

language learners need to recognize these three aspects in speaking

- Mechanics involves pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary which show the

ability of using of right words in the right order with the correct pronunciation

- Functions involve transaction and interaction which shows the ability of knowing

when clarity of message is essential (transaction/ information exchange) and whenprecise understanding is not required (interaction/ relationship building)

- Social and cultural rules and norms involves turn-taking, rate of speech, length of

pauses between speakers and relative roles of participants which shows the ability

of understanding how to take into account who is speaking to whom, in whatcircumstances, about what, and for what reason.

Finally, Burkat (1998) states that in the communicative model of teachingspeaking, teachers need help their students raise their awareness of this knowledge

by providing authentic practice that prepares students for real-life communicationsituations and help their students develop the ability to produce grammaticallycorrect, logically connected sentences that are appropriate to specific contexts, and

to do so using acceptable pronunciation

a Talk as Interaction

According to Richards (2006), Talk as interaction refers to what we normally

mean “conversation” and describes interaction that servers a primarily socialfunction In our daily life, people meet each other then exchange greetings,engaging small talks or sharing their experience and so on in order to maintain thesocial relationship with other people Depending on the circumstances, theseexchanges can be casual or more formal Brown and Yule (1983) describe the main

features of talk as interaction as follows:

 Having a primarily social function

 Reflecting role relationship

 Reflecting speaker’s identity

 Having formal or casual

 Using conversational convention

 Reflecting degree of politeness

 Employing many generic words

 Using conversational register

 Being jointly constructed

Talking as interaction is a priority for students at upper secondary schools.

The material for them to practice, therefore, is designed as conversations Someskills are required when students talk as interaction:

- Opening and closing the conversation

- Choosing topics

- Making small talk

- Recounting personal incidents and experiences

Burns (1998) offers two different types of talk as transaction One is the

situations where giving and receiving the information is the most important and theparticipants focus on what is said or achieved Information successfulcommunicated or understood is more important than accuracy The second type istransactions which focus on obtaining goods or services such as booking for a room

in a hotel

The main features of talk as transaction are well described again by Richards

(2006):

 It has a primarily information focus

 The main focus is the information and not the participants

 Participants employ communication strategies to make themunderstood

 There may be frequent questions, repetitions, and comprehensionchecks

 There may be negotiation and digression

 Linguistic accuracy is not always important

Speakers also need some of the skills for this type of talk as follows:

- Explaining a need or intention

monologues rather than dialogues It often follows a recognizable format such as aspeech of thank you and is closer to the form of written language thanconversational language Talk of performance focuses on its effectiveness and theimpact on the listeners

The main features of Talk as performance are:

 There is a main focus on both message and audience

 It reflects organization and sequencing

 Form and accuracy is important

 Language is more like written language.

 It is often monologic

Some of the skills involved in talking as performance are:

- Using an appropriate format

- Presenting information in an appropriate sequence

- Maintaining audience engagement

- Using correct pronunciation and grammar

- Creating an effect on the audience

- Using appropriate vocabulary

- Using appropriate opening and closing

Understanding of the functions of speaking helps teacher design speakingactivities appropriately Talk as interaction seems to be the most difficult to masterfor students and to teach for teachers However, students at upper secondary schoolsare required to achieve the skill of this type This demands teachers in identifyingstrategies to provide opportunities for learners to acquire skills

2.3.4 Principles for Teaching Speaking Skill

The goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency However,teacher should have a consideration to the students’ level to apply or combineappropriate activities in teaching According to Forseth et al (1995: 35-38), someprinciples should be taken in teaching speaking skill as follows

a For the beginning level

- Limit the objectives to avoid overwhelming the learners Provide the students withenough structured practice so they can begin interacting at a basic level This willreduce students’ fear and encourage more speaking More free production can comeafter structured practice

- Mix the speaking activities with comprehension work; have students listen to theteacher or each other before they speak Comprehension work fosters an interactionbetween speaking and listening

- Provide activities which involve dialogues and functional use of the language.Focus on language use rather than knowledge about language Functions involve afocus on meaning.

- Do not emphasize the significance of mistakes This encourages students to speakwithout fear of correction This increases focus on meaning and communicationrather than grammatical correctness Corrections should especially focus onproblems affecting clear communication or language already taught to the students

- State the purpose / goal of the activities to the students This provides a context orfocuses to help comprehension and allows the learners to concentrate on the taskand understand why they are doing it

b For the intermediate and advanced levels

- Focus on and work toward real, spontaneous speech Avoid from based drills( repetitive or grammar-based exercises)

- Design activities which encourage natural interaction between speakers

- Place students in pairs, triads or small groups Smaller groups and pairs arestudents-centered This increases the quantity of speech spoken by the students andlowers their anxiety

- Provide topics of interest to the students Interesting topics increase students’motivation This fosters a focus on meaning

At the advanced level, especially in free production, allow only speech in thetarget language

For students at upper secondary school, they are normally at intermediate level.Therefore, teachers should create appropriate activities which involve students inspeaking naturally

Brown (1994) also offers 7 principles for teaching speaking skill

 Principle 1: Focus on both fluency and accuracy depending on your objective.

This principle suggests that teachers should be sure about their tasks whichhave linguistic objective and always create opportunities to help students perceiveand use the building blocks of language

 Principle 2: Providing intrinsically motivating techniques.

According to Brown, teachers have to appeal to students’ ultimate goals andinterests to their need for knowledge, for status, for achieving competence andautonomy and help them to see how the activity will benefit them

 Principle 3: Encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts.

Authentic contexts and meaningful interaction may require teachers a lotenergy and creativity However, with the help of a storehouse of teacher resourcematerials it can be done

 Principle 4: Provide appropriate feedback and correction.

Teachers have responsibility to make the decision about how to react andwhen to react to the students’ performance and inject kinds of corrective feedbackthat are appropriate for the moment

 Principle 5: Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening.

Speaking and Listening are skills which reinforce each other In other words,they are closely intertwined Skills in producing language are often initiated throughcomprehension

 Principle 6: Give students opportunities to initiate oral communication.

Students are given opportunities to show oral communicative competence whichreflects their ability to initiate conversations, to nominate topics, to ask questions, tocontrol the conversations, and to change the subject

 Principle 7: Encourage the development of speaking strategy.

This strategy is shown through students’ communicative competence such asasking for clarification, asking someone to repeat something

2.3.5 Steps of Teaching Speaking Skills

Many researchers such as Florez (1999), Brown (1994), Burns & Joyce (1997),Carter & Mc Carthy (1995) have the same view on the set of procedures for

teaching speaking skills A speaking lesson will follow the common paradigm ofpreparation, presentation, practice, evaluation, and extension.

a Step one: Preparation

The teacher establishes a context for the speaking task (where, when, why, andwith whom it will occur) and set the objective of the speaking skill to be targeted( asking for clarification, stressing key words, using reduced forms of words)

b Step two: Presentation

The teacher provides learners with a preproduction model that furthers themcomprehension and helps them become more attention observers of language use

c Step three: Practice

The teacher involves learners in reproducing the targeted structure in acontrolled or highly supported manner

d Step four: Evaluation

The teacher involves directing attention to the skill being examined and askinglearners to monitor and assess their own progress

e Final step: Extension

The teacher gives activities that require learners to use the strategy or skill in adifferent context or authentic communicative situation At this stage the learnermust integrate the use of new skill or strategy with previously acquired ones

2.3.6 Stages for Teaching Speaking Skills

In “Methodology course 1-Teaching the skills” (Hanoi 2002: 42-43) it issuggested that a speaking lesson should have three stages: pre-speaking, while-speaking, and post-speaking

a The Pre-speaking Stage

This stage can be seen as the preparation for the students With some activities such

as brainstorming, discussion tasks, vocabulary tasks or pre-speaking questions,students will find it familiar to the topics they are going to speak Moreover, this isthe step which teachers motivate students and raise the interest in the lesson Inaddition, before delivering the activities for this stage, the teacher needs to identify

the objective of the lesson, the situation of teaching and learning, and the students’need as well.

b The While-speaking Stage:

This stage is often called controlled speaking Teachers can design the activitiesbasing on the tasks in the textbook or adapt some more activities to increase thecommunicative factor at this stage Students are supposed to do the tasks in pair orgroup work This stage aims to develop students’ speaking skill by doing thecontrolled tasks and activities themselves The tasks and activities also supplyopportunity for students to practice the accuracy and fluency Teacher needs tomonitor the activities and provide help for the weak students who have difficultycompleting the task at this stage

c The Post-speaking Stage:

This is the freer speaking stage Students are required to use the target languagewhich they have learnt and practiced, and their language knowledge to produce theirspeaking communicatively What they produce reflects the result of their practicestage, their interests or views At this stage, the teacher plays the role as observer,assessor who provides appropriate feedback to students

Basically, a speaking lesson should follow these stages orderly Nevertheless,the procedure of a speaking lesson may flexible due to each lesson, time constraint,objectives of the lesson, types of students and materials in use However, teacherneeds to have an overview of the lesson to assess how far their students achieveafter the lesson

2.3.7 Problems with Speaking and Speaking Activities

a Problems with Speaking

Speaking is considered to be similar to oral communication skill Brown(2000) states that, some characteristics of spoken language can make oralperformance easy as well as, in some cases, difficult

Fluency in speech requires the use of phrases, not word by word Clusteringsomehow can prevent learners from producing their conversation fluently

 Redundancy

Brown claims that the speaker has an opportunity to make meaning clearerthrough the redundancy of language However, this also causes confusing to thelearners when they use target language

The way of contractions, elisions, reduced vowels, etc., can be seen asproblems in teaching spoken English Because of this problem, students sometimesdevelop an unnatural and bookish quality of speaking

This can be an advance of spoken language which allows learners to manifest awide range of performance such as hesitations, pauses, backtracking, andcorrections However, learners should be taught how to pause and hesitate, the way

of using fillers such as uh, well, you know, I mean, like, etc., in English which

makes their conversations smoothly

Words, idioms, and phrases of colloquial language are often used when weuse oral communication skill Therefore, students should be equipped theknowledge of this characteristic when they produce the conversations

b Problems with Speaking Activities

Ur (1996: 121) suggests some problems teachers and students may have in theprocess of teaching and learning with speaking activities

Inhibition: Learners are often inhibition about trying to say things in a foreign

language They are often worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism orlosing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts

Nothing to say: Learners often complain that they cannot think of anything to

say, or that they have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling

Low or uneven participation: In a large group, students may have only very little

talking time which leads to the tendency of some learners dominant, while othersspeak very little or not at all

Mother-tongue use: In classes students tend to use mother tongue because it is

easier Moreover, they feel unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign languageand because they feel less “exposed” if they are speaking their mother tongue.These problems face the teachers and students in mastering the art of speaking.Basing on this view, the research is therefore written in order to investigate thedifficulties at some upper secondary schools in Nghe An and suggest the application

of CAs to improve the quality of teaching and leaning speaking skill 2.4 COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT)

2.4.1 Definitions of CLT

Richards defines that CLT can be understood as a set of principles about thegoal of language teaching, how learners learn a language, the kind of classroomactivities that best facilitate learning, and the role of teachers and learners in theclassroom

The term CLT, in fact, covers a variety of approaches that all focus onhelping learners to communicate meaningfully in a target language rather than asingle methodology These approaches parade under the general label

“communicative”, all of which characterize language teaching as the development

of communicative skills (Nunan, 1991: 78) CLT sets its goal to teach the learnersthe communicative competence and this approach does a lot to expand on the goal

of creating communicative competence compared to earlier method that focused onthe same objective Teaching students how to use the language can be seen asimportant as learning the language itself

According to Brown “We are exploring pedagogical means for ‘real life’ communication in the classroom” and “We are concerned with how to facilitate lifelong language learning among our students, not just with the immediate classroom task”( 1994: 77)

There are many interpretations of what CLT actually means and involves

However there are still some misconceptions about CLT “Many teachers of English believe that CLT means not teaching grammar, or CLT means teaching

only speaking not writing, listening and reading” (Thompson, 1996) As a result,

this approach may be applied inappropriately

Although the various definitions of CLT have been offered, all of these alsoclaim that the goal of teaching language is to develop learners’ communicativecompetence which involves the ability to use the language appropriately to a socialcontext These components can be seen as linguistic competence, sociolinguisticcompetence, discourse competence, and strategic competence In order to helpreaders see what CLT means deeply and completely, some characteristics of CLTwould be addressed in the next section

- Fluency and accuracy are seen as complementary principles underlyingcommunicative techniques At times fluency may have to take on more importancethan accuracy in order to keep learners meaningfully engaged in language use

- In the communicative classroom, students ultimately have to use the language,productively and receptively, in unrehearsed contexts

Sharing the same view, Nunan (1991: 279) also proposed five commoncharacteristics of CLT classrooms:

- An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the targetlanguage

- The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation

- The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also

on the learning process itself

- An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as importantcontributing elements to classroom learning

- An attempt to link classroom language learning to language activation outside theclassroom

2.4.3 Teacher’s and Learner’s Roles in CLT

a Teacher’s Roles

CLT focuses on the important of providing learners with activities whichgive them the opportunity to use target language for their communicative purpose The type of classroom activities in CLT, therefore, requires teachers' new roles inthe classroom Rather than being a model for correct speech, teachers haveresponsibility to facilitate the communication among learners, they establish theCAs in order to supply their students the chance to share their ideas and opinions on

a regular basis In another word, this involves students in realistic communication

According to Harmer (2001: 56-57), teachers performs multi-roles which

vary for different activities such as controller, organizer, prompter, counselor, informants, assessor, participant, observer, tutor, performer, and as a resource.

Additionally, some other authors view teacher’s role as facilitator (Nunan,1991), need analyst (Richards and Rogers, 1994), instructor, co-communicator(Littlewood, 1991), researcher (Breen and Candlin, 1980), manager (Freeman,1986)

Obviously, teachers play many new roles in CLT However, it depends onthe teaching context in which some roles are more prominent than others

b Learner’s Roles

A great deal of use of authentic language is implied in CLT CLT employslearner-centered approach in which students are communicators It is supposed thatlearners now participate in classroom activities that base on a cooperative rather

than individualistic approach to learning They should feel comfortable withlistening to their peer in pair work or group work tasks.

Furthermore, Breen and Cardlin (1980: 110) describe learner’s role in CLT

as “negotiator – between the self and learning process and the object of learning – emerges from and interacts with the role of joint negotiator within the group and within the classroom procedures and activities which the group undertakes”.

In order to achieve the aim of communication successfully, learners are supposed towork as communicators and negotiators They are also claimed to take on moreresponsible for their own learning

2.5 COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES (CAs)

2.5.1 Definitions of CAs

CAs, as their name implies, are defined by many researchers These activitiesare supposed to encourage and require a learner to speak with and listen to otherlearners, as well as people in the program and community They have real purposes

of finding information, breaking down barriers, talking about self, and learn aboutculture

Nunan (1993:59) states that a communicative task is a “piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing, or interacting in the target language while their attention is focused on meaning rather than form”.

Littlewood (1990:16) defined CAs as “one which exhibits the characteristics

at the communicative end of our continuum”.

Harmer (2001) demonstrates that students should have a desire tocommunicate something, a purpose for communicating and they should be focused

on the content of what they are saying rather than on a particular language form.They should use variety of language and the teacher will not intervene to stop theactivities; and the material the teachers relies on will not dictate what specificlanguage forms the students use either Harmer (2001: 85) emphasizes the contrast

of CAs and non-CAs in this figure

Non-CAs CAs

In other words, CAs bring classroom language into real life by providing acommunicative environment of speaking where students interactive exchange ideas,opinions and feelings with the others with various use of language

2.5.2 Characteristics of CAs

Some characteristics of CAs are offered by Nicolas and Arthur (1998) asfollows

 They involve using language for a purpose

 They create a desire to communicate This means there must be some kinds

of “gap” such as “information gap” and “opinion gap” which students seek abridge

 They encourage students to be creative and to contribute their ideas

 They focus on the message and the students concentrate on “what” they aresaying rather than “how” they are saying it

 The students work independently of the teacher

 The students determine what they want to say or write The activity is notdesigned to control what the students will say

2.5.3 Types of Classroom CAs

Littlewood (1990) offers two main categories of CAs which are functional CAsand social interaction activities

 no communicative desire

 no communicative purpose

 form not content

 one language item only

 Functional Activities

He groups thes activities into four types

Sharing information with restricted cooperation

In this kind of activities, information is known by one student (or group) andthe other have purpose to discover the unknown information In order to keep theinteraction forward, the knower is not allowed to cooperate fully and he has torespond to information appropriate to cues The participants complete the task ofcommunication by sharing the information These activities are often identifyingpictures, discovering identical pairs, discovering missing information, missingfeatures or secrets

Sharing information with unrestricted co-operation

These activities aim to reduce the conventions that restrict the cooperation ininteraction among students The result is many realistic patterns of interaction areused and they produce a wider variety of communicative functions Learners uselanguage not only to ask and answer but also for describing, suggesting, asking forclarification, helping each other and so on

Sharing and processing information

In these activities, learners seem to have successful communication whenthey gains the facts possessed by others By discussing and evaluating theinformation, learners can widen the range of communicative functions.Furthermore, these activities increase the unpredictability of the interaction.Gradually, learners will develop their performance in communication in order toexpress ideas for which they have not been prepared These activities also lead tomore scope for disagreement and negotiation Some activities in this type arereconstructing story-sequences, pooling information to solve a problem

Processing information

Learners have access to all the relevant facts which stimulate them tocommunicate in order to discuss and evaluate these facts, in pairs or groups Theynow can solve a problem or reach a decision In these activities, in order to reach a

common decision, learners have to analyze information, argue, justify and persuadewith each other They therefore develop skills in managing the interaction atinterpersonal level.

We can see how learners benefit from functional communication activitieswhen they use language to solve communication problems However, the situationsthat they practice in the classroom sometimes they hardly meet outside theclassroom such as finding, matching pictures or sorting out jumbled sentences Inaddition the learners’ social role is unclear and irrelevant to the functional purpose

of the interaction Litterwood (1990) therefore suggests the wider range of CAswhich is called ‘social interaction activities’

Social interaction activities add a further aspect to the functional activities, theactivity therefore become a ‘social interaction activity’ In these activities, thelearners’ choice of language is affected by both social and functionalconsiderations Social acceptability and functional effectiveness are factors toevaluate the language that the learners produce in their interaction

The classroom as a social context

The classroom seems to be seen as an artificial environment for learning andusing language However, we can solve this problem by consider it as a socialcontext This means that teachers need to prepare students for the varied socialcontexts which they may perform outside the classroom The activities should bemore closely to the kind of communicative situation encountered outside theclassroom, where language is not only a functional instrument, but also a form ofsocial behavior Littlewood (1990) offers four approaches to exploit the classroomenvironment as a social context for foreign language use as follows:

- Using the foreign language for classroom management

- Using the foreign language as a teaching medium

- Conversation or discussions sections

- Basing dialogues and role-plays on school experience

Simulation and Role-play

With simulation and role play, students are prepared for real context outsidethe classroom They are required to imagine themselves for real situations and theyare asked to adopt a specific role in this situation and they have to act as thesituation really exists in accordance with their roles These activities can be well-organized for organizing controlled, pre-communicative language practice

While Littlewood classifies the CAs into two groups which are functional CAsand social interaction activities, Harmer (2001), on the other hand, groups them intotwo main kinds of oral CAs and written CAs

Problem-solving

This type of activity helps students develop their language skills innegotiating and find solutions to a set of problems, situations or tasks

Simulation and role-play

Role-play activities increase the learners’ motivation and provide themopportunities to use language in a new context and for new topics Small groups,often pairs are given situations and roles to act out and explore simultaneously.Like role-play, simulation can be seen as simplifications of real world situations.Students can develop their social skills such as decision making persuading,influencing and so forth

Discussion

Discussion is described as the most natural and effective way for learners topractice talking freely in English This activity also reduces the shyness from

students when they produce their speech In addition, discuss helps them to gather awide range of information from their friends.

Relaying instructions

Students are required to give each other instructions They create a modelthen instruct another group or other groups so that they can duplicate the originalmodel

Interview

Interview is the activity which is often used in communicative classroom.Students need to raise questions and answers according to their role With thisactivity students have chance to speak language naturally

Communicative games

Teachers have to design a game-like task in which students can use variousform of language they possess to complete the task, based on the principle ofinformation gap These activities can be seen as the integration of such skills such

as reading, speaking, listening and discussing

Harmer (2001:139) reminds that of the two types written CAs and oral CAs,oral CAs tend to be used more often and widely in speaking classroom rather thanwritten CAs

Basically, some types of CAs have been discussed in this section Theeffectiveness of these activities in real classrooms will be mentioned again in nextchapters

2.5.4 Purposes of CAs

Littlewood (1990) in “Communicative Language Teaching” summarizes fourcontributions that CAs can make to language learning as follows

They provide ‘whole-task practice’

Through various kinds of communication activity, learners are provided anopportunity to train and practice in foreign language learning In other words, theypractice language in a total skill

They improve motivation

The learners’ ultimate objective is to take part in communication with others.When the activities in the classroom help them achieve this goal, this seems tomotivate them a lot.

They allow natural learning

There is a fact that many of language learning can take place only throughnatural processes, which operate when a person is involved in using the languagefor communication Therefore communicative activities become an important part

in learning process

They can create a context which supports learning

Learning language through CAs helps learners establish positive personalrelationship to develop among them and between learners and teacher In addition,CAs create an environment which supports individual to show his or her efforts tolearn language

2.6 INTERACTION IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

It is believed that ESL/EFL classroom should provide learners withmaximum exposure to the target language to enhance their learning and developtheir communicative competence Therefore, interaction in the classroom seems tohelp students in their learning and sets the interpersonal relationship betweenteacher and students, students and students Littlewood (1981) states the positive

personal relationship between teacher and students as this relationship “…can help

to ‘humanize” the classroom and to create an environment that supports the individual in his efforts to learn” In the same view, Brown (1994: 227) calls this “ face-to-face communication with people is context-embedded”

Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) show that the most common type of classroominteraction is known as ‘IRF – Initiation-Response-Feedback’ This type isdescribed as the teacher initiates an exchange, usually in a form of question, one ofthe students answers, the teacher gives the feedback However, Ur (1996: 228)claims that other alternative patterns of interaction may occur between students, or

between students and the material He classifies the interaction patterns inclassroom as follows:

Group work

Students work in small groups on tasks that entail interaction conveyinginformation, for example or group decision-making The teacher walks aroundlistening, and intervenes little

Closed-ended teacher questioning (“IRF”)

Only one “right” response gets approved, sometimes cynically called “Guesswhat the teacher wants you to say” game

Student initiates, teacher answers

For example, in guessing game: the students think of questions and theteacher respond; but the teacher decides who asks

Full-class interaction

The students debate a topic or do a language task as a class: the teacher mayintervene occasionally, to stimulate or monitor

Teacher talk

This may involve some kind of silent students' response, such as writing,from diction but there is no initiative on the part of the student.

Self-access

Students choose their own learning tasks, and work autonomously

Open-ended teacher questioning

There are a number of possible ‘right’ answers, so that more students answer

each cue

CHAPTER 3REASEARCH METHODOLOGY3.1 OVERVIEW

On the basis of the theories presented in the Theoretical Background, theinvestigation into the current situation of teaching speaking skills at uppersecondary schools in Nghe An was carried out The survey was conducted on the

10th graders and teachers of upper secondary schools to find out how teachers makeuse of CAs in speaking lesson and how they had impact on students’ learning.Therefore, it required choosing descriptive statistics as the main research methodand questionnaires for both teachers and students as the main instruments to collectdata In addition, pilot teaching with CAs and teachers’ evaluation, students’interviews after the lesson were used as supporting methods to supply extrainformation

3.2 PARTICIPANTS

The participants of this research consist of two groups: upper secondary schoolteachers and students In this study, no names of teachers or students wereidentified

Table 3.1: Teachers’ Background Information

Years of teaching English