As previously mentioned, the survey questionnaire for teachers consists of 3 parts with 16 questions including open-ended and close-ended questions. Part one is constituted by 4 questions conveying teachers’ attitudes towards teaching speaking skills. Part two asks about teachers’ attitudes towards communicative activities, which includes 9 questions. The final three questions elicit data on the teachers’ difficulties in using communicative activities to teach English speaking skill.
4.1.2.1 Teachers‟ attitudes towards teaching English speaking skills The first four questions were designed to find out the teachers’ attitudes towards teaching English speaking skills.
85%
13%
2%
ve ry important important unimportant
Figure 5: Teachers' attitudes towards the role of speaking skill
As can be seen from the above Figure, almost all teachers (85%) considered that speaking skill was very important compared to other skills in the English curriculum and two of them thought that speaking was no importance. The other 13% left for valuing oral teaching as the important one. This result indicates that teachers at Do Luong 1 are all fully aware of the crucial role of speaking skill in foreign language teaching and learning.
It can be observed from the Figure 6, when being asked about the learners’
speaking ability, none of the teachers asserted that their English learners’ oral skills are either very good or bad. About 38% agreed that the students’ speaking ability was just acceptable and 42% said that it is bad. A very tiny proportion of the
teachers that accounts for 5% had the thought that it was very good and 15% said that it is good. The statistics below shows how students’ speaking ability is judged by their teachers (see Figure 6).
5%
15%
38%
42%
very good good acceptable bad
Figure 6: Teachers' attitude towards students' speaking ability Responding to question 3 about teaching the speaking skill in integration with other skills, all teachers (100%) agreed that they often taught speaking in combination with other macro skills of reading, writing and listening because they thought that those skills could support each other, which brought effectiveness to the learning process of the students.
The fourth question was made to figure out the reason why students are afraid of speaking English from the point of view of the teachers.
Figure 7 : The reasons why students are afraid of speaking from the view of teachers
According to the statistics in Figure 7, nearly half of the teachers (48%) considered that poor background knowledge is a difficulty for students to face while
48%
80%
55%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
poor background knowledge
poor vocabulary and grammartical knowledge low accuracy and fluency
speaking. Most of them (80%) admitted that poor vocabulary and grammatical knowledge are the main causes that make students scare to speak. This percentage reaches 55% to show that according to teachers, students are afraid to express their ideas in English because of their low fluency and accuracy.
The result from the first four questions indicates that the teachers were conscious of the role of speaking skills in language teaching and learning. However, according to them, the students’ level was not good enough because of some obstacles that prevented them from speaking English with confidence.
4.1.2.2 Teachers‟ attitudes towards communicative activities The next nine questions focus on the teachers’ attitudes towards
communicative activities. The first question aimed to find out the teachers’ thinking of the communicative activities in the textbook for 10th grade students. As can be seen from figure 8, about 45% the teachers thought that the number of
communicative activities for speaking in the textbook are enough, helpful and even interesting. This rate falls to 25% for those who had the thought of which
communicative activities in the textbook are various. Nearly half of the teachers (30%) considered these activities are boring.
17%
30%
10%
25%
18%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
Interesting Boring Enough Various Helpful
Figure 8: Teachers' attitudes towards CAs in the textbook English 10
The aim of question 6 is to show the teachers’ time of using communicative activities.
Figure 9: Teachers' time to use CAs
Most of the teachers (80%) shared the idea of using the activities while teaching language items, during the lesson. Only 15% of them organized the class with communicative activities at the beginning of the lesson as a means for warming up the students and 5% of teachers applied them at the end of the lesson. This result bears an encouraging signal in which all the respondents were familiar with communicative activities and they used to employ this sort of activity in their lessons.
Question 7 deals with the communicative activities which the teachers frequently use in speaking teaching.
Figure 10: Teachers' kinds of CAs applied in speaking lesson
The chart in Figure 10 clearly indicates that the teachers make the best use of different types of speaking activities in their English lessons. Those activities such
5%
80%
15%
At the be gi nni ng of the l e sson
Duri ng the l e sson At the e nd of the l e sson
75%
55%
12% 10%
90%
25%
87%
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
discussion interview Using songs Discourse chain Role play Communicative games
Question and answer
as discussion, interviews, using songs, role-play communicative games, question and answer, and dialogue, etc. prove to be useful to help develop communicative competence for their students. Among these activities, discussion, role-play, question and answer rank the first in the list that accounts for approximately 85% of the teachers who preferred to use them in English teaching process. Meanwhile, a tiny proportion reported their exploitation of using songs as communicative activity in their lesson because they lack material that was suitable for the topic of the lesson in the course book. In short, this result is a good sign that the teachers are trying their best to adopt new CLT methods and techniques in teaching speaking to their students to enhance their oral skills.
4.1.2.3 Teachers‟ implementation of CAs
The investigation into teachers’ awareness of the use of CAs aims to discover the implementation of these kinds of activities in classroom, and how they were applied and managed by teachers. In terms of the content of CAs, 100% of teachers showed their agreement that the content of CAs in their speaking lessons is relate to the lesson.
From the observation data, it can be concluded that teachers paid much attention to the content of CAs used in classes. Generally, some activities such as warm-up activities, discussion can be linked to the topic of the speaking lessons.
In order to design appropriate lessons, teachers need percept completely the purposes of CAs. Therefore, before teachers make a lesson plan they should set the aims for the CAs in their teaching procedure.
Aims of CAs N = 10 %
To encourage students to speak target language 8 80%
To stimulate the students’ motivation 7 70%
To have students get out of shyness 6 60%
To meet the demand of students’ communicative
purposes 8 80%
All the above mentioned reasons 7 70%
Other reasons 0 0%
Table 5: Teachers’ perception towards the aims of CAs
As shown in Table 5, the data provide evidence that most of the teachers were aware of the communicative activity purposes that was a good sign for students.
4.1.2.4 Teachers‟ assessments on the contribution of CAs
The question about the success of English language speaking lessons was raised in order to find out teachers’ assessments in terms of CAs.
Teachers’ opinions Occurrence %
Less successful 8 80%
As successful as periods with CAs 2 20%
More successful 0 0%
No ideas 0 0%
Table 6: Teachers’ feedbacks on the lessons without CAs
The findings reveal that many teachers were conscious of the importance of CAs. This reflects in the data that 80% of teachers believed that if no CAs were employed in teaching speaking, their lessons would be less successful. One teacher pointed out that speaking lessons with CAs would be as successful as those without them. 20% of teachers gave no ideas about this, might show their less certain of these activities in use.
It can be realized from the findings that different kinds of CAs have been used. However, the concern here is why some activities are often chosen, some are less and whether these activities meet the students’ favorite activities. This will be discussed more in the next parts.
It is undeniable that CAs have offered the teaching of English in general and teaching speaking skills in a particular a wide range of benefits. In the investigation, some of the benefits were selected and presented below.
Figure 11: Teachers’ opinions about the benefits of CAs
Figure 11: Teachers' opinions about the benefits of CAs
The majority of teachers (81%) assumed that CAs used to motivate students could be applied at any stages of the teaching process to attract students’ attention.
Moreover, 55% of teachers supposed that students could develop their language
skills totally thanks to CAs. Not many teache rs were completely conscious that CAs were also means to provide communicative
contexts (25%) and create natural learning environment (21%) for students.
4.1.2.4 Teachers‟ role in designing and managing CAs in classrooms
Teachers play an irreplaceable role in the teaching process. Their responsibility is to make sure that students perceive the connection between practice exercises and CAs. As a result, students’ learning process deals with the matter how teachers design the activities for their lessons. In addition, teachers’ management in the classroom makes an important contribution to the success of the lessons.
Therefore, what teachers thought they should do in speaking classes to motivate their students to participate in activities eagerly will be shown in the Table below.
81%
55%
25% 21%
Teacher’s Roles N = 10 %
Not to interfere 2 20%
Interfering whenever you find your students make mistake 2 20%
Collecting students’ common mistakes without interfering
them 5 50%
Joining the activities with students as a participant 6 60%
Encouraging all students to participate in the activities 9 90%
Table 7: Roles of the teachers during the CAs
As indicated in Table 7, many teachers (90%) tried to encourage their students to participate in the activities. This is a necessary task because with teachers’ encouragement students find it comfortable to take part in the activities.
60% of them chose joining the activities with students as participants. By contrast, 50% only collected students’ mistakes without interfering them. However, 20%
decided to interfere whenever they found their students’ mistakes. The findings also show that 20% of teachers thought that they should let their students communicate freely and comfortably and therefore they would not interfere them in any way.
Furthermore, in order to promote communication in speaking classes, teachers might have many ways to conduct CAs effectively. These things could be done before the lessons, during the lessons and even after the lessons.
It is obvious that to have a good lesson, teachers need much time, energy as well as their creativity. That is the reason why 90% of the teachers stated that good preparation could promote CAs. According to 80% of teachers, in order to get effectiveness of CAs teacher should encourage their students in learning process.
60% of teachers believed that discussing and sharing experience with other colleagues could work while only 70% thought that CAs could take their advantages when they organized class work appropriately. Teacher informants’
ways to promote CAs is showed in Table 4.8.
Ways to promote CAs N =10 %
Make good preparation 9 90%
Encourage students 8 80%
Discuss and share the experience with colleagues 6 60%
Organize the class work appropriately 7 70%
Other things 0 0%
Table 8: Teachers’ opinion of the ways to promote CAs
In brief, the observation data indicated that the preparation-stage was appreciated by the teachers. Yet, they may combine all of these techniques to make full use of CAs in their teaching.
4.1.2.5 Teachers‟ difficulties in applying communicative activities
In order to find out the obstacles that teachers of English at Do Luong 1 often meet when applying communicative activities to teach speaking skill, the final three questions were given to them.
Variations Questions
A B C D
9. In terms of students’ side 55% 40% 5%
10. In terms of teachers’ side 65% 35%
11. In terms of objective factors 70% 10% 10% 10%
Table 9: Teachers’ difficulties in applying communicative activities Table 9 distinctly presents some major obstacles teachers encounter when they apply communicative activities in their English teaching. Studying these difficulties
helps the researcher grasp a proper understanding about the situation of communicative activities employment among teachers. From the table, it can be seen that the difficulties are divided into three categories: from student’s side, from teachers’ side and objective factors. In terms of students’ side, more than half of the teachers claimed that students often keep quiet and only speak when they are asked.
Moreover, about 40% of the teachers said that the learners are too shy to speak in front of the class. Only 5% thought that the obstruction came from the fact that learners are not interested in teaches’ given topic for speaking activities.
As for teachers’ difficulties, most of them (65%) admitted that designing a communicative activity took them too much time. Besides, 35% of the teachers confessed that it was too difficult for them to organize a speaking activity for students.
Besides, objective factors also seem to be the barriers that prevent the teachers from carrying out a successful communicative activity. About 70% of the teachers reported that the lack of materials caused difficulties in organizing speaking activities. Only 10% of the teachers said that the problem come from the class size and 10% blamed the atmosphere of the class that decided the success of communicative activities. Moreover, time allocation for the activities was also a problem of not a small number of the teachers (10%). Hence, they found it difficult to apply such a successful communicative activity in an English lesson.
These are some difficulties that the teachers have encountered when applying communicative activities. A careful study in the attitudes of students towards speaking skill as well as communicative activities can tell whether teachers really have those obstacles or not. The next section presents information collected from students.