VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES ************************ LÊ THỊ THANH APPLYING TASK-BASED APPROACH IN TEACHING ENGLISH GRAMMAR: ACTION RESEARCH AT UNIVER ENGLISH CENTER Áp dụng đường hướng dạy học thông qua nhiệm vụ để dạy ngữ pháp: nghiên cứu hành động ở trung tâm Anh ngữ Univer M. COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI – 2016 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES ************************ LÊ THỊ THANH APPLYING TASK-BASED APPROACH IN TEACHING ENGLISH GRAMMAR: ACTION RESEARCH AT UNIVER ENGLISH CENTER Áp dụng đường hướng dạy học thông qua nhiệm vụ để dạy ngữ pháp: nghiên cứu hành động ở trung tâm Anh ngữ Univer M. COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr. Dương Thị Nụ HANOI – 2016 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION OF ORINALITY I declare that this thesis submitted for the Master of Art degree at the University of Languages and International Studies is a presentation of my own research and has not been previously submitted at any other universities for any degrees.
Wherever contributions of other researches are involved, every effort is made to indicate this clearly, with due reference to the literature, and acknowledgement of collaborative research and discussion. The work was done under the guidance of Doctor Duong Thi Nu, at University of Languages and International Studies. Hanoi, 2017 L Th Th nh i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To complete this thesis, I owe profound indebtedness to many people who have assisted me a lot when I carried out the research. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.
Duong Thi Nu, for all the helpful support, guidance and encouragement she gave me while I was conducting the research. I am truly grateful to her for her advice and suggestions right from the beginning when this study was only on its formative stage. I would like to send my sincere thanks to all other teachers and lecturers at Faculty of Graduate and Postgraduate Studies for all the valuable and priceless knowledge and experience they have transferred to me and to all my students at Univer English Center who have enthusiastically participated in the study. Without their assistance, it would have been impossible for me to handle this work.
I owe a great debt of gratitude to my family and friends for all the support I received to finish this thesis. ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT Grammar plays a crucial role in English language learning and teaching, establishing the ground for every other aspect of language. Yet the use of grammar in practices such as writing and speaking is not flexible to many of the students. Moreover, students get bored of the traditional approaches and quickly forget the knowledge or get troubles applying it in real life.
That is especially true for university students of low level at Univer English Center who are seeking for better English for their job in the future. Task-based approach designed with activities around a focal task that is similar to the task in real world, promoting students to use language into practical context to accomplish a specific purpose, is expected to be a resolution to the dilemma. This study is aimed at investigating the application of tasks in teaching gr mm r to find out students’ opinionss towards grammar and learning grammar through t sks, the extent to which the use of t sks to te ch gr mm r ffect students’ learning and the constraints to this application. The study was conducted in an action research, realized by means of survey questionnaire, performance tests, collections nd te cher’s journ l to chieve the desired ims.
The results indicate that the students hold positive opinionss towards grammar and learning grammar through tasks. Students are in favor of this learning and teaching approach for its effectiveness, appeal and applicability. The analysis of students’ test results lso show th t students h s m de positively significant improvement in their language proficiency particularly grammar. It is also revealed that the low language competence of students as well as the limits in a private center hindered the application of tasks in grammar teaching.
iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration of originality…………………………………………………. iii Table of contents…………………………………………………………… iv List of Abbreviations………………………………………………………. vii List of tables………………………………………………………………… viii PẢRT A: INTRODUCTION………………………………………………. Aims and objectives of the study…………………………………… 3 3.
Scopes of the study…………………………………………………. Significance of the study……………………………………………. Design of the study…………………………………………………. 3 PART D: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………….
Approaches in English Language Teaching……………………. Task-based language teaching approach………………………… 8 1. Definition of t sk……………………………………………. 17 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Grammar teaching and learning………………………………… 20 1. Task-based language teaching approach and grammar teaching 21 1. Task-based language teaching in Vietnam………………………. Review on previous studies……………………………………….
25 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY…………………………. Procedure and instruments………………………………………. The action research cycles………………………………………… 36 2. Research cycle 2……………………………………………… 40 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND 41 DISCUSSIONS………………… 3.
What are learners’ opinions towards learning grammar through tasks?. To what extent does the teaching of grammar through tasks help learners acquire and use grammar?. What are the constraints and obstacles to students in learning grammar through tasks?. 61 PART C: SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND 66 CONCLUSION… 1.
66 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research. Limitations of the study……………………………………………. 78 APPENDICES……………………………………………………………… I Appendix I: Survey questionnaire………………………………………… I Appendix II: Lesson plans for the study group………………………….
VII Appendix III: Pre-test……………………………………………………… X Appendix IV: Post-test……………………………………………………. XIII Appendix V: Raw data of the questionnaire survey……………………… XVI Appendix VI: Raw data of the pre-test and post-test results……………. XVII vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS TBLT: Task-based language teaching TBLL: Task-based language learning TBA: Task-based approach ELT: English language teaching PPP: Presentation-Practice-Production FLT: Foreign language teaching CLT: Communicative language teaching SLA: Second language acquisition GT: Grammar-Translation vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Figure 1: TBLT fr mework…………………………………………………… 18 T ble 1: Students’ gener l inform tion1……………………………………… 42 T ble 2: Students’ gener l inform tion 2……………………………………. 43 Figure 2: The degree of interest to students…………………………………… 44 Figure 3: The degree of important to students………………………………… 44 Figure 4: The degree of difficulty of grammatical structures to students’ perceptiveness…………………………………………………… 44 Figure 5: The degree of difficulty to do exercises…………………………….
44 Figure 6: The degree of students’ int ke fter being t ught…………………. 45 Figure 7: The degree of students’ bility to use gr mm tic l knowledge……. 46 Figure 8: The degree of application in other activities and contexts…………. 47 Figure 9: The grammar role in language learning…………………………….
47 Table 3: Students’ ev lu tion on le rning gr mm r vi t sks………………… 48 Figure 10: The interesting degree of learning grammar via tasks……………. 49 Figure 11: The effectiveness degree of learning grammar via tasks…………. 49 Figure 12: The degree of task difficulty………………………………………. 50 Figure 13: The degree of task suitability……………………………………… 50 Figure 14: The degree of t sk’s likeness to re lity…………………………….
51 Figure 15: The degree of t sk’ pplic bility…………………………………. 51 Table 4: Paired Sample T-test Statistics………………………………………. 52 Table 5: Paired Sampled T-test p-value………………………………………. 54 T ble 6: Students’ difficulties in le rning gr mm r………………………….
61 viii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Grammar has been holding a crucial role in language learning and cquisition, s Wood (1995) used to s y “nobody c n doubt th t good knowledge of the grammatical system is essential to master a foreign language and it is also one of the most import nt p rts of communic tive competence”. It is greed th t without comprehensive gr mm tic l knowledge, le rner’s l ngu ge development will be limited. Learning and teaching language without grammar will lead to the fact that students produce clumsy, inappropriate and meaningless sentences.
Thus, grammar is a framework without which language cannot be constructed and communication cannot be performed smoothly and fluently. However, grammar teaching is still one of the most controversial topics and remains hot in debate on language teaching. In Vietnam, the teaching and learning of grammar seem to mainly focus on teaching rules and grammatical structures which are inherently boring and difficult for students. As a result, students are gradually tired of studying grammar again and again without much success.
Grammar has been taught as a major concern for students since they were in grade 6. However, many of them seem to clear out all of grammatical knowledge taught to them when they move to next grammatical items or next stage. They can know the rules and structures but they are unable of using it in doing cumulative exercises or in practical tasks. They are not able to accumulate their grammar knowledge to apply in practical uses and to carry out communicative tasks in real world using language.
They make grammatically inaccurate sentences, which demotivates them from studying more grammar. The Task-based approach emerging from Communicative language teaching as a practical method with real-life tasks is expected to be the possible solution to the problem. In fact, TBA has been applied in many countries and regions 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com particularly in Asia with some examples of Hong Kong, China and Japan. In Vietnam, the teaching of grammar mostly deals with doing exercises and drills rather than do practice.
Task-based language teaching has been also adapted in Vietnam but has met a lot of challenges and obstacles. Therefore, the study is carried out to find out the application of TBA in teaching grammar as well as to give more grounds and examples for teachers to actively and enthusiastically apply this approach to teach grammar. It is hoped that teaching grammar using tasks would help students to understand grammatical structures and rules better with more practical perspectives and that they could produce sentences and communicate more flexibly and grammatically accurately. Aims and Objectives of the Study The study aims at finding out new way to teach grammar to students practically, to teach grammar via pedagogical tasks.
Thus, as the title suggests, the overarching aim of the study is to investigate the use of tasks in teaching grammar. To get those aims achieved, the following objectives are meant to be filled: - To investigate students’ opinions towards grammar and grammar learning through tasks - To ex mine the imp ct of t sks on students’ gr mm r le rning - To find out the constraints and obstacles to students in learning grammar through tasks - To suggest some recommendations to make the application of tasks more successfully and widely 3. Scopes of the Study The study is conducted in a 13-student English class for non-English major students aging from 18-21 who are at elementary level of language and want to improve their English firstly grammatical knowledge. The lesson designed 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com according to TBA are transferred to students and have them do tests to examine the change in language competence.
Significance of the Study The finding of the study are hoped to contribute to promote the application of tasks and TBA in teaching grammar to students. If the use of tasks is proven to be effective and useful in helping students learn grammar, it will be practiced as an ltern tive method to te ch gr mm r to improve students’ l ngu ge competence. Design of the Study The study consists of three main parts namely Introduction, Development, and Conclusion.