VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ NHÀN HOW TO INCREASE ADULTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING LESSONS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT AN ENGLISH CENTER (Làm thế nào để tăng sự tham gia của người lớn vào các bài học nói: Một nghiên cứu hành động tại một trung tâm tiếng Anh) MINOR THESIS Major : Teaching English Methodology Code : 8140231.01 HÀ NỘI- 2019 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ NHÀN HOW TO INCREASE ADULTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING LESSONS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT AN ENGLISH CENTER (Làm thế nào để tăng sự tham gia của người lớn vào các bài học nói: Một nghiên cứu hành động tại một trung tâm tiếng Anh) MINOR THESIS Major : Teaching English Methodology Code : 8140231.01 Supervisor : PHẠM LAN ANH. PHD HÀ NỘI - 2019 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “How to increase adults’ participation in speaking lessons: An action research project at an English center”submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Linguistics. Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis. Ha Noi, 2019 i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the first place, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor Dr.
Phạm Lan Anh, lecturer of Hanoi Metropolitan University for her invaluable guidance, insightful comments, invaluable advice, critical feedback and enormous encouragement. Without her help, I would not be able to complete this paper. I would like to express my indebtedness to all the lecturers and the staff at the Post Graduate Studies Department of Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies for their valuable knowledge and helpful assistance during my period of studies at the Department. They gave me precious lessons with much invaluable knowledge for my thesis’s completion.
I also would like to thank the cooperation of my colleagues and learners for their enthusiastic support in favor of my data collection for the study. Finally, my appreciation and gratefulness are sent to my family especially my parents, who have encouraged me to overcome the difficulties in the course of studying. Without their unconditional love and helpful encouragement, I could not have the strength and persistence to finish this thesis. Hanoi, April 2019 Nguyễn Thị Nhàn ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT It is undeniable that speaking participationis important in learning a new language for communication purpose.
Any learners learning a new language should take part in speaking activities in favor of their speaking improvement. This study entitled “How to increase adults’ participation in speaking lessons: An action research project at an English center” focused on how to increase adults' participation in speaking lessonsby employing communicative activities. In addition, the study was conducted in the type of action research with 10 participants in one class of the center. They have completed the interviewin favor of their participation increase to learn English.
The data was collected by interview and class observation. The process of analyzing and processing data presented that participation level was significantly improved by the communicative activity application. Finally, it is expected that the results of this study could be beneficial for development of teaching and learning at the center. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION.
iii LIST OF TABLES. vi LIST OF FIGURE. vii PART 1: INTRODUCTION. Rationale of the study.
Aims of the study. Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Structure of the thesis .4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Definitions of speaking. Approaches in teaching and learning speaking skills. Definition of participation. On – task and off – task behavior.
Definition of communicative activities. Characteristics of communicative activities. Purpose of communicative activities. Types of communicative activities.
Previous studies on participation in speaking skills. Rationale for an action research design. Action research models .18 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Data collection instruments.
Data analysis procedure .24 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS. Answer to the research question 1. Results of interview. Results of participation observation checklist.
Results of classroom observation sheet. Answer to the research question 2. Results of interview. Results of behavior observation checklists .47 PART III: CONCLUSION.
I APPENDIX 2: OBSERVATION CHECKLIST.III APPENDIX 3: OBSERVATION CHECKLIST. IV APPENDIX 4: OBSERVATION SHEET. V APPENDIX 5: SAMPLE OF INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR LEARNERS. VII APPENDIX 6: SAMPLE OF LESSON PLAN.
XII APPENDIX 7: SAMPLE OBSERVATION CHECKLIST. XIX APPENDIX 8: SAMPLE OBSERVATION CHECKLIST. XX APPENDIX 9: DATA COLLECTED IN THE OBSERVATION CHECKLIST FOR PARTICIPATION LEVEL. XXII APPENDIX 10: DATA COLLECTED IN THE OBSERVATION CHECKLIST FOR BEHAVIOR.
XXIII APPENDIX 11: DATA COLLECTED IN THE OBSERVATION SHEET.XXIV v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Checklist for participation .2: Number of on - task times (Lesson 2- initial data) .3: Number of on - task times (Lesson 3 - initial data) .4: On – task counts .50 vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF FIGURE Figure 2.1: Action research cycle (Kemmis and Mc Taggart) .3: On – task level .41 vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study English has become increasingly important to one’s success in the society since mastering it would open more opportunities for both working and studying. English has been a compulsory subject and an important task in the education and training of each country, including Vietnam. A lesson in general, an English speaking in particular cannot be admitted as successful one without learners’ active participation.
Among for English skills, speaking skills are the most important to assess who know or don’t know to communicate and their understanding of such language. At the center, the learners where the researcher works have studied English before, but they are shy to speak in the classroom. In the writer’s teaching experience, it is found that herlearners has the following problems in participation in speaking English in class. (1) They and their previous teachers only paid attention to learning vocabulary and grammar to master English drills in written form.
Other skills that did not serve for testing purpose such as speaking were ignored. (2) Inactive participation in communicative activities occurred very often as well as they are afraid of speaking wrong. (3) They do not have suitable learning methods and appropriate activities for speaking motivation. Some of them are very good at grammar; they usually gain high scores in English, but only in paper tests whereas in real life they speak very poorly.
Learning English in Vietnam has been conducted by traditional ways in which learners are very passive and do not have a communicative environment causing their ineffective speaking and boredom to participate in speaking English. From all above reasons, the writer would like to study how to increase adults' participation in speaking lessons; therefore, an attempt has been made to carry out an action research project at an English center. The further purpose of the study is to figure out appropriate strategies to enhance speaking participation for adult learners 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com as well as raise their awareness toward the importance of communicating English in the class and in real life. Aims of the study The study aims at improving the adult learners’ participation in speaking lessons at an English center in Hanoi by employing the communicative activities through an action research project.
The main research questions that need to be answered over the study are: Question 1: How do the communicative activities help improve the learners' participation in speaking class? Question 2: What are the learners' attitudes towards the communicative activities? 3. Objectives of the study This study is conducted to investigate the relationship between the communicative activities and participation increase in the English class for adults. The main objectives are: To investigate whether the communicative activities is integrated into the class. To investigate whether the communicative activities improve the learners’ participation in speaking lessons.
To investigate whether the communicative activities have effective influence on the learning and teaching speaking English. Significance of the study The study shows the importance of participation in speaking in order to maximizethe learners’ ability to communicate in English. Providing a positive and motivating classroom by teachers and educational authorities seems to be an urgent necessity and there is a need to point out the effective teaching and learning strategies. To put it more specifically, the findings of the study would hopefully help teachers and learners in their teaching as well as learning communicative English.
In other words, the learners’ participation keeps learning going in the right direction. Through this, the teacher learns how to involve their learners in their activities so as to stimulate speaking. 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Scope of the study This study was conducted with 10 people aged from 18 to 40 for speaking lessons within 4 months at an English center.
There are many factors related to speaking skills but this study aims to increase speaking participation. Therefore, the researcher only focuses on the employment of the communicative activities to increase the adults' engagement in speaking lessons. Finally, classroom observation and interview are employed in favor of data collection and analysis. Structure of the thesis The study report consists of three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion.
PART 1 - INTRODUCTION summarizes all the main purpose and issues that the research aims to address as well as the most outstanding findings. Also, the writer presented the related researches and issues about the same focuses; It provides a general introduction on the background of the topic along with its aims, research questions and the design. PART 2 - DEVELOPMENT is the main part of this thesis. It contains three chapters namely Literature Review, Methodology and Major Findings and Recommendations, Chapter 1 - Literature Review starts with the information on understanding general knowledge relevant to speaking, including the definition of participation, and speaking.
Then comes the literature on the communicative activities consisting of its definition and types. The rest of the chapter is on previous studies related to using them during speaking. Chapter 2 - Methodology presents the methodology conducted in the study, including key elements of an action research project, background information of the participants and setting of the study; the use of the instruments for data collection and the procedure. Added to that, action research procedures are also presented in this chapter.
PART 3 - CONCLUSION consists of the summary, findings and limitations of the research. 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter provides the literature review related to theoretical frameworks in connection withspeaking and the communicative activities used in the research process. In each section, the definition or explanation of the key terms also presented together with the studies worldwide. Definitions of speaking According to Ladouse (1991), speaking is described as the ability to express oneself in the situation, or the activity to report acts, or situation in precise words or the ability to converse or to express a sequence of ideas fluently.
This means that speaking skills occupy an important position in expressing a person's understanding, knowledge and competence. In addition, Burns and Joyce (1997) consider speaking as an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information. Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking. It is often spontaneous, open - ended, and evolving.
However, speech is not always unpredictable.