1 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** NGUYỄN THÙY DƯƠNG STRATEGIES FOR INCREASING STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN ORAL ACTIVITIES: A CASE OF DONG DO HIGH SCHOOL, HA NOI (Những chiến lược tăng cường sự tham gia của học sinh trong các giờ học kỹ năng nói: trường hợp Trường THPT Đông Đô, Hà Nội) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 601410 Hanoi – 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** NGUYỄN THÙY DƯƠNG STRATEGIES FOR INCREASING STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN ORAL ACTIVITIES: A CASE OF DONG DO HIGH SCHOOL, HA NOI (Những chiến lược tăng cường sự tham gia của học sinh trong các giờ học kỹ năng nói: trường hợp Trường THPT Đông Đô, Hà Nội) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: NGUYỄN THỊ VƯỢNG, M.A Hanoi – 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration .iii List of abbreviations .iv List of tables and figures. v Table of content .vi PART ONE: INTRODUCTION.
Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Methods of the study.
Design of the study. 3 PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT. 5 Chapter I - LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of strategy.
What is teaching strategy .2 Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). Definition of CLT .3 Nature of speaking skill and principles of teaching speaking .1 Nature of speaking skill. Definition of speaking. Characteristics of speaking.
Principles of teaching speaking .Intermediate level…………………………………………………………10 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Teacher’s roles in teaching speaking…………………………………………. Students’ participation in oral activities………………………………………. Concept of students’ participation…………………………………………….
Factors affecting students’ participation in oral activities……………………. Teacher’s teaching techniques and methods……………………………. Teacher’s personal qualities…………………………………………….15 Chapter II – THE STUDY………………………………………………………………. Current situation of teaching and learning speaking at DDHS…………………….
The subjects of the study…………………………………………………………. Data collection instruments………………………………………………………. Data collection procedures……………………………………………………….17 Chapter III - STATISTICS AND ANALYSIS OF DATA……………………………. Statistical results of questionnaires for students………………………………18 III.
Students’ attitude towards speaking skill……………………………………18 III. Students degree of participation in classroom speaking activities…………. Reasons that make students hesitant to participate in oral activities………. Current methods applied to teach speaking………………………………….2 Statistical results of questionnaires for teachers………………………………23 III.Teachers’ view of CLT……………………………………………………….2 Teachers’ attitude towards unwilling speakers and mistake makers…………24 III.3 Difficulties that teachers have confronted in teaching speaking…………….4 Techniques and activities applied in teaching English speaking…………….27 Chapter IV - FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS …………………………….
Levels of students’ participation in speaking lessons………………………29 IV.2 Learners’ reasons affecting participation in oral activities………………….30 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.1 Poor background knowledge………………………………………….2 Lack of confidence…………………………………………………….3 Lack of motivation…………………………………………………….4 Passive learning style………………………………………………….3 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching speaking in speaking ……………………. Recommendations for teachers to improve students’ talking time………….1 Recommendation for the learners……………………………………………33 IV.2 Recommendation for the teachers……………………………………………34 IV. Suggested teaching speaking strategies………………………………. Suggested activities to increase students’ participation in oral activities……………………………………………………………………….36 - Pair work………………………………………………………………………36 - Group work……………………………………………………………………36 - Role play………………………………………………………………………37 - Games………………………………………………………………………….38 PART THREE: CONCLUSION……………………………………………………….2 Limitations and suggestions for further study…………………………………….VIII LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT refers to Communicative Language Teaching DDHS refers to Dong Do High School LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 7 LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Lists of Figures Figure 1: Degrees of students' participation in oral activities Figure 2: Current methods applied to teaching speaking Figure 3: students' expectant activities from teachers Figure 4: Teaching methods currently used in teaching speaking Figure 5: Difficulties that teacher have encountered when teaching speaking List of Tables Table1: Students’ attitude towards speaking skill Table 2: Factors that make students hesitant to participate in oral activities Table 3: Students’ desires for speaking activities Table 4: Teachers’ opinion of CLT Table 5: Teacher’s attitude towards unwilling speakers and mistake makers Table 6: Techniques to make students more interested in speaking lessons Table 7: Activities to motivate students to participate more in oral activities Table 8: Time on-task, off-task for students in speaking activities LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 11 PART ONE: INTRODUCTION I.
Rationale Undeniably, English is a global language crossing many international boundaries. In fact, the English language is so popular; it is spoken in more than a hundred countries and has more than a million words. English is considered as the medium of communication in the fields of science, technology, diplomacy, and business, and so on. English has an inherent simplicity and flexibility allowing it to be learnt quickly, cementing English as a global language.
Since 1971, the teaching and learning of English has become of a great concern in Vietnam. It is because that English is also seen as a means to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between Vietnam and other countries. As a result, there are more and more people desiring to know and master English with the hope of keeping up to date with the latest development in technology in the world. Therefore, English in Vietnam has become part of the general education.
It is a compulsory subject not only in tertiary institutions but also in most secondary schools. In learning English at high schools, English speaking skill is one of the four skills that students must be taught as separately and equally as the others. However, due to some differently objective and subjective reasons, teaching and learning of this skill is often integrated with other skills such as listening skill, or is even neglected. It leads to the cause that students do not often enjoy speaking period as well as find it difficult to participate in speaking activities.
Furthermore, there are a lot of elements of speaking affecting the ability to speak fluently such as language features (connected speech, expressive device, lexis and grammar, negotiation language) and the ability to process information and language “on the spot” such as language processing, interacting with others…However, in a period of 45minutes, it seems to be impossible for both teachers and students to control them. Therefore, if teaching and learning oral communication skill takes place within 45 minutes every week and only in classroom settings, its effect is limited. In terms of my experiences of teaching English and teaching speaking skill at Dong Do high school (DDHS). I found that most of my students are unwilling to participate in oral LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Most of them only passively sit and take notes, rarely contribute the lesson and even do not ask for the teacher‟s help when they have any problems. Reasons or this are various including large classes, psycho logical or cultural differences, teaching methods, teacher‟s knowledge, student‟s lack of idea or language devices, such as grammatical structures or vocabulary, etc. Whatever reasons they may be, it is the first target of the teachers to help their learners get out of the always silent moment in class, and thereby, improve their speaking skills For such reasons I choose “Strategies for Increasing Students' Participation in Oral Activities: A case of Dong Do High School, Hanoi” as a theme for my thesis. Aims of the study This research is designed to break a new ground in looking for new strategies to enhance the participation of the students at DDHS in speaking activities In order to obtain this aim, some purposes are as follows: - To investigate theories concerning teaching and learning English as a foreign language in general and English oral communication skill in particular - To review some real situations about teaching and learning English and English speaking skill at DDHS - To search for some factors that affect the students‟ participation in oral activities at DDHS - To suggest some realistic and appropriate class teaching strategies with the hope they can maximize their learner‟s involvement in oral activities.
Research questions To reach the aims of the study, the three research question addressed: 1.What is the reality of teaching and learning English speaking skill at DDHS? 2. What are reasons for students‟ hesitation of taking part in speaking activities at Dong Do high school? 3. What should teachers do to increase students‟ participation in oral activities at Dong Do high school? LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Scope of the study A study on the ways to enhance the involvement of all students in learning oral skill is quite broad, therefore the author would like to pay much attention to a brief of current situation of teaching and learning speaking at DDHS and to identify the reasons why the students are not ready to speak and suggest some possible strategies to increase them to speak more.
This is also the limitation of the thesis. Significance of the study In the past time, the students learned English with the main focus on grammatical issues; however, four English skills in general and English speaking skill in particular are concentrated as much as grammar. Despite that, most of the teachers at high schools do not realize the importance of oral communication skill in the full development of the four English skills. In the textbook, English speaking skill is designed separately, and each oral skill lesson is taught within 45 minutes every week.
However, practicing English activities does not still end after speaking lessons. It is because that both reading lessons and listening ones often contain some post-reading and post-listening activities relating to speaking skill. Therefore, the enhancement of students‟ contribution in English oral activities is very important. There is much hope that this would be useful and practical for both the teachers and learners of English.
Methods of the study To obtain the aims of the study both quantitative and qualitative methods are used The data serving the research analysis and discussion were collected by means of: + Questionnaires for students + Questionnaires for teachers + Classroom observation VII. Design of the study This minor thesis is divided into three main parts. Part one, INTRODUCTION, presents the rationale, the aims, scope, significance, methods, design of the study. The research questions are also mentioned in this part.
Part two, DEVELOPMENT, consists of three following chapters: LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 14 Chapter one, Literature Review, presents various concepts most relevant to the research topic such as definition of strategies, teaching strategies; concepts of communicative language teaching (CLT); nature of speaking skill and principles of teaching speaking. Furthermore, the following are also included in this chapter: definition of students‟ participation, and" factors affecting students‟ participation as well. Chapter two, namely “The Study” describes the overall picture of the research was carried out from the first step of determining the research design to the last step of gathering the results. Moreover, presentation of statistical results are describes in this chapter Chapter three, “Statistics and Analysis of data” analyses the collected data to answer the three research questions.
Chapter four, namely “Findings and Recommendations” presents the findings with conclusion and comment after the experiment was finished and suggests what teachers of English at DDHS should do to enlarge the students‟ participation in speaking activities Part three, CONCLUSION, addresses the key issues in the study, summaries some shortcomings revealed during the process of the completing this study LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 15 PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter consists of four sections. Section one concerns the issue of teaching strategies which includes the definition of strategy and teaching strategy. Section two deals with the issues of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). Next, section three focuses on nature of speaking and principles of teaching speaking which covers many matters such as the definition of speaking, characteristics of speaking, principles of teaching speaking for all levels as well as teachers‟ roles of teaching speaking.
The last section, section four presents some concepts related to students‟ participation and some factors affecting students‟ participation in oral activities.