VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION PHÍ TRUNG ĐỨC TEACHING ALGEBRA IN ENGLISH ACCORDING TO CLIL APPROACH TO DEVELOP MATHEMATICAL COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE FOR GRADE 7 STUDENTS MASTER’S THESIS IN MATHEMATICS PEDAGOGY HANOI – 2023 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION PHÍ TRUNG ĐỨC TEACHING ALGEBRA IN ENGLISH ACCORDING TO CLIL APPROACH TO DEVELOP MATHEMATICAL COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE FOR GRADE 7 STUDENTS MASTER’S THESIS IN MATHEMATICS PEDAGOGY Major: Mathematics Teaching methodology Code: 8140209.01 Academic instructor: ASSOC. NGUYỄN CHÍ THÀNH HANOI – 2023 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to sincerely thank Assoc. Nguyen Chi Thanh for wholeheartedly guiding, instructing, helping and encouraging me during the process of completing my thesis. I would like to thank the Faculty of Pedagogy, Department of Pedagogy in Mathematics, Department of Training, the VNU-University of Education for creating the best conditions for me to complete my thesis.
I would also like to thank my family, wife, friends, colleagues, teachers and students of the secondary schools where I attended classes and taught experimental lessons for their co-operation and support during the writing of this thesis. Hanoi, December 2022 Author Phi Trung Duc i DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby declare that this is my own research work. The figures and quotations in the thesis are completely honest. The scientific conclusions of the thesis have never been published in any other documents or scientific works.
Author Phi Trung Duc ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CBE Competency-based education CBI Content-based instruction CLIL Content and language integrated learning EMI English as a medium of instruction iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. i DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP .ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. Reason for study.
History of research field. Research object and range. THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL BASIS. Theory on competency-based education (CBE).
Overview of CBE. Advantages of CBE. Popular competency-based teaching methods. Project-based learning.
Problem-based learning. Inquiry-based learning. CLIL approach and some other approaches. CLIL, EMI, CBI approach.
Preeminence of CLIL approach. Characteristics of mathematical communication competence. Characteristics of competence. Characteristics of communication competence.
Characteristics of mathematical competence. Mathematical communication competence. Developing mathematical communication competence through teaching Mathematics in English according to CLIL approach. Official guidance on bilingual education.
Analysis of 2006 and 2018 general education program in Mathematics32 1. Analysis of 2006 program and 2018 program Mathematics textbooks. Practical analysis on teaching Algebra in English for grade 7 students. Potential for developing mathematical communication competence in grade 7 Mathematics program.
Objectives, objects and method of survey on teaching Algebra in English according to CLIL approach. Method of survey. MEASURES TO DEVELOP MATHEMATICAL COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE ACCORDING TO CLIL APPROACH. Construct 4Cs aims for CLIL lessons.
Design questions and exercises to encourage group discussion. Organize class activities focusing on communication aspect of CLIL. Objectives and tasks of experiment. Location, time and object of experiment.
Content and method of experiment. Content of experiment. Method of experiment. Criterion to evaluate experiment results.
Analytical method to process experiment results. Summarization, comments of experiment process. 81 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Reason for study In the era of modernization, industrialization and rapid development of science and technology, human resources is considered to be a decisive element of each country’s prosperity.
Therefore, domestic human resources ought to possess indispensable knowledge of science and foreign languages. The Government, the Ministry of Education and Training created policies to encourage schools meeting required abilites to teach certain subjects in English with The Foreign Language Project 2020. This is totally necessary, however through practice, the implement of the Project is facing loads of difficulties. One of the fundamental difficulties is the lack of competences to teach scientific subjects in English from teachers.
In order to overcome difficulties and meet social demands, supported by The Foreign Language Project 2020, from academic year 2013 – 2014, Hanoi National University of Education first opened a new major named Mathematics Pedagogy in English. Years later, several similar majors in Physics, Chemistry, Information technology were gradually opened. Nowadays, bilingual schools are rapidly emerging, leading to a huge interest from parents and students. One of the first priority subjects experimented is Mathematics.
This subject in every school is crutial, not only provides knowledge but also impacts the rise and development of mathematical communication competence for students. Despite that, the subject is mostly taught in a way that English language is achieved by putting into Mathematics terminologies. According to several surveys, the method of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is becoming more and more popular in schools at every stage throughout Europe. Through initial base researches along with newly released studies, Vietnamese education is having an enormous advantage in making use of what CLIL brings about as an approach of the era.
CLIL has been used as a tool to improve foreign language competence both in teaching and learning. Many researches emphasizes in the effectiveness of CLIL approach in teaching scientific subjects in foreign languages. For example, Jill Surmont’s research suggests that CLIL is a natural approach, since CLIL provides explicit and implicit learning, hence it has awareness strength that traditional methods does not [29]. Furthermore, Khalid Ouazizi’s research result shows that CLIL is more effective than traditional methods in helping learners achieve higher level of English and mathematical competences [27].
Teaching in such method also creates more interest and motivations for 1 students. In fact, it makes Vietnamese education more diverse and lively as Mathematics teaching experience now brings more ideas through new language. Motivated by such issues, with the desire to higher the effectiveness of learning Mathematics in English for grade 7 students, as well as to join a hand in improving teaching quality, creating interest for learners and exciting classes, I would like to suggest an idea of researching on: “Teaching Algebra in English according to CLIL approach to develop mathematical communication competence for junor high school students”. History of research field a) Researches on CLIL approach from the past CLIL terminology was first introduced in 1994 by David Marsh, a member of a research group in bilingual and multilingual teaching at University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
This terminology was proposed under experience extracted from two bilingual teaching programs: “Immersion” in Canada in the 1970s and “LAC movement” in England from 1966. The initial understanding of CLIL is used for teaching subjects for students through a foreign language. CLIL is widely applied in Finland, the Netherlands and European countries [19]. It is an approach of knowledge by teaching in foreign or second language.
In other words, this approach concentrates on both language and subject. Moreover, it also provided flexible learning methods. Some scholars believes that “bilingual education” is just a simple way to explain a complicated educational phenomenon, including a various of different approaches such as English as a medium of instruction (EMI), Content-based instruction (CBI) or, of course, Content and language integrated learning (CLIL), all have the form of bilingual education. However, EMI and CBI target in enhancing subject content and communication proficiencies for students by teaching them bilingual.
In fact, they provides linguistic skills for students to use in the future, meanwhile CLIL provides linguistic skills for students for instant use. EMI and CBI are sometimes used as a way to improve linguistic capabilites for languages other than English, tried to conclude the main differences among CLIL and other approaches. They believe that there are many similarities, few differences and the distinction could not be clearly seen from the concepts introduced in previous researches. One of the key differences among these approaches is the aim that they target: EMI and CBI are aimed to build a good foreign language capability closest to mother tongue, while CLIL programs aim at building a proficiency of skills.
2 Coyle (2007) sees that CLIL is a flexible approach, encouraging teaching certain programs. In this model, learning programs are designed to prepare academic elements, base on that, lesson objective will be more focused in linguistic, then build students’ attitude. Therefore, CLIL shows a much more effective approach to spread foreign language in classes without eliminating the importance of other subjects. This method also strengthens knowledge of the subject, improves linguistic skills, motivates students – an approach putting focus on both language and knowledge [19].
As presented by Mehisto, authorities, especially school managers, play an important role in spreading CLIL since this is a procedure needed to be divided in stages [8]. School managers tend not to be ready to develop teaching staff, which would very much assist teachers in terms of language, so that they may co-operate in teaeching and solving problems that they are not well-trained. If these are not applied, teachers lack of linguistic experiment might focus on content and forget the linguistic aspect in the lesson and having no association with linguistic teachers [7]. In these cases, those oriented CLIIL approach could be the link among students, parents and other teachers [13] to ensure having the balance between teaching method and assisting tools for both content and language integrated learning, created a more integrated link.
Overall, teaching in groups is still a limit that CLIL needs to solve. b) Researches on CLIL approach in Vietnam In Vietnam, CLIL approach has created an evolution, making ways for new approaches for Mathematics teaching. There are several theoretical researches to apply CLIL approach to teach Mathematics in junior high schools, especially grade 7. Two authors Le Tuan Anh and Vu Dinh Phuong in “Trang bị một số nội dung của CLIL cho sinh viên ngành Sư phạm Toán dạy bằng tiếng Anh” suggest that CLIL may be considered in various aspects [2].
In CLIL program, learners gain not only knowledge from the subject but also foreign language and how to use them. Research objectives The thesis focuses on researching the reality and proposing solutions to implementing CLIL approach to teach Mathematics in English for grade 7 students to develop mathematical communication competence. Research tasks To achieve research objective, the thesis focuses on carrying out the following research tasks: 3 - Study main points of CLIL approach and how to apply CLIL approach in teaching Algebra in English for grade 7 students. - Determine the characteristics of mathematical communication competence to apply and find the way to develop these competences.
- Survey the reality in teaching Algebra in English according to CLIL approach. - Derive a suitable measure to develop mathematical communication competence for grade 7 students. - Focus on researching lesson plans, practical teaching. Then find an effective CLIL approach for Mathematics in English.
- Carry out experiments of CLIL approach in practical teaching in some junior high school in Hanoi to evaluate the feasibility of proposals in thesis. Research object and range a) Research object Research object of the thesis is CLIL approach and application of CLIL approach in teaching Algebra in English to develop mathematical communication competence for grade 7 students. b) Research range CLIL approach is an approach, a scientific point of view in Mathematics methodology researching. My thesis focuses on researching CLIL approach, one of the most popular and preeminent approach, deep rooted from David Marsh’s researches, and then developed to school teaching by famous researchers: Bentley, Hanesova, Coyle, Bruton, Quazizi,… The research range has been researched, appeared and gained certain effects and applied in practical Mathematics teaching in Vietnamese schools with the goal of developing learners’ competences, creating more and more creative activities to form and develop students’ competences.
Scientific hypothesis If some methods of applying CLIL approach in teaching Algebra in English for grade 7 students are proposed with high practical applications, effective use in teaching and learning, as well as the development of mathematical communication competence in detail, then the quality and effectiveness of teaching Algebra in English in general will be improved.