VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---------- NGUYỄN THỊ HOA THE APPLICATION OF COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING TO NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY ÁP DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP THỰC HÀNH GIAO TIẾP TRONG DẠY NÓI TIẾNG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH CỦA TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC CÔNG NGHIỆP HÀ NỘI M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60.10 HA NOI – 2013 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---------- NGUYỄN THỊ HOA THE APPLICATION OF COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING TO NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY ÁP DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP THỰC HÀNH GIAO TIẾP TRONG DẠY NÓI TIẾNG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH CỦA TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC CÔNG NGHIỆP HÀ NỘI M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60.10 Supervisor: Nguyễn Huyề n Minh, M.A HA NOI – 2013 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT: Communicative Language Teaching SLL: Second Language Learning HaUI: Hanoi University of Industry SLA: Second Language Acquisition EFL: English as Foreign Language iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS PART A: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………1 1. JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY………………………………………………1 2. THE SCOPE, OBJECTIVE, RESEARCH QUESTIONS, METHOD AND OUTLINE OF THE STUDY………………………………………………………1 2. The scope of the study…………………………………………………….
Objectives of the study………………………………………………. Method of the study………………………………………………………. Outline of the study……………………………………………………….4 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………………. APPROACHES OF LANGUAGE TEACHING.
The Grammar-Translation method………………………………………. Advantages of the method………………………………………………4 1. Disadvantages of the method…………………………………………. The Audio-lingual method………………………………………………….
Advantages of the method…………………………………………. Disadvantages of the method………………………………………. COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING……………………………. Definition of CLT………………………………………………………….
Characteristics of CLT…………………………………………………. Conditions of applying CLT………………………………………………. The five components of communicative competence…………………. USING CLT IN TEACHING SPEAKING…………………………………….
The nature of communication……………………………………………. Oral communication practice……………………………………………. Oral communicative activities…………………………………………….11 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY……………………………………………………14 I. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY…………………………………………….
Description of English course in HaUI…………………………………………. Description of the physical setting………………………………………………14 3. Description of objectives of the English course…………………………………15 4. Description of time allocation of the course…………………………………….
Description of teachers in HaUI…………………………………………………. Description of students in HaUI…………………………………………………. Questionnaire for teachers………………………………………………. Questionnaires for students……………………………………………….20 CHAPTER III: DATA PRESENTATION & ANALYSIS………………………….
Questionnaire for the teachers……………………………………………………23 2. Questionnaire for the student…………………………………………………….27 CHAPTER IV: RESULT DISCUSSION………………………………………….31 vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Difficulties from teachers……………………………………………………. Difficulties from students…………………………………………………….
Solutions for teachers…………………………………………………………34 2. Solutions for students…………………………………………………………35 PART C: CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………….43 APPENDICES vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Justification of the Study Nowadays, English is widely taught in Vietnam in almost all educational institutions, at every level. Moreover, English teaching programs are available on radio, television and internet.
English learners and teachers also raise their awareness of the importance of English to the country’s development and integration. However, for some time, English teaching has been strongly influenced by the traditional methods. According to that, teachers and students used to concentrate on grammatical items. This means that learners might be structurally competent but communicatively incompetent.
As a result, they have encountered a lot of problems with English in real life such as: understanding and using intonation or addressing in different situations. Therefore, speaking skills play a much more important role in modern English than ever before. Many English teachers share the same opinion of communicative language teaching as one of the most effective approaches in making students speak. The Scope, Objectives, Research questions, Method, Outline of the Study 2.
The Scope of the Study The study focuses on applying CLT in teaching speaking to non-English major students in Hanoi University of Industry. Objectives of the Study The main purpose of my study is to research on difficulties if any experienced by teachers in teaching speaking with CLT. From that, some recommendations can be made to deal with these difficulties. Research questions The researcher needs to find answers for the two following questions: 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com - How do the teachers of HaUI apply CLT in teaching Speaking? - Which difficulties do both teachers and students encounter in the process of implementing CLT? 2.
Methods of the Study Firstly, classroom observations are carried out to check whether teachers apply CLT in teaching speaking or not. Secondly, questionnaires are given to teachers to collect more information on difficulties that they face. Outline of the Study The thesis consists of three main parts as following: Part A is the introduction, which mentions the rationales, the focus, the objectives, the methods and the design of the study. Part B consists of four chapters: Chapter I presents two main issues.
The first is an overview of some methods used to teach foreign language. The second one is about communicative language teaching in terms of the definition, characteristics, condition in applying CLT, communicative competence and using CLT in teaching speaking. Chapter II mentions methodology in terms of the background, the subject and research tools. Questionnaires are distributed to both teachers and students.
Besides, the class observation also helps to investigate applying CLT in teaching speaking to non-English major students. Chapter III deals with the data of the study basing on the questionnaires and the class observation. 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Chapter IV discusses the result drawing from the previous chapter. In this chapter, the researcher talks about difficulty as well as solutions to overcome problem in the process of adopting CLT in teaching speaking.
Part C is ended with a summary, which summarizes all the issues in the research. 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. APPROACHES OF LANGUAGE TEACHING 1. The Grammar-Translation method 1.
Overview This method is also called “traditional method”. It was used for the purpose of helping students read and appreciate foreign language literature. This method has some characteristic such as: - Reading and writing are the major focus. - Vocabulary is taught through bilingual word lists, dictionary and memorization.
- Grammar is taught deductively - Accuracy is emphasized. Advantage of the method This method is easy to apply because it requires few resources. It seems to be suitable for the classes with a lot of students. Disadvantage of the method This method concerns itself primary with the written language of classical literature and ignore authentic spoken communication and social variation of language.
According to River (1981: 31), “there is much stress on knowing rules and exceptions” and “little stress is laid on accurate pronunciation and information; communication is neglect”. The Audio-lingual Method 1. Overview 4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com According to Stern (1983: 463), the Audio-lingual Method was the first language teaching method that was derived from linguistics and psychology. According to River (1964: 19), this method has four principles: - Foreign language learning is a process of mechanical habit formation.
Good habits are formed by giving correct responses rather than making mistakes - Language skills are learned more effectively if the spoken form is learned before the written form. - Analogy provides a better foundation for language learning than analysis. Drills can enable learners to form correct analogies. - The meaning that the words of a language have for the native speaker can be learned only in the context, not in isolation.
Moreover, in this method, the teacher acts as a controller selecting the language, the students are to repeat and insisting on acute reproduction of the items. Advantages of the method This method develops students’ listening comprehension and fluency in speaking in the target language. Disadvantage of the method When the teacher wants to apply this method, he/she must be a fluent speaker and very resourceful to prevent students from feeling bored. COMMUNICATIVE LANUAGE TEACHING 2.
Definition of CLT 5 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com It is pointed out by Brindley (1986: 11) that “the 1970’s and 1980’s could be regarded as the era of communicative language teaching”. Nunan (1989: 194) overviews this method as following: CLT views language as a system for the expression of meaning. Activities involve oral communication, carrying out meaning tasks and using language, which is meaningful to the learners. Objectives reflect the needs of the learners; they include functional skills as well as linguistic objectives.
The learner’s role is as a negotiator and integrator. The teacher’s role is as a facilitator of the communication process. Materials promote communicative language use; they are task-based and authentic. CLT is based on the theory of language as proposed by Hymes (1972) which brought together two dependent developments: transformational generative grammar and ethnography of communication.
CLT was expanded with the development of the notional-functional syllabus (Wilkins: 1976) and a communicative syllabus (Munby: 1978). Canale and Swain (1980) expanded on the theoretical basis of CLT for both teaching and testing. According to Bock (2000), CLT is tailored to get at meaning and learners negotiate meaning in class. Meaning is considered as what is communicated.
According to Hedge (2000), there are five components of communicative language ability. - Linguistic competence: achievement of knowledge of spelling pronunciation, vocabulary, word formation, grammatical structure, sentence structure and linguistic semantics. - Pragmatic competence: According to Hedge (2000), pragmatic competence includes illocutionary competence and socio-linguistic competence of which the 6 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com formers shows how to use language to gain some communicative goals or intention, the latter involves social language to select appropriate language forms in different contexts. Socio-linguistic competence is related to non-verbal and verbal communication as well.
- Discourse competence: achievement of how to understand meanings and forms in a unified spoken or written text through cohesive devices involving forms (such as: pronouns, conjunctions, ellipses, comparisons) and coherent devices involving meanings (such as: repetition, progression, consistency and relevance of ideas). This competence is called “textual competence” (Bachman, 1990). - Strategic competence: achievement of verbal and non-verbal strategies to find ways to balance insufficient competence or performance limitations as well as to promote communicative effectiveness. - Fluency: ability to link units of speech with facility and without strain or inappropriate slowness, or undue hesitation.
Characteristics of CLT According to Li (1998: 967), CLT has six features as follows: - Focusing on communicative functions - Focusing on meaningful tasks rather than on language use - Trying to make tasks and language relevant to a target group of learners through an analysis of genuine, realistic situations. - Using of authentic materials - Using of group activities - Attempting to create a secure and non-threatening atmosphere 7 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Conditions of applying CLT 2. Authentic materials The teacher needs to use authentic materials suitably for the students’ different levels.
For students with the low level of proficiency in the target language, he/she can use weather forecast and ask them to predict. For those with higher level, the authentic material can be newspaper articles, books, live radio and television broadcasts. Teachers Teachers play the most important role in applying CLT. They are both facilitators of students’ learning and managers of classroom activities.
When students take part in activities, teachers act as advisors and monitors and sometimes as co-communicator to involve in communicative activities with students. Overview Communicative competence is recognized as primary goal of language teaching. It is composed of both grammatical competence and socio-linguistic competence. Communicative language teaching tries to facilitate the integration of these two equally important components for the learners and helps them to acquire communicative competence.
The five components of communicative competence 2. Rules of grammar According to Savignon (1983), “Grammatical competence is the mastery of the linguistic code, the ability to recognize the lexical, morphological, syntactic and phonological features of a language and to manipulate these features to forms words and sentences. Grammatical competence does not link to any single theory of grammar, nor does it 8 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com assume the ability to make explicit the rule of usage.