STATE BANK OF VIETNAM BANKING ACADEMY Foreign Language Faculty GRADUATION THESIS Topic THE ECLECTIC APPROACH TO ESL FOR CHILDREN AGED 2-5 IN OLYMPUS PRESCHOOL CHAIN: PROS – CONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Student Nguyen Thi Hien Anh Class K19ATCD Course 2016 - 2020 Student ID 19A7510012 Lecturer Nguyen Thi Hong Mai (M.A) Hanoi, June 2020 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I hereby pledge that the content of this paper is my original work. Every information cited here was either quoted verbatim or paraphrased and also properly cited and referenced to its original source. This paper does not infringe upon any copyrights, trademarks or break any intellectual law. Author (Signature and full name) Hien Anh Nguyen Thi Hien Anh i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deep gratitude to my thesis instructor, Ms.
Nguyen Thi Hong Mai, for her continual support during the process of writing this paper. Using her incredible academic knowledge and experience, she has been a tremendous help to me throughout the last few months, guiding me through many dead ends that I encountered and pointed out the short-comings in my writing. Secondly, I also want to take this opportunity to extend my gratitude to other lecturers in the Faculty of Foreign Language, Banking Academy, who have equipped me with useful knowledge and skills over the past four years. I believe that this foundation will continue to help me in my future career and life.
Last but not least, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my family and friends, especially Melon team and Truong Nghia, for their support and encouragement since I started working on this paper. Without them, I would not have been able to finish this dissertation with such incredible success. Hanoi, June 2020 ii TABLE OF CONTENT CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY………………………… ………………….i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………… …………………ii TABLE OF CONTENTS …………………………………………………. ……iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS……………………………………… .vi LIST OF TABLES …………………………………………………… .vi LIST OF FIGURES ………………………………………………….
…………vii LIST OF APPENDIX……………………………………………… .viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………1 1. Background of the study……………………………………………. Objectives of the study………………………………………………. Significance of the study……………………………………………….
Scope and delimitation of the study……………………………………. Definition of term………………………………………………………. 4 CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE. The eclectic approach in teaching ESL……………….
Process of selecting methods to create an eclectic approach……. Based on the development of children aged 2-5……. Based on the characteristics of the teaching method…. Effects of the eclectic approach……………………………….
Effects of eclectic approach on teachers…………………. Effects of eclectic approach on students……………………. 18 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY……………………………. Locale of the study…………………………………………………….
Data gathering procedure……………………………………………. Population, sample and sampling technique…………………………. ………………24 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION………………. …………54 CHAPTER 5: SUMMARY, FINDINGS, LIMITATIONS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS………………………………………….
Limitations of the study………………………………………… .VI v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ESL English as a Second Language TPR Total Physical Response SLT Situational Language Teaching CLT Communicative Language Teaching LIST OF TABLES Table Page number Table 2.1: Milestones age development 10 Table 3.1: Population of the research 22 Table 3.2: Sample of the research 23 Table 4.1: Class activities participation evaluation 26 Table 4.2: Students’ concentration evaluation 27 Table 4.3: Students’ vocabulary 28 Table 4.4: Students’ audio and verbal response evaluation 29 Table 4.5: Students’ final test result 30 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page number Figure 4.1: Class activities participation evaluation 40 Figure 4.2: Students’ concentration evaluation 41 Figure 4.3: Students’ vocabulary 43 Figure 4.4: Students’ audio and verbal response evaluation 44 Figure 4.5: Students’ final test result 46 LIST OF APPENDIX Page Appendix number Appendix 1: Olympus preschools’ tests VI Appendix 2: Olympus preschools’ students evaluation XVII Appendix 3: Non-eclectic teachers interview XXXII Appendix 4: Eclectic teachers interview XXXVI vii ABSTRACT The paper aims to analyze the impacts of eclectic approach to ESL for children aged 2 to 5 at Olympus preschool chain to determine whether such an approach is a good fit for its students. This paper uses data gathered from documents listing the final test result and evaluation of students from two out of the four Olympus’ facilities (one eclectic and one non-eclectic) and transcript of interviews with those facilities’ ESL teachers. The findings suggest that students from the eclectic preschool have better results and higher overall evaluations compared to students from the non- eclectic one. They also show that although the eclectic teachers have certain advantages over the non-eclectic ones, the eclectic method also presents a set of disadvantages.
Based on the overall evaluation, however, the researcher still comes to the conclusion that the eclectic approach should be suitable to Olympus preschools and offers additional recommendations to deal with the drawbacks. Keywords: eclectic approach, ESL, Olympus preschools, preschoolers, teaching methods. viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction English is one of the most used languages internationally. Therefore, many parents nowadays want their children to master the English language as soon as possible.
They consider being proficient in English as a second language (ESL) an important aspect to the future success of their children. To meet such demand, Olympus - a preschool chain in Hanoi has integrated an ESL course for children aged 2 to 5 into their curriculum. However, teaching ESL for children aged from 2 to 5 demands a lot of requirements since education in that period of life will have a great impact on their future development. One of the criteria that affects student’s results the most is teaching methods.
There are many well-known methods used all over the world and some may be more effective than others. Nonetheless, they all have strengths and weaknesses so different methods can supplement each other. By those principles, educators started researching more about combining different methods to create a new set of approaches that are suitable for students. Then, such an approach eventually became known as the eclectic method, which is defined as the combination of various approaches instead of one single method that can meet all teaching and learning requirements.
When it comes to practical teaching, it is favored by many professors and educators. Olympus preschools has also recently become proponents of the eclectic method. Being aware of the importance of the results which eclectic teaching method brings to preschoolers in learning ESL, I have chosen the topic “THE ECLECTIC APPROACH TO ESL FOR CHILDREN AGED 2-5 IN OLYMPUS PRESCHOOL CHAIN: PROS – CONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS” for my thesis to deeply analyze this issue.2 Background of the study To go deep into the issue of teaching ESL using the eclectic approach, a brief history of ESL should be addressed. ESL stands for English as a Second language, which is simply a kind of foreign language taught in non-native countries.
In the late 15th century, the British Empire rose and spread all over the world. They wanted to widen their trade routes so they needed a way to communicate with the natives. When one country wanted to trade with the British, they had to speak English, therefore, English became the common language. Since the British Empire started growing, they not only had business relationships but also conquered many colonies.
About two hundred years later, the British sent many teachers aboard to educate the upper-class colonists, local government officials of their culture and tradition, including the English language. However, the locals would not give up on their mother tongue entirely, so the British came up with the idea of bilingual education. As a consequence of this method, English began to expanse as a second language all over the world. Not only popular with the origin from the British Empire, but ESL education is also well-known to be stemmed from the United States.
In the 50s after World War II, the wave of migration increased sharply and continues to this day. The United State was faced with an influx of new populations that were not able to speak English. Because of that, the ESL programs became more and more essential. Most immigrant children had problems with integration.
Not only because they were raised to speak a different foreign language, but also because of psychological barriers and feeling of being a minority (not able to speak English and had a different cultural background) in the community. ESL became more than what it was originally designed to do, from an English teaching program to a means of connection and healing, helping immigrants better integrate into western society. Until today, it cannot be denied that developed countries such as Great Britain, the United States, Canada, etc. are known for their wealthy and high-quality living -2- conditions.
Therefore, many people from non-English speaking countries including Vietnam, want to either get a chance to live and work in or go travel to these countries frequently. They consider mastering the English language as the most important condition to earn that chance. Parents nowadays are willing to give their children the best ESL education ever as soon as possible and that is the reason why ESL programs have become currently prominent in almost every kindergartens and English centers. According to a research by Orhan Kocamana and Nurgül Kocaman (Turkey, 2012), over 80 percent of parents were in favor of foreign language education in preschool.
Of the 350 parents who were interviewed for that research, 94 percent thought foreign language education in early childhood would have a good impact on the cognitive development of their children, additionally, learning a foreign language in this period of age could help children a lot in creating language reflect and turning foreign language into the second language (p. In Vietnam, ESL was introduced in 1955 when the South was occupied by the pro-US government, English was taught to diplomats and children of the elites. In 1967, the University of Languages and International Studies formed the faculty of English language making it the first official English teaching institution in Vietnam. In 1995, Apollo became the first major English teaching center in Vietnam, followed by Language Link a year later, paving the way for dozens of other centers that would rise to meet the needs of parents for their children to learn English.
However, teaching ESL for preschoolers is not elementary, it requires a range of criteria, arguably the most important of which is methodology. While there are many methods that can be applied in the classroom, the most widely and effective one is the eclectic method since the children at this age normally have different characteristics (Mahmood, 2012, p. Eclectic teaching is derived from a philosophical approach known as eclecticism that was first recorded to have been practiced by ancient Greek and Roman philosophers such as Stoics Panaetius and Posidonius (“Eclecticism”, n. To practice eclecticism is to recognize that there are multiple solutions to any single problem and that each of those solutions would have their own strengths and weaknesses, therefore the logical choice would be combining multiple approaches to get the best hybrid solution.
Rivers (1981) -3- sees the eclectic as the approach that lets teachers make use of the best teaching techniques out of the most effective ones that are available during class (p. Additionally, Suparman (2017) says that the eclectic approach utilizes various methods in the process of language teaching relative to the abilities of the students and the aim of the lesson (pp. From this, it can be concluded that the eclectic method is the approach with the most potential for young learners to master the target language. In Vietnam, the first use of the term “eclectic method” in regard to teaching ESL was by British Council in 2002.
Nonetheless, teachers had used more than one method in the classroom without mentioning that they were using the eclectic approach. Currently, the eclectic method is favored by Olympus preschool ESL teachers for its flexibility as well as effectiveness. But whether it is truly suitable for their students and teachers or not remains to be seen. This paper would go in-depth to try and answer this question as well as make recommendations on how to remedy this method’s shortcomings.