THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES HUYNH CAM THU THE ROLES OF WARMING UP ACTIVITIES IN ENHANCING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS (Vai trò của các hoạt động khởi động nhằm nâng cao kỹ năng nói tiếng Anh) M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 THAI NGUYEN – 2019 Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES HUYNH CAM THU THE ROLES OF WARMING UP ACTIVITIES IN ENHANCING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS (Vai trò của các hoạt động khởi động nhằm nâng cao kỹ năng nói tiếng Anh) M. THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION) Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Dieu Ha Ph. THAI NGUYEN – 2019 Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP The thesis entitled “The role of warming up activities in enhancing speaking skill” has been submitted for the Master of English language. I, the undersigned, hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis.
I have fully acknowledged and referenced the ideas and work of others, whether published or unpublished, in my thesis. My thesis does not contain work extracted from a thesis, dissertation or research paper previously presented for another degree or diploma at this or any other universities. Huynh Cam Thu Date ./2019 Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply indebted to the individuals that provided support for the completion of this study. Firstly, I would like to express my thankfulness to my supervisor, Nguyen Thi Dieu Ha, Ph.
who supervised the entire study and, most importantly, read and discussed every aspect and section of this thesis with assiduity. Her recommendations also helped to shape the form and contents of the final version. I am equally indebted to teachers, and staff at SFL-TNU for the exceptional friendliness, kindness, and patience during my study and my research. In addition, my thank goes to all the participating teachers at Ka Long primary school who helped me in my preliminary research, especially the teachers who accompanied me during a long time of my data collection time.
The results I have achieved today partially belong to them. Last but not least, I would like to thank my fellows for their dedication and support, and my family members for their motivation for me to overcome all the difficulties and to become a better me now. Huynh Cam Thu May, 2019 Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT: Communicative language teaching EFL: English as a foreign language ESL: English as a second language Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Fig. 1: Features of warm-up activity (Velandia, 2008).
15 Table 1: Teachers' perception towards warming up activities. 31 Table 2: Pupils' perception towards warming up activities. 34 Table 3: Preferred warming up activities. 35 Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This research tries is to find out the effectiveness of using warm up activity in enhancing speaking ability in a classroom.
The study was carried out at Ka Long primary school, Quang Ninh province. The mixed methods of both quantitative and qualitative were used to obtain data for the research. The results show that warming up activities greatly benefit language learners in speaking as them related to their background knowledge. The most preferred warming up activities include team games and individual games.
In theoretical part, it covers details information about what is warm up, what are the principles of warm up activity and some examples of warm up activity. Most importantly, it tries to bring out the usefulness of warm up activity in the section why is warm up important by describing points: establish a relationship, motivation and warm up, attention and warm up, background knowledge and warm up, and lesson objective and warm up. A survey has conducted among some English teachers for this paper to find out whether warm up activity plays an important role in language classroom and whether it is useful for teachers and students at primary schools in language teaching and learning. Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP.
ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. iii LIST OF TABLES. v TABLE OF CONTENTS. vi CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION.
Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Design of the study.
3 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW. Status of English language teaching in Vietnam. Communicative language teaching. The nature of speaking.
The role of speaking in language learning. The teaching of speaking skill. Warming-up activities. What is warming up?.
Background and Warm-up. Lessons’ objective and warming-up. Principles of warm-up activities. Why is warming-up activities important?.
Warming up activities in a speaking class. 17 Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Warming up activities for young learners. Types of warming up activities.
23 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY. Context of the study. Participants of the study. Data collection instruments.
28 CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. Findings from questionnaire for teachers. Responses from the interviews. Pupils' perception of the warming up activities.
Preferred warming up activities. 36 APPENDICES Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale One of the biggest challenges when teaching a second or foreign language is the input we can provide to our students. We all know that the success of the language acquisition process increases by level of exposure to the target language.
In this sense the development of each specific skill depends on the input provided, so in the case of teaching and learning speaking, the schemata or students' background knowledge plays an important role in getting students to talk or participate in speaking practices. One of the techniques to stir up language performance is warming up activities teachers can do before any language practice. The warning up activities help language learners brainstorm ideas for speaking and writing as well as predicting knowledge for listening and reading. In this study, the researcher tries to investigate positive effects of warming up activities from psychological aspects in enhancing speaking practice.
English is now regarded as one of the important subjects taught at primary and junior high school levels in Vietnam. Students of all levels must learn English at schools in order to be able to speak English. The final goal of learning English is that students can use English in a real communication. Brown (1987: 202) states that the culmination of language learning is not simply in the mastery of the forms of the language but also in the mastery of forms in order to accomplish the communicative function.
In reference to Brown (1987), it is clearly stated that the ability to speak English becomes the final goal of learning English. To achieve the goal, the teaching of speaking ability must be emphasized in the English teaching and learning process. Unfortunately, in practice, the students are not given sufficient opportunity to develop and practice the speaking skills. Based on the National Curriculum, it is stated that English teaching has to cover four main skills in equal portion.
In fact, most Vietnamese English teachers focus more on the reading and writing skills, and less on oral skills, speaking and listening. While, the students can practice listening, reading and writing skills at home. On the other hand, they have less opportunity to practice speaking in English when they are not in classroom. Besides, the speaking activities are less communicative because the teachers give many theories to the Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com students without giving chances for them to practice language.
In addition, the teaching and learning process seems to be teacher – centered since the teachers always explain the materials and the students only listen. Based on the researcher’s observations, when she was at the school, there were some problems in the English learning at junior high schools. When the students are asked to practice or perform their speaking ability in front of the class, they refuse it and they are afraid of making mistakes. In addition, during the English speaking lesson, the teacher tend to talk too much, students are not given sufficient input language for speaking performance, or in other words teacher do not create appropriate activities to active students' background knowledge to make their oral ability sound natural and fluent.
In this study, the researcher attempts to investigate the importance of preparatory work for speaking class or what we call the warming up activities in a speaking lesson with a hope that they can active learners' schemata for more motivated speaking performance. Problem statement It is a fact that students are getting bored with poorly, and artificial speaking situations created by teachers when teaching speaking. Many teachers do not think warm up is useful that is needed for learning to be fun. They basically use it in the first class of a new course to give the students a chance to be familiar with each other.
They ignore the other benefits of using a warm up activity in classroom. For example, it can motivate the students to participate in class activities, activate the students’ background knowledge, and help the teachers introduce a new topic in an interesting way or help get the students’ attention. However, teachers use common techniques such as questioning, and reviewing materials from the previous class, chatting with students as warm up activity whereas they can use jokes, songs, funny videos, games, stories or pictures to make the class more interesting. The appropriate warming up activities motivate students to talk more as their schemata are well activated.
Aims of the study The study aims at exploring the role of warming up activities in a speaking lesson so that learners can become more activated for better speaking ability from Số hóa bởi Trung tâm Học liệu và Công nghệ thông tin – ĐHTN http://lrc.vn LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com psychological perspectives. Also, the study attempts to find out some effective warming up activities that can be used in a speaking class. Research questions With the objective stated above, the study aims to answer the following research questions: (1) To what extent the warming up activities can promote the speaking ability in a speaking lesson? (2) What involves in designing appropriate warming-up activities for language learners? (3) What warming up activities are appropriate for young language learners? 1. Scope of the study The study focuses on developing speaking participation for pupils in grade 5 in Ka Long Primary School by using warming-up activities.
The young English language learners who have been studying English for two years at primary schools. Significance of the study The study will provide a framework for language teachers, especially those who are working with young learners at primary schools in designing warming up activities to promote more speaking participation in a speaking class.