THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES NGUYỄN HỒNG THẮM USING COMMUNICATIVE GAMES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN ORAL ACTIVITIES AT HOANH BO HIGH SCHOOL, QUANG NINH PROVINCE SỬ DỤNG CÁC TRÒ CHƠI GIAO TIẾP ĐỂ TĂNG CƯỜNG SỰ THAM GIA CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG CÁC GIỜ HỌC KỸ NĂNG NÓI TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT HOÀNH BỒ, QUẢNG NINH M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 THAI NGUYEN – 2019 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES NGUYỄN HỒNG THẮM USING COMMUNICATIVE GAMES TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN ORAL ACTIVITIES AT HOANH BO HIGH SCHOOL, QUANG NINH PROVINCE Sử dụng các trò chơi giao tiếp để tăng cường sự tham gia của học sinh trong các giờ học kỹ năng nói tại trường THPT Hoành Bồ, QuảngNinh M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor 1: Prof. Nguyen Thi Mai Huong Supervisor 2: Prof. Nguyen Thi Que THAI NGUYEN – 2019 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I hereby declare that this submission of the minor thesis entitled “Using Communicative Games to enhance Students’ Participation in Oral Activities at Hoanh Bo High School, QuangNinh Province” is my own work. To the best of my knowledge, it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at SFL or any other educational institutions.
The thesis has not been submitted to any other examining body and has not been published. Any contribution made to research by others is explicily acknowledged in the thesis. Thai Nguyen, July 2019 Nguyen Hong Tham Approved by SUPERVISOR Supervisor 1: Dr. Nguyen Thi Mai Huong Supervisor 2: Dr.
Nguyen Thi Que Date: July, 2019 i DEDICATION To my parents who taught me to be more patient, My siblings, My husband, Nguyen Ngoc Binh My two sons, Nguyen Duy Phuong, Nguyen Hai Nam And my friends For their endless support And being my constant sources of inspiration. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The researcher has succeeded in finishing this study, which has been greatly improved by comments, corrections, guidance and ideas of many people. It is hard to even begin to acknowledge personally all those who have had an impact on her life and study during that making of this study. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest thanks to Dr.Nguyen Thi Mai Huong and Dr.
Nguyen Thi Que, advisers, for their invaluable assistance, encouragement as well as her guidance they gave me while I was doing my research and for their constructive comments and suggestions in perfecting this thesis; I am indebted to all the teachers at School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University for their invaluable lessons, suggestions, moral support and prayers for the completion of this study; I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Mrs Dang Thi Hien, the Headmaster of Hoanh Bo High School for her permission to conduct the study. Thanks are due to all the teachers of English at Hoanh Bo High School for their suggestions and validation of the test items and questionnaires. Last but not least, I would like to send my sincere thanks to all the students in 10A5 class at Hoanh Bo High School, the respondents of the study, for their willingness in joining the experimental learning period and answering follow-up questionnaires. iii ABSTRACT The goal of this study was to evaluate the impacts of communicative games and activities on students’ participation in oral lessons as validated through teachers’ classroom observations and perceived by students participating in the program.
The respondents of the study include 30 grade 10A5 students and two teacher observers at Hoanh Bo High School in Quang Ninh province during their second semester of the school year 2018-2019. The study was conducted during 8 weeks in which different communicative games and activities were introduced to teach speaking skill. Students’ participation was evaluated through 8 classroom observation sheets marked by two teacher observers during class visits. In addition, a set of questionnaire was delivered to students upon the accomplishment of the experimental teaching period regarding their perception on level of participation in speaking as well as their evaluation of the whole learning period after being exposed to communicative activities and games.
The result of the study has shown that Communicative Games used in the pilot teaching enhanced students’ participation in oral activities and students’ attitudes towards Communicative Games used in the experimental teaching period were positive. Therefore, Communicative Games are recommended in classroom teaching to enhance students’ participation in oral activities. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STT CONTENT PAGE 1 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i 2 DEDICATION ii 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iii 4 ABSTRACT iv 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS v 6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii 7 LIST OF TABLES viii 8 LIST OF FIGURES ix 9 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1 10 1. Introduction and rationale for the stud 1 11 1.
Aims of the study 2 12 1. Scope of the study 2 13 1. Significance on of the study 4 15 1. Definition of terms 5 16 1.
Structure of the thesis 5 17 CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATUREAND 7 STUDIES 18 2.Overview about speaking 7 20 2. Definitions of speaking 7 21 2. Characteristics of successful oral activities 8 22 2. Students’ participation in oral activities 10 23 2.
Factors impacting on students’ participation in oral 11 activitie 24 2. Using Communicative Language Games in teaching 12 speaking 28 2. The nature of communicative language games 12 29 2. The benefits of communicative language games 13 30 2.
Types of games 14 31 2. Related studies 16 32 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18 33 3.The population and sampling 19 35 3. Data collection íntrument 19 36 3. Results of classroom observations 19 38 3.
Results from students’ questionaire 20 39 3.1 General information of the student respondents 20 40 3.2 Students’ perceptions on communicative activities 21 41 3.3 Students’ evaluation towards the experimental 21 learning period being exposed to the use of communicative games 42 CHAPTER IV 22 43 4. Results of Classroom observations 24 44 4. Results from Students’ questionnaire 24 45 4. General information of the student respondents 24 46 4.
Students’ perceptions on communicative activities 25 47 4. Students’ evaluation towards the experimental learning 27 period being exposed to the use of communicative games 48 CHAPTER V: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS 33 AND RECOMMENDATIONS 49 5. Summary of finding 33 vi 50 5. Results of the classroom observations 33 51 5.
Results of the students’ questionnaire. Recommendations 35 54 REFERENCES 35 55 APPENDICES I 56 APPENDIX A: A LETTER OF REQUEST I 57 APPENDIX B: A LETTER TO THE RESPONDENTS II 58 APPENDIX C: A LETTER TO TEACHER OBSERVERS III 59 APPENDIX D: OBSERVATION SHEET IV 60 APPENDIX E: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS VI 61 APPENDIX F: THE RESULTS OF QUESTIONNAIRE FOR IX STUDENTS 62 APPENDIX G: LESSON PLANS XII vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ABBREVIATION FULL WORD CGA Communicative games CLT Communicative Language Teaching CAR Classroom Action Research viii LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE 1.Classroom observation results 38 2. General information of the student respondents 41 3. Kinds of communicative games used by English teachers 45 4.
Participation due to speaking activities and games used. Participation due to Teacher’s teaching methodology. Participation due to Learners’ factors 50 7. Students’ evaluation on the experimental learning period 52 ix LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE 1.
Students’ attitude towards playing games in English speaking 42 lessons 2. Frequency of teachers’ using communicative games 44 x CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Introduction and rationale for the study With the trend of globalization, English has been asserting its significant and dominant role as a lingua franca, an international language, and a tool for integration and development among all countries in all fields ranging from politics, diplomacy, economy, education, travel to culture etc. And Vietnam is not an exception.
Since Vietnam’s participation in WTO in 2007 and particularly the launch of ASEAN community in 2015, the global and regional integration has necessarily led to the arising requirement of fostering English teaching and learning across the country so as to prepare for future generations of Vietnamese citizens who can possess good English communication skills to be able to work cooperatively and competitively in global markets. Therefore, English has been made a compulsory subject in most of public schools in Vietnam. In addition to that, much attention has also been paid into the improvement of English teaching methods to upgrade the quality of teaching English in the entire educational system. As a result, the teaching and learning of English have also been changing from the traditional grammar-centered approach focusing on students’ ability to use correct grammatical rules into communicative approach emphasizing communicative competences in four main skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Of all the mentioned skills, speaking seems to play the core function in a foreign language and also the main purpose that most of English learners desire to achieve. According to Pattison (1992), a majority of language learners in the world study English with the target of attaining good English-oral competence. In this regard, the mastery of English speaking requires the learners to be good at both linguistic knowledge and communicative competence to deal with each specific situation. Due to these requirements, teaching and learning English in Vietnamese high schools has often encountered with a lot of challenges and difficulties.
As an English teacher at Hoanh Bo High School in Quang Ninh province for over ten years, the researcher has identified one of the challenges deterring the I development of communication skills, that is, the students here are reluctant to participate in oral activities, which has led to their poor speaking performance. The result of which may cause students a lack of confidence in learning English at higher education or, even worse, a fear in communicating with foreigners in their future workplace, which is extremely counterproductive in the context of globalization. Hence, it is essential to find out the factors affecting students’ participation in classroom speaking lessons so that appropriate solutions will be offered to tackle the problem. Of all aforementioned observations, together with the researcher’s own interest in helping her students to become competent global citizens in the future, a study on “Using Communicative Games to enhance students’ participation in oral activities at Hoanh Bo High School, Quang Ninh province” was chosen as a topic of her research.
Aims of the study The main purpose of this research is to improve students’ participation in oral activities through the use of Communicative Games (CGA) in Hoanh Bo High School, Quang Ninh province. More specifically, the study aims to find the answers to the following questions: 1. How does Communicative Games enhance students’ participation in oral activities? 2. What are the students’ attitudes towards Communicative Games? 1.
Scope of the study The research is concerned with the strategies to enhance students’ participation in oral activities to the students in the author’ own teaching context. Accordingly, the research scope included a total of thirty students in class 10A5 of Hoanh Bo High School, Quang Ninh province. They were selected as the II respondents of the study who were taught with their preferable CLT activities in speaking lessons to see if there are any positive feedbacks. Conceptual framework English has become a compulsory subject that must be taught in junior high school.
The students were expected to master the all standard competences based on each grade and the curriculum that is applied. In fact, though in high school, student has got English subject, they still have low Standard English competency especially in speaking skill. Speaking skill is the productive skill of English teaching and learning goal but the result of the teaching and learning process was not maximal. Most of the students found difficulties in speaking such as they could not use English based on the target language.
The monotonous activities and their failure in mastering the skill causes them had low motivation, so they sometimes get bored or uninterested in the lesson.