VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ NGA A STUDY ON ADAPTING TASKS IN ENGLISH 7 ON THE BASIS OF COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING FOR STUDENTS AT MINH KHAI SECONDARY SCHOOL, HOAI DUC, HA NOI (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC ĐIỀU CHỈNH CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG TRONG SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH 7 THEO HƯỚNG GIAO TIẾP CHO HỌC SINH TẠI TRƯỜNG THCS MINH KHAI, HOÀI ĐỨC, HÀ NỘI) M. Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014 i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ NGA A STUDY ON ADAPTING TASKS IN ENGLISH 7 ON THE BASIS OF COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING FOR STUDENTS AT MINH KHAI SECONDARY SCHOOL, HOAI DUC, HA NOI (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC ĐIỀU CHỈNH CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG TRONG SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH 7 THEO HƯỚNG GIAO TIẾP CHO HỌC SINH TẠI TRƯỜNG THCS MINH KHAI, HOÀI ĐỨC, HÀ NỘI) M. Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Assoc. Nguyen Xuan Thom, Ph.D Hanoi, 2014 ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I declare that the thesis “Adapting tasks in English 7 on the basis of communicative language teaching for students at Minh Khai Secondary School, Hoai Duc, Ha Noi” represents my own work in the fulfillment for the Degree of Master of Teaching English to Speaker of Other Language at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Ha Noi, and has not been included in any thesis submitted to any other university or institution for a degree, diploma or other qualifications.
Signature Nguyen Thi Nga i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis is never the work of my own, but the contributions of many different people in different ways. I would like to express my appreciation, especially to the following: Foremost, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc. Nguyen Xuan Thom, Ph.D for his continuous suggestions and enormously insightful comments. I could not have imagined without his enthusiasm, this thesis would have fulfilled or not.
My special thanks to all the teachers and students in grade 7 at Minh Khai Secondary School for their assistance and support during the process of data collection. Besides, I thank my family for their unconditional help and encouragement, both financially and emotionally during my learning process when I needed. Last but not the least, my appreciation goes to two closest friends of mine, Anh Tuan and Thu Huyen, who always provided me helpful tips and advice when I was stuck to write the thesis. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT Textbook is considered as a really necessary tool to guide the teachers how to teach and to tell students how to study.
However, in the teaching context of Minh Khai Secondary School in Hoai Duc, Ha Noi, the adaptation on the basis of communicative language teaching is very essential. Most students here have not known how important English is in the development of the world in general and their career future in specific yet. Hardly did students have chances to learn, practice or review English lessons in practical or joyful ways because they did not like English and found the lessons monotonous or worthless, either. This research, therefore, was done to help students in grade 7 firstly, get involved the lessons as well as improve their English skills through task adaptation.
A preliminary survey questionnaires, which was delivered to all 86 students in grade 7, was the main implement to gather their opinions about their difficulties in using textbook and their attitudes when the teacher adapt the tasks. Parallel to this instrument, the researcher also interviewed two other English teachers in this school to clarify their sentiments of task adaptation in Tiếng Anh 7. Based on the data, the 16 adapted versions were born and pilot teaching to examine their effectiveness. Through this, the unsuitable tasks were then changed to make sure to get better results for further.
In brief, the purpose of the research was to make a change in teaching and learning styles in this secondary school on the basis of communicative way, and the final results were 16 adapted tasks based on the 16 units in the textbook. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Communicative Language Teaching: CLT Teacher: T Students: Ss CUP: Cambridge University Press OUP: Oxford University Press iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Chart 1: The results of the placement test Table 1: Specific results for the test Chart 2: Students’ opinions in terms of the textbook appearances Chart 3: Students’ opinions in terms of topics in the textbook Chart 4: Students’ opinions in terms of vocabulary and grammar in the textbook Chart 5: Students’ opinions in terms of tasks in the textbook Table 2: Students’ attitudes in terms of communicative activities Chart 6: Students’ opinions in terms of time settings per task and activity Chart 7: Students’ opinions in terms of time distribution v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration. iii List of Abbreviations. iv List of figures and tables.
v Table of contents. vi PART I: INTRODUCTION. Rationale of the study. Aims of the study.
Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Design of the study. 3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT.
4 Chapter 1: Literature review. History of the study. Communicative language teaching. Definitions of Communicative language teaching (CLT.
Roles of CLT in foreign language education. Purposes of adaptation. Current context at Minh Khai Secondary School. Settings of the study.
10 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Methods of the study. Instrument 1: Aptitude test. Instrument 2: Preliminary survey questionnaire.
Instrument 3: Informal interview. Instrument 4: Observation sheet. Data collection procedure. The students’ opinions on the textbook.
In terms of textbook appearances. In terms of topics. In terms of vocabulary and grammar. In terms of tasks.
The students’ opinions on time. In terms of time settings per task and activity. In terms of time distribution. The teacher’s opinions on using communicative approaches.
21 Chapter 3: Study results and discussion. What are the bases for adaptation on the basis of research results?. What specifically should be adapted in the textbook?. Unit 1: Section A, Task 4 (page 12).
23 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Unit 2: Section B, Task 3 (page 24). Unit 3: Section A, Task 3 (page 31). Unit 4: Section B, Task 1 (page 47).
Unit 5: Section A, Task 4 (page 54). Unit 6: Section A, Task 3 (page 62). Unit 7: Section A, Task 3 (page 74). Unit 8: Section B, Task 5 (page 85).
Unit 9: Section A, Task 3 (page 89). Unit 10: Section B, Task 4 (page 105). Unit 11: Section B, Task 4 (page 112). Unit 12: Section A, Task 2 (page 115).
Unit 13: Section B, Task 4 (page 137). Unit 14: Section A, Task 3 (page 142). Unit 15: Section A, Task 3 (page 149). Unit 16: Section B, Task 2 (page 158).
32 PART III: CONCLUSION. Conclusion of the whole thesis. I Appendix 1: Placement test. III Appendix 3: Teachers’ interview.
V Appendix 4: Materials delivered to classes. IX Appendix 5: Observation sheet of an English language class. XV Appendix 6: Original tasks. XVI viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Rationale of the study With the need for accessing the globalization, Viet Nam government has carried out many opening policies in order to integrate with other countries, including economy, politics, education and etc. With these changes, our education has so many challenges in equipping second languages for learners to satisfy necessary requirements in the global trend nowadays. Facts have shown that English teachers need to renew their methodology and apply their teaching on the basis of communication for the purpose of increasing learners’ communicative skills. Once learners can improve or master their English, they can achieve further academic purposes.
Therefore, textbook plays a very essential role in teaching and learning English because they can stimulate teachers and students’ effective education. And, to gain a good result in English language teaching and learning, it is extremely necessary to find out, use and adapt appropriately textbook in terms of each context. It is the fact that English secondary education system in Viet Nam has a plenty of limitation, including teaching quality, students’ attitude and level, testing assessment and etc. Not only has the number of students had no much opportunity to access English communicative schooling but also a large number of schools are unable to provide well-equipped facilities.
As the result, students feel less interested and demotivated with English, they do not concentrate on this subject and are not confident enough to communicate or speak out their voice. At Minh Khai secondary school, a really small school located a little far from the centre of the city, teaching and learning English on the basis of communicative language teaching (CLT) is a really new challenging job. Besides the lack of facilities, teaching communicative methods are quite unfamiliar to teachers. They have no much experience in teaching communicative methodology.
Equally important, student’s levels of proficiency in terms of vocabulary, grammar, listening, speaking and pronunciation are so normal. That is the reason why they 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com have trouble in learning English and feel less confident to speak out loud their voice successfully. In addition, students in the same class are not at the same level, which makes some feel bored and uninterested in one activity while others feel down, tired and depressed due to its difficulty. Therefore, I am of the belief that I should make groups of the same-level students and adapt the designed tasks according to communicative approaches.
Lastly, until now, there are some studies on adapting textbooks at high school, but no research on adapting textbook at secondary school has been carried out on the basis of CLT. All the things above urge the researcher to do this study in the hope of helping her low-level students in grade 7 get more chance to learn, practice, improve and enjoy the interest of learning English through the adaptation of some tasks on the basis of communicative learning during the course. Aims of the study Tiếng Anh 7 was issued in 2012, which balances the skills taught and the kinds of language practice the students take part in. Therefore, to help the teaching and learning more effective and suitable with students’ ability in each context, using and adapting tasks in this textbook is really necessary.
And, this study is aimed to achieve two central objectives: o Apply teacher’s knowledge and experiences in teaching English in grade 7. o Produce a series of 16 adapted tasks per 16 units. Research questions In order to fulfill the above aims, this study is aimed to answer the following research questions: (1) What are the bases for adaptation on the basis of research results? (2) What specifically should be adapted in the textbook? 4. Scope of the study As I mentioned above, this study is focused on investigating tasks in the Tiếng Anh 7.
Hence, the researcher will study teaching and learning situation basing on 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com learner-centered and communicative learning approach with students in grade 7 at Minh Khai secondary school.