1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN DANH HÀO A STUDY ON USING AUTHENTIC MATERIALS IN TEACHING ENGLISH IN THE CONTEXT OF BAC GIANG HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED STUDENTS (Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng Tài liệu xác thực trong giảng dạy Tiếng Anh tại ngữ cảnh Trường THPT Chuyên Bắc Giang - Bắc Giang) MA. MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Hanoi, 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN DANH HÀO A STUDY ON USING AUTHENTIC MATERIALS IN TEACHING ENGLISH IN THE CONTEXT OF BAC GIANG HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED STUDENTS (Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng Tài liệu xác thực trong giảng dạy Tiếng Anh tại ngữ cảnh Trường THPT Chuyên Bắc Giang - Bắc Giang) MA. MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Cohort: MA 17 Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Bach Thao, (M.A) Hanoi, 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Summary of selected students Table 2: Authentic materials and frequency Table 3: Types of authentic materials used Table 4: Authentic materials and skills Table 5: Usefulness of authentic materials from students‟ perspective Table 6: Problems in using authentic materials LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………. ii List of tables …………………………………………………………………………… iii Table of contents ……………………………………………………………………… iv PART A: INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………….
Rationale for the study …………………………………………………………. Aims of the study………………………………………………………………. Scope of the study ………………………………………………………………. Significance of the study …………………………………………………………… 3 5.
Design of the study………………………………………………………………. 5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW ……………………………………………. 1 Authenticity and authentic materials …………………………………………… 5 1. Authenticity in CLT ……………………………………………………….
Types of authentic materials ………………………………………. Criteria for selecting authentic materials …………………………. 2 The use of authentic materials in the classroom. Reasons for using authentic materials …………………………………….
Possible problems in using authentic materials …………………………… 11 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY …………………………………………………… 13 2. Teachers …………………………………………………………………… LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Data collection procedure ………………………………………………………. Data analysis procedure ………………………………………………………… 18 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS …………………………………………………………….
Data description and analysis …………………………………………………. Summary of findings ………………………………………………………………. Contribution of the research ………………………………………………………. Limitation of the research …………………………………….
Suggestion for further research ………………………………. 41 APPENDIX 1: Student Questionnaire ………………………………………………. I APPENDIX 2: Teacher Interview …………………………………………………… IV APPENDIX 3: Interview Transcript ………………………………………………… V APPENDIX 4: Observation Checklist ………………………………………………. IX LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 8 PART A: INTRODUCTION This part provides the rationale for carrying out the research, the aims that need to be acquired, the scope, the significance as well as the design of the study.
Rationale for the study In recent years, English has become one of the major and compulsory subjects at schools all over Vietnam. Together with the expansion of teaching and learning this subject, students today have been aware of its importance. English is believed to be the basic requirement for anyone who would like to have a good job. Thus, great efforts have been made to help students learn English better, among which the effort to search for new sources of materials supporting the process of English teaching and learning has always been encouraged.
In my observation, using authentic materials as supplementary materials in teaching and learning English is a good way to increase learners‟ language proficiency. There are a number of reasons supporting this idea. In the first place, it is the real situation of teaching and learning English at Bac Giang High School for Gifted Students, where the research study was carried out. Bac Giang High School for Gifted Students is among a few schools in Vietnam having the best quality of foreign language teaching.
The students of the school are carefully chosen from all over Bac Giang province and most of them are assured to have high level of proficiency in English compared with those in other schools. For this reason, the school curriculum designed for the textbooks often finishes at the end of the first term. In the second term, it mainly focuses on developing the students‟ language skills with the help of other supplementary materials. Thus, the demand for seeking new sources of materials has been taken into consideration by the teachers and authentic materials are found to be an effective solution to this task.
Secondly, it is the availability of authentic materials. Due to technological advancements and the government open-door policy, it is easy to have access to authentic materials rich in content, diverse in forms, and of different levels of linguistic complexity. This assists teachers and learners in using authentic materials with much convenience. An enormous wealth of authentic materials enables teachers to have a wide variety of choice LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 9 based on the objectives of the lesson, as well as learners‟ age, language level, interests, needs, expectations and goals.
Consequently, teachers will be able to make their lessons more flexible, suitable and especially, interesting enough to motivate learners to learn and practice the language. Thirdly, it is the benefits of using authentic materials in teaching and learning English. The materials obtained from various sources can attract learners‟ attention and create their motivation towards learning a foreign language. As the materials help learners bridge the gap between the classroom and the outside world and enable them to put their theoretical knowledge into practice, they open a way for positive transfer of learning.
Therefore, authentic materials can increase the quality of foreign language teaching. Last but not least, it is the students‟ need of communication in English in and out of the classroom. Besides English grammar and the fixed teaching points given in textbooks, there should be other materials to develop students‟ communicative competence, help students to express their ideas fluently and accurately. Thus, authentic materials if used properly will encourage learners to communicate in the target language though they are not designed to teach a foreign language.
For the above reasons, the researcher decided to investigate the use of authentic materials as supplementary materials in teaching English at the context of Bac Giang High School for Gifted Students. It is hoped that this study would be of practical benefits to the teachers at high schools for gifted students in particular and other high schools in general in developing students‟ language skills. Aims of the study In doing the research, the author attempted to address four main issues. Firstly, the study investigated how authentic materials are used as supplementary materials for English learning and teaching.
Secondly, it examined teachers and students‟ evaluation on the effectiveness of authentic materials. Thirdly, the study aimed to identify possible problems when using authentic materials, followed by suggestions to deal with these problems. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 10 These objectives were accomplished by answering the following research questions: (1) How are authentic materials used as supplementary materials for English learning and teaching? (2) How effective are authentic materials in English learning and teaching? (3) What are problems in using authentic materials? (4) What solutions can be suggested to solve the identified problems? 3. Scope of the study The study mainly focused on exploiting authentic materials as supplementary materials for English learning and teaching in the context of Bac Giang High School for Gifted Students.
The subjects in the study were restricted to three English specializing classes ranging from grade 10 to grade 12 and five teachers who directly taught English to these classes. Significance of the study It is noteworthy that the study was a great attempt to examine an important issue in language teaching methodology. Therefore, once finished, it can bring a number of benefits to involved parties namely students, teachers, educational administrators and researchers of the related fields. Teachers and students at Bac Giang High School for Gifted Students are those who directly benefit from the information the research provides.
Teachers will have an overview of the situation of their own using authentic materials to increase students‟ language proficiency, identify difficulties that they themselves and their colleagues have encountered and consider solutions to adjust their teaching methods. Students are likely to be well aware of the benefits of authentic materials, which leads to their positive attitudes and effective resulting in exploitation of authentic materials. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 11 Educational administrators may be provided close and comprehensive view into the current situation of using authentic materials in teaching English. This urges them to implement necessary amendments in terms of curriculum, facilities and so on.
Researchers of the related fields can also refer to the present work for literature review. In general, students, teachers, educational administrators and researchers are those who are likely to benefit from the study. Design of the study The study consists of three parts: PART A, Introduction, provides the rationale, the aims, the scope, the significance and the design of the study. PART B, Development, discusses the following contents of the study: Chapter 1, Literature Review, discusses the literature relating authenticity and authentic materials as well as the use of authentic materials in the classroom.
Chapter 2, Methodology, defines the methodology of the research including features of the participants, settings, research methods, data collection and data analysis procedure. Chapter 3, Results, presents and discusses the findings, which gives comprehensive answers to the four research questions. It also offers suggestions to solve all the identified problems for a higher effectiveness of authentic materials. PART C, Conclusion, summarizes significant findings, highlights contributions of the research, addresses notable limitations, and puts forward practical suggestions for future research.
References Appendix LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 12 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Authenticity and authentic materials 1. Authenticity in Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) For many years, there have been many authors discussing the authenticity in language teaching such as Taylor (1994), Widdowson (1996), Michael Breen (1985). Among these authors, McDonough and Shaw (1993) have provided the most generalized idea that authenticity is much defined with the selection of the materials, the activities and methods teachers use in the classroom.
They describe authenticity as the following: “…. a term which loosely implies as close an approximation as possible to the world outside the classroom, in the selection both of language material and of the activities and methods used for practice in the classroom” (cited in Murdoch, 1999). Authenticity appears to be naturally associated with CLT. According to Richards and Rodgers (1986: 69), CLT is promoted as an approach to language teaching which supports the development of learners‟ abilities to use language fluently and meaningfully.
Thus, real communication is considered not only the goal of language teaching but also the tool helping teachers to achieve the aim. These authors also stress one of the features of CLT as "learner-centeredness view of second language teaching". This means that teachers need to create a learner-centered classroom and engage learners in authentic and meaningful communications that require meaning negotiations, with the goal to increase comprehensible language input for learners and expect them to generate more output. In order to do so, teachers should develop methods, exploit materials, organize activities, and design tasks based on learners' demonstrated needs of a particular class.
Especially, CLT emphasizes the use of authentic materials in teaching language (Widdowson, 1996). Authentic materials give learners the opportunity to respond to genuine communicative needs in real-life situations. This is to help learners develop strategies for understanding language as actually used by native speakers (Canale and Swain, 1980). LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 13 According to Michael Breen (1985: 61), known for his theories on authenticity, there are four types of authenticity within the classroom that have been identified and the strong emphasis is on the use of authentic texts: (1) Authenticity of the texts that we may use as input data for learners.