VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ****************** NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH HẠNH AN EVALUATION OF THE SPEAKING TASKS IN THE TEXTBOOK “TIENG ANH 11” IN RELATION TO THEIR IMPLEMENTATION AT AN UPPER-SECONDARY SCHOOL IN SON LA PROVINCE Nghiên cứu đánh giá các nhiệm vụ Nói trong sách giáo khoa “Tiếng Anh 11” với việc thực hiện chúng tại một trường THPT tỉnh Sơn La M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI – 2017 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 BÍCH HẠNH AN EVALUATION OF THE SPEAKING TASKS IN THE TEXTBOOK “TIENG ANH 11” IN RELATION TO THEIR IMPLEMENTATION AT AN UPPER-SECONDARY SCHOOL IN SON LA PROVINCE Nghiên cứu đánh giá các nhiệm vụ Nói trong sách giáo khoa “Tiếng Anh 11” với việc thực hiện chúng tại một trường THPT tỉnh Sơn La M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr. Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa HANOI – 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT I certify my authority of the minor thesis entitled: “An evaluation of the Speaking Tasks in the textbook „Tieng Anh 11‟ in relation to their implementation at an Upper-Secondary school in Son La province” in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree Master of Arts. Hanoi, 2017 Nguyễn Thị Bích Hạnh i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On the completion of this minor thesis, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa, who made valuable suggestions and comments which helped me complete the study.
Besides, I would like to give my special thanks to the teachers and students at Tong Lenh Upper-Secondary School in Son La for their help in completing my survey as well as their willingness to share their ideas on the accomplishment of the research. I also wish to acknowledge the assistance and encouragement of all the lecturers of the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University. My sincere thanks go to a number of my colleagues and friends who helped me a lot in gathering data for the study. Finally, my gratefulness is to my family members who have constantly supported and encouraged me to carry out this thesis.
ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This study was conducted at an upper-secondary school in remote and mountainous Son La province. Its general objective was to evaluate the appropriateness of the speaking tasks in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 11” to grade 11 students at the school in terms of aims, content and methodology. Specifically, it examined the suitability of those tasks to the course‟s objectives for speaking skills and explored how they were appropriate to the students‟ levels and interests, from which the ineffective factors of the speaking tasks were identified. To achieve this purpose, document analysis, survey questionnaire for students and interview for teachers were employed to collect data for the evaluation.
The findings of the study revealed that the speaking tasks were not fully suitable to the course‟s objectives for speaking skills due to the fact that some elements in the speaking tasks were inappropriate to the target students, suggesting for some task adaptation techniques to make them better fit this specific learning context. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE‟S STATEMENT .iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF TABLES .vii LIST OF CHARTS AND FIGURES .viii PART A: INTRODUCTION. Objectives of the study.
Scope of the study. Significant of the study. Design of the paper. 6 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Language learning tasks. Definition of tasks. Types of material evaluation. Models of material evaluation.
Criteria of material evaluation. Teaching and learning speaking skills in EFL classrooms. The vital role of speaking skills in developing communicative competence. Problems in teaching and learning speaking skills in EFL classrooms.
Previous studies on evaluation of speaking tasks in English textbooks. The setting of the study. English teaching and learning context. An overview of the ELT course for grade 11 and the textbook “Tiếng Anh 11” ………………………………………………………………………………18 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Description of the speaking tasks in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 11”. The informants of the study. Data collection instruments & procedures. Semi-structured interview.
Procedures of the study. Modes of data analysis. 24 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. The appropriateness of the speaking tasks to the course‟s objectives for speaking skills.
The appropriateness of the speaking tasks to the level and interests of grade 11 students at Tong Lenh Upper-Secondary School. Teachers and students‟ suggestions for the adaptation of the speaking tasks 43 3. Suggestions for adaptation. Limitations of the study & suggestions for further research.
XV v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT Communicative Language Teaching EFL English as a Foreign Language ELT English Language Teaching MOET Ministry of Education and Training vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Curriculum for Secondary Education – English 11 in term of speaking .2: Description of the objectives of the speaking tasks in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 11” .3: The students‟ ability to ask and answer about the topics covered in the book .4: Students‟ ability to perform some basic language functions in speaking 31 Table 3.5: Students‟ opinions on the difficulty of the task topics .6: Students‟ opinions on the difficulty of the task instructions .7: Students‟ judgment on the effectiveness of the interaction patterns .8: Students‟ interests on the task topics .9: Students‟ interests on the task instructions .10: Students‟ interests on interaction patterns .11: Barriers for students when implementing speaking tasks .12: Students‟ comments on the speaking tasks.39 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF CHARTS AND FIGURES Figure 1.1: The material evaluation model of Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 97) .1: Students‟ opinions on the effectiveness of the given suggestions in the tasks .2: Teachers‟ methods in speaking lessons .39 viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale The important roles of textbooks in language teaching and learning process have been recognized and emphasized by several researchers. For teachers, a textbook provides a structure; therefore, it is easy to keep track of what they have done and where they have reached. Moreover, it helps teachers to save time from preparing materials for every lesson by offering linguistic and methodological support (Cunningsworth, 1995).
For students, a textbook is a key resource for them to focus on because it defines what is to be learned and what will be tested. It also reinforces what the teacher has done and makes revision and preparation possible; thus offers support for learning outside class (Ian Mcgrath, 2002). In other words, textbook is “the visible heart of any English Language Teaching program” (Sheldon, 1988: 237). However, since textbooks tend to be the main teaching-learning aid, there have been vigorous arguments against them.
It has been claimed that although textbooks can help teachers, many of them do not (Brumfit, 1979), and language learning is far too complex to be satisfactorily catered by pre-packaged materials (Allwright, 1989). In addition, Cunningsworth (1979: 31) notes “course materials are not intrinsically good or bad – rather they are more or less effective in helping students to reach particular goals in specific situation”. As a result, evaluation has become “an intrinsic part of teaching and learning” (Rea-Dickins & Germaine, 1992: 5). In Vietnam education context, since 2006 when a set of English textbooks for all upper-secondary secondary schools was officially approved, students‟ ability to use English for communicative purposes has been put into more consideration.
However, in spite of several strengths of the textbooks, some issues have arisen such as students‟ disinterest in doing the tasks in the textbooks, students‟ focus on grammar points due to the tests‟ format, or teachers‟ reuse of tasks in their boring 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Therefore, it is a necessity to do evaluation on English textbooks for upper secondary students so as to find solutions to those problems. There have been many studies on evaluation of English textbook at Vietnam general education level, well documented by Nguyen, T. Of those studies, the one done by Nguyen, T.
(2007: 57) notes: “Overloaded contents for the student population in disadvantaged areas and unhelpful teacher‟s manuals, also tend to impact on the effective application of the books”. She explains: “Students in large urban areas normally have more access to different learning resources. Thus, their English language proficiency levels are generally higher than those of rural areas who are not offered all these favorable conditions when studying the books” (2007: 53). In short, contextual difference caused textbooks more challenging for language teachers and learners in Vietnam.
The review of speaking tasks in English textbooks for secondary schools also has been put into consideration by Vietnamese researchers and educators. (2007: 57) concludes: “many of speaking activities in the textbooks are found non-communicative, failing to elicit negotiation of meaning and presenting unrealistic and unnatural discourse. Also, guidance is not always available for students to complete tasks and socio-cultural information is not included for learning the rules of speaking in the target language”. Obviously, the topics, contents, instructions, illustrations, etc.
of the speaking tasks in the textbook can influence the implementation of teaching and learning speaking skills. In short, it is the limitations of the speaking tasks‟ design in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 11” that have motivated me to conduct this study. Besides, the fact of applying the same set of textbooks for students both in large urban areas and remote mountainous areas has made my concerns. I do hope that the findings of this research are practical implications not only for teachers who are teaching in rural areas but also for textbook writers in their future designs.
2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Objectives of the study This study aimed to evaluate the speaking tasks in the textbook “Tieng Anh 11” which is in use for grade 11 students at Tong Lenh Upper-Secondary School in Son La. Specifically, it explored the suitability of those tasks to the objectives for speaking skills of the grade 11 ELT education and their appropriateness to the students at an upper-secondary school. Thus, it helped to identify problems and suggested ways to adapt the inappropriate elements of the tasks to fit the target audience.
Research questions The study was designed to answer the two following questions: To what extent were the speaking tasks suitable to the course‟s objectives for speaking skills? To what extent were the speaking tasks appropriate to the level and interests of grade 11 students at Tong Lenh Upper-Secondary School? 4. Scope of the study The evaluation in this study was restricted to the textbook “Tiếng Anh 11”, unofficially called „standard textbook‟, which have been in use since 2007 for non- major 11th form students. However, due to the researcher‟s recognition of many problems with the implementation of teaching speaking skills, the study only focused on the speaking tasks in the book. The study also limited the research context at Tong Lenh Upper-Secondary School where the researcher has been working for 8 years.
The participants in the study were available teachers and students of grade 11 at the school. Moreover, this study only made an in-use evaluation; therefore, beside the document analysis conducted by the researcher, all other data from questionnaires and interviews were 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.