VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****** LẠI THỊ HIỀN AN INVESTIGATION INTO USING SITUATIONAL CONTEXTS IN TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR FRESHMEN IN A UNIVERSITY IN NAM DINH CITY (Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng ngữ cảnh tình huống vào giảng dạy ngữ pháp cho sinh viên không chuyên Tiếng Anh năm thứ nhất tại một trường đại học ở thành phố Nam Định) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.111 HANOI - 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****** LẠI THỊ HIỀN AN INVESTIGATION INTO USING SITUATIONAL CONTEXTS IN TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR FRESHMEN IN A UNIVERSITY IN NAM DINH CITY (Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng ngữ cảnh tình huống vào giảng dạy ngữ pháp cho sinh viên không chuyên Tiếng Anh năm thứ nhất tại một trường đại học ở thành phố Nam Định) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60. Hà Cẩm Tâm HANOI - 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled AN INVESTIGATION INTO USING SITUATIONAL CONTEXTS IN TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR FRESHMEN IN A UNIVERSITY IN NAM DINH CITY Is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master at University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi National University, and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other upper secondary schools.
Hanoi, August 20th, 2008 Lại Thị Hiền i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could not have been completed without the help, encouragement and support of a number of people who all deserve my sincere gratitude and appreciation. First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Ha Cam Tam for her enthusiastic help and guidance. I am also very grateful to all of my students of the class CDDI22A2 at University of Economics and Technical Industry (UNETI), who participated in my action research.
This contribution played a very important role in my research‟s result. I would like to send my special thanks to my lecturers, my friends and my classmates for their sincere comments and criticism. Finally, a special word of thanks goes to my readers for their interest and comments on this study. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT In order to be fluency in English, grammar is considered to be the basis to develop other four skills.
However, when teaching grammar to first-year students at University of Economics and Technical Industry, the author of this research found out that students were not interested in learning grammar. Hence, they did not focus on the lesson and ignored doing exercises resulting in bad marks in the tests and exams. Thanks to the reasons above, the researcher decided to use situational contexts to teach grammar for students. The aims of carrying out this research were to find out students‟ interest in grammar lessons which apply situational contexts and measure whether students can complete grammar exercises better after practicing with situational contexts.
In order to do this research, the researcher first makes plans for the study by preparing situational contexts and deciding how they are applied in the classroom. Then, the action stage takes place. All the situational contexts are put into practice. The teacher gives them to students and they have to make presentation about those situational contexts.
During this stage, all things happened in the class are observed and taken notes. At the same time, after each try-out lesson, there is a test given at the end of the lesson in order to measure students‟ progress. Last but not least, the action is evaluated by analyzing and comparing the results of the test and summarizing and discussing the observation notes. In the end, the researcher gives comments and conclusions about the study.
iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS PART A: INTRODUCTION. Rationale of the study. Objectives of the study. The research questions.
The scope of the study. The significance of the study. Methods of the study. Organization of the study.
5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Theoretical background about grammar. Definitions of grammar. The importance of grammar in second language teaching.
Approaches in grammar teaching. The deductive approach – rule-driven learning. The inductive approach – the rule-discovery path. Functional-Notional Approach.
Techniques in grammar teaching. Teaching grammar in situational contexts. Teaching grammar through texts. Teaching grammar through stories.
Teaching grammar through songs and rhymes. Context and situational context in grammar teaching. Situational context in teaching grammar. What is a situational context?.
13 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. The advantages and disadvantages of teaching grammar in situational contexts. Application of situational contexts in teaching grammar. Review of previous studies.
Definitions of action research. Steps to conduct an action research. The setting of the study. The research context.
The course book. Data collection and analysis. Implications for more effective grammar lessons. Limitations and suggestions for further research .I v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF GRAPHS Graph 1: Test 1‟s results…………………………………………………………………29 Graph 2: Test 2‟s results…………………………………………………………………31 Graph 3: Test 3‟s results…………………………………………………………………32 Graph 4: Test 4‟s results…………………………………………………………………35 Graph 5: Test 5‟s results…………………………………………………………………36 Graph 6: Test 6‟s results…………………………………………………………………38 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale of the study In times of globalization, English language is becoming more and more important worldwide. Many people hold a belief that English can help them to be easily accessed to job opportunities and connect people from all over the world together. This contributes to a significant change in school education system in Vietnam. From kindergarten to university, English has become a compulsory subject in teaching and learning‟s curriculum.
Although the four skills including writing, listening, speaking and reading still plays a very important role in teaching and learning English, it is undeniable that English grammar also hold an inevitable position. Without grammar competence, people cannot generate ideas into grammatical sentences to write an essay or paragraph as well as understand and be understood in communicating with others. However, in University of Economic and Technical Industry (UNETI), grammar teaching encounters lots of difficulties. More specifically, lecturers there still prefer the traditional method of teaching grammar.
Therefore, some of them often explains new words and grammar structures, ask students to learn by heart and make sentences, which makes them passive and bored. One more problem lies in students‟ participation in grammar lesson. The boring atmosphere and lots of written exercises makes students lose their interest in learning grammar at all. Equally important, it is clear that teachers in UNETI do not emphasize the role of communication in teaching grammar, so very few communicative activities explored in grammar teaching result in students‟ little chances to approach, be exposed to and practice grammatical items in real-life situations.
The reason is that they are afraid of the noise students make, and it is difficult for them to control the class. Last but not least, in the course book used for first-year non-major students (New Headway Pre-intermediate by Liz and John Soars), lots of situational contexts are provided, but teachers do not take the most advantages of them. 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com As Harmer (2007:57) stated, “students need to get an idea of how the new language is used by native speakers and the best way of doing this is to present language in context”. Therefore, the role of situational context in English teaching and learning in general and in English grammar teaching in particular are proved to be very essential.
All of the factors mentioned above urge me to conduct a study on situational context in teaching grammar with an aim to find out students‟ and teachers‟ difficulties when applying this method in their teaching and learning. It is entitled “An investigation into using situational contexts in teaching grammar for non-English major freshmen in a university in Nam Dinh city”. Objectives of the study The objectives of the study are as follows: To find out if students are more interested in practicing grammar through situational contexts. To measure whether students can complete grammar exercises better after practicing with situational contexts.
The research questions This study is intended to address the following two research questions: Q1: Are students more interested in practicing grammar through situational contexts? Q2: Can students do grammar exercises better after their practices with situational context? 4. The scope of the study As could be seen from the title of the study, this paper strongly focuses on finding out the effectiveness of using situational contexts in increasing students‟ interest in practicing grammar and the ability whether students can complete grammar exercises better after 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com practicing with situational contexts. At the same time, the study also only concentrates on non-English major freshmen in UNETI. Therefore, its results are not reliable for other kinds of context, other students in UNETI as well as other universities.
The significance of the study This study is hoped to bring some benefits to both teachers and students at UNETI as follows: It may change teachers‟ views on ways of teaching grammar into a communicative approach. It may stimulate teachers to employ situational contexts in their grammar teaching to make it more appropriate and effective. It may stimulate students, help them to be more involved and interested in grammar lessons. Methods of the study In order to answer the research question raised above, the researcher intends to use brief notes to record students‟ interest into the activity, and students‟ level of remembering.
At the same time, tests given after the presentation of the situational contexts are also applied in this study. Its purpose is to find out in-depth data about students‟ progress, proficiency, and ability to apply theory into practice. In this study, both quantitative and qualitative method are used. All comments, recommendations and conclusions provided in this study based on the analysis and discussion of the statistics from tests‟ results.
At the same time, the qualitative data comes from the author‟s observation in some grammar lessons. Organization of the study 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com The study is divided into three part which are described as follows: Part A, Introduction, is an overview of the study in which the rationale, the aims, the scope, the significance, the research questions, the methods of the study are presented. Part B, Development, consists of three chapters: Chapter 1 (Literature Review) is the theoretical background of the thesis including a review of grammar, grammar teaching and context in grammar teaching. Chapter 2 (Methodology) presents the data collection instruments and the description of participants.
The next section covers the process of the action research. The results and discussion of the study are also presented in this chapter. Part C, Conclusion, presents the major findings of the study followed by the conclusion of the study. 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.
Theoretical background about grammar 1. Definitions of grammar As far as we know, grammar is a linguistic term that becomes very popular among those working in the second language teaching field. However, different linguists still have different definitions related to grammar. From the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2009), grammar is defined as “the study and practice of the rules by which words change their forms and are combined into sentences”.