UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES-VNU, HANOI POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT PHAM THU HA USING SHORT STORIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH IN THE CONTEXT OF VIETNAM AUSTRALIA SCHOOL – HANOI (VIỆC SỬ DỤNG TRUYỆN NGẮN TRONG GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH TẠI NGỮ CẢNH TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC VIỆT ÚC – HÀ NỘI) M. Minor thesis Field: Methodology Code: 601410 HANOI-2009 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES-VNU, HANOI POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT PHAM THU HA USING SHORT STORIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH IN THE CONTEXT OF VIETNAM AUSTALIA SCHOOL- HANOI (VIỆC SỬ DỤNG TRUYỆN NGẮN TRONG GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH TẠI NGỮ CẢNH TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC VIỆT ÚC – HÀ NỘI) SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS SUPERVISOR: PHÙNG HÀ THANH, M.Ed HANOI-2009 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. iii LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS. vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.
Rationale of the study. Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the study.
Structure of the study. 5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Literature and language teaching. Concept of literature.
Features of literature. Using literature in language classroom. Short stories in language classroom. Definition of a short story.
Benefits of using short stories in language classroom. Reinforcing the skills. Introducing literary elements. 12 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Teaching higher-order thinking. Data collection instruments. Procedure of data collection. Procedure of data analysis.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. Reseach question 1: How do teachers percieve the use of short stories in teaching English in terms of necessity?. Research question 2: How do students percieve short stories as a source of language input in terms of interest and importance?. Research question 3: How do teachers exploit short stories in teaching English in terms of purpose, strategy and frequency?.
The frequency of using short stories in teaching English. The purposes of using short stories in teaching English. The strategies to exploit short stories in teaching English. Research question 4: To what extent do teachers feel satisfied with their use of short stories in teaching English?.
Research question 5: What are the obstacles that have limited teachers’ use of short stories in teaching English?. Research question 6: What are the obstacles that challenge students in learning English with short stories?. 29 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Research quesetion 7: What are the recomendations and expectations for using short stories in teaching English given by students and teachers?.
Students’ expectations in terms of length, level of difficulty and theme of a short story. Students’ expectations for the activities in class. Summary of the findings from the interview. Major findings of the study.
Selecting and evaluating short stories. Suggested techniques for integrating short stories in English teaching. Activities for using a short story in class. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study.
I APPENDIX 1: SOME SHORT STORIES USED IN THE STUDY. I APPENDIX 2: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS. III APPENDIX 3: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS. VII APPENDIX 4: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS (Vietnamese version).
X APPENDIX 5: INTERVIEW SCHEDULE. XIII LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vii LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS TABLES Table 4. 1: Students’ practice with short stories. 2: Teachers’ purposes of using short stories in teaching English.
4: Teachers’ satisfaction with the use of short stories in teaching English. 5: The obstacles in using short stories in teaching English. 6: Obstacles challenging the students in learning with short stories. 8: Students’ expectations in terms of length, level of difficulty and theme of a short story .9: Students’ expectations for the activities in class .10: Profile of the interviewees.
1: The presense of short stories in the teaching practice of the teachers. 2: Students’ perception of short stories in terms of interest .3: The frequency of using short stories in teaching English. 23 ABBREVIATIONS VAS: Vietnam Australia School- Hanoi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the background information, and states the problems and reasons for the study. It also outlines the overall purpose and objectives of the study, describes the significance of the study, poses the research questions to be answered and provides an overview of the research design.
Rationale of the study Today, English is the global means of communication. It is now an official language in more than 75 countries, with a total population of over 2 billion speakers. Three quarters of the world‟s mail are in English and 80% of the world‟s electrically stored information is also currently in English (Crystal, 1997). English is the working language of the Asian trade group ASEAN and the official language of the European Central Bank (Wallraff, 2000).
Briefly, with the spread of globalization and the rapid expansion of information technologies has come an explosion in the demand for English worldwide. Unexceptionally, in Vietnam, English is considered the key to success in modern life. The number of English learners has been increasing rapidly in the last few decades. To meet the demand, a great deal of schools and centers with special English teaching and learning programs have been set up everywhere, especially in big cities.
Vietnam Australia School- Hanoi (VAS), a private high school which is located in My Dinh, Hanoi, is one example. Established in 2007, VAS is to offer an ideal environment for learning English. It cooperates with PLC, a famous school in Australia in curriculum and education programs. Students in VAS have to follow the English syllabus of Vietnam carried out by Vietnamese teachers.
Besides they have global English and global commerce classes with Australian teachers, hence, there are many chances for them to practice and improve English in real life conversations with native speaking people. All of the parents hope that their children can have the best learning conditions, especially the best English learning environment so that their children will be able to go on studying overseas or to have the best preparation for their future. However, one of the challenges facing English teachers of VAS, including the author of this study, is composing extra materials. In VAS, students have five to six periods a week LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 with Vietnamese teachers, which is twice as much as other ordinary schools.
Therefore, besides the textbooks, extra materials are needed. Normally, many teachers select or compose more written practice tests to drill what students have learned in the textbook. However, this type of materials does seem to have attracted much interest. Sometimes, extra written practice tests are blamed for a boring atmosphere in many classes.
Thus, there should be variations so that students feel more interested in learning. In VAS, a number of sources of teaching materials such as poems, short stories, drama, films, English songs, etc. have been exploited now and then. Among these, using short stories as teaching supplementary materials has been taken into consideration for some following reasons.
Firstly, short stories can be seen as an interesting and suitable source of teaching materials. As reading texts, short stories can serve the language skill drilling function quite well. More importantly, short stories in particular and literary texts in general are favorable for students‟ language and cultural development and personal involvement. Since literature enables students to understand and appreciate other cultures and societies, it encourages personal growth and intellectual development.
According to Ibsen‟s view (1990), literary texts appeal to students in term of emotion and personal experience because each student will meet the text in his/her own way based on experiences and knowledge of literature and life. This creates meaningful and interesting discussions among students and draws on personal responses form learners. In other words, learners become more personally involved in the process of language learning and can begin to own the language they learn more fully. It also retains a good learning climate in a relaxing atmosphere.
Moreover, in comparison with other sources of teaching materials such as written practice exercises, poems, films, English songs, short stories are believed to have several advantages. Written practice exercises as mentioned above do not always interest students. Poems seem rather complex and abstract for schoolchildren. Not every available English song and film which suits the taste of students can serve the language skill drilling function properly.
Whereas, there is a variety of short stories to choose, ranging from elementary to proficiency levels. Relatively short, fun, memorable and meaningful short stories are not too difficult in terms of vocabulary, grammatical structures and syntax. Furthermore, they can LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 bring about room for endless debate where students can live in the real human experience world. Above language, they can learn many useful lessons about real life to develop their personalities.
In Vietnam- Australia school, Hanoi, short stories are mostly used as supplementary material for teaching by Australian teachers and sometimes applied by Vietnamese teachers. However, there has been no official research on using them in teaching English. This study has been conducted with the purpose to investigate how other teachers and students think about the use of short stories in teaching English and to what extents they have employed them in their teaching. All these above explain why the author tries to do the research.
It is hoped to result in useful ideas of using short stories in language classroom, especially in the context of Vietnam Australia School, Hanoi. Aims of the study Parallel with the reasons leading to the research are some following aims: - To investigate the perception of students towards the use of short stories. - To study on the current use of short stories by teachers in Vietnam Australia School, Hanoi - To discuss some suggestions of using short stories in classroom such as selecting materials and using these materials in a way that is relevant to the students. This study seeks the answers to the following questions.
How do teachers percieve the use of short stories in teaching English in terms of necessity? 2. How do students percieve short stories as a source of language input in terms of interest and importance? 3. How do teachers exploit short stories in teaching English in terms of purpose, strategy and frequency? 4. To what extent do teachers feel satisfied with their use of short stories in teaching English? LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
What are the obstacles that have limited teachers‟ use of short stories in teaching English? 6. What are the obstacles that challenge students in learning English with short stories? 7. What are the recomendations for using short stories in teaching English given by students and teachers? 1. Scope of the study In this study, the author intends to deal with the question of using short stories beneficially in language teaching.
Other literary texts are not concerned in the study. The study was conducted in VAS with the participation of 10 teachers, both Vietnamese and Australian, and 100 senior high school students, who were chosen randomly from the alphabetical list of names. The number of the teacher participants made up three- fourths and the students participants accounted for five-sixths of the whole population. However, the focus of the researcher was not put into junior high school students, so the implication might be not applicable in classes of junior high school students.
Research methods Data collection for analysis in the study are mainly gained through survey questionnaires and interviews. The questionaires aim at studying the students‟ and the teachers‟ attitude towards using short stories in classroom and their feedbacks after having lessons with short stories.