TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 1 LIST OF TABLES. 6 LIST OF FIGURES.
6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. 7 LIST OF APPENDICES .1 Background of the research .2 Aims of the study .4 Scope of the research .6 Structure of the research. 13 Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 What is conversation?.2 What is dialogue? .2 Characteristics of the conversations in the English textbooks .2 The nature of speaking .1 What is speaking .2 Functions of speaking .3 Speech acts and speech events .4 Basic principles in developing speaking skill .5 Reasons for teaching speaking skill at high school level .6 Principles for teaching speaking skill .1 Be aware of the differences between second language and foreign language learning contexts .2 Give students practice with both fluency and accuracy .3 Provide opportunities for students to talk by using group work or pair work and limiting teacher talk .4 Plan speaking tasks that involve negotiation for meaning .3 Authentic speaking tasks .1 What is a task .2 What is an authentic speaking task .3 Characteristics of authentic speaking tasks.4 What are components of an authentic task .5 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity .6 Some of authentic speaking tasks used to improve students‟ speaking skill .1 Information gap activities .5 Find someone who .2 Classroom observations and videotaped Classroom. 41 Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .2 Findings and Discussion .1 The significance of teaching and learning English speaking skill at QTHS .2 The teachers‟ and students‟ perceptions towards the characteristics of authentic speaking tasks .1 The teachers‟ perceptions towards the characteristics of authentic speaking tasks .2 The students‟ perceptions towards the characteristics of authentic speaking tasks .3 The reality of using the conversations in the English textbooks to teach speaking at QTHS .1 The frequency of using the conversations in the English textbooks 48 4.2 The frequency of using speaking activities .3 The frequency of using pair work and group work .4 The frequency of using visual aids .4 The learners‟ attitude toward the teaching process .5 The appropriate solutions for teachers to teach English speaking skill more effectively.
59 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS .1 The significance of teaching and learning English speaking skill at QTHS .2 The teachers‟ and students‟ perceptions towards the characteristics of authentic speaking tasks .1 The teachers‟ perceptions towards the characteristics of authentic speaking tasks .2 The students‟ perceptions towards the characteristics of authentic speaking tasks .3 The reality of using the conversations in the English textbooks to teach speaking at QTHS .1 The frequency of using the conversations in the English textbooks .2 The frequency of using speaking activities .3 The frequency of using pair work and group work .4 The frequency of using visual aids .4 The learners‟ attitude toward the teaching process .5 The appropriate solutions for teachers to teach English speaking skill more effectively.3 Limitation of the study .4 Suggestions for future researches. 67 APPENDICES 5 LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Characteristics of authentic tasks .1: Significance of learning English speaking skill .2: The interests of teachers in planning speaking activities .3: The speaking activities students like to practice in English classroom .4: The frequency of using the conversations in the English textbooks .5: The frequency of using speaking activities.6: The frequency of using types of speaking activities .7: The frequency of using visual aids .8: The frequency of interaction in English .9: Learners‟ progress in speaking skill. 55 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Components of an authentic task. 29 6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT Communicative language teaching MOET Ministry of Education and Training TL Target Language EFL English as a foreign language QTHS Quang Trung High School GL Gia Lai LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix 1: Interview Questions for Teachers (English version) Appendix 2: Interview Questions for Teachers (Vietnamese version) Appendix 3: Questionnaire (English version) Appendix 4: Questionnaire (Vietnamese version) Appendix 5: The conversations in the English textbooks 7 This thesis aims to investigate how teachers at Quang Trung high school, Gia Lai province adapt the conversations in the English textbooks to teach speaking skill.
The data were collected by means of questionnaire and in-depth interviews. One hundred and twenty copies of a well-prepared questionnaire were delivered to students and returned, and seven interviews were conducted with seven teachers of English. The findings showed that most teachers and students at Quang Trung high school, Gia Lai province were aware of the necessary of using the conversations in the English textbooks to teach and learn speaking skill. However, teachers should to use appropriate visual aids, pair work and group work, and authentic speaking tasks to develop learners‟ speaking skill.1 Background of the research In 1995, the Prime Minister issued a Decree, according to which personnel working in Government agencies have to be able to communicate in English (Le, 1999, p.
From then on, English is a compulsory school subject and is one of the six subjects which students have to pass in the final examination. However, only reading and writing skills are assessed. According to Nguyen (2008, p.40 cited from Tran and Ho, 2000, p.77) listening comprehension and speaking skills are not tested in high school graduation exams or in university entrance exams. In fact, students are assessed based on a written test of reading and writing skills only.
The examination content mainly tests the ability to remember grammar rules rather than language use. Therefore listening and speaking skills are not the focus of teaching and learning. Many students and even teachers spend much time developing reading and writing skills to get good results in final exams. On the contrary, they pay little attention to speaking and listening skills, they almost ignore these two skills.
This leads to the fact that many students at high school level can not communicate verbally in English, they are not able to initiate a conversation in English outside the classroom. QTHS in GL province are not an exception. To improve students‟ communicative competence, the MOET published a new series of textbooks in which communicative ability is more focused. The textbooks cover four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing.
As a result, students have more chances to speak in class and the teacher acts more as a facilitator and co- 9 operator. However, we can not deny the fact that these new textbooks can also have adverse effects on teaching and learning English for both teachers and learners. In reality, these new textbooks are written with a general student audience not with only students at any special school. QTHS, where the researcher works, is located at An Khe town, GL province, a mountainous area.
Most students often fall below the average level. They are shy to speak English in front of their classmates since they are afraid of making mistakes and losing face. Hence these textbooks are certainly not appropriate for them. This may make English for both teachers and students encounter difficulties when it comes to teaching, learning and, especially speaking skill.
Moreover, from my teaching experiences and observations at my school, I notice that there is a gap between the new textbooks and teaching methods used. Because of the fact that this set of textbook is still relatively new (they have been in use since 2006-2007 school year), many teachers have not kept up with the changes or been able to design their lessons appropriately, especially speaking lessons. English speaking skill is still taught by “Audiolingual method, in which students were often asked to repeat after their teachers, study grammar rules, recite dialogues, and learn vocabulary” (Bailey and Nunan, 2005, p. In fact, in the context of teaching and learning English at QTHS, learning occurred in arranged situations in which memorization is mainly used.
Students at QTHS are often taught by being provided with the model conversations in the English textbooks. They are required to listen to them and then practice repetitions so that they can get accustomed to vocabulary, grammatical points supplied. What‟s more, during lectures, both teachers and students speak Vietnamese rather than English and therefore, students have few opportunities to communicate in English in learning environment. As a result, new lessons with new skills are still taught with old method.
10 This situation results in the need for applying a new method of teaching English that can encourage students to promote students‟ speaking ability. And the most appropriate method is CLT. According to this approach, “language is primarily a tool of communication. Learning a language means learning to perform communicative speech acts with it” (O‟Neill, 2000).
Therefore, to succeed in this method the teacher needs an effective technique and one of them is by using conversation. The reason is that conversation will help the students practice in speech, pronunciation, intonation and stress like the native. However, the conversations in the English textbooks are often contrived. They are too well prepared and standardized that they lose the authenticity of the language.
From my teaching experiences and observations, these contrived conversations may decrease students‟ motivation to learn speaking skill for they think they can not “reach the lofty heights of perfect speech” (Gilmore, 2004, p. Furthermore, the speaking tasks provided in the English textbooks do not involve interaction between learners. Actually, most tasks in the textbooks “lacked their communicative characteristics that are choice of language use and information gap” (Nguyen, 2008, p. 64 cited from Morrow 1986, p.
They do not give students a lot of opportunities to speak. Those factors prevent learners from practicing using real communication in classroom. Moreover, there have been researches on teaching English speaking skill for students at high school level. However these researches mention other aspects of teaching and learning speaking such as difficulties learners encounter in learning speaking skill by Nguyen Van Minh in 2008; organizing interaction to help students practise speaking skill by Tran Thi Hoai Thu in 1999; the communicative approach to teaching English speaking by Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy in 1995.
Never before has there been an investigation into how to use the conversations in Tieng Anh 10, 11, 12 written by Hoang et al (2006-2008 a) to teach speaking. 11 The above reasons have aroused my interest and encouraged me to carry out this study “An investigation into how to use the conversations in the English textbooks to teach speaking at Quang Trung high school in Gia Lai province” with the hope that information obtained from this study may help Vietnamese teachers of English, especially those at high schools in GL province, adjust their work in classroom.2 Aims of the study With the reasons mentioned above, the specific aims of the study are: To investigate the reality of teaching and learning speaking through conversations at QTHS. To provide some implications for teachers to adapt the conversations and the speaking tasks in the English textbooks to teach speaking at QTHS.3 Research questions Within the scope of this study, the researcher intends to find the answers to the following questions: 1. What are the teachers‟ and students‟ perceptions towards the characteristics of authentic speaking tasks in teaching and learning speaking English atQTHS? 2.
How are the conversations in the English textbooks used to teach speaking at QTHS? 3. What are appropriate solutions for teaching speaking by using the conversations in the English textbooks at QTHS? 1.4 Scope of the research 12 With the purpose of improving students‟ speaking abilities, the study concentrates on investigating the reality of using the conversations in Tieng Anh 10, 11, 12 to teach speaking. The subject of the study is limited to 7 teachers of English and 3 classes, one class per each grade, of QTHS in GL province. Due to the limitation of time, the study just focuses on the teaching speaking in the first semester (namely units 2 - 4).