VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ----------------------O0O---------------------- NGUYỄN THỊ DUNG AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON TEACHING ENGLISH TO CHILDREN AT KINDERGARTENS IN HANOI (Nghiên cứu thăm dò về việc dạy tiếng Anh cho học sinh lứa tuổi mầm non tại một số trường mầm non ở Hà Nội) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI-2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ----------------------O0O---------------------- NGUYỄN THỊ DUNG AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON TEACHING ENGLISH TO CHILDREN AT KINDERGARTENS IN HANOI (Nghiên cứu thăm dò về việc dạy tiếng Anh cho học sinh lứa tuổi mầm non tại một số trường mầm non ở Hà Nội) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Asoc. NGUYỄN VĂN ĐỘ HANOI-2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I declare that my thesis entitled AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON TEACHING ENGLISH TO CHILDREN AT KINDERGARTENS IN HANOI is the result of my own research of the degree of Master of Arts at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi and this thesis fulfills with the requirements of the degree Master of Arts and has not been published anywhere Nguyễn Thị Dung 2015 Supervisor’s signature Assoc.
NGUYỄN VĂN ĐỘ i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my sincere thankfulness to my supervisor, Assoc. Nguyen Van Do for his whole hearted guidance, valuable suggestions, and critical comments during the course of writing this thesis. My thanks also go to all the teachers at VIVA center who were willing to give me information via survey questionnaire. Their enthusiasm and helpful feedbacks made the thesis more reliable and useful.
Finally, I would like to offer my deepest gratitude to my family and close friends for their understanding and support during the time of doing the research. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This paper reports the results of the survey conducted in VIVA center to find out the difficulties in teaching English perceived by the teachers. VIVA center involves thirty teachers who are teaching English at thirty nursery schools in Hanoi. The focus is on professional support that the teachers receive to teach English at preschool level.
The difficulties will be viewed from the questionnaire and observational data. The results indicate that Vietnamese nursery teachers lack English teaching methodology for children and classroom management skills. All the teachers have not only taken part in any regular training because at this time there are not any colleges or universities training English nursery school teachers in Vietnam, but also have not enrolled any professional training courses from center. Besides, the teachers also have difficulty in using teaching facilities and they need more appropriate teaching facilities.
At the end of the study, suggestions and solutions will be given to help the teachers overcome those challenges. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vii LIST OF CHARTS .viii LIST OF TABLES.
ix PART A: INTRODUCTION. Aims and objectives of the study. Scope of the study. Methods of the study.
The design of the thesis. 4 CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW. Children learning English as foreign language. Characteristics of children.
Children’s stages of development. Social and emotional development. 8 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Children learning English as foreign language.
Children’s learning style. The importance of learning language (English) in early years. Teaching English as foreign language for children. Child language acquisition and language learning.
Teaching English as foreign language for children. English teaching methods for preschoolers. Previous studies on teaching English to very young leaners. 23 CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.
26 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Data collection instruments. Data collection procedure. 29 CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Results from questionnaire and classroom observations. Teachers’ perceptions towards English teaching at preschool level. English teaching methods to very young learners. Professional training courses for preschool English teachers.
Answers to the research questions. Research question 1: What are teachers’ perceptions towards English teaching at preschool level?. Research question 2: What are the teachers’ difficulties when teaching to nursery children?. Suggestions for further studies.
I vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TPR Total Physical Response No Number of teachers L1 First language L2 Second language TEYL Teaching English to young leaners ESL English as a Second Language ELT English language teaching vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: Teaching methods Chart 2: Teachers’ using English in the class Chart 3: Number of children Chart 4: Children’s work in the classroom Chart 5: Sitting arrangement Chart 6: Teachers’ self-evaluation about controlling the class Chart 7: Using of teaching facilities Chart 8: Making teaching aids Chart 9: Training courses Chart 10: Observing other classes viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Teachers’ perceptions towards English teaching at preschool level Table 2: Teaching activities Table 3: Number of teachers Table 4: Teaching facilities ix LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Nowadays, it cannot be denied that English is important and almost everyone has a demand on getting English proficiency. Therefore, English is taught as a compulsory subject in many countries all over the world. In Vietnam, it is introduced into primary education curriculum starting from Grade 1.
Nevertheless, a large number of Vietnamese people believe that English should be learnt as soon as possible. They would like their children to learn English earlier. Thus, many kindergartens offer English classes for very young leaners who range from three to six years old. The growing trend of teaching English to kindergarteners has received much attention from the society.
It is the fact that teaching English to very young learners is not an easy task because of specific characteristics of the children. If teachers are not well qualified, they may not be able to motivate the children to study, or they may fail to use appropriate and effective tasks to help students learn English. As an English teacher who taught English for very young leaners, the author saw a great number of challenges of teaching English to kindergarten children in Hanoi. At this time, Vietnam does not have any colleges or universities training English nursery teachers.
Besides, there are not many researches about teaching English to preschool leaners. This urges the researcher to carry out this study which examines teaching English to children at kindergartens in Hanoi. This study is hoped to provide some useful contributions to teaching English at preschool level in general and to help Vietnamese teachers teach English better in particular. Aims and objectives of the study For the aim of investigating the English teaching at kindergartens in Hanoi, the researcher desired to undertake a research with the three following objectives.
The first objective of the study is finding out teachers’ perceptions towards English teaching at preschool level. The second one is identifying the teachers’ difficulties when teaching to preschool learners. And the last one is suggesting some solutions 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com to help the teaching and learning of English for very young learners more effectively. Research questions With a view to accomplishing the objectives of the study, these two research questions were raised: 1.
What are teachers' perceptions towards English teaching at preschool level? 2. What are the teachers’ difficulties when teaching to nursery children? 4. Scope of the study The minor thesis limits its scope to only teachers’ perception towards English teaching some preschools in Hanoi in order to find out the difficulties which they have to face in teaching process. And this thesis only focuses on teaching methods, classroom management skills and teaching facilities.
Subjects of the study are thirty English teachers who works at VIVA center. VIVA center is one of English centers where provides English teachers for many preschool in Hanoi. Methods of the study The study uses solely quantitative the selected method in order to explore the teaching and learning of English in the selected kindergartens in Hanoi. Tools for data collection in this study are questionnaire and class observation.
Data collected from questionnaire is analyzed quantitatively and data from class observation is analyzed qualitatively. The design of the thesis This study is organized into three parts: The first part is the introduction which consists of rationale, aims, research questions, scope, methods and design of the thesis. The second part is the development which involves three chapters: Chapter one: Literature review. This chapter includes theoretical background and previous studies related to the study.
Chapter two: Research methodology. This chapter discusses the context, participants, instruments, and procedure of the study. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Chapter three: Findings and suggested solutions. This chapter presents and analyzes the data which has been collected.
And then, the findings are given. Moreover, this chapter deals with some suggestions to the problems in the findings. The last part is the conclusion which involves recapitulation, limitations, suggestions for further studies, and references of the study. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter presents an overview on English language education at preschool level and approaches to this study.
It provides relevant literature which is needed to form the theoretical and conceptual framework for the study. First, a general view on children’s characteristics, stages of development and learning styles is mentioned because it is important for teachers and educators to make better teaching and learning if they have a comprehensive look on children. Second, English teaching as foreign language for children is revealed. Children learning English as a foreign language 1.
Characteristics of children With references to children intellectual development, Piaget (as cited in Moneey, 2004, p.64) states that children have four stages to develop cognitively. There are: Sensomotoric stage (birth +/- years) in which children often learn through physical situations with the world around them. They have tendency to explore the words physically and grasp everything. During this stage, infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulating objects.
Preoperational stage (from 2 – 7 years) when children need concrete situations to process ideas. This is the stage of the beginning language and vocabulary and the first learning of “good” and “bad”. At this stage, kids learn through pretend play but still struggle with logic and taking the point of view of other people. Concrete operational stage (from 7 – 12 years) in which children begin to conceptualize and do some abstract problem solving, though they still learn best by doing.
It’s time for them to get familiar to actions, objects, and observable properties. At this period, they begin to think more logically, but their thinking can also be very rigid. They tend to struggle with abstract and hypothetical concepts. 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Formal operational stage (12 years and older) in which children can use abstract thinking to reason with concept relationship, abstract properties, and theories.
The final stage of Piaget's theory involves an increase in logic, the ability to use deductive reasoning, and an understanding of abstract ideas. From the cognitive development above, the kindergarten students, who are involved in this research, are in the preoperational stage when they need concrete situations to process ideas. Therefore, it is easy for them to remember vocabulary if teachers use specific situations or real objects to teach.82) summarizes young learners’ characteristics into seven points.