MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ----- ----- PHAN VAN HAU AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES IN TEACHING GRAMMAR IN SOME UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN YEN THANH DISTRICT - NGHE AN PROVINCE MA THESIS IN EDUCATION Hue, 2011 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ----- ----- PHAN VAN HAU AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES IN TEACHING GRAMMAR IN SOME UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN YEN THANH DISTRICT - NGHE AN PROVINCE FIELD OF STUDY: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60. 10 MA THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISOR: TRUONG BACH LE, D. Hue, 2011 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ ----- ----- PHAN VĂN HẬU KHẢO SÁT VỀ NHẬN THỨC VÀ THỰC TIỄN DẠY NGỮ PHÁP CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TIẾNG ANH TẠI MỘT SỐ TRƯỜNG THPT Ở HUYỆN YÊN THÀNH – TĨNH NGHỆ AN CHUYÊN NGÀNH: LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIẢNG DẠY MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60. 10 LUẬN VĂN THẠC SỸ NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC TS.
TRƯƠNG BẠCH LÊ HUẾ, 2011 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I declare that this research is my own work, the data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates, and have not been published elsewhere Author Phan Van Hau This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support of many individuals. I would like to thank all of them. First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Truong Bach Le, for his guidance and empathy.
I am very grateful that Dr. Truong Bach Le provided helpful criticism as well as encouragement during the writing of this thesis paper. I am also grateful for generosity with his time and expertise. His care was not only seen in his smiles, empathetic approaches, reminding phone calls and messages but also in his questions and inquiries.
These questions made me think and learn a lot. Without his help, this thesis would be far from being finished. I would like to send my sincere thanks to all my lecturers in the Master Program for their profound knowledge, whole-hearted instructions and great enthusiasms. Next, I am especially indebted to Asso.pro Truong Vien and other M.A friends who organized a very useful workshop on SPSS which helped me to analyzed data in my thesis.
I wish to acknowledge the EFL teachers from six public high schools in Yen Thanh District, Nghe An Province for their cooperation during the process of data collection. They gave me generously their precious time to work with me. I learned a lot from them about beliefs and practices. Besides, my special thanks also is sent to all my friends (Especially Chau Duc Dung, Tran Quoc Hai, and Nguyen Quy Hanh) for their help and sharing ideas and introducing valuable materials to support me in implementing this research.
Last but not least, I own thanks to my family who has supported me and shared with me all difficulties I had during the time I conducted this research. Phan Van Hau TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Table of Contents .1 list of Abbreviations & symbols .4 List of Tables.5 List of Charts. Rationale of the study. Scope of the research.
Organization of the study .12 Chapter II: Literature review. Teachers‟ beliefs in English language teaching. The notion of belief. Understanding teachers‟ beliefs.
The sources of teachers‟ beliefs. Teachers‟ experience as language learners. Experience from teaching. Teachers‟ own personality.
Approaches to grammar instruction. The direct method. The Audio-lingual method. Communicative approach to teaching grammar .27 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.
Data collection procedures .37 CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Beliefs of Upper Secondary School EFL teachers in Yen Thanh on grammar teaching. TB on learners‟ approaches to learning grammar. TB on teachers‟ approaches to grammar instruction.
TB on grammar practice. TB on learners‟ needs for learning grammar. TB on medium of grammar instruction. TB on usefulness of grammar for English language use.
TB on place of grammar in curriculum. TB on teachers‟ role in grammar instruction. TB on learners‟ preferences in grammar instruction. TB on conception of grammar.
TB on error correction. TB on using authentic materials in grammar instruction. Practices in teaching grammar. The interrelationship between beliefs and practices.
Summary of the findings. What are the beliefs of EFL teachers in some Upper Secondary Schools in Yen Thanh on teaching grammar?. What are the practices of English grammar teaching at some upper secondary schools in Nghe An?. Pedagogical implications and suggestions.
Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further research. Classroom Observation Checklist. Dividing questions into clusters .vii APPENDIX E: Piloted questionnaire.
xi APPENDIX F: Raw calculations .xii APPENDIX G: Mean of 12 Clusters of Teachers‟ beliefs on teaching grammar. xiv 3 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS & SYMBOLS BANA: Britain, Autralasia and North America CLT: Communicative language teaching COLT Communicative Orientation of Language Teaching ELT: English language teaching EFL: English Foreign language Gr: Grammar MOET: Ministry of Education and Training S.D Standard Deviation Ss: Students TB: Teachers‟ beliefs TESEP: Tertiary, secondary and primary % Percent 4 LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: School names, classes & types of classes, number of EFL teachers .2: Personal information of participant teachers .3: Instruments used in the study.4: Summary of the questionnaire .1: The reliability of the questionnaire .2: Teachers‟ beliefs (TB) on teaching grammar teaching .3: Mean of TB on learners‟ approaches to learning grammar .4: Mean of TB on approach to learning grammar.5: Mean of TB on grammar practice .6: Mean of TB on learners‟ need for learning grammar .7: Mean of TB on medium of grammar instruction .8: Mean of TB on usefulness of grammar for English language use .9: TB on place of grammar in curriculum .10: TB on learners‟ preferences in grammar instruction.11: Mean of TB on conception of grammar.12: Mean of TB on error correction .13: TB on using authentic materials in grammar instruction .14: Activities and names of teachers who had done those activities.63 5 LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4.1: TB on learners‟ approaches to learning grammar .2: TB on approach to learning grammar .3: TB on grammar practice.4: TB on learners‟ need for learning grammar .5: TB on medium of grammar instruction.6: TB on usefulness of grammar for English language use.7: TB on place of grammar in curriculum .8: TB on teachers‟ role in grammar instruction .9: TB on learners‟ preferences in grammar instruction .10: TB on conception of grammar .11: TB on error correction .12: TB on using authentic materials in grammar instruction .61 6 ABSTRACT This study was aimed to investigate the EFL teachers‟ beliefs about grammar and practices in some Upper Secondary Schools in Yen Thanh District, Nghe An Province. The participants in this study are 50 EFL teachers in six government high schools in Yen Thanh District, Nghe An Province. Quantitative and qualitative methods were applied.
Within the scope of this thesis, the researcher intends to find the answer to the following questions: (1) What are the beliefs of EFL teachers in some Upper Secondary Schools in Yen Thanh on teaching grammar? And (2) what are the practices of English grammar teaching at some Upper Secondary Schools in Nghe An? The instruments used to elicit data for the study were a written questionnaire, an open-ended interview with 10 selected teachers and a structured observation with the interviewed participants. Data collected from fifty copies of questionnaire were analyzed with SPSS program. The findings showed that the teachers hold mildly favorable beliefs about grammar in English language teaching and all of them reported that they do need beliefs of teaching grammar which will certainly influence on their teaching. It was also found that to some extent, teachers‟ beliefs about grammar in ELT correspond with their reported classroom practices.
However, some discrepancies between teachers‟ beliefs and practices were uncovered in this study. These discrepancies are possibly due to some practical reasons like extra curriculum, grammar-based exams, unequipped and large classes and lack of support form administration. Lastly, the study was concluded with implications not only for teachers but also for policy makers, administrators, regarding the beliefs, teaching grammar, workshop organization. 7 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION This first chapter begins with the context which raises the research problems.
The next section, section 1.2 states the problem to be investigated. In addition, the chapter also addresses the research aims, and the organization of the thesis. Rationale of the study Grammar in language teaching has been an important and debatable issue for the last few decades. The question being argued for or against is „how grammar should be taught‟.
Each teacher applies different methods of teaching and each method has its own strong and weak points. This is due to different views of grammar in language teaching. There are many language teaching approaches, which have placed different emphasis on grammar in language teaching. Depending on the goals and the point of view of each teacher, they choose their own method of teaching.
These views and perceptions will shape their beliefs about English language teaching, which will influence their planning and instructional decisions. Nowadays, teachers tend to teach grammar in communicative approach, which focuses on communicative proficiency rather than on mere mastering of structures. This communicative teaching method aims to make communicative competence the goal of language teaching, and develops procedures for teaching the four skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication. It encourages activities that involve real communication and carry out meaningful tasks.
This method not only makes language learning more interesting, but helps learners develop linguistic competence as well as communicative competence. However, problems also arose in the initial wave enthusiasm about it. For example, Can this method be applied at all levels in teaching? How can it be adopted in situations where students must continue to take grammar-base tests? These issues will help us have a better application of the communicative method. Moreover, there are some teachers who are applying the translation-grammar Method.
Grammar is considered as the most important part of teaching English in this method. Students are expected to learn the grammar rules, remember patterns, 8 and translate into other languages. Furthermore, there is little consideration of the spoken language. Lastly, accuracy is mainly emphasized.
Besides, the inductive and deductive methods and many other approaches are still applied popularly. So choosing the appropriate approach to grammar teaching, teachers will draw on their beliefs. Their beliefs related to English language teaching determine and justify what they choose to teach, how they teach and why they teach the way they do. These beliefs will take the form of personal knowledge or personal theory.
In fact, nowadays EFL teachers, in our country in general and in Yen Thanh District in particular, are encouraged to apply the CLT approach in teaching. However, teachers have to face a lot of difficulties in using this method because of students‟ level, big classes, lack of facilities, ect. In reality, EFL teachers apply a lot of methods in teaching target language. There is no best method, and no method that best for a particular context (Parabhhu, 1990, cited in McKay, 2002, p.
116); it all depends on many factors. The general aim of this paper is to investigate teachers‟ beliefs regarding teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) and teaching grammar within the same context. From findings, conclusion and suggestions will be drawn out to teach and learn grammar more effective regarding teaching beliefs about grammar. Although previous studies have investigated teachers' beliefs and classroom practices in secondary schools in Singapore (e.