VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ----- ----- NGUYỄN THỊ THOAN A STUDY ON USING CHANTS, SONGS AND GAMES TO DEVELOP LANGUAGE IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO STUDENTS AT DOAN XA PRIMARY SCHOOL NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ PHÁT TRIỂN NGÔN NGỮ CHO HỌC SINH TRƢỜNG TIỂU HỌC ĐOÀN XÁ THÔNG QUA ĐIỆU CA, BÀI HÁT VÀ TRÒ CHƠI M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 0111 Hanoi – 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ----- ----- NGUYỄN THỊ THOAN A STUDY ON USING CHANTS, SONGS AND GAMES TO DEVELOP LANGUAGE IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO STUDENTS AT DOAN XA PRIMARY SCHOOL NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ PHÁT TRIỂN NGÔN NGỮ CHO HỌC SINH TRƢỜNG TIỂU HỌC ĐOÀN XÁ THÔNG QUA ĐIỆU CA, BÀI HÁT VÀ TRÒ CHƠI M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 0111 Supervisor : Dr. Mai Thi Loan Hanoi – 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I certify that the thesis entitled “A study on using chants, songs and games to develop language in teaching English to students at Doan Xa Primary school” which is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts, is the result of my study.
It has not been presented anywhere. Hanoi 2014 Nguyen Thi Thoan i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor - Dr. Mai Thi Loan for useful instructions, comments and support during the process of fulfilling the thesis. Secondly, I would like to give my sincere thanks to all the teachers of English at the department of post graduate who gave me useful lectures.
My gratitude also sends to all English teachers at Doan Xa Primary school for their interesting and important ideas which helped me so much for my questionnaire. Finally, I am thankful to my family and friends for their valuable care and encouragement. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether using chants, songs and games in teaching language in general and teaching vocabulary in particular is effective or not. The researcher also tries to find out the ways of using chants, songs and games to teach language for the third-grade students at Doan Xa Primary school.
In order to reach the aims of the thesis, the author used the following data collection instruments: interview for teachers, survey questionnaire for students and tests for students. The results and findings show that students’ vocabulary improves considerably after learning English through chants, songs and games. Furthermore, the findings also point out that in the lessons using chants, songs and games, teachers should design a variety of tasks such as gap-filling, multiple choice, ticking true or false to enhance students’ vocabulary. Teachers should also choose chants, songs and games from various sources such as internet, CD, VCD or television to attract students’ concentration.
iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES Chart 1: Students’ attitude towards learning vocabulary with the use of chants, songs and games. 22 Chart 2: Teachers’ frequency of using chants, songs and games. 26 Chart 3: Teachers’ attitudes towards the effectiveness of chants, songs and games. 27 Chart 4: Raw marks in vocabulary test (pre-test).
31 Chart 5: Raw marks in vocabulary test (post-test). 33 Table 1: Students’ improvement after they had been taught with the use of chants, songs and games. 23 Table 2: Students’ favorite tasks in the lesson with the use of chants, songs and games. 24 Table 3: The sources of chants, songs and games.
28 Table 4: Frequency distribution (pre-test). 30 Table 5: Mean and standard deviation (pre-test). 31 Table 6: Frequency distribution (post-test). 32 Table 7: Mean and standard deviation (post-test).
33 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. iii LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS. Rationale of the study.
Aims and objectives of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Design of the study.
3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT. 4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of language. The role of teachers and students in teaching and learning language.
Review of methods and approaches for teaching language. Methods of teaching language. Approaches for teaching language. Chants, songs and games as motivations for students to improve language.
Aspects of language that can be improved through chants, songs and games. Choosing chants, songs and games. 13 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Choosing chants and songs.
Review of related studies. 16 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. The setting of the study. Conditions which affect students’ participation in a language lesson.
Teaching and learning conditions at Doan Xa primary school. Data collection instruments. Questionnaire for students. Interview for teachers .4 Data collection and analysis procedure.
21 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS. Questionnaire for students. Students’ attitude towards learning vocabulary with the use of chants, songs and games. The improvement of students after they had been taught with the use of chants, songs and games.
Students’ favorite tasks in the lesson with the use of chants, songs and games. The difficulties the learners had while they studied with the use of chants, songs and games. Interview for teachers. 26 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Teachers’ frequency of using chants, songs and games. Teachers’ attitudes towards the effectiveness of chants, songs and games. The difficulties the teachers had while designing a lesson with the use of chants, songs and games. The sources of chants, songs and games.
The tasks teachers design to teach students with the use of chants, songs and games. Data analysis and findings. 34 CHAPTER 4: PEDAGOGICAL SUGGESTIONS. The use of chants, songs and games in the lesson.
The use of chants. The use of songs. The use of games. Suggestions for task designing.
A sample lesson plan using chants, songs and games. 38 PART III: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS. 39 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Limitations of the study.
Suggestions for further study. 41 APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS (ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE VERSIONS). I APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW FOR TEACHERS. V APPENDIX 3: PRE-TEST.
VIII APPENDIX 4: POST-TEST. IX APPENDIX 5: SAMPLE TASKS. X APPENDIX 6: SAMPLE LESSON PLAN. XIV viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale of the study “The entire middle class seem want to learn English for their children as an international vehicle which they can then use with the rest of the world” (Arthur Mc. in Graddol and Meinhof, 1995:5). This is true that people all can not deny that nowadays English plays a significant role in the world in general and in our life in particular. It is the international language in the world which is used widely in many fields of our daily life.
It is the language of science and technology, economy and commerce. It is also the language of aviation, tourism, education and many other fields. It is chosen to be taught in many schools in many countries as the second language. Therefore, governments pay more attention to teaching and learning English.
One of the most crucial goals of teaching and learning English is to communicate. Communication helps people exchange knowledge, love, experiences, etc but if people do not have enough knowledge of that language, they will have many difficulties in exchanging information. They can not understand the things people want to talk to them or they do not know how to express their thoughts or it maybe lead to misunderstanding or the communication breakdown. Recognizing the significance of language in our life, howerver, most of the classrooms in Vietnam in general and at Doan Xa primary school in particular, people do not appreciate highly English - the language which is taught as the second language.
Students learn Vietnamese and Maths more than six periods per week. They even learn more these subjects at school or in the teachers’ house, while, they have two periods a week to learn many skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. As a result, many students complained that they had spent plenty of time studying English but they can not remember lessons they had learned and some days later even some hours later they forgot them completely. This is the reason why teaching and learning English requires a new method to make learning English language interesting and effective.
1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Facing with this situation, the researcher chooses the study on using chants, songs and games to develop language for students at Doan Xa school. Aims and objectives of the study The study aims at finding out how chants, songs and games are used by teachers in the classroom and how students respond to the ways chants, songs and games are used in the classroom. To be more specific, the objectives of this study are to: - investigate how chants, songs and games are used to teach language for primary students. - find out the ways to teach language for primary students with the use of chants, songs and games.
Research questions With above aims, the researcher conducts this study to answer the following questions: 1. What are the teachers’ purposes of using chants, songs and games in the classroom? 2. What are the student’s opinions of chants, songs and games in their learning? 4. Scope of the study Developing English language is a large field to research.
Due to limitation of time, experience and knowledge, this thesis only focused on exploiting English chants, songs and games as supplementary materials to enrich vocabulary for the 3rd-form students at Doan Xa primary school. Significance of the study The study provides the teachers with the benefits of using chants, songs and games in teaching language, especially in teaching vocabulary. This study also suggests the ways of using chants, songs and games in the lesson. Method of the study In order to achieve the aims of the study, the following data collection instruments were used: 1.
A survey questionnaire for experimental class 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. An interview for four teachers of English at Doan Xa primary schools 3. A pre- test and post- test for both experimental and control classes The collected data comes from four teachers of English and 60 students at Doan Xa primary school. The data collection time lasted 17 weeks during the second term of the school year 2013- 2014.
Design of the study The study includes three parts: Part 1 Introduction shows rationale, aims, objectives, research questions, scope, significance, method and design of the study. Part 2 Development includes 4 chapters: Chapter 1: Literature review deals with some theoretical background relevant to the study: definition of language; the role of teachers and students in teaching and learning language; review of traditional methods and approaches for teaching language; chants, songs and games as motivations for students to improve language; aspects of language that can be improved through chants, songs and games; choosing chants, songs and games and review of related studies. Chapter 2: Research methodology focuses on the current situation of teaching and learning Tieng Anh 3 at Doan Xa primary school, participants of the study, data collection instruments, and data collection and analysis procedure.