MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ NGUYEN HUU TOAN AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USE OF ENGLISH CHANTS TO TEACH ENGLISH FOR YOUNG LEARNERS AT PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN QUANG TRI PROVINCE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Hue University of Foreign Languages HUE, 2017 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ NGUYEN HUU TOAN AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USE OF ENGLISH CHANTS TO TEACH ENGLISH FOR YOUNG LEARNERS AT PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN QUANG TRI PROVINCE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60. NGUYEN VAN LONG HUE, 2017 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ ------------ NGUYỄN HỮU TOÀN KHẢO SÁT VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG HOẠT ĐỘNG ĐỌC THEO NHỊP ĐIỆU TRONG GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC SINH TIỂU HỌC TẠI TỈNH QUẢNG TRỊ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.11 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS. NGUYỄN VĂN LONG HUẾ, 2017 STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY The work contained in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
Signature Nguyen Huu Toan i ABSTRACT This research aims to investigate the use of English chants in teaching English to young English learners in Quang Tri province. In particular, this research explored the teachers and students’ perception with English chants. In addition, the research pointed out several difficulties in applying English chants and suggested appropriate solutions. This paper reports a quantitative research with a survey research design.
In this research, there were 2 groups of participants. The first group includes 34 English teachers who are teaching at primary schools in Quang Tri province. They contributed their opinion in a questionnaire which was designed with 20 items. There are five random teachers who were chosen to take part in an interview.
The interview aims to digging deeply in difficulties of teachers when applying the English chants in their teaching. In the second group, there were 85 primary students. The students’ perception was investigated by a questionnaire which included 19 items. The data collected were quantitatively analyzed and presented in tables and figures.
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am fully aware of that my thesis can never finished without the help of others during the process of writing. Therefore, on this occasion, I would like to express my greatest appreciation to all those who gave me the possibility for the fulfillment of this thesis paper. My initial thanks go to the young learners from primary schools in Quang Tri province, who provided important information to the research. I also appreciate the precise contributions of English teachers from primary schools in Quang Tri province.
Most importantly, I owe a major debt to my supervisor — whose rich resource of materials and enthusiastic guidance over research methodology. Due to limited time, he had to pay precious time to correct my research. This makes me feel ashamed because of my fault. He was a critical editor who contributed positively to the final result.
Besides, he created chances for me to be able to continue doing research. Another major debt is to my beloved family. My father, my mother and my younger sister are always beside me to take care of and encourage me when I feel tired and want to give up through the race. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY .1 Rationale of the Study .3 Aims and Brief Outline .4 Significance of the Thesis .1 Young Language Learners .1 Children Characteristics & Children Language Acquisitions: .2 How to Create a Chant? .4 How does it work? .5 What are the advantage of using English chants in teaching? .3 Review of the Previous Studies .3 Data Collection and Data Analysis.
23 Chapter 4 FINDINGS AND DISSCUSSIONS.1 Teachers’ perceptions of chants and its related issues .2 Perceptions of the Students .3 Difficulties in Teaching English Chant. 42 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS. Summary of the key findings .1 What Are the Perceptions of Teachers and Pupils about Using Chants in Teaching English for Young Language Learners at Some Primary Schools in Quang Tri? .2 What Are the Difficulties of Using Chants in Teaching English for Young Learners?. Limitations of the Study.
Suggestions for Further Research. 47 v LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1 The correlation between training status and creating a chant .2 Difficulties in creating English chant .3 Teachers’ perception of definition .4 What skills do English chants aim to? .5 The purposes of teacher when use English chants .6 The attraction of English chant with young learners .7 What aspects of linguistic English chants improve? .9 English Chant Purposes .10 The speed of English chant in the course book.11 Sentence pattern in chants .12 Vocabulary in chants .13 Have you ever done English chant at home? .15 The suggestion of students for English chant activity .37 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1 Role of musical talent in teaching English chant .2 The frequency of students' English chant learning .3 The content of English chants should be related to .4 Do you have any difficulty in learning English chant? .5 The difficulties in teaching English by chants.6 The number of students in each class .7 English chants teaching places .40 vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the Study Becoming a part of globalization, the economy of Vietnam is developing rapidly. English becomes more and more important. Many organizations, companies, and people are using English as a communication tool.
Therefore, English speaking people have the advantage over the others in job interview and promotion. In addition, many people learn English to get a good job and high income. Hence, Vietnamese government puts in the effort to raise the English proficiency of students. Therefore, English has been taught at primary schools for several years.
The students are obligated to learn English at the age of eight. In several schools, students learn English at very young age. A number of students learn English at the age of 6-7. Many parents believe that their children will be better at English when they learn it at young age.
This is a good opportunity for children to explore the language and get a high English proficiency. Teaching English for children is different from teaching English for adults or teenagers because young language learners have many differences in psychology, mental development and motivation. Therefore, using supporting instruments will make the lesson become more efficient. According to Moon (2000), children learn another language effectively with physical actions such as making things, action songs, games, chants and drama which bring excellent contexts for language learning.
Using chant activity is popular in several text books which are being used in Vietnam. In addition, Vietnamese children start learning English at young ages. Children feel difficult when they use language to talk about language such as grammar structure and discourse (Moon, 2000). In addition, Vietnamese children learn English as a foreign language.
They do not have many opportunities to use English in daily life. Hence, they are lack of motivation for learning another language. Besides, most of the students in Vietnam are inconfident and afraid of teachers. They need an activity that is funny and flexible.
The activity can motivate 1 them to use English. This research was conducted with the aim to find out the perception of teachers and student to using English chant activities in English teaching. Having work as an English teacher at some primary schools in Quang Tri province. I find that English chant can help me much in teaching English skill such as listening and speaking.
However, beside some advantages, I also met some difficulties. For above reasons, I decided to carried out this study which is entitled “An investigation into the use of English chants to teach English for young learners at primary schools in Quang Tri province” 1.2 Research Scope The research was carried out in Quang Tri province, Viet Nam. The research field is Quang Tri province because it is convenient field for researcher to collect the data. The research focused on the perceptions of teachers and students in teaching and learning English through English chant activities.
It also pointed out the difficulties of using English chants in teaching and learning English. The research did not focus on the teaching procedure and teaching result that English chant could bring to students. The research was carried out with 34 teachers and 85 students from primary schools in Quang Tri province. Teachers are expected to work with English chants in their classrooms.
Young learners are learning English as a foreign language. They learn English through various activities such as Songs, Games, English chants, etc. The study focused on an investigation into the use of English chants in terms of “Jazz Chant” which was developed and introduced by Carolyn Graham.3 Aims and Brief Outline The research aims to investigate the perceptions of teachers and students in the use of English chants as a tool for teaching and learning. In addition, the 2 research helps to point out the difficulties of using English chants in English teaching and give solutions.
This research paper consists of five chapters. Each of them will deal with its own functions to contribute to the completion of the research. Chapter 1 - Introduction, this chapter was used to provide the introduction to the research. The rationale provided reasons why this study was conducted.
It was based on both theory and practice. The scope of the research will be also included to indicate the limitation of the research in terms of the numbers of participants and teaching activity design. The purposes of the research will be explained and then followed by the research questions. Chapter 2 - Literature Review was conducted to examine the previous studies related to the application of English chants in education.
Additionally, in this chapter, the literature about the key concepts related to the research will be carefully reviewed from the perspectives of previous researchers who also had a lot of consideration with the topic of English chants in education. Chapter 3 - Methodology provided the information about research method which this research was conducted based on. The research approach applied for the study is mentioned at the very first place to guide the whole research procedure. Next, the context in which the study will take place and participants who play an important role in the success of the study will be carefully described.
After that, the procedure of data collection and data analysis will be depicted in terms of data- collecting instruments and data-analyzing methods. Chapter 4 - Findings and Discussions was considered as the most important part of the research paper in which the results of the research will be revealed. After the data is collected and analyzed, the findings will be clearly presented in the form of charts and tables. Then, these findings are discussed in order to answer the research questions Chapter 5 Conclusion and Implications, the last chapter of the research paper consisted a brief summary of the whole study and discussed some 3 implications drawn out from the study results that are expected to be useful for administrators, teachers, and students to improve the situations.4 Significance of the Thesis Vietnam’s National Foreign Language 2020 Project requires students to reach a specific level of proficiency.
For this purpose, teaching English for children at the young age has been carried out in Vietnam for several years. Course books which were designed for young age learners were published. They included many kinds of activities which are attractive such as songs, games, chants, drawing pictures, etc.