STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I declare that this research is my own work, the data and findings in the thesis are true. It is used with permission from associates and has not been published elsewhere. Author Le Thi Thuy Hang First, I am greatly indebted to my supervisor Dr Pham Hoa Hiep, for his valuable instructions and comments, his patience and criticism as well as his kind encouragement during the time I conducted this project. Truly speaking, without his help, this research paper could not have been completed.
Second, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Truong Vien for his early suggestions and help with valuable materials. Third, I am much indebted to all the teachers of English and grade-six students from Phu Duong Junior High School in Phu Vang district, all of those who were kind enough to allow me collect the necessary data for my research. Also, I am very grateful to all my friends, colleagues for their cooperation, encouragement and suggestions during the time I was working on this thesis.
I particularly wish to express my special thanks to Dang Thi Phuong Thuy for her support. Finally, I owe my deep thanks to my parents, husband, son and sister for all their support during the time I was conducting this study. TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS. 1 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS.
4 LIST OF TABLES. Background of the research. Rationale of the research. The aim of the research.
The scope of the research……………. Significance of the research. Structure of the thesis. 11 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.
The situation of grammar teaching in Junior High Schools in Vietnam. What is the practice stage?. The importance of grammar practice. The characteristics of a good practice.
What is a drill?. What is a good drill?. Types of drills. Kinds of commonly used drill for practicing grammatical structures.
Mixed slot substitution drills. Multiple slot substitution drills. Four-phase drills. Mixed question and answer drills.
The advantages and disadvantages of drill. 44 CHAPTER 4:FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Findings and discussion. Teachers‟ perceptions about drill techniques in grammar teaching.
The importance of drill techniques in grammar teaching. Teachers‟ use of drill techniques in reality. Teachers‟ designing drill techniques in grammar lessons. Students‟ perceptions about drill techniques in grammar learning.
The necessity of drill techniques in grammar learning. Students‟ general attitudes towards teachers‟ use of drill techniques in grammar lessons. Students‟ views of benefit(s) of drills techniques in grammar learning. Students‟ preferred types of drill.
Students‟ least preferred types of drill. Kinds of drills considered the most difficult. Students‟ difficulties when practicing with drills. Teachers‟ and students‟ suggestions for making drills more interesting and effective.
Teachers‟ suggestions for making drills more interesting and effective. Students‟ suggestions for a good drill. 76 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS. Summary of the findings.
87 3 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS CLT : Communicative Language Teaching EFL : English as a Foreign Language MOET : Ministry of Education and Training N : Number of Informants % : Percent 4 LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 : Methods of data collection and participants.1 : The importance of drill techniques in learning English .2 : The necessity of drill techniques in grammar learning .3 : Students‟ attitudes towards drill techniques .4 : Students‟ participations in grammar practice with.5 : The benefit(s) of drills techniques in grammar learning .6 : Students‟ preferred types of drill.7 : Kinds of drills considered the most difficult .8 : Students‟ difficulties when practicing with drills .9 : Students‟ suggestions for a good drill. 75 5 ABSTRACT This thesis aims to investigate teachers‟ and students‟ perceptions about using drill techniques to teach grammar to grade-six students at Phu Duong Junior High School. The data were collected by means of students‟ questionnaires, teachers‟ interviews and class observation. Sixty questionnaires were distributed to students and returned, eight interviews were conducted with teachers of Phu Duong Junior High School and six class observations were conducted.
The results show that most of the teachers and students were well aware of the importance and necessity of drill techniques in teaching and learning grammar. They realized that drills could help students practice grammar more easily and accurately. However, the teachers encountered many difficulties in designing and conducting drills such as lack of knowledge about drills, class size, students‟ levels, especially the lack of institutional facilities. Thus, not all the teachers could design and conduct drills in class successfully.
Based on the results, it is suggested that teachers need to equip themselves with adequate knowledge of drills so that they can improve the effectiveness of these techniques in teaching grammar. Besides, teachers need to spend more time preparing meaningful drills before class, provide students with many different kinds of drill to make them familiar with these daily exercises and feel interested in practicing with drills. In addition, teachers need to share experience and collaborate in designing and conducting drills in reality. Moreover, the leaders of school need to create more favorable conditions, provide more facilities such as tape recorders, functional classroom, teaching equipments in order to encourage teachers to conduct drills in a more interesting and useful way.
Background of the research Vietnam‟s 1986 open-door policy has attracted English speaking foreigners to Vietnam. The role of foreign languages, especially English, critical to the development of the country, has become more and more important. Within this context of international business development, English has been increasingly chosen and the command of a foreign language is required of the Vietnamese educational system. As a result, government officials are officially required to learn English due to the Decree signed in 1995 by the Prime Minister (Trinh, 2005).
Obviously, various methodologies with different ways of teaching foreign languages have also been introduced into Vietnamese schools for many years and these English language teaching methods have been undergoing a process of change whereby a certain methodology is dominated and widely used in a certain time. According to Holliday (1994, p.1) “Any methodology in English language education should be appropriate to the social context within which it is being used”. English teachers thus need to choose a methodology which helps his or her students learn in the most effective way. With English becoming a language of global communication, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has widely been considered the most modern teaching method.
Although this new method is gaining ground in many countries, its application into Vietnamese context proves difficult due to many factors such as heavy teaching loads, exam-oriented syllabi, lack of resources, teachers‟ lack of competence and confidence, the influence of traditional classroom and traditional learning and teaching styles (Le, 2000; Truong, 2004; Pham, 2005). Besides, many educators realize that there can be no ideal and universally applicable method of language teaching (Marton, 1988). Therefore, a combination of the old and the new can be seen as a good solution to provide 7 learners with the communicative abilities as well as the grammar knowledge. In another way, EFL teachers need this combination so as to adapt the communicative approach to traditional teaching structure (Giao & Hoa, 2004).
As Larsen-Freeman (2006) points out, besides the four basic skills listening, speaking, reading and writing, students need to develop their fifth skill - grammaring. The fact remains that mastering grammar is still a demand for Vietnamese students and practicing grammatical structures plays an important role in language learning and teaching process.25) claimed that “a language is acquired through practice; it is merely perfected through grammar”. Indeed, whether language teaching and learning become valid and useful or not are dependent on classroom practice. If teachers use teaching techniques which do not accord with their own classroom experience, these techniques will be useless; however if teachers can process and reform them, they will become really meaningful and helpful (Ur, 1999).
Within the scope of English language teaching techniques, although a lot of new techniques have been introduced recently, the use of drills is still rudimentary (Wang, 2003a; 2003b). In fact, drills are still necessary, unexceptionally in Communicative language teaching especially in a lower-level class (Fu, 2005) and elementary students need vast amounts of practice saying the same structures over and over again until a degree of fluency is attained (Bress, 1996). In the context of English teaching and learning at Junior High Schools, especially to grade six students who are seen as beginners, there must be a solid foundation in English, and an appropriate grammar analysis is considered to be essential. In this period, teaching and learning always require the focus on grammar in which drill patterns - ways of familiarizing students with sentences structures - are necessary in helping beginners practice grammatical structures (Zhenhui, 1999).
In addition, drills were proven to improve students‟ abilities of using target language accurately and fluently (Nation, 1989; Harmer, 1991). 8 Nowadays, modern society requires English users not only to read English well but also to speak English fluently. Therefore, as for beginners of English, students need to be sufficiently equipped with knowledge of grammar at the foundation stage so that they can feel confident in using the target language for the purposes of communication in the next stage. Drills, indeed, can help learners master some of the forms of the language are also the best ways to help learners practice for linguistic competence (Grant, 1987), an integral part of communicative competence (Zhenhui, 1999; Hedge, 2000).
As a teacher of English in a Junior High School, I have tried different techniques and find that it is not easy to attract students to the techniques that are not familiar or too difficult especially when applying them to practice grammar to low level students. Meanwhile, drills which are rather familiar with students are sometimes said to be easy and boring. Taking this idea into consideration, it is necessary to carry out this research with the hope of exploring the reality of teachers' using drills at Phu Duong Junior High School. Rationale of the research As a teacher of English in EFL situation for nearly 10 years at Phu Duong Junior High School, I am really interested in the drill techniques.
I have learnt from experience that along with the importance and necessity of drills what really means is how drill can be used. Through several years of teaching grade six students and using drills in teaching grammar, I have always asked myself whether students are interested in drills to practice grammar; What drill techniques should be made use of; How much time should be spent on drilling and How we can make drills more interesting and effective. I find it necessary to obtain more insights into drill techniques and thus feel motivated to conduct this study. The aim of the research The study aims to investigate how drill can be used to teach grammar by a group of English language teachers at Phu Duong Junior High School and what can be done to improve it.
Therefore, the study will be carried out for the following purposes: to gain more insight into the perceptions of both teachers and students towards drill techniques in teaching and learning grammar. to get to know what kinds of drill techniques are often used in grammar lessons to explore the reality of teachers‟ using drills at Phu Duong Junior High School to make some suggestions for more interesting and effective drill techniques. Research questions The study seeks to answer the following questions: 1. What are teachers' perceptions about drill techniques in teaching grammar? 2.
How is drill currently used and designed in the 6th grade classroom at Phu Duong Junior High School in an attempt to teach grammar effectively? 3. What are students' perceptions about drill techniques in learning grammar? 4.