VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE *** *** DƯƠNG THỊ NHÀN A Comparative Analysis among Several Types of Communicative Activities to Reduce Pre-Intermediate Level Learners' Anxiety in Speaking English at HaNoi Foreign Language Teaching Center Phân tích so sánh một số hoạt động giao tiếp nhằm làm giảm sự lo lắng của người học khi nói tiếng Anh tại trung tâm Anh ngữ sư phạm Hà Nội M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Methodology Code: 60.10 HÀ NỘI – 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE *** *** DƯƠNG THỊ NHÀN A Comparative Analysis among Several Types of Communicative Activities to Reduce Pre-Intermediate Level Learners' Anxiety in Speaking English at HaNoi Foreign Language Teaching Center Phân tích so sánh một số hoạt động giao tiếp nhằm làm giảm sự lo lắng của người học khi nói tiếng Anh tại trung tâm Anh ngữ sư phạm Hà Nội M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Methodology Code: 60.10 Supervisor: Nguyễn Thu Lệ Hằng, M. HÀ NỘI – 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………….ii Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………………iii List of Tables and Charts………………………………………………………………………vi List of Abbreviations………………………………………………………………………….vi PART ONE: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………. Rationale of the Study. Aims of the study.
Scope of the study. Methods of the study. Design of the study. Definitions of Terms.
4 PAT TWO: DEVELOPMENT……………………………………………………………….5 Chapter I: LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………………………. Overview of Communicative Language Teaching. Foreign Language Anxiety. Definitions of Foreign Language Anxiety.
Possible Sources of Foreign Language Anxiety. Effects of Foreign Language Anxiety in Language Learning. Definitions of Communicative Activities. Benefits of Communicative Activities in Teaching Speaking English.
Some Types of Communicative Activities. 14 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Using Communicative Activities to Reduce Learners’ Anxiety in Speaking English…………………………………………………………………………………. 16 Chapter II: METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………………….
Rationale for Action Research. Action Research Procedure. Subjects of the Study. 23 Chapter III: DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS……………………………….
Pre-action research survey. The Pre- Questionnaire. Action plan implementation. Role-play activities.
Samples of role-plays. Procedure of a role-play activity. Reflection on implementing the activity. Findings and Notice.
Information gap activities. Sample information gap activities. Procedure of an information gap activity. Reflection on implementing the activity.
Findings and Notice. Sample discussion activities. 35 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Procedure of a discussion activity.
Reflection on implementing the activity. Findings and Notice. Post action research survey. A Comparative Analysis of Some Communicative Activities to Reduce Learners’ Anxiety in Speaking English.
43 PART THREE: CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………45 Summary of the Study. 45 Limitations of the study. 46 Suggestions for further research .X LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vii List of Tables Table 1: The causes of the learners’ anxiety in speaking English Table 2: Some communicative activities used in speaking lessons Table 3: The learners’ feeling about CA used in speaking lessons Table 4: The learners’ feelings after participating in communicative activities in speaking lessons Table 5: Effectiveness of reducing the learners’ anxiety in speaking English through communicative activities List of Charts Chart 1: I feel anxious when speaking English in class Chart 2: The learners’ participation extreme in communicative activities used in speaking lessons Chart 3: The learners’ interests in communicative activities List of Abbreviations CAs: Communicative Activities CLT: Communicative Language Teaching FL: Foreign Language AR: Action Research SD: Standard Deviation M: Mean TEMOC: Techniques that Encourage and Measure Oral Communication LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the Study Nowadays, with the development of technology and information together with the spread of globalization, English becomes a global language because it is broadly used in various fields of our life such as in technology, business, commerce, communication and so on.
As a result, learning English for communication skills has created a huge demand for teaching and learning English around the world. The fact shows that communicative approach of teaching English is preferred in learning English. Teaching English is not only on linguistic competence of the language learners but also on the development of their communicative ability. Therefore, in order to develop the learners‟ communicative ability, teachers need to create a good classroom environment which motivates their speaking activities.
In recent years in Vietnam, English has been playing a very important role in the development of the country firstly because it is an international language and secondly it is also seen as a mean to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between Vietnam and other countries. Consequently, more and more people desire to know and focus on English to keep pace with the update development in technology in the world. Therefore, English is not only widely taught at schools, universities, but it also is taught at many foreign language centers as part-time classes and others. In Ha Noi, there are more and more English centers established everywhere with a lot of learners.
Most of them are students, engineers, or workers, who come to the centers with the hope to have a good command of English to use it effectively in all four skills. Regarding speaking skills, the majority of learners agree that this macro skill is always at the top of their demand for many aims such as passing oral examinations at universities, having good communications, getting good jobs, etc. However, most of second language learners experience varying degrees of anxiety when asked to express their views in front of other people. This is true even when their language abilities are rather good.
In fact, there is an excessive amount of anxiety negatively influencing many language learners‟ behaviors and educational outcomes. Campbell and Ortiz (1991: 159) show that language anxiety among university students to be „alarming‟ and estimate that up to one half of all language students experience debilitating levels of language anxiety. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 As a teacher of English in Ha Noi Foreign Language Teaching Center for nearly two years, I have found that learners would like to speak English a lot but they lack confidence in speaking and they are usually passive and find it challenging while communicating with English-speaking people. In speaking lessons, there are hardly many communicative activities for teaching speaking English used by teachers.
Consequently, learners are too shy or even keep silence and do nothing in speaking lessons. Moreover, they think that speaking English is very difficult for them and they become fed up with learning this skill. In fact, the attempt to create a negotiating and students-centered learning atmosphere in English by teachers is usually unsuccessful. The achievement of effective communicative teaching becomes a daily headache to all English teachers here.
Inevitably, the lack of learners‟ participation in speaking activities leads to the teacher-centered learning in English lessons and learners‟ anxiety in learning a second language, especially in speaking English. These reasons actually drive the researcher to the study “A comparative analysis among several types of communicative activities to reduce Pre- intermediate level learners’ anxiety in speaking English at HaNoi Foreign Language Teaching Center” with the aim of suggesting some communicative activities to reduce these learners‟ anxiety in speaking English. Aims of the study This study aims at suggesting some communicative activities to reduce learners‟ anxiety in speaking English and compare which activities are the most effective for them. In order to achieve these aims, the following objectives are established: - Firstly, to review the real situation of teaching and learning speaking skills at Ha Noi Foreign Language Teaching Center.
- Secondly, to investigate the current activities used in teaching speaking English at this center. - Thirdly, to suggest some communicative activities to reduce pre-intermediate level learners‟ anxiety in speaking English at this center. - Fourthly, to make a comparison about which activities have effects on reducing learners‟ anxiety in speaking English. Scope of the study To reduce learners‟ anxiety in speaking English, teachers can make use of various LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 activities and a number of techniques should be done.
However, within the framework of this M.A Minor Thesis, it is too ambitious to list all communicative activities to reduce learners‟ anxiety in speaking English. Therefore, this research only focuses on three communicative activities (that is, role-play, discussion, and information gap) and then compares their effects on reducing learners‟ anxiety in speaking classes. Moreover, due to the limit of time, only a foreign language center in Hanoi is chosen for the research. All of 20 learners chosen are studying in a Pre-intermediate level class.
Methods of the study In order to complete this research, qualitative method will be used. The participants of the study are the learners at Ha Noi Foreign Language Teaching Center. More specifically, the researcher planned classroom observations and did questionnaires consisting of pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire to gather in-depth information about the real situation of teaching and learning speaking skills and which communicative activities used in their speaking lessons. It is believed this method will bring about a complete look into this research.
Research questions The study is to apply some communicative activities and compare them with the aim of finding out the most effective one to reduce learners‟ speaking anxiety at Ha Noi Foreign Language Teaching Center. To achieve this aim, answers to the following questions are sought: + Which speaking activities have been used in teaching speaking skill at this center? + Which will be the most effective one, among three communicative activities-, role- play, discussion, and information gap- to reduce Pre-intermediate level learners’ anxiety in speaking English? 1. Design of the study This minor thesis consists of three main parts: Part One, INTRODUCTION, presents the rationale, the aims, scope, methods, design of the study, and definitions of terms. Part Two, DEVELOPMENT, is composed of four chapters as follows: - Chapter One, Literature review, is concerned with a brief review of knowledge about overview of communicative language teaching, foreign language LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 anxiety, communicative activities and benefits of using communicative activities to reduce learners‟ anxiety in speaking English.
- Chapter Two, Methodology, is about the research method, research design, data analysis and the rationale for using five activities. - Chapter Three, Data Presentation and Analysis, is the part relating to pre- action research survey, action plan implementation, observation results, post-action research survey, and a comparative analysis of communicative activities to reduce learners‟ anxiety in speaking English. Part Three, CONCLUSION, consists of four sub-parts: Summary of the study, Limitations of the study, and Suggestions for further studies. Definitions of Terms - Communicative Language Teaching (CLT): CLT is an approach to the teaching of second and foreign languages that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of learning a language.
It is also referred to as “communicative approach to the teaching of foreign languages”. - Foreign language anxiety: This is considered as “a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process” - Communicative activities (CA): include any activities that encourage and require a learner to speak with and listen to other learners, as well as with people in the community. These communicative activities contain a communicative purpose in any situations and a concentration on language content not language form and communication without teachers‟ interference. - Action research (AR): is the first and foremost situational, being concerned with the identification and solution of problems in a specific context.
The aim of action research is to improve the current state of affairs within the educational context in which the research is being carried out. - Comparative analysis: This term refers to comparing two or more things to get some certain results.