VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE THE EFFECTS OF PROCESSING INSTRUCTION ON THE LEARNING OF PAST SIMPLE OF VIETNAMESE YOUNG LEARNERS. A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By KỸ TRẦN MINH UYÊN Supervised by PHAM VU PHI HO, Assoc. HO CHI MINH CITY, November 2021 1 Acknowledgements I cannot express enough thanks to my supervisor, Pham Vu Phi Ho, Assoc., for the continued support. Without his considerable encouragement, I would not have complete the thesis.
Moreover, my completion of this thesis could not have been accomplished without the support of one of my best friends who inspired me to conduct the thesis topic. He was the person who intrigued me to conduct this thesis. Finally, I also want to express thanks to the committee who have left lots of constructive comments on my thesis to make it more valuable. Your guidance is precious to me.
2 Statement of originality I hereby declare that this thesis entitled “The effects of processing instruction on the learning of past simple of Vietnamese young learners” is my own work. This paper does not contain any materials which have been previously submitted, in whole or in part, for another degree in any institutions. All the work from other authors, which has been used as references in this study, was cited with acknowledgement. Ho Chi Minh, November 2021 KỸ TRẦN MINH UYÊN 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements.
1 Statement of originality. 2 List of tables and figures. 6 List of Abbreviations: .1 Background to the study.1 The views towards grammar instruction in language teaching .2 The contexts of grammar instruction in Viet Nam .2 Statement of the problem .1 In the world .4 Aim of the study. Significance of the study.
Scope of the study .8 Outline of the thesis. 16 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. What is input?. What is input processing?.
What is Processing Instruction?. What is Traditional Instruction or PPP?. What is Structured Input Activities?. Processing Instruction: Lines of Research.
PI outperformed TI. TI is more effective than PI. Participants and context of the study. Context of the study.
Pre-tests and post-tests. Focus group interview. Why is Past Simple Tense chosen for this study?. Steps in training procedure.
Data collection and Data analysis. Data collection procedure. Data analysis procedure. Reliability and Validity.
52 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .1 Analysis of data .1 Students’ performance before treatment .2 The results from pre-test to post-test .1 Interpretation tests at sentence level .2 Interpretation tests at discourse level .3 Production tests at sentence level. Production tests at discourse level .3 The effects of PI and TI. Interpretation tests at sentence level. Interpretation tests at discourse level.
Production tests at sentence level. Production tests at discourse level .4 Learners’ perception towards Processing Instruction .2 Discussion of results. 88 6 List of tables and figures List of figures Figure 2. Processes in Second Language Acquisition (VanPatten, 1993) Figure 2.
Processing Instruction model Figure 2. Traditional Instruction model Figure 2. New Processing Instruction model Figure 3. Data collection List of tables Table 3.
Instruction materials Table 3. Training procedure Table 3. Cronbach’s Alpha of pre-test and post-test Table 4. Pre-test results Table 4.
Means and Standard Deviation of the Pre-test and Post-test (Interpretation tests at sentence level). Mann-Whitney U Test results from pre-test to post-test of PI group (Interpretation tests at sentence level) Table 4. Means and Standard Deviation of the Pre-test and Post-test (Interpretation tests at discourse level) Table 4. Mann-Whitney U Test results from pre-test to post-test of PI group (Interpretation tests at discourse level) Table 4.
Means and Standard Deviation for the Pre-test and Post-test (Production tests at sentence level) Table 4. Mann-Whitney U Test results from pre-test to post-test of PI group (Production tests at sentence level) Table 4. Means and Standard Deviation for the Pre-test and Post-test (Production tests at discourse level) Table 4. Mann-Whitney U Test results from pre-test to post-test of PI group (Production tests at discourse level) Table 4.
Means and Standard Deviation for Post-test (Interpretation tests at sentence level) Table 4. Mann-Whitney U Test results of TI and PI group (Interpretation tests at sentence level) 7 Table 4. Means and Standard Deviation for Post-test (Interpretation tests at discourse level) Table 4. Mann-Whitney U Test results of TI and PI group (Interpretation tests at discourse level) Table 4.
Means and Standard Deviation for Post-test (Production tests at sentence level) Table 4. Mann-Whitney U Test results of TI and PI group (Production tests at sentence level) Table 4. Means and Standard Deviation for Post-test (Production tests at discourse level) Table 4. Mann-Whitney U Test results of TI and PI group (Production tests at discourse level) 8 List of Abbreviations: Processing Instruction – PI Traditional Instruction – TI Structured Input Activities – SI activities Presentation – Practice – Production – PPP Meaning-based Output Instruction – MOI Content and Language Integrated Learning – CLIL Content-based Instruction – CBI Second-language acquisition – SLA First language – L1 Second language – L2 9 ABSTRACT Vietnamese learners are facing the problem of being incapable of using the structure appropriately in specific context.
In order to solve this problem, a new type of instruction which is Processing Instruction (PI) is being put into use. A thing that this study tries to make a difference is that PI practice is redesigned by combining the output practice with structured input activities to maximize the effects. Another gap is the investigation into learners’ perception towards PI. The participants were young learners aged 8 to 11 at A1 level.
The participants come from a middle class family who are the current students of a language center in Thu Duc City. There were two groups of 34 participants divided into PI and control group. The control group experienced the ordinary type of instruction which is called Traditional Instruction (TI). Pre-tests and post-tests were delivered to examine the improvement and to compare the effects of these instruction.
A focus group interview was also carried out to determine learners’ perception towards the target instruction. The results recommended that PI group had significant effects on learners and obtained more benefits than control group. The findings of focus group interviews indicated that learners feel more confident when they have time to process the structure before producing them. They also mentioned some difficulties they have undergone so that researcher has a chance to redesign the activities to be appropriate to learners’ need.
Keywords: Processing Instruction, Traditional Instruction 10 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study 1.1 The views towards grammar instruction in language teaching The perspective towards grammar instruction is an exemplification with the continuing debate about its role in language education. Krashen (1985) has dissented from the effectiveness of teaching grammar through his Monitor Model or Input Hypothesis. The learning system only plays a monitor role for the acquiring system. He assumed that learners can increase their second language competence when exposing to comprehensible input without noticing on the grammatical features mechanically.
Moreover, in 1993, he also claimed that grammar instruction was peripheral and insignificant, which referred back to his Natural Approach in 1983 with no L2 grammar instruction. On the other end of the spectrum, some learners and teachers have attached great value to grammar, which was an indispensable part of language learning. A large number of researchers such as Master (1994), Norris and Ortega (2000), Hedge (2000) and Thornbury (2001) claimed that grammar instruction facilitates language learning, while Lightbown and Spada (1990) and Nassaji and Swain (2000) provided a general view of instructing grammar by drawing learners’ attention to the target grammatical feature to promote the comprehension and production performance of accuracy. However, Cadierno (1995) suggested that researchers should pay more attention to the effectiveness of each type of grammar instruction in lieu of arguing whether formal instruction makes a difference in SLA or not.
It is not worth concerning the value of grammar instruction while how grammar is taught is more beneficial. For those reasons, researchers need to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each type of grammar instruction and determine the appropriate grammar instruction in specific Vietnamese context.2 The contexts of grammar instruction in Viet Nam Grammar-based tests have been prevailing in Vietnamese high schools for a long period, which leads to the spread of grammar-based teaching methodology in Viet Nam. With the purpose of enhancing learners results in grammar-based tests, PPP or Traditional Instruction (TI) has been widely adopted in high schools across Viet Nam (Khuong, 2015; 11 Tran, 2015; Pham & Do, 2020). This method considerably concerns with the rules and grammatical structures which are explained explicitly and deductively by practicing producing the grammatical structure from L2 to L1.
Therefore, concentrating excessively on grammar through PPP makes Vietnamese learners suffer from boredom and inability to communicate the language fluently (Khuong, 2015). It is vital to have a goal in developing learners’ competence in communicating inside and outside the classroom. To enhance learners’ production skill, an output-based instruction was employed in Viet Nam which was PPP or Traditional Instruction (Tran, 2015; Bui & Newton, 2021; Do, 2020). However, Tran (2015) claimed that Vietnamese learners favor Communicative Language Teaching resulting in the survey and their scores.
Some Communicative Approaches, in terms of Content and language integrated learning (CLIL), Task-based Instruction or Immersion program in many International high schools, are popularly adopted in Vietnamese context. Le and Barnard (2009) found out that Vietnamese teachers prefer meaningful and discourse approach to decontextualized grammar instruction, while. However, Hymes (1972) argued that the ability to use the language is able to produce the grammatical structure not only accurately but appropriately as well. Communicative Approach has fulfilled its responsibility of helping learners form a meaningful grammatical structure where communication is both the means and the ends of language instruction.
However, Communicative Approach also has the drawback which was mentioned by Willis (1996) that learners have a tendency to use incoherent lexical chunks instead of producing the target structure. He also added that the acquisition of the target structure through dealing with tasks is motivated by the need of learners, which means that learners may not acquire the language if the tasks do not fulfil their need. Ellis (2003) also pointed that learners tend to switch back to their first language (L1) when they find the tasks complicated and get impatient to explain lengthily in the target language without comprehension. For those reasons, Communicative Approach is the good method in promoting learners’ language performance but its drawbacks are inevitable, which should only be applied in some particular circumstances.
Communicative Approaches have contributed substantially to the improvement of learners’ fluent production skills, whereas there are still many drawbacks of communication- focused approaches related to producing the accurate and grammatical structures. Lighbown 12 and Spada (1993, p. 105) mentioned that Communicative Approach employing Form-focused Instruction in association with corrective feedback are more beneficial than the programs that focus only on accuracy or fluency. For those reasons, the integration of grammar instruction, especially Form-focused Instruction with Communicative Approach should be taken into consideration.
Form-focused instruction is a type of pedagogical method that occurs in communicative contexts with two different specific approaches that are Comprehension-based and Production- based language instructions. Comprehension-based Instruction consists of many approaches such as Processing Instruction, Textual Enhancement, Discourse, etc.2 Statement of the problem 1.1 In the world Grammar is the soul of a language that contributes to the demonstration of the underlying meaning of the speakers, while views on grammar teaching and learning are still debatable. Nowadays, many points of view on language education reject the effects of grammar instruction, while fluency is strongly emphasized over accuracy in Communicative Approach.