VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN HẢI NGUYÊN “GOOD ENGLISH TEACHING PRACTICES” AS PERCEIVED IN TEACHING CONTESTS IN HAI DUONG PROVINCE, VIETNAM “Dạy giỏi Tiếng Anh” nhìn nhận từ các cuộc thi giảng ở tỉnh Hải Dương, Việt Nam MA. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Language Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231.01 HANOI, 2019 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN HẢI NGUYÊN “GOOD ENGLISH TEACHING PRACTICES” AS PERCEIVED IN TEACHING CONTESTS IN HAI DUONG PROVINCE, VIETNAM “Dạy giỏi Tiếng Anh” nhìn nhận từ các cuộc thi giảng ở tỉnh Hải Dương, Việt Nam MA. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Language Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231. Vũ Hải Hà HANOI, 2019 DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “Good English teaching practices as perceived in teaching contests in Hai Duong Province, Vietnam” is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of English teaching methodology at the University of Languages and International Studies, Viet Nam National University.
This thesis has not been previously submitted for any other degrees. The work was done under the guidance of Doctor Vu Hai Ha, at the University of Languages and International Studies. Hanoi, January 2019 Nguyễn Hải Nguyên i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Vu Hai Ha for his careful supervision, great support and encouragement during the whole process of research.
I myself would not have accomplished this paper without his expert, specific instruction and criticism. I am also grateful to my colleagues at nearly 40 high schools in Hai Duong province, especially Nguyen Binh Khiem High School, Tu Ky High School, Thanh Ha High School, Gia Loc High School and Pha Lai High School, for their enthusiastic participation and feedback in the stage of data collection. Finally, my special thanks go to my family who gave me time and encouragement to overcome all difficulties along the course of research and complete this study. ii ABSTRACT The following paper involves discovering how “good English language teaching practices” are perceived in the provincial teaching contests in Hai Duong province which is somehow a form of teachers‟ assessment, and exploring the correspondences, if any, between these perceptions and those described in the ETCF, which is acting as a guidance for teachers‟ training and development.
Within the scope of this study, 18 examiners and 55 examinees who are teachers of high schools in Hai Duong province and have participated in the teaching contests agreed to voice their opinions on “good English teaching practices”. The data was collected from questionnaires, follow-up interviews and document observation. Then the perceptions of “good English teaching practices” shown in the teaching contests were compared with those characterized in the content of ETCF with a view to investigating the connection between practice and theory. Consequently, the examinees and the assessment criteria including documents and the examiners‟ evaluation bear considerable similarities regarding the characteristics of effective English language teaching, namely Culture Teaching, Communicative Approach, Assessment, Technology and Teaching materials, etc.
The findings also added to the existing framework of Brown (2009), which serves as the backbone of the study, in terms of outside classroom factors such as Lesson Planning, Teachers‟ professionalism, Contribution to language teaching and Students‟ Learning Outcomes and Development. Besides, the teaching contests show noticeable agreement with the ETCF on what characterize “good English teaching practices”. However, ETCF covers broader and more comprehensive concepts while the teaching contests deals with more detailed ones. Interestingly, it is suggested from the teaching contests that the utilization of different ways to grab students‟ attention in class and development of students‟ autonomy in learning play an important role in achieving good English teaching practices, which is not mentioned in any competency in the ETCF.
At the end of the day, it is also implied that training programs and theoretical guidelines have a significant impact on teachers‟ beliefs about effective English teaching and on their teaching practices. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ETCF: English Teacher Competency Framework SLTE: second language teacher education FL: foreign language L2: second language iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. iv LIST OF TABLES .1 Rationale for the study .5 Significance of the study.
3 CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Perspectives on teaching .2 English language teacher education .3 English language teacher assessment .4 Perceptions of good English language teaching .2 Case study background .1 English language teacher education in Vietnam .2 English language teacher assessment in Vietnam and the English Teacher Competency Framework (ETCF).3 EFL teaching and Teaching contest in Hai Duong Province .1 Research paradigm research design .4 Data collection procedure. 32 CHAPTER 4 – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS .1 Analysis of research question 1 .4 Summary of findings and data source .2 Analysis of research question 2 .3 Summary of findings and data sources.3 Analysis of research question 3 .3 Research limitations and future research. 59 APPENDIX 1: ILLUSTRATION OF THE MAIN CONTEMPORARY MODELS OF LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION. I APPENDIX 2: EXAMPLES OF ETCF ASSESSMENT TOOLS.
III APPENDIX 3: EFFECTIVE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING QUESTIONNAIRE (FOR THE JUDGES). XXIII APPENDIX 4: EFFECTIVE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING QUESTIONNAIRE (FOR THE CONTESTANTS). XXXI APPENDIX 5: FOLLOW-UP INTERVIEWS (TRANSCRIPT). XXXVI APPENDIX 6: ADDITIONAL INTERVIEWS ABOUT ROUND 1 (EXPERIENCE- BASED INTIVATIVE PAPER) AND ROUND 2 (THE COMPETENCY TEST) OF THE TEACHING CONTESTS.
XLII vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Five models of teaching. 5 Table 2: Some main contemporary models of language teacher education. 7 Table 3: Some competency frameworks/ models for English language teachers. 8 Table 4: Domains and Competencies in ETCF.
16 Table 5: Category of effective language teaching in the questionnaire. 27 Table 6: Data collection procedure. 31 Table 7: Questionnaire revisions. 32 Table 8: Result of aspect of Grammar Teaching (Examiners).
34 Table 9: Result of aspect of Error Correction (Examiners). 35 Table 10: Result of aspect of Target Language Use (Examiners). 35 Table 11: Result of aspect of Culture (Examiners). 36 Table 12: Result of aspect of Computer-based technology (Examiners).
36 Table 13: Result of aspect of Communicative Language Teaching Strategies (Examiners). 37 Table 14: Result of aspect of Assessment (Examiners). 38 Table 15: Result of document observation (good language teaching practices). 42 Table 16: Research question 1 - Summary of findings.
43 Table 17: Descriptive result of the examinees' beliefs. 44 Table 18: Identical opinions in both examiners' and examinees' perceptions of good English language teaching. 46 Table 19: Research question 2 - Summary of findings. 49 vii CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study Starting from the time of economic reforms, Vietnam has adopted the open-door policy to involve in international business and attract foreign investments, so the interaction with other nations is unavoidable.
As a result, in order to increase capabilities of the country to grow in nowadays environment, it is necessary for Vietnamese to improve their second language ability as an essential communicative tool (Hamano, 2008). Vietnamese children have been encouraged to learn English from the age of 6 since national education system has covered English in its teaching content for all primary schools (Pham, 1998). Nevertheless, the effectiveness of teaching and learning English at these schools is very low. The students have learned this language rigidly, so they cannot use it in reality at all (Hamano, 2008).
This is the point where old methods of teaching show certain limitations. These teaching processes which only concentrate on linguistic accuracy and are controlled by the teacher in class restrict students‟ opportunities to practice and apply English structure in a flexible way. Hence, after a long time of learning and doing many boring grammar exercises, the students can only remember the meaning of individual words and formula of grammar structure, but they cannot apply these things to comprehend the content of the whole sentences in different contexts nor compound meaningful sentences to express themselves. It is even worse when they have to speak out in English.
While speaking is considered one of the most significant skill of effective communication (Hamano, 2008), the lack of confidence, slow reflex and poor pronunciation has made it very difficult for Vietnamese students to open their mouth fluently. Hence, the necessary to find new teaching methods has been proposed with the effort to improve the effectiveness of English learning process. Therefore, the issue of quality in teaching foreign languages has become a matter of concern. In 2008, the Prime Minister approved the Decision 1400 about “Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Education System, Period 2008-2020”, most frequently referred to as the National Foreign Languages 2020 Project (Department of Education and Training - Hai Duong Province, 2014).
Since then, there have been many changes in teaching and learning foreign languages in general, and teaching and learning English in particular with the central focus on English teachers‟ 1 development. In fact, the Ministry of Education and Training has announced that 85 percent of the total 450-million-US-dollars investment will be spent on teacher training (Hieu, 2017) to improve teachers‟ language proficiency and teaching methodology with the hope that it can help improve students‟ achievements. At the same time, a five-domain English Teacher Competency Framework (ETCF) has been established and used as the official standards for assessing teachers‟ performance and ability (Ministry of Education and Training, 2013). In the meantime, nationwide extensive emulation movements have led to more and more contests for teachers; among them teaching contests have attracted not only teachers‟ and education administrators‟ participation but also lots of attention from the public.
These contests, theoretically, are targeted at encouraging teachers to enlarge their knowledge and upskill their professional practices, so that it may result in high general education quality. Personally, being a teacher of English for a few years, I have participated in several training courses hosted by Hai Duong Department of Education and Training and the Ministry of Education and Training concerning the practice of National Foreign Languages 2020 Project and ETCF. I am going to take part in a teaching contest at school next year, which is to prepare for the provincial contest. Therefore, what currently concerns me most is whether I can apply the knowledge gained from the training courses into the teaching contests.
Thus, a matter that needs to be taken into consideration is how good English teaching practices are really perceived in these contests and if there is any correspondence between those perceptions and the criteria of ETCF.2 Research objectives Based on the issue mentioned above, the study is aimed at: Investigating how good English language teaching practices are perceived in the assessment criteria employed in the teaching contests in Hai Duong province in particular; Examining how good English language teaching practices are perceived by the teachers taking part in these contests; Exploring the correspondence, if any, between the perceptions of good English language teaching practices in Hai Duong province and the criteria of ETCF.3 Research questions Followings are three research questions: 1. What characterizes “good English language teaching practices” according to the assessment criteria employed in the teaching contests (from the documents and from the examiners‟ point of view)? 2. What characterizes “good English language teaching practices” as perceived by the teachers (examinees) taking part in these contests? 3. What are the similarities and differences between the perceptions of “good English teaching practices” in these contests and in the ETCF? The first and second question are to highlight the perceptions of “good English teaching practices” in reality as they are assessed in the teaching contests based on the assessment criteria as well as acknowledged by the examinees.
It is due to few documents acted as the guidelines of assessment in these teaching contests that examiners are needed to specify how the criteria are adapted to assess English teaching practices.