Graduation thesis major English Language: How to make pupils at SIU interested in learning English speaking

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The experience of English teaching, especially speaking class, comes from the actual classroom and that is not a good news for a new teacher, who does not have it but urgently needs to acquire the basic knowledge. This writing provides the reasons why the level of interesting acts as a crucial point in the succeeding of a class. Furthermore, some methods of teaching speaking are going to be viewed and discussed to strengthen the point of view that intrinsic motivation should be applied in the class.

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Nội dung Text: Graduation thesis major English Language: How to make pupils at SIU interested in learning English speaking

Hochiminh City – 2019 …………………………………….. GRADUATION THESIS Major English Language Topic How to make pupils at SIU interested in learning English speaking Instructor Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA Student Dinh Thai Son ID: 97011501057
DECLARATION I hereby declare that the work entitled "THE THESIS PROPOSAL" submitted for the school governor of The Saigon International University (SIU) is my original work and I also confirm that, the report is only prepared for my academic requirement not for any other purpose. Student's name : Đinh Thái Sơn Course : SIUBFT0815 Student ID : 97011501057 Date : September 6th, 2017 Place : Hochiminh city Signature of the Student:
ABSTRACT The experience of English teaching, especially speaking class, comes from the actual classroom and that is not a good news for a new teacher, who does not have it but urgently needs to acquire the basic knowledge. This writing provides the reasons why the level of interesting acts as a crucial point in the succeeding of a class. Furthermore, some methods of teaching speaking are going to be viewed and discussed to strengthen the point of view that intrinsic motivation should be applied in the class. Readers will find graphs and figures demonstrating the subject and result in finding them useful for further studies at the Saigon International University.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to show deep gratitude to all those who gave me a chance to complete this research and this Thesis. A special thanks I would like to give to my instructor, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tuan, for helping me with the information needed for my Thesis. Over the period of 10 weeks, he helped us to schedule the writing from step to step so that the writing could be handed in time. Professor also guided us the correct form of writing and corrected our paper works. Furthermore, I would like to thank the class 15DTA, who act as a helpful source of data on reflecting the state of our speaking class in the pass. The data was rapidly filled and the reply was so frank. Without their participation, this writing was so much in trouble. Last but not least, I would like to thank the Saigon International University. The academic facility provides me a chance to be able to present the knowledge that I had learned here for the last four years and applied them to real life situation.
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TABLE OF CONTENT Content
LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: The chart describing the level of interest the speaking class could get based on students’ grading 20 Chart 2: The chart describing the amount of activities were use......................................21 Chart 3: The chart describing the most common method used during class........................ 22 Chart 4: Chart describing which methods students prefer................................................29 Chart 5: Chart describing which task-based activities students prefer.............................30 Chart 6: Chart describing which topic-based activities students prefer.......................32
9Student: Dinh Thai Son Student ID:97011501057 CONTENT Chapter 1: Introduction The research began when the class of speaking conducted at SIU had finished since the majority felt the same that the class either quite reluctant or not being able to distribute the enthusiastic activities. In the search for methods to better the class learning environment, the hope is that speaking class will be more communicative for students to enjoy. 1. Rationale English has always been unofficially considered to be the most used language of the modern time for it has proved it significant in global business and communication in the last decade. Yet, learning a second language is not as easy as it seems especially when it comes to speaking English. During speaking session, we found that some of the students lack the motivation to stand up in front the class and deliver a speech in English. This typical situation is often assigned to being shy, reserved and insecure of making mistake, some cases event engage with the negative attitude toward speaking in front of public. Such matter has raised the attention of us as future teachers to find an appropriate solution. 2. Purposes of the Study As stated before, we are aiming at creating an efficient English speaking period for students of Saigon International University. By attending the classes, we noticed that getting students to speak English in class is quite tricky especially to those who were reluctant to speak or express themselves in front of other people. Since then, we have Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.
10Student: Dinh Thai Son Student ID:97011501057 been scanning through methods of teaching Speaking English and obtaining more new modern practices to help students deal with speaking problems. 3. Significance of the Study As the first to benefit from this research, we would say that through the process of making this writing possible, we have learned a quite amount of ways to conduct an effective speaking class. With a certain belief that the students at Saigon International University would be the next target to gain advantage since this research was aimed to better the class of speaking based on the interest of each individuals. Lastly, teachers’ role is quite important in the learning and progressing of pupils so we hope that this small research could act as a support to those seeking of such helps and shall gain benefit from it. 4. Research Questions When the target has been set, three main questions are going to be discussed in the later section of this research. 1. Should we consider to improve the Speaking class so that it could be more enthusiastic? 2. What activities of English speaking teaching are going to fit into the class to make it more enthusiastic? 3. Which methods are considered to be the most suitable for the students at Saigon International University? Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.
11Student: Dinh Thai Son Student ID:97011501057 5. Limitation Since the research was only carrying on for ten weeks, there were a quite shortage of time. As a result, the amount of material we were able to collect still constrained. Further to that, the preparation for this thesis was interfered by the time using for completing internship report. Two weeks were cut out to complete the tasks. The questionnaire period was yet too short, the answers collecting stopped after a week so that amount of responses was not enough as a whole class. 6. Scope of the Study This topic focused on the student at Saigon International University: The Saigon International University (SIU) is an international university, founded in Vietnam to help Vietnamese and foreign students advance their education to the tertiary level. All our programs are taught either in English or in Vietnamese based on the standard of the American university curriculum. The SIU degrees are valuable nationally and internationally. (siu.edu.vn) The class of 15DTA of English Language faculty started in 2015 and will end in 2019. The curriculum consisted of Vietnamese program including subjects such as Introduction to Linguistics, Semantics, etc. and English program which were the skills of Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening. The research targeted the students attended the class of 15DTA of the faculty of English Language at Saigon International University only. The list of students we used is the LIST OF STUDENTS GRADUATION INTERNSHIP - 2019 sent to us by the school office on February 27th, 2019 which contained 25 members in total. Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.
12Student: Dinh Thai Son Student ID:97011501057 In conclusion, the main target for this research are students at SIU in general, for the students of class 15DTA in specific. Although, there some difficulties in reaching for the sample, we were managed to acquire the result needed for this thesis. Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.
13Student: Dinh Thai Son Student ID:97011501057 Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW According to Harmer (2007) in his fourth edition of “The Practice of English Language Teaching”, speaking can be quite easy to practice especially in a class where students are acquainted to each other and archive an appropriate level of English learning. On the other hand, Harmer also stated that it is a challenge job for teachers to handle a class with a variety of mixed level or students who are little exposed to English in their previous learning. These reluctant students are described as often being shy and refusing to express themselves in front of the crowd because of the fear of not speaking normal English. In addition, a more common problem comes to Speaking class is “I cannot think of anything to say”. This issue is usually assigned to not being able to relate students themselves to the topics or activities happening during the class. Last but not least, speaking class should have a high number of individual participants because unlike other skills, speaking need great amount of time in order for learners to expose themselves to the language. To have a better view of some of the matter we were working on, the below terms and definitions are going to be discussed. As we would all agree on, “To be motivated means to be moved to do something. A person who feels no impetus or inspiration to act is thus characterized as unmotivated, whereas someone who is energized or activated toward an end is considered motivated” as Richard, M, R. & Edward, L, Deci. (2000) described. Therefore, we would like to classify two types of motivation that keep learner at their stage of studying. Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.
14Student: Dinh Thai Son Student ID:97011501057 1. Intrinsic motivation The writing of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions stated: Intrinsic motivation is defined as the doing of an activity for its inherent satisfaction rather than for some separable consequence. When intrinsically motivated, a person is moved to act for the fun or challenge entailed rather than because of external products, pressures or reward. (Ryan & Deci, 2000, pp. 56) Furthermore Vanderbilt University in its article had suggested these intrinsic motivators could be describe as those who show interest at a specific subject with the thought of it somehow connect to the reality and when come to solving problems they can easily apply. More specific, when asked the question of how efficient you are when learning a subject or what archive do you earn when learning. The responses might sound like these, ““Literature interests me.”, “Learning math enables me to think clearly.”, “I feel good when I succeed in class.” ” (Article about Motivating Student, Vanderbilt University). 2. Distinguish Types of Motivations A much tougher task is how to tell the differences between intrinsic, extrinsic and internal, external motivation. Being as briefly as possible, external motivation regards the outer forces that drive learners to their success while internal motivation is more likely to fulfill personal satisfaction. Let us have an example. A student completed his homework with the fear of being punished by his parents if the work had not been done. In this case, he is motivated by his parents’ sanctions so it is obvious external. The same student complete his work because he thinks that it will lead to his succeed at school, then he is Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.
15Student: Dinh Thai Son Student ID:97011501057 internally motivated. As comparing to the other two, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are much more of an instrumentally value. The boy could have finished his homework since his discovery that his homework contain knowledge that he needed to perform in other subject, then he is intrinsically motivated. On the other hand, the child completing his task thinking that he it would help him to earn a job or in short term get a reward in the future could be considered as extrinsically motivated. Since we are only mentioning the intrinsic motivation, the distinguish part above just to clarify these definition. It is, however, important for teachers to recognize these types of motivation and be able to classify reluctant students to fit in each type and make sure to plan ahead a solution to deal with each type. 3. Advantages of Intrinsic Motivation The process of acquiring information on students’ liking as well as further developing them can easily accompany class time meaning that steps can happen at the same time without interfering or suppressing one another. For instant, during speaking class, teachers can ask students to provide their hobby or ask question about their future jobs, etc. As far as we acknowledged, extrinsically motivating methods do their jobs as soon as you apply them during your teaching section. Rewards and good marks draw the attentions of students, hands are up for answering questions and speaking of ideas. It provides strong stimulation and makes students eagerly to aim for rewards. 4. Some Elements of English Speaking As Harmer defined, speaking English fluently means there is a full potential deployment on pronouncing phonemes, using stress and intonation patterns and creating a connected speech. Furthermore, these above criteria must also accompany with various Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.
16Student: Dinh Thai Son Student ID:97011501057 speaking events. Speaking in another language is difficult and it has been argued that an important reason for this is that a student’s attentional resources during a speaking activity are limited (Skehan, 1998: 73). Many students cannot stay balance between getting the meaning right in a proper time (fluency) and using it correctly (accuracy) as an article of Cambridge Press had suggested. 5. Communicative Language Teaching In the work of Littlewood (2013), the communicative ability is described by analyzing two different points of view of language, the structural and the functional. Structural point of view considers the aspect of grammar, in other words, two sentences can be distinguished from each other by their grammatical structure. For instant, “John is drinking coffee” and “The coffee is being drunk by John”. The structural view alone, however, cannot be used as a way of conveying communication. Learners will need the view of functional as well. Here is an example: “Are they still working?” .In the aspect of grammar, the sentence should be understand as a question or interrogative. However, there are more than one meaning in the view of functional base on the circumstances that the speakers in. As a result, the communicative language teaching was there to solve the problem in three aspects: getting students to understand the linguistic structure first since this is ESL class, helping students to use the language communicatively and also introducing students to a non-linguistic knowledge of communication. 6. Task-based activities and Topic-based activities As Ur defined in her work, a topic-based activity helps students to relate the ideas of students to their own experience and knowledge. This kind of activities could also represent a group discussion where teachers can stimulate speeches but not too many Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.
17Student: Dinh Thai Son Student ID:97011501057 arguments so that students can keep their origin ideas. On the other hand, task-based activities require groups or pairs to complete observable tasks such as records, lists, charts, etc. The main difference between these types of activities is the outcome. While topic-based activities aim to produce discussion or such type of outcome, task-based activities provides a more specific result, a source of material that could also be used for other subjects. Therefore, task-based activities seem to produce more speech than its company since the procedures of conducting a task-based activities already creates opportunities for students to talk, especially to communicate with one another. In this research, topic-based activities would be widened as a method of conducting speaking class using a topic as a center to construct an activity. 7. Some Classroom Speaking Activities 7.1. Script Acting This activity involve in having student to act a cut-out part of a story from their books or other sources that they have most interest, the progress can be recorded and act as an evaluation for grading. These scripts should be selected carefully so that it could fit the age of the class and students should be asked to look through the script as if they were “real” actors and actresses. Students will have time to practice their performance which teacher head them toward the stress and intonation as they are speaking the lines. Not only student will be able to practice speaking with their friend during prepare section but they also gain confident during acting section in front of the class. During acting out part, teachers should give students with less confident chances to look at their classmate and create a helpful friendly environment where they help each other with the pronunciations and acting. Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.
18Student: Dinh Thai Son Student ID:97011501057 7.2. Discussion The most common of this type of interactions between teachers and students is what Jeremy described as Buzz group. This activity involves in predicting a topic name after you have exposed it to the students or discussing after naming some key words of that same topic. For example, teachers show pictures of snake, elephant, tiger, etc. and suggest that we might discuss the topic of animals in the rain forest and ask them to name the animals. Then teachers ask them to guess where they could live or capable of, “the elephant can swim”; “The snake cannot fly”, etc. The buzz group method, however, should be discriminated from Instant comment, which have more connection to producing fast corresponding in-class activities. Let take the same lesson of the rain forest for example. Teachers again show the topic but now instead of involving the class into speaking, we can invite individuals to stand up and list as quickly as possible four animal and their living habitats. Another type of discussion is the Formal debates. Students during the class should be given a topic then plan their arguments in group while teachers direct them toward some point of view or answer their questions. It is important for the student to practice their speech in advance in their group first. 7.3. Prepared Talks This activity is often seen in the secondary grade classes where they acquired a quite amount of vocabulary and the ability to use formal conversation. Students then choose a topic that they most acquainted and prepared the talk in advance. Teachers should encourage students to present their ideas using notes instead of scripts and should speak in a small group first. Then teacher could grade them on a criteria that the whole class had agreed on before. Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.
19Student: Dinh Thai Son Student ID:97011501057 As the most used activity in teaching English speaking, prepared talks are suitable for both intrinsic students. It can assure that the topics chosen by students are those familiar or interesting so they can have as much information as possible along with vocabulary needed to make their presentation. The criteria that teachers introduce will act as grading tools to see if students could get better in speaking English. 7.4. Questionnaires As Harmer (2007) mentioned, “Questionnaires are useful because, by being pre-planned, they ensure that both questioner and respondent have something to say to each other”. This activity is what we called “flexible” to conduct and here are the reasons. Questionnaires can be delivered to students by teachers or can be done by students themselves. Provided that questions are came up by teachers, students then discuss answers with friends or practice one-on-one conversation with teachers. On the other hand, students design the materials themselves so that they could collect data from their friends and present their finding in front of the class. In this case, teachers’ role is crucial in helping them in the design process. 7.5. Simulation and role-play It is described as the act of students “simulate a real-life encounter (such as a business meeting, an interview or a conversation in an aeroplane cabin, a hotel foyer, a shop or a cafeteria) as if they were doing do in the real world” (The Practice of English Language Teaching, 2015, pp. 352). Also described by Ur in her “A Course in English Teaching Language” (p. 123), this activity can also begin with role cards distributed to students about a situation. This simulation can also be students themselves take on the role-play of a character. It is important that the role of students should be given with full instruction of background, characteristic, etc. Sometimes, teachers can have students to improvise a circumstance of real life encounter. Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.
20Student: Dinh Thai Son Student ID:97011501057 In other words, to understand the matter thoroughly, teacher should be aimed with the basis for professional look through books, articles and most importantly through experience. The above provides information for such need. Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.