Combination of communication skills in reading, listening and writing lessons at Đong son I secondary school in Thanh Hoa

THANH HOA TEACHING AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT
DONG SON I SECONDARY SCHOOL
RESEACH ACTION
COMBINATION OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS IN READING, LISTENING AND WRITING LESSONS AT DONG SON I SECONDARY SCHOOL IN THANH HOA
Teacher: Nguyen Thi Thu
Group : English
THANH HOA, 2016
THANH HOA, 2015
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A. INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................3
I. THE REASON OF CHOOSING THE THEME .......................................................3
II. SOME TASKS OF THE STUDY	................3
III. SCOPE OF THE STUDY.................3
IV. PURPOSES OF THE STUDY..................4
V. METHOD OF THE STUDY..................4
B. CONTENT OF THE STUDY.................4
I. RATIONALE ........................................................................................................................4
II. THE FACT OF ENGLISH TEACHING WITH COMMUNICATIVE ORIENTATION IN DONG SON 1 HIGH SCHOOl.................5
III. PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS IN SOME EFFECTIVE TEACHING ACHIEVEMENTS............................7
IV. THE ACHIEVEMENTS AFTER THE THEME APPLICATION.................10
V. EXPERIENCES.................10
VI. RECOMMENDATIONS.................11
C. CONCLUSION...................11
REFERENCE .........................................................................................................................12
INTRODUCTION 
I. REASON OF CHOOSING THE THEME
As we all know, the goal of teaching English is to form and develop students’ knowledge of basic skills in English and intellectual qualities for further education orfor their future life. Learning English in secondary school based on the tendency to communicate and promote the active learning method for students.
All four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing are concerned and are coordinated in tasks of activities in the classroom. Of the four skills, speaking skill , in my opinion ,is the most important. The first goal of any English learners is able to talk or communicate with native speakers. However, for high school students, speaking or communicating in English is very limited. In my opinion, these restrictions are caused by both objective and subjective reasons. The first reason is due to their fear of undergraduate students in pronunciation, grammar, sentence structures so they do not dare to say. The second is that the curriculumn has some difficult topics for students especially students who are bad at English, for example: conquering the universe, women's rights .. with relatively large amount of new words.
With this theme, I hope that students can get more opportunities to communicate, be encouraged to speak English more. Students can be more active, while acquiring and getting knowledge of the lessons.
II. SOME TASKS OF THE STUDY:
When researching this topic, I need to perform the following tasks:
1. Study some documents about teaching and learning to speak English effectively, the techniques of teaching speaking skill to apply to each specific lecture.
2. Teaching sample lessons.
3. Attending lessons of colleagues, learning from experiences.
4. Examining and evaluating the results of the students' study, so that we can find out reasonable adjustments.
III. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The theme revolves around issues of teaching research and learning to improve the quality of English lessons of teachers and high school students in grades 10, 11, 12. But typical research subjects that I have applied this theme are students in class 10A1, 10A3, 10A8 of Dong Son 1 High School.
IV. PURPOSES OF THE STUDY
With the successful research of this topic, it will help teachers get the following experiences :
  1. Reading, listening, writing lesons become more effective by combining speaking skills.
  2. Encourage students to practise speaking skills in class.
V. METHOD OF THE STUDY:
1. When doing the research on this theme, I attend classes of colleagues to find out how to teach effectively.
2. After I attend lessons of my colleagues and my colleagues attend my lessons, we conduct exchange and discussion, from which we can get experiences by integrating communication skills into reading, listening and writing lessons.
3. Teachers canconduct test in some specific lessons.
4. Teachers may ask questions to check and evaluate lessson understanding of the students.
B. CONTENT OF THE STUDY
I. RATIONALE
1. Purpose of combination of teaching communication skills when teaching reading, listening and writing skills.
- The purpose of foreign language teaching is not only to provide students with the knowledge of the language, but the ultimate goal of foreign language teaching is to teach students the ability to communicate in English. - Communication capabilities of students are demonstrated by Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing skills. Speaking skill (communication) of students is formed through a process of learning environment in English. In addition to learning at school, students have to learn and train through many forms and different methods.
- Speaking skill is ability to use language knowledge for the purposes of communicating in English in specific social situations.
2. The basic elements directly affect the effectiveness of the lessons.
a. Teachers:
- With the new teaching methods, teachers play anactive role in directing, controlling students during lessons.
- To conduct an effective lesson, teachers need to implement the following basic elements:
- Teachers must prepare their lessons meticulously, select and use techniques of teaching speaking skills flexibly which suit the content of each unit.
 - Lessons must be inspiring, charismatic and attractive to students.
 - The exploitation of communication skills in the lessons must suit abilities of students. Teachers need to study the lesson contents carefully to design, construct and create suitable situations where students can communicate effectively.
b. The equipment items: 
The equipment items such as pictures, videos, clips support actively for the teaching of foreign languages in general and English in particular, and are regarded as a means of expressing the content of the texbook. In addition, teaching equipment is also active means in teaching method innovation which motivate students in learning.
c. Students:
In the relationship between teaching and learning, teachers are the organizers, students have to obtain their knowledge under the control of the teachers.
II. THE FACT OF ENGLISH TEACHING WITH COMMUNICATIVE ORIENTATION IN DONG SON 1 HIGH SCHOOl.
1. Advantages
Athough these objective and subjective conditions affect directly the teaching process such as facilities are limited, pupils do not fully understand the importance of foreign languages in general or English in particular. However, we have tried to overcome the difficulties, gradually improve the quality of english teaching with innovation trends.
a. Teachers
- Gradually incorporate communication skills in reading, listening and writinglessons.
- Be more active in organizing lessons, creating opportunities for students to practise speaking English.
b. Students
- At first students almost exclusively focused on grammar learning. When they have been equipped with knowledge of vocabulary and grammar, they still find it very difficult to express simple problems in English. Many of them answered: I can’t speak English because I have nothing to say and I don’t know how to say. In my opinion the cause of this is due to the knowledge that students are learning is not applied immediately and flexibly in everyday communication situations.
- By the time I applied this method, students were initially accustomed to express their views or their ideas in English with a low level and the simple theme.
- Many students have been bolder in speaking English, they have an incentive to be said and want to communicate.
- The lectures become more active, more exciting and attract the attention and interest of students in learning.
- Some students have formed better communication skills, have faster reflexes before a communication situation.
2. Disadvantages:
a. Students
- Their ability to apply learned knowledge in a flexible way to communicate in English is limited.
- The students have fewer opportunities to communicate, less access to mass media by which their speaking and listening skills can be improved.
- Some children are afraid to speak English, and to make mistakes.
b. Teaching aids
- Teaching aids are few: pictures, radio ...
- They are in not good conditions.
c. Specific investigation
- In the process of teaching, I myself assumed grade 10. I conducted research the students’ abilities in English learning and get exprience from lessons taught by me. Right from the beginning of the school year I've oriented myself a plan and specific methods to actively investigate the situation of the students' learning to teach. Through the survey results as they started a new school year in grade 10, I have noticed that most of them are not good at vocabulary and grammar knowledge. Especially, their communication skills in English are quite bad. The survey results are as followings:
Class
Number of sts
Mark 9-10
%
Mark 7-8
%
Mark
5-6
%
Mark
0-4
%
10A1
42
1
2.4
5
11.9
20
47.6
16
38.1
10A3
44
0
0.0
4
9.1
23
52.3
17
38.6
10A8
46
0
0.0
1
2.2
18
39.1
27
58.7
III. PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS IN SOME EFFECTIVE LESSONS.
1. Planning for a lesson:
a. For teachers:
For an effective lesson, the teacher should perform the following steps:
- Delving into the lesson contents from textbooks and teachers’ books is an important basis for teachers to plan their lessons. Careful study of textbooks, teachers’ books helps teachers to organize, control lessons with the right focus, create suitable communication situations.
- Study the purpose of the lesson requirements: The purpose and requirements of lessons are the target that both teachers and students need to reach at the end of each lesson. Teachers can create communication situations in a flexible manner between the teacher and students in the process of teaching reading or listening to test lesson comprehension levels of students.
- Communication situation is usually brought into the WARM UP and Conclusion sections of each lesson.
- At WARM UP stage, students should be introduced by teachers the topics that they will learn. In this section, students are based on the theme under the guidance of the teachers to answer the teacher's questions, or simply give opinions of their own or their judgment on the matter which will be referred to in reading, listening and writing lessons. Students can use vocabularies and simple structures learned to speak.
- At conclusion stage teachers ask students to adhere to the content, use structures and vocabulary of learning part to retell the content of the lesson , teachers can create situations for students in the form of a conversation or an interview. The purpose of this section is to help students consolidate their knowledge and apply that knowledge for communication purposes, to help students understand and remember their lessons better in the classroom. Knowledge they’ve just learned not only the mere knowledge. The important thing is that this knowledge is immediately applied flexibly in specific social situations of life.
b.For students:
The teacher asks students to prepare carefully for the next lesson by:
- Providing with a system of provoking questions about all they're going to be learning so that students have time to think and prepare well for the lesson.
- To encourage and motivate students’ self-confidence, initiative, creativity to outline the issues, make questions related to the lesson.
2. The process of reading, listening and writing lessons combining communication skills.
UNIT 8: THE STORY OF MY VILLAGE Part A: Reading
a. Warm- up :
This stage helps studentsorient and think about the subject or situation before students conduct reading lessons.
 Teachers ask students to talk about the village or where they are living in the last few years and the changes compared to the present. Teachers can call a pretty student to talk first and then call any other students.
For example: In the past, my village was very poor. People had to work very hard all day in the field but could not earn enough money to pay for their life and for their children’ study. They had to live in bad condition ... But now their life has changed a lot. Many families have motorbikes, TV ...
- Teachers can create communication situations by using the direct conversation between the teacher and a student or ask two students to make a dialogue with each other.
T: - Where do you live?
S: - I live in a small town.
T: - Can you tell me about some changes of your town? How did people work and live in the past? How do they live now?
S: - In the past they had to work very hard but their life was poor. Now their life has become better ...
b. Conclusion:
- In this stage students should be strengthened knowledge of vocabulary and grammatical structures learned in reading lesson. Teachers encourage students to use as more vocabulary and grammar structures in their lesson as possible, such as: make ends meet, in need of many things, better one's life ...
- Teachers may require students to work in groups to save time. Group 1 tells about the villagers’ life in the past. Group 2 discusses the changes of the village in the current time.
- If students have more time they can make dialogues about the lives of villagers in the past and at the present.
 UNIT 10: CONSERVATION Part C: Listerning
 This part mentionsthe forest protection topic, causes and effects of forest fires. Teachers can ask questions and students answer:
a. Warm up
- Have you ever seen a forest fire?
- Yes, I have. / I saw it on TV.
- What can cause a forest fire?
- It can be caused by people 'carelessness or by nature itself such as lightening ...
b. Conclusion:
In this section the teacher gives some hints to students so that they can speak English based on the lesson content.
- How can forest fires be started ?
- What season is the season when forest fires can happen easily in the year?
- what consequences can forest fires cause?
- How do forest fires affect on the living environment of human, animal and plant species?
- What can we do to reduce and prevent forest fires?
- Forest fires can be started from a campfire or from pieces of cigarette butts ...
- The dry season is the season when forest fires are easy to happen.
- Forest fires cause environmental pollution, air pollution, floods and erosion.
- Human life is affected by environmental pollution, air pollution, floods, erosion. Animal and plant species may lose their habitat, and die in a series.
- We need to be careful when going into forests, educate people’ awareness of forest protection, and the importance of forests in our lives.
UNIT 11: NATIONAL PARKS Part C: Writing
Write a letter of acceptance or refusal
Based on the specific content of the lesson, after students finish Task 1 and Task 2.
- Teachers rely on the common way of the invitation acceptance or refusal introduced in the textbook to create communication situations. Teachers ask students to make dialogues in pairs.
* What can you say?
1. Your friend invite you to go to see an interesting play . You can not go with him. 
2. You are invited to a dinner by a friend. You agree to come.
3. A friend invites you to visit Cuc Phuong National Park. You accept his invitation.
- After the mentioned practice, students start Task 3. These materials help students to do their writing easily.
IV. THE RESULT AFTER THE THEME APPLICATION
 After applying this experience I myself have achieved some positive results. First students are more interested in learning. They are more active in speaking English. Especially, they can expand vocabulary, reinforce their grammatical knowledge. They are also very flexible in getting knowledge and they have more opportunities to develop their communication skills. With cheerful and exciting atmosphere, students have opportunities to express and assert themselves, no longer embarrass when speaking English. These are the relatively positive results of the final examination of the last school year:
Class
Number of sts
Mark 8-10
%
Mark 7-8
%
Mark
5-6
%
Mark
0-4
%
10A1
42
8
19.0
11
26.1
16
38.1
7
21.8
10A3
44
1
2.3
7
15.1
24
54.5
12
28.5
10A8
46
1
2.2
5
10.9
23
50.0
17
36.9
V. EXPERIENCES
After applying the themeI have achieved significant results and valuable experiences for myself as the followings:
- Teachers must always create a language environment in class and use English as the primary language to communicate. Depending on the grade level and the abilities of students, teachers can use brief and simple English words and grammar structures to help them understand, remember the lesons easily.
- Teachers should encourage students to use English in communicating with their knowledge.
- Teachers should not be paying attention to the fault of the students while speaking. Let students hear and speak naturally. Never force the students to stop talking while these students are trying to express their thoughts in English; doing so will make them feel scared when speaking.
- Teachers should integrate the activities of listening and speaking English with a form of "have fun while learning."
- Teachers need to attract, engage students with suggestive communication situations, offers some necessary vocabulary or structures that students can use when speaking, encourage students to speak English as much as possible.
 - Use the appropriate teaching aids to the content of specific lectures such as pictures, the footages showing the specific communication situations about the topics they’ve just learned.
- After each lesson, teachers need to make the appropriate situation exercises, featuring highly practical communication.
VI. RECOMMENDATIONS
Stemming from a theoretical and practical basis, teaching purposes as well as the successes and limitations while implementing the theme, I would like to contribute a small part to English teaching for communication purposes and achieve better quality. I personally take the following recommendations:
* To the managers of Dong Son 1 School:
- Teachers can borrow laptops from the school library.
- Provide more radios, cassettes, tapes for teaching and learning English.
* To the upper managers:
- It is necessary for teachers to have more opportunities to interact, learn through seminars.
C. CONCLUSION
 The communicative-oriented English teaching in the curriculum is a good condition for students to be able to fully develop all the language skills. But the English teaching and learning based on communication skills is still limited for both students and teachers. Both students and teachers have many difficulties. With initiative this experience, I hope to make a small contribution to the English teaching and learning in my school. I promise to continue to inherit and promote the results achieved by the implementation of this theme. At the same time I constantly study, get more experiences and overcome difficulties to meet the innovation of methods in teaching English.
REFERENCES
Teacher’s book – Grade 10
Text book – Grade 10
XÁC NHẬN CỦA THỦ TRƯỞNG
ĐƠN VỊ
Thanh Hóa, ngày 25 tháng 5 năm 2016
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 Nguyễn Thị Thu