How to attract students by adapting some difficult lessons of English 8

TABLE OF CONTENT:
Page
I. INTRODUCTION
2
1.1. The reasons for topic:
1.2. Research purpopes:
1.3. Research objects:
1.4. Research methods:
2-3
II. THE CONTENTS
2-16
2.1. Theoretical and practical background:
2
2.2. The solution
2. 2. 1. Selecting activities which both attract students and control the number of students involve
2. 2. 2. Using Techniques from easy to difficult
2. 2. 3. Change and simplifies the exercises given in the textbook:
3-15
2. 3. Fidings and evaluation:
15
III. CONCLUSION
16
3.1. Results of the implementation
16
3.2 Recommendations proposed
17
REFERENCES
18
I. INTRODUCTION 
1.1 The reasons for topic:
 As we know, English is the official language of over 53 countries and territories, and the official language of the EU as well; it’s also the 3rd language which is widely used. There are more than 1 billion Web pages written in English. The most commonly used software in the world, the most popular social network, the most extensive portal, all are written in English. Knowing a foreign language is an essential capability for the modern Vietnamese. In Vietnam, when being asked “What foreign language are you learning?” ninety percent of students will definitely answer “It is English”. In fact, English has become a compulsory subject in nearly all Vietnamese schools. Students start to learn this subject when they are in the grade two. Not only children but also adults have to learn English, which is one of the valuable tools for them to work effectively
 With communication perspective, learner-centered classroom, the cover is the part which can not be paid attention. We can say that, enhancing the general quality of teaching and studying is one of the leading tasks in most schools but in fact it’s a really extremely difficult task. In most classes, the quality of students is often divided into two distinct parts: only about 15 to 30% of students in the class reaches fairly level. The rest is mostly average and weak students. My colleagues and I also have a lot of troubles in teaching when we want average and weak students to participate in the lessons but these students are also very reluctant to answer the teacher's questions. The students gradually feel fear and do not want to learn English. Therefore, I thought about how to encourage all students to participate in the English lessons. An English period is considered successfully only when almost students in the class are excited to participate in lessons not only good students. Therefore, I would like to present the topic “How to attract students by adapting some difficult lessons of English 8. "
1.2. Research purpopes:
 My purpose in writing this initiative experience was to find out what the most common and effective methods in developing students’ skills and improve the quality of teaching English at Dien Trung secondary school. Beside, I can cultivate myself the professional capacity in teaching, improve the teaching methods appropriate for each positive post, each subject students to improve the quality of teaching and learning English remarkably.
1.3. Research objects:
 Initiative experience focused on teaching methods to improve the efficiency of difficult lessons and improve the quality of English 8 at Dien Trung secondary school .
1.4. Research methods:
 In the process of implementing initiatives I have used the following research methods:
- Survey method, comparative. analysis and synthesis.
- Research method the tables.
- Method of investigation.
II. THE CONTENTS:
2.1. Theoretical and practical background:
First of all, we need to understand the definition of these words: adapt, difficult, attract.
What is adapt, difficult, attract?
adapt (verb) /ə’dæpt/ 
to make suitable to requirements or conditions; adjust or modify fittingly,
to adjust oneself to different conditions, or uses, or to change to meet different situations, to adapt easily to all circumstances.
difficult (adjective) /’difikəlt /
not easy, hard to understand or solve (example: a difficult problem), hard to deal with or get on with(example: a difficult pupil), hard to please or satisfy(example: a difficult employer), hard to persuade or induce; stubborn: a difficult old man.
attract (verb)  /ə’trækt/ (of people, things, places, etc.) to pull or draw someone or something towards them, by the qualities they have, especially good ones.
 The changing from the previous textbooks to current textbooks and the old method to the new one have required teachers to be flexible to impart knowledge to students. In fact, in most classes, the number of students has unequal levels. Besides that pair work and group work often bring about big effect in learning English. Meanwhile, the number of students in each class is often more (about 38-42 students) that makes teaching control. One reason is that the choice of teaching method of the teachers isn’t suitable with the students’ levels so the students cannot carry out what teachers set out which takes time and the students are also afraid of the teachers. Since then, it has become bad habits, teachers always ignore these students. A successful lesson is when teaching is covered, a good school means that all students are involved (An effective class = every student is included). My colleagues and I had to face up to these problems before. 
 I think teachers need to choose suitable teaching methods and appropriate activities to simplify lessons and adapt some difficult lessons in the text books to suit the students’ levels as well. That’s easy for students to join an attractive lesson. For me, this is one of the leading important criteria before planning the lessons. I always try to find the suitable ways to lead in the lessons, try to teach new vocabulary using visual aids lively learning activities designed for fun, easy to organize and play games related to draw lessons to attract the attention of all the children, from all the exercises easy to do and you can catch it all down to hard exercise. I always look for ways to simplify lessons to help all students acquire knowledge easily. Not only good students and even the average and weak students involve in the lessons as well. That makes students feel self-confident and love English more and excitedly waiting to learn more English, thereby significantly improving the quality of school’s English lessons.
2.2. The solution:
In some lessons, I realized the fact that if the teacher knows how to adapt some complicated lessons and simplify some difficult lessons in the textbooks, the students involve in the lessons easily. That’s why I choose this topic to present. And now I would like to suggest some solutions that I successfully demonstrated in the past year.
2. 2.1. Selecting activities which both attract students and control the number of students involve:
As far as we know that, junior high school students at this age like playing games during the lessons. Games help the students remember the knowledge much easier and longer. In teaching English, there are plenty of games to help make lessons more lively and gripping. Teachers should notice that using the games which encourages many students to take part in games as possible. In our opinion, we can use some games which get highly effect as "Guessing Game", "Bingo", "Back to board", "Slap the board", "Lucky Numbers "... or some equally effective Techniques such as" Picture Drill "," Make new songs "etc....
2. 2.2. Using Techniques from easy to difficult one:
 	If teachers use the difficult exercises, the weak students will not have the opportunity to participate in the lesson. In this lesson, they just sit in class without understanding and eventually they will have knowledge gaps. They become bored and scared when they have English lessons. Therefore, teachers need to skillfully use activities from easy to difficult, gently lead the students into the lesson. For example, the teaching of reading skills may be considered to be the most boring. In my opinion, we should start from easy to difficult operation using "Skimming the reading" (skim all).
It can be said, if the readings designed like this will be a comparatively success. This type of exercise needs to have clear requirement to attract the number of students involved in the lesson. Some children may have difficulty completing an assignment, but each student offers an opinion and they will be in turn complement each other to get the gist of the whole reading. Then the stronger students may participate in the evaluation of public comments. Thus, not only good students but poor ones feel good and want to be involved in the development of lessons. This will make them feel more confident to go deeply into understanding the content. For instance, in a listening lesson, textbook’s requirement is to listen and answer the difficult long questions. If at the beginning, we ask them to listen and answer questions, most of them certainly will not be able to do them. We had better design some easier activities to attract them such as listen and fill in the gap with the given words or listen and choose the best answer.....
Now, I would like to suggest some sample lessons:
Some adaptations of the lessons of English 8
Example 1: Unit 1: My friends
 Period 5 – Lesson 4: Read
- Requirements of reading: Students read about Ba and some of his friends, and talk about the character and habits of each person.
- Exercise required in the textbooks:
Exercise 1: Choose the best answer and write:
a. Ba talks about ................ of his friends 
A. three
B. all
C. four
D. none
b. Bao's volunteer work..............
A. helps him makes friends
B. causes problems at exam time
C. does not effect his school work
D. takes up a lot of time
c. Khai and Song..............
A. like quiet places
B. don't talk much in public
C. dislike school
D. enjoy sports
d. Ba's friends sometimes.............. his jokes
A. answer
B. do not listen to
C. laugh at
D. get tired of
Exercise 2: Now answer the questions
a. How does Ba feel having a lot of friends?
b. Who is the most sociable?
c. Who likes reading?
d. What is a bad thing about Ba's jokes?
e. Where does Bao spend his free time?
f. Do you and your close friends have the same or different characters?
- Obviously, if the teachers let the students do the 2 tasks above, that won’t help them grasp the requirements of the reading, they do not know personality of each person. To lead and motivate students into the lesson early and also help them to access lesson content more thoroughly, immediately after the presentation of new words I use to read "Skimming the reading." 
- Students are asked to read in 1 minute and find out the names of the characters mentioned in the article. This requirement is so easy that even very weak students can also complete. Next, ask them to read ask them to read and find words describing their personality. Then ask students to close the book and give the answers. The steps of this section will be conducted as follows:
1. Skimming the reading:
-Have Ss read the text in two minutes then close their books and answer questions:
 ? How many paragraphs are there? ( 5 )
 ? What are they about? (Ba and his friends) ( Ss can say in Vietnamese )
- Divide the class into 5 groups. Students in 5 groups read the paragraph and give the main idea of each one.( Read in another 2 minutes )
Answers : ( Write students’ answers on board )
 1. Introduction : Ba, Khai, Song are Ba’s friends with different characters
 2. Bao: the most sociable, kind, generous, hard-working
 3. Khai and Song : quite reserved
 - Song : school’s star soccer player
 - Khai : like peace and quiet of the local library
 4. Ba : - not as out going as Bao
 - enjoy telling Jokes
 5. Conclusion : They are close friends
 Example 2: English 8: Unit 4: Our past
 Period 24- Lesson 4: Read 
Aims: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to understand the text and get specific information about a folktale.
Folktales
Teaching aids: Posters.
Procedures : 
Warmer : "Brainstorm"
-Ask students to call out some folktales
Do you know the story "Tam Cam"?
Can you tell us the story in Vietnamese? 
- Ask students to tell the story in Vietnamese.
- Leading to the new lesson: " To day we are going to study a short story similar to Tam Cam - The lost shoe"
- Write the title on board: Unit 4- Reading.
 I. Pre-reading:
 1. Pre-teach vocabulary:
- cruel (adj) (How are Cam and her mother?)
- upset ( adj) (Visual)
- magical (adj) (Translation) magically(adv) 
- prince (n)(Who found Tam's shoe?)
- fairy (n) (Who gave Tam new clothes?) 
- (to) fall in love (synonym: What is another word for 'love'?)
II. While reading:
1. Skimming the reading:
- Have students read the text in two minutes and find out the persons in the story.
- Write students’ ideas on board in a column.
- Give students one more minute reading if they can't list all.
- Check and correct.
 2. Matching:
- hang the poster with the person's activities on the right of the above column.
- Ask students to think and match the persons with their activities.
- Have students read the text again and check the matching.
 Answer Keys:
 Persons in the story Activities
 a. was very upset and soon died.
1.Little Pea b. had to do chores all day.
2.Little Pea's father c. was very cruel to Little Pea.
3. Stout Nut d. found the shoe.
4. Stout Nut's mother e. made new clothes only for Stout Nut.
5. The fairy f. magically changed Little Pea's rags into beautiful Clothes.
6. The prince g. dropped and lost one of her shoes.
 h. fell in love with Little Pea.
Answer keys:
 1. b, g 2. a 3. (no information)
 4. c,e 5. f 6. d, h.
3. Gap-filling:
- Hang the poster on board, students read the text again to fill in gaps 
 a. Little Pea's father was very _________and soon died
 b. Little Pea's mother_______ when she was young.
 c. Little Pea_______ to do chores all day after her father got married_________.
 d. The harvest festival came but Stout Nut's mother did not make _________ for Little Pea.
 e. The prince found Little Pea's ______ shoe.
 f. A fairy changed Little Pea's ________ into beautiful clothes.
 g. The_______ decided to marry the girl who fitted the shoe.
 h. Little Pea _______ and lost one of her shoes
- Call on some students to the board to fill in the gaps.
- Check and correct. 
Answer key;
 a. upset b. died c. had d. new clothes.
 e. lost f. rags g. price h. dropped
III. Post reading: 
1. Ordering :
- Ask students to order the sentences in the exercise matching.
- Check and correct.
Answer key: 1. b 2. c 3. a 4. d
 5. f 6.h 7.e 8. g
2. Retelling:
- Ask students to use the information from Matching and Ordering to retell the story.
IV. Homework: - Answer the question on p.42. Rewrite the story in brief.
 - Get ready for writing.
Example 4: Unit 8: Country Life and City Life
 Period 48 – Lesson 4: Read 
 Requirements of the lesson: - Students will understand the content of the reading of one of the major problems of society
- People from rural to urban rushing to find work and the consequences of it.
- Exercise of required textbooks:
Exercise 1: Complete the summary. Use information from the passage.
People from the countryside are (1)...........their home to go and live in the 
(2)............. Farming can sometimes be a difficult life and these people from (3) ........areas feel the (4)...........offers more opportunities. However, many people coming to the city create (5)........... There may not be enough (7) ............. or (6) ............., while water and electricity supplies may not be adequate. This is a (7) ............. facing government around the (8)...........
Exercise 2: Find the word in the passage that means:
a. of the countryside ................................
b. as many a needed ................................
c. become greater or larger ................................
d. a great pressure ................................
e. a terrible event ................................
f. of the city or city life .................................
- After several years of teaching, I have recognized that this reading is designed clearly and fairly easily to understand. However, if we just ask students to do two exercises in the textbooks, we cannot make sure that whether students understand or not. With this kind of task, the students are asked to complete the summary of the article. Then, ask them to find the meaning of words. 
Teachers give the outline on the board:
 Paragraph 1: Introduction: 
 Paragraph 2:
 Paragraph 3 and 4:
 Paragraph 5: Conclusion:
- Ask students to skim all then look for the topic. Students read the
again and add comments for each section: 
 Paragraph 1: Introduction: Farmers are leaving their home to find jobs in the city.
 Paragraph 2: The reasons :
 - natural disasters: typhoons, floods, droughts 
 - little or no money .
 Paragraph 3 and 4: The results: 
 - increased population in city à a strain on schools, hospitals, water and 
 electricity supplies.
 - increased pollution.
 - family living apart.
 Paragraph 5: Conclusion: Government's solution. 
After finishing the exercises above, students have basically learned the content part of the lesson, the children become more confident and eager to learn the content.
2.2. 3. Change and simplifies the exercises given in the textbook:
 With the completion of the exercises available in textbooks, even the teachers are really depressed when requiring students to do these exercises. Because some exercises are too difficult and some are not suitable. Therefore, I have redesigned some difficult lessons such as:
Example1: English 8:
 Period 26: Unit 5: Lesson 1 - Getting Started + Listen and Read
Instead of using the textbook, teachers can design some questions as well as determine the True / False but more brief conversations require listening to specify the following sentences are true or false:
 1. Tim's report card is not very good (F)
 2. Tim's Mom is proud of him. (T)
 3. Tim is studying Spanish (T)
 4. Tim is very good at Spanish pronunciation (F)
EXAMPLE 2: English 8: Period 64 : Unit 10: Recycling
 Lesson 5 - Write
Aims: By the end of the lesson, Students know how to write an instruction about recycling paper by hand, make instructions on how to prepare the used tea leaves to keep the mosquito away. 
Exercises in the textbook:
1. Complete the recycling instructions. Use the verbs in the boxes.
Soak
Place
Wrap
dry
Use
Wait
Mix
press
First, (0)some old newspapers in a bucket of water overnight. 
Then (1),a wooden spoon to mash the paper. Next, (2)the mashed paper and the water together in another bucket. (3)....a wire mesh in the mixture then pull it out. 
Then put the mesh with mixture on the cloth and (4)it down firmly. 
Take the mesh off the cloth (5)some heavy books in a plastic bag and put them on the cloth. (6)..about 5 minutes. 
Finally, put the books away and take the paper out of the cloth to (7)in the sunlight.
2. Make the instructions on how to reuse the dry tea leaves
 a) used/ tea leaves/ tea pot. b) tea leaves/ tray
c) leaves / sun d) dry/ leaves/ pot/ future use
If teachers give these two exercises right from the start, the students will be hard to do, they will soon get bored, you will feel some pressure and stress because they do not really understand how to recycle used papers, old newspapers by hand. I tried to redesign these exercises from easy to difficult to attract every students even weak students and help them feel more confident and. They gradually discover and acquire knowledge.
Warm up:
I give the students a video clip on how to recycle old paper in a modern way to get the attention of all the children and ask:
? What is the video clip about? Sts answer:
The video clip is about how to recycle paper nowadays.
Lead – in: 
Teac