SKKN Communicative language teaching for the 10th form students at Sam Son high school

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HÓA
TRƯỜNG THPT SẦM SƠN
SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM
“ COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING FOR THE 10th FORM STUDENTS AT SAM SON HIGH SCHOOL”
Người thực hiện: Lê Quang Nguyên
Chức vụ: Giáo viên
SKKN thuộc lĩnh vực: Tiếng anh
THANH HÓA NĂM 2018
CONTENTS	 Page
I. INTRODUCTION	2
1. Reason for choosing the study......................................................................2
2. Aims of the study..........................................................................................2
3. Scope of the study.........................................................................................3
4. Methods of the study.....................................................................................	3
II. CONTENT	4
1. The theoretical basis......................................................................................4
1.1. Speaking skill and its importance	.............................................................4
1.2. Overview of communicative language teaching........................................4
2. The reality of the study.................................................................................5
2.1. The reality..................................................................................................5
2.2. The results in researching the reality.........................................................5
3. Methodology.................................................................................................6
3.1. Types of techniques used in teaching communication	..............................6
3.1.1. Sorting, ordering or arranging communicative language teaching.........6
3.1.2. Conversation talking zone.......................................................................6
3.1.3. Word routes	............................................................................................6
3.1.4. Daily activities in speaking.....................................................................	7
3.1.5. Information gap.......................................................................................	7
3.1.6. Word ping pong......................................................................................	8
3.1.7. Puzzle solving........................................................................................	8
3.1.8. Video analysis.........................................................................................8
3.1.9. Role play................................................................................................	9
3.2. Sample techniques used in teaching speaking...........................................	9
3.2.1 The textbook ..........................................................................................	9
3.2.2. Sample techniques used in teaching speaking .....................................	9
4. Result...........................................................................................................	16
III. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS..................................	16
1. Conclusion....................................................................................................	16
2. Recommendations.........................................................................................	17
IV. REFERENCES. .......................................................................................	18
INTRODUCTION
1. Reasons for choosing the study
 Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is considered to be the most recent and successful approach to language teaching in general and English teaching in particular. Being a teacher of English for a while, I have good opportunities to expose to CLT and implement it in some of my English classes taught at my school. With the development and globalization of the world today, English is considered as an important part as a means of international communication than ever. Therefore, in some recent years, the goal of teaching English has changed a lot, teacher has switched from grammatical teaching to communicative teaching to promote oral skills in order to respond to the students’ needs for effective communication.
 However, for some objective and subjective reasons, teaching and learning English in general and teaching and learning speaking in particular does not come up to the study aims. Despite many teachers’ efforts to supply students with opportunities to develop their communicative skills, students didn’t pay much attention to the lesson. Due to some exam reasons that affect to students in some cases. How to teach and learn speaking effectively is still a challenging question to both teachers and students at many high schools in Vietnam, and how to overcome this is still a big matter. In most English class, teachers are mainly concern with teaching the points in the exams that need cope with and find necessary to encourage students’ participation. That’s the reason causing the students’ tiredness and boredom. Most of students are sitting quietly and listening rather than acting. As a result, they just develop their ability on grammar task rather than the communicative one. In addition, in language learning, learners have to master four skills in which speaking is the most essential one for the aim at communication. Hence, a big problem here is how to develop students’ speaking ability is not an easy work. Therefore, it is a necessity to find out some problems of that 10th form students are facing with speaking classes and give some useful suggestions to help students more succeed in speaking English.
 All the above-mentioned reasons and factors have inspired me to conduct a research titled “Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) for the 10th form students at Sam Son high school”
2. Aims of the study
The study is aimed at:
Investigating the situation of teaching and learning speaking to the 10th form students at Sam Son high school
Investigating the effectiveness of using techniques in teaching speaking to the 10th form students at Sam Son high school
Providing some suggestions and implications for the improvement of speaking teaching at Sam Son high school by using new ways in addition to other techniques
3. Scope of the study
 The study focuses specifically on using communicative language skills in teaching speaking to the 10th form students at Sam Son high school. So the study limits itself to the teaching and learning speaking only, and the subjects of the study are 404 students from nine classes studying “Tieng Anh 10” textbook at Sam Son high school.
4. Methods of the study
 In the process of carrying out this study, I have combined methods such as:
Surveying and constructing the theoretical basis of communicative skill
Investigating and inquiring the reality, collecting data of teaching speaking to the 10th students at Sam Son high school.
Statistical method and processing data from pre-task survey questionnaire and post- task survey questionnaire. 
Surveying and constructing the theoretical basis of speaking skill and language ways.
 Investigating and inquiring the reality, collecting data of teaching speaking to the 10th students at Sam Son high school.
Statistical method and processing data from pre-task survey questionnaire and post- task survey questionnaire.
II. CONTENT 
The theoretical basis 
1.1. Communicative (speaking) skill and its importance
1.1.1. The definition of communication
Communication is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving, and processing information that gains the one purpose. Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment and the purpose for communication.[1]
1.1.2. The importance of communicative skill among four language skills
Communication is one of the features that help us interact information, ideas, and thoughts with other people. It is a thing that distinguished us from most if not all, animals because it is the common way to convey ideas from one person to another through language. 
Of all the four skills, communication is the most important skill. However, it is not until I have read the essay titled “Implementation of communicative language teaching in Vietnam” written by Ngo Duy Phuc, I could have a complete picture of this teaching approach.[2]
 1.2. Overview of communicative language teaching
1.2.1. The definition of communicative language teaching
Communicative language teaching is a system of manipulating spoken words to render them incomprehensible to the untrained ear. Communicative language teaching is used primarily by groups attempting to conceal their conversations from others. 
Communicative language teaching means an approach to language teaching that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of study. It helps learners to improve different aspects such as intellectual ability, patience, then it helps to develop language skills. 
1.2.2. Roles of communicative language teaching in teaching and learning
According to Savignon (1971), Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) theory heavily relies upon proper educational setting, which requires a reasonable arrangements of several variables – experience and knowledge of teachers, students’ needs and attitudes, and classroom. In other words, the classroom in CLT is considered as a social context for communicative language to perform and the teacher and students are key players, thus the role of teachers and players is a crucial for Communicative Language Teaching performance.
 It is very interesting that opening the essay, Savingnon, cited, but disagreed with findings by a scholar and assumptions by many teachers of English held that “Learners are passive” and “it is hard to implement CLT in the context”. He argued that learners are “active” and “independent”, so they can become more active and successful learners provided that they were familiarized with CLT. I strongly agree with him at this point. Many students attended my classes come from different groups who have never exposed to CLT beforehand. They were shy, passive and had a great number of difficulties in learning at the beginning, but after a short period of time when they started to get familiar with my lessons which are taught communicatively, they quickly become confident and active. Therefore, although difficulties are obvious, implementation of CLT in the context is absolutely possible[6]
1.2.3 Classroom language
When starting teaching, teachers should draw students the rules and encourage students how to speak fluency without hesitance. It is one of the key factors that lead to students’ success in speaking. 
1.2.4. Classroom management
Instead of using the traditional ways, teacher may use other advancing ways in teaching . Teacher may encourage students to speak only English, don’t use native language, students may speak in pairs or in groups
2. The reality of the study
2. 1. The reality 
There are totally 404 students at Sam Son high school in ninth classes from 10A1 to 10A9. The majority of high school students here enjoy education program in which English is a compulsory subject since they were at primary school. This means by the time they go to high school, they have at least 5 or more years experience in English. The level of English for the 10th grade students is targeted at pre-intermediate level through a few actually reaches the standard. As their primary years were spent with the old text books and the grammar translation method, most students are, to some extent, good at grammar, but bad at listening and speaking the target language. They can do written exercises on English grammar accurately but they can hardly communicate in English. Moreover, students at Sam Son high school would prefer to pay much attention to Mathematics, Physics, and Chemist rather than English. As a result, they either keep silence all the time or less participates in the speaking activities. Furthermore, students at Sam Son high school have a worse learning ability than those from many other schools, which is justified by passing the entrance test with the low marks required for admission of the school.
2.2. The results in researching the reality
I set the objectives of 95 students for my research. Most of students are active in real-life, but they seem to be less active in their classes. Initially, I found that most of my students had little interest in lessons with speaking because they are afraid and lazy to speak; their motivation of speaking English is very limited. Then they have a lack of vocabulary. The survey questionnaires are conducted for 95 students in nine classes (10A2, 10A8) I taught in my teaching practice time to investigate their interest in learning English. As a result, they did not achieve the outcome that they were expected as follows:
Table 1: Data collected from pre-task survey questionnaire.
Variables
 Scales
Questions 
A
B
C
D
N
%
N
%
N
%
N
%
1. Students’ attitude toward English learning
45
47.3
20
21.1
10
10.5
20
21.1
2. The importance of speaking skill among four basic language skills
30
31.6
40
42.1
10
10.5
15
15.8
3. Students’ willingness to speak English
55
57.9
30
31.6
10
10.5
4. Students’ opinion about communicative language teaching
45
47.4
40
42.1
10
10.5
0
0
5. Students’ participation in speaking class
63
66.3
22
23.2
0
0
10
10.5
6. Reasons for effect of language speaking skill
8
8.4
40
42.1
47
49.5
0
0
3. Methodology 
3.1. Types of techniques used in teaching communication
 In order to fulfill the aims of this study and come up with the answers to the research questions mentioned above, the following techniques are employed to carry out the study.
3.1.1 Sorting, ordering or arranging communicative language teaching: 
For example, students have a set of cards with different products of them, and they sort the cards into products found at a grocery store and products found at a department store.
3.1.2. Conversation talking zone: 
This activity blends ideas related to information gap and read and look up activities as well as to personal space and physical movement. It allows students to converse with a large number of classmates and to have time to remember, rehearse privately, reflect on, and make decisions about what they will say and hear. It requires student to share, collect and understand information by speaking and listening and then record the information in writing. The students can discuss just about anything you think they are capable of discussing without having it in writing at the moment they are speaking. In this way teacher wants students to practice low pressure conversation, develop fluency, friendship, memory and cooperation.[7]
3.1.3. Word routes: 
This activity can make students feel more relaxed about expressing their opinions among their own peer groups. It generates a lot of talking as students are free to express whatever ideas they have known about the topic. It allows freedom and flexibility to students develop confidence in their speaking and fluency skills as they examine the twists and turns that different conversations can take on the same subject.[3]
3.1.4. Daily activities in speaking: 
 	In this activity, students give a detailed description of a process selected from common daily activities. The purpose of the detailed account is to encourage the students to use thematically related vocabulary and consider the stages involved in carrying out the process described. The activity also brings everyday life into the classroom, thereby making the lesson more entertaining. The timely provision of a list of appropriate words and phrases motivates the students to enlarge their present words.[3]
3.1.5. Information gap: 
These are form of matching, in that participants match labels and pictures[9]
3.1.6. Word ping pong: 
In this activity, students focus on the pronunciation of sounds within words. Students have to produce words beginning with the last sound of a preceding word. The analogy is with playing the game of ping pong, only instead of hitting a ball to each other, the students are “serving” and “ returning” words.
e.g. 	S1 	carpet
	S2	tall
	S1	lane
	S2	energy .....
A student loses the game if he cannot think of a return word within 5 seconds or if the returning words begins with the wrong sound.[3]
3.1.7. Puzzle solving: 
The terms role play, drama and simulation are sometimes used interchangeably but can be differentiated. Role play can involve students playing roles that they do not play in real life, such as dentists, while simulations can involve students performing roles that they already play in real life or might be likely to play, such as a customer at a restaurant. Dramas are normally scripted performances, whereas in role plays and simulations, students come up with their own words, although preparation is often useful.[9]
3.1.8. Video analysis. 
	Video analysis involves students in performing different tasks. They focus on presentations and dialogues, observing themselves, and reflecting on their communication skills and learning process through class discussion and dialogue journal writing. This self-observation technique allows students to take on the dual role of both the observer and the observed. Video analysis enhances student involvement with error correction, document progress, and increases awareness of identity in the target language. Self-observation has a positive impact on students’ decision making and promotes students initiative, self-confidence, growth, and change. Increased self awareness enhances communication skills, self-assessment, self-expression, critical thinking, and cross-cultural understanding.[3]
3.1.9. Role play
	The terms role play, drama and simulation are sometimes used interchangeably but can be differentiated. Role play can involve students playing roles that they do not play in real life, such as dentists, while simulations can involve students performing roles that they already play in real life or might be likely to play, such as a customer at a restaurant. Dramas are normally scripted performances, whereas in role plays and simulations, students come up with their own words, although preparation is often useful.[9]
3.2. Sample techniques used in teaching speaking
3.2.1. The textbook
“Tieng Anh 10” textbook consists of sixteen units for two terms. Each unit focuses on four different skills: reading, speaking, writing, and listening as well as supply language elements such as: pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.
Speaking lesson is the second one in each unit introduced just after reading lesson. Therefore speaking lessons are under the tendency theme-based and task-based approaches. In general, the textbook provides students with a variety of topics and speaking activities with the aim at helping students improve their speaking skill. To be more specific, some of these topics are of students’ interest such as talking about one’s daily activities (Unit 1) or talking about modern technology (Unit 5), or talking about different type of media (Unit 7) etc Beside that, there are some speaking topics that are unfamiliar and far from students’ background as talking about, talking about new kind of zoos (Unit 10) or talking about the world cup. Therefore, an effective technique should be exploited to motivate students in these speaking lessons.[4]
3.2.2. Sample techniques used in communicative language teaching 
3.2.2.1. Warm-ups[5]
A warm up activity is often a short and fun technique which the teacher can use with his students. So warm up activity is prepared significantly and it is to prepare them to learn by stimulating their minds. Warm ups should last about five minutes.
Unit 3: PEOPLE’S BACKGROUND
Type of technique: Word routes