SKKN Some experiences of teaching English speaking skill for students grade 7 in typical English program at Cam Ngoc secondary school

A - INTRODUCTION
I. THE REASONS OF CHOOSING TOPIC:
Vietnam has been currently developing and integrating with the world - a knowledge-based economy and an informative society with difficulties and challenges. To have a common language with other countries in the region and the world, English plays a really important role.
Foreseeing the importance, English was taught at the early time. Besides, many people understand that they have to use language to communicate and work. This is also the reason why learning English in secondary schools is always concerned by parents, students and teachers. Therefore, English has become a necessary subject at all educational levels.
However, learning English is a process of trying, effort. Both teachers and learners must always cultivate more knowledge everyday. In order to have patience during the process of learning English, teachers should evoke excitement of learning a foreign language.
In fact, evoking the excitement of learning English is not a simple thing but it requires creativity, mobility of teachers and rhythmic combination of learners.
Being an English teacher, I always research and think of solutions and the effective direction which helps them be fond of their suject and apply flexible speaking skill in life. However, according to the program of changing the new English textbooks, a book whose both good content and form satisfies the topics throughout four skills: listening –speaking – reading - writing I would like to mention is speaking skill. The combination of active teaching methods in speaking skill which helps lessons become more lively and students feel confident to speak English is not easy.
Thus, how do we do to apply the methods of active teaching to teaching speaking English skill which help students become confident when using English?
With my small experience as well as through experience of teaching in the classroom, I explore the following issue: "Some experiences of teaching English speaking skill for students grade 7 in typical English program at Cam Ngoc secondary school"
II. RESEARCH PURPOSES:
By presenting this topic, I would like to share my small effort to help English teachers in secondary schools in the district to have more ideas on teaching speaking skill making lessons lively and flexible. Besides, I also made a selection of methods which suit the activities in class. Moreover, I would like to contribute a little of my effort to create excitement of English suject.
III. RESEARCH SCOPE:
In order to research on this issue deeply and carefully, I focused on how to apply active teaching methods in teaching and practicing English speaking skill at secondary schools. However, the object of study I tended toward was students class 7. In the process of teaching students class 7, speaking skill is not new but it is not easy to apply. Therefore, practicing speaking skill will be necessary. It creates a solid foundation to help students feel confident of communicating in English in schools and their life.
IV. RESEARCH METHODS:
To research this initiatives experience, I used two main groups of method:
1. Method of theoretical research.
- Look at the pedagogical documents related to research problems on active teaching methods and teaching speaking skills in English subjects.
2. Method of practical research. 
- Checking , remarking , actual observations, exchange, conversations, summarizing the experience. One of the most important methods is summarizing the experience.
V. NEW CHARACTERS OF INITIATIVES EXPERIENCE.
 Comparing with previous experience , this one is researched on teaching speaking skill and applied to new textbook 7 in English typical program.The content and structure researched mainly are in Communication part.Steps in teaching this skill mainly tend to teaching and learning actively. The speaking skill’s activities are very various and can help students speak English fluently and confidently.
B - CONTENTS
I. RATIONALE:
According to the project "Teaching and learning foreign languages ​​in the national education system in period 2008 - 2020" approved by the Prime Minister on September 30th, 2008. The main aims of foreign language education system is to complete renovation of ​​ teaching and learning foreign language in the national education system, implement the program of new foreign language teaching and learning at all educational levels, train levels in order to achieve a significant step into qualifications by 2015, capabilities of using foreign language of human resources, especially in some priority fields ; by 2020 the majority of young people who have graduated from secondary schools, colleges and universities have the capacity of using foreign language independently.They are confident in communicating and learning, working in integration, multilanguage, multicultural environment ; make foreign language become variable strength of Vietnamese people.
Thus, learning English is not only reading text, understanding grammar like it ever did before but learners now represent in four skills : listening, speaking, reading, writing, and especially, speaking English proficiently, confidently will serve usefully for work and integration life.
So as to achieve above aims,it requires innovation in teaching and learning foreign languages ​​in the curriculum with content, appropriate training programs to overcome the limitations and difficulties that students encounter.
Therefore, teaching English speaking means that teaching students:
- Fluency in English to express purposes, capable of thinking and logical sequence.
- How to say sounds in English and use English sentence patterns.
- Use words, accent and intonation.
- Select the appropriate words and phrases in every context.
- Proficient, fluent use of English as possible.
II. STATUS OF PROBLEM:
1. Structure English textbook 7:
 According to the educational renovation programs and project of changing new textbooks by 2018, teachers have the opportunity to use English textbooks 7. With topics as well as content are extremely various tied to the students’ daily life .The content of the book includes 12 units and is divided into four main topics:
+ Topic 1: About the people: Unit 1: My hobbies, Unit 2 :Health, Unit 3: Community Service.
+ Topic 2: About Culture: Unit 4: Music and Arts, Unit 5 : Vietnamese Food and drink, Unit 6: The first University in Vietnam.
+ Topic 3: About Travel: Unit 7 : Traffic , Unit 8 : Films, Unit 9 : Festivals Around the World.
+ Topic 4 : About society in the future : Unit 10 : Sources of Energy, Unit 11:Travelling in the future, Unit 12: An overcrowed World.
Interspersed among these topics is Review 1,2,3,4 helps students review the vocabulary, grammar and how to communicate in every topic.
In addition, each unit in English textbook 7, there are 8 parts divided into seven periods:
+ Period 1: Getting Started: Helping students become familiar and excited with the topic of the lesson.
+ Period 2: A closer look 1: Provide students the necessary vocabulary for the topic of the lesson.
+ Period 3: A closer look 2: Provide the necessary grammar for the topic of lesson.
+ Period 4: Communication: Create practical opportunities for students to communicate.
+ Period 5 : Skills1: Develop reading and speaking skills in each topic.
+ Period 6: Skills 2: Develop listening and writing skills.
+ Period 7: Looking Back and Project: Review the knowledge of total lesson and provide opportunities for all students to do small projects in groups or pairs .
With new content and structure of English textbook 7, four skills : Listening - Speaking - Reading - Writing are focused, especially speaking skill is mentioned more than it was in old textbooks. In 8 parts , despite learning either grammar or vocabulary , speaking skill is used as an important complementary skill , it gives the final result of the lesson. Especially, all of the parts Communication, Project and a part of Skills 1focus mainly on speaking skill.
2. Status of teaching to speak English 7:
In fact, In the current teaching, the application of textbooks in teaching English 7 had a certain number of difficulties.
* About teacher’s qualifications:
According to the project of teaching and learning English in the national education system by 2020, English teachers must have the capacity of teaching language two levels higher than general teaching level. However, the current situation is that some teachers do not have enough standards to meet appropriate requirement of teaching the new textbook and they are afraid of learning to improve their expertise and follow the content of English textbooks 7.
Besides,teachers felt embarrassed in designing complementary activities and combine the activities in the book. The content is relatively long compared to the time prescribed in a period. Teachers had difficulty in arranging activities in a period and they didnot have much time to correct students’ speaking English and pronunciation.
It isnot only about the foreign language competence but also the knowledge of the unit, some teachers still felt quite new to the topic of the lesson. Sometimes they have searched to get ideas about new topics.
Example: English 7-Unit 8- Films . It is about the film in textbook, many English teachers didnot understand the information of films,so sometimes they are embarrassed to explain the content.
Or : English 7-Unit 11 - Travelling in the future -Communication, the topic is about transports in future, teachers had no idea to find a good solution to the traffic problem in the future.
* About renewing teaching methods:
Besides, the traditional methods trend to spread information one way: teachers explain, students copy. These methods waste teachers almost the time in class and students are modest to practice. Such learning no longer suits with current trends and especially, learning a foreign language is necessary to practice constantly until fluently, turning what we understand to what they used. Therefore, it requires teachers to renew active teaching methods to help students speaking English more confidently.
With speaking skill focused on the period like Communication, Project and a small part of 6 periods. This skill is the most difficult of four skills but is particularly important. With such difficulties, if teachers make arrangement as well as combine flexible alternative activities, the students can speak more fluently and confidently. 
3. Status of learning to speak English 7:
In fact, teaching as well as educational programs of orienting capacity development of the current study, students are centeral and focusing on the output quality of learning is very noticeable.
When teaching speaking skill I conducted the following three-step procedure: Pre - speaking ,While - speaking , Post – speaking. For each step, I have known the most common difficulties students encountered in the learning process.
a. In step "Pre - Speaking":
*About thematic vocabulary:
This is one of the most common problems students have.Because of not enough vocabulary to use in speaking English, so they find it dificult to express ideas.How to learn vocabulary, structure traditionally by recording repeatedly words and structures with Vietnamese meaning that limit them to remember longer and make confused to find the appropriate words to the circumstances.
* About thematic general knowledge :
With English textbooks 7, it require students to have the basic background knowledge of each topic. However, there are some new topics that students do not know making them confused when giving their ideas.  
Example: English7 - Unith 10 : Sources of Enenrgy, students will find rather confused for some specialized words "carbon- footprint "or nuclear energy that also makes students reluctant to classify kinds of energy.
* How to choose the appropriate information with topic:
 After having basic background knowledge, students will express their idea. However,the ideas about the topic are too broad with many different opinions and students cannot choose which idea is right for questions or speech teachers give so, it makes them afraid to speak, fear wrong and lack of idea.
Example: Unit 1- My hobbies - Getting Started , when students express their hobbies , they donot know to choose the typical ideas to say making the others can not guess her hobby referred to.
b. In step "While - Speaking":
Besides the difficulties in the step “ Pre-speaking”, in this part students have too many problems focusing mainly on how to work:
* Presentating ideas when speaking :
With the topics in English textbooks 7,in spite of being interesting, arrangement ideas is not simple.While students were speaking,they often expressed so messy that listeners could not understand what their idea and content . It caused students’ speech to be incoherent, inconsistent. 
* About Thinking of Vietnamese translation into English: 
The habit of thinking in Vietnamese to hear and speak English will make students inconfident to speak . This is the main reason that makes them not keep up the speed of the speaker and it is very difficult for them to describe his thoughts in English smoothly, fluently. 
* In groupwork skills:
Groupwork skill is an important skill for every student in their learning process. About division of groups, because students have not been practised a lot, assigning groupwork is not clear yet .Excellent students work well while other students are lazy to practice .
Groupwork skill is not really good, students sometimes have too many ideas but they do not know which choice is right. Students do not listen to the other members and have many arguments in groups.It takes much time to discuss.Therefore, if we solve this difficult,students will have a good groupwork skill. 
c. In step "Post - Speaking":  
This is the output of speaking skill but students have many difficulties in practicing speaking in class. 
About performance, I noticed that the students were not comfortable to speak English, many students were not themselves when comunicating in English. Some became bolder, others were ashame or serious. Besides, when they spoke in front of class,they were often afraid of wrong grammar and that other students laughed at, so it limited speaking or they often spoke very quietly with bow hand gestures. It also made express many information ineffective.
About contact practicality, students often have difficulty in contacting and moving the content they have learned as a tool to communicate. 
Through the research and pointed out the difficulties students often encountered in learning English in secondary schools, it inspired me to apply the appropriate mehods to overcome the maximum difficilties and help them have good conditions to develop their speaking skill.
III. MEASURES TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM:
Foreseeing the difficulties of teachers and students as well as restrictions of facilities conditions, I have studied and applied some specific solutions in teaching English speaking in grade 7 and has made remarkably results.
Depending on each lesson, teachers will have different ways to build the process of his lectures. With teaching speaking skill , I usually rely on the following steps :
1. Before speaking (Pre – Speaking ) : introduce new language:
As having analyzed above difficulties, to help students with inspiration, I started lessons quickly with the simple questions to lead a comfort, confident to speak English. . With Pre-Speaking, I have applied the following activities:
+ Greeting / chatting in English
+ Observing a picture then asking and answering about the picture.
+ A riddle
+ A language game (Crosswords, noughts and crosses, ect)
+ Do not drop the ball
1.1. Greeting / chatting in English:
Facing with the difficulty is that not know to choose the appropriate information for students, I have used how to explore student ‘s knowledge by eliciting or brainstorming tips . In addition, I contacted old lessons related to new lessons with many forms such as: Ask related questions ; give exercises they learned ;create the context or reasons related to the part " speaking ".
With this technique, I have performed in some lessons in English textbooks 7 as follows:
Example: English 7 - Unit 11: Travelling in the future - Communication: Before starting the lesson, I elicit students some questions closer to everyday life:
+ "How do you go to school everyday?"
+ "What do you see traffic problems khi you go to school?".
Students enthusiastically answered these questions closer to everyday life making students comfortable to speak English. And sometimes some students' answers were really interesting and special. (Example: The students saw the problems: the rubbish is on the road and the People use the places to buy breakfast,... etc.)
1.2. Observing a picture then asking and answering about the picture:
As one of the important items in teaching English, pictures or illustrations are used in the "Before" and has many advantages, helping students navigate the lesson and answer some questions involved. The observations helps students have a clear vision of the topic of the lesson today.
Example : English 7 - Unit 3 - Community Service - A closer look 1, I used the tonation of native speakers to teach students vocabulary then test their knowledge. I let them select pitures suiting learned words (Checking vocabualary: matching the pictures with the Phrases). From such activities I have expanded for them to discuss and describe, gave the way to help characters in those situations.
+ People in a flooded area: people are in the water → They need food and clothes
+ Elderly People: there are old people → They need to look after.
+ Sick children: the children are in the hospital. They need some medicines.
+ Homeless people: The people are in the bench without a house→ Give them a place to live.
+ Diabled people: They can’t walk or they can’t see → They need our help.
Example 3: Unit 9: Festival Around the World- Communication. Before entering the lesson, I supplied the students with some vocabularies related to the content of the new lesson to help students have a look on the West festivals Thanksgiving.
TURKEY CANEBERRY	
 GRAVY STUFFING FEAS
Instead of reading, I got students to hear the tonation of native speaker, then repeat chorus ,chorally. To check vocabulary ,teachers can check in several ways such as: Get students to work individually and correct their pronunciation or teachers speak Vietnamese, students repeat English or get students to play games called "make sentences by using these words"; "what and where", "ordering vocabulary"... This helps students understand faster and apply the to the context better , prepare better for the coming lessons. 
1.3 A riddle:
In teaching English to children, using games as an effective and useful measure to create fun learning environment and attract students into the lesson, contribute to improving the ability to acquire knowledge and training foreign language skills for students. And I used the puzzle method (A riddle) to help students have a look on the topic they are ready to speak and give some further information. 
Example : English 7- Unit 9: Festivals around the world- A closer look 1: I help students remind the previous lessons and consolidate their knowledge about the name of the festivals by calling students to describe the picture that they chose and offer their simple typical description.
+ "You can see the old man in red"
+ "You can throw the water Into everyone. What is it? ".
1.4 A language game (Crosswords, noughts and crosses, ect)
In teaching English to children, using games as an effective and useful measure to create fun learning environment and attract students into the lesson, contribute to improving the ability to acquire knowledge ; training foreign language skills for students and stimulat