Using grammar and vocabulary chants to help students improve the speaking skill

TABLE OF CONTENT
A. INTRODUCTION Page 
I. Reason for choosing topic ...................................................................................2
II. Purpose of the study ...........................................................................................3
III. Objectives of the study ......................................................................................3
IV. Research Methodology .....................................................................................3
B. CONTENT
I. The theoretical basic.3
II. The real situation .. ..4 
III. Solutions .7
IV. Effectiveness of the initiative for educational activities, individuals, colleagues and schools.13
C. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5. Conclusion ............................................................ ............................................14
6. Recommendation ............................................................ ... ... ......................15
D. REFERENCES .......................................... ......... .......................................15
A. INTRODUCTION
I. THE REASONS FOR CHOOSING TOPIC.
English was originally the language of England, but through the historical efforts of the British Empire it has become the primary or secondary language of many former British colonies such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and India. Currently, English is the primary language of not only countries actively touched by British imperialism, but also many business and cultural spheres dominated by those countries. It is the language of Hollywood and the language of international banking and business. As such, it is a useful and even necessary language to know.
Besides that English is also essential to the field of education. In many countries, children are taught and encouraged to learn English as a second language. Even in countries where it is not an official language, such as the Netherlands or Sweden, we will find many syllabi in science and engineering are written in English. Because it is the dominant language in the sciences, most of the research and studies you find in any given scientific field will be written in it as well. At the university level, students in many countries study almost all their subjects in English in order to make the material more accessible to international students.
In Vietnam nowadays, English has become a compulsory subject at schools, universities as well as technical schools. However, it seems that teaching and learning English at many secondary schools in Vietnam is not very effective. One of the most important reasons is unsuitable methods in teaching and learning. The teachers of English often meet difficulties in approaching new methods of teaching foreign languages communicatively. Especially, How to teach Speaking Skill effectively is also the problem which they often meet. Recognizing the importance of doing this, I’ve chosen this topic in the hope of finding out some useful measures in organising suitable activities in the class.
Therefore, in the limitation of a small study I am really great at the thought of giving my opinion about “using grammar and vocabulary CHANTS to help students improve the speaking skill”.
II. PURPOSES OF THE STUDY
Objective of implement the innovation in teaching methods in English for junior high school is to train skills, form the capacity and quality of students.
III. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
I undertake this project to introduce innovative teaching methods that are oriented towards the development of English proficiency skills for students in secondary schools.
IV. RESEARCH METHODS
1. Research methods to build theoretical basis
Find, read and study the theory of competency, how to form the capacity and the competencies that need to be created for students.
Collect and study materials on active teaching methods that are oriented towards the development of student competencies.
2. Method of investigation, field survey, information collection
Carry out going to the class for teaching to compare the effectiveness of methods; create test forms before, during and after implementation of methods; exchange and collect peer feedback, student opinions.
3. Statistical methods, data processing
Make a statistical table about the number of students scoring average, weak, good and fairly before and after implementing innovative teaching methods, calculate the percentage of each type.
B. CONTENT
I. THEORETICAL BASIC
The Education Development Strategy for 2011-2020, issued in conjunction with Decision No. 711 / QD-TTg dated 13 June 2012 of the Prime Minister, also states: "Continuing to renovate teaching methods and evaluate learning results, training in the direction of promoting positive, self-conscious, active, creative and self-learning ability of learners.
The above-mentioned viewpoints and orientations create the premise, basis and legal environment which are conducive to the renewal of general education in general and synchronous renovation of teaching methods in the orientation of developing the pupils' English speaking skill in secondary school in particular. And grammar and vocabulary CHANT is a useful solution to help students improve speaking skill.
	- Chants use natural spoken English: Students don’t force in grammar even though they are learning grammar.
	- Chants can be used in classes of any size: We can have difficulties in teaching and learning language in a big-size class. However, with chants we can consolve this problem.
	- Chants don’t require any special materials: People can think that this method is old or not; however, every people can learn English or other languages effectively with chants without modern items such as: computers, projectors, E-Pens, cordless headsets, so on.
	- Chants can be used with all age groups: Using chants to learn English like reading idioms or poems, so it is suitable for people of all age.
	- Chants do not require musical ability: Chant means put words or sentences in music; however, it is only in rhythm. Once someone who is better at Chants, they can practise with Jazz Chants, the better level of chants.
II. THE REAL SITUATION BEFORE APPLYING THE EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE 
1. Problems with speaking.
	Brown (1994: 256) points out the characteristics of spoken language that make speaking skills difficult as follows:
- Clusterings: In order to speak fluently, speakers have to select from their store of language clusterings, that is groups of words, not word by word.
- Reduced forms: Contructions, elisions, reduced vowels, ect. Create difficulties in teaching and learning spoken English. If learners do not learn colloquial contractions, they can develop the kind of speaking that is stilted, bookish.
- Colloquial language: Colloquialism appears both in monologues and dialogues. If learners are only exposed to standard English and/or “textbook” language, they sometimes find it hard to understand and produce words, idioms and phrases of colloquial language.
- Stress, rthym and intonation: Learners of English often find it difficult to produce English words, to stress the right syllables, to follow the stress-times rthym and intonation patterns of spoken English.
- Affective factors: Learners learning to speak often encounter the risk of saying out things that may be wrong, stupid and incomprehensible. At those times, they tend to be anxious because they do not want to be jugded by other learners.
- Interaction: The greatest difficulty that learners face in learning to speak originates from the interactive natural of most communication. Engages in process of negatiation of meaning with many discourse constraints, learners have to do the complex task of choosing what to say, how to say, when to speak, ect. Learners are affected by their interlocutors’ performance.
2. Problems with speaking activities.
	Classroom activities that develop learners’ ability to express themselves through speech is an important component of a language course where CLT is applied. However, it is more difficult to design and administer such activities than to do so for listening, reading or writing. Teachers, in fact, often come across the problems that Ur (1996: 121) lists out:
- Worries: Unlike reading, writing or listening activities speaking requires some degree od real-time exposure to an audience. The student speaker has to face the teacher and other students in class. Learners are often worried about trying to says something in a foreign language in the classroom because they are worried about making mistakes, afraid of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts.
- Nothing to say: Teachers often hear learners, even if they are not worried or nervous, complain that they can not have anything to say. They may have no motivate to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should speak. When they say something in class, they feel that they are forced to say.
- Uneven or low participation: Unusually, there are many students in one class (between 25 and 35 students). Only one student can talk at a time in a large group. This means that each one has only very little time for talking. This problem is compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate the group, while others speak very little or not at all. In some cases some students haven’t got any chance, intentionally and unintentionally, to speak for a long time.
- Mother-tongue use: When all, or a number of the learners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use it frequently. This happens because the native language is easier to use and because they feel unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language and become learners feel less “exposed” if they are speaking in a small group, it can be quite difficult to get some classes, particularly the less disciplined or motivated ones, to keep to the target language.
- Teacher domination: Teaching a crowded class, many teachers tend to spend much time explaining words, phrases and grammar structures in details for fear that otherwise the students can not understand and fail in their tests. During explanation, teacher find it easier and less time consuming to use the mother tongue. Another important thing is that the teachers seem more interested in individual work (between teacher and one student or the whole group, or one student and another student or the whole group). They fear that other kinds of student grouping (pair work and group work) may cause noise or discipline problems.
	Through these facts that students have difficulties in speaking English inside and outside classrooms.
Survey results for students in class 6A, 7A in capacity in Thach Thanh Boarding school:
Class
Student
Good
Fair
Poor 
Fail 
Unsatis
No
%
No
%
No
%
No
%
No
%
6A
30
4
13.3
10
33.3
14
46.7
3
7.1
0
0.0
7A
29
3
10.3
8
27.6
15
51.7
6
12.5
0
0.0
 Total 
59
7
11.9
18
30.5
29
49.1
9
15.2
0
0.0
With the request of real life, our country's education is moving from content-based education to learner-centered approach, which means that we focus on what students do through learning process more than what they get.
	Jazz chants , according to Carolyn Graham, are snappy, unbeat chants and poems that use jazz rhythms to illustrate the natural stress and intonation patterns of conversational American English (from Oxford University Press). We can understand more that Jazz chants are based on a combination of repetition and learned response. Jazz chants set everyday situational English to strong rhythms that give the user practice with pronunciation, stress and the patterns of English. The rhythm is the glue that holds the chant together and you find that the language “sticks” in your head and so aids learning.
	A (jazz) chant has a three (four)-beat rhythm: 1, 2, 3 (, 4). Each beat will be either a tressed word (or syllable) or clap (tap or pause). The first beat is the first stress word, which may not be the first word.
Example 1: Do you mind if I borrow your ruler?
 1 2 3 (clap = 4)
Example 2: Hi, my name is Ba.
 1 2 3 (clap = 4)
Example 3: Do you like this? (clap) Yes, I do.
 1 2 3 4
(Audio 1)
	For native English speakers, stress is key to meaning. It’s what we listen for to know what’s important and what to focus on. Therefore, jazz chants are a fun, practical way to help students begin to notice and produce natural rhythm. 
III. SOLUTIONS 
1. Chants in practising vocabulary.
 - To consolve the problems in daily spoken English, we can use chants in teaching how to pronounce vocabulary correctly, fluently and naturally, and in every lesson we can do this. And obviously, we have to focus on word stress.
Example 1: English 6. Unit 1: Lesson 2 (page 8)
English physics history
 1 2 3
homework judo school lunch
 1 2 3
exercise vocabulary football
 1 2 3
lessons music science
 1 2 3
(Audio 2)
Example 2: English 7. Unit 2: Lesson 2 (page 18)
	headache sore throat cough
 1 2 3
headache sore throat headache sore throat cough
 1 2 1 2 3 
	temperature stomachache flu
 1 2 3	
temperature stomachache temperature stomachache flu
 1 2 1 2 3
	earache tired sick
 1 2 3
earache tired earache tired weak
 1 2 1 2 3
(Audio 3)
Example 3: English 8. Unit 3: Lesson 2 (page 28 )
	major opposite minor
 1 2 3
simple opposite complicated
 1 2 3
traditional opposite modern 
 1 2 3
spoken opposite written
 1 2 3
(Audio 4)
 - In addition to these, we can use chant technique to teach the past form of the irregular verbs. For example: 
I do, last night I did
I hide, last week I hid
I get, last month I got.
I forget, but I forgot
I buy, last night I bought
I bring, last week I brought
I ring, last month I rang
I sing, but I sang
I sell, last night I sold
I tell, last week I told
I think, last month I thought
I write, but I wrote
I choose, last night I chose
I freeze, last week I froze
I keep, last month I kept
I sleep, but I slept
(Audio 5)
 - We can make our own chants; however, the language should be real, useful and appropriate for the level. First of all, have students make a list of vocabulary words from a lesson we’ve done. Then, ask them to arrange them according to the number of syllables per word: It should be in order: a two syllable, a three syllable and a one syllable word.
Example: 
	pencil eraser chair
 1 2 3 (clap = 4)
	pencil eraser chair
 1 2 3 
	pencil eraser pencil eraser 
	 1 2 3 4
pencil eraser chair
 1 2 3
(Audio 6)
 - We can make it more complex by adding adjectives to the chants.
Example: 
purple pencil pink eraser
 1 2 3 4
purple pencil pink eraser 
 1 2 3 4
purple pencil pink eraser 
 1 2 3 4
yellow chair yellow chair
 1 2 3 4
(Audio 7)
 By doing this regularly, English learners will not have difficulty in producing English words, to stress the right syllables, to follow the stress-times rthym and intonation patterns of spoken English. Moreover, through doing this activity, learning new words or practising vocabulary of students will be able to be easier without pressure. Besides, students can practise new words anytime, anywhere.
2. Chants in learning grammar.
 Traditionally, when we learn structures or tenses, we often have to try to write as much as possible to learn by heart these and this work often makes us feel passive. Therefore, instead of writing the structures of the tenses or structures we can chant the sentences and of course we have to focus on the stress of sentences: 
 - Content words are usually stressed: nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs, demonstratives (this, these, those) and negatives (can’t, won’t, never, no, etc.).
 - Function words are usually unstressed and reduced: a, an, the, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, most prepositions, etc.
 - In unstressed words and in unstressed syllables, the vowel sounds are reduced and often move to “schwa”: 
“Do you like it?” do and you are reduced.
 - Typically the last content word in each thought group receives the most stress: 
I put the groceries/ in the bag / on the counter.
Here are some examples:
a)	I play badminton everyday.
	 1 2 3 (clap = 4)
	I don’t play soccer.
	 1 2 3 (clap = 4)
	Do you play soccer? Yes, I do.
	 1 2 3 4
	Do you play badminton? No, I don’t. 
	 1 2 3 4
(Audio 8)
b)	What do you wear on your head? A hat.
	 1 2 3 4
	What do you wear on your hands? Gloves.
	 1 2 3 4
	What do you wear on your feet? Socks.
	 1 2 3 4
(Audio 9)
c)
Kids play ball.
 1 2 3 (clap = 4)
The kids play ball.
 1 2 3
The kids are playing ball.
 1 2 3
The kids are playing with the ball.
 1 2 3
The kids have been playing with the ball.
 1 2 3
(Audio 10)
d) To learn and practise the structure:
S + be + good at + V-ing / N
We can say:
	I am good at swimming
	 1 2
	He is good at swimming
	 3 4
	Are you good at swimming? Yes, I’m good.
	 1 2 3 4
	Is she good at swimming? No, she isn’t.
	 1 2 3 4
(Audio 11)
e) To learn and practise the structure: 
S + spend + time + V-ing + N
We can say: 
	I spend half an hour doing the housework everyday.
	 1 2 3 4
	I spend three hours doing my homework everynight.
	 1 2 3 4
	My little brother spends the whole day playing.
	 1 2 3 4
	He spends no time doing the housework everyday.
	 1 2 3 4
(Audio 12)	
3. Chants in practising speaking in communication situations.
 - Jazz chants can provide students with useful “chunks” of language expressions they learn as a whole rather than word-by-word. How do you spell “dog”? gives student a “template” for asking how to spell a word.
 - Try beating out the rhythm by marching. You can have students march in a circle as they chant. It gets the rhythm of English into their bodies. (It’s specially great for kinesthetic learners.)
 Example 1: 
How do you spell dog? (clap, tap, or snap)
 1 2 3 4
d-o-g (clap/tap)
1 2 3 4
How do you spell cat? (clap/tap)
 1 2 3 4
c-a-t (clap/tap)
1 2 3 4
How do you spell octopus? (clap/tap)
 1 2 3 4
Don’t ask me! (clap/tap)
 1 2 3 4
(Audio 13)
 Example 2:
Do you mind if I borrow your book?
 1 2 3 (clap = 4)
 	Because I left mine at home.
 	 1 2 3
 	Yes, I do mind. Yes, I do mind.
	 1 2 3 4
 	Clap clap clap clap 
	 1 2 3 4
 	Now, I don’t have to go home.
	 1 2 3
(Audio 14)
 Example 3:
	Where’s Jack? He’s not here. 
	 1 2 3 4
Where did he go? I don’t know. 
 1 2 3 4
Where’s Mary? She’s not here. 
 1 2 3 4
Where did she go? I don’t know.
 1 2 3 4
Where are Sue and Bobby? They’re not here. 
 1 2 3 4
Where did they go? I don’t know. 
 1 2 3 4
Where’s Mr. Brown? He’s over there. 
 1 2 3 (clap = 4)
Where? Over there, asleep in the chair. 
 1 2 3 4
(Audio 15)
IV. Effectiveness of the initiative for educational activities, individuals, colleagues and schools
1. Overall results
Based on the teaching methodology of English subjects, after applying the theme of "Use grammar and vocabulary chants to help students improve the speaking skill" in classes 6A, 7A I have obtained the following results:
- During the lesson, the students are excited, enthusiastic, focused on learning and eager to participate in the speech.
- Attract students' attention to learning activities in the highest way
- They have the ability to promote their positive and active learning
- Development of logical thinking - creativity of students.
- Students know the knowledge in a natural way, excited, deep understanding, long remember the knowledge learned.
- Students are more brave, no longer embarrassed, anxiety when entering school
- Students use English to communicate more, more naturally when presenting.
- The students who are quite good at the ability use the language in the direction of comprehensively.
The topic is implemented regularly in where I teach, the results are very positive. Throughout the teaching process, the subject teachers assessed the experience that the subject mentioned above