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iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION …i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …ii
ABSTRACT …iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS …iv
LIST OF TABLES …vi
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study …1
2. Aims of the study …2
3. Scope of the study …2
4. Research questions …2
5. Method of the study…………… 3
6. Design of the study …3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT ….4
CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW …4
1.1. Definitions of grammar ….4
1.2. Roles of grammar in language teaching …5
1.3. Approaches to grammar teaching …6
1.3.1. The Grammar – Translation Method …7
1.3.2. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) …8
1.3.3. Applying CLT to teaching grammar …14
1.4. Oral activities …15
1.4.1. Definition of oral activities …15
1.4.2. The roles of using oral activities in grammar teaching …15
1.4.3. Characteristics of a successful oral activity …16
1.4.4. The selection of appropriate oral activities …17

v
1.5. Conclusion …21

CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY …22
2.1. The research hypothesis …22
2.2. Methodology …22
2.3. Participants and instruments …23
2.3.1. Participants …23
2.3.2. Instruments …23
2.4. Procedure of data collection …24
2.5. Results and discussion …25
2.5.1. Current situation of using oral activities to teach grammar communicatively
to first year non English majors in Vietnam University of Commerce …25
2.5.2. Problems in using oral activities to teach grammar communicatively to first
year non English majors in Vietnam University of Commerce 32
2.5.3. Suggested solutions …34
PART III: CONCLUSION …40
1. Summary of the study …40
2. Implications …40
3. Limitations of the study …41
4. Suggestions for further studies …42
REFERENCES …43
APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………………… I









vi

LIST OF TABLES


NAMES OF TABLES OR CHARTS
PAGES
Table 1: Student’s profile
Table 2: Teacher’s profile
Table 3: Students’ attitude towards the position of grammar
Table 4: Reasons for learning grammar
Table 5: Students’ agreement to grammar teaching through oral activities
Table 6: Teachers’ difficulties in using oral activities to teach grammar
communicatively
Table 7: Evaluation of the effectiveness of oral activities by students
Table 8: Evaluation of the effectiveness of oral activities by teachers
Chart 1: Students’ opinions about learning grammar through oral activities
Chart 2: Frequency of learning grammar through oral activities
Chart 3: Frequency of oral activities application in grammar teaching










1
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study

The use of English has been gradually increasing in Vietnam. Also, it has a stable ground
in the Vietnamese education system. English is introduced to the educational curriculum
from primary education (optional) to tertiary education (compulsory). Like many other
universities, teachers and students at Vietnam University of Commerce (VCU) were
affected by the traditional philosophy of teaching and learning. As a result, many students
lack the ability to communicate in oral English after graduation from the university. This
fact gives rise to the need of a more effective method that creates opportunities for the
learners, the subject and the centre of the teaching and learning process to bring full play
their intelligence and creativeness.
Over the past few years, the application of the Communicative Language Teaching method
has been widely adopted. This marked the beginning of a major change in the language
teaching and learning at VCU. And students’ grammar as well as communicative ability
has been improved remarkably.
VCU Faculty of English has been newly established for 4 years. Almost all of the teachers
were trained about CLT approach at the University and they fully understood the
importance of communicative grammar lessons among students. Therefore, they made all
their effort to apply many kinds of activities in grammar lessons to encourage students to
communicate in studying grammar in classroom.
As a teacher in the Faculty of English at VCU, from my own observations and experience,
I have noticed that there are many ways to motivate the first year non-major students in
grammar lessons. Among them, the use of oral or speaking activities has been received
more emphasis. Nevertheless, both teachers and students have faced a lot of challenges in
implementing and managing oral activities in grammar lessons. For example, the
classroom is too noisy, teachers sometimes lose control of the class or students tend to
switch to use their mother tongue when not under the teacher’s eyes and so on. Moreover,
the teachers’ procedure in organizing speaking activities in grammar lessons is not very
effective.
The above mentioned situation has urged me to conduct a study to investigate teachers’
and students’ difficulties in implementing oral activities, teachers’ oral activities
organization procedure, and teachers’ strategies to foster students’ English grammar. As a

2
result, I have decided to carry out the research into “Using oral activities to teach
grammar communicatively for first year non English major students in Vietnam University
of Commerce”. This study is intended to make a modest contribution to an increased
understanding of using oral activities in the grammar lesson at VCU.
2. Aims of the study
The purpose of this study is to explore the reality of the use of speaking activities in the
grammar lesson of 1
st
year students of Economics, Finance and Banking at VCU where the
researcher is serving. More specifically, this study attempts to clarify the procedures of
organizing speaking activities in the grammar lesson of 1
st
year non English major students
and to identify strategies used by teachers to stimulate students’ communicative
competence in grammar learning and the factors bringing about difficulties for the teachers
and students in their application of oral activities. One additional aim is to compare
teachers’ practice with students’ expectation. Based on the findings, the research further
seeks to suggest practical recommendations for the possibility of using speaking activities
in grammar lessons of 1
st
year non English major students at VCU.
3. Scope of the study
Though oral activities are usually applied in the speaking skill, I have chosen to focus on
grammar lessons for the fact that grammar is the first thing that learners learn on the first
day of an English lesson for non English major departments. Moreover, the purpose of
studying English of English non English major students at VCU is to gain an international
certificate in communication, for instance, the TOEIC test. Therefore, this research tends to
investigate the use of oral activities in the grammar lesson. Also, due to the time

constraints, this study only involves a small number of VCU teachers and Economics,
Finance and Banking students in their first year.
4. Research questions
In order to achieve the set goals, the research seeks to answer the following research
questions:
- To what degree have oral activities been applied in teaching grammar communicatively
to first year non English majors in Vietnam University of Commerce?
- What problems do teachers meet when using oral activities to teach grammar
communicatively to first year non English major in VCU?

3
- What are the possible solutions to these problems as suggested by the teachers atVCU?
5. Method of the study
The main method of the study was survey questionnaire, in which two types of
questionnaire are designed and distributed to the learners and the teachers. Furthermore, in
order to evaluate the effectiveness of the suggested approach, the writer collected some
information based on her informal interviews to make sure that the data is more accurate
and reliable.
A combination of different methods above will provide reliable data, based on which the
conclusions and suggestions will be made in the next parts.
6. Design of the study
The study consists of three main parts:
The first part, Introduction, provides an overview of the study in which the reasons for
choosing the study will be focused. It also includes the aim, research questions, research
methods, scope and design of the study.
The second part, Development, consists of two chapters:
Chapter one, Literature Review, provides the theoretical background for the thesis. This
chapter includes three main points. The first point deals with the general view on grammar
and grammar teaching approaches. The second point discusses the problems. Finally, the
third point discusses the need for applying oral activities to grammar teaching.

Chapter two, The Study, aims to describe background information about the current
teaching and learning of grammar at VCU and presents the methodology underlying the
research including data collection instruments, procedures. A detailed data analysis and
discussions are also given.
The last part, Conclusion, gives a summary and a recommendation for further study.
PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter aims to explore a general view on grammar, grammar teaching in some
English teaching approaches, problems in teaching grammar at VCU, and oral activities
application to grammar teaching.


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1.1. Definitions of grammar
In the foreign language teaching context, grammar is the first thing that learners learn on
the first day of an English lesson. Grammar is often defined as the study of how words and
their component parts combine to form sentences. However, that is only the way traditional
grammarians see grammar. Other linguistic schools have their own definitions basing on
their different interest. Structural linguistic might see grammar as the sum total of sentence
patterns in which the words of a particular language are arranged. In addition, grammar is
regarded as our innate knowledge of the structure of language by cognitive linguistics.
According to Jacob, R.A. (1993) grammar has three components:
- Syntax: the grammatical principles, units, and relations involved in sentence
structure.
- Lexicon: the set of individual words, suffixes, and prefixes.
- Semantics: the meanings associated with the lexicon of a language and with the
units and relations in the sentence structures.
These three components necessarily interact. The grammatical principles determine the
kinds of units the language can have, the order in which these units can be arranged, and
the kinds of relations (or functions) they participate in. From the lexicon come the actual

words, suffixes and prefixes that fit into the slots provided by the syntax, while the
semantic component determines the range of interpretations associated with each lexically
filled syntactic structure.
Recently, with the introduction of functional grammar, it is considered as a resource used
to accomplish communication purposes in specific contexts.
However different these definitions of grammar are, the common feature should be born in
mind is that “grammar is not just a collection of sentence pattern signifying nonsense”
(Widdowson, 1990:81). Rather, grammar should be viewed as linguistic rules functioning
in alliance with words and context for achievement of meaning. For the purpose of this
study, I use the definition that grammar is “a description of the structure of a language and
the way in which linguistic units such as words and phrases are combined to produce
sentences in the language. It usually takes into account the meanings and fuctions these
sentences have in the overall system of language” (Richards, Platt and Platt, 1992: 161)
because it shows both linguistic and social nature of grammar.

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1.2. Roles of grammar in language teaching
In the language teaching field, teaching and learning grammar is appreciated incorrectly
and inexactly. Sometimes it is thought to be very boring because the teachers and learners
always follow the old trace, that is, learning terminology, memorizing rules, doing
mechanical exercises, such as sentence patterns and further practice. As Hopkins et al
(1994: 157) assumes that it is boring to teach grammar but hardly any teachers ignore it
completely. Grammarians do give strong support to grammar teaching. They think
grammar gives us a means to understand a language. Besides, it reflects the order of the
human thoughts and helps us to understand the diversity of human culture. For them, the
acquisition of the grammatical system of a language remains the most important element in
language teaching.
Nevertheless, there are still people who think that grammar will be acquired naturally and
automatically through lessons if opportunities for meaningful communication in the

language classroom are created and they lessen the role of grammar. In short, different
views on the role of grammar still remain. Below is a brief look at some of these views.
As for Thornbury (1999), grammar is a process for making a speaker’s or writer’s meaning
clear when there is a lack of contextual information. Moreover, grammar means the
relationship between three things: grammar, words, and contexts. It means it is necessary
for students to learn basic and fixed forms and particular forms so that they can express
particular meanings.
It might be confirmed that grammar is clearly central to the working of language.
Widdowson (1990: 81) emphasizes: “Grammar is not just a collection of sentence patterns
signifying nonsense, something for the learner’s brain to puzzle over”.
Obviously, the definition of grammar makes us clear that grammar consists of certain rules
and these rules that govern the system of language units and structures by which we
communicate with each other. How important grammar is assumed obviously has an
impact on the teaching of grammar. Hughes et al (1998: 265) regard grammar as the
discourse not as the sentence and coined the term discourse grammar with the statement
“grammatical statements that do not take account of such contextual features inadequate
and unable to support grammar teaching effectively.”

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It is quite reasonable to see the importance of grammar according to Harry viewpoint:
“Without some understanding of Grammar, students would not be about to do anything
more than utter separate items of language for separate of functions. Making expression of
functional language is only possible through the use of Grammar rules of the language”.
In general, grammar is acknowledged to be of importance in language study and in
language teaching and learning in particular. He also emphasize that hardly anyone needs
to learn grammar. Grammar is acquired naturally from meaningful input and opportunities
to interact in the classroom. More especially, learners can improve their grammar
competence in suitable environment without conscious focus on language forms. However,
this partly depends on the learning circumstances. As a result, grammar teaching gains its
significant role in ELT because highly developed language skills are difficult to achieve

without some knowledge of grammar.

1.3. Approaches to grammar teaching
In the history of language teaching methodology, it can be said that grammar goes closely
together with the development of teaching methods and approaches. Grammar was once
the focus of the earliest method – Grammar Translation and until now the tremendous
change in methodology have always implied the changes in grammar teaching objective,
techniques and activities. The following part is about some of the most common methods
and approaches in which the grammar teaching will be concerned.
1.3.1. The Grammar – Translation Method
This method is associated with the learning of Latin and Greek which was popular in the
late 18
th
century in Europe and considered to be the key to the thought and literature of a
great and ancient civilization. The primary aim of this method is to engage the learners in
mental gymnastics and to read literature and philosophy in the target language. Also, it
focuses on grammatical rules, rote memorization of vocabulary and translation of literary
texts.
According to Prator and Celce-Murcia (1979: 3), the key features of the Grammar
Translation Method are as follow:
(1) Classes are taught in the mother tongue, with little active use of the target language.
(2) Much vocabulary taught in the form of lists of isolated words.

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(3) Long elaborate explanations of the intricacies of grammar are given.
(4) Grammar provides the rules for putting words together, and instruction often focuses on
the form and inflection of words.
(5) Reading of difficult classical texts is begun early.
(6) Little attention is paid to the content of texts, which are treated as exercises in
grammatical analysis.

(7) Often the only drills are exercises in translating disconnected sentences from the target
language into the mother tongue.
(8) Little or no attention is given to pronunciation.
In this method, the learners are the passive recipients of the explicit grammar rules and
engaged in practice activities and translation exercises, requiring the application of those
rules. Listening activities takes form of dictations, and speaking practice is accomplished
by having students read a passage aloud in front of the class. In other words,
communication skills are ignored. Conversely, the teacher holds the authoritative role, or
he is seen as ideal language model and commander of classroom activity.
It is worth noticing that mistakes and errors are seen as a failure and they must be avoided
at any cost. Whenever the learners make mistakes or errors, the teacher often correct at
once to make sure that the learners always produce correct sentences.
As its name reveals, grammar plays a very important role in Grammar – Translation
method, and at times even the goal of language study. Grammar (usually prescriptive) is
taught deductively moving from the statement of the rule to the example.
Grammar – Translation method dominated the history of language teaching from the late
eighteenth century to the early twentieth century and it is still widely used, especially in the
EFL settings. The best point of this method is that it helps the learners produce
grammatically correct sentences. Besides, it can be easlily exploited in many classroom
situations where the class is large (about 40 learners), where the teachers are unqualified,
emphasize grammatical knowledge. Nevertheless, the biggest disadvantage of this method
is that the learners can not communicated in real situations, or their utterances are correct
but inappropriate. This is the result of the process of learning only form and usage, but not
use, and learning about the language, not using the language to learn through authentic
tasks. Furthermore, this method makes the learners really passive in the process of getting

8
knowledge. They just listen to the teacher’s explanation and do not participate in the
exploration of new knowledge.
Despite of these defects, it is widely recognized that the Grammar Translation Method is

still one of the most popular and favorite models of language teaching.
1.3.2. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
Towards the end of the 1960s there was a growing dissatisfaction among applied linguists
and foreign language teachers with the language theories and teaching methods. The
prominent American linguist Noam Chomsky had demonstrated that the current standard
structural theories of language were incapable of accounting for the fundamental
characteristic of language – the creativity and uniqueness of individual sentences. Besides,
applied linguists emphasized a fundamental dimension of language that was inadequately
addressed in approaches to language teaching at that time – the functional and
communicative potential of language. Consequently, the teaching produced structurally
competent students who were often communicatively incompetent. Communicative
Language Teaching (CLT) emerged as a response to that judgment. It is based on the
language theory that language is for communication and the learning theory that real
communication, meaningful task and meaningful language promote learning. The term
CLT covers a variety of approaches that all focus on helping learners to communicate
meaningfully in the target language.
Howatt (1984: 279) distinguishes between the weak and the strong versions of
Communicative Language Teaching. The weak version stresses the importance of
providing learners with opportunities to use English for communicative purposes and
therefore attempts to integrate communicative activities into the program of language
teaching. As different from this, the strong version of communicative language teaching
claims that language can be acquired only through communication. This would mean that
teaching involves not just “activating an existing knowledge of the language”, but
“stimulating the development of the language system itself” (Howatt, p. 279). It is worth
noticing that while the strong version of the communicative movement pays no attention to
grammar learning in the classroom, the weak version attempts to integrate a
communicative component into a traditional setting (Allright, 1977). However, whether it
is the weak or the strong version, the proponents of Communicative Language Teaching

9

have always viewed learning a second/ foreign language as acquiring the linguistic means
to perform different functions.
The general aim of CLT is to develop the students’ communicative competence. The
theory of communicative competence was put forth by Dell Hymes in the paper “On
communicative competence”. In Hymes’s view, “communicative competence” refers to the
ability not only to apply the grammatical rules of language in order to form grammatically
correct sentences but also to know when and where to use these sentences and to whom.
Later, in 1980, Canale and Swain offered a widely accepted model of communicative
competence which consists of grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence,
discourse competence, and strategic competence. In Canale and Swain’s model,
grammatical competence refers to what Chomsky calls linguistic competence. It is the
knowledge of the language code, including lexical items, rules of morphology and syntax,
sentence – grammar semantics and phonology. Sociolinguistic competence refers to an
understanding of the social context in which communication takes place, including role
relationships, the shared information of the participants, and the communicative purpose
for their interaction. Discourse competence broadly refers to the interpretation of
individual message elements in terms of their interconnectedness and of how meaning is
represented in relationship to the entire discourse or text. Strategic competence refers to the
coping strategies that communicators employ to initiate, terminate, maintain, repair, and
redirect communication.
It should be born in mind that “communicative competence” or “communication” does not
always mean “oral competence” or “oral communication” as it has been wrongly assumed
by many language teachers. This can be explained by the theory of a speech event which is
set out by Hymes:
1. The sender (addresser, speaker, writer)
2. The receiver (addressee, listener, reader)
3. A message form
4. A channel
5. A code
6. A topic

7. A setting

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From this model we could learn that communication occurs in all four skills: listening,
speaking, reading, writing and the teacher could use CLT to teach the learners all four
skills.
Although CLT is very popular, it is hard to reach an agreement about what it is. However,
linguists have tried to point out the characteristic features of CLT. Littlewood (1981: 1)
states that “one of the most characteristic features of communicative language teaching is
that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspect of language”.
David Nunan (1989: 279) also offers five features to characterize CLT:
1. An emphasis on learning to communicative through interaction in the target language.
2. The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation.
3. The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on the language but also on
the learning process itself.
4. An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as an important contributing
elements to classroom learning.
5. An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation outside the
classroom.
Furthermore, Richards (1986: 12) reminds us of some crucial principles of CLT such as
language learning is a process of learning how to negotiate meaning in a particular socio-
cultural context, activities and materials will be more effective if they are centered around
the learners needs and interests, effective communication is more important than structural
accuracy particularly at the beginning stages of language learning and errors are
manifestation of the fact that learning is taking place. Relating to the mother tongue’s use
Finocchiaro and Brumfit (1983) believe that native language could be used for explanation
and discussion when useful. In a communicative classroom, the teacher’s and learner’s role
are quite different from the previous methods and approaches. The teacher is a facilitator
of her students’ communication process between all participants in the classroom and
between these participants and the various activities and texts. During the activities, she

acts as an advisor, answering students’ questions and monitoring the performance. At other
times she might be a “co-communicator” engaging in the communicative activity along
with the students. Meanwhile, the learner is a negotiator between the self, the role of joint-
negotiator with the group and within the classroom procedures and activities which group
undertakes. Learners are, above all, central communicators. They are actively engaged in

11
negotiating meaning in trying to make themselves understood even when their knowledge
of the target language is incomplete. They learn to communicate by communicating.
Students are seen as more responsible contributors of their own learning, and they are
independent learner.
According to Richards and Rodgers (2001), there are two types of classroom activities.
The first type involves functional communication activities such as comparing sets of
pictures, discovering missing features in a map, solving problems from shared clues, etc.
The other type is social interaction activities like conversation and discussion, dialogues,
role plays, simulations.
Early approaches downplayed the importance of grammar, some even advocating the
abandonment of any focus on form. In natural approach – one of current communicative
approaches, Hammerly (1987:330) suggests that all grammatical instruction and practice
activities should be done outside the class so that the classroom time is not wasted in
grammatical lectures or manipulative exercise. He also believe that manipulation of
grammar rules should be applied in writing or in prepared speech. In addition, if grammar
explanations must be done in the classroom, Krashen and Terrell, they recommended that
they should be short, simple and in the target language.
More recent approaches acknowledge the centrality of grammar and try to teach the
learners the relationship between grammatical form and communicative meaning.
However, CLT believes that language is learned through exposure and interaction. Thus,
CLT makes little or no provision for the formal instruction of grammar, and students are
encouraged to identify and learn the rules. Grammar is not seen as a set of rules to be
memorized but to be internalized and used for communication. Celce-Murcia (1988:27)

proposes a four part grammar lesson successfully applying a communicative approach to
teaching grammar. The first part is presentation in which we introduce the grammar
structure inductively or deductively. The next part is focused practice which allows the
learners to manipulate the structure in question while all other variables are held constant.
As a result, the learners gain control of the form without the added pressure and distraction
of trying to use the form for communication. After that the learners engages in
communicative activities to practice the new structure in communicative practice. Finally,
the teacher gives feedback and correction. Although this is the final part, Celce-Murcia
notes that it must take place throughout the lesson. In focused practice, correction should

12
be straightforward and immediate. However, in communicative practice the teacher should
take note of errors and deal with them after the communicative exercises.
CLT is now accepted by many applied linguists and classroom teachers because of several
reasons. It can be well-observed that the learners are often much motivated when their
teachers apply CLT to teaching language because they are encouraged to discover rules,
use their language knowledge to complete interesting tasks, and communicate well in both
oral and written form. What is more, the learners become more active in their language
learning process, eager to study language inside and outside the classroom since in CLT
they are those who decide and are responsible for the success of failure of their learning
result. However, CLT focuses on meaning rather than form (grammar rules) so the most
obvious risk that has been criticized by many linguists and teachers is the fossilization of
learners’ errors.
As discussed above, when evaluating the effect of immersion approach by reviewing six
studies, Hammerley (1987) stated that the grammatical competence of immersion students
is characterized by fossilization or classroom pidgin as a result of their trying to
communicate freely beyond their limited linguistic competence. In addition, a research by
Prabhu (cited by Beretta & Davis, 1985) showed that students who received meaning based
instruction did well on the meaning-based test by poorly on a discrete-point grammar test.
Therefore, research indicated that a combination of form and meaning may be the best

teaching approach. Richards & Platt (1992) concluded that “form focused instruction and
corrective feedback within the context of communicative interaction can contribute
positively to second language development in both the short and long term” (p.205). This
integration of form and meaning is gaining importance in what they refer to as the students
should learn grammar explicitly but should also be given the opportunity to practice than in
communicative and authentic/ simulated tasks.
This paper is of the view that both structural and communicative elements have a role to
play in EFL and ESL especially in Vietnam setting. This is due to two main reasons: First,
the norms and practices of the structural syllabus have been embedded in the Vietnam
cultures for decades. For instance, for most of language teachers and learners, textbook
means knowledge. Therefore, to learn is to memorize all knowledge in the textbook.
Second, in a society of which the first and the second language is not English like Vietnam,
communicative proficiency will become easier to achieve only when one has grasped the

13
necessary grammatical knowledge. Hammerly (1987:94) suggests that students learn more
from than meaning at an early stage and as time increases (and as students’ language
proficiency improves), the intervention of communicative functions increases along with
the form reduce.
1.3.3. Applying CLT to teaching grammar
According to Siaw-Fong Chung (2005) since the introduction of Communicative Language
Teaching (CLT), many textbooks have been written to incorporate communicative
activities, authentic materials and personalized contexts, but where the teaching and
learning of grammar is concerned, most textbooks do not reflect CLT principles.
Obviously, applying CLT to grammar teaching is necessary in order to deal with the
disadvantages of Grammar Translation method when being used to teach grammar such as
the learners’ inappropriate utterances and passive learning style. The deep basis of this
application is that CLT aims at developing communicative competence and grammatical
competence is one of four of its component competences. Thus, in theory, CLT may be
used to teach grammar so that understanding the rules of grammar is not an end in itself

and learners are helped to recognize the communicative value of grammatical structures.
It is worth mentioning here some researches into teaching grammar in the light of CLT.
Celce-Murcia and Hilles (1988) propose that “grammar should never be taught as an end in
itself, but always with reference to meaning, social factors, or discourse… or a
combination of these factors” (cited in Celce-Murcia, 1991). Fuyuko Kato (1998) also refer
to the application of CLT to grammar teaching when she stated that teachers are required
to create a chance of real communication in the classroom so that learners can actually use
the target grammar form in a meaningful way. Furthermore, when referring to the
limitations of Grammar Translation method (form-based) and Communicative Approach
(meaning-based), Pavel V. Sysoyev (1999) argued for a combination of form-based and
meaning-based focus, and thus proposed a method that he called “integrative grammar
teaching” (or EEE method) which consists of three major stages (a) exploration, (b)
explanation, and (c) expression. By conducting an evaluative questionnaire after the
experimental lessons, he concluded that students preferred to learn L2 grammar using the
EEE method, as opposed to form-based or meaning-based only approaches.
Recently, Siaw-Fong Chung (2005) in an attempt to find out whether CLT principles are
incorporated into grammar exercises in textbooks has suggested five methods so that

14
grammar activities can be made more communicative. The five methods relate to games,
natural contexts, balancing skills, personalization and adjustment of teacher role.
Obviously, grammar has played a central role in language teaching and the question “how
to teach grammar” is far from being satisfactorily answered. Nevertheless, the tendency of
applying CLT to grammar teaching is indispensable in order to improve the drawbacks of
the traditional way of teaching grammar.

1.4. Oral activities
1.4.1. Definition of oral activities
A grammar lesson consists of different stages which are suggested differently by different
methodologists. Ur (1996) organizes grammar teaching into four stages: presentation,

isolation and explanation, practice and test, whereas according to Celce-Murcia and Hilles,
a grammar lesson goes through four following phases: presentation, practice and testing.
Thus, however different such suggestions are, practice as a stage is always present, it
comes after the initial presentation and explanation when learners have taken knowledge
into short term memory but have not really mastered it yet. Practice may be defined as any
kind of engaging with the language on the part of the learners, usually under the teachers’
supervision, whose primary objective is to consolidate learning. Practice involves both
spoken and written practice (Ur, 1996:11).
1.4.2. The roles of using oral activities in grammar teaching
Nunan (2007) agrees that oral grammar practice gives learners increasing opportunities and
motivation to interact with other communicators, to raise their awareness of the forms and
functions of English grammar. Grammatical patterns are matched to particular
communicative meanings so learners can see connection between form and function.
Learners learn how to choose the right pattern to express different communicative
meanings. They will incorporate various grammatical structures in their performance.
Students, for successful language use, need not only to be exposed to the structures and
functions of communication but also to practice applying grammatical knowledge in real
contexts. To reach the goals, the application of grammar in the classroom should be more
creative and open-ended. Creative language activities provide more opportunities for the
learners to use language more flexibility than receptive language tasks. Creative language
use involves learners in recombining familiar words, phrases and structures in new and

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familiar ways. When students have enough time and enough opportunities communicate
and to receive feedback on attempts at producing meaningful language, errors will
gradually diminish (Corder, 1981; Selinker, 1972, 1992). Thanks to that students will learn
grammar better.
Teaching grammar communicatively or using communicative activities means teaching
grammar effectively. In other words, oral grammar practice provides for effective grammar
acquisition. But how to organize oral practice successfully is a hard question. According to

Ur (1996: 15), “Interest is an essential feature of successful oral practice”. Without
properly getting involved in practicing grammar orally and communicatively, students feel
bored and find it difficult to concentrate, their attention wanders, and they may spend much
of the lesson time thinking or dreaming of other things. So the poor quality of effort and
attention will reduce their learning results. Besides, because of boredom, students may start
out-of-focus talks often talk or produce unruly behavior, therefore, more valuable learning
time may be wasted on coping with discipline problems. On the contrary, if students are
interested in what is done, they will not only learn efficiently, they are also likely to enjoy
the process and want to continue learning.
Nunan (2007) emphasized that oral practice activities, in grammar learning and teaching,
not only maintain learners’ interests but also sustain their attention in the long term process
of acquiring grammatical knowledge and skills in English. Oral practice will offer students
opportunities to practice and use grammar realistically and meaningfully so as to activate
learners’ knowledge of grammar. Oral grammar practice also increases the realism and
usefulness of grammar lessons. Moreover, for many teachers, correcting grammar errors in
students’ written work is quite a time consuming task.
In brief, grammar should be taught through oral practice activities to increase students’
interests which results in more effective grammar acquisition.
1.4.3. Characteristics of a successful oral activity
According to Ur (1996: 120), a successful oral activity consists of the following
characteristics:
 A lot of learners talk: learners speak as much as possible during the period of time
allowed. Time taken up with the teacher talk or pauses is minimized.

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 Even participation: every learner takes part in the speaking activity. The
participants’ contributions are fairly distributed.
 High motivation: The topic makes them interested and eager to speak or learners
want to fulfill the task to get the goal.
 An acceptable language level: Learners use relevant and comprehensible

expressions. Language accuracy is of an acceptable level.
1.4.4. The selection of appropriate oral activities
Many researchers discuss classroom activities and a lot of activities are adapted or
designed based on the theory and characteristics of CLT.
Littlewood (1981) distinguishes between “functional communication activities” and “social
interaction activities”. In his views, the former includes such tasks as learners noting
similarities or differences in sets of pictures, discovering missing features in a map or
picture, one learner communicating behind a screen to another learner and giving
instructions on how to draw a picture or shape, or how to complete a map, following
directions, and solving problems from shared cues. The latter includes conversation and
discussion and sessions, dialogues and role-plays, simulations, and improvisations and
debates.
Richards and Rodgers (1986: 165) discuss that the range of exercise types and activities
with a communicative approach is unlimited, provided that such exercises and activities
enable learners to attain the communicative objectives of the curriculum, engage learners
in communication and require the use of such communicative processes as information
sharing, negotiation of meaning, and interaction. In their views, classroom activities should
be designed to focus on completing tasks that are mediated through language or involve
negotiation of information and information sharing.
Activities may be classified as activities for accuracy that aim at learners’ competence in
producing right words, phrases or sentences and activities for fluency that aim at learners’
capacity to sustain the flow of speech with ease and comfort.
In short, oral activities are various and can be found in a great number of resources.
However, in this minor thesis, the author would introduce some most applicable types
which have proven the most effective:
 Conversation

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Conversation serves many functions. People use conversations to establish relationships
through personal expression, to find out information, and to compare views with others.

Conversation provides a means for sharing experiences and solving problems.
Teachers can capitalize on the critical role of conversation in students’ lives and use it to
enhance their language learning. Through experiences with the language processes,
students can discover a steadily expanding series of topics such as projects, books,
characters, television programs and videos. In conversation, it is important for students to
have useful vocabulary. Clarity and precision are the keys to effective word choice in
conversation. Teachers should not expect perfection from students in the use of unfamiliar
or difficult words, but rather should develop a supportive environment and group rapport
that encourage students to experiment with unfamiliar words.
 Discussion
Discussion differs from conversation in that it generally has an identifiable purpose, such
as coming to a clearer understanding of characters’ roles in a drama or exploring the
possibilities for publishing student writing. Discussion is similar to conversation with
regard to listening carefully, considering what others say, being courteous, and speaking so
that all can hear. Many of students’ conversational abilities will transfer to discussion
situations.
Discussion assists students in the development of reasoning, critical thinking, and problem-
solving skills. It gives them practice in expressing ideas orally in an organized manner and
enables them to arrive at conclusion, clarify or modify ideas, resolve differences, and find
alternative solutions. In group discussions, students may encounter viewpoints different
from their own. They come to see that there are many problems for which there is no one
appropriate solution. As well, discussion can serve as a means of building consensus
among group members.
Groupings of three to five are good for effective discussions. Everyone is able to contribute
to discussion as a listener and as a speaker. In addition, a small group draws out quieter
students who may not contribute to larger group discussions.
 Storytelling
Storytelling is an oral sharing of a personal or traditional story, told using the essence of
the tradition from which it originates. As a shared experience between teller and listener, it
offers natural language experiences for students.

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Storytelling allows students to internalize important aspects of story beginnings and
endings, settings, characters, and plot lines. It provides practice in expressing ideas in
thought units, using colorful and descriptive language, developing ideas in sequence, and
choosing effective action words.
The speech abilities needed for storytelling are essentially the same as ones required for all
speaking activities. Storytelling encourages students to experiment with voice, tone, eye-
contact, gestures and facial expressions. It also lets them practice techniques for holding
audience attention.
 Oral reports
In preparing reports, students develop the ability to select material appropriate to
classroom topics and to the audience, and the ability to collect and organize material
(requiring skill in reading critically, taking notes, summarizing and outlining). Often a
report can be made more meaningful to the audience through the use of visuals such as
charts, maps, diagrams, and overhead transparencies.
Oral reports should emerge from other English language arts processes. If some students
are not comfortable with reporting, they can develop more confidence by taking part in
other oral activities before they are ready to give a report.
 Telephoning
The telephone is an important tool for personal, school, and business use because of the
rapid communication it permits. Therefore, there is need to reinforce personal speaking and
listening abilities regarding telephone use.
Students should be provided with functional and helpful vocabulary and they must have
authentic reasons for telephoning when they are practicing their skills in the English
language arts classroom.
 Announcements
Making announcements can serve as useful oral speaking practice at any grade level. As
with other types of speech activities, criteria for making announcements should be
developed by the class. These criteria should address the recommended format and manner

of presentation and serve as guidelines for the students.
After the announcements are made, peers or the teacher might write the student announcer
an informal note, commenting on the strengths of the presentation and including one
suggestion for improvement.
 Role play

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Role play provides the opportunity for students to develop and revise their understanding
and perspectives by exploring thoughts and feelings of characters in given situations. The
teacher may take a role, becoming an active participant in promoting independent thinking
and co-operate learning.
Role play helps students to develop empathy as they examine others’ ideas, feelings, and
points of view as well as oral expression and interpretation skills as they use language to
describe perceptions, emotions, and reactions. In addition, it also helps students to improve
decision-making and problem-solving skills as they gain experience in independent
thinking and co-operative learning.
 Interviews
An interview is a good way to gain information and provide the participants with practice
in improving speaking and listening skills. Results of interviews can be prepared for
publication in reports or in the school newspaper, thus supporting the writing component of
the language arts program.
Students might interview people from the community who have firsthand knowledge
regarding topics being studied at school or they might interview visitors, fellow students,
or teachers. It is important that the interview has a definite purpose.
 Informal Debate
Students who participate in debates have an opportunity to explore, listen, and enjoy
learning. Debates give students additional opportunities to hear their classmates’ views and
to express opinions regarding topics that matter to them. They also help students make
important decisions and become critical listeners. The informal debate helps students to
work together to understand common problems.

Informal debate reflects the learning process. Debating allows students to explore ideas
and arguments in a non-threatening atmosphere, because presentational guidelines are
provided. Debating is an effective method of acquiring knowledge, as arguments need to
be supported by relevant, accurate, and complete information. Students who debate
informally learn to recognize the elements of a good argument and to develop further their
abilities to speak confidently.
 Co-operative learning
Co-operative learning involves students in group collaboration in order to achieve a goal or
to complete a project. Although students do not necessarily work together at one table
throughout the project, participation by each group member is necessary to accomplish the

20
task. Success and assessment are based on the performance of the group, as well as on
individual contributions and performance within the group.
Co-operative learning experiences are particularly effective at the Middle Level, where
students have innate desire to be accepted. Competitive, individual efforts are appropriate
at times, however, co-operative learning experiences have the advantage of helping
students work together and support each other.

1.5. Conclusion
Briefly, this chapter presents the literature related to the study. Not only the definition, the
role of oral activities in grammar teaching as well as the characteristics of an oral activity,
but Communicative Language Teaching approach and some other approaches are also
viewed to figure out the most suitable techniques for effective English grammar lessons.
Applying these techniques, the researcher wishes to discover how oral activities can help to
teach grammar communicatively to the first year English non-major students in Vietnam
University of Commerce.

CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY
2.1. The research context
The study was conducted at VCU where students come from all parts of Vietnam. The
students experienced traditional method of English teaching at high schools and
learning used to focus on reading and writing but not listening or speaking. Thus, they
had very few chances to speak English. In fact, the first year non major students of
English find the University learning style completely different and they find it difficult
to join classroom activities. However, this study is carried out in the second semester
when the students have passed the first semester and are quite familiar to

21
communicative grammar. Moreover, they are active, enthusiastic and hard working in
the study, which has encouraged the teachers of English to keep looking for way to
help them improve their studying.
The role of the teachers is undeniable in the process of teaching and learning a target
language. In Department of Theory, Faculty of English, VCU, most of teachers have
got their MA degree or are studying toward that degree at the University of Language
and International Studies of Vietnam National University. They are all experienced,
friendly, active, knowledgeable, and full of inspiration for teaching.
As for classroom arrangements, the class size is averagely 50 (or more). Therefore, it is
difficult to carry out a communicative task in such a mixed-ability large class. All
classrooms are designed for lectures with a board, a cassette recorder. Besides, teachers
can also present their lectures by using overhead projectors in most of the classrooms.
2.2. Methodology

Nowadays, it is increasingly common for researchers to report the study on both
quantitative and qualitative findings, especially, in studies on English Second
Language (ESL) (Adams, Fujii & Mackey, 2005). Thus, in consideration of the
research’s purposes, this study was done in the light of both quantitative and qualitative
research in which the data is collected by means of questionnaires and interviews of
both teachers and students.
Survey questionnaire is one of the most effective instruments for collecting data in
social science. Advantages of using questionnaires that Gillham (2000) highlights are:
less pressure on respondents, not under pressure of bias, and analysis of answers is
straight forward. Like questionnaire, interviews can allow researchers to investigate
cognitive processes such as awareness or constructs such as perceptions or attitudes
that are not directly observable.
The purpose of using questionnaire and interviews as research materials to collect data
in this study is to triangulate the data and to overcome the limitations or drawbacks of
other methods because one can well support another which helps strengthen the
research findings.
2.3. Participants and instruments
2.3.1. Participants

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The subjects of this study consist of two groups. The first group includes 150 first year
students majoring in Economics and Finance & Banking. The other consists of 10
English teachers of Theoretical Department, English Faculty, VCU. The students age
from 18 to 22, 54% are male and 46% are female. Some of them have learnt English
for 6 years and the others for 3 years or fewer. Among the teachers, 4 have a Master
degree, 3 are attending M.A. courses and 3 graduated from the University of
Languages and International Studies of Vietnam National University. They all age
from 24 to 40 and have at least 2 years teaching experience.
2.3.2. Instruments
2.3.2.1. Questionnaires

The study employs two questionnaires, one for teachers and the other for students.
The questionnaire for teachers, adapted from Mueller (1997), written in Vietnamese
consisting of 4 questions was delivered to 10 teachers who were teaching English for
the first year students at VCU. The questionnaire was used to explore information
about their attitudes towards their degree of using oral activities, their difficulties in
organizing oral activities during grammar lessons as well as the solutions they have
applied when using these oral activities to teach grammar communicatively.
The survey questionnaire administered to 150 first year students including seven
questions with an aim to get information about students’ opinion on and students’
desires in learning grammar through oral activities together with some kinds of oral
activities, students have experienced when studying grammar.
2.3.2.2. Interviews
Another research tool employed in this study was private interviews. The interviews
with teachers were carried out (5 items for the teachers) to get more information about
the difficulties they coped with when using oral activities in teaching grammar
communicatively and some solutions they offered to deal with these difficulties. These
questions were open enough to allow the interviewees to comfortably express their
thoughts, feelings or opinions. Before officially carrying out the interviews, the
interview questions were piloted with one teacher to identify the potential problems.
2.4. Procedure of data collection