Adapting speaking activities in Tieng Anh 11 to improve students' participation at Dan Phuong Upper-secondary school = Điều chỉnh một số hoạt động nói trong sác

1
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
*********************
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************
PHÙNG THỊ HOA MƠ
PHÙNG THỊ HOA MƠ

ADAPTING SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN TIENG ANH 11
ADAPTING SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN TIENG ANH 11 TO
TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION
IMPROVE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION
AT DAN PHUONG UPPER- SECONDARY SCHOOL
AT DAN PHUONG UPPER- SECONDARY SCHOOL
(ĐIỀU CHỈNH MỘT SỐ HOẠT ĐỘNG NÓI TRONG SÁCH TIẾNG ANH 11
NHẰM TĂNG CƯỜNG SỰ THAM GIA CỦA HỌC SÁCH TIẾNG ANH
(ĐIỀU CHỈNH MỘT SỐ HOẠT ĐỘNG NÓI TRONG SINH TẠI TRƯỜNG11
NHẰM TĂNG CƯỜNG SỰTHPT ĐAN PHƯỢNG) SINH TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT
THAM GIA CỦA HỌC
ĐAN PHƯỢNG)

M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS
M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD : ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE : 601410
FIELD : ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY

CODE : 601410
SUPERVISOR
: VŨ MAI TRANG, M.A

HANOI - 2010
HANOI - 2010


2
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY********************* STUDIES
OF POST- GRADUATE
*********************
PHÙNG THỊ HOA MƠ
PHÙNG THỊ HOA MƠ

ADAPTING SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN TIENG ANH 11
ADAPTING SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN TIENG ANH 11 TO
TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION
IMPROVE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION
AT DAN PHUONG UPPER- SECONDARY SCHOOL
AT DAN PHUONG UPPER- SECONDARY SCHOOL
(ĐIỀU CHỈNH MỘT SỐ HOẠT ĐỘNG NÓI TRONG SÁCH TIẾNG ANH 11
NHẰM TĂNG CƯỜNG SỰ THAM GIA CỦA HỌC SINH TIẾNG ANH 11
(ĐIỀU CHỈNH MỘT SỐ HOẠT ĐỘNG NÓI TRONG SÁCH TẠI TRƯỜNG
THPT GIA CỦA HỌC

NHẰM TĂNG CƯỜNG SỰ THAMĐAN PHƯỢNG) SINH TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT
ĐAN PHƯỢNG)

M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS
M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD : ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE : 601410
FIELD : ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
SUPERVISOR
: VŨ MAI TRANG, M.A
CODE : 601410
SUPERVISOR
: VŨ MAI TRANG, M.A

HANOI - 2010


6

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………

i

DECLARATION

ii

ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………...

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………..

iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND TABLES………………………...
PART I: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………….. …..

vii
1

1.1.Statement of the problem and rationale for the study…………………

1

1.2.Aims of the study…………………………………………………………

2

1.3. Research questions………………………………………………………

2

1.4. Scope of the study…………………………………………………………

2

1.5. Methods of the study…………………………………………………….

2

PART II: DEVELOPMENT……………………………………………………

3

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………

3

1.1. An overview of students’ participation…………………………………

3

1.1.1. Students’ participation……………………………………………

3

1.1.2. Factors affecting students’participation…………………………

4

1.1.2.1. Student factors…………………………………………

4

1.1.2.1.1. Students’learning styles……………………………

4

1.1.2.1.2. Students’ attitudes and motivation………………

4

1.1.2.1.3. Students’ language levels…………………………

5

1.1.2.2. Teachers’ factors…………………………………………

6

1.1.2.2.1. Teaching methods…………………………

6

1.1.2.2.2. Teacher’s knowledge…………………………

6

1.1.2.2.3. Teacher’s characteristics……………………

6

1.2. Adaptation is a necessary task in lessons…………………………….

6

1.2.1. What is adaptation?..........................................................................

7

1.2.2. The purpose of adaptation…………………………………………

7

1.2.3. Techniques for adaptation…………………………………………

8


7

1.2.4. Levels of adaptation………………………………………………

9

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY……………………………………………………

10

2.1. Research setting…………………………………………………………

10

2.1.1. The setting of the study……………………………………………

10

2.1.2. Speaking materials…………………………………………………

11

2.2. Research design…………………………………………………………

13

2.3. Participants………………………………………………………………

14

2.4. Data collection instruments………………………………………………

14

2.4.1. Classroom observations……………………………………………

14

2.4.2. The teacher interview………………………………………………

15

2.4.3. Student questionaire………………………………………………

15

2.4.4. Follow-up student interview………………………………………

15

2.5. Data collection procedure………………………………………………..

15

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS………………………….

16

3.1. Results from before-experiment-observations…………………………

16

3.2.Results from students’ questionaire…………………………………….

18

3.3.Results from teacher interview…………………………………………

24

3.4. Results from the end of experiment observations…………………….

28

3.4.1. Observations in control group……………………………………

28

3.4.2. Observations in experimental group……………………………

29

3.5. Students’participation in experimental and control group in three lessons at
the end of the intervention……………………………………..

36

3.6. Comparison of students’particpation before and at the end of the
experiment. …………………………………………………………………

37

3.7. Follow-up student interview…………………………………………..

38

PART III: CONCLUSION

39

1.1. Summary of the study

39

1.2. Limitations of the study:

40

1.3. Suggestions for further study

40

1.4. Implications:

40

REFERENCES


8

APPENDIX 1

I

APPENDIX 2

IV

APPENDIX 3

V


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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

MOET: The Ministry of Education and Training
TTT: Teacher Talking Time
STT: Student Talking Time

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1:

Topics in Tieng Anh 11.

Table 2:

Distribution of speaking activities in Tieng Anh 11.

Table 3:

Student talking time and teacher talking time in control and experimental
groups.

Table 4:

The reasons why students want to learn English.

Table 5:

Students’ learning styles in both groups

Table 6:

Students’ participation in speaking lessons.

Table 7:

Factors prevent students from participating in speaking in the class.

Table 8:

Students’opinions towards English speaking skills in the textbook Tieng Anh
11

Table 9:

Students’ opinion about the way their teachers teach speaking.

Table 10:

Students’evaluation on their teacher’s adaptation.

Table 11:

Students’evaluation towards their current speaking lessons

Table 12:

Results of observations in control group at the end of the experiment.

Table 13:

Result of observation of adaptation 1 in experimental group at the end of the
experiment.

Table 14 :

Results of experimental group’s participation

Table 15:

Comparison of Teacher Talking Time and Student Talking Time in the two
classes before and at the end of experiment


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PART I: INTRODUCTION
1.1.Statement of the problem and rationale for the study:
Over the past century, English has grown into one of the most popular languages
with more than five hundred millions speakers all over the world. In Vietnam, it has
become the most popular foreign language in the country and a compulsory subject at
school and colleges.
In order to improve Vietnamese learners‟ competence to meet the demand of
globalization the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has also conducted several
projects on the reform of teaching methodology at upper- secondary schools. Especially, in
2006, 2007 and 2008 the introduction of new English 10,11,12 textbook to school
curriculum marks a dramatic change in the way English is taught. Four skills, namely,
speaking, listening, reading, and writing have been put in priority and intergrated in the
textbook alongside with linguistic elements such as grammar,vocabulary and
pronunciation. At the same time, the adoption of learner-centered approach,
communicative approach, and task-based teaching are emphasized and extensively
employed.
Although the books have shown a great deal of improvement as compared with
the old series of grammar-based it seems that not all activities or tasks in the books are

suitable to the different teaching and learning contexts of different localities within
Vietnam.
After 2 school years teaching new Tieng Anh 11 at Dan Phuong high school, I find
that there are some problems with some activities in the textbook. Some are too difficult
for students, some are not real communicative, some are too long ……..All these reasons
greatly contribute to the demotivation of students from participating in the lessons at Dan
Phuong school. In this case, it is necessary for teachers to adapt the content of the core
books to make each activity and unit suitable and interesting for learners. In order to do
this, teachers need to evaluate every unit to see what the problems are, and then, try to
think about ways to adapt it. There are many things that teachers can do to improve the unit
such as looking for interesting extra materials from different sources, changing the
procedure of the unit, designing activities which can motivate learners, etc.


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The above mentioned reasons have inspired the writer to conduct a research titled
“Adapting speaking activities in Tieng Anh 11 to improve students’ participation at
Dan Phuong Upper-secondary school.”
1.2.Aims of the study:
Firstly, the present study aims at investigating the reasons why teachers at Dan
Phuong upper-secondary should adapt speaking activities in Tieng Anh 11 from both
teachers and students viewpoints. Secondly, it determines the effect of the adapted activites
in inducing students‟participation in speaking lessons at Dan Phuong upper-secondary
school. Basing on the findings, some implications and suggestions will finally be proposed
by the researcher.
1.3. Research questions:
1. Why should teachers adapt speaking activities in Tieng Anh 11?
2. Do the adapted activites increase student students’participation in speaking
class at Dan Phuong upper-secondary school?

1.4. Scope of the study:
There is a variety of aspects affecting students‟ participation in class activities so
there exists a numerous methods to improve students‟involvement. However, it is not my
attention to cover all of them because of time and length constraint of the study,
Adaptation of speaking activities in Tieng Anh 11 is focused on and tested in classes at
Dan Phuong upper-secondary school. As the result, the samples of the study were
restricted to 6 teachers and 88 students at 11 form at Dan Phuong upper-secondary school.
1.5. Methods of the study:
This study adopts both quantitative and qualitative approaches to identify the
reasons why teachers should adapt activities in Tieng Anh 11 to increase students‟
participation at Dan Phuong upper-secondary school. The study attempts to find out
whether the adapted activities can improve students participation or not.
Data were collected by means of textbook analysis, interviews, questionnaires, and
observations and experiment. Concerning interviews, 6 teachers who have ever taught
Tieng Anh 11 were involved in the study. Survey questionaires were conducted among 88
students from two classes at the target school. In order to raise the reliability of the data
collected class observations were employed before and after experiment.


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PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. An overview of students’ participation:
1.1.1. Students’ participation:
There are several views on student participation. Howard, Short, & Clark stated that
participation is the student‟s active engagement in the classroom to promote effective
learning (Howard, Short, & Clark, 1996). The student‟s activities may include reciting
in class, having conversations with the instructor or their classmates, doing written
outputs, and sharing ideas with others (Howard, Short, & Clark, 1996; Howard &

Henney, 1998). It means a participative learner is one that is not passive. As Fraser
(1982) defines student participation as the extent to which students are encouraged to
participate rather than be passive listeners. Similarly, Sylvelyn, Judith & Paulin (2009)
define participation as students who actively engage in classroom discussions, rather
than be passive learners who simply take in knowledge. They affirm that in a
classroom-based learning, participation can be a positive feedback given by students
to either the lesson or the teacher which can lead to possible ways in the development of
an improved classroom learning experience.
Teachers of large classes have found that students‟participation can be identified in
terms of three kinds of interaction: students to their teacher, students to students and
students to material. The interaction between students themselves is established when they
are working in groups. The kind of interaction between students and material can be
understood as students‟ success in completing assigned reading activities. In term of the
interaction between students to their teacher, students who maintain good interaction with
their teacher always participate in the class discussion. They become involved in what is
happening in the classroom by asking more question, share personal ideas, opinion and
experience with their classmates. Thus, participation can be understood in more ways than
just come to class on time, take notes what teachers say and write down on the blackboard,
and stay in the class all the time and get to know the teacher. Students who are active and
attentive that means they work on the problem with the teacher during the class, laugh at
jokes, respond to the teacher‟s questions, often show great desire to learn and become good
students.


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1.1.2. Factors affecting students’participation:
Students‟participation in classroom speaking activities can be affected by a variety of
factors originating from students, teachers and classroom activities and other classroomrelated factors. In the following sections, some of the major factors will be discussed.
1.1.2.1. Student factors:

1.1.2.1.1. Students’ learning style:
Willing (1985, cited in Nunan 1988:93) classified learners‟ styles into four groups:
Concrete learners: They preferred learning by games, films and videos talking in pairs and
learning though the use of cassettles.
Analytical learners: These learners liked studying grammar, studying English book,
finding their own mistakes and learning through reading newspapers.
Communicative learners: They liked to learn by observing and listening to native speakers,
talking to friends in English and learning English whenever possible.
Authority-oriented learners: They liked the teacher to explain everything, writing
everything in their notebooks, having their own textbooks, learning to read, studying
grammar, and learning English words by seeing them.
Harmer (2001) emphasizes the importance of understanding that there are different
individuals in our class if we are to plan appropriate kinds of activities for them. Different
individuals may have different learning styles, prefer different kinds of work and expect
different degrees of care and attention from the teacher.
We can see that if the teacher neglects these differences among students, only one
or two groups of students can benefit from the activities organized by the teacher while
others do not. This is one reason for the fact that when one activity is in progress, not all
students participate in actively.
1.1.2.1.2. Students’attitudes and motivation:
Attitude and motivation are considered key factors leading to students‟success in
learning second language. Motivation refers to the combination of effort plus desire to
achieve the good of learning the langange plus favorable attitudes toward learning the
language. That is, motivation to learn a second language is seen as refering to the extent to
which the individual work or strives to learn the language because of a desire to do so and
the satisfaction experienced in this activity.


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Harmer divides motivation into extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic
motivation is caused by such outside factors as the need to pass an exam, the hope of
financial reward, or the possibility for future travel... In contrast, intrinsic motivation is
caused by inside factors like the enjoyment of the learning process itself or by a desire to
make them feel better.
Motivation plays such an important role in the success in learning a foreign language,
so how can we initiate and sustain motivation? When starting to learn a foreign language
students may have in themselves some kinds of motivation either extrinsic or intrinsic
motivation which has fired them up. We, teachers, must be responsible for sustaining their
motivation.
In order to raise students‟motivation we have to understand motivation. According to
Harmer they can derive from the society we live in, significant others like parents, the
teacher and the method. Among these sources, the teacher and the method may be of the
most important.
Downs (2000) also points out some conditions that help increase students‟motivation.
He says that motivation increase when students feel acknowledged and understood, when
students are confident they can succeed, when language has a communicative purpose and
when students take responsility for their own learning.
Obviously, the degree of motivation is directly proportional to the level of involvement
in speaking tasks. In detail, the more motivated students are, the more actively they will
participate in oral activities.
1.1.2.1.3. Students’ language levels:
For Harmer (2001), in a class where students‟language levels are different, teachers
may have some difficulties choosing a suitable teaching method, language and activities
used in class. Harmer claims that some techniques and excercises are suitable for some
students but less appropriate for others. The language we use in classroom and in the
materials we expose to students must be carefully chosen concerning the complexity,
length.
To conclude, the limitation in the students‟language levels can directly affect their
participation, how much they like the activities. Therefore, we should choose the topics as

well as the kinds of activities of their levels to encourage their participation.


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1.1.2.2. Teacher factors:
1.1.2.2.1. Teachers’ teaching methods:
The teaching history has experienced the existence and development of many
teaching methods that can divided into two types: teacher-centered and learner-centered
methods. We can list out some main methods including: grammar-translation method,
direct method, reading method, audio-lingual method, audiovisual method and in more
recent time concerning developing learners‟ communicative competence we have
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT).
Knowing the strengths and shortcomings of different methods helps teachers
choose one or the combination of those above mentioned methods that is suitable to a
certain class to increase students‟ involvement.
1.1.2.2.2.Teacher’s knowledge:
A good teacher of English is a person who is supposed to have language ability,
specialist knowledge and general knowledge of an English speaking country. In the study
“What makes a good teacher”, Breach (2005) points out that most students believe that the
teacher is the fountain of knowledge and their main responsibility is to pass on that
knowledge to students.
1.1.2.2.3. Teacher’s characteristics:
Besides the knowledge, teacher characteristics may have a great effect on students‟
participation. Barry (1993) lists out some characteristics a teacher should have that help
motivate students to participate in classroom activities. These are being natural, being
warm, pleasant, approachable and tolerant.
In conclusion, students‟ participation can be affected by teachers‟ factors including
teaching methods, teachers‟ knowledge and characteristics.
Besides these factors mentioned above, some classroom factors including

classroom itself, classroom structure, and classroom atmosphere and other factors as the
place of examminations and tests.. also have effect on students‟participation in classroom
speaking activities. This is very important work as it provides us with basic theory to find
out techniques to overcome those factors and increase students‟participation.
1.2. Adaptation is a necessary task in lessons:
As Cunningsworth (1984: 89) has pointed out: no coursebook will be total suited to a
particular teaching situation. The teacher will have to find his own way of using it and


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adapting it if necessary. So we should not be looking for the perfect coursebook which
meets all our requirement, but rather for the best possible fit between what the
coursebook offers and what we as teachers and students need.
1.2.1. What is adaptation?
There are several definitions of adaptations by different scholars:
Madsen and Bowen (1978: ix) claimed adaptation is an action of employing
“one or more of a number of techniques: supplementing, expanding, personalizing,
simplifying, modernizing, localizing, or modifying cultural/ situational content”. Ellis, M
(1986:47) considered adaptation as the process of “retaining, rejecting, re-ordering and
modification” and Tomlinson (1998b: xi) refers to “ reducing, adding, omitting, modifying
and supplementing”.
1.2.2. The purpose of adaptation:
There are always sound practical reasons for adapting materials in order to make
them as accessible and useful to learners as possible. However, reasons for adaptation have
varied and changed as the field has developed and views on language acquisition and
teaching practice have become better informed by research and experience. There are two
most frequently cited purposes for adaptation:
1. to make the material more suitable for the circumstances in which it is being used,
i.e. to mould it to the needs and interests of learners, the teachers‟own capabilities

and such constraints as time, or as Mc Donough and Shaw (1993:85) put it: “to
maximize the appropriacy of teaching materials in context, by changing some of
the internal characteristics of a coursebook to better suit our particular
circumstances”
2. to compensate for any intrinsic deficiencies in the materials, such as linguistic
inaccuracies, out-of-datedness, lack of authenticity (Madsen and Bowen 1978) or
lack of variety.
Look deeper into McDonough and Shaw‟s definition of purpose we see that
maximising the appropriacy of teaching materials (by, e.g., modifying them in such a way
that they seem more relevant to learners‟interests and needs) is important because it can
stimulate motivation, and increased motivation is in turn likely to lead to a classroom
atmosphere more conductive to learning. In fact, when teachers make changes to a


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coursebook “to better suit our particular purposes” what teachers are really trying to do is
to improve students‟ participation to increase the effectiveness of the learning experience.
1.2.3. Techniques for adaptation:
After recognizing a gap (mismatch or non-congruence) between published teaching
materials and the needs and objectives of the classroom, the teacher has to address the
practicalities of adapting the material to meet her class objectives more closely. Mc
Donough and Shaw (1993) and Cunningsworth (1995) offer lists of techniques that may be
used when adapting materials better to fit a specific class .
These techniques are:
Adding: extending and expanding
Deleting: subtracting and abridging
Simplifying
Reordering
Replacing material

1.2.3.1. Adding:
When adding to published material the teacher is supplementing the existing
materials and providing more materials. The teacher can do this by either extending or
expanding.
-

Extending: extending means the teacher supplies more of the same type of
materials, thus making a quatitative change in the material.

-

Expanding: is to add some thing different to the materials. The change is
qualitative.

It is important to note that additions to materials can come at the beginning, at the end
or in the middle of the materials being adapted.
1.2.3.2. Deleting: subtracting and abridging
As with the technique of adding, material can be deleted both quantitatively
(subtracting) or qualitatively (abridging). For example, a teacher can decide to do five of
the questions practising the simple past tense instead of the ten in the coursebook. When
abridging, however, the teacher may decide that focusing attention on pronunciation may
inhibit the learner‟s fluency and decide not to do any of the pronunciation exercise in a
coursebook.


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1.2.3.3. Simplifying:
When simplifying, the teacher could be rewording instructions or text in order to
make them more accessible to learners, or simplifying a complete activity to make it more

manageable for learners and teachers.
1.2.3.4. Reordering:
When reordering, the teacher has decided that it makes more pedagogic sense to
sequence activities differently. An example is beginning with a general discussion before
looking at a reading passage rather than using the reading as a basis for discussion.
1.2.3.5. Replacing materials:
When replacing material a teacher may decide that a more appropriate visual or text
might serve an activity better than the ones presented in the pulished material. This is often
the case with culturally specific or time-specific activities. A teacher may decide to replace
an illustration for one that students could identify with more closely or use information
concerning a popular figure with whom the students are familiar rather than the one
presented in the published materials.
Teacher may also decide to replace a whole activity depending on the goals of a
particular class or lesson. For example, a reading activity might be replaced with a
listening activity.
1.2.4. Levels of adaptation:
Textbook adaptation can be done at three levels. The first level is macro
adaptation, which is ideally done before the language program begins. After comparing
what is covered in a textbook and what is required by the syllabus or examination, the
teacher may find that certain areas or even whole unit of the book can be omitted, and
certain contents need to be supplemented.
The second level of adaptation is adapting a unit. This could be reordering the
activities, combining activities, omitting activities, rewriting or supplementing exercise
material, etc. Unit adaptation helps to make the classroom teaching more smooth and
cohesive. It also helps the teacher to better fulfill the aims of a unit.
The third level is adaptation of specific activities in a unit. Occasionally an activity
I regarded as valuable, but it is not well-designed or it is not feasible in particular class. If
the teacher does not want to give up the activity, he or she needs to adapt it.

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To conclude, with the awareness of factors affecting students‟ participation and
adaptation, I will adapt some activities in Tieng Anh 11 to make them more
communicative, suitable to my students‟ ability at Dan Phuong upper-secondary school.
Reducing, and modifying are popular adaptation techniques used in the research. Details
of these above contents will be presented in chapter 3 and 4.
CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY
There are two parts in this chapter. The first part will analysis the situation of the
study with the description of the setting of the study, the subjects, speaking materials. The
second part will offer a comprehensive analysis on the data collected from the observations
before and after experiment, teacher and student interviews, and student questionaires.
2.1. Research setting:
2.1.1. The setting of the study:
The study was conducted at Dan Phuong upper-secondary school, a rural school of
former Ha Tay province. The school has 35 classes with over 90 teachers of all subjects.
English is taught as a compulsory subject. Currently there are 10 teachers of English and
over 1500 students ranged from grade 10 to grade 12. Most of the students come from
villages and towns in Dan Phuong district.
Although most students are aware of the importance of learning, English is not paid
much attention by most of the students in school. Few students choose English as a subject
to take university entrance exam. Teaching English, especially teaching English speaking
has met some difficulties. The first is the large size classes. There are 45 students in each
class. It is hard for teachers to set up communicative activities, monitor class and give
feedback. The second is most students are not familiar with teaching in English. They
cannot understand lessons if teachers speak English all the time. The last is the lack of
materials. Materials for reference and self-study are not available. There is not a library for
students at all. Furthermore, some facilities needed for learning such as computers and
projectors…are not enough.
Normally, students have three periods of studying English every week. It is a

limited time for students to practice and develop skills as well as enrich their vocabulary
and structure capacity. What‟s more, English is hardly used to talk outside classroom. All
these factors have great effect on the students‟results in learning English especially in
learning speaking.


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2.1.2. Speaking materials:
The main material for English speaking of grade 11 is a new set of English
textbook- Tieng Anh 11 which was first introduced in 2007. Like Tieng Anh 10, Tieng
Anh 11 was designed following communicative approach. There are 5 parts in each unit
arranging as follows: reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus with a
variery of exercises and tasks.
For speaking skill, its aim is to develop students‟speaking competence beginning
with a range of the specific information to a complete theme. A speaking lesson oftens
consists of 3-4 activities, termed tasks by the textbook. The first tasks provide learners
with language

input

and help learners develop language specific functions such as

expressing opinions, agreements and disagreement….The next tasks (task 3 or task 4)
require students to connect the first two tasks, add some more information and change it
into a complete topic, then talk out with or without the guide of the teacher.
Table 1: Topics in Tieng Anh 11
UNIT

TOPICS

1.

Friendship

2.

Personal experiences

3.

A party

4.

Volunteer work

5.

Illiteracy

6.

Competitions

7.

World population

8.

Celebrations

9.

The post office

10.

Nature in danger

11.

Sources of energy

12.

The Asian Games

13.

Hobbies

14.

Recreation

15.

Space Conquest

16.

The wonders of the world


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Table 2: Distribution of speaking activities
1. Number of unit

16

2. Number of activities

50

3. Number of activities per unit

3.1

4. No. of information-gap activities

24

5. No. of information gap activities per unit.

1.5

Among the 50 speaking activities taught in Tieng Anh 11 only 24 are informationgap activities (the term information-gap is used in this paper to refer to all types of

communicative activities that are based on the information-gap principle such as
opinion-sharing, reasoning-gap, information- gathering activities and so on)
The use of information-gap activities in second language classrooms is crucial
because it gets learners to use the language they are learning to interact in realistic and
meaningful ways (Richards 2005). An information gap activity focuses on two aspects attention to information (but not to language forms) and the necessity of
communicative

interaction

to

reach

the

objective.

It

reflects

real

world

communication in which people communicate to get the information they do not
process. Furthermore, one of the goals of communicative language teaching (CLT) is to
develop fluency in language use (Richards 2005). Information-gap activities help to
develop fluency by engaging students in meaningful, comprehensible and ongoing
communication in which they should negotiate meaning,

use communicative

strategies, correct misunderstanding and work to avoid communication breakdown.
In short, with the application of Tieng Anh 10 and Tieng Anh 12, the new Tieng
Anh 11 has brought “new wind” to English learning and teaching in VietNam. It has
proved to be more realistic, relevant and appropriate to the context of teaching and learning
English at high schols in Vietnam. Students the first time become the centre of teaching
and learning process and they have opportunity to learn English in a more communicative
way. The textbook also provide students with the language background relating to habit,
custom, culture….that is easy and helpful for students to practise. The book has shown a
great deal of improvement as compared with the old book of grammar-based
textbook; however, it also bears several limitations. For example, many of their speaking
activities are found non-communicative. Overloaded contents for the student population


22

in disadvantaged areas tend to impact on the effective application of the book. It also
makes both teachers and students (especially teachers and students in rural areas) face with
great deal of challenges such as inappropriate facilities for teaching and learning,
students‟low proficiency, teachers and students‟passiveness…, which require both teachers
and students to overcome.
2.2. Research design:
This research was a quasi-experimental study, using observations “before” and “at
the end” of the experiment, questionaires for students and interviews with both the teachers
of English and 11 graders at Dan Phuong upper-secondary school.
The study adopted a quasi-experimental design for practical reasons. In the context
of the secondary school, it is impossible to conduct a true experimental research with
randomly selected samples. However, a quasi-experimental study remains valid because “It

is conducted under conditions closer to those normally found in educational context”
(Selinger& Shohamy, 1989: 149). Although the intact groups were used, both were grade
11, they were of comparable ability level.
For this study, two classes of 88 11th grade students at Dan Phuong uppersecondary school were asked to participate in this experiment. One class was employed as
an experimental group. The other was employed as a control group. Each class consisted of
44 students. The researcher taught each group 3 lessons using the current textbook Tieng
Anh 11. The author was the teacher (herself) in two classes to ensure the designed lesson
plans were strictly followed. The teacher instructed the control group in the usual fashion.
The same lessons were taught to the experimental group with adapted activities. With the
assistance of the three other English teachers, before-experiment and at the end of
experiment observations were administered for two groups. The observers helped take
notes of students‟ talking time and teachers‟talking time as well as interaction patterns in
these classes. The purpose of before-experiment observations was to make sure that the
two groups had the same levels of participation. The end of experiment observations aimed
at measuring levels of participation of the two groups after three lessons.
After the experiment, the degrees of participation of the two groups were compared
and then some conclusions were drawn out about the relationship between the use of the
adapted speaking activities and the level of the students‟ participation in the speaking
lessons at Dan Phuong secondary school.


23

2.3.Participants:
The participants in this study were 88 11th grade students from two classes: 11A7
and 11A8 at Dan Phuong high school in Dan Phuong district, Ha Noi. Dan Phuong uppersecondary school is a public school with an enrollment of approximated 1500 students
from grade 10 to grade 12. All students must attend 3 English classes a week. The control
group, group 11A7 included 44 students with 30 females and 14 males while the
experimental group, group 11A8, had 44 students with 19 females and 25 males. The two
groups seemed to have a relatively similar level of proficiency in English as determined by

their previous term exam on English grammar, reading and writing. In the
researcher‟observation, the levels of participation of the two group in learning English in
general and in learning speaking in particular were relatively equal. This initial assumpsion
was later justified by the pre-activity observation.
2.4. Data collection instruments:
2.4.1. Classroom observations:
The class observations in this study were carried out in 3 English lessons before
and during the treatment. For each lesson, the three other teachers observed in 45
minutes.The researcher designed a checklist for what she wanted to observe. Students‟
talking time, their interactions and teacher‟ talking time were measured and taken notes.
Before the experiment:
The three other English teachers observed the two classes in 3 speaking periods to
be aware of the degrees of the students‟ participation before the experiment. The degrees
of participation were measured in term of their talking time. The before experiment
classroom observations are vitally important. The result decided whether we would have
the following research. If the present level of participation was unsatisfactory, we would
have to find out the way to improve their involvement. The data collected from the before
experiment classroom observations would be used to compare with the degrees of
participation of the control group and experimental group before the interventions.
During the experiment:
During the treatment, the teacher or the author herself and her teachings in both
control and experiment groups with the three same lessons were observed by the three
mentioned teachers . The control group was taught the original activities in Tieng Anh 11
while the experimental group was taught adapted activities. Then the researcher measured


24

the “students‟talking time” of both groups and then compared them to prove whether the
adaptation of textbook activities would be helpful in increasing the students‟involvement

in speaking lessons.
2.4.2. The teacher interview:
An interview to 6 English teachers who have ever taught Tieng Anh 11 at Dan
Phuong high school was conducted to get information about their evaluation on speaking
activities in the textbook, their evaluations on students participation and what they have
done to increase students‟participation.
2.4.3. Student questionaire:
The questionaire was delivered to students in two classes 11A7, 11A8 concerning
their evaluation on the speaking activities in the textbook, their participation and what
affected their participation in speaking class. The questionaire was the same to the control
and experimental groups because the researcher wanted to know if the two groups had
equal levels of motivation and participation before the intervention.
2.4.4. Follow-up student interview:
Ten students were randomly chosen from the experimental group and interviewed
to give their evaluation on the level of participation, attitudes towards the adapted activities
in the lessons they had been taught.
2.5. Data collection procedure:
First, the three other English teachers observed the two classes in three lessons to
know the degrees of students‟participation before the experiment. Then a survey
questionaire was distributed among the students of the two classes to find out more their
evaluation on speaking activities and factors affecting their participation in the classroom
speaking activities. To increase the validity of the data the researcher met and interviewed
6 English teachers who have ever taught Tieng Anh 11 for their attitudes and evaluation
about speaking activities and their students‟ participation in the speaking classes and their
way of improving students‟ involvement.
After collecting information from the observations, students‟questionaires and
teacher interview, the researcher taught two groups three same lessons. For the control
group the three lessons were conducted using intact activities in the textbook. For the
experimental group, the lessons were applied adapted activities. During the treatment, the
three other English teachers observed and measured the talking time in both groups to get

25

the data for the research. Finally, the follow-up interview of ten participants in
experimental group was carried out after each lesson to get further information for the
study.
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
This section analyzes the data collected for this study and discusses its findings.
The first focus of this study is to find out the reason why teachers at Dan Phuong uppersecondary school should adapt speaking activities and the second one is to assess the effect
of adapted speaking activities in English class on the experimetal group‟s participation. In
order to do that, this study involved a control group of students who were taught with
intact activities in Tieng Anh 11. In this section, the following results will be discussed:
3.1. Results from before-experiment-observations:
Before the experiment, the three other teacher observed the two classes in 3
speaking periods. During the observations they took the average amount of students‟
“talking time” in the two classes. In all 3 periods, the teacher or the researcher (the same
teacher for two groups) followed her traditional routines. The following is the description
of one lesson in both classes:
 Class: 11A7 and 11A8
 Number of students in each class: 44
 Time: 45
 Unit 9: The post office. Period 56: B- SPEAKING
Lesson objective: Students practice making dialogues on using post office services.
The procedures used by the teacher can be summarized as follow:
The lesson started as usual with warm-up. In the warm-up, the teacher wrote an
incompleted net work about “post office services” on the board. Students worked in group
of 4 to find as many services as possible. Within 3 minutes the group has more answers
would be the winners. In the first stage of the lesson, students in both classes took part in
group work rather well. After that teacher introduced the new lesson: Unit 9: B-Speaking.

Students continued the lesson with task 1. They were told to work in pairs (two students
who sat next to each other worked in a pair) acting out the dialogue. Two good students
read the dialogue as model. After 3 minutes of pairwork, some pairs were required to stand
up and read aloud the dialogue. Teacher corrected their pronunciation and got students to
answer the question “What service is the customer taking in the dialogue?” and look for


26

examples of requests and responses to requests in the dialogue. Then the teacher gave
students some other structures to express requests:
Would you mind…..
Would you please……
May I…
I‟d like…..
Turn to task 2, teacher explained the tasks and some new words:
To install (v), installation (n)
Registration (n)
Teacher elicited some useful structures about prices, saying address, etc. She puts
students in pairs (same pairs as task 1) and got them to write the dialogue together based
on the information given in the task. Teacher went around to help and encourage all pairs
to work.
She then asked students act out the dialogue together and in front of the class. She
elicits feedback from the class and gives her own feedback. Some pairs worked smoothly
but some did not. They still didn‟t know how to ask and answer about fee and installation
process.
The students came to task three when they had 10 minutes left. As the two first
tasks, teacher explains the task. Students read through two situations and they had right to
choose a appropriate situation for their pair. Teacher saw some confuses among students in
making the dialogue so she got them to write down the dialogue first and then acted out

later. Teacher called some pairs to practice their dialogue in front of the class. However,
two pairs had finished the job as soon as time was up. Teacher quickly had feedback and
gave homework for the whole class. The experiment result can be illustrated as follows:
Table 3: STT and TTT in control and experimental group before the experiment.
Control group (11A7- 44 students)

Experimental group(11A8-44 students)

TTT

STT

Silence

TTT

STT

Silence

20

14

11

21

14

10

44 %

31%

24 %

47%

31%

22%

TTT: Teacher talking time
STT: Student talking time


27

From the all four lessons, it can be seen clearly that the level of participation in
classroom speaking activities of two classes at Dan Phuong upper-secondary school was
almost the same and quite low. Students talking time made up approximately nearly one
third of the total time in each class.
During the observations the researcher also found out that even the teacher had
tried to provide useful guide and necessary structures when students were asked to work in
pair or group a few of them worked seriously. In fact, most of their talks lasted a few
minutes and then they did something else instead of concentrating on their work. There
was another funny situation that the researcher investigated. Some students had a bad habit
of discussing with each other in Vietnamese and then they translated them into English and

wrote down their “discussion” in the notebooks. After doing these steps they read what
they had written to make a “dialogue”. If they were called by the teacher to practice their
dialogue in front of the class they held their paper and read again what they had created. At
that moment they seemed not to care about what their partner said or answered.
The teacher tended to dominate the class. She talked a lot for fear of students not
knowing how to speak and she tried to get students involved. Moreover, the teacher had a
worry of not finishing teaching tasks on time. At upper-secondary school if in one period
teacher couldn‟t finish their tasks on time she or he would be evaluated not a good teacher.
The awareness of the importance of adapting textbook activities to make them suitable to
their students‟levels and interests to activate students‟participation should be made among
the teachers.
In conclusion, the students‟participation in classroom speaking activities was very
poor. So it is urgent that teachers find out teaching techniques to increase
students‟participation. However, in order to have suitable teaching techniques we must
understand the reasons of the students‟ low involvement.
3.2.Results from students’ questionaire:
3.2.1. Personal information:
The first and second questions were to gather the participants‟ information of
gender and hometown. The total number of the students in the survey was 88 of which 49
were females and 39 were males. All of them came from countryside, among them 80 %
were living in village and only 20 % were living in town.


28

The next question was about participants‟experience in learning English. All of
them had been learning English for over 5 years (4 years at secondary school, a year and
one semester at high school).
The students had finished the first semester of grade 11 school year at uppersecondary school. Their average marks in English varied from 3.3 to 8.0. 55.6% of them
had marks from 5 to 6.4, 13.6% from 6.5 to 7.9, 1% had got 8.0. Meanwhile, more than

one third of students got marks under 5 (26,2% from 3.5 to 4.9, 4.5% had marks under
3.5). From the figure we can see that the average marks of the subjects were quite low,
which might reflect that their English learning was not good. They might have a little
concern to English learning.
3.2.2. Students’ motivation in learning speaking English:
Table 4
5. Why do you want to study English?
Options

Result
(%)

a. because English is a compulsory subject at school and the final exam.

57%

b. to get good marks

14%

c. to listen to songs, read books,mgazines and watch movies in English.

31.6%

d. to study aboard

5%

e. to get a good job in the future

50.6%

f. interest in English language, people and culture

20%

As it is indicated clearly in the table that the most common reason ( 57 % of the
learners) is students “have to” learn English. Clearly, these students knew the role of
English in the modern life. Over than a half (50.6%) of students want to learn English to
get a good job in the future. The high percentage of these students having this reason for
learning English implies a low motivation among them. Meanwhile, only 20 % of the
students learn English because they were interested in English. With the low level of
interest in the subject, it is difficult to say that these students will actively participate in
class activities. The lower percent of students (14%) affirmed they were learning English
because they wanted to get good marks. The lowest percentage of the respondents (4%)
claimed that the reason they tried to study English is to study aboard.