A STUDY ON ADAPTING TASKS IN ENGLISH 7 ON THE BASIS OF COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING FOR STUDENTS AT MINH KHAI SECONDARY SCHOOL, HOAI DUC, HA NOI

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ NGA

A STUDY ON ADAPTING TASKS IN ENGLISH 7 ON THE BASIS OF
COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING FOR STUDENTS AT
MINH KHAI SECONDARY SCHOOL, HOAI DUC, HA NOI
(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC ĐIỀU CHỈNH CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG TRONG

SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH 7 THEO HƯỚNG GIAO TIẾP CHO
HỌC SINH TẠI TRƯỜNG THCS MINH KHAI, HOÀI ĐỨC, HÀ NỘI)

M.A. Minor Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014
i


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ NGA

A STUDY ON ADAPTING TASKS IN ENGLISH 7 ON THE BASIS OF
COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING FOR STUDENTS AT

MINH KHAI SECONDARY SCHOOL, HOAI DUC, HA NOI
(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC ĐIỀU CHỈNH CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG TRONG

SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH 7 THEO HƯỚNG GIAO TIẾP CHO
HỌC SINH TẠI TRƯỜNG THCS MINH KHAI, HOÀI ĐỨC, HÀ NỘI)

M.A. Minor Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Nguyen Xuan Thom, Ph.D

Hanoi, 2014
ii


DECLARATION
I declare that the thesis “Adapting tasks in English 7 on the basis of
communicative language teaching for students at Minh Khai Secondary School,
Hoai Duc, Ha Noi” represents my own work in the fulfillment for the Degree of
Master of Teaching English to Speaker of Other Language at University of
Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Ha Noi, and has
not been included in any thesis submitted to any other university or institution for a
degree, diploma or other qualifications.
Signature

Nguyen Thi Nga

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis is never the work of my own, but the contributions of many
different people in different ways. I would like to express my appreciation,
especially to the following:
Foremost, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to my supervisor,
Assoc. Prof. Nguyen Xuan Thom, Ph.D for his continuous suggestions and
enormously insightful comments. I could not have imagined without his
enthusiasm, this thesis would have fulfilled or not.
My special thanks to all the teachers and students in grade 7 at Minh Khai
Secondary School for their assistance and support during the process of data
collection.
Besides, I thank my family for their unconditional help and encouragement,
both financially and emotionally during my learning process when I needed.
Last but not the least, my appreciation goes to two closest friends of mine,
Anh Tuan and Thu Huyen, who always provided me helpful tips and advice when I
was stuck to write the thesis.

ii


ABSTRACT
Textbook is considered as a really necessary tool to guide the teachers how
to teach and to tell students how to study. However, in the teaching context of Minh
Khai Secondary School in Hoai Duc, Ha Noi, the adaptation on the basis of
communicative language teaching is very essential. Most students here have not
known how important English is in the development of the world in general and
their career future in specific yet. Hardly did students have chances to learn,
practice or review English lessons in practical or joyful ways because they did not
like English and found the lessons monotonous or worthless, either. This research,

therefore, was done to help students in grade 7 firstly, get involved the lessons as
well as improve their English skills through task adaptation.
A preliminary survey questionnaires, which was delivered to all 86 students
in grade 7, was the main implement to gather their opinions about their difficulties
in using textbook and their attitudes when the teacher adapt the tasks. Parallel to this
instrument, the researcher also interviewed two other English teachers in this school
to clarify their sentiments of task adaptation in Tiếng Anh 7.
Based on the data, the 16 adapted versions were born and pilot teaching to
examine their effectiveness. Through this, the unsuitable tasks were then changed to
make sure to get better results for further.
In brief, the purpose of the research was to make a change in teaching and
learning styles in this secondary school on the basis of communicative way, and the
final results were 16 adapted tasks based on the 16 units in the textbook.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
 Communicative Language Teaching: CLT
 Teacher: T
 Students: Ss
 CUP: Cambridge University Press
 OUP: Oxford University Press

iv


LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
 Chart 1: The results of the placement test
 Table 1: Specific results for the test

 Chart 2: Students’ opinions in terms of the textbook appearances
 Chart 3: Students’ opinions in terms of topics in the textbook
 Chart 4: Students’ opinions in terms of vocabulary and grammar in the
textbook
 Chart 5: Students’ opinions in terms of tasks in the textbook
 Table 2: Students’ attitudes in terms of communicative activities
 Chart 6: Students’ opinions in terms of time settings per task and activity
 Chart 7: Students’ opinions in terms of time distribution

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration .......................................................................................................... i
Acknowledgements .............................................................................................. ii
Abstract ................................................................................................................ iii
List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................ iv
List of figures and tables ...................................................................................... v
Table of contents .................................................................................................. vi
PART I: INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 1
1. Rationale of the study ............................................................................... 1
2. Aims of the study ...................................................................................... 2
3. Research questions .................................................................................... 2
4. Scope of the study ..................................................................................... 2
5. Significance of the study ........................................................................... 3
6. Design of the study ................................................................................... 3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................. 4
Chapter 1: Literature review ............................................................................ 4
1. History of the study .................................................................................. 4
2. Communicative language teaching ........................................................... 4

2.1.

Definitions of Communicative language teaching (CLT ............. 4

2.2.

Roles of CLT in foreign language education ............................... 6

3. Task adaptation ......................................................................................... 7
3.1.

Task definition .............................................................................. 7

3.2.

Adaptation definition .................................................................... 7

3.3.

Purposes of adaptation .................................................................. 8

3.4.

Adaptation techniques .................................................................. 9

Chapter 2: Methodology .................................................................................... 10
2.1.

Current context at Minh Khai Secondary School ................................ 10
1.1.

Situational analysis ................................................................... 10
1.1.1. Settings of the study ..................................................... 10

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1.1.2. The teachers ................................................................. 10
1.1.3. The students ................................................................. 10
1.1.4. Facilities ....................................................................... 11
1.2.

Textbook analysis .................................................................... 11

2. Methods of the study ............................................................................... 12
2.1.

The participants ........................................................................ 13
2.1.1. The teachers ................................................................. 13
2.1.2. The students ................................................................. 13

2.2.

Research instruments ................................................................ 14
2.2.1. Instrument 1: Aptitude test ......................................... 14
2.2.2. Instrument 2: Preliminary survey questionnaire .......... 15
2.2.3. Instrument 3: Informal interview ................................. 15
2.2.4. Instrument 4: Observation sheet ................................. 16

2.3.

Data collection procedure ......................................................... 16

2.4.

Data analysis ............................................................................. 16
2.4.1. The students’ opinions on the textbook ....................... 16
2.4.1.1.

In terms of textbook appearances ....................... 16

2.4.1.2.

In terms of topics ................................................ 17

2.4.1.3.

In terms of vocabulary and grammar ................. 18

2.4.1.4.

In terms of tasks ................................................. 18

2.4.2. The students’ opinions on time ................................... 20
2.4.2.1.

In terms of time settings per task and activity ... 20

2.4.2.2.

In terms of time distribution ............................... 20

2.4.3. The

teacher’s

opinions

on

using

communicative

approaches ................................................................... 21
Chapter 3: Study results and discussion .......................................................... 22
1.

What are the bases for adaptation on the basis of research results? .... 22

2.

What specifically should be adapted in the textbook? ........................ 23
2.1.

Unit 1: Section A, Task 4 (page 12) ......................................... 23

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2.2.

Unit 2: Section B, Task 3 (page 24) ......................................... 24

2.3.

Unit 3: Section A, Task 3 (page 31) ......................................... 24

2.4.

Unit 4: Section B, Task 1 (page 47) ......................................... 25

2.5.

Unit 5: Section A, Task 4 (page 54) ......................................... 25

2.6.

Unit 6: Section A, Task 3 (page 62) ......................................... 26

2.7.

Unit 7: Section A, Task 3 (page 74) ......................................... 26

2.8.

Unit 8: Section B, Task 5 (page 85) ......................................... 27

2.9.

Unit 9: Section A, Task 3 (page 89) ......................................... 27

2.10. Unit 10: Section B, Task 4 (page 105) ..................................... 28
2.11. Unit 11: Section B, Task 4 (page 112) ..................................... 29
2.12. Unit 12: Section A, Task 2 (page 115) ..................................... 29
2.13. Unit 13: Section B, Task 4 (page 137) ..................................... 30
2.14. Unit 14: Section A, Task 3 (page 142) ..................................... 30
2.15. Unit 15: Section A, Task 3 (page 149) ..................................... 31
2.16. Unit 16: Section B, Task 2 (page 158) ..................................... 31
3.

Pilot teaching ...................................................................................... 32

PART III: CONCLUSION ................................................................................ 38
1. Conclusion of the whole thesis ................................................................. 38
2. Limitations ............................................................................................... 39
REFERENCES ................................................................................................... 40
APPENDIXES .................................................................................................... I
Appendix 1: Placement test .................................................................................. I
Appendix 2: Questionnaires ................................................................................ III
Appendix 3: Teachers’ interview ......................................................................... V
Appendix 4: Materials delivered to classes .......................................................... IX
Appendix 5: Observation sheet of an English language class ............................. XV
Appendix 6: Original tasks................................................................................... XVI

viii


PART I. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study

With the need for accessing the globalization, Viet Nam government has carried
out many opening policies in order to integrate with other countries, including
economy, politics, education and etc. With these changes, our education has so
many challenges in equipping second languages for learners to satisfy necessary
requirements in the global trend nowadays.
Facts have shown that English teachers need to renew their methodology and
apply their teaching on the basis of communication for the purpose of increasing
learners’ communicative skills. Once learners can improve or master their English,
they can achieve further academic purposes. Therefore, textbook plays a very
essential role in teaching and learning English because they can stimulate teachers
and students’ effective education. And, to gain a good result in English language
teaching and learning, it is extremely necessary to find out, use and adapt
appropriately textbook in terms of each context.
It is the fact that English secondary education system in Viet Nam has a plenty
of limitation, including teaching quality, students’ attitude and level, testing
assessment and etc. Not only has the number of students had no much opportunity
to access English communicative schooling but also a large number of schools are
unable to provide well-equipped facilities. As the result, students feel less interested
and demotivated with English, they do not concentrate on this subject and are not
confident enough to communicate or speak out their voice.
At Minh Khai secondary school, a really small school located a little far from
the centre of the city, teaching and learning English on the basis of communicative
language teaching (CLT) is a really new challenging job. Besides the lack of
facilities, teaching communicative methods are quite unfamiliar to teachers. They
have no much experience in teaching communicative methodology. Equally
important, student’s levels of proficiency in terms of vocabulary, grammar,
listening, speaking and pronunciation are so normal. That is the reason why they

1

have trouble in learning English and feel less confident to speak out loud their voice
successfully. In addition, students in the same class are not at the same level, which
makes some feel bored and uninterested in one activity while others feel down, tired
and depressed due to its difficulty. Therefore, I am of the belief that I should make
groups of the same-level students and adapt the designed tasks according to
communicative approaches. Lastly, until now, there are some studies on adapting
textbooks at high school, but no research on adapting textbook at secondary school
has been carried out on the basis of CLT.
All the things above urge the researcher to do this study in the hope of helping
her low-level students in grade 7 get more chance to learn, practice, improve and
enjoy the interest of learning English through the adaptation of some tasks on the
basis of communicative learning during the course.
2. Aims of the study
Tiếng Anh 7 was issued in 2012, which balances the skills taught and the kinds
of language practice the students take part in. Therefore, to help the teaching and
learning more effective and suitable with students’ ability in each context, using and
adapting tasks in this textbook is really necessary. And, this study is aimed to
achieve two central objectives:
o Apply teacher’s knowledge and experiences in teaching English in grade
7.
o Produce a series of 16 adapted tasks per 16 units.
3. Research questions
In order to fulfill the above aims, this study is aimed to answer the following
research questions:
(1) What are the bases for adaptation on the basis of research results?
(2) What specifically should be adapted in the textbook?
4. Scope of the study
As I mentioned above, this study is focused on investigating tasks in the Tiếng
Anh 7. Hence, the researcher will study teaching and learning situation basing on

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learner-centered and communicative learning approach with students in grade 7 at
Minh Khai secondary school. Since then, she will make recommendations for some
specific adapted tasks in the textbook as an example basing on her theoretical
background, actual observations and experiences.
5. Significance of the study
The study discusses about the adaptation of Tiếng Anh 7, which provides
samples in 16 units on the basis of CLT for teachers and chances to study in a
different way from traditional one for students.
One undeniable advantage of this study is that it also finds out strengths and
weaknesses of English teachers in general and at Minh Khai secondary school in
particular, since then they can have time to consider using and preparing lesson
plans in a different kettle of fish.
6. Design of the study
This study is divided into three main parts, namely Introduction, Development
and Conclusion.
Part 1, Introduction, presents reasons for choosing the topic, aims, scope and
design of the study.
Part 2, Development, consists of three chapters:
o Chapter one, Literature review, reviews the theories about CLT and
textbook adaptation, finds what the researcher can learn and fix, finds
some advantages and disadvantages in those researchers; hence, modify it
to fit students’ ability and needs at Minh Khai Secondary school.
o Chapter two, Methodology, provides an overview of the school, including
the teachers, students and facilities. Methods of the study, data collection
and analysis are presented in this chapter.
o Chapter three, Findings and Sample adaptation, answers for the two

research questions and suggests some adaptions (16 tasks on equal terms
with 16 units in Tiếng Anh 7). Pilot teaching is also reported.
Part 3, Conclusion, gives a summary of the study and limitation is also
discussed here.

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PART II. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1. History of the study
CLT is now a worldwide teaching method which is mostly employed in the
classrooms by the English teachers, but there are no books or unpublished materials
that specifically dealt with CLT in secondary schools in Viet Nam. The researcher
just found a few theses related to this issue. Nguyen Thi Trang (2002) studied
“adapting reading tasks in the textbooks Tieng Anh 12 for mixed-level students at
Van Noi High School in Dong Anh, Ha Noi”. Luu Thi Thuy (2010) reviewed how to
“adapt English 10 textbook for students at Viet Duc Upper Secondary School”. Mai
Thi Hang Phuong (2008) had an interesting discussion on “organizing pair work
and group work in the context of high school classrooms at Pham Van Nghi Upper
Secondary school, Nam Dinh Province”.
Even though learning English in secondary education plays a very essential role
in order to apply English in the real-life situations and help improve students’
communicative abilities, there are hardly any studies in adapting tasks on the basis
of CLT, in fact. Up to now, I have just found out a foreign research on “the use of
English textbooks in Capeverdean Secondary schools: the relationship between use,
evaluation and adaptation of textbooks” by Dr. Deanna Fernandes (2007).
Moreover, all these researches above are quite general and not focus on a
specific issue; therefore, this issue is still new, attracting and helpful for further.
2. Communicative language teaching

2.1.

Definitions of Communicative language teaching (CLT)
CLT has been widely studied by many researchers all over the world, which

is considered as a powerful theoretical model in ELT. As a result, a huge number of
various CLT definitions have been written.
According to Larsen – Freeman (1986: 121), CLT is done “by making
communicative competence the goal of language teaching and by acknowledgment
the interdependence of language and communication”. In other words, interaction

4


between teachers and learners or learners and learners are really important. She also
lists a plenty of communicative to help learners practice their communication skills
such as authentic materials, scrambled sentences, games or role play.
Other author shares the same idea that “language is acquired through
communication” (Howatt, 1984: 279). To illustrate, learners learn the structural
system, for example, as they learn how to use language to communicate. This also
means that teachers should provide learners chances to practice and communicate to
each other via the real-life language.
Canale and Swan (1980) add that a language teacher should “present
learners with the opportunity to develop strategies for understanding language as it
is actually used by native speakers”. To say, in order to create useful language
items used by native speakers, authentic materials should be used in the English
class. “Since language is a tool of communication, methods and materials should
concentrate on the message and not the medium”, Clarke and Silberstein (1977: 51)
adds in “Communicative Language Teaching Today”. Richards (2006: 20) also lists
four benefits of using authentic materials, including “provide cultural information

and real language, relate closely to learners’ needs and support creative approach
to teaching”
Richards (2006: 2) views CLT as “a set of principles about the goals of
language teaching, how learners learn a language, the kinds of classroom activities
that best facilitate learning, the roles of teachers and learners in the classroom”.
He also introduced a variety of activities using in the classroom and most are
designed to make use of pair or group work’s activities. Through this, learners are
more active than in the traditional learning way.
To conclude, all professionals in the field tend to focus on the uses of CLT,
which helps learners gain or build up their learning abilities to use in the real
context. In the following sections, the use of CLT as a tool in teaching English in
schools will be discussed as the opinions of Richards (2006).

5


2.2.

Roles of CLT in foreign language education
Richards (2006) mentioned that “the ever-growing need for good

communication skills in English has created a huge demand for English teaching
around the world”. Nowadays, millions of people from the youngest to the oldest
desires to master or gain a high level of English. Accuracy and fluency are the key
to succeed, so they take as much time as possible to practice, practice and practice
English regularly. With the increasing demand for learning English actively and
practically, communicative language learning was born in the late 60s the
traditional one and keeps developing and improving and now becomes the centre of
language learning. CLT highlights “task-oriented and student-centered”, gives
learners communication opportunities.

Secondary school students are in teaching energetic so that they can manage
to control the use of language fluency and accuracy in the best ways. In that way,
the teachers are not a real teacher any more, they take more responsibility, namely
as a facilitator, an advisor, a communicator and even a guide; and the roles of
students has changed into all communicators. In other words, the aim of CLT in
secondary school is to develop their ability to use language to communicative with
other in real life situations, to share their personal experiences with others. To
achieve this goal “learners need to develop communicative abilities” (Richards &
Rogers, 1986)
On account of these benefits, CLT takes the forms of cooperation among
learners to develop their confidence. Hence, many classroom activities compatible
with communicative approach are provided, including: accuracy versus fluency
activities, mechanical, meaningful and communicative practice, information-gap
activities, jigsaw activities, and others like task-completion activities, informationgathering activities, opinion-sharing activities, information-transfer activities,
reasoning-gap activities and role plays (Richards, 2006: 14-19).

6


3. Task adaptation
3.1.

Task definition
Estaire and Zanon, 1994: 13-20 divided tasks into two types: learning tasks

and communicative tasks. If the former is focus on language form namely grammar,
vocabulary, pronunciation, sentence structure, and the latter concentrates on realworld connection. In the researcher’s study, she wants to adapt tasks on the basis of
communicative tasks.
As cited in Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (2001:224), Jack
C. Richards and Theodore S. Rogers wrote “task as a central unit of planning and

teaching”. Also in this book, Skehan (1996b:20) proposed the notion of tasks are
“generally bear some resemblance to real-life language use” or it takes “a fairly strong
view of communicative language teaching”. Sharing the same idea, Estaire and Zanon
(1994: 13-20) mentioned task as “a piece of classroom work which, as far as possible,
resembles activities which our students or other people carry out in everyday life, thus
reproducing processes of everyday communication”. Nunan (1989:10) considered a
task as “any classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating,
producing, or interacting in the target language while their attention is principally
focused on meaning rather than form”. Prabhu (1987:17) said that “task is an activity
which requires learners to arrive at an outcome from given information through some
process of thought, and which allows teachers to control and regulate that process”.
Although the notions of tasks are quite fuzzy, numerous or competing, it is
undeniable that tasks play a very important role in the input and output of learning
process for learners and teaching objectives for teachers.
3.2.

Adaptation definition
Tomlinson (1998:xi) stated that adaptation is “making changes to materials

in order to improve them or to make them more suitable for a particular type of
learner”. Nunan (1991) also said that “most commercially produced materials can
be adapted to fit a range of needs and goals not originally envisaged by the
materials writers”. Madson and Bowen (1978) mentioned “adaptation made the

7


important point that good teachers are always adapting the materials they are using
to the context in which they are using them in order to achieve the optimal
congruence between materials, methodology, learners, objectives, the target

language and the teacher’s personality and teaching style”.
“The textbook is an almost universal element of ELT teaching. Millions of
copies are sold every year, and numerous aid projects have been set up to produce
them in various countries… No teaching-learning situation, it seems, is complete”,
said Hutchinson and Torres (1994:315). Hence, experimenting and adapting are
really necessary to make them more accessible to a specific teaching and learning
context.
3.3.

Purposes of adaptation
Textbook using is like a double-edges sword because it is not written for any

particular classes. This teacher may find it useful and suitable for his students while
other thinks that it is not helpful at all. Therefore, textbook adaptation aims to
satisfy all teachers and students needs and levels according to a specific situation.
As we know, textbook language is quite formal and they are not exactly
applied in informal context. In other words, its language models and dialogues are
maybe inappropriate for communication in the real world. Breen and Candlin
(1980) put that adaptation “offers more opportunities for communication”. Nunan
(1999) shared the same idea that adaptation “makes materials more interactive”.
Textbook is usually applied for a long time, so it may go out of date and cannot
satisfy teachers’ and learners’ needs or backgrounds. Similarly, McDonough and
Shaw (1993: 83-84) have listed 16 reasons for adaptation, which shows some of the
possible mismatches, such as “not enough grammar coverage in general, not
enough practice of grammar points of particular difficulty to these learners,
reading passages contain too much unknown vocabulary, comprehension questions
are too easy because the answers can be lifted directly from the text with no real
understanding…..”.

Likewise,

Madsen

(1978)

added

learner

perspective

“adaptation is often required in order to increase motivation for learning by making

8


the language more real, the situation more relevant, and the illustrations more vivid
and interesting”.

In brief, adapting textbook is necessary because there is no perfect
textbook for a particular context or students’ needs and interests.
3.4.

Adaptation techniques
Madsen and Bowen (1978) bore in mind that “the good teacher is constantly

adapting”. Also, he mentioned the three-level adaptation process, including:
individualizing of material, modifying a text for purposes not intended or
anticipated by the author and compensating for textbook defect. He here listed some
detailed adaptation techniques in order to help teachers reach the levels mentioned

above: supplementing, editing, expanding, personalizing, simplifying, modernizing,
localizing or modifying cultural/ situational context.
McDonough and Shaw (1993: 36) proposed six ways of adaptation: adding,
deleting or omitting, modifying, simplifying, re-ordering and re-placing. Tomlinson
(1998b: xi) shared the same ideas when giving some important ways: “reducing,
adding, omitting, modifying and supplementing”.
However, Nunan (1991) gave two general view points of adaptation that is
“adaptation as addition (in a restricted sense) and adaptation as change”.
In short, whatever the techniques are, their purposes are to help the English
lessons more smoothly and effectively. And in this thesis, the researcher will strictly
follow the ways of adaptation of McDonough and Shaw (1993)

9


CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
1. Current context at Minh Khai Secondary School
1.1.

Situational analysis
1.1.1. Settings of the study
The study is conducted at Minh Khai secondary school, a local school far

from Ha Noi 20 kilometers. This school is quite small with only 9 classes, including
2 classes for grade 6, 8 and 9; and 3 classes for grade 7. Here, students are provided
with a lot of general subjects like other secondary schools and English is also one of
three important subjects as usual, but not compulsory one for the high-school
entrance examination.
Students have three 45-minute English periods per week, including revision
periods, which are 54 in the first semester and 51 in the second semester.

1.1.2. The teachers
There are only three female teachers with two at the middle-age, the other is
still young. The two others have experiences in teaching English for more than 10
years and the other just undergoes 2 teaching years.
The two teachers graduated from Ha Tay Teacher Training College and the
last one is from Ha Noi University of Languages and International Studies. All of
them are energetic and enthusiastic with well-qualified knowledge. Nevertheless,
one of them is a vice-principal, she just takes in charge of only one class (grade 9).
Others two are in charge of eight classes. With the workloads of around twelve
periods per weeks as well as other jobs like the supervising teachers or the
housewives, they have no much time spending on finding extra materials or
adapting communicative methods in their classes.
1.1.3. The students
There are nine classes in this school with two in grade 6, 8 and 9; three in
grade 7. All of them have learnt English at the age of 8 (grade 3) with two main
skills including reading and writing. They are all in the same undeveloped village;

10


therefore, they have no many opportunities to access the most effective learning
English ways.
The levels of students are not really good. There are, of course, some excellent
but this is a rather small amount. Equally important, students in a class are with
different English attitudes, motivation and backgrounds. Some learns due to their
interests, another learns because of the marks, teachers’ requirements or parents.
In addition, not all but most of students tend to use book with answer keys.
They learn English passively and have no specific goals. That causes a lot of
difficulties for teachers in arousing students’ interests and teaching an effective
lesson.

1.1.4. Facilities
First and foremost, with appropriately 30 students in a class, it is not really
too big for a class at secondary school. However, with mixed-level students, it is not
easy for teachers to cover all students just in 45 minutes.
Secondly, desk arrangement is not ideal for teaching and learning in
communicative approach because teachers are difficult in applying group work or
pair work, for example. This arrangement also prevents teachers interacting in effect
with their students and among students as well.
Thirdly, the numbers of equipments such as tapes, cassette players, overhead
projects, pictures or teacher cards are limited, which causes many problems in
process of teaching and learning. Even worse, the quality of high technology
devices is poor because there is not enough time to prepare or no one takes care
them often.
Finally, reference books, videos, magazines, newspapers for teachers and
students in English are not available in the school library. That unfulfilled facility
causes a bad effect in teaching and learning progress.
1.2.

Textbook analysis
Textbook is widely accepted as a very crucial tool in language education.

The seven-year English textbook 7, which was introduced in 2012 and written by

11


Dang Duc Trung and Tran Thi Khanh, edited by Tran Thu Ha, Tao Thanh Huyen,
Dang Minh Hien, Pham Tuan, Le Hoang Hai, Nguyen Tien Dung and Bui Quang
Tuan, goes on helping students be familiar with and practice English to obtain a
basic English achievement through a variety of English topics, useful structures and

attracting dialogues.
In the first place, this textbook is mainly focused on grammar and vocabulary
with students’ daily-life’s topics, for instance, school, health, neighborhood, play or
the world, tenses or model sentences, ect. Tiếng Anh 7 includes five Language focus
units, which aims to help students assess their own progress and 16 teaching units
with different topics and all of them consist two main sections A and B, which are
relevant to their main topics and include the following sub-sections, namely:
introduce new lexical items and structural ones, practice, summary of the unit as
well. Likewise, there are a glossary part and a grammar review part at the end of the
textbook to help students sum up the whole main points in grade 7. Accompanied
with the textbook, there are two kinds of the recorders: one for teacher at school and
other for students’ self-study pronunciation as well as listening skills at home.
In the second place, in spite of its strengths mentioned above, there is no
English pronunciation or phonetics section which is necessary to practice the real
language. The section “Play with words” in the end of each unit concentrates on
intonation, but with the fast rhythm, students hardly follow. In addition, with the
limitation of the time and the have-to concentration on grammar and vocabulary,
most teachers cannot cover this section and ignore this.
From my points of view, the role of textbook is undeniable in foreign
language teaching and learning. However, teachers’ use of textbook is more
significant because their students enjoy the lesson at class or not depend on the way
of teaching as well as the way of adapting tasks in the textbook.
2. Methods of the study
According to Nunan (1992: 19), action research is conducted by seven steps,
including Initiation, Preliminary investigation, Hypothesis, Intervention, Evaluation,
Dissemination, and Follow-up. This study also follows some basic steps of an

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action research as suggested by Nunan. It is carried out through situation analysis,
material collection, survey questionnaires, and aptitude test and class observations.
First and foremost, situation analysis is focus on the description of the current
context at grade-7 students at Minh Khai secondary school. She found that her students
did not enjoy her lesson, or they just followed inactively. Thus, she asked herself: what
do her students actually wish to be done or included in an English lesson?
Secondly, the researcher is surely concerned about her students’ behaviors,
which could affect the effectiveness of learning English. She rechecked the results
of the placement test to make sure that how well her students are and then carried
out a preliminary questionnaire survey to know how they thought about their
textbooks, or their difficulties in using textbooks.
Thirdly, once the data was collected, she confirmed a hypothesis that her
students met such as their interest, learning strategies or motivation.
Fourthly, the researcher then delivered some adapted tasks in the next lessons,
which are in communicative way and suitable for their ability to intervene or fix the
problems. Later, she observed her students to record the results.
Fifthly, after pilot teaching, the students enjoyed the lessons and were more
active and comfortable. This is also the way to evaluate the adapted tasks. However,
in comparisons in terms of those strengths, weaknesses still remained.
Next, the researcher disseminated the advantages and disadvantages of the
adapted task to their students.
2.1.

The participants

2.1.1. The teachers
As the researcher mentioned above, there are three English teachers, but both of
them were educated under the Grammar-Translation method. The younger is luckier to
access other modern methods, especially Communicative Language Teaching, at
University of Languages and International Studies.

2.1.2. The students

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There are exactly 86 students in grade 7 participated in this study with the
girls in total of 37 and the boys of 49. The researcher, in fact, is in charge of grade 7
and one class in grade 9; however, she chose students in grade 7 instead because
those in grade 9 are busy preparing for the Secondary School Graduation;
especially, they hardly omit English in the second semester; so she may meet some
obstacles in collect data or apply pilot teaching. Another reason is that, grade-7
students are quite familiar and so excited with English learning style in secondary
school; therefore, her lessons may be accepted comfortably.
2.2.

Research instruments

2.2.1. Instrument 1: Aptitude test
To get the main purpose of the study, the researcher uses an aptitude test to
examine the levels of students in order to find out the better adaptations in pilot
teaching progress. The results are evaluated on the test of Hoai Duc Division of
Education and Training (see Appendix 1) at the beginning of the term. Then the
results are ranked:

Chart 1: The results of the placement test

Mark
8

2.3

1.2

7

2.3
3.5

4.5

4.7
1.2

3.5

4.7
9.3

2.5

17.4

1.5

17.4

20.9
10.4
0.5

4.7

0

5

10

15

20

25 Percent

The bar chart shows the results of the placement test of grade 7 with
operating 14 different bands of scores. Overall, we can see significant differences in
both bands and levels of students.

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To begin with, there were some commons between “average” and “high”
grades. This included band 4 and band 7.5 with the same percentage of 1.2, band 7
and 8 with the percentage of 2.3. By contrast, the rates of bands of scores that might
be classified as “weak” ones such as from band 1.5 to 2.5 are comparatively high, at
17.4% for band 1.5 and 2.5; and at 20.9% for band 2. Sadly, no students can get
mark 9 or 10 and the rates of “average” or “below average” students are quite poor,
which shows how bad they are at the beginning of the term. And here are the
specific results for each class:
Marks
Class

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

7

7.5

8

7A1

0

0

02

03

03

05

04

01

04

03

02

01

02

7A2

03

03

04

09

08

01

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

7A3

01

06

09

06

04

02

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Table 1: Specific results for the test
Looking at the table above, it is clear that the levels of students in grade 7A2
and 7A3 are quite similar and 7A1 is a little bit better. Most of them feel stressful
with English and consider it as a terrible nightmare.
2.2.2. Instrument 2: Preliminary survey questionnaire
A survey questionnaire has also been chosen as the main instrument for
collecting data from the participants so as to investigate students’ difficulties in
using textbook. This helps the researcher save time or collect answers
straightforward and quickly; and reduce pressure for students.
The questionnaire is written in Vietnamese in order to make sure that all

students can understand the questions clearly. It is divided into 2 parts. The first part
provides some basic personal information. The second part is to collect information
about students’ problems toward using the Textbook 7 and their expectations of
teaching methodology on basis of CLT.
2.2.3. Instrument 3: Informal interview
The interview was conducted in English to find out what the teachers think
about task adaptation on the basis of CLT and how often they adapt or apply CLT

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