SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM Using Communicative Tasks or Activities to Promote High School Students Grammatical Competence

Ngo Quyen High School Bui Phu Xuan



1

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐỒNG NAI
Đơn vị : Trường THPT NGÔ QUYỀN
___________________

Mã số: …………………





SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM


Using Communicative Tasks or Activities to
Promote High School Students'
Grammatical Competence




Người thực hiện: BÙI PHÚ XUÂN
Lĩnh vực nghiên cứu:
Quản lý giáo dục
Phương pháp dạy học bộ môn: Tiếng Anh
Lĩnh vực khác:

Có đính kèm:

Mô hình Đĩa CD (DVD) Phim ảnh Hiện vật khác


Năm học: 2014-2015

***


Ngo Quyen High School Bui Phu Xuan



2
SƠ LƯỢC LÝ LỊCH KHOA HỌC
__________________________


I. THÔNG TIN CHUNG VỀ CÁ NHÂN
1. Họ và tên: BÙI PHÚ XUÂN
2. Ngày tháng năm sinh : 02 / 09 / 1976
3. Nam/Nữ: Nam
4. Địa chỉ: 103/71 Đường 30/4 Phường Trung Dũng Thành Phố Biên Hòa -
Tỉnh Đồng Nai
5. Điện thoại: Cơ quan: 061.3829029 Nhà riêng: 061.3819495
6. Fax: E-mail:
7. Chức vụ: Giáo viên
8. Nhiệm vụ được giao: Thư ký HĐ, chủ nhiệm lớp, giảng dạy bộ môn tiếng Anh

9. Đơn vị công tác: Trường THPT NGÔ QUYỀN
II. TRÌNH ĐỘ ĐÀO TẠO
- Học vị (hoặc trình độ chuyên môn, nghiệp vụ) cao nhất: Thạc Sỹ
- Năm nhận bằng: 2007
- Chuyên ngành đào tạo: Giảng Dạy Tiếng Anh
III. KINH NGHIỆM KHOA HỌC:
- Lĩnh vực chuyên môn có kinh nghiệm: Giảng dạy bộ môn Tiếng Anh
- Số năm có kinh nghiệm: 16 năm
- Các sáng kiến kinh nghiệm đã có trong 5 năm gần đây:
+ Five-minute activities
+ Pre-Listening activities
+ Strategies for Developing Reading Skills Skimming and Scanning
+ Arousing Students’ Interest in Reading
+ Using Interactive Tasks to Arouse High School Students’ Interest in
Learning Speaking

Ngo Quyen High School Bui Phu Xuan



3
TOPIC: Using Communicative Tasks or Activities to Promote
High School Students' Grammatical Competence




I. Introduction:

Learning a foreign language nowadays is considered to be the most necessary
thing to do among the young people. Also in Vietnam, English has become a
compulsory subject at secondary schools, high schools, colleges and universities.
It is usually believed that teaching grammar is one of the most difficult tasks that
a teacher has to deal with. However, we all know that grammar skills are
necessary for students’ success on standardized tests and university entrance
exams, in their ability to communicate orally and in writing, and in life.
Through discussions with some of the teachers and students’ in my school I have
found out some problems in teaching and learning grammar. Most teachers
choose the teaching career with the hope that they could spark the joy of learning
in their students. However, classroom teaching is a demanding job. Most
Vietnamese teachers have to work with a class of forty five students or more and
there is usually a wide variety of abilities in each class. When teaching grammar,
the teachers always play the centered roles, they try to force their students to
memorize structures that are not contextualized or used in everyday conversation.
As a result, the students sit passively and do nothing, what they do is to listen to
the teacher and then copy everything on the board into their notebooks. Therefore
they don’t know how to apply what they have studied at school in their daily life.
As Richards and Renandya (2002) points out “students may know a lot of
grammar but they are unable to use their knowledge for any practical
communicative purposes”
At the end of the lesson students usually feel tired and bored, they find no
pleasure and no interest in the grammar lessons. Therefore I think it is very
necessary to design some of the communicative tasks and activities when
teaching grammar in order to promote my students' grammatical competence
Ngo Quyen High School Bui Phu Xuan



4

II. The importance of teaching grammar:
Grammar is a significant part of language learning. It is very important for the
learners to use correct grammar when they write or speak so that they can avoid
misunderstandings and also help other people understand them better and easily.
If your English is full of mistakes you will fail to express your opinions and your
thoughts clearly and concisely.
We cannot deny the fact that the use or misuse of grammar in speaking and in
writing has negative effect on the image we have for other people. The use of
correct grammar helps people communicate more successfully and get the jobs
they applied more easily.
Moreover it is widely approved that learning grammar is very essential when
studying a foreign language. With a good knowledge of grammar people can
communicate more effectively and also have good impression on listeners.
III. Aims of the topic:
 Promote students' grammatical competence by using communicative tasks
and activities.
IV. Level:
 From tenth grade to twelfth grade.
V. Content of the topic:
This contains some of the activities that teachers can use in class and I use
the Units in “English book 10 & 12” as examples in my activities.
Ngo Quyen High School Bui Phu Xuan



5

1. Activity 1 : Find someone who
- We can use this activity after reviewing “Tenses” in Unit 1 & 2 English 12
in order to check the students’ understanding and at the same time

consolidate what they have learned.
- Each student needs a copy of the work sheet.
Students mingle and ask each other questions to find a person for each category,
they should only ask one question before moving onto the next person. Students
could write down the questions they are going to ask, e.g
+ Have you been to Ha Long Bay?
+ Have you ever seen a ghost?
 This kind of activity is a good way helping students practise the present
perfect tense and also encourage them to ask a follow-up question in the
past simple when they find someone who fits the category.
Ex: Have you ever been to Ha Long Bay?
- Yes, I have.
- Who did you go with?
- I went with …


Name and details
1. has been in a helicopter

2. has cooked a meal for more
than 10 people

3. has met someone famous

4. has visited Ha Noi several
times

5. has seen an action movie in
the last week

6. has gotten lost while
travelling

Ngo Quyen High School Bui Phu Xuan



6
7. has driven a car

8. has written a letter in
English

9. has eaten something very
unusual

10. has passed an exam recently


2. Activity 2 : Passive quiz
We can use this activity after teaching “Passive voice” in Unit 4 “School
Education System” English 12 in order to check the students’ understanding
and at the same time consolidate what they have learned
- Students work in groups to answer the questions.
- Discuss the answers with the class, with students giving their answers as
passive sentences.
1. When was the Eiffel Tower built?
a. 1869
b. 1889
c. 1909

2. When was Kennedy assassinated?
a. November 1961
b. December 1961
c. November 1963
3. Which city is known as the Big Apple?
a. New York
b. Los Angeles
c. San Francisco
4. Where was Christopher Columbus born?
a. Portugal
b. Spain
c. Italy
Ngo Quyen High School Bui Phu Xuan



7
5. Who invented television?
a. Marconi
b. John Logie Baird
c. Edison
6. Where was paper invented?
a. Japan
b. China
c. India
7. Who wrote Harry Porter?
a. J.K Rowling
b. Margaret Mitchell
c. Ernest Hemingway
8. Who invented the telephone?

a. Alexander Graham Bell
b. Albert Einstein
c. Howard Aiken
9. When was Mount Everest first climbed?
a. 1943
b. 1953
c. 1963
10. In which city will the 2016 Olympics be held?
a. Sydney
b. Rio De Janeiro
c. Atlanta
Answer key:
1. B
2. C
3. A
4. C
5. B
6. B
7. A
8. A
9. B
10. B

3. Activity 3 : Brainstorming
Ngo Quyen High School Bui Phu Xuan



8
We can use this activity after teaching “Comparison of adjectives” in Unit 16

“Historical Places” English 10 (comparative and superlative, also as …… as and
not so ………… as to compare subjects) in order to check the students’
understanding and at the same time consolidate what they have learned
 Procedure:
Teacher has the students to work in pairs, gives them 3 names of objects such as
animals, jobs, or whatever he likes and asks them to write down as many
sentences as possible to compare these items.
 Examples : If they are given a car, a plane, a bicycle, comparisons might
run:
+ The plane is the fastest
+ The car is more expensive than a bicycle
+ The car is heavier than the bicycle
 Variation:
After a preliminary trial run with the whole class, if we have more time,
another set of words can be given to small groups, who compete to see who can
think of the most comparisons in 3 or 4 minutes. Encourage the students to make
do with vocabulary they know rather than asking us for extra words.
 Examples: Things to compare.
a. a pen, a ball, a USB.
b. an elephant, a snake, an ant.
c. a cell phone, a computer, a lamp.
d. a car, a plane, a bicycle.
e. a house, a villa, a hut
f. a teacher, a farmer, an actor
g. tennis, golf, football

4. Activity 4 : Quizzes
We can use this kind of activity as a game to help the students review the
grammar point “Comparison of adjectives” they have studied in Unit 16
“Historical Places” English 10 and at the same time they can get some general

knowledge from the answers.
 Materials:
Ngo Quyen High School Bui Phu Xuan



9
- Quizzes based on comparisons
eg: What is the longest river in the world?
- Vocabulary should be familiar to the students or easily guessed.
 Procedure:
The teacher asks the questions, students answer them either orally or in
writing, preferably in complete sentences:
Eg: The River Nile is the longest river in the world.
Then they make up their own quizzes for each other to do
 Variation:
Give the students only a name (Lake Baikal ; the Pacific Ocean; Queen
Victoria) and ask them to work in pairs or groups to discuss why these are
outstanding.
 Examples :

BOX: Comparative & Superlative Quizzes
a. Where are there more people: in Thailand or Vietnam?
b. Which is the larger country: Canada or Australia?
c. Which is taller: Bitexco Financial Tower or Keangnam Hanoi Landmark
Tower?
d. Which is larger: The Sahara Desert or Gobi Desert?
e. Which has faster heartbeat: a mouse or an elephant?
f. What is the largest state in the United States?
g. What is the deepest lake in the world?

h. What is the largest ocean basin on Earth?
i. What is the largest rainforest in the world?
j. Which is the most ancient monument in the world?

Ngo Quyen High School Bui Phu Xuan



10
ANSWERS:
a. Vietnam
b. Canada
c. Keangnam Hanoi Landmark Tower
d. The Sahara Desert
e. a mouse
f. Alaska
g. Lake Baikal
h. the Pacific
i. the Amazon Rainforest
j. the Pyramids

Ngo Quyen High School Bui Phu Xuan



11

5. Activity 5 : Why would you do that?
- We can use this activity after reviewing “conditional sentence” in Unit 5
“Higher Education” English 12 in order to check the students’

understanding and at the same time consolidate what they have learned
- Give each student a copy of the worksheet.
- Student work individually to compete the beginnings of the sentences,
e.g:
If I saw a snake I would scream.
- Then students work in pairs, A and B. A reads out the beginnings of the
sentences one by one (not in the same order as on the worksheet), and B
tries to guess the correct endings, e.g
+ If I lost my keys … I’d break the window.
+ If I saw a robbery … I’d call the police.
- Then A and B swap round.
- Students could then form new pairs and tell their new partner why their
own partner would do the things on the worksheet, e.g:
If he saw a lion in his garden he’d shoot it.
Why would you do that?
1. If __________________________________ I’d scream.
2. If __________________________________ I’d call the police
3. If __________________________________ I’d invite him to my
birthday party
4. If __________________________________ I’d stay at home.
5. If __________________________________ I’d wouldn’t pay
6. If __________________________________ I’d shoot it.
7. If __________________________________ I’d break the window.
8. If __________________________________ I’d disconnect the
phone.
9. If __________________________________ I’d sell my story to the
newspapers
10. If __________________________________ I’d dance with joy.
Ngo Quyen High School Bui Phu Xuan

12


VI. Conclusion:

Generally, the results from this research are expected to help find out the
importance of teaching grammar at school. The above-mentioned communicative
activities more or less force the students to take part in their lesson, and also
remind them of their individual roles in the class. As a result of this the students
will be able to recognize and produce the distinctive grammatical structures of a
language and to use them confidently and effectively in communication.
They no longer consider the grammar lesson a burden. I hope this relieved feeling
will be comfortable with them throughout the lesson, and they will feel more
relaxed and enjoyable when studying grammar. Personally, I strongly believe that
what I mentioned above will help me and other language teachers promote high
school students’ grammatical competence.

NGƯỜI THỰC HIỆN



Bùi Phú Xuân





_______________________

Ngo Quyen High School Bui Phu Xuan



13
REFERENCES
_________

English Book 10. Education Publishing House
English Book 12. Education Publishing House
Richards, J. C., & Renandya, A. W. (2002). Technologies in the classroom. In J. C.
Richards, & A. W. Renandya (Eds.), Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of
current practice (p. 361). New York: Cambridge University Press.




________________________