Teaching grammar to High school students through communicative tasks a quasi-experimental study

Teaching grammar to High school students
through communicative tasks a quasi-
experimental study

Triệu Thị Giang
Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ
Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn: M.A. Lê Văn Canh
Năm bảo vệ: 2010

Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Ngữ pháp. Phương pháp giảng dạy; Phổ thông trung học

Content:
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale

Together with the development of society, English has been used as a tool for
communication among nonnative speakers. More than a half of one billion English speakers
of the world learn English as a second language. More and more people have to learn English
in nearly every field. Learners have different reasons why they study English, and this has a
great influence on their motivation of learning English. At upper secondary schools, English
has become a compulsory subject in the state examination and it is one of three subjects for
some universities’ entrance exam. Besides the aim of passing their exams and getting some
further studies for their future life. Therefore, there is a must to equip learners with a good
learning method as well as teachers with new, good and interesting teaching methods in order
to attract learners and arouse their interest to help them get effective result. While the
traditional approach to grammar has been strongly criticized as being infective.
Nowadays, English teaching has improved in method in the light of the
communicative, learner-centered which is adaptable to required objectives and give students
many opportunities to communicate in English. According to Prabhu, who developed the

idea of getting learners to acquire English through tasks in 1980s in India, “learners may
learn more effectively when their minds are focused on tasks, rather than on the language
they are using.”. Furthermore, TGTCT has been promoted (Nunan, 1992). And because of the
features of task-based teaching approach, which widely promoted in English teaching
nowadays, and adopted in teaching language skills in the textbook at upper secondary school
in Vietnam, is mentioned later. I, myself, think that TBLT may have significance or may be
effective in grammar teaching- the important aspect of language learning.
In order to know whether or not the task-based teaching approach is possible in
grammar teaching. And from these above reasons, I decided to choose “teaching grammar to
high school students through communicative tasks” for my thesis of the MA course.

1.2 Aims of the study
The aims of this study are to experiment teaching grammar through communicative
tasks for grade 10 students. To be more specific, the primary objectives of the study were set
as followed:
- To experiment teaching grammar through communicative task for grade 10 students
and test its result.
- To investigate the experimental students' attitudes towards teaching grammar
through communicative task.
1.3. Research hypothesis and questions
To achieve the aims and objectives, the study was designed to test the hypothesis:
Teaching grammar through communicative tasks is more effective to the development
of students' grammatical competence than the traditional approach which emphasizes the
memorization of rules and decontextualized practice
In order to identify the research hypothesis would be accepted or would be rejected,
the research questions were formulated and needed to be answered satisfactorily
1. Is students' grammaticality better as measured by their test scores than it is taught
in the traditional focus-on-forms methods?
2. What are the students' attitudes towards teaching grammar through communicative
tasks after experimental period?

1.4. Method of the study
This study employed a quasi-experimental method in order to determine the causal
relationship between teaching grammar through communicative tasks and the enhancement
of students' grammatical competence. It is quasi-experimental, rather a true experimental
because it did not randomize the samples. Instead two intact groups of students were involved
in the study, one group being the control group and the other, the experimental group.
1.5. Significance of the study
Grammar in the TIENG ANH textbook series for high schools is presented in a
traditional way. In other words, discrete-point grammatical items are presented usually with
more than one grammatical items being presented in one Lesson Unit. This means that a
traditional approach to grammar, which focuses on decontextualized or sentence-based
presentation and practice of grammar. The study will give an answer to the question of
whether it is practical to teach grammar through communicative tasks in the context of the
high school in Viet Nam

1.6. Scope of the study
The study was designed to test the hypothesis that it is possible to teach grammar
presented in the textbook following the Task-based model. Because of the time constraint.
The researcher could just carry out an experiment upon a small sample of grade 10 students
who were no-randomly assigned to a control class and an experimental class, (30 students per
each). The pretest and posttest scores were used to measure both groups' English grammar
knowledge before and after the trial period of first semester and half of the second semester
of the 2009-2010 academic year. The post- program questionnaire was designed to get more
feedback from experimental students. The result of the questionnaire would give the
researcher supplementary support for the conclusion drawing. So that, the findings of the
research could reflect the effects of TGTCT on the subject in the context under
consideration.
1. 7. Organization of the study
The study was divided into five main chapters, which are presented as followed:
Chapter one presents an overview of the study in which the rationale, the purpose, the

hypothesis and questions, research method, significance, aims as well as the organization of
the study.
Chapter two reviews the literature relevant to the study consisting of the role of
grammar in FLL, approaches to grammar, Task-based language teaching, Task-based
grammar teaching based on theoretical and practical evidence.
Chapter three deals with a detailed description of the study consisting of the syllabus
for grade 10 students, the subjects of the study, the rationale for using quasi-experimental
study, research design, procedures, the tasks and the findings which concluding the
comparison of the pretest and posttest of both control group and experimental group, the
students' attitudes towards teaching grammar through communicate tasks. The discussions of
the findings are presented in this chapter.
Chapter four points out the recommendations as well as some limitations of the
research and conclusions of the study, and suggestions for further study.
1.8. Summary
This chapter presents the rationale, the aims, the hypothesis to be tested and the
research method used in this study. Also the organization of the thesis is presented. The next
chapter reviews the literature.
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