Áp dụng một vài kĩ thuật dạy học tích cực trong chuyên đề kiến thức bổ trợ cho Unit 2: Your body and you sách Tiếng Anh 10

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO VĨNH PHÚC
TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN VĨNH PHÚC

BÁO CÁO CHUYÊN ĐỀ
THE APPLICATION OF SOME ACTIVE TEACHING TECHNIQUES
IN TEACHING SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS FOR
UNIT 2: YOUR BODY AND YOU IN ENGLISH 10 TEXTBOOK
Áp dụng một vài kĩ thuật dạy học tích cực trong chuyên đề kiến thức
bổ trợ cho Unit 2: Your body and you- sách Tiếng Anh 10

Tác giả

: HOÀNG THỊ NGỌC LAN

Chức vụ

: Giáo viên

Tổ

: Ngoại ngữ

Bộ môn

: Tiếng Anh

Vĩnh Phúc, tháng 12 năm 2018


Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION..............................................................3

1. Rationale.................................................................................................. 3
2. Aims of the study.....................................................................................4
3. Research questions...................................................................................4
4. Scope of the study....................................................................................4
5. Significance of the study......................................................................... 4
6. Methodology of the study........................................................................5
7. Structure of the study.....................................................................……..5
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW.................................................... 6
1. Active learning.........................................................................................6
2. Active learning techniques...................................................................... 7
2.1. Definition.............................................................................................. 7
2.2. Classification........................................................................................ 7
2.2.1. “Brainstorming” technique...............................................................8
2.2.2. “Mind map” technique....................................................................10
2.2.3. “Think- Pair- Share” technique ....................................................11
2.2.4. “Art gallery” technique .................................................................12
2.2.5. "Asking experts" technique ............................................................13
2.2.6. "In other words" technique ............................................................13
3. Supplementary materials for textbook.................................................. 13
3.1. Definition of textbook........................................................................ 13
3.2. Definition of supplementary materials...............................................14
3.3. Material design................................................................................... 14
4. Development of the supplementary materials for Unit 2: Your body and
you.............................................................................................................. 15
CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.......................................18
1. Research design and setting...................................................................18
1


2. Research participants............................................................................. 18

3. Instruments.............................................................................................18
3.1. Interviews............................................................................................19
3.2. Class observation................................................................................ 19
4. Data collection....................................................................................... 20
5. Data analysis.......................................................................................... 20
CHAPTER 4. DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS.............................. 21
1. Discussion of the data from interviews................................................. 21
2. Discussion of class observation data..................................................... 22
CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION.................................................................. 24
1. Summary of the study............................................................................24
2. Conclusions............................................................................................25
3. Recommendations for further studies................................................... 25
REFERENCES.......................................................................................... 27
APPENDICES........................................................................................... 29
Appendix 1 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (For teachers)......................... 29
Appendix 2: CLASS OBSERVATIONS SHEET.................................... 31
Appendix 3:SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS FOR UNIT 2: YOUR
BODY AND YOU....................................................................................... 33
Appendix 4: LESSON PLAN....................................................................58

2


CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Educators and scholars have increasingly recognized the prominence
of innovation in teaching methodology and education developers have
paid more and more attention to advancing learners’ competence with the
aim of meeting the demand of new era.
At Vinh Phuc gifted high school, where I have been working as an

English teacher, students have been learning the set of piloted textbooks
English 10, 11, 12 published by the Minister of Education and Training.
From my personal observation and professional experience, I have
realized that my students’ ability is beyond the textbook’s level.
Consequently, there should be supplementary materials especially
designed based on the topic of the English text book which are more
suitable for the need and proficiency of my students. Instead of teaching
in periods, the knowledge may be grouped into themes and the learning
activities are organized according to active teaching method in order to
promote students’ virtue and capacity.
Realizing the fact, I determined to conduct the study titled “The
application of some active teaching techniques in teaching
supplementary materials for Unit 2: Your body and you in English 10
textbook”. Hopefully, this study will partly contribute to measuring the
applicability of active teaching techniques in specific situation as well as
improving the quality of teaching and assessment with the orientation of
developing students’ competence. Also, I desire to promote the quality of
teaching and learning English at my school in particular and other schools
in general by encouraging teachers to actively choose the knowledge to
form specialized topics which are appropriate for active learning
activities.
3


2. Aims of the study
With the above-presented rationale, the specific aims of the study,
accordingly, are:
- to develop the active learning supplementary materials for Unit2piloted English 10 textbook
- to investigate the effectiveness of the active learning supplementary
materials in developing students’ competence.

3. Research questions
In order to achieve the mentioned aims, the following questions
have been proposed:
 How can the active learning supplementary materials for piloted
English 10 textbook be developed?
 What are the teachers and students’ attitude towards active
learning supplementary materials for piloted English 10 textbook?
4. Scope of the study
As it has been stated above, the study is designed to improve the
quality of teaching and assessment with the orientation of developing
students’ competence in order to support teachers to actively choose the
knowledge to form specialized topics which are fit for active learning
activities. The study focuses itself on vocabulary, reading, speaking,
listening and writing activities relating to the content of Unit 2: Your
body and you in the piloted English 10 textbook. As this is only a
small-sized scale study, a number of issues, though intriguing, would be
beyond the scope of inquiry and would be best dealt with in a further
study.
5. Significance of the study
The study highlights the effectiveness of specialized topics in
developing students’ ability and the applicability of active teaching
techniques. This research is expected to be beneficial to both English
4


teacher and students at Vinh Phuc gifted high school in particular and
those at other high schools in general where the piloted English 10
textbook has been applied.
6. Methodology of the study
To achieve the aims stated, a survey research was conducted at Vinh

Phuc gifted high school. In so doing, the method including survey
interviews with English teachers at the school and class observation
sheets were employed during the process of data collection.
7. Structure of the study
The study consists of five main parts, a list of reference and
appendices.
 Chapter 1: Introduction: Providing the reason for the research, the
aims, research question, scope, significance, methodology and
structure of the study.
 Chapter 2: Literature review: Providing the theoretical background for
the study.
 Chapter 3: Research Methodology: Describing research design and
setting, research participants, instruments, data collection and data
analysis method.
 Chapter 4: Data analysis and findings: Presenting, analyzing and
drawing out the findings from the data collected basing on two
research questions.
 Chapter 5: Conclusion: Summarizing the main points presented in the
study,

presenting

conclusions

of

the

study,

pedagogical

recommendations relating to the research topic and suggestions for
further studies on the topic. Following this chapter are the References
and Appendices.
5


CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
The literature relevant to the current study is presented in four major
categories: active learning, active teaching techniques, supplementary
materials for textbook and development of the supplementary materials.
1. Active learning
Active learning, which is student-focused, aims at engaging students
in the lesson. Course materials are designed with the teacher in the role of
facilitator; rather than simply listening passively to lectures and taking
notes. Students have the opportunity to talk, listen, write, read and engage
with others regarding the content, ideas, issues and key points of the
subject which is the course of study. (McKeachie, 1998; Meyers and
Jones, 1993)
In active learning, apart from listening to a lecture and taking notes,
students are provided opportunities to meaningfully talk and listen, write,
read and reflect on the content, ideas, issues and concern of an academic
subject (McKeachie, 1998; Meyers and Jones, 1993: 6) to help them learn
and apply course materials. Instead of simply receiving information
verbally and visually, students are receiving, participating or doing and
reflecting (Fink, 1999). Students may be involved in talking, listening to
one another, writing, reading and reflecting both collaboratively and
individually (Stearns, 1994). Since active learning also seeks to tie in
students’ own life experiences; an excellent way of linking to prior

learning, which in turn helps to increase long-term retention of the
materials (Bransford, 1979), it is also very effective at developing
higher-order thinking skills like analysis, synthesis and evaluation. By
developing students’ critical thinking skills in this way, it enables
students to apply the information they are learning in new settings
6


(Meyers & Jones, 1993). Ultimately, it can even inspire and motivate
students to become self-directed, life-long learners (Bonwell & Eison,
1991).
Therefore, based on the aforementioned ideas of active learning, the
theoretical framework of active learning, which will be used to create
each activity in this paper consists of three main stages: getting
information and ideas, experiencing by doing and/or observing and
reflecting. Each of which can be done via individual work and/or group
work.
2. Active teaching techniques
2.1. Definition
Teaching techniques are the actions and solutions of teachers and
students in specific situations aimed at processing and controlling
teaching procedure. Teaching techniques are the smallest units of
teaching methodology. There are common teaching techniques as well as
particular ones which are typical for each teaching method such as the
technique of “raising questions in conversation”. There has been a recent
trend to pay attention to developing and using the techniques that
encourage learners’ activeness and creativity. Such techniques has
important meaning in promoting students’ active engagement in the
lessons and stimulating mentality, creativity and cooperation of students.
2.2. Classification

The active teaching techniques can be favorably applied in group
work. However, they can also be combined in teaching the whole class.
Those techniques can be classified as followed:
7


ACTIVE TEACHING TECHNIQUES
1. Brainstorming technique

16. Group division technique

2. Brain-writing technique

17. Task- giving technique

3. XYZ technique

18. Question- raising technique

4. “Fish tank” technique

19. “Art gallery” technique

5. “Ball-bearing” technique

20. Stages technique

6. “Debate:

For

or

against” 21. “One- minute- presentation”

technique
7. Feedback

technique
during

teaching 22. “We know 3” technique

procedure

23. “Ask and answer” technique

8. “Flash of lighting” technique

24. “Asking experts” technique

9. “3 multiplied with 3” technique

25. “Task completion” technique

10. Mind-mapping technique

26. “Active writing” technique

11. “Table cloth”technique

27. Cooperative reading technique

12. “Jigsaw” technique

28. “In other words” technique

13. KWL - KWLH technique

29. "Video analysis” technique

14. Think-Pair-Share technique

30. “Materials summary in groups”

15. Kipling (5W1H) technique

technique

In teaching the supplementary materials named “Food and health” for
Unit 2: Your body and you, it would be ambitious to cover all techniques.
Therefore, in this part, only the applicable techniques for my specific
teaching setting are explained in details.
2.2.1. “Brainstorming” technique
 Definition
- “Brainstorm” is a technique which aims to encourage and inspire all
members in group in a positive way to contribute more interesting and
8

unique ideas about a certain topic with no limitation and ultimately
results in creation of “Storm of Ideas”.
-The technique is founded and enhanced by Alex Osborn, based on a
traditional technique from India.
 Principle.
- No assessment and comment while collecting the ideas from groups.
- Give connection among the mentioned ideas.
- Encourage the quantity of ideas.
- Imagination is fully allowed.
 Processing stage:
- Coordinator (Teacher) introduces the topic and explains if necessary.
- The members show their ideas without assessment to get as many ideas
as possible consecutively.
- Stop giving idea.
 Classification
There are two different forms based on the “brainstorming” technique:

Writing brainstorming

Private brainstorming

- Each member will present the - Each member will write their
ideas without speaking but writing ideas and ways to solve the issue
in a paper on a certain topic.

without publicizing it.
9


-

While

processing,

all

the - After that, the whole group will

members will respectively write discuss together and individuals
down their ideas onto a shared will self-improve their ideas.
paper of the topic.
- Each

member should look

through other ideas and leave their
feedback for those ideas. Finally,
everyone will read the feedback
and eventually make the final
outcome of group.
 Pros and cons: the students
can

obtain

meaningful
collection

a

story
of

 Pros: The ideas are kept

whole

genuine

or

members’ interruption.

a
key

 Cons:

without
They

won’t

other
get

information and the final

feedback directly from the

product can be a mind map.

others.

2.2.2. “Mind map” technique
 Definition
A mind map (also known as a concept map) is a diagram that
clearly shows the planned ideas or results of an individual or group's
work on a topic. Mind diagrams can be written on paper, tablet or
computer.
 Procedure
- Write the topic’s name or using images/pictures describing title in the
centre of the background
10


- Visualize the centre as a spider net or a tree full of branches, then
radiating out from the root are main lines with different colors. Each line
illustrates a big point of topic. (Using important terminology to write in
main lines in capital).
- From the main lines, develop the map with sub-lines in quest of
explaining more about the topic.
 Application
- Summarize content or review a topic.
- Present a general topic.
- Prepare information for a report or a speech.
- Collect and arrange ideas.
- Make notes at class
 Strengths
- Thinking directions are openly shown.

- Explicitly describe the connection among the contents of topic
- Being able to develop, rearrange or implement the content.
- Chance for student to practice building-up ideas.
2.2.3. “Think, Pair, Share” technique
 Definition
“Think, Pair, Share” is a technique introduced by Professor Frank
Lyman of the University of Maryland in 1981. This technique introduces
dual-team work, developing individual thinking skills in solving the
problem.
 Tool
This activity develops listening and speaking skills so it is not
necessary to use supportive devices.

11


 How to perform
- The teacher introduces the problem, asks open questions, takes time to
think.
- Students then divided into pairs and share ideas, discussions, and
classifications.
- The couple continues with the other one or the whole class.
 Note
- It is important that learners share the ideas they have received, rather
than just sharing personal ideas.
- Teachers need to model or explain.
 Benefits
There’s much time to think and students are allowed to develop
answers. Having good time to think helps them develop good answers,
listen and summarize the ideas of their peers.

 Drawbacks
Students will easily exchange non-lesson-related content because
the teacher cannot cover the whole class.
2.2.4. “Art gallery” technique
This technique can be used for individual or group activities.
- Teacher asks the questions / problems for the whole class or groups.
- Each member (personal activity) or group (group activity) sketch ideas
on how to solve the problem on a cover sheet and stick it on the wall
around the classroom as a painting exhibition.
12


- Students in class will go to the "exhibition" and may comment or add
any feedback.
- Finally, all settlement solutions are assembled and optimized
2.2.5. "Asking experts" technique
- Students who volunteer (or as assigned by the teacher) form "expert"
groups on a given subject.
- The "experts" study and discuss with each other about the material that
is relevant to their topic.
- The "expert" group stands on the teaching stage in the classroom
- An "expert" group leader (or teacher) will conduct the "counseling"
session, invite students in the class to ask questions and then invite the
"expert" to answer.
2.2.6. "In other words" technique
- Teachers divide the students into groups, asking groups to list out the 10
big things that sometimes people talk about.
- Next, ask the groups to find 10 better ways to express the same meaning
and continue to write in large format.
- The groups present the results and discuss the implication of changing

the way they use positively.
3. Supplementary materials for textbook
3.1. Definition of textbook
According to the web-page Wikipedia, a textbook or course book is
a manual of instruction in any branch of study. Textbooks are produced
according to the demands of educational institutions. Tomlinson (1998)
describes a textbook as a book “which provides the core materials for a
course” and which covers many issues in a single volume by taking into
consideration all the points that students are required to learn during a
13


course period. Harries and Hodges (1995) stated “Textbook- a book used
for instructional purposes, especially in schools and colleges”. In most
cases, textbooks symbolize the hidden curriculum of the language studies
in a certain program or country. That's why they play an important role
for obtaining information about the likely teaching and learning practices
of a particular school, program or institution.
3.2. Definition of supplementary materials
Supplementary materials refer to paper-based handouts, which
teachers distribute to the students during their classes at their discretion,
to supplement the main coursebook. In other words, they are the materials
designed to be used in addition to the core materials of a course.These
supplements can be used according to requirements of the particular
teacher (e.g. as homework, as classwork, etc.).They can be extra
worksheets, games, books etc. that a teacher uses for teaching materials in
addition to a core text. They are often based on the same theme or related
to the development of skills of reading, writing, listening or speaking.
3.3. Materials design
‘Materials development is both a field of study and a practical

undertaking. As a field it studies the principles and procedures of the
design, implementation and evaluation of language teaching materials’
(Tomlinson, 2001: 66). Prabhu (1987) mentioned that ‘loosely structured’
teaching materials can be easily adapted to a particular classroom and the
teacher should determine how to simplify, add to or adjust them to make
them useful to their students. Materials as learning resources can vary
from one learner to another within the same class (Prabhu, 1987).
Robinson (1991) emphasized the importance of authentic materials in
ESP. She mentioned that the materials can be anything that is available to
the language teacher, but it must not be the materials produced
14


specifically for language-teaching purposes. Therefore, it is the
responsibility of the teacher to select or develop materials of their own.
Jolly and Bolitho (1998) outlined a framework for materials writing that
starts from identification of a need to satisfy or a problem to solve by the
creation of materials. The next step is exploration of language in terms of
meaning, function, and skills. The third step is contextual realization of
the proposed new materials by finding suitable ideas and contexts with
which to work. The fourth step is pedagogical realization of materials by
finding appropriate exercises and activities and writing appropriate
instructions for use. The fifth step is physical production of materials,
involving consideration of layout, type size, visuals, reproduction, tape
length, and so on. The sixth step is usage of the materials in class, and
finally evaluation of materials against agreed objectives.
They concluded that materials’ writing is most effective when it
matches the learners’ needs. The teacher should understand the learners
best, so all teachers need grounding in materials writing to create the
most appropriate materials for the students. Also, trialing and evaluation

are vital to the success of any materials.
4. Development of the supplementary materials for Unit 2: Your body
and you in the piloted English 10 textbook
The supplementary materials have been designed based on the
theme of Unit 2: Your body and you in the piloted English 10 textbook,
the first of a three-level English language set of textbooks for the
Vietnamese upper-secondary schools. The course contents are aimed at
intermediate EFL learners. The selected unit and their corresponding
sections are presented in Table 1.

15


Table 1: Unit 2- Your body and you and corresponding sections
Unit 2: Your body and you- English 10 textbook
Reading

Reading for specific information about acupuncture

Speaking

Talking about how to get rid of bad habits

Listening

Listening for gist about choosing a healthy diet

Writing

Writing about what to eat and not to eat

Language focus

Review: The future simple will vs. Be going to; The
passive
Words about illnesses and health and systems of the
body
Consonant clusters: /pl/, /pr/, /gl/, /gr/

Culture

Health practice in Indonesia and in Vietnam

Project

Doing a survey on the importance of categories in
staying healthy

In developing the supplements, the features of each sections of the
mentioned unit (comprising the language points and the contents of
sub-skills) were taken as reference points. The supplementary materials
are theme-based and cover vocabulary relating to the topic and all four
language skills.
Each section in the supplements is composed of a series of coherent
activities and begins with vocabulary review of the two component topic
namely food and health. It involves a variety of task types such as note
completion, picture labeling, matching, table filling, etc. Next, a reading
task is presented to the students. During reading stage, the students are
16

asked to do an activity like deciding the following statements are True,
False or Not Given. Once these are completed, the student goes on to the
speaking task. The students have chance to discuss about the previouslyread topic, which is fast food, and giving their own opinions about issues
relating to fast food. Later, the listening task is provided to the students.
The students are required to fill in the blanks with the correct vocabulary
words about topics “Food and health”. After the listening task, the
students have to utilize the content from the listening and vocabulary
review tasks to complete a paragraph describing the process of food
digestion. (See Appendix 3)
The tasks presented are varied; therefore, in order to complete the
tasks, the students must also employ various response methods, including
matching, marking, filling in the blanks and writing a paragraph.
Authenticity of the sources students are exposed to is a key factor in the
design of all the tasks. Students must use the skills of listening, reading,
writing, and speaking via both individual work and group work.
The main purposes of the supplements are to review the content of
Unit 2: Your body and you, which the students have learned since the
teacher uses the supplements at the end of the unit when the students have
already learned all the main content of the unit. Besides being used to
review the lesson,the supplements are designed to engage and motivate
the students as well as to create a good classroom atmosphere. A sample
of the lesson plan for the supplement of Unit 2: Your body and you is also
included. (See Appendix 4)

17


CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
1. Research design and setting

The purpose of this section is to introduce the methods based on
which this study is carried out. Moreover, it presents techniques
employed in this minor thesis, namely survey research. Among the
research methods, survey research is one of the most important areas of
measurement in applied social research. The broad area of survey
research encompasses any measurement procedures that involve asking
questions of respondents. A "survey" can be anything from a short
paper-and-pencil feedback form to an intensive one-on-one in-depth
interview.
2. Research participants
The participants in the study are 35students in Literature-majored
class of grade 10 and 8 English teachers at Vinh Phuc gifted high school.
The study was conducted with non-English-majored students. The reason
for choosing this group is because this book will be widely taught for
10th-form basic students at high schools throughout the country who are
not specialized in English. The author hopes the findings from this study
will be helpful for non-English-majored students at Vinh Phuc gifted high
school in particular and those at other high schools in general. All of
participant teachers have at least 10- year- English teaching experience
and they have taught the piloted E10 textbook.
3. Instruments
The study used two research instruments: survey interviews with the
teachers and class observations

18


3.1. Interviews
Interviewing is used in this study as another key research instrument.
The main reason for conducting interviews is to have better insights into

the research questions by providing a deep understanding of teachers’
attitudes towards active teaching technique. The interview consists of 14
questions. The interviewed teachers were further probed for clarification
when necessary. The interviews were conducted in English, and the
teachers were interviewed individually.
The interview questions are structured as follows. The first twelve
questions are to find out the teachers’ opinions of the active learning
supplementary materials. The final two questions of the interview asks the
teachers to give their preference of each sections and their suggestions for
the supplementary materials. (See Appendix 1)
3.2. Class observation
Class observation is another method to collect data for the study. It
was a non – participation observation in which the researcher watched,
followed and recorded activities as they were performed in the real
classroom settings. The observation was carried out in the first semester
of the school year 2018 – 2019, the class performance was observed in
class 10A6.
This process is done with one class in vocabulary lesson. Basing on
the students’ activeness, students’ behaviour and teacher’s methods, class
observation is implemented within one class in 10th grade during one
period teaching new words. The researcher’s three colleagues who have
been teaching there for over 10 years observed the students and teaching
method.
Observation sheet: In order to check the overall level of class
engagement including learners’ interest, concentration, enjoyment,
19


enthusiasm and persistence with the learning task. The researcher used the
observation sheet which was adapted from Matthew Peacock (1997).

Each item in this sheet was scored on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high). (See
Appendix 2)
4. Data collection
To collect the data for the study, a fourteen-question survey
interview for teachers were designed after the author revised carefully
and received comments from other colleagues. These questions were
answered by 8 teachers of English after group meetings.
Observations of the author’s colleagues at one period teaching the
topic: “Food and health” in the researcher’s class to investigate the
effectiveness of active teaching technique in improving students’
competence. The purpose of the class observation was to access teacher’s
preparation, presentations, method, teacher and students’ interaction in
the classroom. Unit 2: Your body and you in piloted English 10 textbook
was taught as usual; the lesson using supplementary materials was taught
with the use of active teaching technique.
5. Data analysis
The discussion of the result collected by means of the interview
with teachers is presented, using thematic analysis. The collected data
from class observation was classified and then presented in the discussion
of the data.

20


CHAPTER 4. DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
In this chapter, all the collected data will be analyzed and discussed to
answer the research questions. The main results came from the answers of
the survey interviews collected and from two class observation sheets
carried out by two teachers.
1. Discussion of the data from interviews

There are 8 teachers taking part in the interviews, which contain 14
questions asking the teachers’ overall opinions of the supplements. The
findings show that the teachers have positive opinions of the active
learning supplementary materials. They agree that the supplements are
beneficial and meet the set objectives.
As for their opinion of each activity in the supplement, the teachers
prefer vocabulary review most. The teachers said that it helps students
have a chance to review the vocabulary that they learned in the lesson and
the difficulty of the activity is more or less the same as that in the exams.
By contrast, the teachers prefer speaking tasks least. They said that it was
difficult for students. However, one teacher liked this activity. She said
that it was challenging and it promoted students’ critical thinking skill.
All in all, most teachers showed satisfaction with the activities in the
specialized topic.
The final part of the interview asks the teachers to give their opinions
of and their suggestions for the supplementary materials. The comments
were summarized and combined under the three issues. First, the reading
texts in the supplements are more difficult than those in the 45minute-tests and end- of- term exams. They prefer to have reading texts
which are of the same level of difficulty and format as those in the exams.
Second, many of the vocabulary comes from the units in the coursebook.
21


They prefer to have many more new vocabulary, which does not derive
from the coursebook only. Finally, the supplements are too many (not in
terms of the content, but in terms of the number of pieces of paper). They
suggest that all of the supplements should be compiled as a package or a
book; they should not be distributed to the students piece by piece, which
are difficult for the students to collect.
2. Discussion of class observations data

Class observations were used to evaluate students’ engagement in the
lesson. The class observation was conducted with the three teachers who
joined in the study. They observed the class atmosphere in the specialized
topic: Food and health, which is the supplementary lesson for Unit 2:
Your body and you in the piloted English 10 textbook, by using Class
Observation sheet- Overall class engagement (See Appendix 2). The
observers were non-participants in the lesson. The comments showed that
the teacher prepared the lesson very carefully. The lessons went smoothly
and logically because the teacher was keen on the subject she taught.
Generally speaking, students found the lessons more and more interesting,
so they got involved in the lessons more and more enthusiastically.
Results indicated that overall class engagement significantly
increased when the learners took part in the activities (two observers
circled number 4 and 5). They also gave comments as follow.
“Generally speaking, the classroom atmosphere was positive, with
most of the students participating in the activities. It seemed that active
learning activities successfully involved the students as the classroom
was filled with positive noises. The students enthusiastically talked and
worked with their friends in English. However, there were few shy
students who listened much more than talked.”
22


“As for engagement, the positive thing to note is the students were
quite interested in their speaking or listening to their group members.
Besides, reports from the group leaders also confirmed positive
contribution of their group members.”
Most of students were very concentrated on the activities from the
beginning to the end of the lesson. As for students’ activity level, the
whole class made much effort to join the lessons because the activities

were not too much challenging and suitable for students’ level. However,
it seemed that some students were still afraid of speaking. They were
reluctant to speak when teacher said she would give mark for students’
participation.
Regarding the participation of students in the activities, it is possible
to say that the participation was generally active, with students feeling
interested in the activities. However, in some groups, talking time was
dominated by the group leaders and one or two talkative students. Some
group members were not very self – confident in discussing and sharing
ideas, thus, they tended to listen to their classmates and speak only when
urged by other students or the teacher. Therefore, participation in some
groups could not be regarded as equal.
Overall, the results of class observations indicated that active learning
activities made sense in raising students’ engagement in English class.
There is no doubt that teacher should apply active learning activities more
often to make the classroom exciting and develop students’ competence.

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CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION
1. Summary of the study
The supplementary materials have been developed to serve needs of
both teachers and students. For teachers, the materials can be used to
revise and assess what has been covered in the lesson. For example,
teachers may evaluate the students’ concrete knowledge, comprehension,
and application abilities, which are the desired terminal outcomes of the
course. The supplements may be seen as a solution to the obstacles faced
by teachers previously when using only the textbook. It may be a way for
teachers to motivate the students to learn and create a good English

Foreign Language atmosphere. For students, the materials may draw
students’ attention and motivate them to learn in the classroom as
supplementary practice for the content covered in their face-to-face
course.
All in all, the teachers tend to have positive opinions towards the
materials used in the study. Students’ motivation was likely to increase,
as they were engaged in rich, interesting learning experiences. Moreover,
the interviewees agreed that students had good opportunities to use and
integrate English communicative abilities (listening, speaking, reading
and writing) to interact with their peers via various activities in various
situations. In addition, students could use their creativity to do the tasks
both individually and collaboratively, which supported their learning.
Most important, the supplements met the major set objective, which is to
review the main content of Unit 2: Your body and you in the piloted
English 10 textbook.

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