applying warm up activities in teaching speaking lessons for the 10th form students at nhu xuan high school

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
1. Introduction.
2- 3
1.1. Rational of the study.............................................................................2
1.2. Aims of the study..................................................................................2- 3
1.3. Scope of the study.................................................................................3
1.4. Method of the study...............................................................................3
2. Contents................................................................................................
2.1. Theoretical background.........................................................................3- 5
2.2. Some problems before applying this experience initative..................5- 6
2.3. Some solutions to the problem............................................................6-15
2.4. The effect of experience initative.......................................................15-16
3. Conclusion and proposal..........................................................................
3.1. Conclusion.............................................................................................16
3.2. Proposal.................................................................................................16-17
4.References................................................................................................18

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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The reasons of the study.
English is one of the most dominating laguage of the world which is having
its impact on every field of work. It not only provides us an access to world
scholarship and world trade but also gives the youth a chance to get a good job and
join the international activities. Undoubtedly, English plays a much greater role in
the world that it is evitable for people to ignore it fully.
Nowadays, with the development of economy and relationship between
nations. English becomes an effective means of international communication. It is
used as the official language in many fields of life such as economics, politics,

science, technology, sports and many others. This leads to an increasing demand for
English learning, especially speaking skill. People need oral communication in
daily life more than written words. Therefore, the teaching of speaking has recently
been paid more attention to learners. It can’t be deniable that the ability to use
verbal communication in a second language effectively contributes to the success
of learners at school time as well as in their lives. However, how to teach and learn
speaking effectively is still a challenging question to both teachers and students at
many gigh school despite teachers’s efforts to provide students with opportunities
to develop their communicative skills.
Nhu xuan high school is situated in a moutainous district where students do
not have many opportunities to communicate with foreign people. Therefore, Their
English is not good, especially English speaking skill. A great number of students
are afraid of learning to speak English and say that it is difficult for them to be
good at this skill and there is not a real language environment for them to do their
practice every day. Many students find it very difficult to express their ideas in
English due to nervousness and lack confidence in front of the class. As a result,
they are afraid of speaking skill, the class is tense and passive because students
don’t want to say out their thought.
All the aboved mentioned reasons and factors have inspired me to conduct a
research titled : “ applying warm-up activities in teaching speaking lessons for the
10th form students at Nhu Xuan High School”
1.2. The aims of the sudy
The major aims of the study are :
- To emphasize the role of warm- up activities in teaching speaking skill.
- To investigate the present situation of teaching and learning speaking of the
10th form at Nhu Xuan high school.
- To provide some useful warm-up activities to get students in the right mood
for seaking and help them feel more confident and eager to speak English in
speaking lessons.
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- To investigate the effectiveness of using warm-up activities in teaching
speaking lesson at the three classes 10 A3, 10 A4, 10 A5 of Nhu Xuan high
school.
1.3. The scope of the study
The study focuses specifically on some warm- up activities applied in
teaching speaking lessons to the 10th grade students at Nhu Xuan high school,
namely, three classes 10 A3, 10 A4, 10A5.
1.4. The methods of study
- Studying materials : I have read some books and materials on internet about
how to motiavte students to speaking effectively by using warm- up activities.
- Delivering survey questionaire and observing speaking lessons: To fulfill this
study, I have delived some survey questionaires to students and teachers and
observed some speaking classes to find out the teachers’s and students’ attitudes
towards teaching and learning speaking.
- My real teaching at three 10th form classes at my school.
2. CONTENTS
2.1. Theoretical background
a. Definition of speaking skill
Speaking is “ the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of
verbal and non- verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts” ( Chaney, 1998, p.13 ).
Speaking is a crucial part of second language learning and teaching. Despite its
importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English
language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or
memorization of dialogues. However, today’s world requires that the goal of
teaching speaking should improve students’ communicative skills, because, only in
that way, students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and
cultural rules appropriate in each communicative circumstance.
Speaking is being capable of speech, expressing or exchanging thoughts through

using language. “Speaking is a productive aural/oral skill and it consists of
producing systematic verbal utterances to convey meaning (Nunan, 2003, p.48).”
(Harmer, 2001) notes down that from the communicative point of view, speaking
has many different aspects including two major categories – accuracy, involving the
correct use of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation practised through controlled
and guided activities; and, fluency, considered to be ‘the ability to keep going when
speaking spontaneously’. Bygate (1991, p.3), also emphasizes knowledge of the
language, and skill in using this knowledge for an effective communication.
Language knowledge and skill in using it, are considered two fundamental
elements of an effective communication.
Speaking is the most important skill, corroborates: “ of all the four skills,
speaking seems intuitively the most important. People who know a language are
reffered to as “ speakers” of the language, as if speaking included all other kinds of
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knowing, and many of not knowing, and many of not most foreign language
learners are primary interested to speak” (Ur, 1996, p. 120).
Speaking skill is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves
producing and processing information. The peaking skill involves a communication
ability to use language to chat and transmit messages in different and appropriate
situations. It is to interact with participants and carry a message . Petrie ( 1987 )
citied that : “ speaking is an activity which most of us spend a great deal of time
engaged in apparently without any effort and with not very much thought”. People
around the world produce a lot of words without making great efforts, Brown in his
turn ( 2000 )(Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997 ) defines speaking as “ an
interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving
and processing information”. Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in
which it occurs including the participants themselves, their collective experiences,
the physical environment, and the purposes of speaking. It is often spontaneous,

open- ended and involving. Being skillful in speaking means to be able to decide
what to say in the situation, saying it clearly and being flexible during a
conversation when a difficult situation comes out, for that reason, speaking requires
that learners not only how to produce specific aspects of language such as
grammar, pronunciation and vocaulary but aslo that they nderstand when, why, and
what ways to produce language? Finally, speaking has its own skills, structures and
conversations that the speaker should be aware(Burns & Joyce, 1997; Carter &
McCarthy, 1995; Cohen, 1996). .
b. The importance of speaking skill
People express their ideas and interact with each other to give or ask for
informatiom through speaking which is so much part of daily life” ( Thornburry,
2005, p.01 ).
Concerning the importance of speaking skill ( Cambridge, p.07 ) claimed
that “ speaking is a highly channenging yet essential skill for most learners to
acquire”, in additio, ( Renandya and Richards, 2002, p.201) state that “a large
percentage of the world’s language study English in order to develop proficiency in
speaking” . Many English foreign language students consider the mastery of
speaking skill a priority. Besides, they evaluate their success according to their
spoken language proficiency ( Richard, 2008,p.19).
For many teachers, teaching speaking is so important.( Burn and Goh, 1012,
p.1-2) claim that “ teachers do much effort to help their students develop their
spaeking abilities. For them speaking skill is important of three reasons. First, all
language learners should be able to communicate well with the foreign language
speakers. Second, many students are good at reading and writing, but thay have
poor speaking and listening abilities. Third, many students memorize words from
dictionaries, but they could not use them to speak English or to communictae in
formal situations. Therefore, teaching speaking is a very important part in English
language teaching and learning.
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c. The role of warm-up activities in speaking lessons
As we know, warm- up is an important part which contributes to the success of
a speaking lesson. Warm- up helps learners put aside their daily distractions and
focus on English. Warm-ups also encourage whole gropu participant which can
build a sense of community within the group and warm-ups can help to arouse
students’s interest in sppeaking
Warming up activities can foster motivation and this is, in turn, an essential
component when planning warming up activities. According to Dornyei (2001),
teachers need to try and actively generate positive students' attitudes toward
learning. He also claims that the key issue in generating interest is to widen the
student's appetite; that is, to arouse the students' curiosity and attention and to
create an attractive image for the class so that they will get more involved with it
and a better learning process will take place.
The importance of having warming up activities was mentioned above, but a
question remains: What is a warming up activity? Allwright (1984) considers that
warm up activities are designed to attract students' attention, to help them put aside
distracting thoughts, and to get them ready to focus individually and as groups on
whatever activities that follow. They will cause people to stop whatever they are
doing or thinking and refocus their attention. We could say a warming up activity is
a motivating starting point that will lead students to become animated to work
efficiently in the language class. For the purpose of our study, it was the activity
used to encourage students' involvement and permeate the development of the
whole lesson, so we avoided looking at them as isolated activities. These kinds of
activities might also be called zealous, enthusiastic or suggestive activities. How
we can include these activities in the process of a class will be the next focus in our
discussion
Warm- up is an effective way to help the students begin to think in English
and to review previously introduced material. Different types of warm ups help
provide variety and interest in the lesson. A warm up to prepare students for a

period of concentration may involve physical movement with activities that keep
them active by standing up, walking, jumping, matching pictures with sentences or
vocabulary, drawing or writing personal experiences or stories, and singing or
listening to familiar songs and chants. These are, among others, enjoyable and
motivating warms up
2.2. Current status of the problem before applying innitiate experience.
To begin with, Nhu Xuan district is considered a poor, mountainous district
of Thanh Hoa province. Although my school is located in the centre of district,
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Students’s English is in bad quality. There is not a real language environment for
them to do their practice every day. Students don’t have many chances to
communicate with native speakers.
Secondly, there are too many students in a class. Normally, each class has
about 40 students. In addition, all of the classes are fixed with rows of desks. This
makes it difficult for teachers for teachers to oraganize communicative tasks and
keep control of the class.
Thirdly, most of the students are not good at the language, especially their
communicative competences are poor although they have been exposed to the new
curriculum since they were in secondary school. Normally, most of them don’t
know how to talk about the topic about the topic given. They can’t make up the
ideas to express in English because their vocabularies, structures are still limited.
Many students find it very difficult to show their ideas in English due to
nervousness and lack confidence in front of the class. They feel shy, they are afraid
of being laughed at, being lost face with their friends when they have mistakes. As
a result, they are afraid of speaking skill, the class is tense and passive because
students don’t want to express their thought.
A large number of students are afraid of learning to speak English and say that
it is difficult for them to be good at this skill .Moreover, their awareness of

importance of being good at this skill is not really made clear because speaking
skill is not usually included in their exams, so they often learn English only for
their written exams, not for communication.. According to the survey carried out at
the beginning of last school year at my school, more than 70% of the students
reported that they are worried about their English speaking skill. They said that
they could hardly make a simple conversation in English or express what they
thought. Importantly, most of them assumed that speaking is very difficult for them
to master. Therefore, if students do not learn how to speak or do not get many
opportunities to speak in the language classroom, they may soon get de-motivated
and lose interest in learning. On the other hand, if the right activities are taught in
the right way, speaking in class can be a lot of fun, raising general learner
motivation and making the English language classroom fun and dynamic.
2.3. Some solutions to the problem
UNIT 1 : A day in the life of..........
Warm-up: (4mn) : Matching
- Ask sts to close their books.
- Deliver the handout.
A

B
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1. Civic education
a. Tin học
2. Technology
b. Vật lí
3. Maths
c. Sinh học
4. Literature

d. Thể dục
5. Physics
e. Địa lí
6. Biology
f. Giáo dục công dân
7. Chemistry
g. Văn học
8. Physical education h. Lịch sử
9. Geography
i. Công nghệ
10. History
j. Toán
11. Informatics
k. Hóa học
- Ask them to match one item in column A with one item in column B.
- Ask them to work in groups in 2 minutes, then check this exercise in chorus.
- Ask sts to read aloud the names of these subjects in chorus
- Asks the class : when do you have English lesson?
- Gets the aswer from the class and lead in the new lesson: Today, we are going to
talk about timetable
Unit 2 : School talks
- Warm-up ( 4mn ) : Completing the dialogue
- Introduce the situation and write a short dialogue on board:
"Suppose that you meet a friend at the supermarket. You are very busy .What will
you say to open and end the conversation."
A: ............................... ( 1)
B: Hi Lan. How are you?
A: I’m fine. Thank you. And you?
B: I’m very well. Thanks. I haven’t seen you for a long time. Let’s go somewhere
for a drink

A: Sorry, ..................... ( 2)
- Ask sts to complete the dialogue in pairs.
- Ask some pairs to report.
- Ok, that’s a short conversation between A and B (1) & (2) are two ways to start
and close a conversation
Today, we will practice speaking conversation having stating and dosing
sentences
Unit 3 : People’s background
Warm-up (4mn): Game : Giving questions about people's background.
- Divides the class into four teams
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- Aks students to discuss and give questions to know some information of a
person’s background in two minutes.
+ family
+ education
+ experience
- The team has more correct and faster questions will win the game.
- Elicits the answers from four teams
- Gives feedback and declares the winner
Suggested answer:
Family:
- How many people are there in your family?
- What does your father/ mother do?
Education:
- Where did you study at primary school/ junior secondary school?
- What subject do you like best?
- What degree do you have?
Experience:

- How long have you been a member of our school's speaking club?
- Have you ever won any prizes?
Unit 4: Special education
Warm-up (4mn) Game : Network
- Asks sts to work in groups and make a list of words relating to school. The words
must be correctly spelled and related to the topic.

subjects
School

- Ask some groups to report.
- The group with the longest list will be the winner.
- Suggested words:
Subjects: English, maths, literature,...........
Tests, breaks, homework, teacher, students,.....Secondary school , high school.......
OK, today, we will go to Lesson: Speaking to talk about school life of a student
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UNIT 5 : Technology and you
Warm-up( 5mn): GAME: Write down the name of some modern inventions
- Show Ss the pictures of a radio/ TV / computer / electric cooker / air-conditioner /
cell phone.

- Divide the class into 2 teams.
- Stick all the pictures and ask Ss to look at and remember within 1 minute, then go
to the board, write down the name of each picture.
- The team winner is the one that has more correct answers.
- calls on two presentative of two teams to go to the board to write the answer
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- Checks and declare the winner.
- Leads in the new lesson : In our lesson today, we are talking about the uses of
some mordern inventions and information technology.
UNIT 6: An excursion
Warm-up (5 mn) : Answering the questions
- Ask some questions:
1. Have you ever gone on a boat trip?
2. When?
3. Is it interesting?
4. Which seat do you think the most suitable for you?
- Gets the answer from students
Suggested answer:
1. Yes, I have.
2. Last summer
3. Yes, it is.
4. The seat on the sundeck…
- Gives feedback and leads in the new lesson by saying: “Ok, there are many nice
seats. Today, we study part B: Speaking to know how to choose the best seat then
we go on a boat trip”
UNIT 8: The story of my village
Warm-up (5 mn) : completing words
- Write the incomplete words on the board,ask sts to give complete words
RO_DS
M_DIC_L C_NT_E
CR_PS
SCH_OL
FO_TB_LL GRO_ND
- Divides the class into four groups to complete the words.

- The group having more correct and faster words will win the game.
- Calls on the presentatives of four groups to go to the board to write their words
- Checks and declare the winner
Answer key :
ROADS
MEDICAL CENTRE
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CROPS
SCHOOL
FOOTBALL GROUND
- Leads in : to make life in the country better, what should be done with things
mentioned above ?
Unit 9 : Undersea world
Warm-up: (4mn) : watching a video and answer the questions
- Plays a video of some polluted rivers/ beaches , then asked sts what you can
see in the video ( link : )
- Elicits the aswers from the students
- Gives feedback and leads in the new lesson by saying : “ In our lesson today,
we are going to discuss the measures to protect polluted rivers/ beaches”
Unit 10 : conservation
Warm-up :(5mn)
- Plays a video of a new kind of zoo
( link : )
- Asks sts what animals they can see in the video and list some features of a
zoo of the new kind
- Elicits the answer from the students
- Gives feedback and leads in the new lesson : “ Today we are going to discuss
the advantages and disadvantages of zoos of the new kind “

Unit 11 : National parks
Warm –up(3 mn):
- Ask sts some questions to lead in
1.Have you ever gone on an excursion?
2.where? When?
3. How did you go there?
4. Tell me what you prepared for that trip?
5. Was it interesting?
- Gets the answers from students and gives feedback
Suggested answer
1.Yes, we have.
2. We went to SAM SON beach last summer
3. We went there by coach
4. We prepared food, drinks, tents, cameras …..
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5. Yes, it was
Unit 12 : Music
Warm- up ( 3 ms): Saying aloud the name of singer/ band
- Give sts some pictures of singers/ bands and ask sts about their names.

1.
2.
3.

Gets the aswers from students and gives feedback
Asks students some question to lead in the new lesson:
Do you like music ?
What kind of music do you like ?

when do you like music?

Unit 13 : Film and cinema
Warm up : (4mn) : Write down the kind of film for each film in the picture
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- Stick some pictures of some famous films on the board.
- Divides the class into four teams
- Asks students to look at the pictures and write down kind of film for each
picture in two minutes
- The team having more correct and faster answer will be the winner.
- Calls on the leaders of four teams to go to the board to write down their
answers.
- Checks and declares the winner.
- Leads in : “ In our lesson today, we are talking about the kind of film you
like and find out what your partners feel about each kind of film
Unit 14: The world cup
1. Warm- up ( 4 ms): Jumble words
- Divide the class into small groups of 3 or 4 and introduce the games: Sts are to
rearrange the letters into meaning words.
WERNNI
SERCO
RURENN– UP
C H O PAM I N
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HOTS COUYRT
- Write some groups of letters on the board.

- Ask sts to work in groups.
- Ask some goups to give answers .
- Gives feedback
Answers: winner, score, runner-up,host country, champion.
- Introduces the new lesson: Today we will talk about the World Cups.
Unit 16 :Hisorical places
1. Warm- up: (5 minutes) Saying the name of some historical palces in Viet Nam
- sticks some pictures of some historical places in Viet Namon the board.

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- Asks students to give the name of each historical place in each picture.
- Each correct answer will get 8 marks.
- Gets the answers from students and gives feedback and marks
Suggested answer
1. President Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum
2. Van Mieu- Quoc Tu Giam
3. Thong Nhat Conference Hall
4. One pillar pagoda
5. Hue imperial city
6. Flag Tower of Hanoi
- Leads in the new lesson : In our lesson today, we are going to talk about some
historical places in Viet Nam.
2.4. Effects of the study
After a period of time of applying warm- up activities in teaching speaking
lessons for the tenth grade students at my school, to my expectation, I have gained
some satisfying results. I've found that my students’ attitudes towards speaking
lessons have changed. Instead of being afraid of and bored with speaking skills, my
students have become more confident ,active and interested in their speaking

lessons. Many of them said that they no longer feel their speaking lessons stressful
and too difficult. Most of them admitted that their speaking skill has been improved
a lot day by day.
The result before implementing new method
Total students tested: 105

Total
Class
students
10A3 38
10A4 35
10A5 42

7-8
marks
Total % total %
0
0 10
26.3
0
0 8
22.8
0
0 7
16.7
9-10 marks

Under
marks
total %

total %
total
15
39,4 8
21,1 5
10
28.6 9
25.8 8
16
38.1 12
28.6 7
5-6 marks

4

4-5 marks

%
13.2
22.8
16.6

The result after implementing new method
Total students tested: 105

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Total
Class

students
10A3 38
10A4 35
10A5 42

7-8
marks
Total %
total %
3
7.9 15
39.4
1
2.85 10
28.5
2
4.76 12
28.6
9-10 marks

Under
marks
total %
Total %
total
15
39.4 4
10.5 1
16
45.7 6

17.1 2
20
47.6 7
15.6 1
5-6 marks

4

4-5 marks

%
2.8
5.85
3.44

It can be seen from the 2 above tables that the application of warm- up
activities in teaching speaking lesson in my real teaching has been effective.I’m so
happy and satisfactory when seeing my students become interested in speaking
skills, which can help students develop their communicative skills in English. The
atmosphere of my speaking class has been more active. My students were eager to
express their thoughts although they still made a lot of mistakes. I believe I have
made the right choice when using the new method to stimulate my students to learn
English, specially speaking skill.
3. CONCLUSION AND PROPOSAL
1.1. Conclusion:
Speaking is an important part of second language learning to any learners. The
ability to communicate in English clearly and efficiently contributes to great
success of the learner in school and to far better success later in his life. Therefore,
it is essential that language teachers pay great attention to helping students develop
their speaking skill rather than leading students to pure memorization. Teachers

should provide students with a rich environment where meaningful communication
takes place while teaching any other skills. With this aim, various warm- up
activities can contribute a great deal to students in developing basic interactive
skills necessary for life. These activities stimulate students to be more active in the
learning process and at the same time make their learning more meaningful and fun
for them.
3.2. Proposal:
3.2. 1. Recommendations to the education and training committee division
and my school:
- I recommend that the education and training committee division hold more
sample teaching lessons, using various useful teaching techniques in an artistic
way in order to attract students’ enthusiasm in communication tasks.
- I suggest that the managing board of my school buy more and more materials
of methodology for the teachers of the school. As a result, the teachers will have a
better chance to develop teaching quality.
3.2. 2. Recommendations to other teachers:
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- Indeed, I know that I am not really full of experience in teaching because the
number of years I have involved in this job is still far smaller than many of my
colleagues. Therefore, I would need useful comments and supplements from
experienced teachers so that my initiative ideas would be much better.
Sincerely!

CONFIRMATION OF THE HEAD
MASTER

Nhu Xuan, May 10th , 2018
I swear this is my initiative experience,

do not make the copy of the others.
Author

Le Thi Chung

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4. REFERENCES
1. Brown, H, Douglas, (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching (4th
ed). Longman: library of congress.
2. Brown, H. D. (2004). Language assessment principles and classroom practice.
Pearson education.
3. Burns, A, and, Goh,C, J (2012). Teaching speaking, Cambridge university press.
4. Bygate, M., swain, M., skeham, P. (2001). Researching pedagogic tasks second
language learning: teaching and testing. Longman Pearson Education.
5. Fedler Richard. Reaching the second tier: learning and teaching styles in college
science and education, J. College science teaching, 23 (5) 286-290. 2003.
6. Grammidge, M. (2004). Speaking extra. Cambridge university press. Harmer, J,
(2001). Teaching and learning in the language classroom
7. Ailey, K.M., & Savage, L. (1994). New ways in teaching speaking. Alexandria,
VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.
8. Zoltan Dornyei ( 2001 ). Motivational strategies in the language classroomCambridge language teaching library.
9. />9. />10. )
11.
12. Thiết kế bài giảng tiếng Anh 10- Nguyễn Thùy Minh- Lương Quỳnh Trang.

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