Teaching the grade 6 students at quang loc secondary school how to speak english correctly and naturally

INTRODUCTION
In today’s global world, we can not deny the importance of English as it is the
most common language spoken everywhere. English has been playing a key role
in many aspects including medicine, science, tourism , engineering,… and
education, which, in my opinion, is the most important arena where English is
needed. In Viet Nam, English has become one of the major and compulsory
subjects at schools and universities. In order to improve Vietnamese learners’
competence to meet the demand of globalization, the Ministry of Education and
Training (MOET) has also made great efforts to help students learn English
better. The 2020 National foreign language project is one of the most important
projects with the aim of motivating every Vietnamese student to use English in
communication and for their future jobs. Especially, the introduction of new
textbooks to school curriculum marks a dramatic change in the way of language
teaching and learning from the traditional approach-grammar translation method
to communicative approach.
Among the four skills known as listening, speaking, reading and writing, it
can be said that speaking seems to be the most challenging skill for most of
the students at Quang Loc secondary school. Most of the students only focus on
learning the grammar without developing speaking skill while the goal of
learning English is to communicate in it. Consequently, the students become
accustomed to sitting and listening quietly rather than presenting orally.After
many school years of teaching the textbook “Tiếng Anh 6” at Quang Loc
secondary school, I find that one of the biggest problem my students meet in
speaking English is they don’t know how to pronounce words correctly and how
to use words to make sentences. I also see that there are some problems with
some activities in the textbook. Some are too difficult for my students, some are
not real communicative, some are too long. All these reasons greatly contribute
to the demotivation of students from the lessons.
I think that the sixth form students are the freshmen at the secondary
school.They studied English at primary school but most of them speak English
incorrectly and seem to be afraid of speaking English.Therefore, it is necessary

for teachers to teach them the rules of word pronunciation and how to use words
and phrases to make sentences as well as adapt some activities to make the
lessons suitable and interesting for students.
The above mentioned reasons have inspired me to conduct a research titled
“Teaching the grade 6 students at Quang Loc secondary school how to speak
English correctly and naturally.”

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CONTENT
PART 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.The analysis of the title.
1.1. What is meant by " speaking"
It is obvious that speaking is the key to communication and seems to be
the vital skill in comparison with reading, listening and writing. Everywhere
people speak to each other to exchange attitudes, cultural values, etc. Without it
communication will become difficult to proceed and our world will become as
silent as a grave. Therefore, classroom activities aiming at developing learners’
ability to express themselves through speech are considered an important
component in a language learning course.
Speaking is one of four necessary skills to use a language successfully.
According to Chaney (1998, p.13), speaking is “the process of building and
sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non – verbal symbols, in a
variety of contexts” (as cited in Kayi, 2006). Fowler & Thompson (2000) share
the same view that speaking is “the action of conveying information or
expressing one’s thoughts and feelings in spoken language”. This definition
confirms that speaking is a process because it contains speakers’ thoughts and
feelings.
Orwig (1999) defines speaking is the productive skill in the oral mode. It

is complicated and involves more than just pronouncing words. W.F. Mackey
also agrees that oral skill “involves not only the use of the right sounds in the
right patterns of rhythm and intonation, but also the choice of words and
inflections in the right order to convey the right meaning.” (Qouted from
Bygate, M.,1987, p.5)
According to Byrne (1976, p.8), speaking is a two - way process between
the speakers and the hearers involving the productive skill of speaking and the
receptive skill of understanding. Both the listener and the speaker have a
positive function to perform. The speaker has to encode the message to be
conveyed in appropriate language, while the listener has to decode the message.
The message itself in normal speech usually contains a great deal of information
that the listener needs.
In summary, speaking is the ability to perform the linguistic knowledge in
actual communication. It functions to express one’s idea, feeling, thought and
needs orally.
1.2. How to teach speaking
Now many teachers agree on that students learn to speak in the second
language by "interacting". Communicative language teaching and collaborative
learning serve best for this aim. Communicative language teaching is based on
real-life situations that require communication. By using this method in classes,
students will have the opportunity of communicating with each other in the
target language. In brief, teachers should create a classroom environment where
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students have real-life communication, authentic activities, and meaningful tasks
that promote oral language. This can occur when students collaborate in groups
to achieve a goal or to complete a task.
According to Kayi (2006, p.1-2) what is meant by teaching speaking is to
teach English language learners to:

• Produce the English speech sounds and sound patterns
• Use word and sentence stress, intonation patterns and the rhythm of
the second language.
• Select appropriate words and sentences according to the proper social
setting, audience, situation and subject matter.
• Organize their thoughts in a meaningful and logical sequence.
• Use language as a means of expressing values and judgments.
• Use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses,
which is called as fluency
1.3.What does it mean by speaking English correctly and naturally?
One mistake that language leanrners make is that they try to learn English
grammar in order to speak better English. They do this because they are unaware
of the fact that learning English grammar will not help them speak English
fluently and accurately.
Knowledge of grammar and comprehension can improve our English
writing skill and not English conversation skill. In order to master English
conversation, it is necessary to learn conversational English.So, in order to learn
to speak English fluently and correctly, it is better to concentrate on learning
conversational English rather than memorizing the rules of grammar.
Communication is complete when a speaker delivers a message to his
listener and the listener has understood it thoroughly to give him an accurate
reply. Therefore, speaking English correctly and naturally means that the
speakers have to pronounce words correctly , clearly and use them frequently. It
is also necessary for speakers to listen to the person talking to understand him or
her thoroughly so that you can then make a fitting reply to give him.
2.Related studies
Teaching speaking English is one of the aspects that attracts a lot of
educationalists and teachers who have passion for improving students’
communicative skill in English in their daily conversations. There are a lot of
studies on this such as “A Study on the Adaptation of Speaking Activities in

“Tieng Anh 11” at Nghi Xuan High School.”by Dang Thi Phuong Anh at Vinh
university (2014) was about some adaptations to the speaking lessons of
textbook of Tieng Anh 11. In this research the writer gave some limatations of
the speaking lessons from the text book and exchanged some adaptations that
might help the lessons more interesting and attractive to the students.
Another research conducted by Tran Thi Lan Anh (2010) was about
“Challenges and solutions in teaching and learning speaking skill with the new
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English textbook for grade 10 at Xuan Hoa high school, Vinh Phuc province”.
She mentioned the difficulties from teachers such as teachers’ insufficient
communicative competence, teachers’ lack of training and difficulties from
students were learners’ level of English, learners’ traditional features. She also
suggested some solutions to those problems.
Mai Thị Lan (2013) carried out a research on “How to motivate the 10
grade students in speaking skill at Hoa Lu A high school in Ninh Binh
province”. An action research was planned and implemented with such data
collection instruments as classroom observation, questionnaire and document
analysis. This study set out to investigate the types of motivation possessed by
students in speaking lessons at Hoa Lu A high school. It also focused and
evaluated motivational techniques used by teachers at this school, students’
expectations of speaking teaching. Then, it suggested some recommendations
for teachers to motivate students in speaking skill.
In conclusion, it can be seen from the above review that researchers
focused on adapting speaking activities to increase students’ participation and
motivation in speaking class. However, not many researchers have conducted
research on how to teach the grade 6 students to speak good English. Therefore,
I have decided to conduct the research with the aim of supplying students the
ways to be confident in speaking English and use English correctly and

naturally. It also helps improve teaching and learning English at Quang Loc
secondary school.
PART 2: PRACTICAL BACKGROUND
1.The situation of teaching and learning English at Quang Loc secondary school.

In the reality, teaching of English in general, and teaching speaking
English in particular have encountered a great deal of difficulties.Over years of
teaching English at Quang Loc secondary school I have realized that most of the
students,especially the grade 6 students, always have fears of speaking English
during the lessons and most of them do not feel confident in communicating in
English. This comes from many reasons:
The first reason is that the students find it difficult to pronounce words
and they are always worried about saying the wrong words. Moreover, the
students can remember the meaning and the use of the words but their
pronunciation,stress, rhythm and intonation are bad. This is the most important
characteristic of English pronunciation because the stress-timed rhythm of
spoken English and its intonation patterns convey important massages. But the
fact that the students often find it difficult to pronounce English words or stress
the right syllables, to follow the tress-timed rhythm and intonation patterns of
spoken English.
The next reason comes from the students’studying habits. Usually,
students do not have a good habit of using English as much as possible. So, they
can not react quickly in the real conversations. The students can have enough
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vocabulary to communicate but they can not use them to express their ideas
because they are not used to speaking English in everyday conversations.
Besides, speaking activity needs a good practical environment but my
students do not have opportunities to communicate with native speakers and

foreigners who can speak English well and they do not also creat their own
English speaking environment.
In addition to this,for the sixth form students the textbook “Tieng Anh 6”
and every thing at secondary school are still quite new and too strange, so they
do not have enough time to catch up with studying environment here. This
prevents them a lot from learning to speak English. They are always scared and
do not believe themselves to speak in English during the lessons and real life
conversations.
In sum up, all the above reasons have a bad influence on improving
students’ English speaking skill. Therefore, it is important for teachers to give
some necessary solutions to help students overcome their first challenges in
speaking English, which is the basic foudation for them to develop their
speaking skill in the next classes.
2.Results and effects.
The reasons mentioned above slow down the students’progress of learning
to speak English a lot.They always feel difficult to use English in real life so
they may be disapointed with their English and then fed up with learning it.As a
result, they do not actively take part in English lessons because they think that
they are lack of the competence of learning to speak English.This is the main
reason making English lessons uninteresting and the goal of learning and
teaching English ineffective.Especially, the students are not motivated in
practising speaking English frequently and the efficiency of teaching and
learning English can not meet the demand as expectation.
PART 3: SOLUTIONS
1.Solutions.
In order to help the sixth form –students speak English correctly and
naturally, I think the teacher needs to follow these suggestions:
• Firstly, teaching students how to pronounce the English vowels and
consonants.
•

Secondly,teaching them the rules of the word stress and intonation in
English.
• Thirdly, helping students practise making sentences regularly.
• Fourthly, helping them to create the English speaking environment.
2. Carrying out the solutions
2.1. Teaching students how to pronounce the English vowels and consonants.
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One of the biggest problems that my students usually face up with while
speaking is their pronunciation, so I think I must help them overcome this by
teaching them how to pronounce vowels and consonants in English.
In order to improve English pronunciation it is important for students to
understand some of the words like letters, vowels, consonants…… in
English.The English language may have 26 letters but there are many more
sounds that we need to know. So how do we help our students learn how to
pronounce English words correctly?
Firstly,teacher needs to introduce the students about :
Letters
There are twenty-six letters in the English alphabet. Some letters are pronounced
differently depending on which letters they are with. For example, 'c' can be
pronounced like a hard /k/ or as an /s/ in the verb 'cite'. Letters are made up of
consonants and vowels. Consonants can be voiced or voiceless depending on the
sound (or phoneme). The difference between voiced and voiceless is explained
below.
Consonants
Consonants are the sounds that interrupt vowel sounds. Consonants are
combined with vowels to form a syllable. They include:b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m,
n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, z. Consonants can be voiced or voiceless.
Vowels

Vowels are open sounds caused with the vibration of vocal sounds, but without
obstruction. Consonants interrupt vowels to form syllables. They include:
a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y
There are 20 vowel sounds and 24 consonant sounds in English. The teacher
should teach the students these sounds in each lesson. It is important that the
teacher should help students know how to pronounce these sounds correctly.For
example, in the lesson the teacher teaches students two vowel sounds /æ/ and /е/.
They are different sounds and have different pronunciation.We pronounce /æ/
with the words: hat, man, bad…. but /е/ with the words: best, letter…..And the
teacher also needs to help students to know that no sounds in English are the
same as the ones in Vietnamese.
I think that if our students know how to pronounce the sounds in English
correctly, they are definitely more confident in speaking English so that they can
say words easily. Almost the students don’t understand the rules of sounds in
English, they often listen to their teacher’s pronunciation and imitate their
teacher’s sounds but a lot of students hear the wrong sounds or forget them
quickly.Therefore, when they know the ways to pronounce each word, they can
easily remember it and in case they forget they can check from the dictionaries.
This is the key for students to pronounce words correctly and it is also the basic
foundation to help students speak English naturrally.
This is a chart of vowel and consonant sounds.
* 3 groups of sound symbol
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1. Short vowels (12 = 6 pairs)
1
luck; cup

car ; heart

2

bed; head

cat; black

3

away; convert

girl

4.

pit,hit,delete

leave

5.

good; book;
could,foot
hot; rock

too; food; blue

6.
2. Dipthongs
1

2
3
4

day
sky
boy
beer

call; daughter

5.
6.
7.
8.

3. Consonants
• 14 consonants have the same sounds as the ones in Vietnamese.
1
pit
8
2
3
4

tour
go
cow

cat

fan

9

leg

rat

10

ring

get

11

hat

12

man

13

nice

5

bit

6

van

7

door
•

bear

14

/// time

10 consonants have different sounds from Vietnamese.
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1.
2

think
send

6
7

3

jump

8

4

zip

9

5

chop

10

that
shop
leisure
yet
wet

These are some ways I always use to teach pronunciation in the class.
In every lesson I spend five minutes teaching pronunciation.
First I will teach students vowel sounds.Through each lesson I choose a vowel ,
a pair or some pairs of vowels which are mostly used to introduce in the class.
For example, in the lesson of English 6- Unit 1: A567 I choose the sound / aі /
to teach the students because they appear mostly in words “fine,nice,bye…” .
This is a dipthong so we can combine the pronunciation of vowel “/a / and “/i/”

= /ai/. Or the other one in Unit 1: C1,2 I will teach the students the sounds /i/
and /i:/ in the numbers “thirteen- thirty” ……… After each lesson students will
know more about the vowel sounds and consonant sounds, so they can know the
pronunciation of the words they say clearly. This will help them from the fear of
saying the words wrongly. While teaching vowels and consonants sounds,
teacher needs to pay much atttention to teaching the students how to pronounce
the sound correctly in English in order to help them speak English naturally.
I see that after learning how to pronounce these sounds,
students’pronunciation improves a lot.They know how to pronounce the words
the same as English do and can correct their mistakes in pronunciation.
2.2. Teaching students the rules of the word and sentence stress in English.
According to me, in the first lessons of learning English, students need
teaching about the rules of stress syllables and the intonations in order to form
their good habits in learning to speak English correctly and naturally because
word stress and intonation are important factors in helping students to use
language perfectly. The teacher needs to help students understand that in
Vietnamese we use marks to make our words meaningful and in English we
must put stress syllables on words and stress words in the sentences to make
them meaningful. So if we do not make stress and intonation while speaking, the
others can not understand us and we can not understand them. This is the second
important factor to help the communication sucessfully.
In order to do this, the teacher needs to teach students the simple rules of
stress syllables and intonation.
2.2.1.What is the word stress?.
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To communicate clearly when you are speaking in English, it’s important
to stress the correct syllables in each word. This is called word stress, which
means pronouncing one syllable of a multisyllabic word with greater emphasis

(stress) than the other syllables in the word
The teacher should help them know the syllabes in English. For example,
teacher asks one student to read the word “ Hi” /“teacher” aloud and asks the
class “How many syllables do these words have” –and students can easily
regconise the word “hi” has one syllable and “teacher” has two syllabes. How
do we pronounce “teacher”?. We have to put stress on the first syllable.
Teachers should encourage students to say words with correct stress syllables.
For example: Hat (one syllable)
‘Apple (two syllable)
Here are four general rules that teacher should introduce students to keep
in mind about word stress as they practice pronunciation:
Stress the first syllable of:
Most two-syllable nouns (examples: CLImate, KNOWledge)
Most two-syllable adjectives (examples: FLIPpant, SPAcious)
Stress the last syllable of:
Most two-syllable verbs (examples: reQUIRE, deCIDE)
Stress the second-to-last syllable of:
Words that end in -ic (examples: ecSTATic, geoGRAPHic)
Words ending in -sion and -tion (examples: exTENsion, retriBUtion)
Stress the third-from-last syllable of:
Words that end in -cy, -ty, -phy and -gy (examples: deMOCracy, unCERtainty,
geOGraphy, radiOLogy)
Words that end in -al (examples: exCEPtional, CRItical)
In every lesson teacher should teach words which are accompanied by the
pronunciation so it teaches students how to pronounce the word correctly.
We do not need to teach separate lessons on word stress. Instead, we can
integrate it into the normal lessons. The ideal time to focus students' attention on
it is when introducing vocabulary. Meaning and spelling are usually clarified for
students but the sound and stress of the word can all too often be
forgotten. Quickly and simply elicit the stress pattern of the word from the

students and mark it on the board. Students can use stress patterns as another
way to organise and sort their vocabulary. For example, in their vocabulary
books they can have a section for nouns with the pattern O o, and then a section
for the pattern o O. Three syllable words can be sorted into O o o (Saturday,
hospital) and o O o (computer, unhappy). The more times students mentally
engage with new vocabulary, the more they are likely to actually learn it.
Engaging students through word stress helps to reinforce the learning of the
words.
2.2.2.What is the sentence stress?
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Sentence stress is the music of spoken English. Like word stress, sentence
stress can help us to understand spoken English, even rapid spoken English.
Sentence stress is what gives English its rhythm or "beat". Word stress is
accent on one syllable within a word. Sentence stress is accent on certain
words within a sentence.
Most sentences have two basic types of word:
Content words
Content words are the key words of a sentence. They are the important words
that carry the meaning or sense—the real content.
Structure words
Structure words are not very important words. They are small, simple words that
make the sentence correct grammatically. They give the sentence its correct form
—its structure.
If we remove the structure words from a sentence, we will probably still
understand the sentence.
If we remove the content words from a sentence, we will not understand the
sentence. The sentence has no sense or meaning.
Besides word stress, teacher also needs to teach the students the stress of

the sentences. In English sentences we often put stress on words which make the
sentence meaningful. In spoken language, grammatical words (auxiliary verbs,
prepositions, pronouns, articles, …) usually do not receive any stress. Lexical
words, however, (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, …) must have at least one
stressed syllable.
When someone asks declarative questions ,the intonation (i.e. the voice) is
rising to a higher pitch at the end.
When someone asks a wh-question or utters a statement, the intonation
(i.e. the voice) is falling to a lower pitch at the end.
Yes or no questions often have a rising end, but not always.
Intonation also deals with the stress of words. Words are stressed to make a
certain emphasis. A sentence can be spoken differently, depending on the
speaker's intention. Therefore, while teaching speaking the teacher should help
students to express their ideas with the correct stress of the sentences.
For example, when we teach the students the sentence “I go to school
everyday” they can stress on different words:
I go to school everyday
I go to school everyday
In the first sentence we put the stress on “I go/ school” to report that “I go to
school” not do the other things. And in the second sentence we emphasize “I go/
school/ everyday” to say that I go to school everyday not only Monday or
Saturday.
And here are more examples of the words stressed in the sentences:
We want to go to work.
I am talking to my friends.
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You’re sitting on the desk, but you aren’t listening to me.
What did he say to you in the garden?

In the above sentences the bold words are the content words so they are
important to express the speaker’s idea. Therefore, when we say a sentence we
must emphasize the content words.
In conclusion, the words stress and stress of the sentence are the important
factors to help the listeners understand the speakers’s thought. While teaching
students to speak English , teacher should note students these rules.
2.3. Helping students practise making sentences and speaking English
regularly.
One of the main reasons that makes students can not speak English for many years of learnin
The first rule is that they do not need to study grammar too much.
This is one of the most important rules. If students want to pass examinations, then study g
communicate effectively.
The next rule the students need to learn is that they should study phrases.
Many students learn vocabulary and try to put many words together to create a proper senten
when they know only 1000 phrases, they will become a fluent English speaker. For example
translate when they want to create an English sentence, do not translate the words from the m
Besides this the students also need to practise speaking what they hear frequently.
Reading, listening, and speaking are the most important aspects of any language. The same is
loud until the mouth and brain can do it without any effort. By doing so, they will be able to
without looking at the textbook first, then repeat after teacher twice. I will introduce them the
The teacher should also ask students to remember that while learning to speak they always h
A common phrase that is incorrect is, "Practice makes perfect." This is far from the truth. Pra
of an advanced lesson that should be studied after learning the fundamental basics of English
correct material they studied, do not learn how to say a sentence.
These are the rules that the teacher should teach the grade 6 students to learn to speak with th
2.4. Helping students to create the English speaking environment.
One of the factors helps students improve their speaking is that they need
to submerge themselves into English speaking activities
Being able to speak a language is not related to how smart the students
are. Anyone can learn how to speak any language. This is a proven fact by

everyone in the world. Everyone can speak at least one language. Whether they
are intelligent, or lacking some brain power, they are able to speak one
language.This was achieved by being around that language at all times. In our
country, we hear and speak our language constantly. We will notice that many
people who are good English speakers are the ones who studied in an English
speaking school. They can speak English not because they went to an English
speaking school, but because they had an environment where they can be around
English speaking people constantly.There are also some people who study
abroad and learn very little. That is because they went to an English speaking
school, but found friends from their own country and didn't practice English.
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Therefore, students need to know that they don't have to go anywhere to become
a fluent English speaker. They only need to surround themselves with English.
They can do this by making rules with their existing friends that they will only
speak English. For the grade 6 students, the teacher also needs to give them a
rule that they have to speak in English whenever they meet the teacher of
English or their classmates. If they do not follow the rules, they will be
punished. I think this is the way that can help improve students’ speaking day by
day.
3. The example of the lesson plan of English 6.
Here is an example of a teaching plan I have applied in teaching speaking skill
for students of grade 6 to improve their pronunciation of the vowels /u/ and /u:/
and encourage them in making as many sentences as possible from the material
of the lesson in Tieng Anh 6.
Period 76:
UNIT 12: SPORTS AND PASTIMES
C.How often?
Lesson 5: C1-4

I. Aims
Introducing Ss the new topic of the lesson: How often- adverbs of
frequency and developing their speaking skill.
II. Objectives
After the lesson, Ss will be able to
+ ask their partners using “ How often” and answer with the adverbs of
frequency
+ express their ideas with adverbs of frequency
+ pronounce the words with the vowels /u/ and /u:/ correctly
III. Language contents
Vocabulary:always, usually, often, sometimes, never.
Grammar: Wh- questions: How often ……………………?
IV. Phonetic: the vowels / u/ and /u:/
V. Preparations: Pictures, extra- board, cassette. tapes.
VI. Procedure
Stages
Contents
Activities
Warm up
+ Noughts and Crosses
Group work
(5 minutes)
swim
read a book
play tennis
go to school play soccer
listen to music
watch TV
do homework
play volley ball

Eg: S1: How often do you swim ?
T- whole
S2: [ Twice ] a week
Presentation. I.Preteach Vocabulary
class
(10 minutes) - always/ˈɑːl.weɪz/(explanation: We do things every day)
- usually /ˈjuː.ʒu.ə.li/
“
- often /ˈɑːf.ən/ /ˈɑːf.tən/
“
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Practice
(10 minutes)

.

Production
(10minutes)
Phonetic
(7 minutes)

- sometimes/ˈsʌm.taɪmz/
“
- never. /ˈnev.ɚ/
“
-tent /tent/
(picture)
-have a picnic /hæv ə ˈpɪk.nɪk/ (picture)

- fly a kite /flaɪ ə kaɪt/
“
- go camping. /ɡəʊ ˈkæm.pɪŋ/
“
+ Check: What and where.
C2 P130
II. Guess the meaning
Ss use the pictures and read the text to match the
Vietnamese with the new vocabulary in context
1. tha dieu =
2. cai leu =
3. di cam trai =
4. di da ngoai=
III.Grid
Ss read the text then complete the table with the tick
( V ) in the right column
How often never some often usuall always
do they
times
y
…go to
the zoo
…go to
the park
…have a
picnic ?
…do
sports
… fly the
kites?

…go
camping
… walk to
school
…do
homewor
k
+ Ask and answer with parner about Ba and Lan using
the grid.
Ex: How often do Ba and Lan go to the zoo?
They sometimes go to the zoo.
+ / u/ OR /u:/
How can you pronounce these words, /u/ or /u:/? Write
them in the correct column and read aloud

Whole class

Whole class

Pair work

Group work

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school, zoo, noon,foot,food, good,too, look, cook, noodles,
two,boots,book.

/u/

/u:/

*Key
/u/ -foot,good,cook,look,book.
/u:/- food, school, zoo, noon, noodles, two,boots.
Teacher asks the students to speak out loud these words
then practise making sentences with them
Ex: I always go to school on foot
My mother often cooks food
Note:Teacher should encourage students to make as
many sentences as possible with these words and the
adverbs of frequency as above .Because these sounds
usually make students meet difficulties in finding out
Individual
their differences, so they need to pay attention to
Homework
work
saying the words with vowels /u/ or /u:/ correctly.
(3 minutes)
+ Write it up
C4 P131
- Prepare for the next lesson
(In this lesson, I choose the vowels /u/ and /u:/ to teach because they appear in
some words: zoo, school, boot and some phrases that students can use to make
sentences with the adverbs of frequency and it is also a way to help students to
review the words with these sounds )
PART 4: THE DISCUSSION
After using these ways in teaching English for grade 6 students I regconize that
almost students are eager to the lessons. They do not feel too afraid of speaking

in English and more students participate in practice speaking English. I’m sure
that my students are more confident in using English in the conversations. And
the survey below is a proof of this research.
I have conducted my study on teaching English for 41 students of grade 6
at Quang Loc secondary school in the first term of school year 2016-2017 and
get the result as survey.
Students’
Qualification

Excellent
Total

Percent

Good
Total

Percent

Fair
Total

Percent

Average
Total

Percent

Poor

Total

Percent

14


Before using
the research

0

0%

0

%

2

4,8 %

6

14,6 %

33

80,4 %

After using
the research

1

2,4 %

5

12,1 %

12

29,2 %

15

36,5 %

8

19,5 %

From the survey, I believe that my research can get some achievements at
first. Actually at the first lessons of English 6, a lot of students seem to be quite
strange to English, they hardly speak an English word. However, after using the
activities mentioned in this thesis they have made a lot of progress. They are far
more confident in using English. And of course their pronunciation and
intonation are much better.
CONCLUSION

1. Conclusion
As teachers of English at a rural school, we have faced many obstacles in
developing students’ speaking skill, and the desire of how to improve the
effectiveness of speaking lessons is really the strong motivation. This study aims
at investigating the necessity of improving the grade 6 students’ speaking
activities, giving them more chances to speak English in their daily
conversations and improve their speaking ability. The research has discovered
the significant findings:
First, the communicative activities presented in some tasks in speaking lesson in
“Tieng Anh 6” are not effective because they are not varied and interesting
enough to attract the students’ concentration or some topics are not familiar to
them due to the low background knowledge of rural students, generally. The
combination of teaching speaking in all the lessons with pronunciation provides
the students more chances to practice speaking, help them feel more confident
and interested in speaking English. And they always speak correct and natural
English.Therefore, in order to motivate students in speaking, it is vitally
necessary to supply students with the knowledge of pronunciation.
Secondly, guiding students to learn phrases to make sentences is very profitable.
This activity gets students easier to express their idea and make them more
confident.
Thirdly, students have to create their own speaking English habit every time and
everywhere if they want to speak better English. This activity will attract a lot
of students in the class to use English in their real dialogues and they willnot
find English too far alient to them.
According to the findings, it can be concluded that teachers should teach
students the basic knowledge of pronunciation and necessary activities to
increase the students’effectiveness of speaking skill.
15

2. Limitation of the study
As the focus of the thesis is teaching students how to speak English
correctly and naturally to reduce students’ difficulties in learning to speak
English, it is expected that the study results will provide basic knowledge and
necessities not only for the author but also for other teachers and learners of
English. However, the study can not avoid limitations as follows:
Firstly, the research has not covered all the rules of pronunciation and
intonation. Some rules in the thesis are only examples.
Secondly, the researcher has not investigated to introduce the vowels and
consonants for every unit in textbook “Tieng Anh 6”. As a result,some teachers
may find difficult to teach vowels and consonants as well as word stress and
sentence stress in the lessons.
However, I hope that this thesis is also a suggestion for my colleages to
help their students improve their English speaking ability and can help many
students know how to start learning speaking English more effectively.
As this theme was completed in a short period time and because of
limitted knowledge and experienced teaching, naturally mistakes and errors are
inevitable. I hope the theme will be supported and receive remarks from all the
colleages, the experienced teachers and readers who are interested in the theme.
I sincerely thank.

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I hereby acknowledge that this study is my own work. The data and findings
discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission and have not been published
elsewhere.
Written by Tran Thi Hoa

Approved by

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