(Luận văn thạc sĩ) an investigation into the impacts of adapted speaking activities in the english 11 textbook on students’ motivation a study at binh luc b high school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

PHẠM THỊ HỒNG LOAN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE IMPACTS OF ADAPTED SPEAKING
ACTIVITIES IN THE ENGLISH 11 TEXTBOOK ON STUDENTS’
MOTIVATION. A STUDY AT BINH LUC B HIGH SCHOOL

(Nghiªn cứu ảnh h-ởng của các hoạt động nói đ-ợc điều
chỉnh trong
sách giáo khoa Tiếng Anh lớp 11 tới động lực học tập
của học sinh.
Một nghiên cứu tại tr-ờng THPT B B×nh Lơc)

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

HANOI - 2016


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

PHẠM THỊ HỒNG LOAN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE IMPACTS OF ADAPTED SPEAKING
ACTIVITIES IN THE ENGLISH 11 TEXTBOOK ON STUDENTS’

MOTIVATION. A STUDY AT BINH LUC B HIGH SCHOOL

(Nghiên cứu ảnh h-ởng của các hoạt động nói đ-ợc điều
chỉnh trong
sách giáo khoa TiÕng Anh líp 11 tíi ®éng lùc häc tËp
cđa học sinh.
Một nghiên cứu tại tr-ờng THPT B Bình Lục)

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. NguyÔn Hßa

HANOI - 2016


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*******************

DECLARATION
I, Phạm Thị Hồng Loan, hereby declare that this thesis is my own work, and I
have provided fully documented references to the work of others. In addition, this
thesis has not been submitted for assessment in other formal courses in any other
university. I also accept all the requirements of ULIS relating to the retention and use
of M.A Graduation Thesis deposited in the library.

Hanoi, March, 2016
Signature

Phạm Thị Hồng Loan

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Professor Nguyen Hoa, for the
support, guidance and valuable critical feedback. His help, stimulating suggestion and
encouragement helped me a lot right from the beginning to the end of this study.
I would like acknowledge my thanks to the students at Binh Luc B High School in Ha
Nam who helped me a lot and showed great willingness to take part in my survey.
My special thanks also go to my lecturers, my friends, my classmates for valuable
comments and criticism, their interest and encouragement.
Last but not least, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my parents and friends for
their love, care, tolerance and encouragement.

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ABSTRACT
This study investigates the impacts of adapted speaking activities in the English 11
Textbook on students’ motivation at Binh Luc B High School in Ha Nam province.
An action research project was carried out for this study. It began when the students‟
low motivation in speaking lessons was perceived during the first three weeks of the
case study by the researcher, students and other colleagues. In this initial stage, data
collection showed that the unsuitability of the speaking activities in English 11 for the
students is the main reason causing the students‟ low motivation. Therefore, the
hypothesis of the study formed was that the adapted speaking activities could help
increase the students’ motivation in speaking lessons. Then, original speaking

activities in English 11 were adapted and implemented in the speaking lessons. The
adapting of the original speaking activities was based on the principles and techniques
for adaptation. The participants included 40 grade 11 students from class 11A2 at Binh
Luc B High School in the school year 2015-2016. The action research lasted for 14
weeks in which the original activities and the adapted speaking activities were used in
the different periods. The data were collected from the main instruments including
survey questionnaires, observations and textbook analysis. The results show that
despite some shortcomings, all the adapted speaking activities helped increase the
students‟ motivation in speaking lessons and the action plan was successful after
comparing the post and initial data.
Based on the findings of the study, some recommendations and limitations were made
along with suggestions for further study. It is hoped that the findings and suggestions
in the research will help teachers use English 11 textbook more effectively in order to
improve students‟ motivation in speaking lessons.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1
1. Rationale for the study ............................................................................................. 1
2. Research aims of the study ....................................................................................... 2
3. Research questions of the study ............................................................................... 2
4. Significance of the study .......................................................................................... 3
5. Research scope of the study ..................................................................................... 3
6. Research methods of the study ................................................................................. 3
7. Design of the study .................................................................................................. 4
PART II: DEVELOPMENT ..................................................................................... 6
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................. 6
1. Theoretical background of motivation in language learning ............................... 6

1.1. Definition of motivation ............................................................................. 6
1.2. Types of motivation ................................................................................... 6
1.3. Factors affecting motivation ....................................................................... 7
1.4. Role of motivation in language learning ..................................................... 8
1.5. Motivating students in classroom activities ................................................ 9
2. Theoretical background of speaking skill ............................................................. 9
2.1. Speaking as a skill in language learning ..................................................... 9
2.2. Teaching speaking ...................................................................................... 9
2.2.1. The speaking needs of students....................................................... 10
2.2.2. Communicative Language Teaching ............................................... 10
2.2.3. Principles for teaching speaking ..................................................... 11
2.3. Speaking activities ................................................................................... 11
2.3.1. Features of speaking activities ........................................................ 11
2.3.2. Ways of organizing activities: Pair and Group work ....................... 11
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3. Theoretical background of material adaption .................................................... 12
3.1. Definition of material adaption ................................................................. 12
3.2. Reasons for material adaption .................................................................. 13
3.3. Principles for material adaption ................................................................ 13
3.4. Techniques for material adaption.............................................................. 14
CHAPTER 2. THE METHODOLOGY ................................................................. 16
1. The case of the study ............................................................................................ 16
1.1. Context of the study ................................................................................. 16
1.2. Participants............................................................................................... 16
1.2.1. The teacher/researcher .................................................................... 16
1.2.2. The non-participant observer .......................................................... 17
1.2.3. The students ................................................................................... 17
1.3. Speaking materials_English Textbook ...................................................... 17

2. Research method of the study ............................................................................. 18
2.1. An overview of action research ................................................................ 18
2.2. Action research models ............................................................................ 19
2.3. Procedure for this study ............................................................................ 19
3. Data collection instruments ................................................................................. 23
3.1. Survey questionnaire (Appendix 1 and 2) ................................................. 23
3.1.1. Rationale of the use of questionnaire survey ................................... 23
3.1.2. Description of survey questionnaire 1 (Appendix 1)........................ 24
3.1.3. Description of survey questionnaire 2 (Appendix 2)........................ 24
3.2. Classroom observation (Appendixes 3, 4) ................................................. 25
3.2.1. Rationale of the use of classroom observation ................................ 25
3.2.2. Description of the observation sheets (Appendixes 3, 4) ................. 26
3.3. Textbook analysis..................................................................................... 27
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3.3.1. The rationale of the use of textbook analysis .................................. 27
3.3.2. Description of textbook analysis ..................................................... 27
4. Summary .............................................................................................................. 28
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ....................................................... 29
1. Results of initial data ........................................................................................... 29
1.1 The result of overall class motivation (observation sheet 1) ...................... 29
1.2. The result of survey questionnaire 1 ....................................................... 30
1.2.1. Students‟ opinions about speaking lessons and activities in English 11
1.2.2. Students‟ preferences for speaking activities .................................. 31
1.3. The result of document analysis ............................................................... 32
2. Planning action steps ........................................................................................... 38
2.1. Adding ..................................................................................................... 38
2.2. Omitting ................................................................................................... 42
2.3. Simplifying .............................................................................................. 43

2.4. Replacing ................................................................................................. 44
3. Results of data collection in the action stage....................................................... 45
3.1. The results of overall class motivation (observation sheet 2) .................... 45
3.2. The results of survey questionnaire 2 (Students’ self-reported motivation)46
4. Action research evaluation .................................................................................. 47
4.1. Overall class motivation before and after the action plan .......................... 47
4.2. Summary of major findings and discussion .............................................. 48
PART III: CONCLUSION ...................................................................................... 50
1. Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 50
2. Recommendations ................................................................................................ 51
3. Limitations and suggestions for further study.................................................... 52
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................ 54
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LIST OF ABBREVIATION TERMS
AR

Action research

BAs

Bachelor of Arts

BLBHS Binh Luc B High School
EFL

English as a foreign language

ESL

English as a Second Language

GCSE

General Certificate of Secondary Education

L2

Second language

ULIS

University of Languages and International Studies

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LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHS
Table 1. Overall class motivation (Observation sheet 1)
Table 2. Speaking activity analysis in English textbook 11
Table 3. Overall class motivation (Observation sheet 2)
Table 4. Students‟ self-reported motivation (Survey questionnaire 2)
Graph 1: Percentage of lessons‟ overall class motivation

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PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study

Like at other high schools in Vietnam, at BLBHS English is one of the most important
subjects and is a compulsory subject. Students learn three periods of English every
week and the textbooks are the series of the brand new English textbooks which are
developed from a theme-based syllabus by a group of authors: Hoang Van Van, Hoang
Thi Xuan Hoa, Do Tuan Minh, Nguyen Thu Phuong and Nguyen Quoc Tuan. As well
as the English10 and 12, the English textbook 11 in the series follows two current
approaches: the learner-centered and communicative language teaching. All the
activities in this book, especially in the speaking lessons are designed to help students
improve their grammatical structures and especially communicative competence.
However, the issue concerned is how to motivate the students in speaking lessons
when using this textbook to improve their speaking ability as its authors‟ expectation.
Theoretically, motivation is interest in and enthusiasm; persistence with the learning
task, as indicated by levels of attention or action for an extended duration; and levels
of concentration and enjoyment (Crookes and Schmidt, 1991). If the definition of
above-mentioned motivation is used, there will be a sign of successful speaking lesson
where all students are willing to take chance to initiate conversations. Moreover,
according to Ur (1996), a successful speaking activity should acquire the following
characteristics: learners talk a lot, participation is even, motivation is high, and
language is of an acceptable level. However, this is not the case in BLBHS, no matter
how hard the teachers have tried.
In reality, at BLBHS, after applying this textbook, it is not difficult to realize that the
effectiveness of speaking lessons seems not to be much improved as expected despite the
good teaching conditions and teacher‟s attempts. The problem that the researcher as well
as most other teachers of English faced in the first weeks of the school year 2015-2016
was how to sustain students‟ genuine interest in speaking lessons. As observed in the
researcher‟s class, the speaking lessons seemed to be boring, the students were quiet, each
student had only little talking time, and while some students tried to speak, others spoke
very little or even not at all during speaking lessons. Besides, many students appeared not
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to be eager to participated and uninterested in speaking activities. In other words, the
students are not motivated in the speaking lessons.
To get further information about the students‟ low motivation in speaking lessons at
BLBHS, at the beginning lessons of the school year 2015-2016, the researcher had
talked with somegrade-11 students about their speaking lessons. Most of them felt
very tired of the activities in speaking sections of English 11. They said that the
activities were inappropriate for their level of language, some prompts or models were
difficult and impractical to their daily life. They also said that the speaking activities
did not provide the students with enough necessary vocabulary, ideas and grammar
structures to practice speaking. Whereas some students said that they lacked
confidence to speak in front of class. As a result, students are not motivated to
participate in speaking lessons. Moreover, the previous studies have shown that
teaching materials are one of the main factors affecting students‟ level of motivation.
Indeed, with observing the speaking lessons, surveying students‟ ideas and analyzing
the speaking sections, the unsuitability of the original speaking activities in English 11
did not motivate students to participate in speaking lessons. Therefore, the research
question formed was: To what extent can the adapted speaking activities help
increase the students’ motivation in the speaking lessons?
As a teacher, I would like to make a contribution to the English teaching in Vietnam.
For the reasons above, this study was conducted, which focused on the students‟
motivation in speaking activities at BLBHS.
2. Research aims of the study
The main aim of this study is to improve students‟ motivation in speaking lessons at
BLBHS by adapting speaking activities in speaking sections of the English 11.
Furthermore, this study aims to help the students learn speaking skill in particular and
learn English in general much more motivated.
3. Research questions of the study
In order to improve students‟ motivation in speaking lessons at BLBHS, the research
question is raised: “To what extent can the adapted speaking activities help increase

the students’ motivation in the speaking lessons?”
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4. Significance of the study
It is hoped that the investigation into adapted speaking activities of the textbook
English 11 could be made to help students improve their motivation in speaking
lessons and provide the teacher with practical experiences in enhancing student‟s
motivation in learning to speak English. The study will at the same time contribute to
development of teaching English in general and speaking in particular at BLBHS.
5. Research scope of the study
Motivation is a complex phenomenon and not easy to control it. An action research
was carried out investigate how adapted speaking activities can help students improve
their motivation in speaking lessons. Due to limited knowledge, energy and time, this
study was only carried out for 14 weeks with the eight speaking lessons and in the
context of 40 eleventh-grade students at BLBHS in the school year 2015-2016.
Therefore, the generality of the results is only limited to the above teaching context
and participants.
6. Research methods of the study
This study is an action research (AR). Both quantitative and qualitative research
methods were applied in this survey research in order to get a more detailed and
comprehensive picture about what is investigated.
Survey questionnaire administered to 40 grade 11 students in researcher‟s class – class
11 A2at BLBHS in the school year 2015-2016 consists of survey questionnaire 1and
survey questionnaire 2.The survey questionnaire 1 was designed to collect students‟
opinions on the speaking activities in English 11 and the causes of their low
motivation in speaking lessons before an action plan. The survey questionnaire 2
adapted from Mathew Peacock (1997) is a structured and anonymous self-report to
evaluate the students‟ self-reported motivation during weeks in applying adapted
speaking activities after each speaking lesson.

Survey questionnaire was chosen as a data collection instrument because it is an
inexpensive way to gather data from a potentially large number of respondents,
reaches a large number of people in a very short time and especially gives the students
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an opportunity to express their options and needs without fear either to be embarrassed
or to be punished.
Besides, classroom observation chosen as a data collection instrument of this study is
divided into two overall class observation stages before and after the action plan. The
observation sheet 1was used to observe students‟ motivation with original speaking
activities before the action plan and the observation sheet 2 was used to observe
students‟ motivation with adapted speaking activities during weeks in applying them.
Both observation sheet 1 and 2 were adapted from Peacock (1997) who conducted the
study about the effects of authentic materials on the motivation of EFL learners.
Classroom observation is chosen as a data collection instrument of this study because
it is often used in studying language use and classroom events, is the easiest
instrument to collect needed data if the focus of the observation is the students or some
aspects of the teaching context.

In addition, textbook analysis based on the criteria of “good task/activity” from
Nunan (1998) was also investigated to determine whether the speaking activities
were appropriate to the researcher‟s students at BLBHS as well as to identify the
causes of the students‟ low motivation in speaking lessons. Textbook analysis was
chosen as a data collection instrument of this research because it is one of the factors
affecting students‟ motivation in classroom and the speaking activity analysis helps
evaluate whether the speaking activities in speaking sections of the textbook could
meet the requirements of the students.
7. Design of the study
The thesis is organized into three following main parts: introduction, development and

conclusion as follows:
Part I: Introduction includes the background and rationale, the aims, the research
questions, the significance, the scope, the research methods and the design of the
study.
Part II: Development is organized around three chapters as follows:

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Chapter 1: Literature Review deals with theories of motivation, theoretical
background of speaking, material adaptation.
Chapter 2: Methodology presents the case of the study including the context, the
participants and the speaking materials, the research method - an action research,
action research steps and procedure for this study, and presents how the study was
implemented with the detailed description about the data collection instruments.
Chapter 3: Results and Discussion provides the readers from the analysis of the
initial data to a summary and discussion of the major findings of the research.
Part III: Conclusion summarizes the research. Then, recommendations are followed.
Finally, some limitations of the study are pointed out and some suggestions for the
further research are also given out.

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PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
This part would provide the theoretical background related to motivation, speaking
skill, and material adaption.
1. Theoretical background of motivation in language learning
1.1. Definition of motivation

Up to now, there have been a lot of different views about the word “motivation”.
Therefore, it is not easy for experts or theorists to give an exact definition of
“motivation”. In general, motivation can be considered as a psychological factor which
is very important to generate or take action.
It cannot be denied that motivation is a very familiar term which directs students in
learning. Bomia et al (1997) describes that students‟ motivation refers to their
willingness, need, desire and compulsion to participate in and students‟ motivation can
be a successful factor in their learning process. Skinner and Belmont (1991) develop
the definition further noting that students who are motivated to engage in school when
“they show generally positive emotions during ongoing action, including enthusiasm,
optimism, curiosity, and interest”
Besides, Crookes and Schmitd (1991) share that “motivation is interest in and
enthusiasm, persistence with the learning task, as indicated by levels of attention or
action for extended duration; and level of concentration and enjoyment”. Students‟
motivation in this study refers to their interest, enthusiastic participation, learning
persistence, high concentration and enjoyment in class activities. This definition is
chosen for this study because it covers all aspects of motivation in classroom and is
very useful for this kind of research, a study into classroom motivation.
1.2. Types of motivation
In this section, more details on integrative and instrumental motivation are introduced
as the first well-known theory in L2 motivation.

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1.2.1. Integrative Motivation
According to Falk (1978), integrative motivation can be considered when students who
like the people speaking the language, admire the culture, really want to be familiar
with or even integrate themselves into the society using the language. In fact,
integrative motivation is a necessary factor for successful learners, this can help

learners improve and develop their proficiency. In language teaching and learning
environment, especially in Vietnam, it is really important to consider this term.
Benson (1991) suggests that a more appropriate approach to “integrative motivation”
in the EFL context would be the idea that it represents the desire of the individual to
become bilingual, while at the same time becoming bicultural. This occurs through the
addition of another language and culture to the learner‟s own cultural identity. As in
Vietnam as well as in high schools learners have few opportunities to use the target
(L2) language in daily verbal exchanges are relatively restricted. There is also limited
potential for integrating into the target language community.
1.2.2. Instrumental Motivation
The second form of motivation is instrumental motivation which may be in contrast to
integrative motivation. Hudson (2000) describes that instrumental motivation is the
desire to gain something which is practical and specific from second language
learning. In comparision with integrative motivation, the purpose of learners who have
instrumental motivation is more realistic. For example, learners attend school or
university in order to have graduate degree; learners study the second language in
order to apply for a good job and request higher pay or higher social status and so on.
In this study, students‟ motivation to be examined are more related to both kinds of
motivation as students want to gain success in communicating with foreigners, passing
the tests and exams, in their job and communicative purposes in the future.
1.3. Factors affecting motivation
There are different views given by many experts. Each person shares his or her own
list of factors which affect student‟s motivation. Students‟ motivation depends on a
variety of factors such as teaching methodology, the target language environment and
the learners‟ demotivation (Mukkatask, 1993 and Zughoul, 1987).
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Dorneyei (2001) finds out nine factors: (1) Teachers_personality, commitment,
competence, teaching method; (2) School facilities_ group size, frequence change of

teachers; (3) Students‟ self-confidence_experience of failure or lack of success; (4)
Students‟ attitude towards the second language; compulsory nature of second language
study; (5) Interference of another foreign being studied; (7) Attitude towards second
language community; (8) Attitude of group members; (9) Course books.
Oxford and Shearin (1996) identified six factors that affect motivation language
learning: (1) Attitudes; (2) Belief about self, (3) Goals, (4) Involvement, (5)
Environmental support, (6) Personal attributes.
In general, most previous studies find out that the teachers’ personality, teaching
methodology, learning context, teaching material, and students’ attitude toward the
second language can play a major role in students‟ motivation or demotivation.
In this study, reviewing the factors affecting motivation is very important for the
researcher to know the main causes for students‟ low motivation in speaking lessons to
search for the most effective solutions to improve the problem.
1.4. Role of motivation in language learning
There have been many studies on the role of motivation in second language learning so
far. Most studies show that motivation and language learning has a mutual relation and
motivation can help teacher maintain students‟ “intrinsic interest” (Lepper, 1999).
Motivation is a key factor in successful language teaching (Gardner, 1990; Masgoret
& Gardner, 2003). It is clear that every teacher can realize the importance of students‟
motivation in language learning. Moreover, Dornyei (2001) affirms that motivation
needs to be generated, maintained actively, protected and retrospectively evaluated.
In conclusion, nobody can deny that motivation plays an important role in the success
of L2 learners as it helps learners to find out the reasons for their study and to maintain
their interest in learning process. It is essential to promote motivation among students
in high level, which makes language teaching and learning more effective.

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1.5. Motivating students in classroom activities

Ames (1992); Anderman & Midgley (1998) imply that teachers who are most
successful in engaging students develop activities with students‟ basic psychological
and intellectual needs in mind. One of suggestions for designing more engaging inclass activities and increasing the amount of time students spending on task is the class
management to design projects that allow students to share new knowledge with others
given out by Strong Silver & Robinson (1995).
It is the fact that the ways the teacher behaves in different kinds of activities will
change according to the nature of activities. Student grouping, especially pair-work
and group-work needs to be used more often in order to create cooperative learning
environment in classrooms and maximize students‟ talking time.
In brief, no matter what role the teachers can play to manage class, the most important
thing is that he or she has to be flexible in applying different methods in language
teaching appropriately. Using suitable activities for the students‟ circumstances can
help them motivate to actively participate in the learning process.
2. Theoretical background of speaking skill
2.1. Speaking as a skill in language learning
Sharing the similar opinion with Rivers (1981), Brown (1994) states that inside the
classroom, speaking and listening are the most often used skills.
There are a wide range of definitions of the term “speaking”. However, the definition
of Bygate (1987) is more appreciate and suitable for this issue. He comments that
speaking in many ways is an undervalued skill. He gives an explanation that perhaps
almost all of people can speak. Bygate also argues that speaking is a skill that deserves
attention every bit as much as literacy skill, in both first and second language. In this
case, his perception is reasonable, as learners often to be able to speak with confidence
in order to carry out many of their most basic transactions.
2.2. Teaching speaking
Teaching speaking includes the speaking needs and goals of students, communicative
language teaching, principles for teaching speaking.
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2.2.1. The speaking needs of students
In language programs, spoken language will be given the primary focus. This is
especially the case in beginning ESL programs where students have a strong
motivation to develop speaking skill to participate in the L2 environment. Many EFL
courses also aim to give students practice in speaking for different situations.
According to Burns (1997), decisions about teaching speaking will inevitably depend
on the learner group and their needs in developing speaking skill. The most important
starting point when deciding how to teach speaking is to gather background data about
students such as age, language background and previous language learning, and
information about their goals and needs and the context in which they will need to use
English, maybe their current level of spoken language competence or proficiency.
Sheils (1993) suggests that the development of communicative ability has to be related
to the needs of learners. They need to know how to express their own meaning in the
here-and-now of the classroom as they share knowledge, experience, interest, opinion
and feeling. Learners also need to be prepared to use the language for real
communication outside the classroom (e. i. visiting the target community, meeting
foreigners, exchanging letters ...)
2.2.2. Communicative Language Teaching
Brown (1976) classifies four characteristics that are thought to make a good
communicative language teaching as follows:
1. Classroom goals are focused on all of the components of communicative
competence and not restricted to grammatical or linguistic competence.
2. Language techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic, authentic,
functional use of language for meaningful purposes.
3. Fluency and accuracy are seen as complementary principles underlying
communicative techniques.
4. In the communicative classroom, students ultimately have to use the language,
productively and receptively, in unrehearsed contexts.
From four criteria above, it can be seen that in communicative language teaching, less
attention to grammatical rules are concerned rather than the fluency.

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2.2.3. Principles for teaching speaking
Burn (1997) suggests some general principles for the teaching of speaking, namely:
- Speaking involves an understanding of the way in which context influences the
choices of language made.
- Speaking involves understanding that spoken texts differ from written texts in their
grammatical patterns and discourse strategies.
- Speaking activities should focus on whole texts in contexts, rather than on sentence
level grammatical constructions in isolation.
- Speaking activities aim to develop the confidence, desire and ability to use the
target language not only accurately but also appropriately and effectively for the
purpose of communication
- Learning and practicing vocabulary, grammatical structures and pronunciation
should be related to contexts and lead to the use of whole texts.
- Spoken discourse types or texts can be analyzed with learners for their typical
structures and grammatical patterns.
2.3. Speaking activities
2.3.1. Features of speaking activities
Researchers suggest many features of speaking activities. Nunan (1998) discusses the
features of “good” speaking activities which (1) get all students to participate actively,
(2) do not make them feel embarrassed and stressful, (3) enable them to use their own
language even when they are not in the classroom, (4) are practical in daily life, (5)
mobilize the ability for desire of speaking and interacting from students themselves,
(6) enable them to work in groups and discuss to find the solution to their common
task. This theory seems to reflect sufficient and clear features of a successful activity
or task. The use of one or a combination of all features could help teachers improve
speaking activities or create new ones to raise students‟ motivation in learning
speaking skill.

2.3.2. Ways of organizing activities: Pair and Group work
It is undeniable that the ways of organizing pair and group work are very important in
English lessons in general and in English speaking lessons in particular. Because the
11


time that students spend in English lessons is usually quite short, especially in large
classes, teachers need to know how to organize suitable activities which help both
teachers and students a lot in teaching and learning process.
Long & Porter (1985) says that group-work and pair-work, in terms of classroom
management, provide a context in which many of the recent curricular initiatives can
be more easily implemented. In fact, students in cooperative classrooms implement
tasks more accurately, obtain more information and perform better than other students
working alone. Besides, Harris & Frith (1990) claims that a pair-work is defined as
two beings interacting with each other in doing a task and a group-work is thought to
be a number of people assigned a task together and they will work on it cooperatively.
In brief, pair and group work seem to be an extremely attractive idea because it can
increase the amount of students talking time and maximize opportunities for them to
speak. They help students increase their motivation and willingness to interact with
each other to fulfill the communicative tasks successfully. Group-work is a great way
to motivate students toward a more active approach to learning (Peak, 1991). With all
strong points above, the researcher of this study decided to apply pair and group work
in organizing and implementing the adapted speaking activities shown in action plans
for the teaching time of this study.
3. Theoretical background of material adaption
This section will discuss the concept of adaptation and some of the reasons for
adapting materials in use. This section will be followed by the principle and techniques
used for adapting speaking activities.
3.1. Definition of material adaption
“Adaptation is a process of making changes to published texts or materials to make

them more suitable or appropriate for a particular teaching needs” (Richards,1992).
This task should be realized by the teachers of English. Indeed, Madsen & Bowen
(1978) assert that the good teachers often adapt the materials which they are using to
the context where they are using them to achieve or gain the optimal congruence
between materials, methodology, learners, aims, the target language and the teacher‟s
personality and teaching style.
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In short, adaptation is an essential process of matching. Its purpose is to maximize the
appropriation for teaching materials in context by changing some of the internal
characteristics of a course book to better suit our particular circumstance.
3.2. Reasons for material adaption
Materials are not always learnt regarding the methodology they use in terms of „what‟
and „how‟ to teach. There are also cases of inconsistency between stated and actual
methodology. Coursebooks cannot be relevant to all teaching/learning contexts
(Cunningham, 1995). Consequently, teachers need to adapt published materials
according to the needs of particular classes.
According to McDonough and Shaw (1993), it will also be useful to compare our own
reasons with those in the following list: (1) not enough grammar coverage in general,
(2) not enough practice of grammar points of particular difficulty to these learners, (3)
the communicative focus means that grammar is presented unsystematically, (4) not
enough guidance on pronunciation, (5) subject-matter inappropriate for learners of this
age and intellectual level, (6) amount of material too great/too little to cover in the
time allocated to lessons, (7) dialogues too formal, and not really representative of
everyday speech, (8) too much or little variety in the activities, (9) vocabulary list and
a key to the exercises would be helpful.
In this study, the theories of material as well as the list of reasons for adapting material
above will be useful for adaptation of speaking activities in English 11.
3.3. Principles for material adaption

It‟s essential to adapt language teaching materials to suit particular learning
circumstances. However, the effective adaptation is really an uneasy question to many
teachers. Mentioning this matter, McDonough and Shaw (1993) suggests some
principles for adapting which are most likely to be express in terms of a need to
personalize, individualize, or localize the content.
- “personalizing” refers to increase the relevance of content in relation to learners‟
interests and their academic, educational or professional needs.

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- “individualizing” will address the learning styles both of individuals and of the
numbers of a class working closely together.
- “localizing” takes into accounts the international geography of English language
teaching and recognizes that what may work well in Mexico City may not do so in
Edinburgh or in Kuala Lumpur.
In this study, basing on the principles, the researcher will give some principles for
adapting speaking activities in English 11 presented in chapter 3 after analyzing the
original speaking activities and the students‟ opinions.
3.4. Techniques for material adaption
Adaptation can be regarded as dealing with the modification of content, whether that
content is expressed in the form of exercises and activities, texts and so on. While
adapting the content, a range of techniques can be used individually or in combination
with others. Tanner & Green (1998) refers to some of them as follows:
- Changing: Make small changes to existing materials in the textbook
- Removing: Remove a textbook activity from the lesson
- Replacing: Replace one activity with another related to one which is more suitable
- Adding: Add an extra activity in an area not covered sufficiently in the textbook.
Besides, McDonough and Shaw (1993) also give some more suggestions as follows:
- Omitting/Deleting: Teachers can omit something which learners already know about,

some tasks if there are too many tasks in an area, the items which is not a priority, bad
design or inappropriateness.
- Modifying: It can be applied to any aspect of „content‟. It can be sub-divided under
two related headings: rewriting and restructing.
- Re-ordering: Teacher can re-order to revise an area earlier than the coursebook does,
to compare and contrast areas, to provide thematic unity, to provide an appropriate
follow-up.

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- Simplifying: Many elements of a language course can be simplified, including
instructions and explanations that accompany exercises, activities, and even the visual
layout of material.
To sum up, in order to adapt English 11, the researcher needs to combine some of
mentioned-above types of material adaptation to meet the students‟ level, needs,
interests and expectation in the teachers‟ own context. In this study, the suggestions
for how to adapt the speaking activities in the textbook to achieve greater „congruence‟
aim improve students‟ motivation in speaking lessons.
Summary
In Chapter 1, the researcher of this study has reviewed the definition of motivation,
types of motivation and factors affecting motivation, role of motivation in language
learning and motivating students in classroom activities. This chapter also discussed
the theoretical background of speaking skill, teaching speaking, and different views
about features as well as ways of organizing speaking activities. Also in this chapter,
the theories of material adaptation were reviewed, in which the principles and
techniques for adapting were discussed in details.

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