Applying communicative activities for 10th form students to practise grammatical structures orally at free practice stage

Vinh university
Foreign Languages Department
-----------------------------------

Phan Thi Quynh Mai

Applying communicative activities for 10th form
students to practise grammatical structures
orally at free practice stage
(Sö dụng các hoạt động giao tiếp cho học sinh
lớp 10 luyện tập cấu trúc ngữ pháp
trong bớc thực hành tự do)

Graduation thesis
Field: Methodology

Vinh, 2005


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Vinh university
Foreign Languages Department
-----------------------------------

Applying communicative activities for 10th form
students to practise grammatical structures
orally at free practice stage
(Sử dụng các hoạt ®éng giao tiÕp cho häc sinh
líp 10 lun tËp cÊu trúc ngữ pháp
trong bớc thực hành tự do)

Graduation thesis
Field: Methodology

Supervisor : Cao Thi Phuong, M.A.
Student

Vinh 2005

Phan ThÞ Quúnh Mai - 42A2- Foreign Language Department

: Phan Thi Quynh Mai


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Table of content
Acknowledgements
Table of content
Part I: Introduction
1. Reasons for choosing the subject
2. Aims of the study
3. Scope of study
4. Methods of study
5. Design of study
Part II: Content
Chapter I: Theoretical background
1.1. The Communicative Approach in language teaching
1.1.1.The nature of Communicative Approach
1.1.2. The implications of the Communicative Approach for language learning

1.2. Grammar and the importance of free practice stage in teaching and
learning grammar
1.2.1. Definitions of grammar
1.2.2. The place of grammar teaching according to the
Communicative Approach
1. 2.3. Stages in grammar teaching according to the Communicative Approach
1.2.4 The roles of the free practice stage
1.3. The role of the teacher at free practice stage of teaching grammar
1.4. Characteristics of effective grammar practice
1.5. Characteristics of a good speaking activity
1.6. Advantages and problems of free oral communicative activity
1.6.1. Advantages
1.6.2. Problems and solutions
Chapter II: Suggested oral communicative activities
2.1. Communicative activity

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2.2. Types of communicative activities for students to practise
grammatical structures orally at free practice stage

2.2.1. Information exchanges
2.2.1.1. Information gap activity
2.2.1.2. Personal information exchange
2.2.2. Oral interactions

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2.2.2.1. Find someone who
2.2.2.2. Questionnaire
2.2.3. Communicative games
2.2.3.1. Find the differences
2.2.3.2. Describing and arranging
2.2.3.3. Story construction
2.2.3.4. Guessing games
2.2.3.5. Quizzes
2.2.4. Relaying instructions
2.2.5. Reaching a consensus
2.2.6. Role play
2.2.6.1. Simulation
2.2.6.2. Role play
2.2.7. Free talk
2.3. The organization of oral communicative activity
Chapter III: Application
3.1. The state of using communicative activities for students to
practise grammatical structures orally at free practice stage in secondary school
3.2. Some suggested communicative activities to motivate 10th students
to practise grammatical structures orally at free practice stage
3.3. Requirements of using visual aids
Part C: Conclusion
References
Appendix

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PART A: Introduction
1. Reasons for choosing the subject:
It is common knowledge that English has become an international
language that plays a vital part in any aspects of life. Therefore, teaching and
learning English have become a necessity. However, how to teach English in
general and grammatical structures in particular aiming at communication is
still a discussing matter.
Teaching grammar is one of important components of language course.
It is said that learners who master English grammar can perform four skills
well and therefore can communicate in English successfully. For this reason,

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to be successful in learning English, learners need to learn grammar and lot of
practice. However, many students find grammar lesson boring because they
are most asked to do written exercises that do not motivate them any more.
Using communicative activities at free grammar practice stage can solve these
problems.
Moreover, getting students to speak is a vital part of a teacher’s job. “OfOf
the four skills, speaking seems intuitively the most important: people who
know a language are referred to as “Ofspeakers” of that language” [12:120]. of that language” of that language” [12:120]. [12:120].
Therefore, oral practice of language, especially oral communicative activities
should be focused so that students can develop speaking skill.
There are, of course, many ways to motivate students to practice
grammatical structures and to develop learners’ speaking skill, however, it is
discussing to choose an appropriate way and type of practice to teach. As a
matter of fact, English nowadays, is mainly used for communicative purposes.
Accordingly, English should be taught for secondary students in general and
10th form students in particular according to Communicative Approach or
“Oflearner-centered” of that language” [12:120]. approach. This approach, however, are still strange to many
teachers, they still teach grammar by traditional method.
Therefore, we found it interesting and useful to have specific research
into the problems above and decide to choose the topic: “OfApplying
communicative activities for 10th form students to practise grammatical
structures orally at free practice stage” of that language” [12:120]. as the study of our graduation
thesis.
2. Aims of the study:
The aims of our study are:
-To discuss the importance of grammar and the benefits of free oral
grammar practice stage in teaching English according to Communicative
Approach.

-To analyze the roles of teacher at that stage and find out the way to
organize an oral communicative activity at free grammar practice stage
effectively.
-To analyze the characteristics of an effective oral grammar practice
activity.
-To point out the advantages and disadvantages of oral
communicative activities used at free grammar practice and techniques to
solve these problems.

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-To systematize oral communicative activities for students to practise
grammatical structures at free practice stage and suggest some activities used
for 10th form students with some specific examples.
3. Scope of the study:
The study covers the focus on free practice of teaching grammatical
structures with the main purpose that is to provide some techniques for
motivating 10th form students to practise grammar orally according to
Communicative Approach.
4. Method of the study:
A lot of methods were used while we were doing this research but the
main ones are descriptive method, collecting method, analytic method,
synthetic method, observing, doing survey questionnaires, etc…
5. Design of the study
The study includes:
Part A:
Introduction

Part B:
Content
Chapter I: Theoretical background
Chapter II: Types of oral communicative activities used at free grammar
practice stage
Chapter III: Application
Part C:
Conclusion
References

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PART B: CONTENT
Chapter I: THEORETICAL background
1.1. The Communicative Approach in language teaching
1.1.1. Nature of the Communicative Approach:
The communicative approach in language teaching starts from the theory
of language as communication. The goal of language teaching is to develop
students’ communicative competence. That means that after learning a foreign
language (English, for example), students can know how to use English or
foreign language appropriately in daily communication. One of main effects
of the communicative approach has been the realization that just getting
students to perform drills or engage in controlled practice may not be enough
to help them to stand on their own feet as users of English. As the
sociolinguist Dell Hymes has said: “OfA person who acquires communicative
competence acquires both knowledge and ability for language uses.” of that language” [12:120].
1.1.2. The implications of the communicative approach for language

teaching and learning:
For these reasons above, in teaching language in general and English in
particular following this approach, we should teach it by using real-life
situations, i.e. “Ofauthentic language” of that language” [12:120]. should be used. The syllabus is designed
according to function of the language. Moreover, as the aim of language
teaching is at the students’ ability to communicate, or in other words,
communicative competence, it puts more stress on appropriateness than
correction, on fluency than accuracy. Students are the center of the classroom
activities. They are expected to speak as much as possible and interact
primarily with each other rather than the teacher basing on what they have
learnt and their own experience about language. For the teacher, he acts as an
organizer, a motivator, an observer, a counselor, a diagnoser, and a corrector
during the lesson, however, the correction of errors is rare, sometimes ignored
unless there is a communicative failure.
1.2. Grammar and the importance of free practice stage in teaching and
learning grammar
1.2.1. Definitions of grammar:
According to Penny Ur, grammar is roughly defined as “Ofthe way a
language manipulates and combines words or bits of words in order to form
longer units of meaning” of that language” [12:120]. [13: 4]. For example, in English, the present form of

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the verb “Ofto be” of that language” [12:120]. in the third person has two distinct forms, one is “Ofis” of that language” [12:120]. being
used with a singular subject, and the other “Ofare” of that language” [12:120]. with a plural. Thus, a
sentence like “OfThis is a pen” of that language” [12:120]. is grammatical whereas “OfThis are a pen” of that language” [12:120]. is not.
There is a set of rules which govern how units of meaning may be constructed

in any language: we may say that a learner who knows grammar is one who
has mastered and can apply these rules to express himself in what would be
considered “Ofacceptable” of that language” [12:120]. language forms.
Penny Ur also provides another definition of grammar. That is:
“OfGrammar is a set of rules that defines how words (or parts of words) are
combined and changed to form acceptable units of meaning within a
language” of that language” [12:120]. [12: 87]. For example, English words (or parts of words) can be
combined and changed in number of ways, by suffixes, prefixes, etc. The
suffix “Ofed” of that language” [12:120]. indicates the past tense if a regular verb, and the “Ofs” of that language” [12:120]. tells us the
plural form of nouns. By mastering grammatical rules, learners can produce a
correct sentence like “OfThere are three oranges on the table” of that language” [12:120]..
Another definition is from the Longman dictionary of Contempory
English in which grammar is defined as follows: “OfGrammar is the study and
practice of the rules by which words are changed their forms and combined
into sentences” of that language” [12:120]. [8: 245]. From this definition we can see two basic elements:
the rules of grammar and the practice of the rules. What are the rules of
grammar? As the dictionary suggests, the rules of grammar are about how
words are altered and how they are put together into sentences. For instance,
“Ofran” of that language” [12:120]. is used for the past tense of the verb “Ofto run” of that language” [12:120]. instead of “Ofrunned” of that language” [12:120].
because only “Ofran” of that language” [12:120]. sounds right. Also, when making a full sentence we say
“Ofwe ran very fast” of that language” [12:120]. instead of saying “Ofwe runned very fast” of that language” [12:120]..
In addition, there are several authors who seem to have the same
definition of grammar. That is the author of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s
dictionary who defined grammar as “Ofrules in a language for changing the
form of words and combining them into sentences” of that language” [12:120].. That is Jeremy Harmer,
grammar as his definition is “Ofthe way in which words change themselves and
group together to make sentences” of that language” [12:120]. [6: 76].
In conclusion, grammar of English language is a set of rules that
determines how words or a bit of words are changed and combined to make
correct sentences. When teaching grammar, the teacher often teaches it based

on particular grammatical structure. And he should also teach grammatical
meaning and uses of the structure so that students can know how and when to

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use the structure appropriately and accurately for daily communication or
other purposes.
1.2.2. The place of grammar in foreign language teaching and learning
Most people agree that knowledge of a language means, among other
things, knowing its grammar. There is no doubt that knowledge of grammar,
either implicit or explicit, is essential for the mastery of a language: one can
not use words unless he knows how they should be put together. Similarly,
one cannot make the others understand what he is speaking if he does not
know how to arrange separate words in the right orders according to a certain
grammatical rules of the language. Learning the grammar of a language helps
us overcome the problems above in using it. Hence, this plays an important
role in achieving successful communication.
However, in recent years, there has been some discussion of the
question: “Ofdo we have to have ‘grammar exercises’?” of that language” [12:120]. Isn’t it better for
learners to absorb grammatical rules intuitively through communicative
activities than to be taught through special exercises explicitly aimed at
teaching grammar? Obviously, it is difficult to answer this question accurately
since success in learning grammatical rules not only depends on how to learn
but also on different learner’s ability and the objective of language learning.
For example, if learners’ ability to communicate naturally and appropriately in
daily life is the main aim of language teaching and learning, then learning
grammatical rules through communicative activities is better, more practical

and effective than through exercises.
Whether teaching grammar by this or that way, it is advisable to see the
learning of grammar in the long term as one of the means of acquiring a
thorough mastery of the language as a whole, not an end in itself. Thus, at an
early stage, the teacher may ask her students to learn a certain grammatical
structure through exercises that concentrate on virtually meaningless
manipulations of language, and then she should quickly progress to
communicative activities that use language meaningfully or move to fluency
practice that aims at successful communication.
In short, learning grammar is very important and essential to students.
This enables them to comprehend and use language appropriately and
accurately. Moreover, communicative activities used for practising
grammatical structures orally, can create interest and provoke motivation of

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the students, particularly students in large heterogeneous classes. Therefore,
the importance of grammar is great for both teachers and students.
1.2.3. Stages in grammar teaching according to Communicative
Approach:
In order to teach grammar successfully, teaching procedures should be
carefully selected and arranged in certain logical orders. The teacher should
follow the four stages in grammar teaching as suggested here:
1.2.3.1. Presentation stage:
This stage comes initially in grammar teaching process. In this stage,
teacher usually begins by presenting the class with a text in which the
grammatical structure appears. The aim of this is to get students to perceive

the structure –its forms and meanings- in both speech and writing and to take
it into short-term memory. As follow-up, students may be asked to read aloud,
repeat, reproduce from memory or copy out instance of the use of the structure
within the text. At this stage, teacher usually acts as an informant. He is doing
most the talking and controlling students’ talk. The presentation should not
last for long time, so that students have more time to practice language
themselves.
1.2.3.2. Isolation and explanation stage:
At this stage, the teacher moves away from the context and focuses
temporarily on the grammatical items themselves. This includes what they
sound and look like, what they mean, how they function – in short, what
rules govern them. Its aim is that learners should understand these various
aspects of the structure. In some classes, to make the grammatical items
clearer and understandable to the students, the teacher may need to make
extensive use of the students’ native language to explain, translate and so on.
In more academic classes or where the structure is particularly difficult
for students to comprehend or grasp, this stage may take some time. However,
where the structure is very simple or close to a parallel in native language, it
may take only a minute or be entirely omitted.
1.2.3.3. Practice stage:
The practice stage comes after the initial presentation and explanation
when learner is assumed to have perceived the material and taken it into shortterm memory, but they can not be said to have really mastered it yet.
Practice may be defined as any kind of engaging with language on the
part of the students under the teacher’s supervision, whose primary objective

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is to consolidate learning and improve knowledge. During practice, the
material is absorbed into long-term memory and the learners enable to
understand and produce examples of it with gradually teacher support.
There are two main kinds of grammar practice: oral and written. Both of
them are very essential and useful for students to practise grammatical
structures. When teaching English aiming at developing students’ ability to
communicate appropriately in daily life, oral practice becomes the main kind
of practice in the class.
The practice stage, according to Communicative Approach, can be subdivided into two small stages as follows:
Controlled oral practice stage
Free oral practice stage
1.2.3.3.1. Controlled oral practice stage:
At this stage, students are given intensive practice in the new structure,
but their production of language is very carefully guided and controlled by the
teacher so that correct form and meaning are combined. The possibility of
errors is reduced to minimum. Whenever the errors arise, teacher has to
correct them until the class produces the form accurately. However, this does
not mean that teacher supplies the correct forms himself all the time. He may
encourage students to correct each other or themselves, simply by challenging
an incorrect response and possibly indicating the type or position of the errors.
This is the stage at which the teacher talks for half the time, students, the other
half. The teacher’s role is to initiate and manage the activity, i.e. he makes
clear to the students what they have to do and then ensures that they are doing
it right. Moreover, teacher controls the subject matter of the task, either by
providing them with different kinds of oral drills for reproducing or writing up
words on the board ….
1.2.3.3.2. Free oral practice stage:
In completely free practice stage, what happens is opposite to things in
controlled practice stage. The teacher may initiate the activity but will not
intervene or manage it unless it breaks down altogether. The students are

ideally free to say whatever they want; using what they have learnt, even say
rather than what they are instructed to say. In other words, students choose the
direction their conversation takes. Therefore, unlike the previous stage,
students here do nearly all the talking. The teacher rarely corrects the errors;
the mistake correction is mainly self or peer-correction. Finally, the teacher

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does not control the subject matter apart from setting up the beginning of the
activity; he only intervenes to help students when serious grammatical errors
occur.
In free oral practice stage, teacher acts as a conductor, an informant, a
guide and a motivator. The most suitable participation patterns for this stage
are pair-work, group-work and mingles since they give students more
opportunities to speak. The appropriate kinds of activities that are normally
used, among many others, are topic- based activities (real-life topics,
entertainment…), task-based ones (information gap, story reconstruction…)
and communicative activities.
1.2.3.4. Testing stage:
Testing stage is also considered to be a very important stage in language
teaching procedure. At this stage, students’ knowledge and performance of the
language would be checked by tests. The main objective of tests within a
taught course, is to provide feedback, with which both teacher and learner
would be able to progress very far well they have mastered the material they
have been learning and where they are (in order to know where to go next)
and so that they will try harder to get further success. For the teachers,
through the results of the tests, they can evaluate the English acquisition of

students; access the effectiveness of the recent teaching methods, syllabus,
textbook… In addition, tests also help to point out where they are in older to
know where to teach next, what should be focused later on
In general, there are four stages in grammar teaching process .Each
stage has its own part that is considered to be indispensable in the whole
process. Of the four stages above, the practice stage is the most important
since through practice, the material is most thoroughly and permanently
learnt. According to Communicative Approach, free oral practice stage plays
very important role which will be mentioned in the next part.
1.2.4. The role of the free practice stage:
It is the fact that full language learning does not take place until students
become free of their teacher and does things for and by themselves. The free
practice stage in language teaching is one at which the teacher’s control is
relaxed, the students try on their own pace, consolidate their experience and
learning and even correct the mistakes by themselves when these prevent them
from carrying out their tasks effectively. Thus, the role of free practice stage
in foreign language teaching and learning is of great importance.

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One of the main aims of production stage is to give students the
opportunity to use new language in freer and more creative ways. In addition,
it allows them to see how much they have really understood and learnt of the
language that until now has just been practised under controlled conditions.
They may make mistakes but they will try to correct any mistakes themselves
that prevent them from achieving their aims. Moreover, students need
feedback on their studying process and similarly the teachers need feedback

on their teaching. If teachers do not give students free practice stage to show
their knowledge and understanding of language, they will not know how much
their students really learnt and how effective their teaching is.
Another purpose of free practice stage is to give students opportunities to
integrate the newly-learnt language into previously-learnt language to
practise, dealing with unpredictable linguistic contexts at receptive and
productive levels. In communication, for instance, students will be required to
produce or interpret in a particular situation whether they know what functions
or mixtures of functions or not. Therefore, free oral practice stage helps
students get more confidence in using language themselves for
communicative purposes or responding to real-life situations.
A further very important aim of production stage is that of providing
motivation, of giving students pleasure of success and achieving goals in
foreign language. How satisfying it is when they can at last try things out by
themselves. Finally, free practice stage can be used for revision or diagnostic
purposes.
In short, free practice stage plays a very important role in teaching and
learning grammar in particular and English in general according to
Communicative Approach. Nevertheless, how important it is, without a good
teacher, it will end in boredom of both teacher and students and bring no
effectiveness for the students’ learning process. Thus, in the next part, the
teacher’s role at free practice stage will be concerned.
1.3. The roles of the teacher at free practice stage in teaching grammar:
In the first place, the language teacher’s task, like that of any other
teachers, is to create the best condition for learning. However, in addition to
this general function, the language teacher also has specific roles to play at
different stages of language teaching process. The teacher’s roles at free
grammar practice stage are much more various than at any other stages. He

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now acts as an organizer, a manager, a guide, a motivator, a prompter and a
participant.
1.3.1. An organizer:
The teacher firstly acts as an organizer of different activities for
students to practice grammatical structures. It seems to be his most important
and difficult role at free practice stage. The success of activities depends on
good organization and on the student knowing exactly what they are to do.
Therefore, the main job of the teacher when organizing an activity for
grammar practice is to give clear instructions about what exactly their tasks is,
get the activity going on and then organize feedback. It sounds remarkably
easy; however it can turn out to be a disaster if teacher has bad preparation of
the lesson. To make the instructions clearer and understandable for students,
the teacher sometimes should use their students’ mother tongue. A wise
teacher should check their understanding of the activity frequently. The
organization of an activity, according to Jeremy Harmer can be divided into
three parts. The first part is called lead-in, i.e. the teacher introduces the
activity to students. After the lead-in, he instructs or demonstrates exactly
what students should do. In the last part, he initiates the activity and adds
competitive elements to promote motivation.
1.3.2. A manager and guide
As a manager, he provides students with activities for free expression
and he discreetly watches over them as they carry them out to see whether
they are making progress. The activities should be carefully selected to ensure
that they could be done reasonably well with language the students have at
their disposal. As a guide, he indicates to students how to do their tasks and
help them understand all the requirements as well as instructions thoroughly.

While the activities are in progress, the teacher should constantly move round
the class and find out how students are getting on and offer help where
necessary. The teacher should not correct any mistakes that he overhears,
except for serious grammatical errors. Otherwise, his frequent intervention
will discourage the students from continuing their tasks.
1.3.3. A motivator
It is considered as the most important role of the teacher at every stage
of language teaching process, especially at free oral grammar practice stage.
This is because however good he is, without motivation, students will never
learn. Much as students’ learning motivation actually depends on many

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different factors, at this stage, it is largely determined by the teacher, his
personality, language competence, confidence and the ability to interest and
involve them in the activities. The teacher, therefore, must motivate them to
practise grammar by using interesting activities and tasks, adding visual aids
or changing kinds of interaction patterns … When dealing with students’
mistakes during free practice stage or at the end of the activity, he should keep
an attitude of sympathy, sensibility, encouragement, equity, open-mindedness
and enough flexibility as a motivator to allow him to be both authoritative and
friendly at the same time. One more thing should be born in mind is that he
should never forget to praise his students whenever they prove the progress.
1.3.4. A prompter and a suggestor
When a practice activity is introduced or instructed and students still
keep silence or are confused about what to do next, the teacher needs to
encourage them to participate in or make suggestions about how they may

proceed in the activity. Actually, his prompts or suggestions are very helpful
to them since they assist them perform the activity in a right way. However,
the teacher should take much care of giving suggestions. If he is too
aggressive, he may start to take over the activity from the students whereas he
should help them only when necessary.
1.3.5. A participant
There is no reason why the teacher should not participate as an equal
with his students in an activity especially when activities like simulations are
taking place. Being a participant, he not only improves learning atmosphere of
the class but also gives students a chance to practice English orally and freely
with someone who speak it better than they can. However, the danger is that
the teacher will tend to dominate the talk and his students will both allow and
expect this to happen. Therefore, the teacher should make sure that it does not
happen.
In conclusion, during production stage, teacher is in charge of many
roles, mainly such as an organizer, a manager, a guide, a motivator and a
prompter and a participant. Above all, the role of a motivator is the most
important. It is a decisive factor that helps the teacher succeed in teaching
grammar and students gain success in practising English grammatical
structures orally by themselves.
1.4. Characteristics of effective grammar practice:

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Language practice is of great importance to students. However, what
makes a language practice, more specifically, a grammar practice procedure
effective? A good teacher should take these into consideration whenever

selecting and administering an activity in order to use at free oral grammar
practice stage. There are some of factors that definitely contribute to
successful practice are suggested as follows:
1.4.1. Pre-learning
Practice is the second or third stage in the process of grammatical
structure teaching, not the first. The function of practice procedure is to
familiarize students with the material, not to introduce it. Therefore, they
should have a good preliminary grasp of language they are required to
practise. They should not be asked to practise material that they have not yet
been taught. This sounds obvious, but in fact, some teachers do launch into
practice activities in the class without sufficient initial presentation of the
material. If the material has not been clearly perceived and taken into shortterm memory by the learners, they will either not be able to do it at all due to
incomprehension or will produce unsuccessful responses. In either case, these
things force the teacher to interrupt the procedure for explanations and
correction and lessen the time available for real practice. In short, grammatical
structures should be pre-taught or pre-learnt carefully and effectively before
being practised, except for simple structures that can be pre-taught rapidly and
casually.
1.4.2. Volume and repetition
“OfVolume” of that language” [12:120]. here means the sheer amount of comprehensible language
that is spoken, heard in the course of the activity. Crudely speaking, the more
language the learners are exposed to or produce or actually engage with
during the activity, the more they are likely to learn and the more practice in it
they will get. This means plenty of time should be devoted to practice session
and that time should be exploited efficiently. When the material is specific as
in the learning of a grammatical structure, most of the volume should consist
of repetition of items to be learnt. In other words, procedures designed should
induce learners to engage with the items to be learnt as many time as possible
as in production stage in which different examples of the structure’s form and
meaning are given. Time during which learners are not engaging with the

language being practised for whatever reasons, is time wasted. Moreover, if
the students use language items much they will get much opportunity to

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consolidate their learning. However, the repetition of a language item can lead
to boredom. The two features of interest and repetition, though not easily
combined, are by no means mutually exclusive and a good teacher should
think of ways to achieve both of them simultaneously.
1.4.3. Success-orientation
Although it is certainly true that correction of mistakes does contribute
towards learning, the kind of thorough, semi-institutive absorption of material
the teachers are aiming for in language teaching can only be achieved if after
mistakes have been eliminated, learners have plenty of experiences of doing it
right. Continued inaccurate or unacceptable performance results only in
fossilization of mistakes and general discouragement. Thus practice in general
is most effective if it is based on more or less successful performance. It is
therefore important that practice activities should be selected, designed and
administered in such a way as to make it likely that learners feel successful in
doing it or learners’ responses will be acceptable.
Besides immediate efficiency of practice, the principle of successorientation has wider pedagogical implications. A student whose performance
is constantly successful will develop a positive self-image as a language
learner, whereas one who frequently fails will be discouraged and
demotivated. Moreover, the results of repeated successful performance is
effective automatization of what is being performed and this also encourages
learners to take up further challenges. Thus, success-orientation contributes
significantly to a positive classroom climate of relaxation, confidence and

motivation which contribute greatly to successful language learning.
1.4.4. Heterogeneity:
A “Ofheterogeneous” of that language” [12:120]. activity is one which may be done by learners of
various different levels. A good practice activity should provide opportunities
for useful practice to all or most of different levels within a class. If you give a
practice activity whose items invite responses at only one level of knowledge,
then a large proportion of the class will not benefit because most classes are in
fact composed of mixed-ability groups. “OfHomogeneous” of that language” [12:120]. activity will be too
difficult for weaker learners and/or lacking in volume and challenge for
stronger ones. Practice tasks should be designed in such way that they can be
interpreted and performed at whatever levels the individual student feels
appropriate and so that some will be able to do more than others in term of
both quantity and quality.

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Moreover, the use of “Ofheterogeneous” of that language” [12:120]. activity, like success-orientation,
has a positive effect on learner attitude and motivation. Response at many
different levels can be acceptable and right, hence for the teacher, these kinds
of activities provide him an opportunity to give his lower or less confident
students the approval and encouragement they need that help them try their
best to complete the tasks.
1.4.5. Teacher assistance
After having proposed the activity and given clear instructions the
teacher should make sure that his students do in fact perform the task
successfully by assisting them in order to get through as much volume of
language as possible and maintain interest. If after giving the activity, teacher

does nothing while learners are confused and uncomfortably hesitant, he is not
helping. Teacher activity in the course of the practice should therefore be
largely directed towards supporting and assisting students in their production
of acceptable responses rather than assessing and correcting. If the teacher
assists his students, he thereby increases their chance of success and the
effectiveness of the practice activity as a whole. He can assist his students by
many ways, for example, by simply giving extra time to think, or by making
the answers easier through giving hints, or by moving round making himself
available to answer learners’ questions... All these mean that teacher has to be
very alert to sense when and where help is needed and what form it should
take; if not, he will not know if they can manage by themselves or not.
Through such activity teacher also incidentally conveys a clear and “Ofwider” of that language” [12:120].
message about his function and attitude: “OfI, the teacher, am here to help you,
the learner, succeed and progress in your learning, not to judge, scold or
make you feel inferior” of that language” [12:120]. [13:14].
1.4.6. Interest
Motivation plays a very important role in success of language learning.
There are two main types of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.
Interest in language practice procedures may derive, to some extent, from
extrinsic motivation, for example, the marks that students can get. But such
factors do not operate well in success-oriented practice and are often
completely beyond the control. Therefore, in most practice activities,
motivation has to derive rather from the intrinsic interest of the activity itself:
its interesting topic, the need to convey meaningful information, a game-like
“Offun” of that language” [12:120]. task, attention-catching materials or challenge to their intellect...

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An otherwise well-designed practice procedure may fail to produce
successful learning simply because of its boredom which is for lack of some
factors as mentioned above. From that, it is seen that interest is an essential
feature of successful practice activity, not just an optional extra. The boredom
may lead to learners’ lower concentration, low motivation and their disruptive
behaviors. Therefore, valuable learning-time will be wasted and little time is
spent on language practice. If, however, the class is interested in what it is
going, they will learn more efficiently and are also likely to enjoy the process
and want to continue.
In short, effective grammar practice procedures then are usually
characterized by the features of pre-learning, volume and repetition, successorientation, heterogeneity, teacher assistance and interest. Any one particular
activity may be, of course, lack one or more of these and still be effective in
gaining specific objectives, but if too many of them are absent, the activity is
likely to become a virtual test and provide little learning value. A good
teacher, whenever selecting and administering a grammar practice activity,
should be sure that it can meet these demands.
1.5. Characteristics of a good speaking activity:
Classroom activities aiming at developing learners’ speaking ability
would seem an important component of a language course. At free grammar
practice stage, many oral communicative activities are used. The question is
that what features a successful speaking activity is characterized by. There are
four features as follows:
1.5.1. Plenty of learners’ talking
An effective oral activity is firstly characterized by great amount of
student talking time. It means that as much as possible of the period of time
allotted to the activity is in fact occupied by learner talk. Getting students to
speak, to use language they are learning is a vital part of a teacher’s job,
especially at free practice stage, this becomes more important. Students are the
people who need the practice, not the teacher. In general terms, therefore, a

good teacher should maximize student talking time and minimize teacher
talking time. In short, whenever administering an oral practice activity,
teacher should concern this problem to make it effective in reality.
1.5.2. Even participation
All students within the class should get a chance to speak and
contributions are fairly even distributed, classroom work should not be

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dominated by a minority of talkative participants. The activity provided should
be do-able to all students and get them opportunity to speak and contribute
their ideas. Communicative activities like information gap or story
construction in which students have to contribute their ideas in order to
complete the task are really good speaking ones.
1.5.3. High motivation
If students are motivated, they will learn and therefore will be probably
successful in language learning. So an oral activity should motivate students.
Learners are eager to speak because they are interested in the topic and have
something new to say about or they want to contribute to achieving a task
objective. A good speaking activity is one in which motivation is so high that
students speak as much as possible and try their best to complete the task.
Therefore, language learning is probably successful.
1.5.4. Language of an acceptable level
Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant to them and
easy for them to comprehend, so language that they use should be of
acceptable level of language accuracy. This means that learners only can
express their ideas and complete the task that teacher requires only when the

language is in their hand, i.e. they have ever learnt and understood how to use
them. Moreover, language used by learners should be accurate, meaningfully
communicative.
Briefly, characteristics of a good grammar practice and oral practice
activity have just been mentioned above. An oral activity that is used at free
grammar practice stage according to Communicative Approach should satisfy
most of these demands so that it can be really effective.
1.6. Advantages and disadvantages of oral communicative activities
1.6.1. Advantages
One technique that should be made the best use of at free practice stage
in large class is using pair-work and group-work. Almost all communicative
activities used at this stage are in form of group-work (pair-work is a form of
group-work: group of two). Having students to work in groups has its own
advantages and disadvantages. Firstly, its advantages will be concerned.
1.6.1.1. Increase of participation
The first advantage is the increased participation. In group-work,
learners perform a learning task through a small group interaction. Learners in
a class that is divided six groups get six times as many opportunities to talk as

Phan ThÞ Quúnh Mai - 42A2- Foreign Language Department