Luận văn Các hoạt động trong lớp học để khuyến khích khả năng trình bày tiếng Anh của học sinh lớp 10 trường THPT Marie Curie Hải Phòng

ening ability so that learners can catch information and ideas for speaking activities afterwards. Therefore, it is necessary for learners to do simple listening activities right from the beginning of the course and then they can gradually do oral communicative activities effectively based on listening comprehension. 20 CHAPTER II THE STUDY 2.1. Aims The survey is aimed to investigate the current situation of teaching and learning the speaking skill in general and learning how to make presentation in English in particular. First, the specific objectives are to search for the attitudes of students and teachers towards the speaking skill and to find out how presentation is taught. Second, the survey is to study both teachers’ and students’ views of the important factors that effect students’ ability of presentation, and their preference to those given by the teachers. Besides, the survey will help to see what the difficulties of both teachers and students are when they deal with presentation task in an English speaking class. Finally, it will recommend some implications for applying classroom activities to motivate students to present their ideas. 2.2. Informants The informants participating in the survey are 100 grade 10th students of two English classes at Marie Curie High school. They almost come from Hai Phong city. Most of them have been learning English for four years at lower secondary school. However, only few students could express intelligibly in English. This means that they were beginners in speaking English when they entered high school. Few of them can talk about topics required in the English text book. 2.3. Hypotheses: Remarks on some problems of English learning and teaching at Marie Curie High school, Hai Phong city. 2. 3.1. Materials The English materials used in Marie Curie High school language classes are very limited. They are almost only the textbooks compiled by Vietnamese teachers. It is hard for students to have authentic materials such as English newspapers and magazines, visual and audio aids. Therefore, their English lessons are less exciting. The learners also find it hard to get access to the real “language”. 21 2.3.2. Teachers’ method Most teachers of English, not only at Marie Curie High school, but also in other high schools, tend to focus on teaching grammatical structures, vocabulary, reading and writing skills to help their students get good scores in examinations. Besides, they tend to apply traditional techniques of the traditional method, for example, repeating dialogues in the textbooks, giving questions for students to answers. Due to this method, the students have little interest in English lessons and their learning is passive and unsuccessful. Moreover, their speaking ability is not practiced and improved. 2.3.3. Students’ motivation So far, the major aim of Marie Curie High school students in learning English is still aimed at passing school written examinations. In fact, these examinations are mostly based on grammatical structures, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing skill. Consequently, despite their interest in developing speaking and listening skills for communication, they would rather study the above mentioned language components and skills. Therefore, they hardly have opportunities to develop speaking skill in English learning. The second reason, in my opinion, is the names of characters and scenes in the text book. Students may not be interested in the book since learning English with Vietnamese names and Vietnamese scenes seem not to make an impression that they are learning “real English” in “English speaking environment” but learning English with the Vietnamese in Vietnam’s situations. The last but not least, visual aids and audio aids are not always available due to inadequate investment in language teaching and learning in Vietnam. Consequently, textbook seems to be the only source of learning for students and teachers. In general, one of the clearly seem features of the high classroom atmosphere is the lack of interest. Most of the classroom activities concentrate on teaching and practicing language structures. As a result, during the lesson, the learners do most repetition, substitution, memorizing activities, or answering questions based on texts and so on. They do not have 22 much time to use English in oral communication. Therefore, when doing speaking activities, they often cope with such problems as “inhibition”, “nothing to say”, “mother- tongue used”. Besides, the teaching and learning process focusing much on grammar, reading and writing skills can cause tension to learners. They can be tired of difficult grammatical exercises and boring writing practice. In short, the classroom atmosphere at Vietnamese high schools does not seem to create an appropriate environment and stimulus for the students to present their ideas. 2.4. Methods The survey questionnaires were used in the research as the main source of information. It was conducted with two sets of survey questionnaires for 10 teachers and 100 students at Marie Curie High school. The survey questionnaire for teachers consisting of nine questions was designed to elicit their views on the following aspects (Appendix 1): - The role of presentation in English teaching (questions 1, 2, 3, 4) - The difficulties when teaching cross- cultural knowledge in conversation classes (question 7) - The useful activities in the conversation class (questions 5, 6) - The classroom interaction mode in a presentation task (questions 8, 9) The survey questionnaire for students consisting of nine questions was designed to elicit their views on the aspects as follows (Appendix 2): - The role of presentation in English learning (questions 1, 2, 3) - The way they obtain information for presentation task (question 4) - The motivating activities in the English speaking class (questions 5, 6, 7) - The difficulties when doing presentation activities in the speaking class (questions 8, 9) 23 2.5. Data collection Table 1: Data collected from survey questionnaire for teachers Choices (Percent) Questions A (%) B (%) C (%) D (%) E (%) F (%) 1 0 0 60 30 10 2 80 10 10 3 30 70 0 0 10 4 60 0 40 5 80 90 20 0 6 30 50 10 10 7 60 10 10 10 8 0 0 10 90 9 0 0 0 100 (Questions 7 has more than one answer) Table 2: Data collected from survey questionnaire for students Choices (Percent) Questions A (%) B (%) C (%) D (%) E (%) F (%) G (%) 1 20 50 20 10 2 10 60 20 10 3 37 63 0 0 4 4 2 3 2 20 80 10 5 0 72 28 0 0 6 10 30 60 7 9 27 62 3 8 46 31 23 9 52 32 4 30 (Questions 4 has more than one answer) 2.6. Data analysis 2.6.1. Survey questionnaire for teachers The survey questionnaire for teachers was conducted with 10 teachers of English at Marie Curie High school. Data collected from the survey was analyzed according to the four aspects listed in 2.4. 24 • Teachers’ attitudes towards the role of presentation in English teaching and learning (questions 1, 2, 3, 4) For question 1 – “How important is presentation to English learning and teaching?” almost teachers (60%) have positive attitudes towards the role of presentation to English learning and teaching. There are only 10% of the teachers think that it is not important at all. For question 2 – “How often do you find yourself motivated enough to teach presentation in your speaking lessons?” 80% of the teachers say that they sometimes find themselves motivated enough to have presentation topics discussed in their lessons. 10% of the teachers rarely do and the other 10% never do. This data indicates that though most teachers understand the important role of presenting task, they do not always have discussions about topics required in their lessons. There are various reasons that do not motivate the teachers to teach presentation in their speaking lessons: they lack of background knowledge about the topics, they do not feel well before class, they do not think that students are interested and comprehensively understand the topics, etc. Consequently, the time they spend on presentation task is rather short: 70% of the teachers spend 10-20 minutes for their students discussing and do presentation task, 20% spend 5- 10 minutes and the rest 10% spend no time for this task. Perhaps, answers for question 4 – “In your opinion, does presentation teaching require spending a lot of time reading materials before each lesson?” could give an explanation to the problems raised in question 2 and 3. There were 50% of the teachers thinking that presentation teaching requires spending a lot of time reading materials before each lesson but students have to study so many other subjects, such as Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, etc., which make teachers exposed to the risk that they can not conduct a presentation task when students have no preparation. Still, the percentage of those who suppose that not always do they make such kind of preparation is 40%. In fact, this is a matter of teachers’ background knowledge of discussed topics. • Their opinions of the useful presentation activities in the conversation class (questions 5 – which activities do you often carry out in a speaking lesson? And 25 question 6 – If you have a presentation activity in the English speaking class, what do you find most useful?) As described in table 1, for most of teachers, group-work and pair-work are preferable activities that they usually carry out in the speaking class. Individual work is still conducted in the speaking class but it only makes up 20%. However, the efficiency of these activities is not very high: 50% of the teachers find their students working well in groups, 20% in pairs, 10% individual work and there are still 10% of the teachers think that no activities can help their students in the speaking class. This may be problems of the learning environment at Marie Curie High school where teachers have to deal with large English classes of 40 – 50 students while an ideal language class must have only 15 to 20 students. • Their opinions of difficulties when teaching presentation task in English speaking classes (question 7 – What are the difficulties when you teach your students presentation in your English classes?) 60% of the surveyed teachers agree that their biggest difficulty is students’ laziness and passiveness (60%) while some teachers (10%) recognize their lack of knowledge of the discussed topics or they can’t give satisfactory explanations to these topics (10%). In addition, such difficulties as the non-standard learning environment with too many students in a class, lack of visual aids, students’ anxiety due to their lack of confidence, and grammatical and vocabulary knowledge. On the other hand, the insufficiency of authentic materials leads to the fact that teachers cannot explain well about cross-cultural matters while they hardly have chance to contact with foreigners. 26 • Their opinions of classroom interaction mode in the English speaking class (question 8 – Whether students should design the teaching plan together with teachers or not? And question 9 – What do you think about the learner-teacher interaction?) The answers to question 8 show that all of the teachers believe that they must be the only one to design the teaching plan. There are several reasons explaining for this belief: the teachers believe that students do not have enough knowledge to get involved in planning lessons, students will mislead the lesson plan because they lack of seriousness and teaching experience, and students will not like participating in preparing lesson plan. However, 100% of the surveyed teachers agree that there must be an interaction between students and teachers (answers to question 9). Therefore, they require their students to prepare the lesson and get all needed information at home. The only problem pending is that they do not know whether their students are well prepared before going to class or not. 2.6.2. Survey questionnaire for students The survey questionnaire for students was conducted with 100 students at Marie Curie High school. The data of the survey questionnaire was analyzed according to the four aspects listed in part 2.4. • Students’ attitudes towards the role of presentation in English teaching and learning (question 1 – How important is presentation to English to English learning and teaching?, question 2 – What is your opinion of presentation tasks in English speaking class? And question 3 – How much time do you usually spend on presentation task in a 45-minute English lesson?) For question 1, a majority of students believe that presentation is rather important (50%) while a small number of students have the opposite opinion (20%). A few students realize the importance of presentation (20%). However, there are students who see no role of presentation in learning English (10%). 27 For question 2 which deals with the interest of presentation to English learning and teaching, 10% of the students completely agree that it is very interesting, and 60% of the students say that presenting a topic is interesting. However, 20% think that it is not very interesting and 2% believe that it is not interesting at all. According to answers to questions 1 and 2, the time that students at Marie Curie High school need for discussion in presentation task is different. Most of them want to spend from 10 to 20 minutes on this task (63%) while a few of them only spend from 5 to 10 minutes. However, it can be concluded that almost students appreciate the important role of presentation in their English learning. • Students’ ways of obtaining information for presentation task (question 4 – In what ways do you obtain information about your discussed topics?) According to answers to this question, the main sources of information for students to prepare their presentation task are reading lesson (80%), listening lesson (20%), and writing (10%). In addition, TV accounts for 4%, internet occupies 3%. A very small number of students find information in newspapers or through interviewing other people (2%). And some of students collect information for their lesson through reference books or from their own personal experiences. • Students’ opinions of motivating presentation activities in the English speaking class (question 5 – How often does your teacher give speaking activities so that you can build up a report in the presentation task?; question 6 – How does your teacher organize these speaking activities?; and question 7 – What activities you like most in a presentation task?) According to answers to question 5, most students join in speaking activities given by their teacher, 73% do these activities usually and 27% often. Although the teacher organized speaking activities in different ways, 10% for individuals, 30% for pair-work and 60% for group-work, students find group-work motivating the most in presentation task and the percentage is very high (62%), compared to pair-work (27%), individuals (9%). However, there are still 3% of students who don’t like any of these activities above. 28 • Students’ opinions of the difficulties when they deal with presentation activities in the speaking class (question 8 – When do you speak in English in the English speaking class?; question 9 – What prevents you from speaking in the class time?) According to the students’ answers, the major difficulty when they do presentation activities is the lack of knowledge of discussed topics which is proved by such percentage of 52%. Another difficulty is that the students are shy and cannot do these activities well with the percentage of 32%. Some of students say that the problem is they are afraid of making mistakes in class (30%). And a few students find no interest in their teachers’ task. As a result, only 31% of students are willing to talk in class with the reason of interesting lesson, 23% starts speaking when their classmates talk to them and most of them (46%) speak English only when their teacher ask them. 2.7. Discussion of the findings Though the survey has been conducted on a small group of students and teachers, it can provide the author with a deeper insight into the situation of English learning and teaching in general in English speaking class in particular. First of all, the results of the questionnaires have shown that learning and teaching presentation is considered important by most teachers and students, but it has remained sporadic in most language classrooms even in the English speaking class. This is caused by various reasons including the lack of information about the topics discussed, the shortage of authentic materials, the shortage of time in class and students’ anxiety when conducting their presentation in front of class. Secondly, the author has discovered some interesting things about the English teaching and learning in the English speaking class. As can be seen through the data, both teachers and students prefer group-work and pair-work to do the presentation task. In fact, by these activities, students are eager to give their ideas for the presentation at the end of the lesson. We can also see that the presentation activities by which teachers and students are most motivated are group-work type. As for the students, it can be explained by their preference 29 to speak freely with confidence when talking in their own groups. As for teachers, it will be easier for them to manage such a big class of 50 students, so the teachers choose that kind of activity. This type of activity, in fact, brings good effects to transmit knowledge to students in a limited class time. In addition, it is shown that teachers have many difficulties when they teach presentation task in an English speaking class. The biggest difficulty is students’ laziness and passiveness which make it difficult to carry out their intended activities. Another difficulty that is worth mentioning here is the teachers’ knowledge of discussed topics. If a teacher does not have any background knowledge of the discussed topics, he or she may not be confident enough to speak about these topics as well as giving satisfactory explanations to the topics. Students, consequently, will not be interested in the topics. On the other hand, such a learning environment with big classes and inadequate modern teaching facilities has caused many problems to the teachers, particularly when they teach in speaking classes. To sum up, presentation tasks are obviously good to improve students’ speaking and presentation skills which are not only important for them at school but also in real life. However, it is not able to expect that students can make a good presentation at the first time or in short time since there are a lot of difficulties for both teachers and students to prepare for a presentation task. Teachers, as a partner, should always encourage students to study the discussed topics and to get rid of their anxiety when making presentation. The primary goal for each presentation task is not to judge the students’ presentation as right or wrong but to let them express themselves as they are. 30 CHAPTER III: SUGGESTIONS FOR APPLICATION OF CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES TO STIMULATE THE 10TH FORM MARIE CURIE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ PRESENTATION IN AN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASS Based on the results of the survey questionnaires and my personal experience, some techniques are suggested to stimulate students’ presentation in an English speaking class as follows. 3.1. Information sources In order to get a comprehensive picture of the target language, we need to present our students with different kinds of information. The list below shows some possible sources of information which can be used as materials for teaching presentation. By using a combination of visual, audio and tactile materials, we are also likely to succeed in addressing the different learning styles of our students. 1. Partial lessons in the English 10 textbook (reading, speaking, listening, writing lessons) 2. TV 3. Videos/ Movies 4. CDs 5. Internet 6. Newspapers 7. Stories 8. Students own information 31 9. Interviews 10. Guest speakers 11. Photographs 12. Illustration 3.2. Activities in class Most standard EFL activities can be easily adapted for use in the speaking classroom. The most important point is to ensure that the students are actively engaged in the target language. Some of the favorite activities are discussed below.  Information gaps One type of speaking activity involves the so-called “information gap” – where two speakers have different parts of information making up a whole. Because they have different information, there is a ‘gap’ between them. To my experience, students are willing to ask and answer to fulfill the missed information. Of course, they will follow given examples and information in the textbook such as: Task 1. Quan is a tenth-grade student. He goes to school every morning. Below is his weekly timetable. Ask and answer questions with a partner, using the information from the timetable. Examples: A: What time does Quan have a Civic Education lesson on Monday? B: (He has a Civic Education lesson) at 7:15 a.m. A: What lesson does Quan have at 7: 15 a.m on Monday? B: (At 7: 15 a.m on Monday he has) a Civic Education lesson. 32 Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday 7: 15 Civic Education Physics Physical Education English Math Literature 8: 05 Information Technology Literature Literature Geography Information Technology English 8: 55 Math Biology Literature History English Math 9: 55 Math Chemistry Physics Physical Education Physics Math 10: 40 Chemistry Class Meeting Aims: To practice saying about Quan’s timetable, asking and answering with “Wh” questions. Level: elementary Time: 5 minutes Materials: English textbook 10, page 14. In class: 1. Teacher asks his/her students to work in pairs asking and answering questions about Quan’s timetable as mentioned in the example. 2. Teacher walks around to make sure the continuance of all pairs and help his/ her students if necessary. 3. After 5 minutes, teacher calls some pairs to practice making dialogue to be sure that all students in class understand and practice in a right way. Source: English Textbook 10, Education Press, 2006. Teacher can ask his students to fill missed information in the handouts. With topics such as football or the World Cup, students are interested in finding out information that they miss in their handouts. Task 2 (Unit 14, English textbook for 10-form students,), for example, can go in following stages: 33 Teacher introduces some scores in football (0 – 0: Nil – nil, 1 – 0: One – nil, 2 – 2: Two all, Penalty kick shoot out). Then he gives his students handout and ask them to work in pairs to fill in missed information by making dialogue as follow: A: Where was the first World Cup held? B: It was held in Uruguay. A: Which teams played in the final match? B: Uruguay and Argentina. A: Which team became the champion? B: Uruguay. A: What was the score of the match? B: 4 – 2. Handout A: TIMES YEAR WINNER SCORE RUNNER- UP SCORE HOST COUNTRY 1 1930 Uruguay Argentina 3 1938 4 2 France 4 1950 Uruguay 2 5 1954 3 2 8 1966 England West Germany England 11 1978 Netherlands Argentina 13 1986 Argentina 3 2 15 1994 Brazil 0 0 The USA 16 1998 France Brazil 17 2002 Brazil Germany 0 Handout B TIMES YEAR WINNER SCORE RUNNER-UP SCORE HOST COUNTRY 1 1930 4 2 Uruguay 3 1938 Italy Hungary 4 1950 2 Brazil 1 Brazil 34 5 1954 West Germany Hungary Switzerland 8 1966 4 2 11 1978 Argentina 3 1 13 1986 West Germany Mexico 15 1994 Italy 16 1998 3 0 France 17 2002 2 0 Korea & Japan Teacher goes round for help (if necessary). After ten minutes, teacher asks some pairs to practice ask making dialogue before class. By these stages, students can get information and use their answers to talk about the World Cup winners in task 3 later. Information gap activity is preferred by most teachers of English at Marie Curie High school because they can base on given information in tasks to make sub-table or handouts as the example above before get students involved in the presentation part at the end of the speaking lessons.  Role – play Role-play is the way of bringing situations from real life into the classroom. When we do role play, we ask students to imagine. It provides students with the ability to hopefully "get in character" with the role that they must portray (if it is carried out well). In the following example, students will make an interview to ask their partners about their background. Task 2. Imagine you are a journalist. Use the cues below to interview a classmate about his/her background or that of a person he/she knows well. Change the roles when you have finished. • Greeting • date of birth • place of birth • home • primary school • secondary school • schoolwork • favorite subject(s) 35 • parents • brother(s) • sister(s) • experience • thanking Aims: To encourage students to find out information related to their friends’ background for their presentation next task. Level: Elementary Time: 10 minutes Materials: English textbook 10, page 35. In class: 1. The teacher elicit situation and ask students to make questions basing on given information, for example: - When were you born? - Where were you born? - What is your address? - Could you tell me about your parents? What do your father/ mother do? - How many brothers do you have?/ What do they do?/ How old are they? - Which primary school did you go to? - Which secondary school did you go to? - How do you work at school? Do you join all school activities? - What is your favorite subject?/ What subject do you like best? 2. The teacher introduce some special expression for students to do the natural conversation: - Hello. I’m Lan. - Hello. Nice to meet you! 36 - How nice to see you! - Since when have you studied at this school? - Could you tell me something about your parents? - Let me see... - Oh, good! / Oh, yes! / Oh, come on! - I think it’s time to stop. Thanks a lot. - Thank you for giving me time. - Thank you very much. That was very interesting. 3. Students work in pairs to do the interview. 4. Teacher walks around to encourage and help students if necessary. 5. Teacher calls some pairs to do the interview before class. Source: English Textbook 10, Education Press, 2006. After doing this task, students can collect information to talk about the friend they have interviewed for reporting at the end of the lesson. Most students are eager to do the task because they can do it in role of the interviewers.  Talks/discussions Discussion is a valuable form of learning a language. Most teachers hope that they will be able to organize discussion sessions in their classroom, particularly of the exchange of opinions provokes spontaneous fluent language use. Many find, however, that discussion sessions are less successful than they had hoped. The first thing to remember is that people need time to assemble their thoughts before any discussion. The ability to give spontaneous and articulate opinions is challenging in our language, let alone the language we are struggling to learn. The following sequence, therefore, stresses the need for discussion preparation and shows the teacher building the discussion up in stages. 37 The teacher starts by asking individual students to name the last film they saw. Did they enjoy it? Was it funny? Serious? Violent? The replied he gets at this point will be fairly monosyllabic, but at least the topic has been introduced and the students are enjoying thinking about movies. The teacher now says that the class is going to concentrate on the issue of violence in films. Is there too much? Does it matter? Should anything be done about it? He puts the students into groups. In one group, the students have to think (and make notes about) the level of violence in films and what effects it might have. In another group, students have to think of (and make notes about) ways of stopping the portrayal of violence in films. In another group, students have to think up (and make notes about) reasons why the level of violence in films is quite justifiable and un-worrying. When students have had a chance to think of ideas (with the teacher going round to individual groups offering help where necessary), he asks for an opinion about violence from one of the groups. When a student has given it, he encourages other students to ask questions about that opinion. He then asks a different student to say what can be done about it, and that student in turn, is questioned. Finally he asks a student from the ‘violence isn’t working’ group to disagree with the idea that violence in movies is a bad thing. The teacher keeps prompting in this way until the conversation takes off, with different opinions being freely exchanged. Later, when the activity has run out of steam, he can work on any language arising out of the activity. This kind of discussion can be formalized into a proper debate – speakers on different sides giving speeches, comments from ‘the floor’ and a vote at the end. It can also be provoked by giving pairs statements they have to assess on a 0 (=completely disagree) to 5 (=completely agree) scale for, e.g. There’s too much violence in movies. 0 1 2 3 4 5 or by giving the class a number of different statements. They have to choose one and defend it. 38 There are many discussions possible. The important thing is that students need to be Engaged with the topic. They then might do some Study (if there is a necessity for language input, facts or fingers, for example) and move quickly to Activate stages – which include the discussion itself. Almost certainly, however there will be feedback, including Study, after the discussion is over. In general, this kind of discussion is only successful if they have background knowledge of the discussed topics. Therefore, it is necessary for the teacher to provide his students with language input, facts or fingers through pictures, short story or even Vietnamese story related to the topic.  Quizzes According to some teachers’ experience, plays such as quizzes are one of the successful activity types. Quizzes can be used to test materials that you have previously taught, but they are also useful in learning new information for their presentation later. With such a topic as historical places (Unit 16, Textbook for 10-form students), for example, teacher can use quiz as a completion in which students will answer the questions as follow: 1. When and when was Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam originally built? 2. What were their functions? 3. Why is Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam a place of interest? 4. What is special about the stele there? 5. What trees in Van Mieu continue to flourish even now? The answers for these questions can be taken from the reading lesson of Unit 16. After students answer all questions, teacher introduces new lesson: Today we will talk about some historical places in Vietnam. Or teacher can use given information in Task 1 in the speaking lesson (Unit 16) as the warmer. He asks students close their books and answer his questions: 1. Where is President Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum situated? 39 2. When did the construction of the Mausoleum start? 3. When did the construction of the Mausoleum finish? 4. When can we visit the Mausoleum? 5. Can we take photographs inside the Mausoleum? Quizzes are preferred by most of students. However, quizzes will be more interested if teacher give students some small rewards like candies, notebooks, pens or even good comments.  Simulations Another kind of oral activity which can be used in the classroom is the simulation. We will use the term here to denote an activity which involves decision-making, in which the participants may act as themselves or in social roles. It is not performed for an audience, and the participants work together within the constraints of the imaginary setting. Simulations do not as a category provides any basis for predicting the kinds of language skills that learners will use: it depends what kind of simulation is being considered. For instance, a simulated committee meeting is likely to produce one kind of interaction, a simulated interview another, and a simulated public meeting a third. Indeed a single simulation often consists of several different kinds of interaction, including the three just mentioned. It is however possible to make some predictions, once the nature of the simulation is known. Simulations general divide into three phases: firstly, a stage for giving the participants necessary information; secondly, the problem-solving discussion; and thirdly, follow-up work. Herbert and Sturtridge (1979) illustrate this in their diagram, shown her in Figure 1. PHASE 1 40 Information Input Language work based on the task The role-cards (if any) The background to the task Technical data Linguistic Input Classroom practice of the language of discussion and essential lexis ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PHASE 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PHASE 3 Figure 1: The structure of simulation This kind of activity can be carried out during an English speaking lesson, taking the one of Unit 10 (Conservation, Appendix 3), for example. In this lesson, students will get information in reading part in task 1 and 2. Then they work in groups to find out advantages and disadvantages of zoos of the new kind in task 3. After all, they make a report to share their views with the rest of the class. 3.3. Practical tips for teachers  Personalization Only by personalizing activities and content can we hope to lead students to better understanding of the discussed topic. It will be better for students to give their ideas and present it on their own way. And as every language teacher knows, students love to talk about themselves. 41 Sub-group discussions Discussion of the task Follow–up Further work arising from the discussion Follow-up Feedback and evaluation session Immediate remedial work  Suitable Level of Difficulty We are working with EFL students, so we must constantly remember that they probably will not understand everything that we say. It is not necessary that they understand every word and indeed a challenge is wonderful for learning, but consistently using material or a way of speaking that is too difficult is a sure way to make students lose their interest in a target-culture.  Pair work and group-work Pair –work and group-work are the most useful and preferable to students in the speaking class in general and in presentation task in particular. Students learn more in groups. They have more opportunities for using the target language, discussing the target culture, and then presenting it before the class. Although using pair work and group work has some problems, for example, students can make noise, mistakes; it’s difficult to control the class, these organizations have many advantages. Specifically, students will have more language practice, more involved in the language task, feel secure and help each other. 42  Mistake correction It is important for teachers to correct students’ mistakes made during speaking activities. However, teachers should consider the suitable ways to correct otherwise they will destroy the purpose of the speaking activity. Of course, there are no hard and fast rules about correcting. Some teachers who have a good relationship with their students can intervene appropriately during a speaking activity if they do it in a quiet non-obtrusive way. But it is a risky enterprise. The general principle of watching and listening so that teachers can give feedback later is usually much more appropriate. To sump up, the speaking activities in this chapter tend to follow the same basic pattern: Engage-Activate-Study – that is, the teacher gets students interested in the topic, the students do the task while the teacher watches and listens and they then study any language issues that the teacher has identifies as being problems. The most important thing is that the speaking activities will help students be eager to do tasks in textbook and result in a confident presentation at the end of the speaking lesson. 43 PART III CONCLUSION The previous chapters have provided answers to the research questions. In this chapter, I will give a summary of the important findings and some discussion about the limitations and suggestions for further study. 1. Summary of the study Recently, in the process of international integration, English is still the most popular foreign language to connect people, countries together. Moreover, presentation in English is widely used in most fields. Therefore, the demand to present an idea in English is increasing. For these reasons, the study is aimed to suggest some classroom activities to stimulate the presentation ability of the 10th form students at Marie Curie High school. In the study, both theory and practice are taken into consideration. First of all, the study reviewed some theoretical background including the definitions of presentation, factors that prevent students from presenting, and integrating skills needed to collect information in English speaking class. Then, some hypotheses were put forward and examined by the survey data analysis afterward. Finally, some possible implications to stimulate students’ presentation ability at Marie Curie High school are suggested. The significant part of the study is the survey from which the author has discovered some findings as follows. The results of the survey have pointed out the positive attitudes of both teachers and students towards the important role of presentation to English teaching and learning. The study has indicated the presentation activities which students prefer and find them most motivating and useful in an English speaking class including discussions, and role–plays. In addition, through the study, the author knows that the biggest difficulties when students deal with presentation task are the lack of knowledge as for students and the lack of materials as for teachers. Though the survey was conducted on a limited number of 44 teachers and students, it will hopefully raise 10th form students’ ability of presenting discussed topics at Marie Curie High school. 2. Limitations of the study The study has been conducted in a short time and the data have been attained from a small number of particular students at Marie Curie High school, so the findings may hold true for the teaching and learning in Marie Curie context. Accordingly, the findings may not be applied to a larger number of informants. Moreover, the researcher has also suggested some activities based on her experience in teaching in an English speaking class at high school. 3. Suggestions for further study Firstly, this study has focused on some activities to raise students’ presentation ability in the English speaking class. It should be done in a more comprehensive way in the class of reading, listening, and writing. Secondly, the researcher hopes to work with other colleagues to combine and compile some more supplementary materials that are useful for students when they deal with presentation tasks. Lastly, there should be more research into designing activities that help students understand more about presentation and give them some techniques for an effective presentation. 45 REFERENCES Apaibanditkul, K. (2006). Anxiety of international Thai students in an English speaking context. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Southern IIIinois University at Carbondale. Barbour, R, S., & Kitzinger, J. (1999). Developing focus group research: Politics, Theory and Practice. Sage Publication. Brown, H.D. (1994). Principles of language learning and teaching. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Regents. Byrne, D. (1987). Teaching oral English. England. Longman. Daly, J. (1991). Understanding communication apprehension: An introduction for language educator, in Horwitz, E. K., & Young, D.J. (eds). Language anxiety: From theory and research to classroom implications. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, pp.3- 14 Doff, A. (1998). Teach English: A training course for teacher. 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How does anxiety affect foreign language learning: A reply to Spark and Ganschow, The Modern Language Journal, 79(1), 90-99. 47 Martin Bygate (1995). Speaking. Oxford University Press. Nunan, D. (1989). Designing tasks for the communicative classroom. Cambridge University Press. Pica, T. (1987). Second language acquisition, social interaction, and the classroom, Applied Linguistics, 8(1), 3-21 Richards and Rodgers (1986). Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge University Press. Ur, P.1996. A course in language teaching. Cambridge University Press. Willies, J. (1981). Teaching English through English. Longman 48 APPENDIX 1 SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE (FOR TEACHERS OF ENGLISH) This survey questionnaire is designed for the study on raising students’ presentation in English speaking classes at Marie Curie High school. Your assistance in completing the following questions is greatly appreciated. You can be confident that you will not be identified in any discussions or data analysis. Thank you very much for your cooperation and assistance! Please tick the answer you think the most suitable, or write some words to some questions. For some questions you can tick more than one answer. 1. How important is presentation to English learning and teaching? A. Essential B. very important C. rather important D. not very important E. not important at all 2. How often do you find yourself motivated enough to teach presentation in your speaking lessons? A. Sometimes B. rarely C. never 3. How much time do you usually spend on teaching presentation in a 45-minute English lesson? A. 5-10 minutes B. 10-20 minutes C. 20-30 minutes D. 30-40 minutes E. 0 minute 4. In your opinion, does presentation teaching require spending a lot of time reading materials before each lesson? A. Yes B. No C. Not always I 5. Which activities do you often carry out in a speaking lesson? A. in pairs B. in groups C. individually D. none of them 6. If you have a presentation activity in the English speaking class, what do you find most useful? A. in pairs B. in groups C. individually D. none of them 7. What are the difficulties when you teach your students presentation in your English classes? A. Students are lazy and passive B. You are lack of knowledge of related topics. C. You can’t give satisfactory explanations to the issues discussed. D. Others: (please specify)..………………………………………………….…… 8. Whether students should design the teaching plan together with teachers or not, my opinion is: A. strongly agree B. agree C. neutral D. oppose B. strongly oppose 9. What do you think about the learner-teacher interaction? A. receiver and giver B. raw material and maker C. customer and shopkeeper D. partners E. explorer and director II APPENDIX 2 SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE (FOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH) This survey questionnaire is designed for the study on raising students’ presentation in English speaking classes at Marie Curie High school. Your assistance in completing the following questions is greatly appreciated. You can be confident that you will not be identified in any discussions or data analysis. Thank you very much for your cooperation and assistance! Please give your answers: Name: …………………………………………. Class: …………………………………………. Time of learning English: ……………….. year(s) Please tick the answer you think the most suitable, or write some words to some questions. For some questions you can tick more than one answer. 1. How important is presentation to English learning and teaching? A. essential B. important C. rather important D. not very important E. not important at all 2. What is your opinion of presentation task in English speaking class? A. very interesting B. interesting C. not very interesting D. not interesting at all 3. How much time do you usually spend on presentation task in a 45-minute English lesson? III A. 5-10 minutes B. 10-20 minutes C. 20-30 minutes D. 30-40 minutes 4. In what ways do you obtain information about your discussed topics? A. TV B. Newspapers C. Internet D. Interviews E. Listening lesson F. Reading lesson G. Writing lesson H: Others (please specify): ……………………………………………………... 5. How often does your teacher give speaking activities so that you can build up a report in the presentation task? A. always B. usually C. often D. sometimes E. never 6. How does your teacher organize these speaking activities? A. Individuals B. Pairs C. Groups D. None of them 7. What activities do you like most in a presentation task? A. Individuals B. Pairs C. Groups D. None of them 8. When do you speak English in the English speaking class? A. When the teacher ask you B. The lesson is interesting C. When your classmates talk to you 9. What prevents you from speaking English in the class time? A. You have nothing to say B. You feel shy in front of your classmates C. Your teacher’s task gives you no stimulus D. You are afraid of making mistakes IV APPENDIX 3 Unit 10: CONSERVATION B. SPEAKING Task 1. Work in pairs. Read the paragraphs and answer the questions. 1. For what purpose are zoos of the new king opened? 2. What are their main features? A. Zoos are very sensitive about their image nowadays. They don’t want to be seen as places where animals are imprisoned against their will. Instead, they want to be seen as places where endangered species can develop. They want to reconstruct the animals’ natural environment. So there appears a new kind of zoo. B. Howletts Zoo in Kent is owned by John Aspinall, who is famous for his programme of breeding endangered animals and reintroducing them into the wild. The zoo has the largest gorillas in the world and its policy is to provide as natural an environment as possible for the animals. At times, this can be risky, and some keepers have been injured and one has been killed. Task 2. Put a tick (√) in the right box to show your agreement or disagreement. Then share your ideas with a partner. V In the zoo of the new kind animals may have better food animals may suffer from dangerous diseases. animals may do what they want to animals may develop. Yes No Task 3. Work in groups. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of zoos of the new kind. Use the cues below: - the conditions the animals are in - the money spent on reconstructions of the animals’ natural environment - the animals that people want to visit - the dangers that keepers may have Task 4. Make group reports, sharing your views with the rest of the class. VI animals may feel happier.