VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES -*** - HOÀNG THÙY LINH A CASE STUDY ON VIETNAMESE PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER’S GRAMMAR TEACHING (MỘT ĐIỂN CỨU VỀ VIỆC DẠY NGŨ PHÁP CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TIẾNG ANH TIỂU HỌC TẠI VIỆT NAM) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES -*** - HOÀNG THÙY LINH A CASE STUDY ON VIETNAMESE PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER’S GRAMMAR TEACHING (MỘT ĐIỂN CỨU VỀ VIỆC DẠY NGŨ PHÁP CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TIẾNG ANH TIỂU HỌC TẠI VIỆT NAM) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr Dương Thị Nụ Hanoi, 2014 DECLARATION I declare that the thesis entitled “A case study on Vietnamese primary school teachers’ grammar teaching” is the result of my own research and the substance of this thesis has not, wholly or in part, been submitted for a degree to any universities or institutions Hanoi, August 2014 Hoàng Thùy Linh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr Duong Thi Nu for her supervision and guidance during the time I carried out my study Second, I am also grateful to the Administration Board of Anh Dung primary school, who gives me an opportunity and the best conditions to this study Besides, I wish to show my sincere thanks to the students in class 4A, 4B, 5A, 5B and English as Foreign Language teachers at Anh Dung primary school for their help and co-operation Last but not least, my special gratitude is for my family and my friends from whom I have received a lot of spiritual and material support ii ABSTRACT This paper deals with English grammar teaching of teachers at Vietnamese primary schools In Vietnam, English language in general and grammar in particular are no longer taught in traditional method because that did not give learners ability to communicate in real life situations Moreover, teaching grammar to young learners, who owns special psychological and perceptional characteristics, requires much more effort from teachers in seeking new attractive teaching activities However, the application of modern method, which is known as Communicative language teaching (CLT) in real grammar teaching in primary schools showed some shortcomings when teachers not understand what CLT actually means As the result, majority of students found it difficult to remember and use sentence patterns they had introduced in class Within the scope of this paper, only two teachers and a small number of students of Anh Dung primary school participated in the study Through different instruments such as teacher interview, class observation, and questionnaire for students, the underlying reasons for the above problem have been revealed Finally, this paper suggested some suitable techniques that teachers can apply in their English classroom in order to improve the quality of grammar teaching in Vietnamese primary schools iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Declaration i Acknowledgement ii Abstract iii Table of contents iv Part A: Introduction 1 Rationale Aims of the study Research questions Scope of the study Research methods Design of the study Part B: Development Chapter 1: Literature review 1.1 An overview of grammar and grammar teaching 1.1.1 Definition of grammar 1.1.2 Teaching grammar using communicative approach a Communicative language learning b Grammar in CLT classroom c Teaching grammar in CLT classroom 1.1.3 The implementation of CLT in teaching grammar in Vietnam 1.2 Teaching English grammar to young learners 1.2.1 Characteristics of young learners 1.2.2 Techniques to teach grammar to young learners 1.3 Previous study on teaching grammar to young learners 10 Chapter 2: Methodology 13 iv 2.1 Participants and setting of the study 13 2.1.1 Participants 13 2.1.2 Setting of the study 14 2.2 Data collection 15 2.2.1 Data collection 15 2.2.2 Data collection procedure 16 2.2.3 Data analysis procedure 17 Chapter 3: Findings, discussion and suggestions 19 3.1 Findings and discussion 19 3.1.1 The results of teacher interview and questionnaire for students 19 3.1.2 The results of class observation 21 3.2 Suggestions on improving teachers‟ grammar teaching in Anh Dung Primary school 27 3.2.1 Raising teachers‟ awareness of teaching grammar in CLT 27 3.2.2 Improving teachers‟ teaching methods 28 Part C: Conclusion 37 Recapitulation 37 Conclusions 37 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 39 References 41 Appendices I v PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale English is spoken today on all five continents as a result of colonial expansion in the last four centuries or so The colonial era is now definitely over but its consequences are only too clear to be seen in the presence of English as an official and often native language in many of the former colonies Even in other countries which were not English colonies, people are using this language widely in every aspects of life because it is considered an indispensably communicative tool in the era of globalization Going with the social development, learning English is obviously not only the increasing desire but also the immense demand of people in over the world To meet the demand of industrialization and modernization, Vietnam education has made great efforts to train high quality human resources who have enough ability to survive in international environment That means the workers must be able to use English well enough to work successfully with foreigners Therefore, English became an obligated subject taught in almost schools from primary level to higher education in the S-shaped country In the past, English is taught with grammar-translation approach in which grammatical knowledge is considered most important Its prime position however changed when communicative approach was approved by linguistics and educators English textbooks in Vietnam nowadays mainly focus on developing the four skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing It seems that students‟ learning becomes more pleasant Nevertheless, it is not believed that grammar is neglected Through interesting themes, students also learn to use practical sentence patterns which serve particular functions in particular contexts Without grammar knowledge, students cannot communicate successfully One problem raised in reality is that many teachers feel it difficult to teach grammar to young learners and preferred to teach older ones Although the target structures introduced in children‟s books are much simpler than those in high school textbooks, primary school teachers said they often get confused when trying to find a good way to explain a grammatical phenomenon to their students While there are abundant researches studying vocabulary and the four skill teaching, how to teach grammar effectively and attractively to young learners is definitely a big question whose answer needs to be found as soon as possible Like many other primary school, Anh Dung primary school requires students to learn English from grade to grade Using the new textbook provided by Ministry of Education and training, students really like this subject because of its less stressfulness and fun activities However, grammar is still the challenge that teachers of English in the school often meet in their classroom Teachers‟ grammar teaching is problematic, and, as the result, students‟ learning is not effective Rooted from that issue, we need to carry out a study entitled as “A case study on Vietnamese primary school teachers’ grammar teaching with practical aims and sensible solutions Aims of the study The study is implemented with the specific aims as follows: - To understand teachers‟ awareness of teaching English grammar to primary students - To investigate the real situation of teachers‟ English grammar teaching at Anh Dung primary school, find out the positive factors and problems that affect the quality of teaching and learning English grammar at Anh Dung primary school - To suggest some doable solutions to improve the quality of teaching and learning English grammar at Anh Dung primary school Research questions With clear aims listed above, the study is carried out in order to find out the answers to the following questions: - What the teachers at Anh Dung primary school think about English grammar teaching in primary school? - How are the teachers at Anh Dung primary school teaching English grammar? - What are suggestions to improve English grammar teaching and learning at Anh Dung primary school? Scope of the study: Because of limitations of time and other research conditions, the study is only carried out among teachers and 40 students at one primary school Also, the study mainly focuses on investigating grammar teaching Other matters of English teaching would be beyond the scope of this thesis Research methods: Case study – Qualitative In order to conduct a deep investigation into the situation, the thesis is conducted with qualitative method which consists of the following tasks: - Analyzing the context of grammar teaching of teachers at Anh Dung primary school and then determining research questions - Choosing the case and research techniques - Collecting data and information from the students and the teachers at Anh Dung primary school - Assessing the real situation of learning and teaching English grammar in grade and grade at Anh Dung primary school - Evaluating the techniques that best fit the teachers and students at Anh Dung primary school Besides, this thesis is also carried out through a variety of instruments such as class observation, informal interview with the teachers and questionnaire for students at Anh Dung primary school Design of the study The thesis is divided into three parts: Part A introduces the reason for the choice of the study, aims of the study as well as the scope and methodology of the study Part B comprises four chapters Chapter I presents an overview of the theoretical background of the research It is concerned with various linguistic concepts most relevant to the research topic Also it provides a brief summary of the previous studies of the same topic ... This paper deals with English grammar teaching of teachers at Vietnamese primary schools In Vietnam, English language in general and grammar in particular are no longer taught in traditional method... the teachers at Anh Dung primary school - Assessing the real situation of learning and teaching English grammar in grade and grade at Anh Dung primary school - Evaluating the techniques that best... Dung primary school think about English grammar teaching in primary school? - How are the teachers at Anh Dung primary school teaching English grammar? - What are suggestions to improve English grammar