MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY ĐẶNG THỊ ANH PHƯƠNG A STUDY ON THE ADAPTATION OF SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN “TIENG ANH 11” AT NGHI XUAN HIGH SCHOOL MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION NGHỆ AN - 2014 2 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY ĐẶNG THỊ ANH PHƯƠNG A STUDY ON THE ADAPTATION OF SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN “TIENG ANH 11” AT NGHI XUAN HIGH SCHOOL Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Code: 60.14.01.11 MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION Supervisor: NGÔ ĐÌNH PHƯƠNG, Assoc. Prof., Dr. NGHỆ AN - 2014 4 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is my own work. The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission, and have not been published elsewhere. Author Đặng Thị Anh Phương i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all, I would like to take this chance to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc.Prof.Dr.Ngô Đình Phương, for his invaluable guidance and insightful comments, his deliberate guidance and wholehearted supervision throughout the process of carrying out the research paper. In addition, I would like to send my special thanks to all the teachers and students at Nghi Xuan high school whose contributions are very meaningful in the completion of this paper. Finally, I also wish to express my since thanks to my family and all my friends who have given me so much encouragement and support in conducting this research paper. ii ABSTRACT This study aims at investigating the reality of teaching and learning speaking activities with the English textbook for grade 11 at Nghi Xuân high school – Hà Tĩnh province, the necessity of adapting speaking tasks and suggesting some adaptions with the hope they can maximize the learner’s involvement in oral activities. In this study, quasi- experimental method was utilized to collect data, teachers' and students’ attitudes towards adapting speaking activities in “Tieng Anh 11” and the practicality of teachers' adaptation. The data in this research were collected from 6 EFL teachers and 90 students at Nghi Xuan high school. Data collection instruments are students’ questionnaires, teachers’ interviews and classroom observations. The findings of the research indicates that a majority of EFL teachers and students encountered many difficulties from “Tieng Anh 11” such as students’ low participation and limited vocabulary, large class-size and mixed ability, unsuitable and less communicative tasks, too difficult tasks and shortage of teachers’ experience in teaching speaking. Besides, the finding results reveal that teachers' perception on adapting “Tieng Anh 11” was positive. The research also conducts a pilot teaching and gets a feasible result. Hence, together with the research results, the implications and conclusion of the research were worked out to increase the effectiveness of teaching speaking sections in “Tieng Anh 11” at Nghi Xuan high school. iii TABLE OF CONTENT CONTENT PAGE STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I ACKNOWLEDGMENTS II ABSTRACT III TABLE OF CONTENTS IV LISTS OF ABBREVIATION VII LISTS OF TABLES VIII CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. Rationale 1 1.2. Aims and Objectives of the Study 2 1.3. Scope of the Study 2 1.4. Research Questions 2 1.5. Organization of the study 3 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 4 2.1. Previous Studies Related to the Topic 4 2.2. Theoretical Background 6 2.2.1. Communicative Language Teaching 6 2.2.2. Material Adaptation 10 2.2.2.1. Definition of Adaptation 10 2.2.2.2. The purpose of Adaptation 11 2.2.2.3. Techniques of Adaptation 12 2.2.2.4. Levels of Adaptation 14 2.2.3. Background of Speaking 15 iv 2.2.3.1. Concept of Speaking 15 2.2.3.2. The Importance of Teaching English Speaking 16 2.2.3.3. Characteristics of a Successful English Speaking activity 17 2.2.3.4. Problems with English speaking and Speaking Activities 19 2.2.4. The English Textbook “Tieng Anh 11” 21 2.2.4.1. The Overall Design of the Textbook “Tieng Anh 11” 21 2.2.4.2. The General Features of the Textbook “Tieng Anh 11” 21 2.2.4.3. Description of the Speaking Section 23 CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 26 3.1. The Teaching and Learning Situation in Nghi Xuan High School 26 3.2. Research Method 26 3.3. Participants 27 3.4. Data Collection Instruments 28 3.4.1. Classroom Observation 28 3.4.2. The Teacher Interviews 29 3.4.3. The Student Questionaires 29 3.4.4. Follow -up Student Interview 30 3.5. Procedure of Data Collection 30 CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 31 4.1. Results of Students’ Participation from Pre-experiment Observation 31 4.2. Results from Student’s Questionnaire 34 4.3. Results from Teachers’ Interview 44 4.4. Results from the End of Experiment Observation 51 4.5. Students’ Participation in the Experimental and Control Group in v Three Adaptation 61 4.6. Comparision of Students’ Participation before and at at the End of the Experiment 62 4.7. Follow-up student interview 63 CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 65 5.1. Conclusion 65 5.2. Limitation of the Study 66 5.3. Suggested Further Study 66 REFERENCE 68 APPENDICES vi [...]... RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1 Why should teachers adapt speaking activities in “Tiếng Anh 11 ? 2 What speaking activities in “Tiếng Anh 11 should be adapted to improve students’ oral presentation? 3 To what extent do the adapted speaking activities in Tieng Anh 11 increase students’ participation in speaking classes at Nghi Xuan high school? 1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY Apart from acknowledgements, abstract,... on adapting speaking activities to increase students’ participation and motivation in speaking class However, not many researchers have conducted research on adaptation of "Tieng Anh 11" yet Therefore, the author has decided to conduct the research with the aim of adapting some difficult speaking activities in Tieng Anh 11 to increase students’ participation in speaking lessons and help improve teaching... should adapt speaking activities in Tieng Anh 11 Secondly, it points out what speaking activities in Tieng Anh 11 should be adapted Finally, it determines the effects of the adapted activites in improving students’oral presentation in speaking lessons at Nghi Xuan high school 1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY There is a variety of aspects affecting students’ oral presentation in class activities so there exists... suitable for their own teaching situation In this study, the suggestions for how to adapt some difficult speaking activities in “Tiếng Anh 10” to get students more involved in speaking activities and increase their participation in speaking lessons 2.2.2.4 Levels of Adaptation Textbook adaptation can be done at three levels: 1) Macro adaptation This is ideally done before the language programme begins... suitable and interesting for learners There are many things that teachers can do to improve the unit such as looking for interesting extra materials from different sources, designing activities which can motivate learners in oral presentation The above mentioned reasons have inspired the writer to conduct a research titled A Study on the Adaptation of Speaking Activities in Tieng Anh 11 at Nghi Xuan High. .. self-evaluation of their participation in speaking lessons 35 Chart 4.2: Evaluation of speaking skill 38 Chart 4.3: The importance of speaking skills 39 Chart 4.4: Students’ interests in speaking lessons 40 Chart 4.5: Affecting factors of students’ interest in speaking class 41 Chart 4.6: Students’ opinions about speaking topics in Tieng Anh 11 41 viii Chart 4.7: Teachers' perception on which parts of speaking. .. of the communication process Materials promote communicative language use; they are task-based and authentic" Nunan also asserts that in communication process, learners are negotiators and integrators where as teachers are facilitators According to Richards (1998), CLT can be understood as a set of principles about the goal of language teaching, how learners learn language, the kind of classroom activities. .. which the effort to search for new sources of materials has always beken encouraged Especially, the introduction of new textbooks “ Tieng Anh 10 ,11, 12” to school curriculum marks a dramatic change in the way of language teaching and learning from the traditional approach-grammar translation method to communicative approach Among the four skills known as listening, speaking, reading and writing, it can... Being considered in the points of view of linguistics and educators, course book adaptation means changing existing course book in order to make them more suitable for specific learners, teachers, or situations (Tomlinson, 2000) In addition to this issue, Peacok (1996) states that adaptation is essentially a process of matching to maximize the appropriacy of teaching materials in context by changing... teaching and learning English at Nghi Xuan high school 2.2 Theoretical Background 2.2.1 Communicative Language Teaching It is known that the history of language teaching has shown the change on methods, which have reflected recognition of changes in the sort of proficiency learners needs What has changed in a second language teaching is not the way we teach but in the aim of language teaching and learning . MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY ĐẶNG THỊ ANH PHƯƠNG A STUDY ON THE ADAPTATION OF SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN TIENG ANH 11 AT NGHI XUAN HIGH SCHOOL MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION NGHỆ. EDUCATION NGHỆ AN - 2014 2 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY ĐẶNG THỊ ANH PHƯƠNG A STUDY ON THE ADAPTATION OF SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN TIENG ANH 11 AT NGHI XUAN HIGH SCHOOL Major:. oral presentation? 3. To what extent do the adapted speaking activities in Tieng Anh 11 increase students’ participation in speaking classes at Nghi Xuan high school? 1.5. ORGANIZATION OF THE