Some communicative activities to enhance speaking skills for first year students of English Department - University of Languages and International Studies Nguyễn Minh Hạnh Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15 Người hướng dẫn: Dr. Tô Thị Thu Hương Năm bảo vệ: 2010 Keywords: Kỹ năng nói; Giao tiếp; Tiếng Anh Content: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale In the process of globalization and economic integration, there is a great demand for a linguistic means of international communication. As a result, English has gained the most dominant status among many existing languages in our world. It is widely used in all parts of the world, in every aspect of life, in every branch of the world economy and in many other fields. Therefore, in order to approach the modern world in a way with fewer obstacles, learning English is necessary. In Vietnam, especially after the accession into WTO, there have been many social and economic changes thanks to the cooperation with many countries. Obviously, English has become more and more important in our life. High command of foreign languages helps students so much in finding good jobs. For students of foreign languages, the ability to communicate fluently and effectively in the target language has been of great importance. However, the sad fact is that only a small proportion of foreign language students can perform communication in foreign language well after finishing college. The majority of them still remain embarrassed when they have a conversation in foreign language. This problem may be traced back to the way students are trained in colleges which is not conducive to learning a foreign language as a tool of communication. In classroom, many students are reluctant to speak English even when they have opportunities. Although a variety of communicative activities are readily available, teachers of English sometimes find it difficult to use them effectively. This study, therefore, tries to find the applicability of some appropriate communicative activities and recommend how they can be used to make English speaking lessons for first year students at her college more stimulating and fruitful. In brief, all of the reasons mentioned above have inspired the present study on: “Some Communicative Activities to Enhance Speaking Skills for First Year Student of English Department – University of Languages and International Studies”. 2. Aims of the study and research questions This study aimed to address the following issues:  The importance of, and the difficulties in using communicative activities in the process of teaching and learning English in present-day Vietnam;  The actual situation of learning and teaching English speaking skills to first year students of the ED – ULIS with particular attention to the main challenges in using communicative activities in teaching and learning the skill;  The applicability of some useful communicative activities to improve English speaking ability for first year students of the ED – ULIS ơ To achieve these aims, the following two research questions are addressed: 1. What are the problems that teachers of EDI face when using communicative activities to enhance students’ speaking ability? 2. Which communicative activities can make the speaking lessons more effective for first year students? 3. Significance of the study English is now rapidly becoming an indispensable instrument of communication. Thus, the English teaching method should vary in order to attain this need. In today’s flat world, ELT is constantly globalised creating a pressing need for ELT-related people to quickly identify and apply emerging directions for optimal results. One of the emerging directions is the criticism of the inadequacy of the concept of method in today’s ELT and the need to create a Postmethod Condition for ELT (Kumaravadivelu, 2001). This condition, in Kumaravadivelu’s words (2001: 35), “opposed to the notion that there can be an established method with a generic set of theoretical principles and a generic set of classroom practices”. It requires the ability to be sensitive to the local educational, institutional and social contexts in which L2 learning and teaching take place. It starts with practicing teachers, either individually or collectively, observing their teaching acts, evaluating their outcomes, identifying problems, finding solutions, and trying them out to see once again what works and what does not. Such a continual cycle of observation, reflection, and action is a prerequisite for the development of context-sensitive pedagogic theory and practice. In such a circumstance, it is desirable that English language teachers at ED should put a strong emphasis on working out the way to improve their students’ English speaking ability. As such, this study will serve as a reference material not only for teachers of EDI, ED but also for teachers elsewhere who wish to continually improve their English speaking lessons. 4. Scope of the study Due to time constraint, this study only focused on the applicability of some useful communicative activities to enhance English speaking abilities for first year students of the ED – ULIS. Therefore, subjects of the study were teachers and students (main stream) at EDI of the ED. Within the scope of the study, the following issues were addressed:  The importance of, and the difficulties in using communicative activities in the process of teaching and learning English in present-day Vietnam;  The actual situation of learning and teaching English speaking skills to first year students of the ED – ULIS with particular attention to the main challenges in using communicative activities in teaching and learning the skill;  The applicability of some useful communicative activities to improve English speaking ability for first year students of the ED – ULIS 5. Methods of the study The approach used in this study is mostly qualitative. Questionnaires and classroom observations are used as data collection tools. The collected data are then analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Subjects for the study are: (1) 100 students as respondents to student questionnaires; (2) 30 teachers as respondents to teacher questionnaires. Within each group of responses from teachers and students, specific themes were then established qualitatively and quantitatively. For qualitative analysis, text rendering (D’Arbon et al., 2008) was used. For quantitative analysis, frequency, percentage, charts were produced using SPSS software. For Teacher Responses group, 3 themes, namely teachers’ attitudes towards teaching speaking skills and speaking activities, towards communicative activities, difficulties in using communicative activities to teach speaking skill were reported. For Students’ responses group, 3 themes, i.e. students’ attitudes towards learning speaking skills and speaking activities, towards communicative activities, difficulties in taking part in communicative activities were identified. Information obtained from analysis of the collected data was then interpreted to make implications and recommendations on the most applicable communicative activities to enhance speaking skills for first year students at ED, ULIS. 6. Design of the study The thesis consists of 3 parts Part 1: Introduction is a brief description of the research including the reasons for choosing topic, scope, aims and methods of the study. Part 2: is the main part of the study which is divided into 4 chapters Chapter 1: Literature Review presents theoretical background of the study including oral communication and the importance of communicative activities in teaching the speaking skills of a language. Chapter 2: Methodology provides background information on the teaching and learning situation at EDI of ED and the methods and process of the study. Chapter 3: Results and Discussions presents the findings on the application of communicative activities in teaching English speaking at EDI. Chapter 4: Implications and Recommendations presents some pedagogical implications of the study and suggestions for effective use of communicative activities in teaching English. Part 3: Conclusion summarizes the main points of the study and gives suggestion for further study. REFERENCES Brown, G & Yule, G (1982). Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (CUP). Brumfit, G & Johnson, L (1979). Communicative Approach to Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bryne, D (1980:76). English Teaching Perspective. Harlow: Longman Group Ltd. Canale and Swain (1990). Communicative Approaches to Second Language teaching and testing. The Dorset Press Celce-Murcia, M. (Ed.). (1991). Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. New York: Happer Collins Publisher Inc. (2 nd ed.) D’Arbon, T., Frawley, J., Fasoli, L. & Ober, R. (2008). Metaphor workshops as a means of identifying special features of educational leadership and remote indigenous communities. 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Mulling, Sylvia S (1997). Getting to talk: Communicative Activities for the ESOL Classroom. Kean College of New Jersey Nunan, D. (1976). Teaching Oral English. London, Longman Press Nunan. D (1988). Syllabus Design. Oxford: CUP Rivers, W.M (1986). Teaching Foreign Language Skills. USA: The University of Chicago Ur, P (1996). A course in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press . Some communicative activities to enhance speaking skills for first year students of English Department - University of Languages and International Studies Nguyễn Minh. on: Some Communicative Activities to Enhance Speaking Skills for First Year Student of English Department – University of Languages and International Studies . 2. Aims of the study and research. applicability of some useful communicative activities to enhance English speaking abilities for first year students of the ED – ULIS. Therefore, subjects of the study were teachers and students