How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills I PROBLEM SITUATION: - 6/3 Reasons for choosing the theme: 1.1 Rationale of theory: Nowadays, English is playing a very important role in the global development Therefore, the teaching of English has been improved in method of the communicative, learner-centered approach which is adaptable to give students many opportunities to communicate in English However, at many junior high schools in Vietnam, the teaching of English has not really developed students’ ability, activeness and motivation 1.2 Rationale of practice: Speaking is a crucial part of language learning The mastery of speaking skill in English is a priority for many language learners Nowadays, many learners even consider the ability to speak the language is the aim of language learning They often evaluate their success in language learning as well as the effectiveness of their English courses on the basic of how well they feel they have improved in the spoken language proficiency Despite its importance, for a long time, teaching speaking has been depreciated Traditional teaching methods have seemed to emphasize the learning of language system (rules of grammar and lists of vocabulary items …) as a goal in its own right and failed to give learners an ability to gain realistic experiences in actually using the language knowledge gained Moreover, very often when people study a language, they accumulate a lot of 'up-in the head' knowledge, but then find that they can't actually use this language to express what they want to There seem to be some difficulties in moving language from 'up-there' knowledge to actively usable language Without experience in using the language, students may tend to be nervous about trying to say something Nowadays things have been different Today's world requires that the goal of learning speaking English should develop students' communication skill so that students can express themselves and use the target language to state opinions, express their feelings and exchange information Many new teaching methods have been introduced and applied to serve the basic need of English learners Among them, communicative approach and learner-centered approach seem to be the most effective ways to teach oral communication Also, we should apply these methods in teaching the four skills and focus on designing speaking activities in appropriate stages of English lessons while teaching other skills so that students always have a lot of chances to practice speaking while learning English 1.3 Urgency: Now I am teaching English at a junior high school near my house I used to teach English at two other junior high schools in my district What I have realized is that a large number of students are afraid of learning to speak English and say that it is difficult for them to be good at this skill How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills - 6/3 and there is not a real language environment for them to their practice every day Moreover, their awareness of importance of being good at this skill is not really made clear because speaking skill is not usually included in their exams, so they often learn English only for their written exams, not for communication In addition, some teachers of English not still manage to put real interest in their lessons Another reason is because of the lack of necessary equipment for teaching English at many schools in Viet Nam Indeed, the school where I am working as a teacher of English has been famous for its good quality in education for years Most students of my school are well brought up by their parents and they identify a good motivation in their studying, which leads to their better study results for English as well as other subjects at school However, according to the survey carried out at the beginning of this school year at my school, more than 70% of the students reported that they are worried about their English speaking skill They said that they could hardly make a simple conversation in English or express what they thought Importantly, most of them assumed that speaking is very difficult for them to master Therefore, if students not learn how to speak or not get many opportunities to speak in the language classroom, they may soon get demotivated and lose interest in learning On the other hand, if the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking in class can be a lot of fun, raising general learner motivation and making the English language classroom fun and dynamic 1.4 My ability: Necessarily, among the teachers of my school I should work harder and harder so as to master the language and always give my students good lessons, which means that my students always have the chance to develop their speaking skill in the language That is the matter I have been absorbed in and that is the reason for my theme Purpose of study: I would like to give out some of my own experience in improving students’ ability of speaking English Researched knowledge: Ways to make students more excited about developing their speaking skill and ways to encourage students to feel confident enough to express their ideas in front of the class Researched participants: Students of my junior high school Ways to conduct the theme: - My real teaching at my school - Surveys Time and place for conducting the theme: - Time: School year 2015- 2016 - Place: At my junior high school How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills II PROBLEM SOLUTION: Logical basis: The goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency Learners should be able to make themselves understood To help students develop communicative efficiency in speaking, instructors can use a balanced activities approach that combines language input, structured output, and communicative output Practical basis: For most learners, the ability to speak a foreign language is synonymous with knowing that language because speech is the basic means of human communication English learners no longer expect the traditional approach of their teachers based on developing mainly the grammatical competence and using methodology popular in the past Today, teachers are expected to provide their students with useful active knowledge of the foreign language, not just theory about the language Developing students’ speaking skill while teaching speaking itself: There are many rules teachers of English must remember while teaching speaking so that they can help students improve their speaking skill 3.1 Firstly, teachers must make sure that students feel safe and confident while they express themselves: - 6/3 In my point of view, the first thing that teachers have to to help students improve their speaking skill is that they have to help them overcome their feelings of shyness and nervousness when practicing English in their class One of the best ways to solve this problem is to put them in 'safe' situations in class where they are inspired and encouraged to manage to use the language from their background Organizing communicative activities in pairs, in groups is also an effective way to serve this aim Working in pairs, in groups, students will feel less anxious when they are 'on show' in front of the whole class together Moreover, pair-work and group-work can help shy students who would never say anything in a whole class activity have the confidence to open their mouths Students can also learn from one another's new ideas so that they will have something to speak in front of the class later Another thing that teachers should remember to help students have confidence in speaking is teachers’ positive correction and feedback Making errors is a natural and unavoidable part of the learning process, but how to correct students’ errors is particularly important Teachers need to provide appropriate feedbacks and corrections, but they ought not to interrupt the flow of communication Teachers should take notes while pairs or groups are talking and address the problems to the class after the activity without How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills embarrassing the student who made the error Teachers can also write the errors on the board and ask who can correct it Teachers should encourage their students to speak whatever they can and focus on what they have got right, not on what they have got wrong Teachers should also help them to develop positive attitudes towards their friends’ errors and to correct themselves Teachers should try to develop for themselves positive strategies of error corrections When students achieve success in oral communication, they will feel confident and secure and they will enjoy learning English Also, they will have confidence to take part in communicative activities later - 6/3 3.2 Secondly, teachers must pay attention to warm-up activities: Warm-up is also an important part which contributes to the success of a speaking lesson Warm-ups help learners put aside their daily distractions and focus on English Warm-ups also encourage whole-group participation which can build a sense of community within the group and warm-ups can help to arouse students' interest in speaking Teachers should vary warm-up activities to attract students' attention and interest because if they feel excited about their lessons from the beginning, they will make a good contribution to it In order to give students exciting readiness for their speaking lesson, teachers can different things to arouse students’ interest by using various teaching techniques such as brainstorming, word web, chatting, etc Before a new lesson I often motivate my students by chatting to them about the topic of interest, giving them preparation tasks or quick warmup to get them in the right mood for the new lesson Brainstorming is one of the simplest teaching techniques, but it is one of the most effective kinds of motivation because it takes a short time I can write key words on the blackboard and the class is encouraged to think of ideas, words, phrases associated with them I have taught my grade students English as a selective subject since the beginning of this school year The following slide was designed on my power point lesson plan for one speaking lesson (Grade selective subject - Period 5) My students were divided into two teams The first team tried to put as many adjectives describing people’s characters as they could around the key word “CHARACTERS” and the second team tried to the similar thing with the key word “APPEARANCE” When the time allowed was over, the team with more correct words was the winner After that, the class was required to predict the topic of the speaking lesson The fact is that they were really interested in their speaking topic “DESCRIBING PEOPLE” How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills The possible answer key for the warm-up activity For Period 15 (Grade selective subject), I used the technique “word web” in order to warm up the speaking lesson This activity could help my students revise the prepositions of place they had learned and could help them get ready for the new lesson with more interest - 6/3 The possible answer key for the warm-up activity How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills - 6/3 Next, these pictures were shown so as to elicit the topic of the speaking lesson and my students could easily find out that the speaking topic was “DESCRIBING ROOMS IN A HOUSE” How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills - 6/3 3.3 Thirdly, students must be well-prepared and well-instructed before they practice speaking English: Another point that makes it difficult for students to practice speaking English is that their knowledge of the language is poor and they don't have enough ideas to talk about the topic As a result, in order to help students How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills their speaking tasks better, teachers have to provide them with necessary language input and give students clear instructions The following example is given as an illustration This slide is extracted from my power point lesson plan (Period 15- Grade selective subject) Although I was sure that the students had learned this grammatical knowledge from their previous lessons in Unit (Tiếng Anh 8), I still gave the students the chance to learn this knowledge again Moreover, the “WORDWEB” warm-up activity mentioned above also helped my students to look back the useful prepositions of place This necessary language input could make “DESCRIBING ROOMS IN A HOUSE” speaking task easier for my students - 6/3 3.4 Fourthly, varying communicative activities is also important: As I have just presented above, effective methods of teaching indirectly encourage oral interaction and they can provide motivation The direct way to promote oral communication is to provide students with opportunities to participate and to communicate with each other so that students can learn the language from speaking The more opportunities of speaking the language they have, the more fluent they become Actually, various activities in each lesson add interest to students and help make students more dynamic and active In speaking, students will be motivated if teachers provide them with various communicative activities Below are How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills - 6/3 some common speaking activities that I often carry out in my classes to make my speaking lessons more interesting and to motivate my students in practicing speaking English: 3.4.1 Discussions: In a discussion, students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions Before a discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by their teachers In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose In a discussion, teachers can form groups of or students Then each group works on their topic for a given time period and presents their opinions to the class For efficient group discussions, it is always better not to form large groups because quiet students may avoid contributing their ideas in large groups Generally speaking, in class or group discussions, whatever the aim is, students should always be encouraged to ask questions, paraphrase ideas, express supports, check for clarification, and so on 3.4.2 Role play: Another way of getting students to speak is role-play Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles In role-play activities, teachers give learners information such as who they are and what they think or how they feel 3.4.3 Information gaps: In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs One student will have the information that the other partner does not have and the two partners will share their information Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or collecting information… These activities are effective because everybody has the opportunity to talk extensively in the target language The aim of this activity is to get learners to use the language they are learning to interact in realistic and meaningful ways, usually involving exchanges of information and opinions An example is illustrated in Unit 11/ part A3-Period 67 (Tiếng Anh 7) This is a speaking lesson The grade students were divided into close pairs In each pair, one was A and the other was B They had to fill in the missing information to complete the medical records (A and B) In order to encourage my students to feel more confident for the speaking task, I first let them use different target language structures (which school does he go to?/ where does he study?/ which school does he study at?/ how tall is he? / what is his height?/ where does he live?/ what is his home address?/……….) which were easy enough for them Afterwards, I encouraged their classmates to give the other ways of making the questions and the answers In addition, good marks were given to my students’ good work and no bad marks were given to any bad speaking work How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills This is a scene of the activity - 6/3 This speaking lesson continued with another gap-information task The class was divided into pairs, too (not the same students are paired in How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills - 6/3 Presentation, Practice and Production These three stages convey different purposes Presentation is to present new language in context so that the meaning is clear, to present the new form in a natural spoken or written text so that students can see its use in discourse, to link the new form to what students already know, to check comprehension, to elicit the form from students where possible and exploit their existing knowledge And when students learn English this way, some of them would have good command of English especially in the examinations, but when they open their mouth, they always find that they can’t get a proper word to express themselves or sometimes when someone points out some mistakes in their speech they can hardly believe that they have made such silly mistakes Most of my students mention that they are quite sure to have learned the corresponding term but they can’t help making mistakes when they talk That is the question which is going to be focused on Nowadays, most of us realize that in order to teach grammar lessons effectively so that students can not only remember grammar rules but also apply the language in communication, we should resourcefully move as quickly as possible from certain pattern drills to oral interaction because each student really likes talking about his or her own ideas and feelings We should give them a reason to use the structure we teach in conversation Let’s look at some examples: A very simple communication task is designed in the GRAMMAR PRACTICE lesson immediately after Unit 14 (Tiếng Anh 6) A series of questions were raised and my students practiced asking and answering them This activity was a transition to EXERCISE - 6/3 How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills - 6/3 How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills - 6/3 Another illustration is seen in LANGUAGE FOCUS lesson (Tiếng Anh 7) With the target grammatical knowledge of the PAST SIMPLE TENSE, my students were asked to look at the given pictures and answer the question orally How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills - 6/3 And immediately after this interaction activity was another interaction one in EXERCISE How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills - 6/3 Above are some examples in which we can use communicative tasks to help students practice English while learning Grammar Giving them as many chances to practice speaking English as possible is the best way to help them improve their speaking skill 4.4 Developing students’ speaking skill while teaching “PresentationPractice-Production” lessons: This illustration is extracted from lesson of Unit 14 (Tiếng Anh 6) This oral task was designed in the production stage of the lesson In order to make the communicative activity easy enough for my students to fulfill, How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills - 6/3 I gave each of them the hand-out and helped them complete their network on their hand-outs first The following photo of a part of the board was taken at the end of the lesson How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills This is the photo of my students working in close pairs, asking and answering about their plans for this summer vacation - 6/3 In order to encourage my students not to speak in their L1, I was walking around the classroom, monitoring their participation and giving them support and help if necessary How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills - 6/3 * RESULTS: After a period of time of conducting these solutions, to my expectation, I have gained satisfying results I've found that my students have become more confident and active in their speaking lessons Many of them said that they no longer feel their speaking lessons stressful and too difficult Most of them admitted that their speaking skill has been improved a lot day by day In fact, I usually encourage my students to feel excited and confident in their oral skill; therefore, I usually give them good grades when they their speaking tasks well or quite well and I not discourage them by giving them bad grades when they not fulfill their oral exercises Instead of that, I always give these students positive feedbacks so that they will try their best later However, my students are told that their speaking skill is always assessed during the school year and their constant progress is always positively taken into consideration In addition, their results for the final term oral exams account for 30% of the total results for this language subject * THE SATISTICS OF THIS SCHOOL YEAR: The results of the first term oral exam How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills Grade Grade Number of Mark and over Under mark students total rate total rate 45 30 67% 15 33% Number Mark Under mark of and over students total rate total rate 30 18 60% 12 40% Grade Number of Mark and over students total rate 45 30 67% The results of the second term oral exam Grade Grade Under mark total rate 15 33% Number of Mark and over students total rate 45 35 78% Under mark total rate 10 22% Number of Mark and over students total rate 30 21 70% Under mark total rate 30% III CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS: - 6/3 Conclusion: Speaking is an important part of second language learning to any learners The ability to communicate in English clearly and efficiently contributes to great success of the learner in school and to far better success later in his life Therefore, it is essential that language teachers pay great attention to helping students develop their speaking skill rather than leading students to pure memorization Teachers should provide students with a rich environment where meaningful communication takes place while teaching any other skill With this aim, various speaking activities can contribute a great deal to students in developing basic interactive skills necessary for life These activities make students more active in the learning process and at the same time make their learning more meaningful and fun for them And remember the English proverb: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” Recommendations: Recommendations to THE EDUCATION AND TRAINING COMMITTEE DIVISION and my school: - I recommend that THE EDUCATION AND TRAINING COMMITTEE DIVISION hold more sample teaching lessons, using various useful teaching techniques in an artistic way in order to attract How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills students’ enthusiasm in communication tasks - I suggest that THE MANAGING BOARD of my school buy more and more materials of methodology for the teachers of the school As a result, the teachers should have a better chance to develop their job 2 Recommendations to other teachers: - Indeed, I know that I am not really full of experience in teaching because the number of years I have involved in this job is still far smaller than many of my colleagues Therefore, I would need useful comments and supplements from experienced teachers so that my initiative ideas would be much better Sincerely! Ha Noi, April 5th 2016 The headmaster’s identification: ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… I am sure that I myself have written this experiential initiative This document is not someone else’s copy The writer, ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………… ……………………………………… - 6/3 ……………………………………… How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills IV REFERENCE BOOKS      -  Celce-Murcia M 2001 Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language (3rd ed) USA: Heinle & Heinle Chaney, A.L., and T.L Burk 1998 Teaching Oral Communication in Grades K-8 Boston: Allyn & Bacon Baruah, T.C 1991 The English Teacher's Handbook Delhi: Sterling Publishing House Brown, G and G Yule 1983 Teaching the Spoken Language Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Harmer, J 1984 The Practice of English Language Teaching London: Longman McDonough, J and C Shaw 2003 Materials and Methods in ELT: a teacher’s guide Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell Nunan, D., 2003 Practical English Language Teaching NY: McGraw-Hill 6/3  How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills ENTRY  PAGE 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 13 30 30 31 31 31 31 32 33 - 6/3 CONTENT I Problem situation Reasons for choosing the theme 1.1 Rationale of theory 1.2 Rationale of practice 1.3 Urgency 1.4 My ability Purpose of study Researched knowledge Researched participants Ways to conduct the theme Time and place for conducting the theme II Problem solution Logical basic Practical basic While teaching speaking itself While teaching other skills * Results * The statistics of this school year III Conclusion and recommendations Conclusion Recommendations 2.1 To my school and the EDUCATION &TRAINING COMMITTEE DIVISION 2.2 To other teachers IV Reference books How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills Ý KIẾN NHẬN XÉT, ĐÁNH GIÁ VÀ XẾP LOẠI CỦA HỘI ĐỒNG KHOA HỌC CƠ SƠ …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… Ngày ……tháng ……năm 2016 Chủ tịch hội đồng (ký tên, đóng dấu) Ý KIẾN NHẬN XÉT, ĐÁNH GIÁ VÀ XẾP LOẠI CỦA HỘI ĐỒNG KHOA HỌC CẤP TRÊN …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… Ngày ……tháng ……năm 2016 Chủ tịch hội đồng - 6/3 (ký tên, đóng dấu) How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills PHÒNG GDĐT HUYỆN THANH OAI CỢNG HÒA XÃ HỢI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM Đợc lập- Tự do- Hạnh phúc BIÊN BẢN CHẤM VÀ XÉT DUYỆT SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM Tên SKKN: “HOW TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL WHILE TEACHING OTHER SKILLS” Tác giả: …………………………………………………………………… Môn: Tiếng Anh Đánh giá của Hội đồng chấm (Ghi tóm tắt những đánh giá chính): ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………… Tính sáng tạo: ………… / điểm Tính KH, SP : ………… / điểm Tính hiệu quả: ………… / điểm Tính phổ biến, ứng dụng: ………… / điểm Xếp loại: …………………………… ( Xếp loại A: Từ 17 đến 20 điểm Xếp loại B: Từ 14 đến < 17 điểm Xếp loại C: Từ 10 đến < 14 điểm Không xếp loại: < 10 điểm) Ngày … tháng … năm 2016 Chủ tịch Hội đồng xét duyệt - Người chấm (Ký, ghi rõ họ tên) 6/3 Người chấm (Ký, ghi rõ họ tên) ... skill while teaching other skills - 6/3 How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills - 6/3 Another illustration... speaking skill while teaching other skills - 6/3 And immediately after this interaction activity was another interaction one in EXERCISE How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills. .. to talk about the topic As a result, in order to help students How to improve students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills their speaking tasks better, teachers have to provide them with