How to arouse students’ interest in learning English I Problem situation: 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 in the light 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 Viet nam, the teaching of English has not really developed students’ ability, activeness and motivation In order to make his English lessons more effective, the teacher himself must find out the ways of teaching suitable for his students I think that in a good English period, the students play active roles and the teacher acts as both a guider and an organiser 1.2 Rationale of practice: I have been working as a teacher of English at several junior high schools for over ten years I realize the fact that a rather big number of students are not interested in learning English and they not usually get desired results for this subject They think English is a difficult subject at school As a teacher, I have been spending plenty of time thinking about this problem In fact, students should be aware of importance of the language in their study and in their future life so that they can be active in learning this foreign language Besides, their teachers of this subject must give interesting and suitable teaching methods to their lessons There have been many teaching activities which help arouse students’ motivation in each language lesson such as teaching English through games and music, eliciting,…… In this limited unit, I would like to suggest some common and useful ones 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 English and say that it is difficult for them to be good at English and there is not a real language environment for them to their practice every day Their awareness of importance of this language for their life is not made clear Moreover, 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 In deed, the school where I am working as a teacher of English has been famous for its good quality in education for years Most -1- students of my school are well brought up by their parents and they identify a to studying, arouse students’ interest Englishresults for English good motivation inHow their which leadsintolearning better study as well as other subjects at school 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’interest in learning English is aroused 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 arousing students’ interest in learning English Researched knowledge: Ways to make students more excited about their English language lessons so that they should get better knowledge of English from their English lessons It means that their level of the language should be developed Researched participants: Students of my junior high school Ways to conduct the theme: - My real teaching in classes - Surveys Time and place for conducting the theme: - Time: School year 2013- 2014; School year 2014- 2015 - Place: At my junior high school -2- How to arouse students’ interest in learning English II PROBLEM SOLUTION: Logical basis: In deed, English has been a newer subject than the other subjects taught in junior high schools in Viet Nam Teachers of English in Viet Nam should manage to learn a large amount of teaching experience from foreign teachers of the language The most important points are the number of teaching techniques which help develop students’ motivation in learning the language and ways teachers use to apply these teaching techniques in their classes Practical basis: Many methodological materials present a great number of interesting classroom activities However, some teachers may not have the good chance to be familiar with most of these activities or some may be afraid of spending a lot of time thinking about their best activities for their lessons or some may know those teaching activities half-way Consequently, many Vietnamese pupils has very little interest in learning English Some activities to arouse students’ interest in learning English: There are various activities in a classroom to arouse students’interest in learning English The following may be extremely helpful: 3.1 Eliciting: In many classes, it is the teacher that talks while the students listen If the students take speaking tasks, it is usually to repeat what the teacher says, or to answer a set of questions This way of teaching will obviously make the students feel bored and frustrated Instead of simply giving words, sentences, or structures directly, the teacher should involve the students more by eliciting them from the students He should ask them for their ideas and suggestions, get them to contribute what they already know, and encourage them to guess new words This is called eliciting Eliciting involves the class by focusing students’ attention and making them some thinking activities This happens even if students not know the words which are being elicited, so elicitation can be used for presenting a new language item as well as reviewing what was taught earlier Furthermore, eliciting encourages students to draw on what they already know or partly know or not know So it is a useful technique for mixed ability classes or classes of students from different learning backgrounds, from which different students know different things In addition, eliciting gives teachers a chance to see what students know and what they not know, so teachers can adapt the presentation to the level of the class Of course, an eliciting presentation takes more time than a straightforward presentation of a new thing However, eliciting will catch students’ attention and they will remember the new knowledge better -3- Some ways of eliciting: 3.1.1 Eliciting from pictures: How to arouse students’ interest in learning English - Using pictures to elicit is the easiest way to introduce a new topic or new vocabulary When students are elicited from pictures, they should be asked fairly general questions that allow a variety of responses This encourages more students to respond and leads them to say more For example, to elicit from the pictures in unit 12 of the textbook “TIẾNG ANH 7”, section A1 (on pages 114 and 115), I can ask my students to look at the picture and answer the question: “Where are the people?” and then I say: “ You can answer the question in Vietnamese.” and my students can answer my question in Vietnamese like this: “Họ quầy bán hoa quả” Then I give out the answer in English, “ They are at a fruit stall.” As a result, I have succeeded in presenting the word “ fruit stall” to my students Where are the people? They are at a fruit stall This picture is shown as the illustration Then I can ask my pupils to look at the following picture and ask them to answer my question,“where are they?” and without any of my further explanation, -4- my pupils can answer the question in English, “They are at a meat stall.” The result is that the word “meat stall” is presented in an interesting and easy way How to arouse students’ interest in learning English The following picture can be the example of illustration extracted from my powerpoint lesson plan – (“TIẾNG ANH 7”/ Unit 12-A1) Where are they? They are at a meat stall And the same elicitation is used to introduce the word “vegetable stall” -5- Where are they? How to arouse students’ interest in learning English They are at a vegetable stall The pictures below can be the examples of illustration extracted from my powerpoint lesson plan – (“TIẾNG ANH 7”/ Unit 12-A1) when the words such as “cucumber”, “spinach”…… are presented What are they? (in Vietnamese) cucumbers -6- What kind of vegetable is it? Vietnamese) How to arouse(in students’ interest in learning English What kind of fruit can you see? (in Vietnamese) papayas -7- Howkind to arouse students’ interest in learning English What of fruit does the picture show you? (in Vietnamese) a pineapple What is this? (in Vietnamese) a durian -8- In what state are these fruits? (in Vietnamese) How to arouse students’ interest in learning English They are ripe Of course, different questions (as above- illustrated) are designed in order to make my presentation of the new vocabulary more interesting - In fact, sometimes students may not answer one or two of teachers’ eliciting questions because they may have very little knowledge about that field In this case, teachers should give out this presentation The advantage of trying to some eliciting first is that students’ attention will now be focused on the word/words and they should be learning it/them with their greater interest 3.1.2 Getting students to guess: - Because the language follows rules, it is often possible to guess things which students have never actually been taught, and an important part of learning a language is developing this ability to make guesses Eliciting is one way of encouraging students to make guesses and to work out rules for themselves Learning through this way will fill students with enthusiasm - For instance, to elicit the topic of Unit 12 of the textbook “TIẾNG ANH 7”, I let my students play Kim’s game with some nouns showing food and encourages them to guess the topic of the unit by circling the three choices The following slide from my powerpoint lesson plan is shown as the illustration -9- After the please what is the Howgame, to arouse students’ interestguess in learning English topic of UNIT 12 a Let’s drink b Let’s play c Let’s eat - Another example is extracted from my powerpoint lesson plan for Unit (B3) of the textbook “TIẾNG ANH 7” Before letting my students read the text (B3) in silence in order to answer the question “ What American students usually at recess?”, they try to guess the answers by completing a network Read Prediction Play basketball Recess activities in American Schools - When getting students to guess, the teacher should pay attention to these points: + The teacher should pause after asking each question so as to give students time to think - 10 - Teachers have access to many teaching tools when they can produce lesson plans with PowerPoint Pictures of vocabulary words and recorded dialogues are just a few of the many features teachers can incorporate into PowerPoint lesson plans to How to arouse students’ interest in learning English make them engaging and informative to students Pictures: Teachers could use photographs and clip arts to help explain the meaning of the words which are being taught Students will have a better understanding of new words if they can see pictures to help them understand the meanings Teachers should keep these pictures relevant and simple enough However, there is no need to fill a slide up with photographs to help explain just a few words Recorded Audio: Teachers can record the pronunciation of new words, dialogues, English songs or listening exercises for students to play at appropriate time during their lesson with a PowerPoint-presented lesson Students will be able to hear authentic speech during the lesson Teachers can send their lesson to students after class so that they can review the speech that they heard during the lesson on their own time and repeat it as many times as they think necessary to better understand it Video: A teacher can put a link to a You Tube video into a lesson if he wants to show a video For example, if his lesson is about job interviews, he can show a short video on how to act during a job interview Students can then discuss predetermined questions the teacher has given, listen to new vocabulary the teacher has pre-taught, or perform their own job interviews after watching the video Games: I usually used games on PowerPoint and found that students were very interested They love games all the time, especially those they had seen on TV Teachers can use PowerPoint to create their own games to use in the classroom or they can download them There are many exciting PowerPoint games on the Internet For example, I can download teaching games from the web: http://jcschools.net/tutorials/ppt-games/ There are so many useful games there After downloading, I can change the contents so that they are suitable for my lesson purpose Using PowerPoint is a good way of teaching However, there may be some danger in using it Therefore, teachers should be very careful when making a PowerPoint presentation PowerPoint can help a lot in language teaching and learning as long as the teacher uses it properly 3.7 The teacher’s attitudes: To make students their learning, the teacher must encourage his students to feel like learning This encouragement involves all aspects of a teacher’s roles: a sympathetic attitude, not demanding beyond the students’capabilities, not overcorrecting, praising what has been well done Some teachers always force students to learn their lessons and get angry if they don’t What’s the use of forcing students to what they not like or cannot do? That just gives students fear, stress and dislike in learning Teachers should try to - 26 - create a lively and pleasant classroom atmosphere with a smiling face, sense of humour, a sympathetic attitude, and interesting tasks so that students feel that they love to their learning But students’ teachersinterest shouldin not be so easy-going Sometimes How to arouse learning English they should be strict to manage students better Some teachers say that their students always make mistakes and they have to correct them all the time Neither teachers nor students should worry too much about small mistakes The important thing is that students should understand and be understood If a student asks the question “You want collect our books?” he should be corrected but at first and more importantly, he should also be praised – ‘Good, Well done” The teacher should ask the question again so everyone can hear it – “Listen! Do you want to collect our books?”, “Now you ask the question again”, “Good” In this way the form of the question has been corrected but the student has been given full credit for making himself understood This method increases the student’s motivation, he will now be keen on trying again and not nervous about making mistakes The teacher should also give praise to his students even if they make very small progress Use the encouraging words such as “Good” , “Ok”, “Clever” and use “Try” , “Do your best “, or “ I believe you can better next time.” which can encourage students and help them build self-confidence instead of “No”, “You can’t” Then the students can learn English harder and harder and get better achievement Day by day the interest in learning English is brought up, and the students want to learn English self-consciously Results: In order to see the differences in my students’ interest in learning English before and after using various interesting activities suitably and properly in my lessons, I would like to give out the following results of my surveys of asking the students the questions “Do you like learning English? Why/Why not?” * Before the application of the theme: approximatey 60% of my students said they were not keen on learning English because it is a difficult subject, * After a period of time of suitably applying various mentioned-above teaching activities, about 85% of my students are saying that they are much more interested in English because the lessons are much more vivid and interesting Therefore, they have been involved in my lessons As a result, my students’ results for English subject have been higher The table below clearly expresses the differences in the students’ understanding of some of my lessons with and without exciting teaching activities Marks Using various teaching activities suitably The results of 45-minute test no - 27 - Not using a suitable combination of teaching activities The results of 45-minute test no How to arouse students’ interest in learning English Numbers of students % of my two classes Numbers of students % of my two classes – 10 2.5 8–9 10 12.5 7–8 18 22.5 14 17.5 6–7 32 40 10 5–6 12 15 32 40 Under 5 20 25 These were the results of my survey carried out at the beginning of this school year, answering the questions: “Do you like learning English? Why /Why not?” - 28 - How to arouse students’ interest in learning English - 29 - How to arouse students’ interest in learning English These were the results of my survey carried out in March 2015, answering the questions: “Do you like learning English? Why /Why not?” - 30 - How to arouse students’ interest in learning English - 31 - How to arouse students’ interest in learning English III Conclusion and recommendations: - 32 - Conclusion: Learning is a personal journey Teachers are simply guides Students have to the traveling AHow guide can’tstudents’ force a interest tourist intolearning see what he or she doesn’t want to arouse English to see Teachers organize a learning environment, but they can’t learn for the students Students have to the learning themselves So teachers should teach essential things that motivate students Besides, English lessons are like the medicine that students should take They may still need to be sweetened with the sugar of enjoyment, fun, creativity and a sense of achievement That is the reason why teachers should create activities that can arouse students’ interest in learning English It may take plenty of time and energy to so or teachers can get failure in the first few times Don’t worry It is said that “Cultivation of the soil serves ten years’ interest Cultivation of the mind serves one hundred years’ interest” And remember the English proverb: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” Recommendations: 2.1 Recommendations to my school and the department of education and training: - I recommend the department of education and training of Thanh Oai district to hold more sample teaching lessons, using various useful teaching techniques in an artistic way in order to attract students’ enthusiasm in learning English: - 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 2.2 Recommendations to other teachers: - In deed, 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 some of my other colleagues Therefore, I would need useful comments and supplements from experienced teachers so that my initiative ideas would be much better Sincerely! The headmaster’s identification: Ha Noi, April 10th, 2015 I am sure that I myself has written this experiential initiative This document is not - 33 - someone else’s copy The writer, How to arouse students’ interest in learning English Nguyễn Hồng Hạnh ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ REFERENCE BOOKS Teach English, a training course for teachers, Adrian Doff, Cambridge University Press in association with The British Council (1988 ) Teaching English through English, a course in classroom language and techniques, Jane Willis, Longman Thiết kế bài giảng TIẾNG ANH 6, TIẾNG ANH Material from Phạm Tấn, Ho Chi Minh University of Education Department of English.(2006) ELT Methodolody from Nguyễn Thành Yến, Ho Chi Minh University of Education Department of English.(2000) - 34 - ❖ Teaching English as a second language, Harold B Allen, university of Minnesota How to arouse students’ interest in learning English ENTRIES Contents Pages I Problem situation 1 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 2 Researched knowledge - 35 - How to arouse students’ interest in learning English Researched participants Ways to conduct the theme Time and place for conducting the theme II Problem solutions Logical basis Practical basis Some activities to arouse students’ interest in learning English Results 3 28 III Conclusion and recommendations Conclusion 33 Recommendations 33 IV REFERENCE BOOKS 35 - 36 - Ý KIẾN NHẬN XÉT, ĐÁNH GIÁ VÀ XẾP LOẠI CỦA HỘIstudents’ ĐỒNG interest KHOAin HỌC CƠ SỞ How to arouse learning English ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… Ngày ……tháng ……năm 2015 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 2015 Chủ tịch hội đồng (ký tên, đóng dấu) PHÒNG GDĐT HUYỆN THANH OAI CỘNG HÒA XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM Độc lập- Tự do- Hạnh phúc - 37 - BIÊN BẢN CHẤM VÀ XÉT DUYỆT KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM How to arouse students’ interestSÁNG in learning English Tên SKKN: “How to arouse students’ interest in learning English” 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) Người chấm (Ký, ghi rõ họ tên) Người chấm (Ký, ghi rõ họ tên) - 38 - Ngày tháng năm 2015 Chủ tịch Hội đồng xét duyệt How to arouse students’ interest in learning English - 39 - How to arouse students’ interest in learning English - 40 - ... beginning of this school year, answering the questions: “Do you like learning English? Why /Why not?” - 28 - How to arouse students’ interest in learning English - 29 - How to arouse students’ interest. .. presented in an interesting and easy way How to arouse students’ interest in learning English The following picture can be the example of illustration extracted from my powerpoint lesson plan – (“TIẾNG... can you see? (in Vietnamese) papayas -7- Howkind to arouse students’ interest in learning English What of fruit does the picture show you? (in Vietnamese) a pineapple What is this? (in Vietnamese)