The Application of communicative activities to develop speaking skills for 10th graders in Son Tay High School, Hanoi Lê Phương Lan Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Teaching Methodology; Mã số: 60 14 10 Người hướng dẫn: Prof. Dr. Hoang Van Van Năm bảo vệ: 2011 Abstract: In recent years, English has been considered one of the most important subjects, and is a compulsory subject in Vietnamese schools. However, there are many problems facing the students when they communicate. Among them, the problem of oral communication seems to be the most serious one. The need to develop speaking skills for learners of English in general and students at Vietnamese schools in particular, is greater than ever before. Son Tay High School, one of the best high schools in Hanoi, for the last five years has encouraged its teaching staff to apply the communicative approach in language teaching and learning. Much attention has been paid to developing students’ listening and speaking skills by using communicative activities in speaking classes. The application of communicative activities in teaching English speaking to 10 th graders in this school has inspired my writing of this study report as an attempt to search for more effective ways in developing students’ speaking skills. Keywords: Phương pháp giảng dạy; Kỹ năng nói; Học sinh; Lớp 10 INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study The introduction of the new textbook “English 10” into teaching at Son Tay High School in 2006 has marked real renovation in language teaching and learning from the traditional approach-grammar translation method, which only concentrates on the ability of using grammar rules precisely, to communicative approach, which focuses on communication ability. Nonetheless, the teachers of English at Son Tay High School find it difficult to teach speaking successfully because of the class size, the students’ language level, and additionally, students are not acquainted with CLT. Moreover, the majority of the teachers were trained under the strong influence of the Grammar-Translation method, which impedes them from teaching speaking successfully even the new textbook follows the communicative approach. As a teacher of English at Son Tay High School in Hanoi, I often receive similar questions from many students. For example, “I can understand grammar and sentence structures well, but I feel embarrassed to talk in English” or “What should I do to speak English well?” In my reality of teaching, there are a lot of students who have perfect knowledge of grammar that works wonderfully for reading and writing but cannot express themselves to the teachers. On the other hand, I often hear a lot of complaints from the colleagues: “Students seem so quiet and lazy during speaking lessons. It is very difficult to make them participate in speaking activities”. Therefore, the idea of doing something useful for my colleagues and students has urged me to conduct the research. Another reason why the study was carried out lies in my love for teaching speaking. By doing the study, I can know more about the challenges in teaching and learning speaking skills so that I can find relevant techniques along with activities to improve my teaching speaking at Son Tay High School. The above reasons have inspired me to conduct a study on “The application of communicative activities to develop speaking skills for 10 th graders at Son Tay High School- Hanoi” with the hope to make a little contribution to the quality of teaching and learning speaking skills for Grade 10th at Son Tay High School. 2. Aims of the study The aims of the study are to address the following issues:  The difficulties that teachers and students face in the process of teaching and learning speaking skills;  The application of some useful communicative activities to improve English speaking ability for 10 th graders. 3. Research questions To achieve these aims, the following two research questions are addressed: 1. What communicative activities can make the speaking lessons more effective? 2. What obstacles have the teachers and students faced in their speaking lessons? 4. Scope of the study This study is concerned with the application of communicative activities to develop speaking skills to the students in grade 10 th at Son Tay High School. The researcher is not planning on studying a larger population of the whole students at Son Tay High School, just on the students in grade 10 th in order to find out what communicative activities are applied and the obstacles experienced by these students and teachers of English then offer some recommendations with the hope that teaching and learning speaking skills will be improved. 5. Design of the study Apart from acknowledgement, abstract, table of contents and appendices, this thesis is structured in three main parts namely: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion. The first part “Introduction” presents the rationale, aims, research questions, scope of the study and its design. The second part “Development” includes four chapters. Chapter 1, Theoretical Background, begins with the literature on understanding speaking, including the comparison of spoken language with written language and implication for teaching. Then comes the literature on teaching speaking with the speaking needs and goals of language students, some approaches to teaching speaking and principles for teaching speaking. The rest of the chapter is on communicative activities, its purposes and its different types. Chapter 2 is composed of two sections. The first section presents the local situation in Son Tay High School. The second section provides the research methods that involve information about the subjects, data collection instruments and procedures. Also, the methods of data analysis are mentioned. Chapter 3 presents major findings and discussion Chapter 4 gives recommendations for more effective application of Communicative Activities in developing students’ speaking skills. The third part is the conclusions of the study. REFERENCES Brown, H.D. (1990). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to language Pedagogy. Prentice Hall Regents. San Francisco State University. Burns, A. (1997). Focus on Speaking. 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Council of Europe Press. . students’ listening and speaking skills by using communicative activities in speaking classes. The application of communicative activities in teaching English speaking to 10 th graders in this school. activities to improve my teaching speaking at Son Tay High School. The above reasons have inspired me to conduct a study on The application of communicative activities to develop speaking skills for. skills for 10 th graders at Son Tay High School- Hanoi with the hope to make a little contribution to the quality of teaching and learning speaking skills for Grade 10th at Son Tay High School.