Vinh University Foreign language department *** Ngun ThÞ Thanh Loan An investigation into English learning styles of the 11th grade students and some suggested activities (Nghiên cứu phong cách học tiÕng anh cđa häc sinh líp 11 vµ mét vµi hoạt động gợi ý) Graduation thesis Field: English Methodology Vinh, 2009 Vinh University Foreign language department *** An investigation into English learning styles of the 11th grade students and some suggested activities (Nghiên cứu phong cách học tiếng anh học sinh lớp 11 vài hoạt động gợi ý) Graduation thesis Field: English Methodology Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Vân Lam Student : Nguyễn Thị Thanh Loan Class : 46A-English Vinh, 2009 Acknowledgements My graduation thesis has been completed with great support from my teachers, friends and members of my family First of all, I would like to gratefully and respectfully acknowledge my supervisor, Mrs Nguyen Thi Van Lam (M.A) for her enormously useful advice, constant and tirelessness helps and support when doing this thesis Without her help, this thesis would not have finished Additionally, I wish to express my deep gratitude to the foreign language librarian who gives much useful help to get necessary materials for this thesis Also, I am really thankful for the enthusiastic participation of students and teachers in Le Hong Phong High School who give me a great deal of help to finish this thesis Finally, I am grateful to my dedicated friends and my beloved family who give me a great deal of encouragement and useful advice during my studying process Vinh, December, 25th 2008 Abbreviations FLA: First Language Acquisition SLA: Second Language Learning SLL: Second Language Learning Lists of figures Figure 2.1 Students and Their Interest in Leaning English 17 Figure 2.2 Chart Showing Students and their Interest in Leaning English 18 Figure 2.3 Students’ Personalities 18 Figure 2.4 Chart Showing Students’ Personalities 19 Figure 2.5 Students’ Opinion about their Favorite Activities 19 Figure 2.6 Chart Showing Students’ Opinion about the Favorite Activities 19 Figure 2.8 Students’ Ideas about the importance degree of learning styles in English leaning success 20 Figure 2.7 Students’ Opinion about the Importance of Learning Styles in Target Language Leaning 21 Figure 2.9 Chart Showing Students’ Ideas about the Importance Degree of Learning Styles in English Leaning Success 21 Figure 2.10 The Frequency Degree of Teacher’s Using Variety of Activities in the Class 22 Figure 2.11 Students’ Opinion about Teachers’ Teaching Styles 23 Figure 2.12 Chart Showing Students’ Opinion about Teachers’ Teaching Styles 23 Figure 2.13 Students’ Satisfaction about Teacher’s Pedagogical Methods 23 Figure 2.14 Chart Showing Students’ Satisfaction about Teacher’s Pedagogical Methods 24 Figure 2.15 Students’ Change in Learning Ways 24 Figure 2.16 Students' Understanding about Their Learning Styles 25 Figure 2.17 Chart Shows Percentage of Students' Perceptual Learning Styles 25 Figure 2.18 Percentage of Students' Perceptual Learning Styles 25 Figure 2.19 Students' answers to questions about cognitive learning styles 26 Figure 2.20 Types of Cognitive Learning styles 27 table of contents Acknowledgements I Abbreviations .II Lists of figures III Table of contents Iv Part I: Introduction 1 Reasons for Choosing the Topic Aims of the Study Scope of the Study .2 Methods of the Study Design of the Study Part II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical Background .3 1.1 First and Second Language Learning: 1.1.1 First and Second Language: 1.1.2 Learning and Acquisition: 1.1.3 First and Second Language Learning: 1.1.3.1 Behaviourist: .3 1.1.3.2 Innatism: 1.1.3.3 Interactionist Position: 1.2 Factors Affecting Second Language Learning .5 1.3 Learning Styles .6 1.3.1 Definition: .6 1.3.2 Classification .7 1.3.3 Factors affecting learning styles 10 1.4 Application of Learning Styles into teaching English 11 1.5 Ways to Identify Students’ Learning Styles: 12 1.5.1 Observation: 12 1.5.2 Questionnaire: .13 1.5.3 Interview: .14 Chapter 2: Investigation into Students' Learning Styles in Le Hong Phong High School- Nghe An .15 2.1 Overview of the Survey: 15 2.1.1 Aims of the Survey: .15 2.1.2 Informant and Settings: 15 2.2 Description of the Survey Questionnaires: .16 2.2.1 Survey Questionnaires: 16 2.2.2 Results and Findings: 17 Chapter 3: Suggestions for Teachers to Use Variety of Activities to Agree Students’ Learning Style .29 3.1 Preparation of Lesson Plans: 29 3.2 Suggestions of Some Appropriate Activities for Each Learner: .30 3.2.1 For Visual learners: .30 3.2.1.1 Using Visual Aids in Teaching: .30 3.2.1.2 Writing Story through Pictures 31 3.2.1.3 Remembering Words 32 3.2.1.4 Movie – watching 33 3.2.2 For Auditory learners: 34 3.2.2.1 Using Audio Aids: 34 3.2.2.2 Story- telling: 35 3.2.2.3 Using Music in Class: .36 3.2.2.4 Listening in Motion: 38 3.2.2.5 Repeating Hard Words: 39 3.2.3 For Kinesthetic Learner: 40 3.2.3.1 Using Visual Aids and Objects: .40 3.2.3.2 Role- playing: 40 3.2.3.3 Action Games: 41 3.3 Suggestions for Students to Take Advantages of Their Strengths in Learning English 42 3.3.1 For Visual Learner: .43 3.3.3 For Kinesthetic Learners: 44 3.3.2 For Auditory Learners 44 Part III : Conclusion 45 Preference 47 Appendix 51 Part I: Introduction Reasons for Choosing the Topic Learning style is an important factor that affects to the second language learning (SLL) In fact, many researchers and teachers seem to know of the concept, and most of them find learning styles interesting and important However, there is little research that reveals about the relationship between learning styles and success in English learning Therefore, the author would like to find out more information about learning styles and its application in teaching English Moreover, the classroom teachers tend to ignore students’ learning styles although they know that there are always many kinds of learning styles in a class Meanwhile each learner has his own way to learn and to process information, teachers often only use the same methods to teach This leads to the low results in the teaching and learning process Thus, the author would like to present some suggestions that may be useful for teachers to adjust these teaching styles so that they are suitable for students' learning styles Lastly, the author is being trained to be a teacher of English in the near future She is aware that knowing and catering to students’ learning styles can help them a great deal to improve their English With all the reasons above, the author finds it interesting to conduct this study entitled “An Investigation into English Learning Styles of the 11 th grade students and Some Suggested Activities” Aims of the Study The study aims at - Investigating into learning styles and its benefits in second language learning - Providing teachers, students with activities needed to satisfy students’ learning styles in classroom - Providing students with some clues for them to help themselves in learning English Scope of the Study In the limitation of a thesis, the author only wishes to help focus on learning styles and the importance of learning styles, some suggestions for students to help them to make use of their strengths and some clues for teachers to satisfy students’ learning styles in classroom Methods of the Study To complete this study, the following methods were employed: - analytic and synthetic methods - comparative and contrastive methods - descriptive methods Firstly, the author uses analytic and synthetic methods to review the theories related to the matter in concerned to form a theoretical framework for the analysis, collect books and materials, find and select necessary information Then, the information received from the survey is analyzed and sorted to make a clear distinction about students learning styles The results are arranged into categories for comparison Finally, descriptive methods are used to make a description about some activities suitable for each learning styles Design of the Study The thesis consists of three main parts: introduction, development and conclusion Part I: Introduction This part includes five sub-parts: reasons, aims, scope, methods and design of the study Part II: Development This part consists of three chapters: Chapter 1: Theoretical Background In this chapter, the author reviews some aspects of theory that relate to learning styles as a theoretical background for the study The theories about first and second language learning and factors affecting second language learning are presented in the comparison with the first language learning Additionally, learning style's definitions and classifications are presented form different points of view The author also discusses the factors affecting students' learning styles and ways to identify their learning styles Chapter 2: Investigation into Students' Learning Styles in Le Hong Phong High School- Nghe An In this chapter, the results of a survey on students' learning styles in Le Hong Phong High School are presented with some comments and anlysis The author describes the aims, informant and settings, survey questionnaires, results and findings to make the clear understanding about students' learning styles in high school Chapter 3: Suggested Teaching and Learning Activities for Different Learning Styles In this chapter, suggested activities for teachers are presented first to help them accommodate students' learning styles at the classroom level Additionally, activities for students are discussed to help them make use of their strengths in learning styles Part III: Conclusion This part summarizes what has been discussed in the two parts above and offers some suggestions for further studies Part 2: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical Background 1.2 First and Second Language Learning 1.2.1 First and Second Language First language is the language that an individual learn first First language is also called native language or mother tongue Second language is defined as any language other than the first language in a wide sense In narrower sense, it is a language learned after the first language in a context where the language is used widely in the speech community 1.1.2 Learning and Acquisition Learning is a conscious process of study and attention to form and rule learning The results of learning are the explicit knowledge about the form of a language and the ability to verbalize this knowledge In contrast, acquisition is the natural way and this definition refers to an unconscious process that involves through using language for meaningful communication According to Krashen (1982, cited in Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong 2007), acquisition is the more important process and he asserts that only acquired language is readily available for natural, fluent communication Further, he claims that learning cannot turn into acquisition 1.1.3 First and Second Language Learning There have been three main theoretical approaches to explaining the relation between first and second language learning: behaviorist, annatist and interactionist approaches 1.1.3.1 Behaviourist Behaviorism is a psychological theory of learning which was very influential in the 1940s and 1950s Traditional behaviourists believed that language learning is the result of imitation, practice, feedback on success and habit formation Behaviorism accounts for second language acquisition (SLA) with the same theory as for first language acquisition (FLA) Behaviorists explain that the process of learning first language as well as the second language can take place through imitation, practice, reinforcement and habit formation Language development is viewed as the formation of habits formed in the first language and these habits interfere with the new ones needed for the second language (Lado 1964, cited in Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong 2007) Behaviourism was often linked to the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) which was developed by structured linguists The CAH predicts that where there are similarities between the first language and the target language, the learner will acquire target structures with ease and where there are differences, the learner will have difficulties (Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong, 2007) 1.1.3.2 Innatism The linguist Noam Chomsky claims that children are biologically programmed for language and that language develops in the child in just the same way that other biological functions develop For Chomsky, language acquisition is similar to the way the children learn to walk The environment the availability of people who speak to the child - and the child's biological endowment will the rest In Chomsky's writing, language acquisition is based on the hypothesis that innate knowledge of the principles of Universal Grammar (UG) permits all the children to acquire the language of their environment, during a critical period in their development According to Chomsky's theory, he explains Universal Grammar as a set of principles that are common to all languages and argues that the language acquisition device works successfully only when it is stimulated at the right time called "Critical period" Linguists working within innatist theory assume that the U.G offer the best perspective from which to understand SLA Krashen (1982, cited in Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong 2007) presented five hypotheses which constitute what he calls the "Monitor Model" by origin: Acquisition- Learning Hypothesis, Monitor Hypothesis, Natural Order Hypothesis, Input Hypothesis and Effective Filter Hypothesis 1.1.3.3 Interactionist Position According to the Interactionist Position, language develops as a result of the complex interplay between the uniquely human characteristics of the child and the environment in which the child develops (Cited in the Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong, 2007) In the Interactionists' point of view, much second language acquisition takes place through conversational interaction Besides, Lex Vygosky had the sociocutural theory of human mental processing which assumes that language develops entirely from social interaction He referred to the child's 10 .. .An investigation into English learning styles of the 11th grade students and some suggested activities (Nghiên cứu phong cách học tiÕng anh cđa häc sinh líp 11 vµ mét vµi hoạt động gợi ý) ... on learning styles and the importance of learning styles, some suggestions for students to help them to make use of their strengths and some clues for teachers to satisfy students? ?? learning styles. .. With all the reasons above, the author finds it interesting to conduct this study entitled ? ?An Investigation into English Learning Styles of the 11 th grade students and Some Suggested Activities? ??