Table of Contents Contents Pages INTRODUCTION 1.1 The reasons for topic: 1.2 Research purpopes: 1.3 Research objects: 1.4 Research methods: THE CONTENTS: 2.1 Theoretical Base: 2.2 Statement of the problem: 2.3 The solutions: 2.4 Effectives: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: 3.1 Conclusion: 3.2 Recommendation: REFERENCES 2-3 2 3-4 3 4 15 15 16 17 INTRODUCTION 1.1 The reasons for topic: English, an international language, has been a compulsory subject at secondary schools in Vietnam in the past few years All students want to learn English well to have a better future Along with improving grammar, students need to improve their language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing For me, the main target of learning a foreign language is to communicate with people all over the world However, there are still students who are not aware of the importance of the subject in their lives so they are lack of interest in studying this subject To build up the students’ passion of learning English, it needs to give them an exciting learning environment, to innovate teaching methods of teachers to be scientific and effective Therefore, the teacher always finds the most suitable methods to apply to each unit remarkably, helping the students acquire the language lessons fast with good memory and especially the passion for the subject Personally, I always explore and learn through colleagues, through the media, through many different teaching methods that are interesting and helpful Luong Noi secondary school students are interested in learning English, especially in grade 6, but over time they feel afraid, decreased interest, learn and lead his people to the quality department increasingly decline in the grade on That’s why the higher grade the students are in the more difficult they feel in learning English and many of them lead to be lazy to learn this subject The main reason is that they not remember structures and new words From this reality I have always tried to answer the question “How students can remember words and sentence structures well to make learning English easier?” And through many testing lessons I notice that the lesson introducing new language (often introducing new language focused on new vocabulary, grammar and language functions through teaching dialogues) is the first and decisive content of a successful unit For the above reasons, I boldly launched an initiative experience " Some activities to help grade students at Luong Noi secondary school improve their speaking skill in extra lessons in the afternoon." 1.2 Research purpopes: My purpose in writing this initiative experience was to find out what the most common and effective methods in developing speaking skill and improve the quality of teaching English at Luong Noi secondary school, help students understand the importance of speaking skill in learning English through extra lessons Beside that I can cultivate myself the professional capacity in teaching, improve the teaching methods appropriate for each positive post, each subject students to improve the quality of teaching and learning English at Luong Noi secondary school 1.3 Research objects: Initiative experience focused on taking some activities to help grade - students at Luong Noi improve their speaking skill in extra lessons in the afternoon 1.4 Research methods: - Theoretical Reseach: Reading, Reference, Teacher book, Lesson plan - Statement of the problem at Luong Noi junior high school - Teaching method THE CONTENTS: 2.1 Theoretical Base: Performing the movement of each teacher is a moral example, selflearning and innovation and to meet the requirements of innovative teaching methods and teaching organizations towards active teaching, learner centered, scientific lesson design, arranging reasonable activities of teachers and students, focusing on close object students, promoting positive, proactive creativity in foreign language learning of the students Innovating teaching methods so that in each lesson students are interested in learning, positive practice and remember new language at class time 2.2 Statement of the problem: a Advantages: - I am a young teacher so I am always enthusiastic with my English teaching job and I always want to find something new, interesting for my students My love for my lovely students is also a kind of motivation for me to try my best to help them - Many of my students are eager to learn how to speak English well so that they can communicate with foreigners when they have chance - More and more students and their parents are aware of the importance of speaking skill - My collogues as well as other teachers in my school always give me good encouragement and support b Disadvantages: - When I applied my experiences and innovations, I also have some certain difficulties as following: - Most of my students are ethnic people and they are familiar with speaking their own language ( The Muong Language ) even at class - The number of students who can speak English and wants to improve their speaking skill is very limited - Teaching aids and time are also a big problem as I still need more time and teaching aids to prepare a contented lesson for extra class in the afternoon - Quite a few students are too weak to speak English as they don't know much lexicology as well as lacking grammar structures In the first semester of school year 2015-2016 before applying my research, I gave a speaking topic to the students in class 7A and 7B “ Talk about your bedroom.”, testing their speaking skill through lession 3: At home Here are the survey results quality speaking skill of students of grade at Luong Noi secondary school - school year 2015-2016: Good Moderate Weak Poor No % No % No % No % 17, 62, 17, 7A 29 0 18 3,4 2 26, 56, 7B 30 0 17 10 6,7 From this result I have adopted some solutions to introduce some activities to help grade students improve their speaking skill in extra lessons in the afternoon 2.3 The solutions: In fact, very few students can speak English fluently after studying it for years at junior high school I have observed some of colleagues' teaching lessons and through observation, I have realized some difficulties that teachers and students have a To teachers: - In most of extra lessons in the afternoon, teachers just help their students grammar exercises, reading, writing and listening They ignore speaking skill so day by day, month by month and year by year, students find it really hard to speak English though they can understand what other people speak in English in a simple way - Some teachers cannot create speaking activities for students to take part in or they are not creative in designing activities - Some teachers don't make models so that students cannot imitate Some teachers don't have enough teaching aids like pictures, real objects for students to express their ideas b To students: - Many students are not confident to present their ideas in English though they can understand what other students and their teachers say - Many students are not motivated to speak English and are afraid of making mistakes and being laughed at by their friends or being told off by their teachers - Many students just want to learn new grammar structures because they are new to them They don't want to speak what they have learnt By learning many grammar structures, they can get good marks in final exam, which only test students' knowledge of grammar mainly With experience of teaching English for more than 12 years, I still find it rather hard to design speaking activities so that all students can get involved So, I have tried many methods and then I can learn what I have done with a class and then I can improve in other classes Class Total Excellent No % 2.4 Effectives: To help my students improve their speaking skill, I can't it in a day or two On the contrary, it took me months, even years to draw some following experiences and innovations * Pair- work on topics given Aim: To help students ask and answer using questions from brainstorming stage to create communicative activities Time to carry out: 20 minutes Preparation: + Teacher: Vocabulary of jobs, good questions to explore personal information + Students: Get to know some information about the person they want to act a Asking and answering about personal information As we know, teachers of English often ask their students to work in pair asking and answering about their personal because this activity is quite important and interesting Last schoolyear, after students have learnt Units 1,2,3 in English 7, in an extra lesson in the afternoon, I asked students in class 7A to work in pair asking and answering about their personal information I gave them some clues such as: name, age, job, accommodation, family, telephone number, favorite pastimes I also reminded students some phrases to ask their friends back to increase the communicative target Such as: How/ What about you? And you? And your For weak class, I asked all class to build up the questions before they asked each other Questions as following: What's your name? How old are you? Where you live? How far is it from your house to school? How you go to school? How many people are there in your family? What's your telephone number? What you in your free time? Unluckily, I found my students feel quite bored with this activity because they did learn how to answer these questions in the morning so during their working time, I walked around to take notes what their answers were First, I asked all students in class to work in pairs simultaneously and then I required some pairs to present their dialogues in front of the whole class Here are some of the dialogues I noted down during that lesson * First, I heard two students called Huyen and Ly make their dialogue as following: Huyen: What's your name? Ly: My name is Ly Huyen: How old are you? Ly: I'm 11 years old Huyen: What you do? Ly: I'm a student Huyen: Where you live? Ly: I live in Ba Thuoc Huyen: How far is it from your house to school? Ly: It's about km Huyen: How you go to school? Ly: I go to school by bike Huyen: How many people are there in your family? Ly: There are four people in my family Huyen: What's your telephone number? Ly: 0373 871 256 Huyen: What you in your free time? Ly: I play badminton Obviously, two students named Huyen and Ly made a good dialogue because they could use all questions needed to ask about personal information But they still felt bored with this activity since they have been in the same class for nearly two years and they have known each other very well That's why when listening to Ly's answer, Huyen showed no surprise or not much interest because she could guess what Ly's answers were * Next, I observed students named Thu and Mai Thu: What's your name, Thu? Mai: My name is Mai And your name, Thu? Thu: My name is Thu How old are you? Mai: I'm 11 years old And you? Thu: I'm 11 What you do? Mai: I'm a student And you? THu: I'm a student Where you live? Mai: I live in Ba Thuoc How about you? Thu: I live in Ba Thuoc, too How far is it from your house to school? Mai: It's about km How about your house? Thu: It's about km How you go to school? Mai: I goto school by bike And you? Thu: I go to school by bike How many people are there in your family? Mai: There are four people in my family And your family? Thu: There are five people in my family What's your telephone number? Mai: 0373 871 345 And your telephone number? Thu: 0373 871 254 What you in your free time? Mai: I play soccer And you? Thu: I watch TV Happily, two students Thu and mai made a better dialogue than Huyen and Ly's because they did use phrases like: How about you? And you? .to ask his friend but they still found this activity a bit uninteresting because they were neighbors and they knew clearly about each other They knew each other so clearly that they made a very funny mistake when asking questions: Thu: What's your name, Mai? Mai: My name is Mai And your name, Thu? From the dialogues students in class 7A made, I thought I had to find a better way, a more interesting thing but students can still have to practice asking and answering personal information without feeling bored So when I taught class 7B (a weaker class), I also asked the whole class to build up questions as I did in class 7A Then I asked students to act if they were new to each other So each student have three minutes to note down the name, job, accommodation .they liked They may act if they were famous singers, actors or actress Then I asked students in class 7B to change their seats so that they could ask the person they wanted to know more I also reminded students to use phrases given to ask his/ her new friend to increase communicative target and encouraged them to be creative in using questions And here are two dialogues I noted down: (Dialogue made by Phan and Loan Loan is A Phan is B) A: Hi Nice to meet you B: Hi How you What's your name? A: My name is Messi And your name? B: My full name is Ngo Kien Huy How old are you? A: I'm 27 years old How about you? B: I'm 24 What you do? A: I'm a soccer player And you? B: I'm a singer Where you live? A: I live in London And you? B: I live in Ho Chi Minh city How you often go to work? A: I go to work by bus How about you? B: I go to work by car, sometimes by bus How many people are there in your family? A:There are three people in my family How about your family B: There are two people in my family My mother and I So what you so in your free time? A: I play basketball Sometimes I go swimming And you? B: I sometimes play video games Sometimes, I play table tennis With the way I used for students in class 7B, I found that all students were eager to work together to make dialogues Although they couldn't cover all personal information needed, their dialogues were more colorful and more lively Therefore, to motivate students first to feel like taking part in speaking activity, then gradually to improve their speaking skill as well as their confidence, teachers really need to create artificial activities which are new and interesting to them and above all, teachers have to create activities that are suitable for students' levels Pair- work in teaching and learning English is not new and can be called a daily activity but how teachers make students get involved in this kind of activity eagerly is a big problem to many teachers With the way I used for students in class 7B can be used in many lessons with other topics relating to exploring personal information b Pair- work about future plan using " will" Aim: - To help students express their future intention using "will" after learning Unit - To help students exchange information about their plan as well as revising the use of "will" and develop speaking skill Time to carry out: 20 minutes Preparation: + Teachers: Information/ flashcards about places of interest in their province or country Questions to ask about holiday in the future + Students: Revise the use, form of "will" at home first Steps: When I taught class 7B First, I asked students to speak out some questions to ask their friends about their plans for a holiday next summer Here are questions students in class 7B presented Where will you go next summer? How will you go there? Who will you go with? Where will you stay there? How long will you stay there? What will you there? Will you buy any souvenirs and take any photos? Then, I asked all students to work in pair simultaneously I walked around class to check and help but I found that most of students in class 7B said they would go to SamSon as they hadn't been to anywhere else and they didn't know much about other famous places Therefore, their dialogues were almost the same They didn't talk about other places as I expected When I carried out the same lesson in class 7A, I asked students to say out the place they wanted to visit such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh city , then I provided some information about those places you can get there by car/ bus/ train / plane (from Thanh Hoa city) Hanoi: you can visit: Sword lake, One Pillar pagoda, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, Ba Dinh Square, you can try: Hanoi Pho, Com cakes, Similarly, I provided some flashcards containing some necessary information about some places to my students so that they can use After students had worked simultaneously, I asked some pairs to present their dialogues and I was very glad to find that some pairs made very good dialogues Here is one of those I noted down a dialogue between Son and Anh as following: Son: Hi, NHung Where will you go this summer? Anh: I will go to Ho Chi Minh city Son: How nice! Who will you go with? Anh: I will go with my parents and my brother Son: How will you go there? Anh: We will go there by train Son: Where will you stay in Ho Chi Minh city? Anh: We will stay at a small hotel Son: How long will you stay there? Anh: We will stay there for a week Son: What will you in Ho Chi Minh city? Anh: We will visit Nha Rong Harbor, Dam Sen Water Park, Tien Spring park and go to a music live show And we'll try a lot of specialties in Ho Chi Minh city Son: Will you buy any souvenirs and take any photos? Anh: Of course, we will I will have a gift for you and I will show you my photos Son: Great Have a good trip Anh Thanks How about you? Son: This summer, I will go to Hanoi with my parents We'll go there by bus We'll stay at my uncle's house for days I think we will visit you can visit: Sword lake, One Pillar pagoda, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, Ba Dinh Square, And we'll try Hanoi Pho, Com cakes, We'll take some photos and buy some gifts I'll give you a nice gift Anh: Thanks Enjoy your journey Once again, if teachers want their students to be interested in speaking activities, they have to create new, interesting and suitable ones Moreover, to be successful in one activity, teachers must have good knowledge in that filed and prepare what is essential to help students in case they get stuck in exploring information * Application: All teachers of English have known the importance of pair work in learning English so they can use this type of activity whenever they want to help their students to speak * Report Report is also an excellent way for students to improve their speaking skill as well was their confidence because if one wants to report something, he will have to stand up in front of class to it In order to have a good report activity, teachers need to set tasks to students before asking them to report something Report activity is often used after pair work Teachers also need to provide cards so that students can take notes After students in class 7B finished their open pairs (asking and answering about personal information), I asked some students to come to black board to talk about themselves and about a friend he has talked with Unfortunately, many students can't remember information about their friends, some even forget information about themselves Furthermore, all students in class 7B have known each other very well so they were not interested to hear about their friends When I carried out pair- work activity about personal information in class 7B, I had some more experience so before I asked students to adapt their role, I drew a table as below and asked them to fill in during their discussion Students first fill in information in column (me) then ask a friend to fill in column (My new friend) but not to write anything in column (My online friend) Name (me) Huy (My new friend) Messi (My online friend) Age Job Accommodation 27 24 singer soccer player Ho Chi Minh London city Family two people three people Means of transport car/ bus bus In free time play video play basketball, go games, play swimming table tennis Once students have had their new information about them and about their new friends, their report is much better Here is a report presented by a student named Sang in class 7B Hello everyone Nice to meet you today My name is Huy I'm 27 years old and I'm a singer I live in Ho Chi Minh city with my mother I work in a studio and I often go to work by car Sometimes, I go by bus In my free time, I play video games, play table tennis Messi is my new friend He is 24 years old and he a soccer player He lives in London with his parents He goes to work by bus In his free time, he plays basketball, goes swimming With this report, we can see, it is short but quite informative about a person and I think it's good if a grade -7 students can report like this During, Sang and other's reports, I told other students (listeners) to listen to their friends carefully and fill in column (My online friend) about a person they like By doing this, I found that all students listened to their friends' report attentively, partly because their friends now are different (famous people) and partly I would call some students at random to report about themselves and about a person they have just taken notes about And happily, class was 10 surprisingly quiet, we could hear only the presenter's voice, no Vietnamese was used during the report I used this way of report when teaching class 7A and 7B to talk about their future plans using "will" I found all students were eager to listen to their friends' report and concentrate on their lesson much better than ever before * Picture description Picture description is a very good activity for students to improve their speaking skill in extra lessons because in extra lessons, students have more time to speak and they can speak about their own pictures, not only pictures given by their teachers * Describing houses Aim: To help students revise vocabulary and structures of describing a house and talk about their house or a house they know (There is / There are ) Time to carry out: 20 minutes Preparation: Vocabulary on houses and main things in a house, pictures of houses, three small presents After learning Unit (At home- English 7), In an extra lesson, I asked students in class 7A to describe their house but they did not come up to my expectation because most of the house they describe were so similar They just described their own house so there was nothing special as most of their houses were small ones in the countryside Realizing that better descriptions should be made, Therefore, before I taught students in class 7B, I asked a teacher of Fine Art who also teaches class 7B to help me That is, in her Fine Art lesson, she asked each student to draw a house they dream to have in the future Luckily, pictures of houses they drew were so amazing I asked the teacher of Fine Art to lend me those pictures and when I taught class 7B the topic "Describing a house", I delivered their pictures to them and told them to present their description With the help from own pictures, students were eager to show off their pictures and fluently talked about their houses in dream After students have finished their talk, I asked students to choose the most beautiful house and a present was given to the owner of that house and a gift for the best description was given and a gift for the best presenter No one can guess how happy the students in class were! * Retelling story Aim: To help students develop their speaking skill and talk about past events using past simple tense Time to carry out: 20 minutes Preparation: Pictures of past events, vocabulary of holiday, table of irregular verbs if necessary 11 Story completion a quite difficult activity for grade but if the teachers can prepare enough picture cues, they can surprisingly well Basing on pictures about the Robinsons in Unit - English 7, before I taught class 7B, I asked students and I myself prepared some similar pictures so that students could use to retell their story of a holiday they enjoyed * Discussion: Aim: To help students have a discussion on a quite difficult topic Students can have a chance to develop their speaking skill and express their personal points of view Time to carry out: 15 minutes Preparation: + Teacher: prepare some advantages/ disadvantages of living the city and in the country + Students: prepare some advantages/ disadvantages of living in the city/ country Three years ago, when I taught class 7A (schoolyear 2013-2014), after they had learnt part B- Unit 15 I asked them to discuss where they liked to live I used two questions: Do you like the city? Why/ Why not? Do you like the countryside? Why / Why not? First, I asked them to take note reasons why they liked the country or the city on their own Then I asked them to use the questions above to ask their friends But unfortunately, students could present very few reasons So when I taught class 7B, I changed the way before discussion Before their discussion, I asked all students to present some reasons why they liked the city and the country All students were interested in giving their ideas Then I asked students to discuss and present their ideas Although some students just picked up some ideas, the reasons they used were sensible * Interview Interview is an interesting activity for students to develop their speaking skill in front of other people Aim: To help students know how to use some questions to interview other people (famous people) Time to carry out: 20 minutes Preparation: + Teacher: Pictures / information about some famous people such as scientists, inventors, singers + Students: Pictures and information about their idol When I first used this activity in class 7A after students had learnt part BFamous People (Unit 16) three years ago, I let students interview their friends who acted as famous people but I found that the questions students used were 12 not sensible and they made some funny mistake like: Where were you born? Who born you?/ When did you die? or some questions relating too detailed personal information such as: How many children you have?/ How much money you have? Then I asked some pairs to interview their idol in front of class, they did not know how to introduce them and start or end their conversation naturally When I taught class 7B, before students carried out their interview, I asked the whole class to brainstorm some good questions to interview some famous people Then I wrote down the questions on the board for students to put them in good order for an interview Some questions about Thomas Edison as following: When and where were you born? What school did you go to? Where did you establish the first central power station? How many things did you invent? What is your most important invention? Are you going to invent something else? I also asked students to prepare questions to interview General Giap, Uncle Ho and Andersen Before students came to the board to present their interview, I gave them a poster with some model sentence to start and end their interview Reporter: Hello everyone Welcome to our program FAMOUS PEOPLE today Today, we'll meet a very famous person and welcome Mr Thank you for coming Take a seat please Mr : Thank you I'm very happy to be here, too Reporter: First, I would like to ask you some questions I hope you don't mind Mr .: Of course I don't mind Please go ahead Reporter: (At the end of the interview) Reporter: Thank you very much Mr We wish you good health and more success in your life Mr Thank you With this activity, I found all students were enthusiastic to present their interview though some mistakes in pronunciations were unavoidable What students acquired was the way they presented their interview naturally and eagerly * Table completion Aim: To help students ask and answer questions using adverbs of manner and then use information to report about their ability using "neither nor; both and " Time to carry out: 15 minutes Preparation: 13 + Teacher: A sub-board to make model + Students: Revise adverbs of manner When I asked students in class 7B to work in pair to ask and answer how their friends something by using adverbs of manner they had learnt before I asked my students to retell some common adverbs of manner such as carefully, carelessly, well, badly, skillfully, slowly, quickly, Here are some of the dialogues made by my students Nam: How you cook? Ha: I cook slowly And you? Nam: I cook badly How you play soccer? Ha: I play soccer carefully And you? Nam: I play soccer badly Obviously, Nam and Ha made some mistakes in using adverbs of manner From the mistakes students in class 7A made, when I taught class 7B, I tried a new way and found it much better First, I asked students in class B to a matching exercise as following: A B cook skillfully play soccer, well/ badly swim carefully/ carelessly ride a bike safely run fluently speak English fast / quickly Then, I asked my students to draw a table like this: me my friend ( ) cook play soccer swim speak English I told my students to use the following mapped- dialogue to ask their friends and fill in the table A: How can you cook? B: I cook well And you? A: I cook badly After students finish their dialogues they will have a table like the following me (Minh) my friend ( Hoang.) cook badly well play soccer skillfully skillfully swim slowly slowly 14 speak English fluently fluently Once students have their table completed, I asked them to use the following model to report Hoang is my friend Hoang cooks well but I cook badly Both Hoang and I play soccer skillfully Neither Hoang nor I swim quickly Both Hoang and I speak English fluently Basing on the model, many of my students asked and answer questions using adverbs of manner more fluently Then they could make good report using some advanced grammar points such as: Both and , neither nor After a school year of applying “Some activities to help grade students at Luong Noi secondary school improve their speaking skill in extra lessons in the afternoon.”, in the first semester of school year 2016-2017 with the same topic, I have found that students have progress in improving their speaking skill in extra lessons in the afternoon This can be achieved through their performance in the class as well as in the test Here are the results quality speaking skill of students of grade at Luong Noi secondary school - school year 2016-2017: Excellent Good Moderate Weak Poor Class Total No % No % No % No % No % 27 7,4 33, 14 51, 7,4 0.0 7A 39, 7B 28 7,1 14 50 11 3,5 0.0 Compared with the results of the first semester of school year 2015-2016, we can see the percentage of students scoring excellent, good, average rate increases still weak and least, fell less sharply When I applied this innovative experience in teaching speaking skill for my grade students, I saw them working more attentively and effectively That is why they have been more interested in this skill This makes me pleased so much to have more ideas to my teaching better and better CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: 3.1 Conclusion: With some experience and innovation I have used over the years, I find that if teachers want to help their students develop their speaking skill, they need to prepare the lessons carefully and be creative in using speaking activities for students Teachers should: - Provide maximum opportunity to students to speak the target language by providing a rich environment that contains collaborative work, authentic materials and tasks, and shared knowledge - Try to involve each student in every speaking activity; for this aim, practice different ways of student participation - Reduce teacher speaking time in class while increasing student speaking time Step back and observe students 15 - Do not correct students' pronunciation mistakes very often while they are speaking Correction should not distract student from his or her speech - Provide the vocabulary beforehand that students need in speaking activities I think that all teachers can use the ways I use for my students as long as they simplify speaking tasks so that they are suitable for their students' levels I am looking forward to receiving sincere comments from all collogues and anyone who is interested in reading my writing 3.2 Recommendation: Due to limited time, knowledge and other conditions, I have only mentioned techniques to introduce new language effectively Unavoidably, my research may have some certain short – comings which I hope to solve when coming back to this matter on other occasion I also hope that the school principal board will pay more attention to the equipments for teaching and learning English Let the teachers have the opportunities to learn and exchange lessons learned through the seminars Thank you very much for reading! Luong Noi, May 25th, 2017 Principal Confirm I assure that this is my innovative experience I not copy other people's content Written by Nguyen Truong Viet 16 REFERENCES - English Language Teaching Methodology - Methods of Teaching English (By: M E S Elizebeth) - Teaching English as a foreign language - A Methodology Course for English language Teachers - Text book English 17 ... , neither nor After a school year of applying ? ?Some activities to help grade students at Luong Noi secondary school improve their speaking skill in extra lessons in the afternoon. ”, in the first... focused on taking some activities to help grade - students at Luong Noi improve their speaking skill in extra lessons in the afternoon 1.4 Research methods: - Theoretical Reseach: Reading, Reference,... have adopted some solutions to introduce some activities to help grade students improve their speaking skill in extra lessons in the afternoon 2.3 The solutions: In fact, very few students can