Using communicative activities to support grammar teaching for large multilevel classes at electric power university

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST- GRADUATE DEPARTMENT ----------******---------- Tr
nh Lan Hng MA Minor Thesis USING COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES TO SUPPORT GRAMMAR TEACHING FOR LARGE MULTILEVEL CLASSES AT ELECTRIC POWER UNIVERSITY S
DNG CÁC HOT NG GIAO TIP  H TR CHO VI C GING DY NG PHÁP TRONG CÁC L P HC BAO GM NHIU TRÌNH   TRNG I HC I N LC Field: Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: Nguyn Thu L Hng, MA Hanoi, 2008 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis. I want to thank the Post Graduate Department, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for giving me permission to commence this thesis in the first instance and to use departmental data. I am deeply indebted to my supervisor Nguyen Thu Le Hang, MA whose help, stimulating suggestions and encouragement helped me in all the time of research for and writing of this thesis. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all my lecturers at the Post Graduate Department at College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, whose lectures and support have laid foundation for my thesis. My colleagues from the Faculty of Fundamental Sciences and students Electric Power University supported me in my research work. I want to thank them for all their help, support, interest and valuable hints Especially, I would like to give my special thanks to my husband, my family and my friends whose patient love and continual encouragement enabled me to complete this work.



The minor thesis is concerned about ‘Using communicative activities to support grammar teaching for large multilevel classes at Electric Power University” It is aimed at finding out how grammar has been taught to multilevel classes at Electric Power University, what students of these classes like and dislike about learning grammar through communicative activities and the difficulties they meet when learning grammar through communicative activities. Hence, communicative activities are designed or adapted to improve the effectiveness of teaching grammar through communicative activities to these classes. The minor thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter I provides some theoretical background for the thesis. Chapter II aims to describe background information about the current teaching and learning of grammar at EPU and present data analysis and discussions. Chapter III proposes some suggestions on ways of using communicative activities to support grammar teaching for large multilevel classes. The study should be regarded as an attempted to find a more appropriate way to enhance grammar teaching in the light of CLT in large multilevel classes at EPU.


     ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS LIST OF TABLES, GRAPHS AND FIGURES TABLES OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT PART A: INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................1 1. RATIONALE ..........................................................................................................................1 2. AIMS OF THE STUDY..........................................................................................................2 3. SCOPE OF THE STUDY ..................................................................................................... 2 4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS .....................................................................................................2 5. METHODS OF THE STUDY.................................................................................................3 6. DESIGN OF THE STUDY .....................................................................................................3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT........................................................................................................4 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW .....................................................................................4 I.1.Roles of grammar in language teaching:................................................................................4 I.1.1. Definition of grammar........................................................................................................4 I.1.2. Different views on grammar teaching in second language classroom...............................5 I.1.2.1. Anti-grammar views.......................................................................................................5 I.1.2.2. Pro-grammar views .........................................................................................................6 I. 2. Teaching grammar in the light of CLT ................................................................................8 I.3. Multilevel classes ..................................................................................................................9 I.3.1. Definition of large multilevel classes.................................................................................9 I.3.2. Challenges of teaching large multilevel classes.............................................................. 10 I.3.3. CLT in large multilevel classes........................................................................................10 CHAPTER II: THE STUDY ....................................................................................................12 II.1.The setting of the study.......................................................................................................12 II.1.1. Background information about the current teaching and learning of grammar at EPU ...................................................................................................................................................12 II.1.1.1. The current situation ....................................................................................................12 II.1.1.2. Experimental application .............................................................................................13 II.2. The study on the effectiveness of using communicative activities to teach grammar in large multilevel classes at EPU...................................................................... ……………….14 II.2.1. Description of data collection instruments and procedures...........................................14 II.2.1.1. Subjects of the study....................................................................................................14 II.2.1.2. Instruments..................................................................................................................15 II.2.1.3. Data analysis procedure......................................................................................... ….16 II.2.2. Data analysis and discussions.........................................................................................16 II.2.2.1. Questionnaire...............................................................................................................16 II.2.2.2. Interviews ……………………………………………………...……………………30 II.2.2.3. Classroom Observation..............................................................................................32 CHAPTER III: THE USAGE OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES TO SUPPORT GRAMMAR TEACHING FOR LARGE MULTILEVEL CLASSES AND IMPLICATION FOR CLASSROOM TEACHING ............................................................................................35 III.1.Using songs and verses ....................................................................................................37 III.2.Using games and problem solving activities.....................................................................40 III.3. Role play..........................................................................................................................42 III.4. Story telling..................................................................................................................... 43 III.5. Picture description ...........................................................................................................44 III.6. Dialog performance..........................................................................................................45 PART C: CONCLUSION .........................................................................................................47 REFERENCES APPENDICES




  

 



 
 





 
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    EPU: Electric Power University CA: Communicative activity CLT: Communicative Language Teaching ESP: English for Specific Purposes   

   Table 1: Students’ profile ..........................................................................................................18 Table 2: Teachers’ profile .........................................................................................................19 Table 3: Students’ attitude towards the position of grammar ………………………….…… 19 Table 4: Reasons for learning grammar ....................................................................................20 Table 5: Frequency of teaching grammar in large multilevel classes .......................................20 Table 6: Frequency of learning grammar through communicative activities in a large multilevel class ..........................................................................................................................21 Table 7: Frequency of communicative activity application in grammar teaching ...................21 Table 8: Challenges of teaching large multilevel classes ..........................................................22 Table 9: Students’ opinions about learning grammar through communicative activities…................................................................................................................................23 Table 10: Students’ interests in learning grammar through communicative activities……..…......................................................................................................................23 Table 11: Students’ agreement to grammar teaching through communicative activities..........24 Table 12: Obstacles when participating in communicative activities in large multi level classes …………………………………………………………………………..............25 Table 13: Evaluation of the effectiveness of communicative activities in large multilevel classes by students…………………………………………………………………………....27 Table 14: Evaluation of the effectiveness of communicative activities to large multilevel classes by teachers……………………………………………………………………………29




 

  
1. Rationale Nowadays English is becoming one of the most popular languages worldwide. In different countries, different people at different ages learn English for their own purposes. Learning to use a language freely and fully is a lengthy and effortful process. In Vietnam, learning English language is interested by young people, especially students at universities for a plenty of reasons such as getting jobs in foreign companies, studying abroad and so on. However, teaching English is said to be not effective at universities in Vietnam because as a matter of fact, multilevel classes are currently popular in many universities in general and at Electric Power University (EPU) in particular, which causes many difficulties to teachers and students in language teaching. Grammar teaching plays an important role at EPU as it supplies students basic knowledge to prepare for the final exams and ESP course in the second year. Many students at my university think grammar, of course, is very important. Why? Very simply, words have grammar. Grammar is important because it is the language that makes it possible for us to talk about language. Grammar names the types of words and word groups that make up sentences not only in English but in any language. As human beings, we can put sentences together even as children--we can all do grammar. But to be able to talk about how sentences are built, about the types of words and word groups that make up sentences--that is knowing about grammar. People associate grammar with errors and correctness. But knowing about grammar also helps us understand what makes sentences and paragraphs clear and interesting and precise. Grammar can be part of literature discussions, when we and our students closely read the sentences in poetry and stories. And knowing about grammar means finding out that all languages and all dialects follow grammatical patterns. However, the fact that how grammar should be taught in multilevel classes in Vietnam is questioned and discussed by many experts and teachers from many countries and at the moment it is really a big challenge. The traditional method of grammar teaching is currently not appropriate in multilevel classes in EPU because it makes students become passive recipients. Therefore, teaching grammar in the light of CLT is becoming a new approach and designing suitable communicative activities to teach grammar for a multilevel class is very necessary. In most classes at EPU,
 using communicative activities to support grammar teaching is often conducted but according to all teachers there, for a multilevel class it is not satisfactory. The fact has urged me to find out the answers to this question. In this paper, hopefully, some communicative activities suggested to support grammar teaching in multilevel classes will help teachers cope with difficulties in a multilevel language class. 2. Aims of the study • To investigate students’ evaluation of learning grammar through communicative activities at Electric Power University • To identify characteristics of large multilevel classes at EPU. • To suggest some communicative activities for large multilevel classes at EPU to help students acquire grammatical knowledge in a communicative way. 3. The scope of the study • Focus on evaluation of the effectiveness of using communicative activities for large multilevel classes to first-year students at Electric Power University. 4. Research questions • How has grammar been taught to large multi-level classes of first year students at the EPU? • What do students of these classes like and dislike about learning grammar through communicative activities? • What difficulties do students of these classes meet when learning grammar through communicative activities? • What should be done to improve the effectiveness of teaching grammar through communicative activities to these classes? 5. Methods of the study To realize the aims, the study used a combination of different methods in order to ensure the accuracy and practicality. First, the data was collected from survey questionnaires done by students and teachers at Electric Power University. The writer, then, worked with the data by combining different methods like analyzing, synthesizing, comparing, etc. in order to draw out important findings.
 In addition, the writer collected some information based on her informal observation and interviews to make sure that the data is more accurate and reliable. 6. Design of the study This study is divided into 3 parts. Part A, INTRODUCTION, deals with the reasons for the research, the aims, the scope, methodology and research questions. Part B, DEVELOPMENT, consists of three chapters. Chapter I provides some theoretical background for the thesis with the focus on the main points: definitions of grammar, different views on grammar teaching, teaching grammar in the light of CLT, multilevel classes and CLT in multilevel classes. Chapter II aims to describe background information about the current teaching and learning of grammar at EPU and present the methodology underlying the research including data collection instruments, procedures. A detailed data analysis and discussions are also given. Chapter III proposes some suggestions on ways of using communicative activities to support grammar teaching for large multilevel classes. Part C, CONCLUSION gives a summary and a recommendation for further study.
 
     
  
   

This chapter aims to explore the theoretical background for the thesis overviewing the following main points: definition of grammar, different views on grammar teaching, teaching grammar in the light of CLT, multilevel classes and CLT in multilevel classes. I.1. The roles of grammar in language teaching I.1.1. Definition of grammar There are so many definitions and ideas of grammar defined by researchers and linguists. What various opinions writers on English grammar have given in answer to the question, What is grammar? may be shown by the following According to Wikipedia, Grammar is the study of rules governing the use of language. The set of rules governing a particular language is the grammar of that language; thus, each language can be said to have its own distinct grammar. Grammar is part of the general study of language called linguistics. Grammar is a way of thinking about language. It is also added that as the word is understood by most modern linguists, the subfields of grammar are phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. In summary, grammar is rules of a language governing its phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics; also, a written summary of such rules. English grammar is a description of the usages of the English language. From Celce-Murcia (1988:16)’s view, ‘grammar is a subset of those rules which govern the configurations that the morphology and syntax of a language assume’. Therefore, it can be said that grammar is a field of linguistics that involves all the various things that make up the rules of language. Grammar teaches the laws of language, and the right method of using it in speaking and writing. Ur (1988: 4) defines that ‘grammar may be roughly defined as the way a language manipulates and combines words (or bit of words) in order to form longer units of meaning.’ and then in 1996, he stated ‘grammar is a set of rules that define how words (or parts of words) are combined or changed to form acceptable units of meaning within a language’. Clearly, grammar makes up all the words and structures in a sentence. There is a set of rules which governs how units of meaning may be constructed in any language.
 In short, grammar is the study of the structure and features of a language. Grammar usually consists of rules and standards that are to be followed to produce acceptable writing and speaking. I.1.2. Different views on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms The role of grammar in ESL programs is currently often debated, what sorts of structures should/should not be taught at certain levels, why students can't seem to use grammar effectively in writing even when they've studied it very diligently, why so few grammar books provide enough contextualized analysis of "real usage" in spoken and written discourse, etc. There are perhaps two major views on grammar teaching: anti-grammar teaching and pro- grammar teaching. I.1.2.1. Anti-grammar views According to Thormann (1969), the first ‘anti-grammar’ was published in the seventeenth century. In this book, the author explained that people did not know how to speak a language because of the poor instruction they perceived heretofore, the inefficiency of