Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm Guiding students to use some effective strategies for self-study and some motivative activities to develop knowledge and skills for 10th form students at Nam Yen Thanh High School

 A - INTRODUCTION 
I. REASON FOR CHOOSING THE TOPIC 
Motivating students to apply language in life when studying foreign languages is 
the priority aim that the teachers want to obtain. Through my teaching experience 
and lesson attendance at Nam Yen Thanh High School, I realize that a lot of 
students at my school, a rural area, are very passive in learning, they only concern 
about what are in the examinations. So, the students can‟t use the language 
effectively in their daily life. The question is that how we can get students more 
involved and interested in what they have learnt and help them use language skills, 
especially speaking skills. 
 I am teaching at grade 10 with new text book (global success), I realize this 
book is very useful for students to develop their skills. Especially, in project 
periods, if the teacher knows how to promote students‟ creativities and their self- 
study, students will try their best to know and use the language more. Through 
using teaching project-based approach, teachers can help students use the language 
they have learned outside the class effectively. 
 For those reasons above, I choose the topic: “Guiding students to use some 
effective strategies for self-study and some motivative activities to develop 
knowledge and skills for 10th form students at Nam Yen Thanh High School 
through project periods” 
II. AIMS OF THE STUDY 
I do this research to investigate how students at Nam Yen Thanh High School use 
the language knowledge they have learnt in daily life and to promote students to 
develop skills by studying themselves through guiding of the teacher, build and 
develop learning environment of foreign language to 10th form students at school. 
III. DUTIES OF THE STUDY 
The study will focus on how some activities are well applied to 10th form students 
at my school to motivate their self- study in the purpose of using language 
naturally. 
IV. OBJECT OF THE STUDY 
 This research study was conducted at Nam Yen Thanh High School. The 
subjects of this study were students at three classes 10A1 and 10A4 and 10C1. In 
order to collect data needed for this study, documents and questionnaires were the 
main instruments used. 
V. METHODS OF THE STUDY 
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 (1999) believes that “the promoting activities makes the reasons for speaking 
plausible even to reluctant children.” Even shy students can participate in lesson 
positively and they are not aware of they are studying, which do not make the 
lessons stressful to the students. 
 Hence, this present study was undertaken to further explore the learning 
strategies used by students outside class and the motivative activities used in class 
in developing students‟ knowledge and skill. It is expected that knowing more 
about the language learning strategies combined with motivative activities in class 
will enable both teachers and students to find better solutions for the problems that 
students face in improving their oral ability. 
II. PRACTICAL BACKGROUND 
 1. The real state of learning and using English at Nam Yen Thanh High 
school 
- Most of the students are passive, just learn grammar and words for some 
examinations and cannot use language to communicate in class or outside class. 
- Some students feel shy and unconfident when speaking English. Only few some 
best students can use the language quite fluently when speaking. 
- Environment of learning English is not promoted because students think this 
subject is very difficult with them. 
 2. The solution: Guiding students to use some effective strategies for self-
study and some motivative activities to develop knowledge and skills for 10th 
form students at Nam Yen Thanh High School through project periods 
I apply language learning strategies to design the tasks for students in project 
periods to promote the self- study for them. The learning strategies are: 
+ Memory strategies: help learners store and retrieve new information. 
+ Cognitive strategies: enable learners to understand and produce new language 
by many different means. 
+ Compensation strategies: aid learners in overcoming knowledge gaps and 
continuing to communicate authentically. 
+ Affective strategies: help develop self- confidence. 
+ Metacognitive strategies: help learners to regulate their own cognitive abilities 
and to focus, plan and evaluate their process as they move toward communicative 
competence. 
+ Social strategies: learn with others, provide increased interaction and more 
empathetic understanding. 
The main goal of constantly using strategies is to become communicatively 
competent. 
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 During the process of practicing, teacher notes students about the pronunciation of 
words, linking words (stand- up, look- at, it’s my friend...), or intonation of the 
sentences and encourage them trying to avoid the hesitation, pause in speaking 
(English, English or E-n-English...). 
And here are the uses of these activities in real lessons 
2.1. Organizing a competition: (Applied in unit 1, unit 10) 
* Unit 1: Family life 
a. Aim of activity: This activity is expected to motivate students use English 
through organizing a competition among groups. Through the contest, Students 
will learn English structures, vocabularies and cultures. It is also a good chance for 
students to show their interest and talent then make them more confident. 
b. Time of activity at class: 8 minutes for each group 
c. Way of organizing: group work 
d. Preparation: The teacher divides the class into 4 groups. Each group will 
practice to be able to sing an English song about family (love, relationship, mother, 
father). And the students from groups search the information about the family 
day in Viet Nam, the UK, America and Korea at home. The information should be 
about the place, the time, the reason, the activities of this day in each country. 
Teacher also choose two students in class to make MC. The MC have 
responsibilities in presenting the competitions. 
The teacher can guide some English songs for them to choose or they can choose 
other songs that they like. 
Mama – II Divo. 
Just the Two of Us -Will Smith. 
Hey Brother- Avicii. 
Remember When- Alan Jackson. 
The Best Day- Taylor Swift. 
e. Procedure: 
- Two MC will give 4 ballots for the leaders from 4 groups. The leader will choose 
a ballot to know the task they will do today. 
Ballot 1: Sing an English song about family and answer the question about the 
family day in the UK 
Ballot 2: Sing an English song about family and answer the question about the 
family day in Viet Nam. 
Ballot 3: Sing an English song about family and answer the question about the 
family day in Korea. 
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 make their school cleaner. They will hand in their products to the teachers and get 
comments for their speaking. 
This is an interesting activity which gives students more chance to practice 
speaking and self- study at home. 
b. Time of activity at class: 8 minutes for each group 
c. Way of organizing: group work 
d. Preparation: The teacher divides the class into 3 groups. And ask each group 
to record their activities for making their school cleaner at the weekend time. 
Group 1: Recording the activities about the collecting rubbish in their school and 
sweeping their school yard. 
Group 2: Recording the activities about cleaning the streets around their school. 
Group 3: Recording the activities about taking care of the parterre flower, trees, 
and planting more flowers. 
-The teacher guide students how to record. The recording includes the name of 
activity, time, place, reasons and the results. 
- Each group will choose a leader to introduce about their work. 
- Each group will show their recording before the class 
- The teacher and the students from other group can make some questions to 
comment the activities and the record of students. The questions may be: 
+ How do you feel after you make environment around you cleaner? 
+ Why should we clean our environment? 
+ What more activities should we do for fresh air around us? 
+ What kind of volunteer work about protecting environment in the future will you 
do? 
This is an example about the recording of group 1: 
All students from group say greeting to the audiences 
Kieu Anh : Hello every one, my name is Kieu Anh, comes from group 1, class 
10C1. Today I am very happy to be on behalf of my group to introduce about our 
group work in cleaning our environment. As you see that our friends are collecting 
rubbish in our school- Nam Yen Thanh high school on Saturday afternoon after 
their studying. They look very cheerful. Now I will ask some students from my 
group about their work 
Kieu Anh : Loc, what are you doing? 
Loc: I’m colleting the rubbish in our school. 
Kieu Anh : How do you feel? 
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 Quynh Anh : Thanks, Khanh Huyen 
Quynh Anh: This is Pham Li, she is very hard working. Let’s ask her a question: 
What kind of volunteer work you want to do more? 
Pham Li: I want to plant more trees, more flowers in our school, in our village 
and collect the rubbish in the river near my house. 
Quynh Anh: Yes, it’s very meaningful for us, thank you 
Quynh Anh: Let’s ask Anh Tho- a very hard -working student in my group 
Anh Tho, do you often clean the street in your village? 
Anh Tho: Yes, of course, I often clean my street in my village when I have free 
time because I think our cleaner environment will help us have a very healthy life. 
Quynh Anh: Thank you very much, Anh Tho 
Quynh Anh : You see making our environment cleaner and not polluted is the 
responsibility of all people. If we always protect our environment, I believe the air 
and the surrounding are always fresh, not harmful to our health 
Yes, now we look the streets. It’s very clean. I think all of students are very happy 
because they’ve done a very useful thing 
I hope volunteer work for environment will be made by many people in the future. 
This is an example about the recording of group 3: 
All students from group say greeting to the audience 
Vu Thuong: Hi every one, my name is Vu Thuong, comes from group 3, class 
10C1. Now I am here to be on behalf of my group to introduce about my group 
work in taking care of flowers and trees in my school. You see that our friends are 
cutting the grass in the parterre flower and watering the trees in our school- Nam 
Yen Thanh high school on Sunday afternoon. They work very hard and they look 
cheerful. Now, let’s ask them some questions. 
Vu Thuong: Duyen, what are you doing? 
Duyen: I’m cleaning the parterre flower in my school. 
Vu Thuong : Are you satisfied with? 
Duyen : I feel very happy because I think this work is very useful for a beautiful 
campus of our school. 
Vu Thuong : Thank you 
Vu Thuong : Now Tuan, do you often plant flowers in your village and at home 
like this? 
Tuan: Of course, This is my pleasure. I think planting flowers and trees will make 
our environment cleaner and fresher. 
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2.3. Presentation: (Applied in Unit 3, Unit 9) 
* Unit 3: Music 
a. Aim of activity: This activity is used to help students present their 
understanding and knowing about the Traditional music in Viet Nam. 
b. Time of activity at class: 8 minutes for each group (Include presenting and 
feedback the classmates‟ questions) 
c. Way of organizing: group work 
d. Preparation: - Teachers divides the class into 4 groups and ask each group to 
find out the information about the traditional music in Viet Nam by making power 
point slides. Group 1 presents about Quan Ho folk song, Group 2 presents about 
Bolero, Group 3 presents about folk song Group 4 presents about Cai Luong. The 
presentation includes some information such as: 
+ when/ where it started 
+ instruments 
+ types 
+ artists/performers 
+ costumes 
+ some famous songs 
+ How they feel when listening to this kind of music 
The group must find out the leader, the presenters (2 presenters), the designers and 
all students in each group find out the information and pictures from books, 
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