Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm Some suggested activities to hold English -Speaking clubs for the 10th and 11th Grade students at Quynh Luu 1 high school

 2.2.4. Sample activity 4: Unit 2: Relationships (English 11).................................. 20 
2.2.5. Sample Activity 4: Unit 4- Caring for those in need (English 11) ............... 25 
CHAPTER 4: SURVEY ON THE URGENCY AND FEASIBILITY OF THE 
SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES TO HOLD ENGLISH-SPEAKING CLUBS .... 28 
1. Aim of the survey ................................................................................................ 28 
2. Description of the Survey on the Urgency and Feasibility of the Teaching 
Experience ............................................................................................................... 28 
3. Results of the Survey and Assessment Scale ...................................................... 28 
3.1. Results of the Survey: ...................................................................................... 28 
3.1.1. Results of the Survey collected from googleform ........................................ 28 
3.1.2. Assessment Scale .......................................................................................... 30 
3.2. Several Comments based on the Results of the Survey ................................... 32 
PART III: CONCLUSION .................................................................................. 33 
1. The Results of Applying the Teaching Experience ............................................ 33 
2. Some Recommendations for Using These Activities to Teach English Lessons 35 
3. Suggestions for Further Studies .......................................................................... 35 
REFERENCE & APPENDIX .............................................................................. 36 
 PART II: DEVELOPMENT 
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 
 1. Factors that Cause Speaking difficulties to Language Learners 
 It can not be denied that speaking is a highly complex and dynamic skill that 
involves the use of several simultaneous processes - cognitive, physical and socio-
cultural - and a speaker’s knowledge and skills have to be activated rapidly in real-
time. In practice, a large number of students find it difficult to communicate with 
others especially native speakers. This results from many factors, one of which is 
the lack of chances to use what they have learnt in reality. Undoubtedly, speaking 
remains the most difficult skill to master for the majority of English learners, and 
they are still incompetent in communicating orally in English. 
 Theoretically, According to Ur (1996), there are many factors that cause 
difficulty in speaking, and they area as follows: 
 1. Inhibition: Students are worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism, 
or simply shy. 
 2. Nothing to say: Students have no motive to express themselves. 
 3. Low or uneven participation: Only one participant can talk at a time because 
of large classes and the tendency of some learners to dominate, while others speak 
very little or not at all. 
 4. Mother-tongue use: Learners who share the same mother tongue tend to use 
it because it is easier and because learners feel less exposed if they are speaking 
their mother tongue 
 (Samira Al Hosni -TEFL Supervisor and Instructor Ministry of Education) 
 In practice, it is very important to understand what others are saying because 
when we are having a conversation, we are only talking about 50% of the time – 
the other 50% is spent listening to the other person speak. If we don’t understand 
what the other person is saying, it is difficult to reply. However, many English 
leaners have difficulty in listening so they can not have a successful conversation 
as expected. 
 Furthermore, when we’re speaking English, we have a sentence in mind, but 
we are missing two or three important vocabulary words – and then it becomes 
difficult to say what we’re thinking. This is very popular among students because 
they often forget the words they have learnt even the easy ones. Therefore, when 
they take part in a talk, they have to spend a lot of time remembering the words or 
asking for teachers and friends’ help. Besides, a large number of English words can 
be difficult to pronounce – and when speaking English, we have to consider not 
only the pronunciation of the individual words, but also the connection between 
the words in the sentence. There’s also the “rhythm” and intonation of the sentence 
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 4. Benefits of English Clubs 
 It is undeniable that English clubs provide a wide range of benefits for 
language learners. First, English clubs give students a chance to practise English in 
a relaxed, informal environment, and to meet new people. Students are capable of 
improving and developing their speaking ablitity by joining various types of 
activities. They also take advantage of English clubs to enhance and broaden their 
vocabulary, grammar structures and knowledge. In addition, participating in an 
English Club is a great way to make new lasting friendships. It is important to have 
good ESL friends you will feel more comfortable using English around people you 
trust and have fun with. Lastly, co-working with other students with the shared 
interest will definitely help them to increase their desire to practise Speaking skill. 
CHAPTER 2. PRACTICAL BACKGROUND 
 1. The Real Situation of teaching and learning English Speaking Skill at 
Quynh Luu 1 high school 
 According to many teachers of English who took part in the survey, although 
a lot of students can read and write well, they are poor at speaking. Below are 
some common problems that teachers face when teaching this skill: 
 Firstly, many students are too shy to speak English in class. In other words, 
they lack confidence. This is mainly due to their introvert personality and lack of 
chances to practice. 
 Secondly, some sound very “bookish” when they speak – it’s as if they are 
reading from a book. One possible explanation for this is that they do not get used 
to communicating in English naturally. 
 What’s more, some others love to speak, but they make a lot of grammatical 
mistakes. This is caused by problems related to students’ cognitive skills and their 
individual traits (Mayer,2002). Mistakes may also be caused by language teaching 
strategies used by a teacher. (Thornbury,1999). Besides, many of them are too 
nervous when speaking, which leads to the fact that they can not remmember the 
structures exactly. 
 These kinds of observations are quite popular, as learning to speak in another 
language is a challenging undertaking. It is important, therefore, that speaking 
should be taught in a more creative way and students be given more opportunities 
to practise speaking English in more open contexts. 
2. The Survey and Its Results. 
2.1. Description of the Survey: 
 So as to find out more about the real situation of teaching and learning this 
skill, a survey has been done at Quynh Luu 1 high school with the participation of 
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 their opinion? The bar chart below shows us students’ opinions about the speaking 
skill according to four degrees of difficulty: 
 Figure 2.2 Students’ opinions about degrees of difficulty of Speaking skill. 
 Another question is why do so many students find speaking skill very difficult 
whereas only some of them do not meet any trouble with it? The bar chart below 
shows us some information about three main factors that make speaking difficult to 
students: 
 50
 nothing to say
 40
 30 lack of confidence
 20 boring speaking activites
 10
 0
 Figure 2.3. Factors affecting students’ Speaking skill 
 For students, speaking skill is so difficult and they can be affected by some of 
those main factors, so do they try to improve their speaking ability? How much 
time do they spend on this skill per week on average? The result in the following 
figure will answer this question: 
 Number of 
 Questions Answers Percentage (%) 
 students 
 a. less than 1 hour per week 24 20.3 
 4 b. about 1 hour per week 60 50.8 
 c. more than 1 hour per week 34 28.9 
 Figure 2.4 Students’ amount of time spent on practising Speaking skill per week 
 Additionally, the willingness of taking part in speaking activities held both in 
the classroom and in the clubs plays a quite important role in improving their skill. 
The following table shows us some information about students’ willingness: 
 Question Answers Number of students % 
 a.willing 44 37.3 
 5 
 b. reluctant 40 33.9 
 6 
 conversation
 practice
 42% 36%
 making a
 22% presentation
 free discussion
 a.all of them are interesting 20 17.5 
 b.some of them are 76.3 
 8 90 
 interesting 
 c.all of them are boring 8 6.2 
 a.too difficult 9 7.6 
 b.difficult 60 50.8 
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 c.rather difficult 40 33.9 
 d.not difficult at all 9 7.7 
 Figure 2.8 Students’ opinions about Speaking topics and activities 
 Hence, what kind of speaking activities in the text books do they like most? 
The following chart describes students’ interest in doing four main types of 
speaking activities in three text books of three grades: 
 Figure 2.9. Students’ interest in some types of Speaking activities 
 Those are some opinions of students about some main types of speaking tasks 
in the text books, what about extra speaking activities given by their teachers? Do 
they attract a lot of students to participate in? Below is the figure about the 
students’ frequency of being involved in the teachers’ extra speaking tasks in the 
school and students’ opinion about those tasks. 
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 CHAPTER 3: FINDING THE SOLUTIONS 
 1. Several recommendations for preparing an English Speaking Club 
 It is obvious that many speaking activities used in textbooks are not interesting 
enough to motivate students in learning this skill. As a result, many speaking 
lessons have become very boring and even some students seem to ignore these 
lessons completely. They only spend time chatting with their friends in 
Vietnamese. In reality, although many students can speak English quite fluently, 
they are too shy to speak out because they do not have many chances to practise 
this skill. If students are supported with a better speaking environment, they will 
definitely develop their speaking skill. Therefore, in order to change students’ 
attitudes towards learning this skill and help them show off their ability, As a 
teacher of English, the author would like to introduce some of the activities that 
can be used to hold an English Speaking Club. To be able to hold these speaking 
activities, teachers should follow three main stages: 
 Stage 1: Choose familiar and interesting Speaking topics: They can either 
base on the specific events or festivals that happen during the year such as 
Halloween, Christmas.or the topics of the lessons provided in English 
textbooks.) 
 Stage 2: Select the specific types of Speaking activities. 
 There is a wide range of activities that teachers can choose such as role-play, 
storytelling, interview, conversation, presentation and so on. 
 Stage 3: Instruct students to take part in the activities by giving them clear 
instructions to prepare for their upcoming clubs. 
 To be more specific, teachers divide the students into small groups and provide 
them with clear explanations. To make sure that the students will be able to 
perform their task efficiently, teachers had better choose some student to be “ 
group leaders”. 
 Below are some specific activities that are recommended to use in an English-
Speaking club: (All the suggested activities are to be prepared in advance 
depending on the date when the English club will be held.) 
 2. Some Suggested Activities to hold English-Speaking clubs for high 
school students 
 2.1. English - Speaking clubs based on Holidays or Festivals 
 2.1.1. Sample activity 1: Cosplay (Halloween/ Christmas/Mid-Autumn 
festival.) 
 Aim: help students to develop their teamwork skills and creativity. 
 Type of activity: Group work 
 Time allowed: 4- 5 minutes 
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