Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ABSTRACT
The study investigates the application of CLT in the International
Standard Program, University of Languages and International
Studies, Vietnam. Freshmen in different majors study English in
the program in one year to prepare for their academic learning.
The questionnaire and interview examine both teachers and
students reflection of the approach implementation as well as
students engagement and motivation in the teaching and
learning process. It has revealed that the program has applied
major principles and made some adjustments. Participants are
aware of the use of Vietnamese and English in class; teaching
grammar communicatively, employing communicative activities,
pair work or group work; avoiding immediate error correction
and making use of authentic materials. CLT is really employed
and does work in this context in relation with student
1
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
In recent decades, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) or
Communicative Approach as its original name (Harmer, 2007) has
been advocated to apply in language teaching contexts all over the
world, especially in the settings where English is taught as a foreign
language (EFL). Due to the awareness of English being the
international language, national language education policies in EFL
countries have moved towards CLT since 1990s (Littlewood, 2007). It
could not be denied that CLT has gained the growing reputation as
an approach involving learners into the real-life language use and
develops their communication in English, which the foreign language
context may lack. However, the implementation of this approach has
also faced various challenges in this context. Some studies in the
last fifteen years such as Ellis (1996), Lewis and Cook (2002), Pham
(2007), and others have investigated the existing obstacles. A
number of difficulties have been found from all the research,
including students lack of communicative needs, the shortage of
authentic materials, the great effects of classic approaches together
with cultural related features that can not be changed immediately.
2
in
the
whole
program.
For
these
reasons,
by
what
extent
is
communicative
approach
(CLT)
that
is
the
young
and
enthusiastic
teaching
staff.
main
principles.
Moreover,
it
is
expected
to
suggest
some
the
first
research
question,
the
investigation
of
the
80%-100%
60%-80%
40%-60%
20%-40%
0%-20%
1.2.
80%-100%
60%-80%
40%-60%
20 %- 40%
0%-20%
when
teachers
and
students
provided
reasonable
Besides, communicative
practice also has its own position in the program. Only 10 students
answered that there are no or little communicative activities to
practice the grammatical points. Teachers confirmed that they often
use interactive games with the whole class involvement. Together
with exercises, they need students to use the grammar point to
talk, to communicate with their friends(T3) and also use what they
have learnt in listening and writing(T1). At this point, their
perspective may echo the weak version of CLT as discussed in the
previous part.
To sum up, for A1 and A2, improving students grammar has
been actually regarded as one of major goals of the program. In
order to achieve this, they had a combination of both traditional
approach and communicative approach.
1.3.
Fluency enhancement
10
as
can
be
inferred
from
the
table,
developing
11
Last but not least, materials one of the input resources- have
been examined in the project to evaluate the level of authenticity. It
is unearthed that besides using the textbooks known as New English
File, teachers have used a number of supplementary materials.
Related to materials such as English newspapers, magazines or
films, the questionnaire result shows that over a half of students
thought that their teachers used these ones from 40% to 80% of the
lessons. All three students stated that they sometimes watched a
short film in English. T2 told that she uses BBC or CNN news in
listening or T1 even organizes a game using realia in helping
students learn new vocabulary. However, the point that T3 raised
should also be taken into consideration, she admitted that she rarely
used the English films or newspapers for low level students because
it may be too hard for them. That is to say, teachers are aware of
using
authentic
materials
but
12
they
have
to
make
careful
study
investigated
the
application
of
minimizing
the
grammar
REFERENCES
1. Borg, S and Burns, A.(2008), Integrating grammar in adult TESOL
classrooms. Applied Linguistics, 29(3), 456-482.
2. Brumfit, C. (1988), Applied linguistics and
communicative
15
Linguistics:
Communicative
Language
Teaching.
New
York:
Language
Teaching.
New
York:
Cambridge
University Press.
9. Harmer, J. (2007), The Practice of English Language Teaching, (4th
ed.). Pearson Longman.
10. Hymes, D.(1972), On communicative competence. In Pride, J.B
and Holmes, J (eds) Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin,
pp.269-293.
11. Johnson, K. (1982), Communicative Syllabus Design and
Methodology. Oxford: Pergamon.
12. Lewis, M and Cook, F. (2002), Cultures of teaching: voices from
Vietnam. ELT Journal, 56(2), 146-153.
13. Littlewood, W. (1981), Communicative Language Teaching.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
14. Littlewood, W. (2007), Communicative and task-based language
teaching in East Asia classrooms. Language Teaching, 40(3), 243249.
15. Pham, H.H.(2007), Communicative language teaching: unity
within diversity. ELT Journal, 61(3), 193-201.
16. Phan, L.H. (2004), University classrooms in Vietnam: contesting
the stereotypes. ELT Journal, 58(1), 50-57.
16
TM TT
Nghin cu ny kho st vic p dng phng php ging dy ting Anh theo ng
hng giao tip (CLT) dnh cho chng trnh Nhim v chin lc. Cc sinh vin
nm th nht t cc trng thnh vin ca HQGHN hc ting Anh c bn trong mt
nm ti HNN chun b cho vic hc chuyn ngnh bng ting Anh. Nghin cu
c thc hin qua vic pht phiu kho st cho sinh vin v phng vn mt s gio
vin v sinh vin trong chng trnh. Kt qu cho thy CLT c p dng vi mt
s thay i ph hp vi thc tin ging dy. C gio vin v sinh vin nhn thc c
tng sut s dng ting Vit v ting Anh trong lp hc, vic dy v hc ng php mt
cch tch cc, ng dng cc hot ng pht huy kh nng giao tip, hot ng i v
nhm, trnh vic cha li tc thi cng nh vic dng ti liu thc tin. Mt s kh
khn v thay i c a ra. T ch ra rng thc tin ging dy c nh hng ti
vic p dng phng php ny.
T kha: phng php ging dy theo ng hng giao tip, sinh vin khng
chuyn ngnh ting Anh, s tham gia ca hc sinh, ng lc hc tp
APPENDIX
Appendix 1:
17
STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE
I.
Personal information:
Female
100%-
80%-
60%-
40%-
20%-
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
reading or writing)
Students do structural exercises to
practise grammatical rules after
learning them
Students play games, and do other
communicative activities as role
play to practise grammatical rules
Functional activities to help students
improve communicative
competence such as greeting,
inviting, etc are used in the lessons
Games and role play are used in the
lessons
Students are required to work in
pairs/ groups
Teachers use authentic materials
(e.g: English newspaper, films)
Teachers correct student errors
when he/she is speaking.
Teachers correct student errors after
they finish their speaking activity.
III.
Please put a tick () in the boxes that show your opinion on the
following statement.
Strongl
Agree
Neither
Disagr
Strong
agree
ee
ly
agree
nor
disagr
disagre
ee
e
The lessons are interesting.
Students are involved in every
activity.
I feel motivated to learn English
in this program.
Students are the centre of the
lesson, not teacher.
19
Appendix 2:
TEACHER INTERVIEW
1. How many years have you been teaching English?
2. How many hours of class do you teach a week?
3. Can you describe the programme youre teaching?
4. What kinds of material do you use in your teaching?
5. Can you describe how you would teach a new grammar point to your
students?
6.
11.
20
12.
why?
13.
14.
15.
engaged?
16.
17.
Vietnam that I should have asked or that you would like to comment
on?
STUDENT INTERVIEW
1. What ISP class are you in?
2. Which university are you studying for your maijor?
3. What language do you often use in the class?
4. How about learning grammar? Do you learn grammar and how
often?
21
13.
14.
15.
16. Finally, would you like to have any feedback to the program?
22