VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Hanoi university of languages and international studies
DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES Nguyễn thị h-ơng lan Teaching grammar
TO first-year non-english major students
at phuong dong university
through meaning-focused tasks

(dạy ngữ pháp cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất không
chuyên tiếng anh tại tr-ờng đại học ph-ơng đông
thông qua các hoạt động chú trọng vào nghĩa
của cấu trúc) Field : English Methodology
Code : 601410
Supervisor : Lờ Vn Canh, M.A.

I.2. Aims of the study
1
I.3. Significance of the study
2
I.4. Scope of the study
2
I.5. The research questions
2
I.6. Method of the study
3
I.7. Design of the study
3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT
5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
5
1.1. Introduction
5
1.2. Approaches to grammar
5
1.3. Forms-focused vs Meaning-focused grammar instruction.
7
1.3.1. Definitions of terminologies
8
1.3.1.1. Forms-focused grammar instruction
8
1.3.1.2. Meaning-focused grammar instruction
8
1.3.2. Forms-focused activities
9

1.4. Previous studies on meaning-focused grammar instruction
20
1.5. Conclusion
21
CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY
22
2.1. Design and methodology
22
2.1.1. Subjects of the study
22
2.1.2. The instruments
22
2.2. Data Analysis
23
2.2.1. Distribution of summed scores (items 1-12)
24
2.2.2. Questionnaires
25
2.2.2.1. Students’ feelings about grammar learning
25
2.2.2.2. Students’ evaluation about the effects of grammar practice
27
2.2.2.3. Students’ belief in grammar teaching method
29
2.2.2.4. Students’ tension with grammar learning
29
2.2.3 Comparison of students’ attitudes towards grammar learning between pre-
questionnaire and post questionnaire (items 1-12)
31
2.2.4. Comparison of students’ attitudes between pre-questionnaire and post

Table 3: Distribution of summed scores: Students (n=31) attitudes
Table 4a: The result of students’ feelings about grammar learning in the pre and post-
questionnaire
Table 4b: Mean scores of students’ feelings about grammar learning
Table 5a: The result of students’ evaluation about effects of grammar practice
Table 5b: Mean scores of students’ evaluation about effects of grammar practice
Table 6: Mean scores of students’ belief in grammar teaching method
Table 7: Distribution of summed scores (items 13-17)
Table 8: Mean scores of students’ tension to grammar learning
Table 9: Comparison of students’ attitudes between pre-questionnaire and post questionnaire
(items 1-12)
Table 10: Comparison of students’ attitudes between pre-questionnaire and post questionnaire
(items13-17)
Graph 1: Sampling distribution of sample mean differences (items 1-12)
Graph 2: Sampling distribution of sample mean differences (items 13-17)

v
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

PDU: Phuong Dong University
CLT: Communicative Language Teaching
CA: Communicative Approach
L1: First language
L2: Second language

weak at expressing their thoughts in the right way. That means what they say are the words put
together without grammar rules. Their weakness at expressing ideas in the correct way is that
teacher often spends more time on explaining new grammar verbly than letting students
practice new grammar items orally. In other words, the grammar sections in the course book
(New Headway Elementary, by Liz and John Soars, third edition) are explained verbly and
grammar exercises are done passively by students. So that students are not interested in
learning grammar and they find grammar rather difficult to master. Their weakness at uttering
a right sentence does not meet the target of teaching and learning English- fluent
communication. Much worse, most of them put the words together rather than use the learned
grammar structures in speaking. In addition, many students are too shy to speak in the class
whereas most of the grammar lessons are carried out in traditional methods. This fact has
urged me to find out the way to help students apply their learned grammar knowledge in
getting the meanings across. Thus, in this thesis, I intend to investigate the effect of teaching
grammar through meaning-focused tasks.
I.2. Aims of the study
As far as we know, the key purpose of learning a language is always to communicate
fluently. That means, students can communicate. Therefore, in order to learn English well,
learners first have to master its grammar system. The fact at my university is that almost

2
students are better at learning grammar especially doing grammar exercises than using the
learned grammatical structures in expressing their thought in both writing and speaking. This
observation urges the researcher to bring some changes into those students. In this study, the
researcher wanted to test the hypothesis that applying meaning-focused practice activities in
grammar learning may help the students improve their communicative ability.
I.3. Significance of the study
This study is first hoped to be helpful to both teachers and students at Phuong Dong
University because its findings will enable not only the teachers but also the students to see
whether their ways of teaching and learning English in general and grammar in particular is
appropriate and effective. The practical meaning of this study is to suggest some ways for
Compare
In this diagram, O is dependent variable (attitude) and X is independent variable
(meaning-focused activities). X is the treatment administered to the subjects.
- A group of research subjects is measured on the dependent variable. O prior to
administration of the treatment condition. The independent variable X is then administered,
and the dependent variable O is again measured. The difference between the pre- and post-
questionnaire scores is taken as an index of the effectiveness of the treatment condition.
- The one-group pre-treatment – post-treatment questionnaire design is weak because it does
not ensure the internal validity. However, it does provide some information in that it lets you
know if a change occurred between pre-treatment and post-treatment questionnaire.
I.7. Design of the study
This study is divided into three parts as follows:
Part one, introduction, deals with the reason for the research and the aims, scope and
methodology of the study. The research questions are also raised in this part.
Part two, development, consists of three following chapters:

4
- Chapter one gives some theoretical background relating to approaches to grammar, forms-
focused vs meaning-focused grammar instruction, forms-focused grammar instruction,
meaning-focused grammar instruction, forms-focused activities, meaning-focused activities,
and some previous studies on grammar teaching as well.
- Chapter two provides an analysis on the attitudes of the first-year non- major students at
Phuong Dong University towards the use of meaning-focused activities (mainly oral practice)
in teaching and learning grammar. And the change in students‟ attitudes after applying
meaning-focused activities is also mentioned in this chapter.
- Chapter three focuses on some recommendations about using meaning-focused activities
(mainly oral practice) in teaching and learning grammar and some limitations as well.
Part three, conclusion, addresses the key issues in the study, summarizing some shortcomings

students to discuss in English they are learning. So they will soon forget what they have
learned. Grammar learning is not funny and is not meaningful either. It, of course, is not
memorable. As Burner said: “Perhaps the most basic thing that can be said about human
memory, after a century of extensive research, is that unless detail is placed into a structural
pattern, it is rapidly forgotten” (Web, 2004)
1.2. Approaches to grammar
Just as the old saying goes, “there are approaches for teaching, but no definite ones”. It is
the same as grammar instruction. That is, there, definitely, are approaches to teach grammar.
In fact, there are different approaches to teach items of grammar and at different periods of
grammar instruction process that can be seen as follows;
* Teaching grammar through context
Old-fashioned grammar teaching was often decontextualized and pointless – the exercises
led nowhere, and the terminology was never used except in the exercises. Harris and Rowan
show quite convincingly that a conscious grasp of grammatical concepts requires deep

6
understanding that is not often gained through practice exercises alone (Harris, 1962, pp. 21-
41). Traditional drill and practice will be the most meaningful to students when they are
anchored in the context of writing assignments or the study of literary models. Students find
grammar most interesting when they apply it to authentic texts. It is a good idea to try using
texts of different kinds, such as newspapers and the students‟ own writing, as sources for
grammar examples and exercises. This approach makes grammar relevant and alive. It also
avoids the artificiality of studying sentences isolation, a problem with grammar books. So, in
real texts, students can see how sentences connect and contrast to each other through their
grammar.
* Teaching grammar in a communicative approach
While grammar can be thought as static knowledge, it can also be considered a process.
Language teachers would not be content if their students could recite all the rules of language
grammar but apply them. That means they were able to communicate in the right way. The
goal of grammar learning is that students can apply grammar in an unselfconscious fashion to

forms – Stern‟s (1990) “analytic strategy”, but afterwards it is referred to instruction that
requires learners to attend only to the content of what they want to communicate.
As Widdowson (1998) has criticized this distinction and argued that so-called forms-
focused instruction has always presented segments of various kinds (phonemes, words,
collocations, morphemes, sentence patterns, tones and so on) to the learners in models,
whereas meaning-focused activities still expect learners to process forms in order to decode
and encode messages. According to him, the key difference lies in the kind of meaning that
learners must think of whether it is semantic meaning (as in the case of language exercises) or
pragmatic meaning (as in the case of communicative tasks). Widdowson‟s point is well taken,
but there has been an argument that it is nothing new.
In addition, Second Language Acquisition researchers have always used the term “form”
to refer not just to form (e.g, - ed in the regular past tense in English), but also to the semantic
meaning(s), a form realized in use (e.g, completed action in the past).

8
Ellis (2000) has argued that the essential difference between forms-focused and meaning-
focused instruction lies in how language is viewed and the role the learner is invited to play. In
this respect, it should be noted that attention to lexical forms and the meanings they realize,
where words are treated as objects to be learned, constitutes forms-focused instruction. As said
at the beginning of this introduction, “form” involves more than grammar.
Of course, many interactions that occur inside the classroom will be neither entirely forms-
focused nor meaning-focused but a combination of both, although achieving a dual focus is
not easy (Seedhouse, 1997b).
In effect, then, it is possible to distinguish types of forms-focused instruction according
to whether attention to form primary or secondary, as when it is intergrated into meaning-
focused instruction.
1.3.1. Definitions of terminologies
In this part, the researcher wants to give definitions of some terminologies that are used in this
study with a hope that the readers find it easier to understand.
1.3.1.1. Forms-focused grammar instruction

1.3.2.1. Definitions of forms-focused activities
According to Thornbury (Thornbury, 1999, p.91), to achieve accuracy, the learner
needs to devote some attention to form, that is „getting it right‟. When learners take care of
form, they will not be more worried about meaning than about uttering their thought in a right
order. That suggests practice activities focused on accuracy should work best if learners are
already familiar with the meanings they are expressing.
A practice activity which is good for improving accuracy will have these features:
- Containing forms that motivate learners to express their accurate ideas, so they will
focus on what they are saying and they have no left-over attention to how they are saying.
- Creating familiarity in expressing ideas of the learners
- Making class-time the most effectively. In other words, activities can monitor
accuracy more easily and more successful if time is sufficiently managed.
- Stimulating learners to avoid their previous ambiguous message and to produce out
right sentences.
1.3.2.2. Classification of forms-focused activities

10
Normally, this kind of drill activities is a controlled practice, which aims at giving
students rapid practice in using a structural pattern. This is often done by the whole class
rather than pairs of students, and the teacher is able to get students to ask and answer questions
quickly and effeciently. The chief advantage of this technique is that teachers can correct any
mistakes that the students make and can encourage them to concentrate more on the given
patterns, overcoming difficulties. But these activities do not help students be more creative in
expressing their ideas. To avoid this disadvantage, Harmer (1991) advises teachers neither to
overuse nor to spend much time on such uncreative activities. That is as soon as students show
their abilities to make correct sentences with the new language item, the teacher should move
onto creative activities.
Drills, in the Harmer‟s viewpoint (1991:43), are “fairly mechanical ways of getting students to
demonstrate and practice their ability to use specific language items in a controlled manner”.
And Rivers and Temperly (1991) classified oral drills into the six following types:

Model
He brings his lunch.
Cue
You
Respond
You bring your lunch.
Cue
Jane and Mary
Respond
Jane and Mary bring their lunches.
(Unit 1: Hello everybody!, New Headway – Elementary, by Liz and John Soars, Third edition)
This drill in terms of correlative substitution, the authors think it is an effective way for
learning these items: possessive, reflexive, the –s ending of third person singular verb in the
present tense, the changing forms of the verb be and so on. To some extent, this activity is still
mechanical so the authors suggest designing the cue with a natural sounding tag helping
students concentrate on the meaningful conversation.
Another subdivision of substitution drills is called multiple substitution drills. These drills
require students replace odd items with appropriate slots. On the other hand, students have to
think more of the whole meaning of the sentence rather than the meaning of individual word
forming that sentence. For this reason, students need to be very alert to perform this exercise
successfully.
Example: Students have to find out the use of “many / much”
Model
She brings too many pencils to schools.
Cue
Peter
Respond
Peter brings too many pencils to schools.
Cue
Money

d. My aunt and uncle have their breakfast early.

e. We can‟t work together.
This traditional type of elementary conversion exercise requires the student to attend to a
number of different aspects of forming yes-no questions. These five items require the student
to use subject-inversion with be, do periphrasis with singular and with plural subjects, and
with main verbs including have and do and modal verb. This is a formidable task for an
elementary-level student.
Another example of conversions exercises is that students have to use an appropriate pronoun
to replace a noun phrase after listening carefully to each of the statement and the promted
nouns or noun phrases.

13
Model
This is my girl friend. I told you about my girl friend. My girl
friend is good. My girl friend works as a nurse. I love my girl
friend very much.
According to the authors, practicing those conversion exercises could be more vivid when
structures are associated with action. So students can have chance to make their own
invention.
- Combinations:
Combinations are a form of conversion exercises which have also been used for many years.
They involve a process which reflects certain features of transformational grammatical
analysis and can be implemented in some differential aspects of the rules. For instance,
students often have difficulty in understanding when the relative pronoun either must be
retained or can be omitted.
The following Example requires students to combine each pair of sentences into one
by using that or omitting it.
a. Give me the book.
I lent you the book two weeks ago.

suitable for learning how to use adjectives and adverbs. They can be directed by either a
teacher or a student
Basic sentence
She leaves the house.
Cue
Early
Respond
She leaves the house early.
Cue
Rarely
Respond
She rarely leaves the house early.
Additionally, expansions give students the opportunity to create new sentence from a basic
one. This activity often creates more competitiveness in learning among students themselves.
Cue
The man crosses the street.
Student A
The tired old man crosses the busy street.
Student B
The businessman crosses the main street hurriedly twice a
day.
- The second one is deletion activities in which learners have to change the forms of the
sentence. That means students have to transfer negative into affirmative, changing the other
grammar items concerned.
Example: Delete the negative elements in the following sentences, making any
necessary changes.

15
Cue
They haven’t got any coffee.

She has decided to marry him
Or
She has decided not to marry him
Or
She has decided to take a job
1.3.2.2.5. Response practice:

16
In fact, all useful exercises in term of meaning are forms of response practice. These activities
are often question-answer or answer-question ones divided into three sub-classes: question-
answer practice, answer-question practice, and rejoinder.
- In question-answer practice, the structure of questions can be practiced through conversion
exercises which are useful for practicing tenses, pronouns and cleft sentences. It is most
frequently associated with pictures, slides, or films, reading materials, some projects or
activities, or games.
For example, the students have just met each other and want to know each other.
Q
What is your name?
A
I‟m Lisa.
Q
Where are you from, Lisa?
A
I‟m from England.
(Unit 1: Hello every body ! New Headway, Elementary, by Liz and John Soars, Third edition)
- While answer-question practice takes place when the teacher or some students has the
answer and the others must find out what is its question. This type of exercise is done naturally
and interestingly in games as Twenty Questions, Who and What.
- And rejoinder is often the interaction of communicating. The activities help students know
how to interchange ideas on the restricted topic. Basing on the real communication, they show

activities, the definition and the classification of which are made clear in the following
sections.
1.3.3.1. Definitions of meaning-focused activities
There are many activities on grammar learning in which meaning-focused activities
seem to be the most effective. These activities can be defined as any kinds of practicing the
language on the part of the learners, and usually under the teachers‟ supervision.
Meaning-focused activities are classroom activities that associate with using English
grammar in real situations. These activities enable students to apply exact grammar structures
to express their ideas successfully. These activities also create students interest in learning
grammar as Ur (1988:15) states that „Interest is an essential feature of successful practice‟.
Meaning- focused activities in grammar teaching is a process that enables learners to
get fluency in communication. And meaning-focused activities satisfy the target of learning a
language. Practice activities with the aim at developing fluency need to divert attention away
from forms. To do this, these tasks are designed according to these features: attention to
meaning, authenticity, communicative purpose and repetition.

18
When activities ensure attention to meaning, students pay attention more to what they
are saying rather than how the sentence is formed.
And activities are also authentic. That means what students interact in class is the
same as with the real-life situation.
Furthermore, activities should not go far away from communicative purpose though
these activities are only chunks which are easily memorisable.
To help students remember their learned grammar knowledge, repetition of the
activities can not be lacked.
1.3.3.2. Classification of meaning-focused activities
1.3.3.2.1. Interactive activities
As noted above, one of the problems about drills is that they are fairly monotonous. Some
ways must be found to make the controlled language practice more meaningful and more
enjoyable. One of them is using interaction activities which are designed in such a way that

be more involved in the activities.
For example, students are practicing “Can/ Can not”. They work in groups and one
after the other has to say about their ability:
I am Ha. I can sing but I can‟t dance.
I am Mai. I can ride a bike but I can‟t drive a car.
I am Minh. I can play the guitar but I can‟t play the piano.
(Unit 6: Can You Speak English? New Headway, Elementary, by Liz and John Soars, third edition)
This activity is named chain drill, it is not very mechanical. For this activity, students can
practice the form of a grammatical item they have just learnt.
1.3.3.2.3. Games
Games can be integrated part of teaching syllabus. Teachers can use games at any
stage of language teaching process. When they teach new language items (presentation,
controlled practice and communicative practice) or when they revise previously presented
language items, provided that games are suitable to the purposes of each stage.
Practicing game-like activities, the learners can gradually realize English grammar
structures. During the lesson, learners can explore the context and discover the new language
rules themselves. They can have many chances to practice communicating through game-like
activities. If the topics of the selected games are suitable and interesting, learners can take part
in the lesson more actively and enthusiastically. Moreover, these games enable students to
understand the lessons easily, and then draw the conclusion of the structures from the contexts
which may create in game-like activities. As a result, it is possible for them to use the most
suitable language structures in various kinds which have been used in language teaching for a
long time and they are especially useful for grammar work.
Example: Noughts and Crosses/ tic-tac-toe
This game is very popular in the classroom – as it is in real life. The class is divided
into teams. Team A uses the nought (0) and team B uses the cross (X). The teacher draws a