VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

LUÂN THỊ PHƯƠNG HẢO
THE CURRENT SITUATION OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING
TO THE 10-FORM STUDENTS AT DONG HY SECONDARY
SCHOOL: A CASE STUDY

Nghiên cứu thực trạng dạy tiếng Anh cho học sinh lớp 10
của Trường THPT Đồng Hỷ: Nghiên cứu trường hợp điển hình

M.A. MINOR THESIS
FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60 14 10
SUPERVISOR: Prof. Dr. HOÀNG VĂN VÂN

HA NOI - 2010


HA NOI - 2010

Table of contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABSTRACT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND TABLES
PART A: INTRODUCTION
I. Rationale 1
II. Aims of the study 2
II. Scope of the study 2
IV. Methods of the study 2
V. Design of the study 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Communicative activities 4
1.1.1. Definition of a communicative activity 4
1.1.2. Characteristics of a good communicative activity 5
1.2. Communicative language teaching 6
1.2.1. Brief history of CLT 6
1.2.2. CLT definition 6
1.2.3. The principles of CLT 8
1.2.4. The characteristics of CLT 9
1.2.5. Conditions related to CLT 10
1.3. Advantages of using CLT 12
1.4. Problems of applying CLT 12
1.5. Previous studies related to CLT 13
Chapter 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

. List of abbreviations CLT : Communicative Language Teaching
ELT : English Language Teaching
DH : Dong Hy
List of tables

Table 1: Teachers’ ages 17
Table 2: Teachers’ years of teaching English 18
Table 3: Teachers’ CLT training background 18
Table 4: Teachers’ opinions about method 19
Table 5: Teachers’ information about the enrichment of knowledge on CLT 19
Table 6: Teachers’ information about perception on CLT 20
Table 7: Teachers’ point of view about CLT 20
Table 8: Teachers’ understanding about CLT 22
Table 9: The frequency of activities used in the classroom 24
Table 10: Teachers’ error correction 25
Table 11: The frequency of change the position of students’ seat, tables and benches for
the lesson situations. 25
Table 12: Teachers’ opinions about the currently- used textbook. 26
Table 13: Teachers’ difficulties in their teaching 27
Table 14: Teachers’ self-assessment of their application of CLT 28
Table 15: Classroom observation (teacher 1) 29

four skills: reading, speaking, listening, and writing skill, and a language focus lesson. In
the units, teachers teach learners to use language fluently in communication stead of
presenting the exact language about grammar, vocabulary. This new trend has opened
more chances for students to improve their spoken language. Students have chances to
listen to both native and non-native English speakers from the tapes, CDs accompanied
with the book.
In order to having a look at situation realistically about the usefulness and application
of the new method - Communicative language teaching (CLT) in English language

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teaching at the secondary school through three school years. In this study, as a teacher of
the school, I would like to investigate the current teaching situation of the 10
th
form
students at Dong Hy Secondary School.

II. Aims of the study
The study is aimed at finding out the English language teaching and learning at Dong
Hy Secondary School in Thai Nguyen. It is expected that the study will be referred to
testimony necessity in improving those facts. To be more specific of purposes in this study are:
- To investigate the current situation of English language teaching at Dong Hy
Secondary School by focusing on studying the following conditions: the teachers with their
perceptions of CLT and their CLT practical application, the examination, the new English
text book, the students and the teaching and learning environment.
- To find out difficulties that the teachers of English at Dong Hy Secondary School
experience when applying CLT.
- To offer some suggestions on how to improve the quality of teaching English when
using CLT.

III. Scope of the study

application.
Chapter two-Research methodologies- Presents the methodology performed in the
study. It provides information about the participants, the instrumentation. Data collection
and findings are also presented in this chapter.
Chapter three-Findings and recommendations. Discusses the data of the study and
propose recommendations for applying CLT in teaching English to grade10 students at DH
secondary school.
Part C: Conclusion- Summarizes all the key issues as well as the limitations of
the study and suggestions for further study.

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Part b: Development

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter briefly covers the concepts related to the study: communicative
activities, communicative language teaching, advantages of using CLT in teaching foreign
language, problems of the application of CLT in teaching English as a foreign language,
previous studies relating to CLT application, conditions related to CLT application.

1.1. Communicative activities
The aim of a CA in class is to get learners to use the language they are learning to
interact in realistic and meaningful ways, usually involving exchanging of information.
Thus, in order to organize and improve CA the following should be taken into
consideration.
1.1.1. Definition of a communicative activity
According to Harmer (1991), communicative activities are the ones which involve
learning through using language for a communicative purpose. They are the activities in
which learners use the linguistic repertoire they have learnt in order to communicate
specific meanings for specific purposes. Sharing the same definition, Scrivener (1994)

practice". Learning how to swim, for example, usually involves not only separate practice
of individual movements (part - skills), but also actual attempts to swim short distance
(whole-task practice in order to suit the learners‟ level of ability through various kinds of
communicative activity.
Second, communicative activities improve motivation. The learners‟ ultimate aim is
to take part in communication with others. Their motivation to learn is more likely to be
sustained if they can see how their classroom learning is related to these objectives and
help them to achieve it with increasing success.
Next, communicative activities allow natural learning. Many aspects of language
learning can take place only through natural processes, which operate only when a person
is involved in using the language for communication. If this is so, communicative activity
(inside or outside the classroom) is an important part of the total learning process.

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Last, communicative activities can create a context which supports learning.
Communicative activity provides opportunities for positive personal relationship to
develop among learners and between learners and the teacher. These relationships can help
to create an environment that supports the individual in his effort to learn.
Harmer (1991:19) has summarized those characteristics in a figure called the
communication continuum; as follows:

NON - COMMUNICTIVE ACTIVITIES COMMUNICTIVE ACTIVITIES

How can the teacher make the classroom CA more communicative? There is no real

features, but categories of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified in
discourse.
CLT method has brought many advantages. Dubin and Olshtain (1986) in Burns
(1997) have suggested one of the major benefits of CLT is that it brought about a more
comprehensive view of teaching and learning. Communicative language teaching makes
use of real life situations that necessitate communication. The teacher sets up a situation
that students are likely to encounter in real life. Students and teachers should try to get
closer to real communication in the classroom. The communicative approach can leave
students in suspense as to outcome of a class exercise, which will vary according to their
reactions and responses. Students‟ motivation to learn comes from their desire to
communicate in meaningful ways about meaningful topics. Thus, CLT plays an important
role in foreign language teaching in general and in teaching speaking in particular.

1.2.1. Brief history of CLT
Communicative language teaching (CLT) is an innovation in English language
teaching (ELT). CLT emerged as a new teaching approach in Britain in the 1970s. The call
for adoption of CLT was not accidental. It came from the educational problem that needed
to be solved. This problem was the existing unsatisfactory teaching results of the
traditional grammar-oriented method.

1.2.2. CLT definition
Many researchers have discussed communicative language teaching but few offer the
definition of CLT. Finally, the researcher takes CLT as a way of teaching in which the
application of communicative activities and target language aims to develop learners‟
competence of understanding and exchanging different ideas, behavioral modes, values,
beliefs, and cultures.
“communicative language teaching is an approach to foreign or second language
teaching which emphasizes that the goal of language learning is communicative
competence and which seeks to make meaningful communication and language use a focus
of all classroom activities”.(Richard and Schmidt, 2001:90)
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1.2.3.3. The feelings of the students
One of the basic assumptions of the communicative approach is that students will be
more motivated to study a foreign language since they will feel they are learning to do
something useful with the language they study.

1.2.4. Characteristics of CLT
The characteristics of CLT help the learners understand what is happening in a CLT
classroom. And then the teacher can take advantage of this approach to promote her
students' learning.
A focus on communicative function: The communicative function is considered as
the most important characteristic of CLT because the goal of CLT is to help the learners
gain communicative competence.

A focus on meaningful tasks rather than on language per se: The teacher gives the
students meaningful tasks in order to improve the students' communicative competence.
The meaningful tasks create opportunities for the learners to use the language and to
improve their communicative competence.
Efforts to make tasks and language relevant to a target group of learners through an
analysis of genuine, realistic situations. It is clear that the genuine, realistic situations are
essential in the class. Through performing tasks relevant to those situations, the students
learn the meaning and functions in the context.
The use of authentic, from life materials: Authentic materials have a positive effect
on learner motivation in the foreign language classroom. They create opportunities for the
students to be exposed to the real language.
The use of group activities: This kind of student collaboration has two benefits. First,
the whole class actively participates in a task at the same time and students can then
compare their findings when the task is over; and second, the meaningful task is rehearsed

material. Authentic materials help learns to learn better because the learners can transfer
what they acquire in the classroom to the outside world and to introduce them to the
natural language in different situations (Larsen - Free man, 1986). The class will be boring
and unexciting if there is a lack of authentic material.
Administrators also have influences on the success of CLT application (Gahin and

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Myhill, 2002). The implementation of CLT will meet many difficulties if the
administrators don't approve it. The teachers need to be paid high salary so that they can
try their utmost for the teaching career. Besides, all the modern and necessary facilities
used in the teaching and learning English such as cassette players, tapes, flash radiators,
authentic materials, newspapers, library of English document, etc, are available only when
do the administrators support and approve the CLT implementation
The teaching and learning environment is very important. An ideal classroom for
CLT implementation is not too small, or too crowded or multi-level (Li, 1998). A too
crowded class will make the teachers difficult to manage all the students and the efficiency
of teaching is not high. The multi-level class will cause more difficulties for the teachers to
attract both good and bad students. In brief, the ideal teaching and learning environment
plays a not small role in the success of CLT implementation.
In applying CLT, the examination needs to be taken into consideration because the
suitable exam will stimulate the students to learn English (Hird, 1995; Gahin and Myhill,
2002). The exam designed to test the students all what they had learned with CLT
approach will promote them to learn English.
Another element affecting CLT application is the time. If the time in each period is
not enough and the numbers of English periods per week are limited, the students will not
have enough time to participate in the classroom activities to develop listening and
speaking skills. This also means that there is no place for supplementary materials.
To implement CLT successfully, the material needs to be suitable for the students
(Gahin and Myhill, 2002). If the content or activities in the material are too easy or too
difficult, this will discourage the students to learn. If the material is designed focusing on

in the community where it is learnt whereas EFL is used to communicate outside the local
community. CLT in an EFL classroom is a challenge for teachers and students. Lacks of
English - Speaking environment and authentic situations cause hindrances in the learning
process.
The differences in the English - speaking environment, the authentic situations the
motivation, the school curriculum, the national curriculum goals, and the testing system
bring different results when applying CLT in ESL class and EFL classroom.

1.5. Previous studies related to CLT application

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The four studies by Hird (1995), Li (1998), Gahin and Myhill (2001), Bock (2000),
and Vu To Lan (2003), are presented in this thesis. These studies were carried out in
China, Egypt, South Korea and in Vietnam to find out difficulties hindering the success of
CLT application in those countries.

1.5.1 CLT in China
Basing on experience of teaching English in China, Hird (1995) had an article about
the situation of communicative English language teaching in China. The author shows the
specific factors limiting the CLT application. They are the grammar-focused examination
system, influence of traditional teaching styles and teacher- related factors.

1.5.2 CLT in Egypt
The findings of the research show that the teachers‟ difficulties in implementing CLT
are economic factors, examination pressure, teachers‟ academic abilities, and Egyptian
cultural traditions, feelings of frustration and stress of the teachers. Economic constraints
include low pay, lack of resources, large-sized unequipped classrooms, and lack of
appropriate teacher training provision.

1.5.3 CLT in Korea

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

2.1. Back ground of the study
2.1.1. Description of the students at §ong Hy (DH) Secondary School
The majority of secondary school students at DH have been learning English since
they were in lower secondary schools. This means by the time they go to secondary school,
they have at least 4 or more years of experience in learning English. Their lower secondary
years were spent with the new text books and the two aspects: learner-centered approach
and communicative language teaching (CTL). However, most students are not good at
listening and speaking the target language. They can do written exercises on English

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grammar accurately but they can hardly communicate in English. They do not feel
confident in communicating in English. Using English to communicate is a big challenge
for them.They still thinks that learning a foreign language means learning grammar,
structures and most of them still keep silent and do not participate in the activities of lessons.

2.1.2. Description of the teachers at DH secondary school
The teachers are the most important factors in the process of teaching and learning a
target language. In DH secondary school, there are 12 teachers of English aged from 28 to
52 and none of them has ever been to any English speaking countries. Two of them have
been trained in the in-service training programmes because they used to be the teachers of
Russian. The rest has been trained at College of Foreign Language - Vietnam National
University, Hanoi and Thainguyen Teachers‟ Training College.

students‟ grade 10 at DH secondary school. All of the teachers have taught English for at
least 5 years and at most for 15 years, so they have accumulated a lot of experience in
teaching English in many contexts.

2.2.2. The classroom observation
- The classroom observation was conducted to gather information but not to evaluate
the teachers' quality. The researcher decided in advance what she was going to observe by
designing a checklist that could prevent her from deviation and helped her focus on the
categories that matched her intent for the research.
All teaching and learning activities in class have been noted: for instance, the
teachers‟ questions and explanation, the student‟s answers and their mistakes, the teachers
and the students‟ interaction, the students‟ group work, etc.
2.2.3. The instruments
- The observation was carried out in one week in the second semester of the school
year 2009-2010. Three classrooms were chosen at random for observation (with no attempt
to select the best or the most experienced teachers as well as the best or the weakest
students).
- The questionnaire was distributed to 6 teachers of English who teach grade 10 at
DH Secondary School. The questionnaires which had been delivered were handed back.
The questionnaires are about
- Teachers‟ teaching experience (Questions 1,2)
- Teachers‟ CLT training background (Question 3)
- Teachers‟ opinions about the most suitable method for their teaching English at
present (Question 4)
- Teachers‟ information on CLT (Questions 5,6)
- Teachers‟ understanding of subjects about CLT (Questions 7,8)

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- Looking about applying CLT in the actual classroom practice (Questions 9,10,11)
- Inspecting the English textbook in CLT application (Question 12)


Table2: Teachers’ years of teaching English

It can be seen in table 1 that teachers attended in the study are different ages. Only 17
% of the teachers asked are above 45 and 33% are between 30 and 35. The teachers aged
from 36 to 45 make up 50%. This data show that the teachers are mainly in the midle age
with quite a lot of living experience as well as teaching experience.
The table 2 shows that English language teachers are quite experienced in their
profession. Four out of six teachers (67%) have been teaching foreign language for than
eleven years.

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*Question 3 and 4
Question 3: Have you ever been trained in CLT?

Options
%
Yes
67
No
33
Others
0

Table 3: Teachers’ CLT training background

CLT is now the dominant foreign language teaching method; however, the table 3
shows that not all teachers at school have attended in workshops for CLT. Only 67% have
received formal training in CLT. Two teachers has never received any kinds of training in
CLT.They have general knowledge about CLT as they have read books on CLT themselve.


Oppions
%
Offen
0
Sometimes
100
Seldom
0
Never
0

Table 5. Teachers’ information about the enrichment of knowledge on CLT.

Question 6. You understand the principle and the characteristics of CLT.

Oppions
%
Yes
67
No
0
Not sure
33

Table 6. Teachers’ information about perception on CLT