VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES


ĐOÀN THỊ LÊ

DESIGNING SOME SUPPLEMENTARY SPEAKING ACTIVITIES TO
THE COURSE BOOK “LIFELINES ELEMENTARY” FOR THE FIRST
YEAR STUDENTS OF VIETNAM VOCATIONAL COLLEGE OF
TECHNIQUE – CRAFT ART

THIẾT KẾ MỘT SỐ HOẠT ĐỘNG NÓI BỔ SUNG CHO GIÁO TRÌNH
“LIFELINES ELEMENTARY” CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT TRƯỜNG
CAO ĐẲNG NGHỀ KỸ THUẬT MỸ NGHỆ VIỆT NAM

M.A. MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 601410
SUPERVISOR: PHAN THI
̣
VÂN QUYÊN, M.A HA NOI - 2012
iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration…………………………………………………………………….

v

1.3. Previous studies 18
Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 21
2.1. The research context 21
2.1.1. The English teaching and learning situation at VVC TCA 21
2.1.2. The students at VVC TCA 22
2.1.3. The teachers at VVC TCA 22
2.2.1. An overview of the course book “Lifelines Elementary (Tom Hutchinson,
Oxford University Press, 2002) 22
2.2. Research methods 25
2.2.1. Subjects of the study 25
2.2.2. Research methods 26
2.2.3. Data collection instruments 26
2.2.4. Procedure of data collection 27
Chapter 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 28
3.1. Students‟ background of English learning: 28
3.2. Current situation of English teaching and learning 28
3.3. The evaluation of the speaking activities in the course book by teachers and
students. 30
3.4. Students‟ needs when learning speaking skills 33
Chapter 4: DESIGNING SOME SUPPLEMENTARY SPEAKING
ACTIVITIES TO THE COURSE BOOK “LIFELINES ELEMENTARY”
AT VVC TCA 36
4.1. Supplementary speaking activities for unit 1 and unit 2 36
4.2. Supplementary speaking activities for unit 3 38
4.3. Supplementary speaking activities for unit 4 & Extension unit 3 and 4 39
vi

4.4. Supplementary speaking activities for unit 5 40

MA Master of Art

2

27
Table 2: Difficulties students encounter when learning the speaking section
in the course book…………………………………………………………

28
Table 3: Students‟ response to supplementary speaking activities…………
32
Table 4: Students‟ and teachers‟ preference for the types of speaking
activities…………………………………………………………………….

33 3

Part A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
Because of the economic development and the social, cultural integration
between the countries, English has become a very popular communicative means
in the modern world. In Vietnam, English is considered as one of the most vital
working tools in most of the career requirements.
English language has been taught and learnt widely for a long time in
Vietnam. However, most of the learners cannot use English naturally and
frequently and they have not achieved the high communicative effect in English.

- To review theories of teaching speaking skills, especially speaking activities
and supplementary materials.
- To evaluate speaking section of the course book “Lifelines Elementary”.
- To clarify the reasons why the speaking activities in the course book should be
added to suit students‟ levels and needs.
- To design some appropriate supplementary speaking activities to the course
book “Lifelines Elementary” for the 1
st
year students of the Vietnamese
Vocational College of Technique – Craft Art.
3. Research questions
The following research questions will be stated in the study to get the above
objectives:
1. How do teachers and students at VVC TCA evaluate speaking section
of the course book “Lifelines Elementary”?
5

2.What difficulties and needs do the 1
st
year students have in learning
speaking skills on the course book “Lifelines Elementary” at VVC TCA?
3.What needs do the 1
st
year students have in learning speaking skills on
the course book “Lifelines Elementary” at VVC TCA?
4. Scope of the study
There are many different features related to speaking activities used to teach
speaking skills. However, my study is mainly focused on designing some
supplementary speaking activities to the course book for the 1
st

Chapter 2: Methodology focuses on the subjects, research methods, data
collection instruments and procedures of data collection applied in the study.
Chapter 3: Data Analysis and Findings
In this chapter, an analysis on the students‟ background of learning English;
the evaluation of the speaking activities and needs in learning and teaching
speaking skills by students and teachers is also carried out through data analysis
and presentation according to research. In addition, the findings and discussion
are illustrated clearly.
Chapter 4: Designing supplementary speaking activities
In this chapter, some helpful samples of supplementary speaking activities
are presented due to the speaking section of each unit in the course book
“Lifelines Elementary”.
Part C: CONCLUSION presents the concluding summary of main findings and
some recommendations on designing some supplementary speaking activities in
the study together with the limitations of the study and suggestions for further
research.
7

Part B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1. Language skills and speaking
1.1.1. Language skills
In language teaching, we often mention the four language skills (speaking,
listening, reading and writing) in term of their direction and modality.
Widdowson (1978: 1) states that “The aims of a language teaching course are
very often defined with reference to the four language skills: understanding
speech (listening), speaking, reading and writing”. However, speaking is the
skill generating more controversy. According to Savignon (1991) and Byrne
(1991), speaking and writing are considered as the productive skills in which the
learners generate language while listening and reading are known as the

Furthermore, language skills are often related to each other in use. In learning
English as a foreign language, students cannot develop speaking skill if they
don‟t improve listening skill. To have a good communication, people must
understand everything what is spoken. Furthermore, a variety of knowledge is
illustrated while learners make communication.
In short, all the four skills are equally important to the learners. It cannot be
denied that speaking skill must not be isolated from the others. Certainly,
learners‟ success in language learning, together with the effectiveness of their
English course is evaluated on the basis of how much they feel they have
improved in their spoken language proficiency.
1.1.2. Speaking
Bygate (1987) says that speaking is considered as a skill, not just knowledge
because the speakers not only know how to make utterances and adapt them to
each circumstance but also have a skill of making fluent conversations.
Moreover, he distinguished the term of “skill” into two basic ways: “motor -
perceptive skills” and “interaction skill”. He clarifies that the former involves
perceiving, recalling, and articulating in the correct order sounds and structures
of the language and the later is the skill of using both knowledge and motor -
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perceptive skills to achieve communication. Furthermore, interaction skills can
involve the management of interaction which illustrates the way to make
communication smooth and the negotiation of meaning which considers about
how utterances are understood explicitly.
The researchers‟ view of language teaching approaches and methods has
changed. Thus, it has affected the way of teaching speaking. According to

traditional
methods,
speaking skill usually seems to be taught as repeating after

of meaning,
bo
t
h
of which were considered essential to
the
development
of oral skills as well as focusing on the learner - centered
objective.
10

Furthermore, Brown and Yule (1983) made a useful distinction between the
interactional functions and the transactional functions of speaking. The former
serves to establish and maintain social relations while the latter focuses on the
exchange of information.
In addition, Bygate (1987) suggests that oral interactions can be characterized
as routines. Information routines contain frequently recurring types of
information structures, being either expository (e.g.: narration, description,
instruction, comparison) or evaluative (e.g.: explanation, justification, prediction,
decision). Interaction routines can be either service such as job interview or
social such as dinner party.
Another distinction when considering the development of speaking skills is
between monologue and dialogue. According to Richard, he expanded Brown
and Yule‟s framework (after Jones (1996) and Burns (1998)) and classified the
functions of speaking as interaction; transaction and performance. In his
research, each of these speech activities is quite distinct in terms of form and
function and requires different teaching
appr
oaches. Understanding these
aspects of oral language helps the interlocutor be confident speakers of a foreign

(1983) makes a distinction between “practice” activities and “communicative”
activities in which oral “practice” activities include “oral drills, information gap
activities, games, personalization and localization, oral activities” and
“communicative” activities consist of “reaching a consensus, relaying
instructions, communicative games, problem - solving, interpersonal exchange,
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story construction, simulation and role play”. What‟s more, activities may also
be clarified as activities for accuracy that aim at learners‟ competence in
producing right words, phrases or sentences and activities for fluency that aim at
learners‟ capacity to maintain the flow of speech with ease and comfort.
When designing speaking activities properly, the teacher should be aware of
students‟ English proficiency levels. With each level, the teacher should consider
the different types of syllabus, methods, techniques as well as speaking materials
and types of activities at each procedure of language teaching. Byrne suggested
that the speaking teaching for the elementary level concentrates on accuracy
more than fluency. This is opposite to the advanced level at which the students
satisfy the requirements of daily situations and can communicate facts casually
as well as being able to describe with some detail, linking sentences together
smoothly.
Classroom speaking activities which develop learners‟ ability to express
themselves through speech would therefore seem an important component of a
language course. Successful speaking activities in class can have a great effect
on improvement of students‟ speaking skills. As a result, teachers should try to
design and administer activities. As is discussed in Ur (1996: 120), we can see
four characteristics of a successful activity:
“1. Students talk a lot: As much as possible of the period of time allotted to
the activity is in fact occupied by student talk. This may seem obvious, but often
most time is taken up with teacher talk or pauses.
2. Participation is even: Classroom discussion is not dominated by a


language, so the following are some applicable types of speaking activities
which are used more easily and helpfully at the elementary level.
Dialogue
This type is mostly suitable for the beginning level learners. It is known as “a
short conversation between two people presented as a language model”
(Dobson, 1992: 35). It gives students opportunities to practice and revise the
rhythm, intonation as well as the speech sounds correctly. However, the dialogue
model on each topic provides interaction between two or more speakers in a real
- life situation. Through practicing dialogue, students are able to know how to
express ideas in such variously communicative context. Teachers prepare some
kinds of dialogues, for examples picture sets, model dialogue with keywords,
gapped dialogues or mapped dialogues. These things can help students avoid
being uninterested in closely modeled dialogues.
Information - gap
This activity is one of the easiest and most interesting forms of
communicative activity in the speaking class. The students can implement by the
way in which one person shares information which the others don‟t know in pair
or group work. This kind may encourage students‟ thoughts and highly motivate.
Some similar kinds can be collaboratively used named “Describe and Draw”.
Discussion
According to Ur (1996), discussion is the most natural and effective way for
students to talk freely in English by thinking out some problems or situations
together through verbal interchange or ideas. Teachers can give learners open -
ended questions or a list of topics and then ask them discuss in pairs or small
groups or talk freely. Particularly, in discussion, students can express and share
15

ideas or opinions in constructive and cooperative atmosphere without
threatening. There are different types of discussion activities such as describing

The idea of stimulation is to create the presence of a real - life situation in the
classroom. Thus, for example, we ask our students to pretend that they are at an
airport, or we ask them to get together to organize a union. What we are trying to
do very artificially, is give the students practice in real - life English, as it should
be used in English speaking environment. The stimulation has the advantage of
involving a large number of students at the same time. Examples of stimulation
are the travel agent, arranging a meet or the job interview.
In addition, when implementing these speaking activities, teachers can need
the help of visual aids. That‟s something visible to students, which the teacher
uses for different teaching purposes, especially speaking. They may be objects,
pieces, pictures, drawings, cards which are various in formats, convenient and
effective use in a language class. Teachers can use them as useful means in order
to increase persuasive, heighten retention and improve understanding. It can
make each speaking activity more interesting and lively.
In the next part, the understanding of evaluation and supplementation of
speaking and materials are described clearly in order to give teachers foundation
to design the appropriate speaking activities in the course book.
1.2. Evaluation and supplementation of speaking activities and materials
1.2.1. Evaluation of the activities and materials
17

We take up many complex issues surrounding the evaluation of commercial
course books because it is not an easy task. The different researchers convey
different perspectives to the different aspects of a course book. In this study, the
author mainly focuses on some main checklists to evaluate the speaking
activities in a course book. Acklam (1994) provides an extensive checklist of
questions which can aid in the evaluation of a commercial course book:
“ Activities focus on “centered – learned”?
 Are there enough communicative activities?
 Is there enough speaking and variety of speaking activities?

are consistent with the needs and interests of the learners in accordance with the
nature of language and learning.
1.2.2.2. Forms of supplementation
It can be seen in McGrath (2002: 82), supplementing a coursebook can be
designed in one of two ways: by utilizing items, such as exercises, texts or
activities, from another published source: a coursebook, a supplementary skills
book, a book of practice exercises or a teacher‟s resource book and by devising
our own material; this may include the exploitation of authentic visual or textual
items.
By these suggested ways, teachers can follow them to choose the best
teaching activities to make the great interest of the lesson.
1.3. Previous studies
In this part, the author reviews some previous studies on the same topic.
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The thesis by Le Thi Huong (2007) was “Designing extra speaking activities
based on “English for Tourism” for third year students at Tourism Faculty,
CSSH – VNU”. With the hope of motivating students to speak more in class, the
author analyzed the situational needs and students‟ needs. The results of this
analysis were the basis for designing some extra speaking activities. The author
made a great contribution to the teaching and learning ESP at Tourism Faculty,
CSSH – VNU.
The second thesis namely “Adapting speaking activities based on the course
book “International Express” for the first year non-major students at Hanoi
University of Industry” was written by Le Thi Ngoc Ha in 2009. In this thesis,
the data from questionnaires and notes from class observation helped the author
to investigate the necessity of adapting speaking activities, find how to adapt
them and suggest some appropriate speaking activities for the course book in
order help the HUI 1
st


21

Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY
2.1. The research context
2.1.1. The English teaching and learning situation at VVC TCA
The study is carried out at VVC TCA. This college is located in the suburbs
of Hanoi. English there is a compulsory subject for the exam. Students have to
take a 120-period General English course and a 60-period ESP course.
The required material for GE is the textbook “Lifelines Elementary”. The aim
of this course is to provide students with basic knowledge of grammar,
vocabulary in order to help them make simple and daily communication in
English. However, both the teachers and the students face a great deal of
difficulties. English is only taught and learnt in classroom. Students do not have
environment for using and communicating in English outside classroom. Most of
the students haven‟t been accustomed to self– study. Although some students
spent much time learning English, the learning effect is not high. Despite
teachers‟ efforts in adapting the textbook to the students‟ level as well as the
time allotment for the course, the result of the study is still unsatisfactory.
ESP courses were designed by a group of teachers of English at VVC TCA.
They all find it difficult to teach ESP effectively due to such reasons as students‟
awareness of the purpose and of the importance of English for their future job,
the students‟ lack of vocabularies and strategies in language skills; the teachers‟
and the students‟ lack of specialized knowledge. All of these difficulties lead to
the fact that the students‟ reading competence, to some extent, remained
unimproved.
Therefore, teachers should find out effective ways to help students overcome
difficulties and have high motivation to learn English.