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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
**0**

VÕ THỊ HƯƠNG GIANG

A STUDY ON HOW TO APPLY COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE
TEACHING TECHNIQUES IN TEACHING GRAMMAR TO FIRST –
YEAR NON MAJOR ENGLISH STUDENTS
AT HANOI GENERAL COLLEGE
(Nghiên cứu ứng dụng các thủ thuật theo đường hướng giao tiếp đối với việc dạy
ngữ pháp cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất không chuyên
Trường Trung cấp Tổng Hợp Hà Nội)

PROGRAM I
M.A. MINOR THESIS
Field: English Methodology
Code: 60 1410 Hanoi, 2010
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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

Table 3: Types of CLT techniques used in classrooms
Table 4: The frequency of CLT techniques used in the classroom.
Table 5: The purposes of CLT techniques used in classroom.
Table 6: The teachers‟ difficulties when applying CLT techniques in teaching grammar.
Table 7: Teachers‟ self-assessment of their employment of CLT techniques

ABBREVIATIONS
CLT: Communicative language teaching
VNUH: Vietnam National University, Hanoi
7 TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGES i
ABSTRACT ii
LIST OF TABLES iii
PART I: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Aims and objectives of the study 2
3. Scope of the study 2
4. Methods of the study 3
5. Structure of the study 3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4
Chapter 1: Literature review 4
1.1 Grammar teaching. 4
1.1.1 Definition of Grammar 4
1.1.2 The importance of teaching grammar 5
1.1.3 Different approaches to grammar teaching 6
1.2 CLT and conceptions related to CLT 8
1.2.1 Concepts of CLT 8

3.2.2 Difficulties from the learners 30
9 3.2.3 Difficulties from the education systems 31
3.2.3.1 Class size 31
3.2.3.2 Poor teaching condition 32
3.2.3.3 The testing system 32
3.3 Recommendations 33
3.3.1 Using Visual aids 33
3.3.2 Group work 35
3.3.3 Role-play 36
3.3.4 Games 37
3.4 Suggestions in teaching a grammar lesson with the application of CLT techniques 37
PART III: CONCLUSION 38
3. Conclusion 38
4. Limitations and Suggestions for further study 39
REFERENCES 40
APPENDIX A 42
APPENDIX B 46
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PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In recent years, English has become an important language. It is not only spoken by native
speakers but also the second language and official language in many countries. As we can see in
Vietnam, teaching and learning English as a foreign language has taken an important part and English
has become a compulsory subject in most national curriculum, however, foreign language teaching in

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2. Aims and objectives of the study
With the above-presented rationales, the specific aims and objectives of the study are the
followings:
Firstly, the study carries out an investigation in to the reality of the teachers‟ application of CLT
techniques in teaching grammar.
Secondly, through the investigation the research will find out the difficulties the teachers
encounter with their application of CLT techniques in teaching grammar.
Thirdly, the study will provide practical recommendations for the possibility of CLT techniques
in order to narrow the gap between teaching styles and learning styles, thereby increasing the
students‟ motivation in grammar learning as well as heightening the effectiveness of English
language teaching.
More specific, this study is to answer the following questions:
1. What are CLT techniques applied in teaching grammar to first-year non- English major
students?
2. How are CLT techniques employed in terms of frequency and purposes?
3. What are the difficulties in applying CLT techniques in teaching grammar?
4. To what extent do teachers feel satisfied with the use of CLT techniques?
5. What are the suggestions recommended by teachers to applying CLT techniques in teaching
grammar?

3. Scope of the study
The scope of this thesis is limited to the teaching grammar at elementary level and types of CLT
techniques applied in teaching grammar with difficulties. Along with these, the frequency and purposes
of CLT techniques with satisfaction and recommendation for possible problems are also mentioned.
With the minor thesis, I limited myself to focus on a group of teachers teaching English for first-year
non major students at Hanoi General College.

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

In recent years much emphasis has been put on the teaching of English as a foreign language
(EFL) using Communicative Approach. This has brought about a lot of changes in the approach to
EFL. The learner is considered to be an active participant in the process of language learning in the
classroom. Teachers who are in favor of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) are expected to
use techniques or activities that would promote self-learning, group interaction in authentic situations
and peer teaching. That is not an easy task for the teacher, especially in the circumstance of most
colleges in Vietnam where teaching grammar is the most emphasis. Therefore, the use of
communicative activities is a technique to make learning English grammar more interesting and
meaningful in order to achieve one of the aims of the communicative approach, the grammatical
competence.
The purpose of this chapter is to relate the use of CLT techniques in teaching grammar. The
first part of this chapter discusses the teaching of grammar. Then the second part provides general ideas
about CLT and CLT techniques. The third part is about the use of CLT techniques in teaching grammar
with a review of various difficulties when teachers apply CLT techniques in teaching grammar.

1.1 Grammar teaching
Traditionally, grammar has been concerned almost exclusively with analysis at the level of the
sentence. Thus a grammar is a description of the rules that govern how a language‟s sentences are
formed. The study of grammar consists, accordingly, of looking at the way words are arranged or
patterned to make sentence. By contrast, recent views of grammar are expanded to cover both texts and
words to the extent that texts and words are organized according to rules. For the purpose of this study,
I will assume grammar to mean grammar at the sentence level; the definitions of grammar are followed
by a presentation of different views of grammar and the importance of it in teaching a foreign language.
1.1.1 Definition of Grammar
There have been many ways of defining grammar – a very common and familiar term in language
teaching and learning.
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produce optimal monitor –user, programmers who can use grammar as a supplement to acquisition
15 when they have time, when the focus is on form, and when they know the rules (the Monitor
Hypothesis, Krashen and Tarrel:1983). Put another way, grammar can be acquired naturally from
meaningful input and opportunities to interact in the classroom and grammatical competence can
develop in fluency – oriented environment without conscious focus on the language forms.
Admittedly, some learners acquire second language grammar naturally without being taught.
Immigrants to the United States (especially young ones) who attain proficiency in English on their own
can be a good example of naturalistic acquisition (Lightbown and Spada: 1999: 60). But this is not true
for all learners. Among the same immigrants are learners who may achieve the proficiency in English
but those English is far from accurate.
In fact, grammar is one of the key components of a language. Thus, one cannot master a language
without the knowledge of its grammar. Partly thanks to grammar, language can function as a means of
communication, especially in written language. A person cannot write well if he lacks the knowledge
of grammar. From my observation and my experience, I find it necessary to teach grammar in all types
of English course and especially in technical and vocational colleges like those colleges I intend to
carry out my study. The first reason is that almost the students in technical and vocational colleges
come from rural areas where they never have chance to learn grammar sufficiently. Furthermore, the
main objective of these students after leaving the colleges is to read materials such as manuals or
instruction in English. With the two reasons mentioned above, they can hard do it without grammar.
Moreover, Grammar exists to enable us to „mean‟ and without it, it is impossible to communicate
beyond a very rudimentary level because “speech is no more than sounds, writing is no more than
hieroglyphics” (Peck, 1988:127). For all these reasons, the teaching of grammar is quite important in
ELT.
1.1.3 Different approaches to grammar teaching
In the last over one hundred years, language teaching methodology has changed in approaches and
methods of grammar teaching. From the mid to late 19
th

grammar in English language teaching. While the role of grammar in language teaching and learning is
no longer a matter of debate, the questions that follow are how to integrate grammar teaching into a
communicative methodology which pays attention to all aspects of communicative competence, and
what precise form that teaching should take. And these imply further questions about the choice of
grammatical structures to present, what kind of grammatical description to use, whether to teach
grammar explicitly or implicitly, what the role of practice might be, and what forms of practice are
appropriate for different types of learners. In other word, there are two major different approaches to
grammar: explicit and implicit. When we talk about an explicit approach to grammar we are talking
about starting directly, usually at the beginning of a particular activity, what the grammar is. On the
other hand, an implicit approach to grammar is one where students are led to the grammar through a
series of steps- this is what is meant by the „discovery techniques‟, In other words, the „discovery
techniques‟ aims to lead students towards a generalized grammar rule or pattern.
17 1.2 CLT and conceptions related to CLT
1.2.1 Conceptions of CLT
Vietnamese teachers of English have been concerned a lot about CLT for the recent years. CLT
emerged in the 1970s and 1980s as a revolution against the Audio- lingual method. It is an outcome of
more attention to learners‟ effective and appropriate use of language learnt. There are a variety of
definitions of CLT.
Nunan (1989, p194) claims that CLT views language as a system for the expression of meaning.
Activities involve oral communication, carrying out meaning talks and using language, which is
meaningful to learners. Teaching and learning objectives reflect the needs of the learners; they include
functional skills as well as linguistics objectives. The learners‟ role is as a negotiator and integrator.
The teacher‟s role is as a facilitator of the communication process. Materials promote communicative
language use; they are task-based and authentic.
CLT is based on the theory of language as proposed by Hymes (1972) which brought together
two dependent developments: transformational generative grammar and ethnography of
communication. Through his ideas, CLT must account not only for knowledge of formal structure but

purposeful. A speaker can evaluate whether or not his purpose has been achieved based upon the
information he receives from his listener.
Another characteristic of CLT is the introduction of authentic material (Dubin, 1995; Larsen-
Freeman, 1986; Nunan, 2003). In CLT, it is considered desirable to give learners the opportunity to
response to genuine communicative needs in realistic second language situations so that they develop
strategies for understanding language as actually used by native speakers.
In addition, “activities in the Communicative Approach are often carried out by students in small
groups” (Larsen-Freeman, 1986, p132). It meant that CLT favors interaction among small numbers of
students in order to maximize the time each students has to learn to negotiate meaning. Teachers
therefore select activities in which students have the opportunity to use language meaningful and
authentic rather than the merely mechanical practice of language patterns.
Another point to make about CLT is learner- centeredness. The reason is that the types of
classroom activities proposed in CLT implied new roles in the classroom for teachers and learners.
Learners now had to participate in classroom activities that were based on a cooperative rather than
individualistic approach to learning. Students had to become comfortable with listening to their peers in
group work or pair work tasks, rather than relying on the teacher for a model. They were expected to
take on a greater degree of responsibility for their own learning. And teachers now had to assume the
role of facilitator and monitor.
19 In brief, CLT is identified with the following characteristics:
- It makes communicative competence the goal of teaching.
- It develops procedures for the teaching of the four language skills that acknowledge the
independence of language and communication.
- It considers learner and his communicative needs the center of language teaching process.
1.2.3 CLT techniques
In applying CLT methodology in the classroom, new classroom techniques were needed and as
we saw above, new roles for teachers and learners in the classroom acquire new methods in teaching.
Instead of making use of activities that demanded accurate repetition and memorization of sentences

• Require the use of communication strategies
• Produce language that may not be predictable
• Seek to link language use to context
Activities focusing on accuracy
• Reflect classroom use of language
• Focus on the formation of correct examples of language
• Practice language out of context
• Practice small samples of language
• Do not require meaningful communication
• Choice of language is controlled
(Jack, C Richard, CLT today, p14)
* Mechanical, meaningful, and communicative practice:
Mechanical practice refers to a controlled practice activity which students can successfully
carry out without necessarily understanding the language they are using. Examples of this kind of
activity would be repetition drills and substitution drills designed to practice use of particular
grammatical or other items.
21 Meaningful practice refers to an activity where language control is still provided but where
students are required to make meaningful choices when carrying out practice.
Communicative practice refers to activities where practice in using language within a real
communicative context is the focus, where real information is exchanged, and where the language used
is not totally predictable.
The distinction between mechanical, meaningful, and communicative activities is similar to that
given by Littlewood (1981), who groups activities into two kinds: Pre-communicative activities and
Communicative activities. Pre-communicative activities emphasize grammatical accuracy (the
cognitive aspect). Communicative activities emphasize social acceptability (the behavioral aspect of
language).
* Information-gap activities

As mentioned above, the rationale for teaching grammar is multifaceted and grammar is
acknowledged to be of importance in language study in general and in language teaching and learning
in particular. Therefore, how to integrate CLT techniques in the process of teaching grammar is very
important as to make grammar an interesting thing to learn and use in communication.
Celce- Murcia (1988, p27) divides a grammar lesson into four parts: Presentation, Focused
Practice, Communicative practice and Teacher feedback and Correction.
In the presentation the grammar structure is introduced either inductively or deductively. A variety
of techniques and resources such as listening and responding, using pictures, visual aids, games,
verse…can be applied during this stage. Basing on the teacher‟s ability, students‟ preferences, and the
nature of the structure, the teacher can make appropriate selections.
The presentation is followed by focused practice in which learners manipulate the structure under
consideration. The purpose of this step is to allow the learner to gain control of the form for
communication. The next stage should not be started until most students have mastered at least the
form of the structure. Once again a number of techniques can be used in this stage.
The next step is communicative practice in which the learner engages in communicative activities
to practice the structure being learned. This kind of activities can be information gap, choice and
feedback. During this stage various communicative are provided so that students have opportunities to
communicate in the target language.
23 The last stage is teacher feedback and correction. Although this is seen as a final stage, it must take
place throughout the lesson. Celce- Murcia (1988, p28) stated that: “during the third part,
communication should not be interrupted. Instead, the teacher should take notes of errors and deal with
them after communicative exercises.
MA, Nguyễn Thị Uyên, 2009, from Trade University also divides the grammar lesson into four
steps as the followings:
Step 1: Starting up activities (SA). This is a short activity to introduce the new grammar
structure. It helps students to define when and how to use the grammar structure in the next part.
Step 2: Grammar guide (G.G). It is the short and precise introduction to the new grammar

students opportunities to express their personality by encouraging them to share ideas and opinion. This
help students “integrate the foreign language with their own personality and thus to feel more
emotionally secure with it”. (Littlewood, 1981, p94). Thus, teachers need to be supported to fulfill
these roles. For the ones who never or rarely attend any language courses on CLT, it is hard for them to
integrate CLT techniques in teaching especially in teaching grammar. The reason is that teachers‟
teaching techniques that usually correspond to an approach and a method can vary from one teacher to
another. Traditional methods such as the Grammar Translation method, the Direct method often lead
teachers to the choice of using teacher-centered techniques which mostly focus on grammatical and
phonological accuracy. These techniques are, for instance, choral repetition, drilling substitution,
content explanation and narrative presentation seem so mechanical and simple that they will result in
learners‟ passiveness and limit their participation in learning. On the contrary, in the light of CLT,
teachers‟ techniques turn into learner-centered instead of teacher-centered. The examples of these
techniques can be named as role-play, problem-solving, games, pair and group work, interview and
discussion.
1.3.2.2 Difficulties from Learners
Given the preceding perspectives and as communication is a goal of second and foreign
language teaching and learning, it is obvious that grammar is now part of language teaching. With
regard to the type of grammar instruction or grammar activities appropriate to the learners and when or
how to teach grammar, factors such as learners‟ age, proficiency level and their educational
background should be taken into consideration (Celce-Murcia, 1988). The fact is that some students
did not learn English at school while a lot of them started to learn it at the sixth grade. This definitely
hindered both the teaching and learning English.
25 One of the general factors we should take into account is learning styles which refer to
characteristics of individuals for the intake or understating of new information. Ellis (1994:499) defines
learning styles as: “the characteristic, affective and physiological behavior that serve as relative stable
indicators of how learners perceive, interact with an respond to the learning environment… Learning
style is a consistent way of functioning, that reflects underlying causes of behavior”.

large classes also face with the problems of discipline, correcting written works, creating effective
learning for all, finding suitable materials, and activating all students, especially, silent ones. Moreover,
foremost among the dimension of large classes that hinders students‟ learning is the lack of teacher-
students interaction with opportunities for questions and discussions.
Unsuitable textbooks and time limited are two main categories that cause difficulties for
teaching in CLT classes. The fact is that in almost in colleges there have been no fixed textbooks. The
teachers and administrators keep changing them after assessing new textbooks. For instance, they
began from teaching Streamlines, then Cambridge, Headway, New Headway and then Lifelines. The
textbooks cover teaching four skills and the teachers have to finish all the things in the textbooks before
giving students extra activities. But the time allocated for each unit is fixed, not flexible. So, the
teachers often choose the safe way to teach which means that they take advantage of the textbooks and
are not motivated in apply CLT techniques.
27 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
The previous chapter has presented a brief look into grammatical theory in general. This chapter
provides the setting of teaching and learning English grammar at Hanoi General College, which lays a
foundation for the study. However, the primary focus of this chapter is to describe the methods of the
study, how the data is analyzed.
2.1 Setting of the study

important role in the study of their students. They are energetic and are willing to devote their time and
energy to teaching. Two of them have acquired an M. A degree and two are following a postgraduate
course or an M.A course. The rest are university bachelors. However, none of them has attended a
training course in English speaking countries. To a certain level, it shows their limitations of
communicative competence in language teaching.
2.2 Design of the study
The participants in this study were all teachers who are teaching English for first year non major
students at Hanoi General College.
The study was divided into two phases. In phase one the researcher aimed at a general
description of teachers‟ frequency and purposes of using CLT techniques in teaching grammar, what
possible difficulties they might meet and their recommendations. In phase two, the researcher moved
into closer investigation of the teachers‟ real teaching process in which they applied CLT techniques in
teaching grammar. Therefore, two different instruments were used in the two phases to collect the need
data in order to answer the research questions. In phase one, the researcher used survey questionnaires
with 10 participants to seek answers to the five research questions. In phase two, the researcher
conducted class observations with three teachers selected to check the results of the questionnaires.
2.2.1 Phase one: The survey
The aims of this phase were to answer the research questions:
1. What are CLT techniques applied in teaching grammar to first-year non- English major
students?
2. How are CLT techniques employed in terms of frequency and purposes?
3. What are the difficulties in applying CLT techniques in teaching grammar?
4. To what extent do teachers feel satisfied with the use of CLT techniques?
5. What are the suggestions recommended by teachers to applying CLT techniques in teaching
grammar?