SÁNG KI N KINH NGHI MẾ Ệ
TÀI:ĐỀ
“MỘT SỐ BIỆN PHÁP ĐỂ PHÁT HUY TÍNH TÍCH CỰC HỌC
TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10 THÔNG QUA MỘT SỐ
HOẠT ĐỘNG TRONG SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH”
PART A: INTRODUCTION
I . The Statement of This Problem:
English nowadays has become more and more popular and has been widely used in
Viet Nam. It is one of the major subjects in many schools and an indispensable means of
communication at present. With such a trend of development, learning English is,
therefore, important than ever before. All learning is active in a certain sense, but some
kinds of learning are more active than others. Here, active learning is defined in one
sense to mean that the learner uses opportunities to decide about aspects of the learning
process. The stimulation of learning activities and regulation processes, or teaching
students how to learn, is likely to lead to the best performance in the long run.
1. The Reality of The Problem Requiring The New Solution to solve:
It is of great importance that we should take students' English language learning
into consideration. However, in Viet Nam, many students are not fully interested in
learning English in class. On the one hand, they seem to be shy and fearful of making
mistakes. On the other hand, we lack a language environment and sufficient learning
activities. In that reality, there have many problems catching pedagogues' attention, i.e,
how to organize learning activities effectively, how to develop interesting study
atmosphere in the classroom in order to enhance students' activeness in English language
learning. Being aware of this urgent problem, I have a great desire to study the current
activeness of students especially the 10
th
form students at high schools in Tuy Phuoc
High School and Quoc Hoc High School and to investigate the learning activities in the
English textbook which contribute an important role in enhancing students' activeness in
learning English. That is the reason why I choose the topic "A study on some ways to
enhance the 10

Besides, teaching will become more intellectually challenging when students are learning
actively and independently. Hence, the problem I am concerning about which learning
activities in the English textbook implemented in the class make student learn more
actively. As an English teacher, I truly believed that this study would be a great
contribution to my current teaching.
3. The scope of the study
With a limited fund of time and ability, this study only investigates the activeness of
10
th
form students in two high schools. The paper also only studies some learning
activities in the English 10 textbook for enhancing students' activeness in learning
English.
II. Method and Procedure
1. Literature review and theoretical background
1.1.Literature Review
There have been many pieces of writing about "active language learner" by foreign
methodologists and linguistics.
According to Paul Eggen and Don Kauchak (1999), a motivated learner can be
viewed as " someone who is actively engaged in the learning process". They suggest
some ways of promoting and maintaining active engagement through the concept of
Interest. They also emphasize the important role of interest and give some strategies to
increase interest such as capture students' attention, maintain students' involvement in the
learning.
In the book entitled "Teaching principles and practice" by Cole and Chan (1994),
they mention student engagement as students' involvement and active participation in
learning activities. They suggest the most frequently used measure of student
engagement is the amount of time that a student engaged in learning tasks. They also
refer to some techniques to promote active engagement and success rate among students.
In addition, in "Language teaching methodology", David Nunan introduces some
characteristics of the "good" language learners, and mention learning styles and learning

st
element described as the communication principle: Activities that
involve real communication promote learning.
_The second element is the task principle: Activities in which language is used
for carrying out meaningful tasks promoting learning.
_The third element is the meaningful principle: Language that is meaningful to
the learner supports the learning process. Learning activities are consequently selected
according to how well they engage the learner in meaningful and authentic language use.
In short, communicative approach provides learners with a desired goal
"Communicative competence". To obtain this, students need knowledge of language
which can be enhanced through the use of learning activities appropriately. Also, through
learning activities, students participate more in the learning process and therefore,
promote students' activeness.
1.2.1.2. Purposes of communicative activities
According to Littlewood (1990), what the teacher might hope to achieve through
communicative activities in the classroom may be very important because this will
determine his own attitude towards it and what place he gives it in his overall
methodology. The followings are some typical purposes of communicative activities that
can make to language learning:
* They provide "Whole - task practice". In foreign language learning,
teacher's means for providing learners with whole - task practice in the classroom is
through various kinds of communicative activity, structured in order to suit the
learners' level of ability.
*They improve motivation.
The learner's major objective 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 this objective and helps them to achieve it with increasing success.
Also, most learners' conception of language is as a means communication rather than as a
structural system. Their learning is more likely to make sense to them if it can build on
this conception rather than contradict it.

which the learners use what knowledge or skills they have in order to make sense of the
flow of new information. Learning, therefore, is an internal process, which is crucially
dependent upon the knowledge the learners already have and their ability and motivation
to use it. Furthermore, learning is not just a mental process. It is a process of negotiation
between individuals and society. Society sets the target and individuals must do their best
to get as close to the target as possible. The learners will certainly determine their own
route to target.
In the learner-centered classroom, the learners are not only involved in making
choices about what and how to learn but also are actively involved in the learning
process and they do all the work. Learners will pay more attention and learn better from
one another since their performances and processes of negotiation of meaning are more
closely adapted to one another's level of ability (Module 4, Language Teaching
methodology, p5)
Learners' ability to take responsibility for their own learning depends on their skills
of independent learning. They need to learn how:
- Manage the physical environment
- Search for and discover information for themselves
- Take appropriate risks and learn from mistakes
- Determine their own targets and assignments and how best to achieve these
through discussion with the teacher
- Work individually
- Work in groups, in pairs and cooperate with others
- Read information for themselves
- Evaluate their own learning, their efforts as well as the process they go through to
achieve a goal
- Use strategies to overcome communication breakdown
- Use negotiated strategies
- Develop specific skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing
In addition, placing students at the center of learning requires important shifts in our
teaching. According to Harmer [1991:35], "Language teaching is not just about teaching

"Learning in which students by acting on object and interacting with other people
ideas and events construct new understanding"[Luckner and Nadle, 1997, P13].
According to Meyers and Jones (1993), active learning has been defined as
providing opportunities for students to meaningfully talk, listen, write, read and
reflect on the content, ideas, issues and concerns of an academic subject. There are two
basic assumptions of active learning:
*That learning is by nature an active endeavor.
*That different people learn in different ways. This
definition was modified by Silberman (1996):
_What I hear, I forget.
_What I hear and see, remember a little.
_What I hear, see and ask question about or discuss with someone, I begin to
understand.
_What I teach another, I master
[13]
To learn something well, it helps to hear it, see it, ask questions about it and discuss
it with others. Above all, students need to do it by themselves, try out skills and do
assignments that depend on knowledge they already have or must acquire.
Silberman also states that "When learning is active, students do most of the work.
They use their brain studying ideas, solving problems and applying what they learn.
Active learning is fast -paced, fun, supportive and personally engaging" [13]
In addition, in an active learning environment, students individually are encouraged
to engage in the process of building their own mental models from the information they
are acquiring. In such an environment students become active participants who engage in
a dialogue with their teacher.
Moreover, active learning is an approach to learning that involves the student
as his/her own teacher and involves putting students in situations which force them
to read, speak, listen, think and write [24]. In an active learning, knowledge is
directly experienced, constructed, acted, tested or revised by the learner working
together in and outside of class. Most important, to be actively involved, students

(1983) suggest that good or efficient learners tend to exhibit the following
characteristics as second language learning:
- Find their own way
- Organise infromation about language
- Are creative and experiement with language
- Make their own opportunities and find strategies for getting practice in using the
language inside and outside the classroom
- Learn to live with uncertainly and develop strategies for making sense of the
target language without wanting to understand every word
- Use mnemonics (rhymes, word associations) to recall what has been
learned
- Make errors work
- Use linguistic knowledge, including knowledge of their first language in
mastering a second language
- Let the context (extra linguistic knowledge and knowledge of the world ) help
them in comprehension
- Learn to make intelligent guesses
- Learn chunks of language as whole and formalized routines to help them perform
beyond their competence
- Learn production techniques (e. g techniques for keeping conversation
going)
- Learn different styles of speech and writing and learn to vary their language
according to the formality of the situation.
[3, p57-58]
1.2.4. Factors influencing student's English learning
It is supposed that high motivation and deep interest are the two mains elements
promoting learner's language learning.
1.2.4.1. Motivation
In a language classroom, some students are successful at language learning, others
are not. It is the question that we should take it into consideration. Many

failure or complete success" maybe demotivating. For them, this involves the types of
tasks. Tasks are very important in enhancing learners from learning but they should not
too high or low challenging. Jere Brophy (1998) said that "students maybe motivated to
learn from a lesson or activity whether or not they find its content interesting or its
processes enjoyable". And Little Wood [14] added that "activities in which language is
used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning". Tasks should be meaningful
and at the right level of challenge, students will be motivated.
Lastly, the teacher affects their motivation. The teacher in the classroom in
particular is in a position to generate, increase and maintain the motivation of his pupils
through his teaching. In fact, the teacher's rapport with students and the teacher's
personality are the two areas that most of the people mentioned. It is clear that teachers
need to do everything possible to create a good rapport with their students. Hence, the
teachers should be fair, fun and understand their students. They can also encourage
learners' confidence to take part in negotiating for meaningful classroom communicative
activities and create an interesting and enjoyable class. All in all, the qualities of a
teacher are necessary providing intrinsic motivation.
Extrinsic motivation can be affect by culture of the target language community and
the attitude towards the language and learning experience [Harmer]. Students wish to
integrate themselves into that culture and have desire for a better job, position or status.
Moreover, for students who are successful have positive attitude towards language
learning than those who fail in their study. We have been taking about motivation. The
next section will deal with the learners' interests which are believed to affect students'
language learning.
1.2.4.2. Interest.
According to Donough (1994) "Interest is often regarded as a major element in the
teachers' store of motivational tactics: If the pupils' interest is aroused, perseverance
may be increased".
Along with Donough, Sax (1997) also defined "an interest is a preference for one
activity over another". This definition emphasizes interests involve the selection and
ranking activities along a like - dislike dimension and involve activities or behaviors

- Order and safety: Classroom as secure places to learn
Effective schools are places of trust, order, cooperation and high morale. For students to
be motivated to learn, school must be physically and psychologically safe places.
- Success:
According to Eggen and Kauchak (1990), once a safe and orderly environment is
established, student's expectation for success is the most important climate variable.
Success likes many aspects of teaching and learning. Our goal in promoting success is to
help learners develop self - efficacy - the success must be on tasks learners perceive to be
meaningful and worthwhile, success on trivial tasks does little to create feelings of
competence and self - efficacy.
- Challenge:
Lepperand Hodell (1989) believe that challenge is an essential component of
intrinsically motivating activities. A sense of challenge is needed if students are to
experience feelings of satisfaction competence persistence and control.
- Task comprehension:
From the success and challenge we mentioned above, to be motivated learners must
expect to succeed and must believe that what they are learning is important and valuable.
Challenge helps promote a sense of value; value is also enhanced when students
understand both what they are supposed to be learning and why they earning it. If
students are to be motivated, teacher should teach things that are worth learning (Good
and Brophy, 1997).
1.2.5.2. Instructional variables: Developing interest in learning activities.
In learning activities, interest is very important. According to Krapp, Hidi and
Renninger (1992) quoted by Eggen and Kauchak Interest like engagement, has been
linked to learner attention, comprehension, elaboration and the seeking of additional
information. From an instructional perspective, Stipek (1996) stated that a motivated
student can be viewed as " someone who is actively engaged in the learning process".
But how to promote and maintain active engagement?. Eggen and Kauchak suggested
that teachers have to think about engagement using the concept of Interest. In order to
increase learner interest, our goal is to initially capture student's attention and then

classrooms.
Moreover, Eggen and Kauchak indicate four personal qualities of including:
teacher's modeling, teacher's enthusiasm, teacher's caring and teacher's expectation [7].
Hence, teachers have an important positive effect on students.
The model can be synthesized as follow:
Figure: A model for promoting students motivation by Eggen and Kauchak [7,p.429]
1.2.6. Overview of learning activities.
1.2.6.1. Prominent features of learning activities.
In Teaching principles and practice (1994), according to Brophy and Alleman
(1991) quoted by Cole and Chan define "learning activities as anything that students are
expected to do, beyond getting input through reading or listening in order to learn,
practice, apply, evaluate or in any other ways respond to curricular content"[2, P.256]. In
the classroom, teachers organize learning activities for students with the purpose of
stimulating student interest and enhancing learning. Appropriate learning activities
extend student knowledge and understanding of relevant subject matter. They provide
students with useful learning experiences and opportunities to consolidate their learning.
Most teachers agree that assigned tasks are an important useful means of promoting
learning. This part will examine how learning activities may best be used to promote
learning.
1.2.6.2. Classification.
It is not enough to introduce a range of different activities into lessons. In general,
learning activities can be grouped into two distinct types according to Cole and Chan
(1994):
* Guided practice activities;
Those teachers - led activities in which students are rehearsing or practicing new
concepts or skills with constant prompting, checking for understanding and corrective
feedback from the teacher. Guided practice activities involve students in constant
interaction with the teacher or other students and typically require extensive assistance
from the teacher. In these activities, students imitate the teacher's modeling, respond
orally to the questions, practise a skill, receive immediate feedback and correct their own

- Do not become dependent on texts and photocopied materials for work tasks.
- Set easy tasks for those students who consistently have difficulty with regular
classroom work.
- Prescribe challenging work tasks for ability students.
- Make appropriate changes if students experiment difficulty with any particular
aspect of a work task.
[2, p.275-278]
2. Measures Implemented and Time to Create This Solution
This part deals with the methodology of the study. The first part is concerned with
the research design and procedures. The second part discusses methods of data collection
and data collection procedures. The final part is devoted to the selection of samples for
document study, the classroom observation and the questionnaire.
2.1.Research design and procedures.
2.1.1.Research design:
This research was replied on the quantitative and qualitative approach.
2.1.2.Research Procedures:
In this study, the following steps were involved:
Firstly, for the theoretical background, a number of related books and internet
materials were collected and processed.
Secondly, for data collection, a survey was carried out by means of document study,
classroom observation and questionnaires for teachers and students at Tuy Phuoc 1 High
School and Quoc Hoc High school.
Thirdly, the data collected was quantitatively analyzed to discuss the research
questions
2,2.Methods of data collection:
As mentioned in the previous parts, the paper aims to some ways to enhance 10
th
form students' activeness in learning English through some learning activities in the
English textbook. The learning activities in this textbook are certainly performed in the
classroom. In order to get the reliable data, the study is decided to employ the following

atmosphere affect students' English learning, and suggestion for enhancing students'
activeness.
Finally, classroom observation was considered as a subordinate method but very
useful way to collect the data. Real behaviors of the students and teachers were noted
down. In this study, observation was carried out at 8 classes at Tuy Phuoc 1 High School
and Quoc Hoc High school. During my observation, some criteria were set so that my
work would be carried out more effectively. They are as follows:
1. Students' attitudes towards learning English
_ Paying attention to teacher's teaching
_ Raising hands to contribute ideas to lesson frequently
_ Answering teacher's questions
_ Involving in learning activities
_ Discussing with each other
_ Working individually, in pairs or in small groups
2. Teacher's activities in the class.
_ Does teacher use interesting helpful topic?
_ Does teacher visit and give advice when students are in group discussion?
_ Does teacher praise / encourage students when they work?
_ Does teacher give students helpful instructions?
_ Does teacher interrupt students when they make errors?
_ Does teacher give any compliments?
_ Does teacher often give feedback?
_ Does teacher often organize cooperative learning?
_ Are students interested in learning activities?
2.3. Population of the data collection:
2.3.1. The population of the questionnaire:
As mentioned above, questionnaire was distributed to 200 10
th
form students at
four classes of Tuy Phuoc 1 High School and Quoc Hoc High school.in Qui Nhon city.

- Give some recommendations for enhancing students' activeness in learning
English.
II. The Description of The experience Initiative’s Solution
II.1 : Findings and discussion
2.1.1. Students' activeness in learning English
2.1.1.1. Students' attitudes towards English language learning.
Table 2.1 A summary of students' attitudes towards English language learning
Question
number
Content Percentage
(%)
1 Do you enjoy learning
English! -Yes
-No
77,5
22,5
2 What do you think about the importance of
learning English ?
- Very important
- A little important
- Not important at all
91
7
2
3 What are your reasons for learning
English?
- A compulsory subject at school
- Better job in the future
- Knowledge of another culture
- Your favorite subject

nowadays have a clear awareness of English learning; they learn it not because they are
forced to study but because they are conscious of the importance and necessity of English
at present. Therefore, in order to help students learn English effectively, the enhancement
of students' activeness in English language learning is of paramount importance.
2.1.1.2. 10
th
form students' activeness in learning English
As mentioned in the previous parts, classroom observation is carried out at 8 classes
of the 2 high schools during my weeks of teaching time.
Table 2.3: A summary of students' activeness in English language learning
Students' activeness in learning English Teachers'
responses
%
Students'
responses
%
1. The level of students' involvement
in the lesson
- Very active
- Quite active
- Little active
- Not active at all
20
50
30
0
38
42
16
4

- Rarely
- Never
0
60
30
10
8,5
4 9
30,5
12
The data collected from the teachers' as well as students' questionnaire and
classroom observation give us an overview of the activeness of the 10
th
form students in
learning English.
2.1.1.2.1. Students' involvement
It can be easily realized from table 2.3 that students now are quite active.
Half of the teachers (50%) agree with this. According to the teachers, many students now
tend to be more active in the lesson because of their awareness of the importance of
learning English and its benefits. With this extrinsic motivation, the students seem to
learn English better.
Also from the table 2.3, it can be seen that among 80% of the students who show
their activeness in learning English, 38% of them are highly active. They always show
their interest in the lesson during the learning process. They pay much attention to the
teacher's lesson and are enthusiastic to raise their hands to answer the teacher's questions
or contribute their ideas to the lesson. They also tend to work in pairs or small groups
and really want to interact with other students.
However, there are still some students who are a little active or not active at all.
Those students are often passive in the classroom. They rarely take part in classroom
activities and prefer to work individually. Moreover, these students often show their