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

HÁN THỊ VĨNH HÀ

ADAPTING SPEAKING TASKS IN THE TEXT BOOK
TIENG ANH 11 TO IMPROVE THE 11TH FORM
STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ACHIEVEMENT AT DAI MO
UPPER-SECONDARY SCHOOL
Điều chỉnh các nhiệm vụ nói trong sách giáo khoa Tiếng Anh 11 nhằm
nâng cao khả năng nói cho học sinh lớp 11 trường THPT Đại Mỗ

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof., PhD. Nguyễn Văn Độ

HA NOI, 2015


DECLARATION
I hereby certify the thesis entitled “Adapting speaking tasks in the text book Tieng
Anh 11 to improve the 11th form students’ speaking achievement at Dai Mo upper-secondary
school” is my own study in the fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of
Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University,
Hanoi.

Signature

In the teaching context of Dai Mo upper-secondary school in Nam Tu Liem, Ha Noi,
the adaptation of speaking tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 11 is necessary because teaching
and learning speaking is not usually efficient. The students could hardly take part in speaking
tasks seriously because they had difficulty expressing their ideas though they have the desire
to speak English. This mini action research was conducted in order to investigate how adapted
tasks helped students of low level to get more involved in speaking, as well as improve their
language accuracy, fluency and complexity. Oral tests together with survey questionnaire and
observations was the main instrument of data collection. They were delivered to 40 grade-11
students to collect individual scores before and after each of the two cycles, their opinions
about speaking tasks in the textbook and their behaviors while doing speaking tasks. Based on
the data, the speaking tasks were adapted and speaking activities were implemented then pilot
teaching was employed to check their effectiveness. The results indicated that most of the
adapted tasks resulted in some clear improvement in the students’ participation and their
language proficiency without omitting available textbook tasks or overloaded supplemented
materials. Finally, some suggestions and implications for teaching speaking, task adaptation
were offered to support students’ speaking skills at Dai Mo upper-secondary school.

iii


LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Table 1: The students’ motivation in learning English speaking
Table 2+3: The students’ opinions about English speaking skills in the textbook Tieng Anh 11
Table 4: The students’ general evaluation of their current speaking lessons
Table 5: The students’ participation in speaking lessons.
Table 6: Factors prevent the students from participating in speaking in the class.
Table 7: The students’ opinion about the way their teacher taught English speaking
Table 8: The students’ evaluation of their teacher’s task adaptation
Table 9: The students’ scores in the Pre-test.
Table 10: The students’ opinions about the vocabulary relating to the topics in the speaking


v


MỤC LỤC
DECLARATION .................................................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................................... iii
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES ................................................................................................... iv
PART I: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................1

1.

Rationale for the study .............................................................................................. 1

2.

Aims of the study ....................................................................................................... 2

3. Research questions ...................................................................................................... 2
4. Scope of the study ........................................................................................................ 2
5.

Methods of the study ................................................................................................. 2

6.

Design of the study .................................................................................................... 4

PART II: DEVELOPMENT .................................................................................................................6


1.1.2.2.

Teachers .................................................................................................................10

1.1.2.3.

Learners .................................................................................................................10

1.1.2.4.

Materials ................................................................................................................10

1.2. Tasks and task adaptation ...................................................................................... 11
1.2.1.

Tasks in FL/SL learning and teaching .......................................................................11

1.2.2.

Task adaptation in FL/SL learning and teaching......................................................11

1.2.2.1.

The need of task adaptation ..................................................................................11

1.2.2.2.

What is adaptation? ...............................................................................................11


Unit 15 (Page 171, the textbook Tieng Anh 11) ............................................................18

2.3.2.

Unit 16 (Page181, the textbook Tieng Anh 11) .............................................................19

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS ......................................................................................................22
3.1. Data analysis of Preliminary Survey (See Appendix 1) .........................................................22
3.1.1. Personal information of the students’ taking part in the survey ...........................................22
3.1.2. The students’ awareness of studying English in general .....................................................22
3.1.3. The students’ opinions about English speaking skills in the textbook Tieng Anh 11 .........23
3.1.4. The students’ evaluation of their current speaking lessons ..................................................25
3.1.4.1. The udents’ general evaluation of their current speaking lessons .................................25
3.1.4.2. The students’ participation in speaking lessons and the reasons ...................................26
3.1.4.3. The students’ opinions about the way their teachers taught English speaking ............28

3.2. Data analysis from initial observations (see appendix 5) ...................................... 29
3.3. Data analysis of Pre-tests (see Appendix 2) ............................................................ 32
3.4. Data analysis of Survey Questionnaire (see Appendix 3) ....................................... 33
3.4.1. In terms of language (vocabulary)........................................................................................33
3.4.2. In terms of topic ...................................................................................................................34
3.4.3. In terms of speaking tasks ....................................................................................................36
3.4.4. The students’ suggestions for the teacher’s adaptation of speaking tasks ............................37

3.5. Data analysis of Survey for response to adaptation (see Appendix 4) ................... 37
3.5.1. Data analysis of response to task adaptation of Unit 15, delivered on April 17th, 2014.
(Number of participants: 40) ..........................................................................................................38
3.5.2. Data analysis of response to task adaptation of Unit 16, delivered on May 14th, 2012.
(Number of participants: 41) ..........................................................................................................39




PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the study
In the past ten years, teaching English speaking at school has earned a lot of attention
and investment from both experts and teachers as well as learners and their communities. The
three main reasons must be: first, the key practical role of English speaking has received the
social awareness; second, tape-recording and the Internet has enabled learners to access to
native speakers’ talks; third, many methodology courses sponsored by the government have
helped teachers to approach some new teaching methods. As a result, students’ speaking
ability has improved much in general.
Despite all of the above advantages, I see no much progress in the case of Dai Mo
upper-secondary school, class 11A1 in particular. By observing, I notice most of the students
hesitate to participate in English speaking tasks. Even as the teachers have managed to engage
them in, their talks show some problems of using accurate, fluent and complex language.
Some researchers have been particularly interested in the same situation in teaching
English skills and tried to improve it by adaptation (Phùng Thị Hoa Mơ, 2010; Nguyễn Thị
Trang, 2012). However, most of them concluded that poor textbooks and students’ low
motivation were the main reasons. Whereas the students in class 11A1 confirmed that they
wanted to speak English much more than reading, writing, grammar, and they found almost
all the topics interesting. Especially, to grant comparatively equal achievements among
students from different schools, a set of compulsory textbooks have been published. The
textbooks have several strong points, that is task-based contexts are available and
communication practice is carefully guided.
Considering their English scores at the beginning of the course, the writer realized that
most of them were of low level, some were better but no one was advanced. Therefore, she
did a preliminary research, searched the Internet and read ESL/EFL studies. She found that
spoken discourse has its own characteristics and, thus, the teaching must be distinctive. She
wondered if she could help them by providing them with more language input together with
knowledge background, and by adapting some speaking tasks in the textbook Tiếng Anh 11.

With the focus on speaking tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 11 (the basic textbook),
the study was carried out to adapt them for the students.
The study focuses on one class of grade-11 students, so the results of the study are not
generated to all students at Dai Mo upper-secondary school.
5. Methods of the study
The study in fact is an action research. According to Nunan (1992: 19), an action
research includes seven steps. They are: initiation, preliminary investigation, hypothesis,

2


intervention, evaluation, dissemination and follow-up. The applied steps in details are as
follows:
Step 1- Initiation: In the process of teaching the textbook Tieng Anh 11, the writer
observed that most of the students hesitated to participate in speaking tasks. Even as the
teachers had managed to engage them in, their talks showed some problems of the accuracy,
fluency and complexity of their language performance. The students confirmed that they want
to speak English much more than reading, writing, grammar, and they found almost all the
topics interesting, though. What should be done?
Step 2- Preliminary investigation: the writer carried out the preliminary survey and
did some initial observations to find out how speaking tasks were managed, how often the
students took part in speaking activities and how the language produced was. Also, she
searched the Internet and read academic studies on ESL and EFL.
Step 3- Hypothesis: By collecting and reviewing the baseline data, the writer came to
the hypothesis that the students’ speaking achievement was not high because they often
encountered problems associated with language and background knowledge due to their low
English speaking levels; and that

the adaptation of some speaking tasks by ‘making


while speaking. They verified expressions, which were exchanged among partners. Though
this improvement was considerable and valuable, it did not reach the goal of producing their
own language.
Step 6- Dissemination: the writer discussed the effectiveness of the adapted tasks to
the students and colleagues.
Step 7- Follow-up: the writer suggested some more adapted activities to teach other
speaking lessons basing on the textbook Tieng Anh 11 to the students.
6. Design of the study
The study titled “Adapting speaking tasks in the text book Tieng Anh 11 to improve
the 11th form students’ speaking achievement at Dai Mo upper-secondary school.” consists of
three main parts namely Introduction, Development and Conclusion.
In the first part, Introduction, the reasons for the research, aims, research questions,
scope and methods of the study are mentioned.
The second part, Development, contains four chapters.
- Chapter One focuses on theoretical background of the study, which is about
features, and functions of spoken discourse, implications for teaching, and purposes as
well as two main approaches of adaptations: accuracy-based practice and fluencybased activities.
- Chapter Two not only describes the context of teaching and learning English
at Dai Mo upper-secondary school but also presents the instrumentation of the study,
the adaptation of speaking tasks.
4


- Chapter Three deals with a comprehensive data analysis.
The last part, Conclusion, provides major findings, discussion, limitations and
recommendations for follow-up action.

Two cycles:
1. Cycle 1



5


PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. An overview on the teaching of speaking
In order to help students to develop their English speaking ability we need insights
about the nature of spoken discourse, so we will be able to find a useful methodology to select
and design appropriate classroom activities.
1.1.1. The speaking
1.1.1.1.The role of spoken English
The mastery of English speaking skills plays a very important role for many foreign
language learners. Consequently, learners tend to evaluate their success in language learning
as well as the effectiveness of their English lessons basing on how well they feel they have
improved in their speaking ability or proficiency.
In addition, teachers and textbooks make use of a variety of approaches in the teaching
of oral skills, which shows that “ oral skills have hardly been neglected in EFL/ESL courses” .
Therefore, it is observed that “ how best to approach the teaching of oral skills has long been
the focus of methodological debate”, Richards (2009:21).
Reflecting on the textbook Tieng Anh 11, the writer thinks teachers can take a great
deal of advantages in methodology.
1.1.1.2.Nature of spoken discourse
According to McCarthy and Carter, 1997 (cited in Richards, 2009:21), it is recent
advances in discourse analysis that have revealed the nature of spoken discourse and its
differences from written discourse. Luoma, 2004 (cited in Richards, 2009:22) points out
some of the following features of spoken discourse:


Conjoined short phrases and clauses

First, “spoken discourse is usually unplanned and often reflects the processes of
constructions”, Richards (2009:2). Thus, errors must be carefully chosen to be treated in order
that the correction does not ruin fluency. In my opinion, errors that impede communication
should be directly corrected. Tricia Hedge (2000:289) gives an example of such error: “ They
ate smoked worm” is not immediately apparent as “They ate smoked eel”, and “long trees”
can be misunderstood as “tall trees”. Besides, the assessment of fluency should be much more
flexible, which will be discussed in detail in the part of adaptation.
Second, “interactions are jointly constructed”, which asks for shared background,
active and intelligibility participation. It implies that in addition to fluency, accuracy must be
put in consideration and speaking activities must be well designed so that engaging students
in can be successful. Moreover, the topic of speaking tasks in textbooks should be familiar to
students, or else some preparation must be made before each lesson.
1.1.1.3.Functions of speaking
Richards uses a three-part framework, which is expanded from Brown and Yule’s one,
to classify the interaction functions of speaking: talk as interaction, talk as transaction, and
talk as performance. Their forms and functions are quite different and therefore they require
different teaching approaches.
a. Talk as interaction
This refers to “conversation” which serves as primarily social function. The focus is
more on speaker’s wish to present themselves other than on the message. Brown and Yule,
1983 (cited in Richards, 2009:25) describe its main features as follows:


Has a primarily social function



Is jointly constructed

b. Talk as transaction

students at school, I think they should practice a wide range of topics to present good images
of themselves in situations which call for interaction talks.
Two simple activities Richards use to practice topic management are “in the hot seat”
and “question time”. In the first activity, a student sits on a chair in front of the class and
makes a statement about something he or she did recently. The other members of the class
have to ask three or more questions about the topic which the student has to answer quickly.
Then another student takes the hot seat. With the activity called question time, before students
begin a lesson on a new theme, he prepares up to 15 questions related to the theme and put
them on a handout. First, he asks students around the class to answer the questions quickly.
Then students practice asking and answering the questions in pairs.
b. Talk as transaction
In terms of the level of linguistic accuracy that students achieve when carrying out
tasks as transaction, some scholars like Thornbury,1998 and Kumaravadivelu,1991 state that
practicing these tasks focuses on task accomplishment rather than grammatical practice and a
gradual modification of their language output over time takes on more and more target-like
forms. However, Higgs and Clifford, 1982 (cited in Richards 2009:37) claim that
communication tasks often develop fluency at the expense of accuracy. Richards (2009:39)
recognizes that low-level students often heavily rely on vocabulary and memorized chunks of
language while carrying out communication tasks. Therefore, to improve the quality
(accuracy and fluency) of language produced as students practice, he suggests:


Pre-teaching certain linguistic forms



Reducing the complexity of the task







Is any special language used?

1.1.2. Related factors affecting students’ speaking
Students’ participation in classroom speaking activities and their English output can be
affected by a variety of factors originating from context, learners, teachers, materials and
classroom activities. In the following sections, some of the major factors will be discussed.
1.1.2.1.Context
Most of factors are “ outside the teacher’s control but they will bear heavily on
decisions about choice of resources and classroom procedure” (Hedge, 2000:24). She
mentions the following factors:


Social attitudes

Social attitudes towards English learning partly determine teachers’ effort to motivate
students and exposure to the language as well.


Educational system

Whether educational system provides potential or constraint depends on:
-

The extent to which the materials in use train for public examinations

-


-

The interest of management in continuing professional development
9




Examination system

Examination system is a heavily constraining factor where examinations are
considered gatekeepers to higher education or good jobs. Teachers would be of high risk not
to train students for these.
1.1.2.2.Teachers
Harmer, 1991 (cited in Hedge, 2000:26) identify teachers’ roles “as controller in
eliciting nationality words; as assessor of accuracy; as corrector of pronunciation; as organizer
in giving instructions for the pair work, initiating it, monitoring it, and organizing feedback;
as prompter while students are working together; and as resource if students need help”. All
of these are common to a wide range of classroom methods. Hedge (2000: 22-31) says that
they can be seen in lesson plans but only can the ability to manage activities and interactions
put them in practice. Only when teachers have competence in management of interaction can
the mentioned roles create beneficial conditions for language learning.
1.1.2.3.Learners
Individual differences exist and play a significant role in language learning. However,
they are just the useful distinctions to classify them in order to have some possible
implications for teaching. Because there are not “certain attitudes, personality characteristics,
emotional disposition, and learning strategies that somehow create the generically ‘good
language learner’” (Hedge, 2000:24).
Addition to individual differences, students in Dai Mo upper-secondary school share
some common characteristics that affect their learning in general and speaking in particular.

tasks operate effectively within classroom contexts.
1.2.2. Task adaptation in FL/SL learning and teaching
1.2.2.1.The need of task adaptation
No certain set of activities can ensure that different groups of students practice the
speaking and problems can be found around the activities. Hedge (2000:281-283) believes
that whenever a problem occurs, which leads to students’ failure, they can feel frustrated to
perform and they do not behave in them as the activities suggest they should. This usually
obstacles the possible contributions to speaking activities and presents limitations to the
development of English speaking ability. It suggests to us the need to create range and variety
in language activities to adapt to the teaching and learning context.
1.2.2.2. What is adaptation?
According to Tomlinson (1998: xi), adaptation is “making changes to materials in
order to improve them more suitable for a particular type of learner.” In the aspect of
adaptation techniques, Madsen and Bowen (1978: ix-xi) mentions adaptation as the action of
employing “one or more of a number of techniques: supplementing, editing, expanding,
personalizing, simplifying, modernizing, localizing, or modifying cultural/ situational
content.” Differently, Stevick (1972), cited in Mc Donough and Shaw (1993: 83) emphasizes

11


teachers’ role of bridging a gap between materials and learners: “the teacher must satisfy the
demand of the textbook, but in ways that will be satisfying to those who learn from it.”
In brief, adaptation requires teachers to change and revise materials to make them
more accessible to the teaching context.
1.2.2.3. Reasons for adaptation
There are always some practical reasons for adapting materials in order to
make them as accessible and useful to learners as possible. However, reasons for adaptation
have varied and changed as the field has developed and views on language acquisition and
teaching practice have become better informed by research and experience. There are two

the ‘intermediate stage of a programme and who have ‘sufficient linguistic confidence an
ability to survive in a target language environment and understand the gist of what is going on
around them’ will still have inaccuracies and a relatively narrow range of vocabulary.
Therefore, “maintaining or even increasing the amount of accuracy work might eliminate
some of these mistakes and enrich their language repertoire” (ibid.).
The writer believes the two following approaches can produce effective adaptation:
a. Making accuracy-based practice meaningful
Learners in communicative classrooms need to be exposed to input that they can
attend to, and given opportunities to produce output in activities with more control. Controlled
activities may deal with “a grammatical structure, a phonological feature, a conventional
gambit, a communicative function, or the time sequencers that might be needed in telling a
story”, all of which have a conscious focus on language (Hedge, 2000:273).
Hedge (2000:273-276) gives two suggestions:


Contextualizing

Contextualized practice “aims to make clear the link between linguistic form and
communicative function”, which “means finding a situation in which a structure is commonly
used.” [ For the example of contextualizing, see appendix 6-1]


Personalizing

Personalizing “the language enables students to express their own ideas, feelings,
preferences, and opinion”, which “makes the language more memorable”. To make it
motivating, students must be allowed to choose what they say in some degree so that they can
“make use of language resources in interpersonal situations”. [ For the example of
personalizing, see appendix 6-2]
b. Adapting fluency-based activities



‘Gap’ activities

‘Gap’ activity “involves each learner in a pair or group possessing information which
other learners do not have. The learners’ information must be shared in order to achieve an
outcome”. One value of this fluency-based type is that it can push students to more accurate
output while negotiating meaning and adjusting the conversation. [ For the example of ‘gap’
activities, see appendix 6-5]
1.3.Summary
To conclude, with the awareness of factors affecting students’ participation and
language performance together with two main approaches to adaptation, the writer adapted
some activities in Tieng Anh 11 to make them more communicative, suitable to her students’
ability in class 11A1 at Dai Mo upper-secondary school. Contextualizing, group roles, roleplay and personalizing were popular adaptation techniques used in the research. Details of
these above contents will be presented in chapter 2 and 3.

14


CHAPTER 2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
An Action Research
This chapter will analyze the situation of the study with the description of the subjects,
the materials used by the students, the approaches of adaptations and the instruments applied
to collect data.
2.1. Situation analysis
2.1.1. Setting of the study
The study was conducted in class 11A1 at Dai Mo upper-secondary school in Nam Tu
Liem, Hanoi City. At Dai Mo upper-secondary school as well as other secondary schools all
over the country, English is one of the three compulsory core subjects in the national
examination for GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education).

examining not only the products but also the processes of the tasks.
Oral tests were utilized as the main data collection instruments, questionnaires and
class observations were functioned as supplementary sources of information. Because the
students’ scores were counted into percentages and all the informants answered the same
questions, the data collected were easy to be summarized, analyzed and reported.
Furthermore, the subjects were free to give their ideas without having to provide personal
information. For that reason, the researcher has more uniform and accurate data.
To avoid misunderstanding and ensure the accuracy of the data, both types of
questionnaires were written in Vietnamese and distributed with the researcher’s clear
explanation.
The researcher let the participants read the tasks before hand and let them respond to a
survey questionnaire one period before each reading lesson, and set aside 15 minutes after
each speaking lesson so that they were not under pressure of time.
The instruments and procedures used to gather the information for the study will be
described as follows:
2.2.1. Instrument 1: Preliminary Survey
The Preliminary Survey Questionnaire (see Appendix 1) was delivered to the students
at the beginning of the second term, after they have finished the first term. It was designed
with four parts. Part 1 with 3 questions seeks information about students’ sex, time of learning
English and English result of the previous semester. The questions in part two was designed
to find the students’ general attitudes towards speaking: the role of speaking (Question 4).
Part three has two questions to find out students’ attitudes towards the textbook Tieng Anh
11: the topic (Question 5), the tasks (Question 6). Part four includes four questions learning
about the way the speaking lessons takes place (Question 7,8,9,10) and one question about
their attitudes towards adaptation (Question 11).
2.2.2. Instrument 2: Oral tests
Oral tests included a pre-test and two post-tests. The pre-test and one post-test was for
cycle 1, the rest is for cycle 2.

16