HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF ENGLISH

GRADUATION THESIS
B.A. DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES
USING COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP ENGLISH
SPEAKING SKILLS FOR ELEMENTARY LEVEL STUDENTS AT
PASAL ENGLISH CENTER

Name of student

: Do Thi Ngan

Class

: 1271A03

Date of birth

: 21/04/1994

Supervisor

:Nguyen Thi Mai Huong, M.A

HANOI, 2016


DECLARATION
I here acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and findings discussed in
the thesis are true, used with permission from associates, and have not been

PART A: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................... 1
1. Rationale ................................................................................................ 1
2. Aims of the study................................................................................... 2
3. The research questions ......................................................................... 2
4. Scope of the study.................................................................................. 2
5. Methods of the stud ............................................................................... 2
6. Design of the study ................................................................................ 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT ........................................................................ 4
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................... 4
1.1. Speaking skills .................................................................................... 4
1.1.1. Definition of speaking skills ......................................................... 4
1.1.2. Types of speaking skills................................................................ 5
1.1.3. The importance of speaking skills ................................................. 6
1.1.4. Students’ motivation to participate in a speaking lesson ............... 6
1.2. A speaking lesson ............................................................................... 7
1.2.1. Stages of a speaking activity ......................................................... 7
1.2.2. Shape of a speaking lesson ........................................................... 8
1.3. Communicative activities ................................................................. 10
1.3.1. Definition of communicative activities ....................................... 10
1.3.2. Characteristics of communicative activities ................................ 11
1.3.3. The advantages and challenges of communicative activities ....... 13
1.3.4. Elements for successful communicative activities ...................... 14
Before Class ......................................................................................... 14
1.3.5. Some types communicative activities ......................................... 18


1.4. Roles of teacher in communicative activities .................................. 20
1.5. Some techniques for effective communicative activities ................ 20
CHAPTER II: THE STUDY ON USING COMMUNICATIVE
ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS OF


when

conducting

communicative activities in teaching speaking skills ............................ 40


CHAPTER III: SOME SUGGESTIONS IN RESOLVING
DIFFICULTIES THE ENCOUTERED BY THE TEACHERS AND
STUDENTS WHEN CONDUCTING COMMUNICATIVE
ACTIVITIES .............................................................................................. 43
3.1. Solutions for teachers ....................................................................... 43
3.1. 1. Students’ poor abilities of English ............................................. 43
3.1.2. Students’ shyness and passiveness .............................................. 44
3.1.3. Class size .................................................................................... 45
3.1.4. Class time limitation ................................................................... 45
3.1.5. The lack of facilities ................................................................... 46
3.2. Solutions for students ....................................................................... 46
3.2.1. Improving English ability ........................................................... 46
3.2.2. Improving confidence ................................................................. 49
PART C: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS .................................. 51
APPENDIX ................................................................................................. 54
REFERNCES: ............................................................................................ 64


PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
It is admitted that speaking a foreign language in general and English in
particular represents one of the essential requirements of today´s society.

apply in other teaching environments.
2.Aims of the study
The research aims to:
- Realize the reality of applying communicative activities in speaking
classes of elementary level students at Pasal English Center – benefits and
challenges.
- Find out some solutions for difficulties in teaching and learning
process.
- Suggest some implications for practicing communicative activities.
3. The research questions
- What is the real practice of teaching and learning English in speaking
classes of elementary level students at Pasal English Center?
- What are the benefits and challenges of applying communicative
activities in speaking lessons?
- How to apply communicative activities to learning English?
4. Scope of the study
In the frame of the study, the application of communicative activities
will be studied but the writer would not mention all fields related to
communicative activities. Particularly, the study focuses on the benefits and
challenges of the application for elementary level students at Pasal English
Center.
5. Methods of the study
The study has employed some research methods as main means for the
fulfillment. The first one is the literature search to clarify some definition

2


refer to speaking skills and communicative activities. The second one is the
collective method. Some famous author’s opinion about communicative

"the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and
non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" (Chaney, 1998).
According to Ladouse (in Nunan, 1991: 23) speaking is described as
the activity as the ability to express oneself in the situation, or the activity to
report acts, or situation in precise words or the ability to converse or to
express a sequence of ideas fluently.
Wallace (1978:98) stated that oral practice (speaking) becomes
meaningful to students when they have to pay attention what they are saying.
Thus, the students can learn better on how to require the ability to converse or
to express their ideas fluently with precise vocabularies and good or
acceptable pronunciation.
Speaking is the productive skill. It could not be separated from
listening. When we speak we produce the text and it should be meaningful. In
the nature of communication, we can find the speaker, the listener, the
message and the feedback. Speaking could not be separated from
pronunciation as it encourages learners to learn the English sounds.
Speaking ability is the students’ ability in expressing their ideas orally
which is represented by the scores of speaking. Speaking is only an oral trail
of abilities that it got from structure and vocabulary, Freeman (in Risnadedi,
2001: 56-57) stated that speaking ability more complex and difficult than

4


people assume, and speaking study like study other cases in study of
language, naturalize many case to language teachers.
Speaking skills has many different aspects including two major
categories – accuracy, involving the correct use of vocabulary, grammar and
pronunciation practiced through controlled and guided activities; and, fluency
considered to be “the ability to keep going when speaking spontaneously”

opportunity for the speaker to make the message known. Wise is the speaker
who gains and then holds the attention of an audience, with well-chosen
words in a well-delivered presentation, forming a message that is effective,
informative, and understood.
• Ability to stand out from the rest. The ability to stand before others
and speak effectively is not an ordinary ability. Many people are afraid of
public speaking; others have little ability to form thoughts into sentences and
then deliver those words in a believable way. A speaker whose skills are
honed and developed with constant application and hard work can stand out.
• Career enhancement. Employers have always valued the ability to
speak well. It is, and always will be, an important skill, and well worth the
effort in fully developing.
Speaking skills are important for career success, but certainly not limited
to one’s professional aspirations. Speaking skills can enhance one’s personal
life, thereby bringing about the well-rounded growth we should all seek.
1.1.4. Students’ motivation to participate in a speaking lesson
When students learn a foreign language, they very often accumulate a
lot of knowledge (grammatical rules, lists of vocabulary items), but then they
find out that they cannot actually use this language to communicate when they
want to. Scrivener (2005, 147) claims that there seems to be some difficulty in
moving language from passive knowledge into active usage. Without

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experience in using the language, learners may tend to be nervous about
trying to say things. Partly they may fear seeming foolish in front of others,
they may worry about getting things wrong they may want to avoid teacher’s
comments or correction and so on. It takes quite a long time for some students
to express themselves, which leads to long embarrassing pauses while

At any level of attainment, the students need to be given regular and
frequent chances to use language freely, even they sometimes make mistakes.
This is not to say that mistakes are unimportant, but rather the free expression
is more important.
It is through opportunities to use language as they wish that they are
aware that they have learned something useful and are encouraged to go on
learning. Thus, in providing the students with opportunities for free
expression, teacher should play the role of a manager, guide or adviser.
1.2.2.Shape of a speaking lesson
Three main stages of a speaking lesson are: pre-speaking, whilespeaking and post- speaking. There is no exact time for each stage in a skills
lesson in general and a speaking lesson in particular; however, the teacher
should notice that most of the time must be for while stage, which gives
students enough time for practicing speaking skill.
- Pre-speaking stage (Presentation stage):
The stage prepares students for getting them to think about the topic or
situation before they speak about it. Pre-speaking tasks can be: discussion or
brainstorming, where students collect all their ideas on the topic; vocabulary
preparation,

where

the

teacher pre-teaches key vocabulary to aid

comprehension; prediction, where students guess what they may learn about. A
good pre-speaking is also necessary to involve integrating skills, maybe
listening and sometimes reading (for example, an information gap text). This
stage should be kept short, about 10 minutes equivalent the presentation stage


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favorite one in this follow-up stage. Writing is a very appropriate integrating
skill for this stage. If students conduct a questionnaire on their friends in the
while task, they may write up the results in a short paragraph, for example.
1.3. Communicative activities
1.3.1. Definition of communicative activities
Richards defines that CLT can be understood as a set of principles
about the goal of language teaching, how learners learn a language, the kind
of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the role of teachers
and learners in the classroom.
The term CLT, in fact, covers a variety of approaches that all focus on
helping learners to communicate meaningfully in a target language rather than
a single methodology. These approaches parade under the general label
“communicative”, all of which characterize language teaching as the
development of communicative skills (Nunan, 1991: 78). CLT sets its goal to
teach the learners the communicative competence and this approach does a lot
to expand on the goal of creating communicative competence compared to
earlier method that focused on the same objective. Teaching students how to
use the language can be seen as important as learning the language itself.
According to Brown “We are exploring pedagogical means for ‘real
life’ communication in the classroom” and “We are concerned with how to
facilitate lifelong language learning among our students, not just with the
immediate classroom task”( 1994: 77)
There are many interpretations of what CLT actually means and
involves. However there are still some misconceptions about CLT. “Many
teachers of English believe that CLT means not teaching grammar, or CLT
means teaching only speaking not writing, listening and reading” (Thompson,
1996). As a result, this approach may be applied inappropriately.

produce communication in the classroom. Activities that are truly

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communicative

also

have

three

features

in

common;

they

are

information gap, choice and feedback (Morrow, 1981).
- An information gap exists when one person in an exchange knows
something the other person does not. For instance, if two students both know
today is Tuesday and one asks the other “What is today?” and he/she answers
“Tuesday”, their exchange is not really communicative.
- Speakers’ choices in communication are very important. Speakers
should have a choice of what they will say and how they will say it. If the

students have a communicative purpose. Students are involved in repetition or

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substitution drills so that they can be motivated by the need to attain accuracy,
not by a desire to achieve a communicative objective. In these activities, the
emphasis will be on the form of the language, not the content. As a result, the
teacher will ensure accuracy, and the materials used will often designed to
concentrate on a particular item of language. We can represent the
distinguishing features between the two types of activities in the following
ways:
Communicative activities

Non – communicative activities

A communicative purpose

No communicative purpose

A desire to communicate

No desire to communicate

Content not form

Form not content

Variety of language



offered. This can mean more time is

•

Fun and interesting for learners

needed for planning and preparation of

•

Provides opportunity to use

activities.

authentic materials

• Communicative

activities can pose

challenges in assessment
• Learners

can be resistant- especially

if they are accustomed to teachercentered styles of teaching

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giving advice to a sick friend, perhaps he or she has already considered some
of the friend's suggestions.
How can I generate interest in the activity?
There is no doubt that activities go better when students are interested
in them. Depending on the activity, there are various ways you can generate
student interest. Providing personal examples may be helpful. Modeling the
activity in an enthusiastic way may help. Having students reflect on similar
experiences they are familiar with may also work.
Will the students require preparation time?
Most research these days suggests that students perform better if they
have been given preparation time. This is pretty logical when you think about
it. Without preparation time, students are required to do two things at once:
use their English language resources effectively and be creative. Preparation
time can often take care of some of the pressure that comes with having to be
creative while using the language spontaneously.
What type of groupings will be appropriate?
Would the activity work best with students in pairs or groups? Should
they be seated or stood? Should they be faced to each other?
What type of exchanges should the students is expected to
produce?
This may well be the most crucial element of the planning process.
Perhaps the best way to gain a sense of the language the students will need to
produce in order to complete the activity is to write out a sample dialogue.
Communicative activities often throw up language needs for which the class
work has not prepared the students. Writing out a sample dialogue can often
highlight these needs. It can also enable the teacher to get a sense of potential
demands/pitfalls in the activity. This kind of planning allows the teacher to



for successful communicative activities. It can be used:
- To show target language in action and elicit relevant language.
- To clarify/illustrate the requirements or the objective of the task.
- To add useful/necessary conversational gambits.
- To highlight the type of conversational framework needed.
- To identify potential problem areas.
- To gauge the students' readiness to begin the activity.
- To build student confidence.
•

Pair working: Monitor, interrupting only if students really get

stuck. Monitor in order to:
a) aid the flow of conversation when necessary,

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b) identify any common errors or areas of breakdown,
c) offer encouragement, and
d) recognize when best to change the pairings.
•

Deal with problems: While you do not want to interrupt students in

the middle of a conversation, error correction can still be done effectively.
Write typical problems that you have heard on the board. After conversations
have been completed, draw attention to these problems. Encourage the
students to offer suggestions for solving the problems.

•

Generate student interest.

•

Allow student preparation time if necessary.

•

Be aware of the likely conversational framework or format.

•

Be aware of any useful/relevant conversational gambits.

17


•

Model, model, model.

•

Determine appropriate student groupings.

•

Monitor.

the group members.

18


- Role plays
A widely spread and one of the best communicative activities is a role
play which trains students in the classroom to deal with unpredictable real-life
conversation in an English speaking environment. Ladousse (1987) points out
the special reasons for using the role play in the lessons. It puts students in
situations in which they are required to use and develop language necessary in
social relationships and also helps them to build up their social skills. Using
role plays is useful especially while teaching shy students who have difficulty
to participate in conversation about them. Through this activity they are put
into various roles and no longer feel that their own personality is implicated.
A role play is an essential communicative activity which develops fluency,
promotes interaction in the classroom and increases motivation.
- Class surveys
A class survey is an activity where all the learners in the group need to
ask each other questions to find information, which they then need to analyze
and report back to the class. Doing surveys can be a useful way of getting
students to interact, produce question forms, collect and analyze real
information. In the classroom, class surveys can have various aims and
functions: as warmers, as ice-breakers for new classes, as pre-reading
activities, to provide freer practice of target language, as tasks etc. The key
qualities of surveys are that they are communicative and dynamic.
- Games
Games and fun activities are a vital part of teaching English as a
foreign language. Whether teachers are teaching adults or children, games
will liven up their lesson and ensure that their students will leave the