Table of Contents
Contents

Pages

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The reasons for topic:
1.2. Research purpopes:
1.3. Research objects:
1.4. Research methods:
2. THE CONTENTS:
2.1. Theoretical Base:
2.2. Statement of the problem:
2.3. The solutions:
2.4. Effectives:
3. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION:
3.1. Conclusion:
3.2. Recommendation:
REFERENCES

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reality I have always tried to answer the question “How students can remember
words and sentence structures well to make learning English easier?” And
through many testing lessons I notice that the lesson introducing new language
(often introducing new language focused on new vocabulary, grammar and
language functions through teaching dialogues) is the first and decisive content
of a successful unit. For the above reasons, I boldly launched an initiative
experience "Some activities to help grade 7 students at Luong Noi secondary
school improve their speaking skill in extra lessons in the afternoon."
1.2. Research purpopes:
My purpose in writing this initiative experience was to find out what the
most common and effective methods in developing speaking skill and improve
the quality of teaching English at Luong Noi secondary school, help students
understand the importance of speaking skill in learning English through extra
lessons. Beside that I can cultivate myself the professional capacity in teaching,
improve the teaching methods appropriate for each positive post, each subject
students to improve the quality of teaching and learning English at Luong Noi
secondary school.
1.3. Research objects:
Initiative experience focused on taking some activities to help grade - 7
students at Luong Noi improve their speaking skill in extra lessons in the
afternoon.
1.4. Research methods:
2


- Theoretical Reseach: Reading, Reference, Teacher book, Lesson plan .
- Statement of the problem at Luong Noi junior high school.
- Teaching method.
2. THE CONTENTS:
2.1. Theoretical Base:

In the first semester of school year 2015-2016 before applying my
research, I gave a speaking topic to the students in class 7A and 7B “ Talk about
your bedroom.”, testing their speaking skill through lession 3: At home.

Here are the survey results quality speaking skill of students of grade 7 at
Luong Noi secondary school - school year 2015-2016:
3


Good
Moderate
Weak
Poor
No
%
No
%
No
%
No
%
17,
62,
17,
7A
29
0
0
5
18

do grammar exercises, reading, writing and listening. They ignore speaking skill
so day by day, month by month and year by year, students find it really hard to
speak English though they can understand what other people speak in English in
a simple way.
- Some teachers cannot create speaking activities for students to take part
in or they are not creative in designing activities.
- Some teachers don't make models so that students cannot imitate. Some
teachers don't have enough teaching aids like pictures, real objects..... for
students to express their ideas.
b. To students:
- Many students are not confident to present their ideas in English though
they can understand what other students and their teachers say.
- Many students are not motivated to speak English and are afraid of
making mistakes and being laughed at by their friends or being told off by their
teachers.
- Many students just want to learn new grammar structures because they
are new to them. They don't want to speak what they have learnt. By learning
many grammar structures, they can get good marks in final exam, which only
test students' knowledge of grammar mainly.
With experience of teaching English for more than 12 years, I still find it
rather hard to design speaking activities so that all students can get involved. So,
I have tried many methods and then I can learn what I have done with a class
and then I can improve in other classes.
Class

Total

Excellent
No
%

And you?
And your....
For weak class, I asked all class to build up the questions before they asked each
other. Questions as following:
What's your name?
How old are you?
Where do you live?
How far is it from your house to school?
How do you go to school?
How many people are there in your family?
What's your telephone number?
What do you do in your free time?
Unluckily, I found my students feel quite bored with this activity because
they did learn how to answer these questions in the morning so during their
working time, I walked around to take notes what their answers were.
First, I asked all students in class to work in pairs simultaneously and then
I required some pairs to present their dialogues in front of the whole class.
Here are some of the dialogues I noted down during that lesson.
* First, I heard two students called Huyen and Ly make their dialogue as
following:
Huyen: What's your name?
Ly: My name is Ly.
Huyen: How old are you?
5


Ly: I'm 11 years old.
Huyen: What do you do?
Ly: I'm a student.
Huyen: Where do you live?

Thu: I go to school by bike. How many people are there in your family?
Mai: There are four people in my family. And your family?
Thu: There are five people in my family. What's your telephone number?
Mai: 0373 871 345. And your telephone number?
Thu: 0373 871 254. What do you do in your free time?
Mai: I play soccer. And you?
Thu: I watch TV.
Happily, two students Thu and mai made a better dialogue than Huyen
and Ly's because they did use phrases like: How about you? And you? .....to ask
his friend but they still found this activity a bit uninteresting because they were
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neighbors and they knew clearly about each other. They knew each other so
clearly that they made a very funny mistake when asking questions:
Thu: What's your name, Mai?
Mai: My name is Mai. And your name, Thu?
From the dialogues students in class 7A made, I thought I had to find a
better way, a more interesting thing but students can still have to practice asking
and answering personal information without feeling bored. So when I taught
class 7B (a weaker class), I also asked the whole class to build up questions as I
did in class 7A. Then I asked students to act if they were new to each other. So
each student have three minutes to note down the name, job,
accommodation.......they liked. They may act if they were famous singers, actors
or actress............. Then I asked students in class 7B to change their seats so that
they could ask the person they wanted to know more. I also reminded students to
use phrases given to ask his/ her new friend to increase communicative target
and encouraged them to be creative in using questions.
And here are two dialogues I noted down:
(Dialogue made by Phan and Loan. Loan is A. Phan is B)

daily activity but how teachers make students get involved in this kind of
activity eagerly is a big problem to many teachers.
With the way I used for students in class 7B can be used in many lessons
with other topics relating to exploring personal information.
b. Pair- work about future plan using "will"
Aim:
- To help students express their future intention using "will" after learning
Unit 2.
- To help students exchange information about their plan as well as
revising the use of "will" and develop speaking skill.
Time to carry out:
20 minutes.
Preparation:
+ Teachers: Information/ flashcards about places of interest in their
province or country. Questions to ask about holiday in the future.
+ Students: Revise the use, form of "will" at home first.
Steps:
When I taught class 7B. First, I asked students to speak out some
questions to ask their friends about their plans for a holiday next summer. Here
are questions students in class 7B presented.
Where will you go next summer?
How will you go there?
Who will you go with?
Where will you stay there?
How long will you stay there?
What will you do there?
Will you buy any souvenirs and take any photos?
Then, I asked all students to work in pair simultaneously. I walked around
class to check and help but I found that most of students in class 7B said they
would go to SamSon as they hadn't been to anywhere else and they didn't know

Anh: We will visit Nha Rong Harbor, Dam Sen Water Park, Tien Spring
park and go to a music live show. And we'll try a lot of specialties in Ho Chi
Minh city.
Son: Will you buy any souvenirs and take any photos?
Anh: Of course, we will. I will have a gift for you and I will show you my
photos.
Son: Great. Have a good trip.
Anh. Thanks. How about you?
Son: This summer, I will go to Hanoi with my parents. We'll go there by
bus. We'll stay at my uncle's house for 4 days. I think we will visit you can visit:
Sword lake, One Pillar pagoda, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, Ba Dinh
Square,......And we'll try Hanoi Pho, Com cakes, ......We'll take some photos and
buy some gifts. I'll give you a nice gift.
Anh: Thanks. Enjoy your journey.
Once again, if teachers want their students to be interested in speaking
activities, they have to create new, interesting and suitable ones. Moreover, to be
successful in one activity, teachers must have good knowledge in that filed and
prepare what is essential to help students in case they get stuck in exploring
information.
* Application:
All teachers of English have known the importance of pair work in
learning English so they can use this type of activity whenever they want to help
their students to speak.
* Report.
Report is also an excellent way for students to improve their speaking
skill as well was their confidence because if one wants to report something, he
will have to stand up in front of class to do it.
In order to have a good report activity, teachers need to set tasks to
students before asking them to report something. Report activity is often used
after pair work. Teachers also need to provide cards so that students can take

27
24
singer
soccer player
Ho Chi Minh London
city
Family
two people
three people
Means of transport car/ bus
bus
In free time
play
video play basketball, go
games, play swimming.
table tennis
Once students have had their new information about them and about their
new friends, their report is much better.
Here is a report presented by a student named Sang in class 7B.
Hello everyone. Nice to meet you today. My name is Huy. I'm 27 years old and
I'm a singer. I live in Ho Chi Minh city with my mother. I work in a studio and I
often go to work by car. Sometimes, I go by bus. In my free time, I play video
games, play table tennis.
Messi is my new friend. He is 24 years old and he a soccer player. He lives in
London with his parents. He goes to work by bus. In his free time, he plays
basketball, goes swimming.
With this report, we can see, it is short but quite informative about a
person and I think it's good if a grade -7 students can report like this.
During, Sang and other's reports, I told other students (listeners) to listen
to their friends carefully and fill in column (My online friend) about a person

were small ones in the countryside.
Realizing that better descriptions should be made, Therefore, before I
taught students in class 7B, I asked a teacher of Fine Art who also teaches class
7B to help me. That is, in her Fine Art lesson, she asked each student to draw a
house they dream to have in the future. Luckily, pictures of houses they drew
were so amazing. I asked the teacher of Fine Art to lend me those pictures and
when I taught class 7B the topic "Describing a house", I delivered their pictures
to them and told them to present their description. With the help from own
pictures, students were eager to show off their pictures and fluently talked about
their houses in dream. After students have finished their talk, I asked students to
choose the most beautiful house and a present was given to the owner of that
house and a gift for the best description was given and a gift for the best
presenter. No one can guess how happy the students in class were!
* Retelling story .
Aim:
To help students develop their speaking skill and talk about past events
using past simple tense.
Time to carry out:
20 minutes
Preparation:
Pictures of past events, vocabulary of holiday, table of irregular verbs if
necessary.
Story completion a quite difficult activity for grade 7 but if the teachers
can prepare enough picture cues, they can do surprisingly well.
Basing on pictures about the Robinsons in Unit 9 - English 7, before I
taught class 7B, I asked students and I myself prepared some similar pictures so
that students could use to retell their story of a holiday they enjoyed.
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(famous people)
Time to carry out:
20 minutes
Preparation:
+ Teacher: Pictures / information about some famous people such as
scientists, inventors, singers....
+ Students: Pictures and information about their idol.
When I first used this activity in class 7A after students had learnt part BFamous People (Unit 16) three years ago, I let students interview their friends
who acted as famous people but I found that the questions students used were
not sensible and they made some funny mistake like: Where were you born?
Who born you?/ When did you die? or some questions relating too detailed
personal information such as: How many children do you have?/ How much
money do you have? Then I asked some pairs to interview their idol in front of
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class, they did not know how to introduce them and start or end their
conversation naturally.
When I taught class 7B, before students carried out their interview, I
asked the whole class to brainstorm some good questions to interview some
famous people. Then I wrote down the questions on the board for students to put
them in good order for an interview.
Some questions about Thomas Edison as following:
When and where were you born?
What school did you go to?
Where did you establish the first central power station?
How many things did you invent?
What is your most important invention?
Are you going to invent something else?
I also asked students to prepare questions to interview General Giap,

their friends do something by using adverbs of manner they had learnt before. I
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asked my students to retell some common adverbs of manner such as carefully,
carelessly, well, badly, skillfully, slowly, quickly, ......
Here are some of the dialogues made by my students.
Nam: How do you cook?
Ha: I cook slowly. And you?
Nam: I cook badly. How do you play soccer?
Ha: I play soccer carefully. And you?
Nam: I play soccer badly.
Obviously, Nam and Ha made some mistakes in using adverbs of manner.
From the mistakes students in class 7A made, when I taught class 7B, I tried a
new way and found it much better.
First, I asked students in class 7 B to do a matching exercise as following:
A
B
cook
skillfully
play soccer,.................
well/ badly
swim
carefully/ carelessly
ride a bike
safely
run
fluently
speak English
fast / quickly

fluently
Once students have their table completed, I asked them to use the
following model to report.

14


Hoang is my friend. Hoang cooks well but I cook badly. Both Hoang and I
play soccer skillfully. Neither Hoang nor I swim quickly. Both Hoang and I
speak English fluently.
Basing on the model, many of my students asked and answer questions
using adverbs of manner more fluently. Then they could make good report using
some advanced grammar points such as: Both......and........, neither .........nor........
After a school year of applying “Some activities to help grade 7
students at Luong Noi secondary school improve their speaking skill in
extra lessons in the afternoon.”, in the first semester of school year 2016-2017
with the same topic, I have found that students have progress in improving their
speaking skill in extra lessons in the afternoon. This can be achieved through
their performance in the class as well as in the test.
Here are the results quality speaking skill of students of grade 7 at Luong Noi
secondary school - school year 2016-2017:
Excellent
Good
Moderate
Weak
Poor
Class Total
No
%
No

Compared with the results of the first semester of school year 2015-2016,
we can see the percentage of students scoring excellent, good, average rate
increases still weak and least, fell less sharply.
When I applied this innovative experience in teaching speaking skill for
my grade 7 students, I saw them working more attentively and effectively. That
is why they have been more interested in this skill. This makes me pleased so
much to have more ideas to do my teaching better and better.
3. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION:
3.1. Conclusion:
With some experience and innovation I have used over the years, I find
that if teachers want to help their students develop their speaking skill, they need
to prepare the lessons carefully and be creative in using speaking activities for
students. Teachers should:
- Provide maximum opportunity to students to speak the target language
by providing a rich environment that contains collaborative work, authentic
materials and tasks, and shared knowledge.
- Try to involve each student in every speaking activity; for this aim,
practice different ways of student participation.
- Reduce teacher speaking time in class while increasing student speaking
time. Step back and observe students.
- Do not correct students' pronunciation mistakes very often while they
are speaking. Correction should not distract student from his or her speech.
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- Provide the vocabulary beforehand that students need in speaking
activities. I think that all teachers can use the ways I use for my students as long
as they simplify speaking tasks so that they are suitable for their students' levels.
I am looking forward to receiving sincere comments from all collogues and
anyone who is interested in reading my writing.