THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT

THACH THANH I SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

EXPERIENTIAL INITIATIVE

IMPROVING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’
SPEAKING SKILL WHILE TEACHING OTHER SKILLS

Author: Đỗ Thị Lệ
Occupation: Teacher
Experiential initiative on: English

THANH HOA YEAR 2017


CATEGORY
I. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The reason why the topic is chosen
1.2. The aims of researching
1.3. Research subjects
1.4. Methods of researching
II. CONTENTS
2.1. Theoretical basis of the experiential initiative
2.2. Current situation before applying the experiential initiative
2.3. Methods
2.4. The effectiveness of the initiative
III. CONCLUSION, OFFERS
3.1. Conclusion
3.2.Offers


of learning speaking English should develop students'communication skill so that
students can express themselves and use the target language to state opinions,
express their feelings and exchange information. Many new teaching methods have
been introduced and applied to serve the basic need of English learners. Among
them,communicative approach and learner-centered approach seem to be the most
effective ways to teach oral communication. And we should apply these methods in
teaching the four skills and focus on designing speaking activities in appropriate
stages of English lessons while teaching other skills so that students always have a
lot of chances to practise speaking while learning English.
In Viet Nam, there has been also a reform in teaching English in secondary
schools as well as High schools. The new series of textbooks presently used in
secondary schools and high schools were designed in view of communicative
language teaching method. The topics of the lessons given in the textbooks are
really interesting and based on real- life situations that require communication.
In spite of many efforts of teachers and others, the results we get from our
students are unsatisfactory. Students still complain that they find speaking lessons
really stressful and thus speaking is a difficult skill to master. Many students, after
studying English for years have left school without being able to speak an
intelligible sentence. Therefore, in this writing I would like to tell you how to
improve the students’speaking skills while teaching English so that we can help
students to improve their speaking skills.
1.2. Aims of researching
- Improving the efficiency of teaching and learning speaking skill.
- Creating excitement for students to learning speaking skill
- Increasing the frequency of using English of students

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1.3. Research subjects

Before applying this experential initiative, the regrettable reality in my
school is students are extremely bad at speaking. They don’t like the speaking
lessons. In these lessons, only a few good students take part in the teacher’
activities. The learner are very passive, they only listen to the teacher and take
notes. The teachers have not found the optinal methods to help them. So the
efficiency of teaching speaking skill is not as expected. Over many years of
teaching this skill, I have thought a lot how to improve this skill for the learners,
which motivate me write out this research.
2.3. Methods
2.3.1. Improving students’ speaking skill while teaching speaking itself.
There are many rules we must remember while teaching speaking so that we can
help students improve their speaking skill:
Firstly, we must make sure that students feel safe and confident while they
express themselves
Personally I think that the first thing that teachers have to do to help students
improve their speaking skill is that they have to help them overcome their feelings
of shyness and nervousness when practising English in their class. One of the best
ways to solve this problem is to put them in 'safe' situations in class where they are
inspired and encouraged to try using the language from their 'store'. Organizing
communicative activities in pairs, in groups is also an effective way to serve this
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aim. Working in pairs, in groups, students will feel less anxious than when they are
'on show' in front of the whole class together. Moreover, pair-works and groupworks can help shy students who would never say anything in a whole class
activity have the confidence to open their mouths. Students can also learn from
each other's new ideas so that they will have something to speak in front of the
class later. Another thing that teacher should remember to help students have
confidence in speaking is teacher's positive corrections and feedbacks . Making
errors is a natural and unavoidable part of the learning process, but how to correct


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When I teach speaking in unit 12-English 10, I may present a picture of a famous
singer or musician and asks them the following questions
1. Who is she?
2. Do you like her?
3. If not, who is your favourite singer?
4. What kind of music does she sing?
5. Teacher leads in new lesson
Example 2: Speaking/Unit 15/English 12
Teacher may raise some questions and ask students to discuss in pairs:
1. Do you think that women are as intelligent as men?
2. Do they have equal rights in the family and in the society?
Students ask and answer in pairs, then some students present their answer, teacher
leads in new lesson
Example 3 : Speaking-unit 6-English 12
T asks students to play a guessing game:" Find someone who.........."
Teacher divides the class into 2 groups
Teacher gives some information about some popular and interesting jobs in the
society and asks student to guess what job it is. Each time they can guess they got
one point
Thirdly, students must be well-prepared and instructed before they practice
speaking.
Another point that makes it difficult for students to practise speaking is that
their knowledge of the language is poor and they don't have ideas to talk about the
topic (their language competences, vocabulary and grammar are limited)so in order
to help students practice,teachers have to provide them with necessary language
input and give students clear instructions

Responding to compliments
You really have a beautiful blouse, Thank you, Phil. That's a nice compliment.
Babara
What a beautiful blouse it is !
You've got to be kidding! I thought it was
terrible
How beautiful you are!
Thanks, Peter. It's nice of you to say so
Congratulation. You've played so Thank you. Your compliment is really
well today
encouraging
Your hairstyle is terrific
Thank you for saying that
Forthly, Varying communicative activities is also important
As I have just presented above, effective methods of teaching indirectly
encourage oral interaction and they can provide motivation. The direct way to
promote oral communication is to provide students with opportunities to participate
and to communicate with each other so that students can learn the language from
speaking. The more opportunities of speaking the language they have, the more
fluent they become. Actually, various activities in each lesson adds interest to
students and can help with making students more dynamic and active. In speaking,
students will be motivated if teachers provide them with various communicative
activities. Below are some common speaking activities that I often carry out in my
classes to make my speaking lessons more interesting and to motivate my students
in practising English:
a. Discussions : In an discussion students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share
ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups. Before the
discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by the
teacher. In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose. In an
discussion teacher can form groups of 4 or 5 students. then each group works on

f. Interviews: Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various
people. It is a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they
know what type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students
should prepare their own interview questions.
g. Reporting Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or
magazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most
interesting news. Students can also talk about whether they have experienced
anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class.
h. Group planning tasks: An example of this is planning a party or an excursion
for the whole group. In this activity, teachers should allow them a good amount of
time to prepare for a presentation in which they attempt to persuade the rest of the
class to agree with their arrangements.
i. Picture Narrating: This activity is based on several sequential pictures. Students
are asked to tell the story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying

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attention to the criteria provided by the teacher as a rubric. Rubrics can
include the vocabulary or structures they need to use while narrating.
j. Picture Describing : One way to make use of pictures in a speaking activity is to
give students just one picture and having them describe what it is in the
picture. For this activity students can form groups and each group is given a
different picture. Students discuss the picture with their groups, then a
spokesperson for each group describes the picture to the whole class. This
activity fosters the creativity and imagination of the learners as well as their
public speaking skills.
Last but not least, we should also pay attention to these points:
The communicative activities listed above can help teachers a lot in
promoting their students' speaking skills because they are quite interesting and they

 Set up the activity : I would like you to work in groups of 3 or 4 students ,
deciding the best seat for each person mentioned in task 1.You have 7 minutes to
complete the task
 Run the activity : Teacher lets students to carry out the discussion in groups,
move around and monitor the class
 Close the activity : Teacher asks some groups to perform in front of the class
and gives feedbacks
 Post-activity : Teacher asks students to present their choice ( which seat is
the most suitable for them )
Good atmosphere in the class and friendly relationship between teachers and
students.
Presenting our opinions and feelings in front of a lot of people in our native
language has been a challenge to many people and using another language to
convey what we want to say is of course more challenging. Therefore if the teacher
does not encourage his students and make them feel good about their teacher and
their lessons, the class will become tense and dull . Interaction can't take place in
the class effectively. As a teacher in a language class, we should always create a
good class atmosphere from the beginning because our students, especially young
students, will have no communication if they don’t feel good about their teachers
and their English class.
Teacher's and students' involvement :
The main aim of organizing a communicative activity is to get students to
speak, then one way to achieve that would be for you to reduce your own
contributions. Probably the less you speak, the more space it will allow the students
.It could be useful to aim to say nothing while the activity is underway, and save
any contribution for before and after.
2.3.2. Improving students’ activities while teaching other skills.
Teaching reading, listening and writing.
As I have mentioned above, speaking is the most important skill to any
learners of English or any other languages. Therefore, we must help students to

what they have read or listen. Students take turns to talk in groups and then they
may present the ideas in pairs. Telling someone about what we have read is a very
natural reaction to a text.
Some illustrations of using communicative tasks while teaching reading,
listening or writing :
a. Pre-reading activity : while teaching reading Unit 1- English 11: Friendship:
Teachers give some ‘English proverbs’ about friendship and asks students to
work in groups to explain the meaning of each statement orally. After the students
have practiced, the teacher will asks them to exlain orally in front of the class. Then
the teacher will asks them the next question: What are the quality of a good
friendship?
• A friend in need is a friend indeed.
• Hold a true friend with both your hands
• Be a person that your friend can trust.
• A friend indeed is a person who always walks in while the rest of the world
walk out.
b. Pre-listening stages: Unit 2- English 11. (Listening)
Teacher asks students to work in groups. Each group will makes three
sentences to describe the picture. The teacher feedbacks and introduce new lesson.
c. Pre-reading, Unit 8- English 11. Teacher asks students to describe the picture
orally and then tell the whole class which occasion it is?
d. Post-reading, Unit 8- English 11. Teachers asks students to talk about their
last Tet holiday.
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e. Pre-writing – Unit 8. T aks students to talk about different festivals before
writng….ect
While teaching language focus.
Teaching grammar sometimes makes students feel passive and bored.

in the South. She worked as a street vendor then. The teacher asks students to
practice in groups, taking turns to talk about themselves 10 years ago .
b. Practice stage: Simple present tense
T asks students to tell the whole class about their daily activities or tell
fairy tales using simple presents to make the story more vivid. It’s always
very interesting to talk about themselves. And the students will be bare in
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their my that simple present is used to express a habit, a routine and in storytelling.
c. Target structure: Relative clauses
Practice stages ; Teachers devides the class into two group and asks
them to play a guessing games : Find someone who………….Each group
will gives a statement and the other group must guess who he or she is.
Ex: - He’s a person who works on spaceship.
- She is a person who works in a hospital.
- He’s a person who is caught because of shop-lifting or selling drugs..
d. Target structure: if clauses
Teachers give some cues and asks students to work in pairs asking and
answering questions using the cues given:
Cues : See a pickpocket /get lost in a jungle/ have a lot of money/ Go to
Africa/President of a country.
Ex: A : What would you do if you are the President of our country.
B : I would issue many policy which is good for the poor.
A : What about you ?
B : I would try to make our country richer and richer.
Above are some examples in which we can use communicative tasks to help
students practice English while learning Grammar. Giving them as many chances to
practice speaking English as possible is the best way to help them improve their
speaking skill.

Number of students
395

Mark 5 and over
total
rate
238
60.3%

Under mark 5
total
rate
157
39.7%
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My collagues have already recognized the efficency of my research after they
apply it to their teaching speaking skill in their classes.
We also organized the speaking English club and students join it eagerly. More
and more students show their pasion for English especially oral English

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III. CONCLUSION AND OFFERS
3.1. Conclusion
Speaking is an important part of second language learning to any learners.
The ability to communicate in a second language clearly and efficiently contributes
to the success of the learner in school and success later in life. Therefore, it is