PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
I. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
There are many reasons why learning a new language is a good idea. It
allows people to communicate with the others. It helps people to see things from
a different perspective, or get a deeper understanding of another culture. It helps
citizens to become a better listener. It even has health benefits, as studies have
shown that people who speak two or more languages have more active minds
later in life 400 million people around the world speak English as their first
language. Not only that, but English is listed as one of the official languages in
more than a quarter of the countries in the world. That’s a lot of new people you
can communicate with just by improving one language!
What’s more, English is the rest of the world’s “second language”. While
Chinese Mandarin and Spanish are the mother tongues of more people overall,
most people in the world choose to learn some English after their native
language. In fact, one in five people on the planet speak or understand at least a
little bit of English.
Communication skills are essential for a successful career, satisfying
relationships and a personal sense of accomplishment. Communication is seen
every day through TV commercials, interaction with the person opening a door
for people and listening to the CEO of their company speak. Effective
communication empowers people, provides clear direction and increases
productivity. Without it, people lose motivation and the inability to make a
decision, and they become angry because their messages are not understood
In fact, many Vietnamese students who have good professional
knowledge, but can’t use English well don’t get good jobs. So, English is the
first and the most important standard for workers who want to work not only at
foreign companies but also at national ones.
Since English is a foreign language in our country, most students
especially high school students are not familiar with it (Hetrakul, 1995). Kavin
Hetrakul also said that they use English more frequent only inside the class and
less frequent outside the class. Whereas, students have limited time to learn

V. METHODS OF THE STUDY
In this study, I use some research tools to collect and analyze the needed
data
Recording is used to record the process of giving some games
The second tool used in this study is interviews with students at the end of
the research to study whether games is really suitable for them or not.
Surveying through the answer sheets is used to know the practical
situation of teaching and learning English speaking skill.

2


PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
I.The difficulties of the students’ learning English speaking skill
Kavin Hetrakul also said that they use English more frequently only
inside the class and less frequently outside the class. Whereas, students have
limited time to learn English in class, and they still do not have enough
encouragement to practice English outside the class in order to get familiar with
English. This case brings a problem that makes high school students have
difficulties to communicate in English.
One of the causes that make the students difficult in speaking English is
that the environment does not support the students to speak English frequently.
The environment here means the people outside the class. Those people may
think that the students just want to show off when they speak English for daily
conversation. The response that the students get makes them loose their selfconfidence to improve their speaking. Since the students do not want to be
rejected by the people around them, so they use their native language in daily
conversation. That makes the students unable to communicate in English
fluently outside the class.
The second cause is problem with grammar. English always deals with

welcome break from the usual routine of the language class. They are motivating
and challenging. Learning a language requires a great deal of effort. Games help
students to make and sustain the effort of learning. Games provide language
practice in the various skills- speaking, writing, listening and reading.
They encourage students to interact and communicate. They create a
meaningful context for language use. Students learn through experimenting,
discovering and interacting with their environment. Students need variation to
increase their motivation. By using games students already have a context in
which the use of the target language is immediately useful.
Lastly, but not least, games of any kind are usually fun. Students who are having
fun are always motivated, so they will find speaking made more interesting and
more enjoyable, and will begin to improve as a result.
CHAPTER 2: PRACTICAL SITUATIONS
I. METHODS OF THE STUDY
The research is done qualitatively in the context of English class B2. In
this survey, I use the survey questionnaire for students. This survey is designed
to collect information for the study on “An investigation into the Reality of
teaching and learning English speaking skill at Nhu Thanh High School.
II. THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH
SPEAKING SKILLS AT NHU THANH HIGH SCHOOL
The whole procedure of teaching and learning is implemented similarly to
all students of the class after all of them give consent to be part of the research.
However, due to the limit of the study, I only focus to collect information from
the learning engagement of class B2 during this process as the data for analysis.
Below is the survey of the practical situation of learning English speaking skill
Survey no.1
Practical Situation of learning English speaking Skill at Nhu Thanh High
School.
Questions
for

difficult
9%

Difficult
32%

Really
difficult
53%

Very
essential
12%

Essential
16%

Not really
essential
47%

Not
essential at
all
25%

Really
interesting
3%


and boring
51%

Difficult
but
interesting
8%

C. Interesting
and
stimulating
9%

Always
2%

Sometime
s
4%

Rarely
22%

Easy and
boring
32%

Never
72%


5


The ability to communicate effectively is important in relationships,
education and work. Here are some games to help students develop good
speaking skills.
II. PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS
Learning English should be fun. We learn faster and more effectively
when we are engaged in learning and using games is a great way to make
learning more interesting.
1. Who's Telling the Truth?
Have each student write three facts about themselves that nobody in the
class knows on a piece of paper. Make sure each student includes his/her name
on the top of the paper. Collect the sheets of paper and bring three students to
the front of the room. Read aloud one of the facts that is true for one of the
students in the front of the room. The class then proceeds to question the
students in an attempt to determine who is telling the truth, and who is
lying. Each student is allowed to ask one question to one of the three
students. After a round of questioning, the students predict who is telling the
truth.
2. Taboo Variations
2.1. Create a PowerPoint presentation with each slide containing a
noun. Have one student come to the front of the room and sit with his/her back
to the PowerPoint. The students in the class should take turns describing the
words for the student in the front of the room to guess.
2.2. Separate the students into groups of 4/5. Place a pile of cards with
random nouns in the center of the group. Have students take turns describing the
nouns for their group members to guess. The group member who guesses
correctly keeps the card in an attempt to have the most cards at the end of the
game.

topics. Have each student choose a number, and respond to the statement
without preparation. The student must continue speaking for 45 seconds when
the teacher calls out "stop." As the student is speaking, the other team listens for
any hesitation, grammatical mistakes or vocabulary mistakes. If the other team
can correctly identify an error, they get a point.
8. Desert Island Activity
Give each student a piece of paper and tell him or her to draw an
item. Any item. Tell the students that they have been stranded on a desert island,
and only half of the class can survive and continue to inhabit the desert
island. The student's goal is to convince the class that they should survive. The
hard part is that the only thing they have is an item that was drawn a few
minutes earlier by a classmate on the piece of paper.
9. Storytelling Activity
Bring four students to the front of the classroom. Three students should sit
down in a row, and one of the students should stand behind them acting as a
controller. The controller should have a stack of cards in his hand containing
nouns. The controller will hand a noun to one of the three students who will start
to tell a story. The student will continue telling the story until the controller
decides to hand another noun to another student who will then take over the
story.
10. Two Truths, One Lie
Each student should write three facts about themselves on a piece of
paper. Two of the facts should be the truth, and one should be a lie. Students
read aloud the facts, and give the other students a chance to question them and
decide which statement is a lie.
11. True/False Storytelling
Give each student a piece of paper with either the word “true” or
“false.” Each student should tell the class a story, and the class must guess
7


will happen.), the person gives a hint by showing the gesture. That is often
enough to help the speaker remember the name as well as the thing he likes. If
not, the person can give the information, either by speaking aloud or by
mouthing the information silently (like lip-reading).
III. SOME PRACTICAL EXAMPLES AFTER GIVING GIUDES IN THE
EXPERIMENTAL CURRICULUM AT NHU THANH HIGH SCHOOL.
Example 1:
ENGLISH 11
Unit 1- FRIENDSHIP- B-SPEAKING
Using “Two Truths, One Lie”
Each student should write three facts about their friend on a piece of paper:
- He is friendly and humorous
- He is interested in Mathematics
- He often go swimming in his free time.

8


Two of the facts should be the truth, and one should be a lie. Students read
aloud the facts, and give the other students a chance to question them and decide
which statement is a lie.
Example 2:

ENGLISH 11
Unit 6- COMPETITIOS- SPEAKING

Using “Debates”
Give each student a piece of paper with “agree” written on one side, and
“disagree” on the other side. Read aloud a controversial statement
- English competition gives students opportunities to practice speaking

Class

B2

Excellent Good Fair
(%)
(%) (%)
2,1

11,9

Poor
(%)

35,2 50,8

After giving guides
(Speaking tests)
Excellent Good Fair
Poor
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
10,3

28,7

34,8


Thanh Hoa, the second of May, 2018
I ensure that this study has been written by
me.
The writer

12


Nguyen Huu Hoang

REFERENCES
Ersoz, A. (2000) Six Games for the EFL/ESL Classroom in The Internet
TESL Journal, Vol. VI, No.6.
Hong, L. (2002) Using Games in Teaching English to Young Learners in
The Internet TESL Journal, Vol VIII, No.8.
Gaudart, H. (1999) Games as Teaching Tools for Teaching English to
Speakers of Other Languages in Simulation Gaming, 30:283
Huyen, N.T.T. & Nga, K.T.T. (2003) Learning Vocabulary through games
in Asian EFL Journal.
I-Jung. C, (2005) Using Games to Promote Communicative Skills in
Language Learning in The Internet Kim, L.S. (1995) Creative Games for the
Language Class in English teaching Forum 33:1.
Kopecky, A. (2009) Using Games to Motivate your Adult ESL Students.
Kumar, R. & Lightner, R. (2007) Games as an Interactive Classroom Technique
in International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Volume
19, Number 1, 53-63.
Mei, Y.Y. (2000) Using Games in an EFL Class for Children in Daejin
University ELT Research Paper.

13