TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART 1: REASONS FOR TOPIC CHOICE
PART 2: CONTENT
I. THEORETICAL BASIS
1. Students’ psychological characteristics in learning English
2. Importance in stimulating participation of students in
English lesson.
3. Speaking skill
II. THE REAL STATE OF AFFAIRS
1. Researching method.
2. Researching questions.
3. Results of the convey.
III. SOLUTIONS
1. Warm- up
1.1 Mapped dialogue
1.2 Sorting, arranging game
1.3 Cross- words
2. Pre- speaking stage
2.1 Brainstorm
2.2 Matching
2.3 Net works
2.4 Role play
2.5 Labeling games
3. While- speaking stage
3.1 Noughts and crosses
3.2 Chain story
3.3 Interviewing
3.4 Challenging games
4. Post- speaking stage
4.1 Rearrange

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1


INITIATIVE: “USING LANGUAGE GAMES TO IMPROVE

SPEAKING SKILLS FOR GRADE 10 STUDENTS AT NONG
CONG 3 UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL”
PART 1: REASONS FOR TOPIC CHOICE
In the world of the integration and development with the multilateral
relations and information explosion, English remains an important role in
comprehensive development for each student. However, in fact, I realize my
students find it very difficult to express their ideas in English and they even do
not know how to keep the conversation going on. They are usually stressed and
passive when being asked to participate in speaking activities. More importantly,
2

through encouragement, which depends on each teacher’s methods. If they are
effectively motivated, they will perform better and more enthusiastically.
Besides, they learn through their listening and repeating, through cooperation
and reciprocation in reliable atmosphere; and through interesting activities from
which they gain their aims.

3


One of the things that makes teaching a source of endless fascination is the
fact that no two classes are ever the same. There always exists the complex
interpersonal chemistry between teacher and students and between student and
student. In any given classroom, the factors such as position attitudes and
individuals’ personalities will be in constant interaction creating a dynamic,
unstable environment that can either facilitate the learning process or seriously
impair it. The role of expectations of both teachers and learners will be
conditioned by individual personality factors such as introversion, cognitive
style, prior learning and teaching experiences, and cultural factors.
Real-life observation also tells us that even if language learners can be
shown to be following a common developmental route, they differ greatly in
degree of ultimate success which they achieve. As a teacher, one should be
aware that learners differ in ways that careful thought when making decisions
about what to be taught and how to teach. Social psychologists have argued
consistently that differences in learning outcomes must be due to individual
differences between learners, and many proposals have been made concerning
the characteristics which supposedly cause these differences.
The degree to which any of the factors discussed will become significant
in a particular learning and teaching situation will depend partly on the reasons
why learners are learning English. Any individual may be influenced by a
variety of motivations which will affect such things as anxiety, attitudes or

involved in speaking. The speaker has to:
1. Pronounce the distinctive sounds of a language clearly enough so that
people can distinguish them. This includes making tonal distinctions.
2. Use stress and rhythmic patterns, and intonation patterns of the
language clearly enough so that people can understand what is said.
3. Use the correct forms of words. This may mean, for example, changes
in the tense, case, or gender.
4. Put words together in correct word order.
5. Use vocabulary appropriately.
6. Use the register or language variety that is appropriate to the situation
and the relatonship to the conversation partner.
7. Make clear to the listener the man sentence constituents, such as
subject, verb, object, by whatever means the language uses.
8. Make the main ideas stand out from supporting ieas or information.
9. Make the discourse hang together so that people can follow what you
are saying
(Extracted from the LiguaLinks Library, Version 3.5 published on
CDROM by SIL International, 1999)
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II. THE REAL STATE OF AFFAIRS
1. Researching method.
In order to realize the above aims of the study, qualitative and quantitative
methods are mainly used. The data collected for the study come from three
sources: The questionnaires bring me the overview of both English speaking
teaching and learning by teachers of English and students at Nong Cong 3 High
School; the classroom observation, we can see what the participants do in
comparison with theoretical base of the study and an interview of teachers are
going to be used to collect information and evidence for the study.

Poor

0%

5%

25%

70%

6


10B5

0%

8%

27%

65%

Games are often used in language teaching. However, this thesis only focus
on the games to develop speaking skills. Especially to improve speaking skills
of the grade 10 students at Nong Cong 3 upper secondary School, the researcher
intends to investigate the current situation of teaching and learning speaking
skill, then apply some language games in teaching speaking skills in grade 10 at
Nong Cong 3 upper secondary School, finally to make some suggestion for
improving speaking skills for students through using language games activities.



A.
B.
A.
B.
A.
B.
A.

Hello, Hong
Hi, Lan, How are you?
I’m fine. Thanks. And you?
I’m fine. Let’s go somewhere for drink
Sorry. I’m busy. I must go out with my mother now.
Oh yes. Bye
Bye. See you later.

1.2 Sorting, arranging game
Unit 13: Films and cinema
Type of game: Sorting, arranging game
Classroom management: Pair
works
Teaching aids: film posters and handouts Time: 5-7 minutes
Procedure:
The teacher asks students to work in pairs. Teacher sticks the following
posters on the blackboard or alternatively print these posters and distribute them
to students
Teacher then gives the handout to the pairs and asks students to match the
film with the correct types

E

N
S

Clues:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

A
G
T

R
L
A

A
A
D

D
N
I

W
O

N

U

A
M
O

P

T

A

I

N

R

T

U

G

A

R


The activity’s Lan was take place in a day from morning to night.
1. At 6 o’clock. Lan gets up after her mother called.
2. At 6.30 a.m. Lan has a breakfast with her mother.
3. Then she goes to school by bus at 7 o’clock
4. She plays football with her friends.
5. She gets home at 11 o’ clock.
...................................This is a typical day of Lan
Then asked students write the activities, the teacher asks each person stand
up to read about their activities.
2.2 Matching
Unit 2: School talk
Type of games: Matching
Classroom management: Group work
Teaching aid: 1 big sheet of paper and 10 pieces of expressions
Time: 5 minutes
Preparation: prepare a big sheet of paper with 10 movable pieces of
expression which are put in random, use magnets to hang on board
Starting a conversation
Closing a conversation
Good morning.\ Hi
Great. I’ll see you tomorrow
Sorry. I’ve got to go. Talk to you later. Hello. How are you?
Well, it’s been nice meeting you
Hello. What are you doing?
10


How’s everything at school?
Catch you later?
Goodbye. See you later?

People’s
background

Primary school

Method of study
School work

Educatio
n
Secondary school
11


The students can talk about the topic such as:
Family: In my family, there are four people. They are father, mother,
brother and me.
My father is a doctor and my mother is a teacher.
………….
2.4 Role – play
Unit 14: World Cup (speaking task 1)
Type of games: Role- play
Classroom management: Group
work
Teaching aid: handout
Time: 7- 10 minutes
Procedure:
The teacher asks students to name four national football teams in the
photos on page in the textbook. They are: The English national football team
(photo1), the French national football team (photo 2), the Italian national



5. Who was the head coach of the
English team in World Cup 2006?
Questions for the Italian team’s fans
1. How many World Cup tournaments
has Italy participated in up to 2006?
2. How many times has Italy won the
trophy up to 2006?
3. Who was the captain of the Italian
team in World Cup 2006?
4. Who was the top scorer in Italian
team in World Cup 2006?
5. Who was the head coach of the
Italian team in World Cup 2006?

German team in World Cup 2006?
Questions for the French team’s fans
1. How many World Cup tournaments
has France participated in up to 2006?
2. How many times has France won the
trophy up to 2006?
3. Who was the captain of the French
team in World Cup 2006?
4. Who was the top scorer in French
team in World Cup 2006?
5. Who was the head coach of the
French team in World Cup 2006?

2.5 Labeling games

Type of games: Noughts and crosses Classroom management: Work group
Teaching aid: handout
Time: 15 minutes
Procedure:
Teachers explain to students that this game is the same game “caro” but
only need 3 “O” or “X” on a horizontal, vertical, diagonal is the winner
Teacher guys 9 cells on the board, each cell contains 9 vocabularies, one
the number of one the picture ….
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For example:
Leopard

Boa

Elephant

Tiger

Adder

Bear

Lion

Fox

Camel


Nga
- Answer
- Answer and express regrets
- Answer and express regrets
- Answer and express regrets
- Tell what they did and express regrets

Procedure:
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- Ask to work in pairs first and give each pair 2 handouts: one for Nga and
the other for Nga’s friend
- Each pair has to make a conversation based on the information on the
handouts
- After 6 to 8 minutes, call on students to make a story about Nga’s
excursion. Each student talks only one sentence. The other takes turn and
continues the story to the end of the excursion story. If time is spare, make
another story about Nga’s excursion.
3.3 Interviewing
Unit 12: Task 2 (While-speaking)
Type of games: Interviewing
Classroom management: Group
work
Teaching aid: Pieces of paper
Time: 12 minutes
Preparation: Prepare some pieces of interview paper for all students:
Partner 1
Partner 2
Kind of film

times, it will lose the challenge and points will belong to the other team.
For example:
Some words are relation with Ho citadel such as: Vinh Loc district, 1400- 1407,
2011 ect…
After asks students give words then asks writes report to the class what have
learnt about that place.
Then asks students read a low their report.
4. Post- speaking stage
It is the last step of a speaking lesson so it is time for students’ production.
The activities in this stage are for students to reflect upon their performance.
Post-speaking stage should last ten to twelve minutes
4.1 Rearrange
Unit 2: School talk (task 4)
Type of games: Rearrange
Classroom management: Group work
Time: 10 minutes
Procedure:
The teacher asks students to work in groups. Ask students rearrange these
sentences to make two meaningful conversations according to the topics “the
weather and last night’s TV program”
The teacher then can ask students to practice about two topics.
1. Oh, really? I love it, too
3. The weather
5. Hi, Minh how was your trip to Vung Tau
7. What was the weather like in Vung Tau?
9. It was warm. I prefer the weather in Vung Tau to Nha Trang
11. Hi, Nam. I feel tired because I stayed up late to watch TV last night
13. No, I didn’t. I did my homework until 11 p.m. I feel hungry now. What
about going to the cinema?
15. What did you like most in Vung Tau?


It is used to ……………
WASCHING MACHINE

It is used to……………….
CELL PHONE

It is used to……………..
RADIO

It is used to……………
FRIDGE

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It is used to……………..

It is used to ………………

4.3 Story telling
Unit 11: National Parks
Type of games: Story telling
Classroom management: Group work
Time: 10 minutes
Procedure:
The teacher divides the class into groups of eight students (two rows of
tables). The teacher asks students to work in groups to tell about their imaginary
excursion. The teacher can begin the story with one clause of the third
conditional sentence. Then the students in each group one by one add more


Prefer New York

Prefer Lon Don

Why

Procedure:
- Get students to move around and interview many other students as
possible about which city they prefer and why in a limited time
- Remind them to take notes while interviewing
- The students who have more names in the survey will be the winners
- Call some to report their finding.
4.5 Guessing games
Unit 15: Cities
Type of games: Guessing games
Teaching aid: card
Classroom management: Whole class
Time: 10 minutes
Procedure:
The teacher prepares a set of cards on which some famous cities in the
world are written. Students will take turn to choose one card from this set and
try to use their knowledge to describe this city so that the other students can
guess which the city is. To make it more challenging, the students are not
allowed to use proper name. And the game can be played until time is up.
For example: The student takes up a card on which “Amsterdam” is
written. He can use the typical features to talk about it: It is the city which is
famous for tulips and windmills. So the other students may find it easy to guess
correctly
Set of cards



IV. THE RESULTS OF THE RESEACH
I directly experimented the above method in using games to improve
speaking skills for grade 10 students at Nong Cong III high school in
different classes with the flexibility of communicative methods. Besides, I
have still been applying the traditional methods. As the result showed that
90% of students at class 10B5 acquired firmly the content of each lesson to
express the ideas naturally with clear rhythm and intonation so that they
gradually pay more attention to what the teacher expect them to do.
Therefore, they learned very well what teacher taught.
I have got the following detail result through these techniques:
After applying innovative techniques
(According to the figures at the end of the school- year 2019 – 2020)

Excellent

Good

Fair

Poor

10B2

19%

26%

43%


It is hope that the study will prove worthwhile to those who
want to improve students in speaking classes and who are
concerned about the problem.
II. Suggestion:
For all the above experiences, I hope that it can be useful in some way to my
colleagues and be applied by students and carried out effectively in teaching
English. From this desire that I propose to have phonetic textbook for both
teachers and students which should be used in high school curriculum. This is
the realistic requirement and the necessary need of teacher and student to
improve quality of learning foreign languages at higher level, to meet the
practical requirements and proposed curriculum.
Thus, in order to make the study more practical, some
suggestions on using language games as well as a variety of
language games applied in all stages of a speaking lesson have
also been mentioned.
CONFIRM
OF THE HEAD OF THE UNIT

Thanh Hoa, May 25th, 2020
COMMITMENTS DO NOT COPY

Tran Thị Thu Hien
REFERENCES

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1. Lightbown M.P, Spada N. (1990), How language are learned, OUP
2. Ur, P. (1996). A course in Language Teaching. Cambridge: CUP