SKKN Guiding students to use some effective strategies for self-study and some motivative activities to develop knowledge and skills for 10th form students at High School through project periods

A – INTRODUCTION

1. REASON FOR CHOOSING THE TOPIC

Motivating students to apply language in life when studying foreign languages is

the priority aim that the teachers want to obtain. Through my teaching experience

and lesson attendance at Nam Yen Thanh High School, I realize that a lot of

students at my school, a rural area, are very passive in learning, they only concern

about what are in the examinations. So, the students can‟t use the language

effectively in their daily life. The question is that how we can get students more

involved and interested in what they have learnt and help them use language skills,

especially speaking skills.

I am teaching at grade 10 with new text book (global success), I realize this

book is very useful for students to develop their skills. Especially, in project

periods, if the teacher knows how to promote students‟ creativities and their self-

study, students will try their best to know and use the language more. Through

using teaching project-based approach, teachers can help students use the language

they have learned outside the class effectively.

For those reasons above, I choose the topic: “Guiding students to use some

effective strategies for self-study and some motivative activities to develop

knowledge and skills for 10th form students at Nam Yen Thanh High School

through project periods”

1. AIMS OF THE STUDY

I do this research to investigate how students at Nam Yen Thanh High School use

the language knowledge they have learnt in daily life and to promote students to

develop skills by studying themselves through guiding of the teacher, build and

develop learning environment of foreign language to 10th form students at school.

III. DUTIES OF THE STUDY

The study will focus on how some activities are well applied to 10th form students

at my school to motivate their self- study in the purpose of using language

naturally.

1. OBJECT OF THE STUDY

This research study was conducted at Nam Yen Thanh High School. The

subjects of this study were students at three classes 10A1 and 10A4 and 10C1. In

order to collect data needed for this study, documents and questionnaires were the

main instruments used.

1. METHODS OF THE STUDY

2

–

I guide students some ways to develop their abilities in using languages in life

and promote their awareness of self- study through the project periods.

–

I have analyzed the result and the advantages and difficulties that students

encountered.

–

–

I have investigated and asked my colleagues‟ evaluation and students‟ comments.

I have applied English project- based approach.

1. CONTENT
2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Learning strategies are commonly defined as the operations or processes which are

consciously (or unconsciously) selected and employed by the learners to learn a

target language or facilitate a language task (White 1999, cited in Hurd & Lewis

2

008, p.9). Aside from that, Chabot (1987) defines learning strategies as

techniques, approaches or deliberate actions that students take in order to facilitate

the learning and recall of both linguistic and content area information. In addition,

Oxford (1990, p.8) points out learning strategies are specific actions taken by

learners to help their own learning to make the learning easier, faster, more

enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective and more transferable and the use of

appropriate language learning strategies is a major contribution for development of

communicative competence. By employing the right strategies, the process of

learning the language will improve significantly. Language learning strategies

constitute a useful tool kit for active and conscious learning and these strategies

pave the way toward greater language learning proficiency (Dornyei, 2005). Thus,

learning strategies are among the main factors that help to determine how and how

well learners learn a foreign language. Studies by O‟Malley and Chabot (1989) and

Gu and Johnson (1996) also prove that successful learners made use of

combinations of strategies. Self-study is a method of learning where students take

charge of their own studying by finding out the knowledge through internet,

newspaper, television, without direct supervision. This allows the student to take

control of how, what, when, and where they learn and are active to develop skills

in using language.

Whereas, there are numerous advantages of motivative activities. They are

not just time-filling activities but have a great educational value. Weirs (1994) says

that “in the easy, relaxed atmosphere, which is created by motivative activities

such as using games, students remember things faster and better”. Using

motivative activities in classes, teachers have a chance to help students learn,

practice, recall specific language materials in a pleasant and entertaining way.

These activities are obviously useful, especially in speaking classes. According to

Hansen (1994), motivative activities are highly entertaining, and they can give shy

students more opportunity to express their opinions and feelings. Similarly, Lewis

3

(1999) believes that “the promoting activities makes the reasons for speaking

plausible even to reluctant children.” Even shy students can participate in lesson

positively and they are not aware of they are studying, which do not make the

lessons stressful to the students.

Hence, this present study was undertaken to further explore the learning

strategies used by students outside class and the motivative activities used in class

in developing students‟ knowledge and skill. It is expected that knowing more

about the language learning strategies combined with motivative activities in class

will enable both teachers and students to find better solutions for the problems that

students face in improving their oral ability.

1. PRACTICAL BACKGROUND

1

. The real state of learning and using English at Nam Yen Thanh High

school

–

Most of the students are passive, just learn grammar and words for some

examinations and cannot use language to communicate in class or outside class.

–

Some students feel shy and unconfident when speaking English. Only few some

best students can use the language quite fluently when speaking.

–

Environment of learning English is not promoted because students think this

subject is very difficult with them.

2

. The solution: Guiding students to use some effective strategies for self-

study and some motivative activities to develop knowledge and skills for 10th

form students at Nam Yen Thanh High School through project periods

I apply language learning strategies to design the tasks for students in project

periods to promote the self- study for them. The learning strategies are:

+

Memory strategies: help learners store and retrieve new information.

+

Cognitive strategies: enable learners to understand and produce new language

by many different means.

Compensation strategies: aid learners in overcoming knowledge gaps and

continuing to communicate authentically.

+

+

+

Affective strategies: help develop self- confidence.

Metacognitive strategies: help learners to regulate their own cognitive abilities

and to focus, plan and evaluate their process as they move toward communicative

competence.

+

Social strategies: learn with others, provide increased interaction and more

empathetic understanding.

The main goal of constantly using strategies is to become communicatively

competent.

4