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EMPLOYING COMMUNICATIVE GAMES TO DEVELOP LEARNERS’

SPEAKING FLUENCY AT CHU VAN AN HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED

STUDENTS

It is clearly undeniable that English and speaking skills play an integral part in the

process of integrating into the world today. However, the reality shows that the speaking

skills of most students in Vietnam in general and Lang Son in particular are not good enough

to meet social needs. Therefore, the innovation of teaching methods, especially speaking

skills, is extremely necessary. Up to now, the application of learning games always makes

learners more interested in each lesson. This is an action research that applies some

communicative games during lessons to improve students’ speaking fluency. The participants

of the research are 115 English non-major students at Chu Van An high school for gifted

students, Lang Son province. Most of these students score 6-10 points in English with

grammar and writing skills. However, speaking skills have not been concentrated due to the

specifics of the specialized school and the form of graduation exam in English set by the

Ministry of Education and Training.

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

1. Theories of speaking and fluency in speaking

In Oxford Advanced Dictionary, the definition of speaking is “to be able to use a

particular language to express yourself”. Thornbury (2005) states that “speaking is an activity

in real life that is carried out by speaker to carry out his/ her ideas to interact with listeners”.

Speaking is also an activity in real life that helps people to communicate and interact to other

people. Cameron (2001) says that “speaking is about making people understand speaker’s

feelings and ideas by doing an act of communication using language”, and Cheney (1998 as

cited by Kayi, 2006) believes that “speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning
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through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols in a variety of contexts”. Thus, speaking is

an important skill in communication which can help speakers express their meaning, feelings,

and opinions to the listeners.

Speaking is a productive skill which needs both accuracy and fluency. However, in

the current period of economic integration, the fluency of foreign languages is always the

first concern. Brand & Götz (2011) define that speaking fluency is the “automaticity and

speed of speech production”. Besides, these researchers think that a person is considered

fluency when she or he can produce a speech that is rapid and comprehensible. Currently,

fluency is considered as the primary and important goal in foreign language teaching. In EFL

classes, speaking fluency can be defined as:

“speaking at a normal speed without stumbling over words and sounds

with perfect English, conveying the speaker's message in an easy, clear,

and understandable way, using a simple language that suits the listener's

level, producing comprehensible sentences with no major complications,

exposing ideas calmly and spontaneously, arguing persuasively,

organizing the oral production both cognitively and physically, manifesting

a certain number of hesitations, pauses, backtracking and corrections, and

using gap-fillers correctly”

(Badr, 2008; Romero, 2006; Smith, 2003; Zhang, 2009).

Correspondingly, speaking fluency is the ability to produce and response an utterance

in a clear and understandable way without stumbling. It is necessary to take notice to the

context: in daily communication or learning environment. In the scope of this research, the

author aims towards fluency in classroom activities.

2. Theories of communicative games

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There is a variety of definitions about games in different dictionaries, books, and

articles. In the Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary (8th Edition, 2010), “games” are

defined as sports or activities bearing some certain rules that players must follow while

competing against each other, often games go with fun and entertainment. Hadfield (1999)

believed that games are “as activities with rules, a goal, and an element of fun”. In same

research, he defined English game as “fun and enjoyable activities which use English as the

instructional language and are conducted with some rules to reach a goal”. Games are

meaningful and purposeful activities in teaching process; thus games are a very appropriate

teaching technique in the young-learner class-room (Linse, 2005).

The Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary (8th Edition, 2010) defines

communicative is “willing to talk and give information to other people” and “connected with

the ability to communicate in a language, especially a foreign language”.

Consequently, the term “communicative games” in language teaching refers to many

educational activities or games in which learners are given convenient environments to

present their ideas and feelings but also help them acquire the target language in a natural

way with joyful moments and lots of fun. Gibbon (1993 as quoted in Herrell A. L. & Jordan

M., 2008, p.87) makes the term much clearer when showing that communicative games are

classroom activities creating opportunities for learners to utilize verbal language to

communicate with others. Learners are placed into particular situations (that is, giving

directions, asking for information…) pushing them to cooperate and interact with others to

solve the problems. While the activities are carried out, learners use the target language to

discuss in groups and present their ideas, some vocabularies are provoked, some grammatical

structures are practiced, and therefore, learners naturally acquire the target language with

ease.
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3. The application of games in teaching speaking skills

Games can bring advantages that learners can benefit from game implementation in

the classroom activities. First, games are learner-centered focus, in which learners are

motivated and encouraged to set foot into a joyful learning environment and cooperate with

their peers to involve in communicative activities. Learners can enjoy happy time without

much worrying about their learning requirements. Second, learners no longer acquire

language theoretically; by utilizing the target language to solve problems, they would have

deeper understanding of the language usages, which offers chance for creativity.

Accordingly, while learners are set into meaningful contexts and real life situations, learners

would be able to enhance their communicative skills as well as their language skills,

particularly listening and speaking. Games are often applied to warm-up or wrap-up activities

in language teaching. However, not all applications are reasonable and effective. Khan (1991)

states that “the language teachers must seriously consider when to use games, which of them

to use and how to use them appropriately, purposefully and efficiently in order to meet both

students’ needs and lesson objectives”. Up to now, the use of games in teaching is often

applied to children because the characteristic of this age is that they fancy physical activities.

The game forms are usually at the level of word recognition or simple sentence

compounding.

4. Related studies

In 2012, Merdas Souheir from Biskra University (Algeria) did a research about the

role of communication games in developing students’ speaking skill. It is a case study of the

first year students at Biskra University. 80 first year English LMD students at Mohammed

khaidher University of Biskra and some of their teachers of oral expression at the department

of English participated this research. Research has shown that communication games can
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enhance students' speaking skills. From there it can be concluded that communication games

play an important role in developing speaking skills.

In other context, Hani Klafrina (2013) conducted an action research with the goal to

improve students’ speaking skill through communicative games. The author used five

communicative games in the research with 19 participants. At the end of the school years,

students improved their speaking skills. The paper describes in detail the process of

implementing activities as well as how to collect and process data. However, the participants

of the study are those who attend vocational high schools in Indonesia and they are tested on

small numbers. This is not suitable for real conditions in Vietnam and Lang Son province

where each class consists of 30 to 40 students.

Putri et all (2016) had a quantitative research about applying board game in speaking

skill. The participants are 25 students at grade 8 of SMPN 11 Banda Aceh – a secondary

school in Indonesia. The results of the study are very positive as the number of students

participating in the study has developed speaking skills in areas such as vocabulary,

grammar, pronunciation and fluency. However, the article has not clearly stated the process

of employing board games to teaching speaking skills and the tests do not gain high

reliability. Describing only one classmate and answering questions through interviews cannot

cover all about students’ skill development.

In 2019, Pham Vu Phi Ho and his colleagues had a study to investigate the

effectiveness of applying communicative games on students’ speaking performance in the

classroom. 76 second-year students from two different majors (non-English major) at Tra

Vinh university (Vietnam) participated in the research. Students were divided into controlled

and experimental groups. The findings of the research show that students are more motivated

in English class, and the ability to speak improves remarkably.

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Also in 2019, Riko Ade Maulana (Bengkulu, Indonesia) had a thesis report about the

use of board game for improving students’ English speaking ability. This is an action

research with the participation of 32 students at grade 7 of SMP Negeri 43 Bengkulu Utara.

Research results show that students' English speaking ability is improved. Thus, it can be

concluded that board game brings the effectiveness in improving students’ speaking skill.

These studies have shown that the application of communicative games in teaching

speaking skills is effective. However, most of the research papers were mainly conducted

with overseas contexts, the participants are secondary students and adults. This prompted the

author to conduct research on high school students in Lang Son, where English is mainly

used in classroom environments. The research is conducted based on the research question

“How do communicative games affect students’ speaking fluency in English lesson?”

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References

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