VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

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FINAL ASSIGNMENT
ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY

NAME: PHAM THI LAN HUONG

CLASS: QH2019.F1.E4.SP
ID: 19040100
INSTRUCTER: MRS. LUONG QUYNH TRANG
 CONTENT
Huống cảnh 1: Một khối lớp 3, gồm 150 em học sinh đang theo học tại một trường công

lập trên địa bàn Hà Nội. Mục đích học tiếng Anh của các em là để hình thành các năng lực

giao tiếp cơ bản trong các hoạt động giao tiếp thường nhật. Các em đã được bước đầu làm

quen với tiếng Anh trong chương trình học lớp 1 và 2. Nay các em đã có đủ trình độ Pre-

A1 theo Khung Tham Chiếu Châu Âu để bước vào trình độ A1. Hầu hết các em học sinh

này (92%) thích tham gia vào quá trình vận động và tận dụng tối đa ngôn ngữ cơ thể để

tương tác, tri nhận và khám phá thế giới xung quanh.

I. INTRODUCTION

Regarding English teaching methodology, the characteristics related to the language

proficiency, age, interests, etc. of each specific group of students often play a crucial

role for the process of choosing teaching methods. Since it is vital for the teacher to be

aware of the need to make use of appropriate teaching methodology, this essay is

dedicated to go deeper into the first case study involving third-grade students at a state

school in Hanoi and their English learning process to analyse the outstanding features

of this group of students, thereby proposing appropriate and effective teaching

methods.

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II. ANALYSING THE CONTEXT

In this situation, the teacher is supposed to work at a public primary school in Hanoi.

The purpose of their learning English is to form basic communication skills in daily

communication activities. Currently, these third graders have reached the Pre-A1 level

of English proficiency and are ready to begin learning at the A1 level. Most students

are interested in being involved in movement and making the most of body language to

interact, perceive and explore the world around them.

III. METHODS SUGGESTED

Based on the available information about the student group, two methods are selected

to teach English in this case are TPR (Total Physical Response) and CLT

(Communicative Language Teaching).

So, what makes these two approaches be the two advisable methods suggested in this

situation?

1. Communicative Language Teaching

First of all, the method of CLT is going to be taken into consideration. Lindsay and

Knight (2006) believed that this is an approach whose view lies on effective

communication “in the world outside the classroom”. Professor Richards in his video

talking about CLT stated that, communicative teaching sets its goal the teaching of

communicative competence, other than the linguistic or grammatical competence,

which concentrates mainly on sentence formation and grammatically correct sentence

generation. By contrast, communicative competence focuses on the way people use

language as a basis for communication. Additionally, Richards in his video also

claimed that CLT tends to offer students pair work, group work activities and role

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plays in project work, meaning the accuracy-based activities have been changed to the

fluency communicative-based activities. This is perfectly suitable for a large group of

students in one class in a state school in Hanoi, whose purpose of learning English is to

improve their communication skills in daily life situations, as it provides students

opportunities to participate in classroom activities based on a cooperative approach.

This means that they are taught to be comfortable with listening to their friends’

opinions as well as try out various ways of expressing their own ideas, which is

absolutely necessary when it comes to real life communication.

There are a variety of teaching and learning activities associated with the CLT

approach, some of which are information-gap activities, jig-saw activities, task-

completion activities, information gathering activities, opinion-sharing activities,

information-transfer activities, and so on. One of the examples for these types of

activities included in the book “Tiếng Anh 3” published by the Vietnamese educational

publishing house is extracted as follows:

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This type of exercise requires students to talk to their friends to ask about their friends’

names and ages, meaning that they have to put the knowledge they have learnt into the

real context. As shown in the activity itself, this belongs to the series of information

gathering activities. For this type of exercise, the teacher may invite the whole class to

travel around and collect their friends’ information in about 10 minutes, then make a

group of three or four, then share with each other about the information collected.

2. Total Physical Response

The second teaching method that is selected for this case is TPR, or Total Physical

Response. 150 third graders have reached the Pre-A1 level of English proficiency and

are ready to begin learning at the A1 level. Their purpose of learning English is to form

basic communication skills in everyday communication situations. According to Asher

(1964), the general objectives of TPR are to teach oral proficiency at a beginning level,

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which are suitable for the group of students mentioned above. The educators also

prefer to use this approach to teach vocabulary and simple structure for beginners. This

method involves asking students to listen to a command in a foreign language and

promptly respond with the physical action according to what the teacher says. When

making use of this teaching method, the teacher is supposed to give a number of

commands and the students are supposed to use their body movements to perform their

teacher’s command. Since most of the third graders in the given situations are very

active and keen on using their body to interact and explore everything, this method is

definitely preferable. Moreover, with TPR, students are encouraged to speak when they

feel ready for it, which somehow serves the purpose of enhancing their communicative

competence and confidence when speaking. There are several ways which help

perform the TPR approach during the class, including the teacher says the commands

as well as one specific student says the commands. It really depends on the students’

level to choose whether the teacher should let his or her students give the commands.

The exercises included in the book “English Book for Students – Grade 3” for the

third-grade students in the case also provides some materials suitable for the TPR

approach. One of the examples is as follows:

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For this type of exercise, the teacher might repeat “Stand up”, “Sit down” or other

actions as shown in the pictures while students use their body to act according to the

teacher’s commands. Students are suggested to stand around the teacher due to the fact

that the teacher plays an active and direct role. This will definitely make the lessons

more interesting and effective.

IV. CONCLUSION

In conclusion, whatever the method applied in the English class, the biggest goal

remains on the effectiveness of teaching and learning process. From all analysis and

information discussed above, the best teaching methods that should be used to teach

150 third-grade pupils in the given case are believed to be CLT and TPR approaches.

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 (Word count: 1013)

REFERENCES

Asher, J. J. (1964). Technique of Learning, 253–262.

English Book for Students Grade 3. Ha Noi: Vietnam Education Publishing House.

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Lindsay, C., & Knight, P. (2006). Learning and teaching English: A course for teachers

(Vol. 11, No. 3). New York: Oxford University Press.

Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S. (2014). Approaches and methods in language teaching.

Cambridge university press.

Richards, J. C. (n.d.). wwwGVPconz [YouTube channel]. Retrieved December 12th, 2021,

from URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYdUB_e8_Zc&t=6s