Assignment 1: What would be one specific area for improvements in the field of

ELT you like to suggest? Why do you think so?

The English language has become the primary language of communication.

Currently, English is spoken by more than one billion people in the world. English
grammar, in particular, is a big part of the foundation for communication using the
English language. However, grammar is probably one of the most difficult concepts
for English teachers to teach, not because the information is complex, but because
grammar can sometimes be just plain boring. In Vietnam, teaching English grammar
has mainly focused on students’ acquisition of grammar rules without much practical
application in real communicative situations (Nguyen, Tan, and Lee, 2019). As a
teacher in a college in Mekong Delta, the author notices a lack of interest and slow
progress among students when teaching them grammatical competences, which may
be attributed to traditional methods of teaching. Therefore, the teacher needs to
implement a strategy to address those problems in order to help the students get
effective and enjoyable learning while giving them more flexibility to conduct various
practices.
In the age of technology, students can use technology effectively in learning
outside schools to enhance critical thinking, self-learning, communication skills, and
collaborative learning in a manner that ensures improvement of educational outputs
(Al-Zahrani, 2015). Technology is an efficient tool in enriching learning environments
and offering students with better learning opportunities (Chun and Plass, 2000;
Jonassen and Reeves, 1996). The integration of new technologies into teaching lessons
creates unique opportunities for language teachers, motivates students, and engages
them in the learning process (Girmen and Kaya, 2019).
Simultaneously, with the rapid development of technology, especially mobile
devices which enrich educational resources for students to use at any time and place,
flipped classrooms have recently gained lots of attention from educational researchers
(Bergmann and Sams, 2014; Shi-Chun et al., 2014). A flipped learning approach, a
newly emerged teaching model, has the potential to address the constraints of EFL
classroom contexts (Lee and Wallace, 2018). It allows more time for students to learn
inside and outside the classroom because of the inverted learning process with the
utilization of technology (Bergmann and Sams, 2012). Thus, the flipped model can
bring many advantages to EFL learners such as own-pace learning, peer-engaging
concepts and reducing traditional classrooms’ disadvantages (Shi-Chun et al., 2014).
Drawing on the potential benefits of flipped classroom in the theoretical and empirical
literature, the study intends to identify the effects brought to EFL junior students’
grammatical competence using flipped classroom model. Moreover, the EFL students’
attitudes towards the use of flipped classroom model needs to be explored as well.