1. Rationale
In the globalization age today, English assumes as a more and more important part as a means of international communication than ever. Therefore, in some recent years, the focus of teaching has been promoting oral skills in order to respond to the students’ needs for effective communication.
However, due to some objective and subjective reasons, teaching and learning English in general and teaching and learning speaking in particular does not come up to the study aims. Despite teachers’ efforts to provide students with opportunities to develop their communicative skills, how to teach and learn speaking effectively is still a challenging question to both teachers and students at many high schools in Vietnam.
At Phan Boi Chau specializing high school, the situation is the same to the non- English majors who specialize in natural subjects such as: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. or social subjects such as: Literature, History and Geography. For most students, they find speaking especially important yet most challenging one. It has been proved that some students got into a habit of leaning ‘mute English” which is obviously harmful to a language learner. It also seems to the writer that the techniques exploited during a speaking activity such as: role plays, simulations, discussions are not really effective. Therefore, it is a necessity to find a supplementary technique used in teaching speaking.
In language teaching, language games have proved themselves not merely as “time filler activities” but as an important factor which can create more chances and interest to motivate students to speak. Nevertheless, language games have not successfully applied to speaking classes at Phan Boi Chau specializing high school.
All the above-mentioned reasons and factors have inspired the writer to conduct a research titled “Using language games to motivate the 10th form non- English majors in speaking lessons at Phan Boi Chau specializing high school”
2. Aims of the study
The study is aimed at:
• Investigating the situation of teaching and learning speaking to the 10th form non- English majors at Phan Boi Chau high school
• Investigating the effectiveness of using games in teaching speaking to the 10th form non- English majors at Phan Boi Chau high school
• Providing some suggestions and implications for the improvement of speaking teaching at Phan Boi Chau specializing high school by using language games in addition to other techniques
3. Scope of the study:
The study focuses specifically on using language games in teaching speaking to the 10th form non- English majors at Phan Boi Chau specializing high school. So the study limits itself to the teaching and learning speaking only, and the subjects of the study are 70 non- English majors from two classes studying new “Tieng Anh 10” textbook at Phan Boi Chau specializing high school.
4. Significance of the study
• Theoretical significance of the study: The study supplies the English language teachers with the understanding of speaking skill in and language games in terms of types, advantages when employing them. The study also suggests some ways to exploit language games successfully during all stages in teaching speaking.
• Practical significance of the study: The research provides the language teachers and learners a variety of language games used in all stages in speaking classes based on new “Tieng Anh” 10 textbook.
5. Methods of the study
In the process of carrying out this study, the survey questionnaire is used to collect data for the study. The survey questionnaire including pre-task survey questionnaire and post task survey questionnaire is for 70 tenth form non- English majors from two classes of Phan Boi Chau specializing high school: one specializes in Mathematics and the other specializes in Chemistry.
6. Design of the study
This paper is divided into three main parts:
Part A is the INTRODUCTION. In this part, the rational, the aims, research questions, the scope of the study, methods of the study and also its design are presented.
Part B is the DEVELOPMENT which includes 4 chapters. Chapter I deals with some theoretical background that is relevant to the purpose of the study: speaking skill and language games. Chapter II can be seen as case study in real situation. It investigates the situation of teaching and learning speaking and the feasibility of using language games in teaching speaking to the 10th form non- English majors at Pham Boi Chau specializing high school through the analysis of collected data. Chapter III are some findings concluded from the data analysis. Chapter IV is by far the most dominant one in which some suggestions on using language games are made and some sample language games exploited during all stages of the lessons are provided.
Part C is the CONCLUSION which includes the summary of the study, limitations of the study and suggestions for further study.
REFERENCES and APPENDICES are presented in the last pages of the study.