Usities to Improve Speaking Skill of the fifth grade EFL Students at Dong La Primaryng Communicative Activi

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale for the study
In the context of globalization, English is one of the most wildly used languages in the
world. It has been regarded as a global language that people around the world use for
communicating, cooperating and developing the world together. In Vietnam, in recent years,
English has gained considerable attention. For its importance, English has been made one of
the compulsory subjects taught in primary schools throughout the country, and children now
start learning English when they are at grade three.
In order to enhance English language teaching and learning English in Vietnam and
improve the application of Communicative Language Teaching in primary school, the
Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has designed and promulgated a new English
curriculum Framework which focuses on communication and student centeredness.
Accordingly, students are expected to engage with each other in meaningful interaction and
negotiation of meaning within a specific context.
Like other Primary Schools in Viet Nam, the teaching and learning English in Dong
La Primary School is following the curriculum of Ministry of Education and Training and the
textbook English 5 is used as the main material for the fifth grade students. The book is
structured in 20 units and designed with various learning tasks, the purpose of which is to set
up communicative situations for students to practice English language.
However, the results are still far from satisfactoriness, most of students at Dong La
Primary School cannot make communication actively with others due to the lack of mastering
the aspects: fluency, pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. In reality, in language teaching
and learning class, students rarely answer the question in English or they speak with a lot of
pauses. They also get difficulties in finding the appropriate words to create sentences or
expression. During communicative class work, many students are reluctant to use English
productively as they are afraid of making mistake in front of the class and being criticized by
their partners. These problems are partly affected by teaching methods. Teachers have not
made full use of good communicative activities for teaching in class. For many years,
language teachers have kept teaching speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of
dialogues. Moreover, the traditional teaching approach which focuses on reading and writing
skills is still the dominance in class due to the strong wash back effect of examinations, in
which only written tests are used to assess grammatical and vocabulary accuracy. As a result,

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speaking skill has not been emphasized, students do not have enough chance to interact with
each other in English in class or in other words, they have not had the environment to speak
English yet, so their language communicative abilities are not improved as expected and
learners gradually lose interest in speaking lessons.
Hadfiels (1999, p.7) says that speaking is a kind of bridge for learners between
classroom and the world outside. In order to build the bridge, in the speaking activities, the
teacher must give them practice opportunity for purposeful communication in meaningful
situation. It means learning to speak in a second language will be facilitated when learners are
actively engaged in attempting to communicate. Thus the teacher must give the learners
practice to actualize their speaking skill. By mastering speaking, they can carry out
conversation with others, give ideas and exchange the information with interlocutors.
Actually, Communicative activities are the most effective technique which offers
students chance to practice communicating with each other in class and helps students
develop their communicative competence. The effectiveness of Communicative Activities in
improving students’ speaking has been demonstrated by a number of researchers. Ho ( 2004)
proved that the most common understandings of the communicative approach is that it
provides teachers communicative activities to their repertoire of teaching skills and give
learners the opportunity to practice language skills in class ( Ho, 2004, cited in Littlewood,
2007). Oradee (2012) also proved in his research that communicative activities not only
upgraded significantly speaking abilities of students but also improved their attitudes towards
learning speaking skill. Additionally, communicative activities can activate the learners and
encourage a supportive environment for language learning and teaching.
Improving the quality of teaching speaking skill for of the fifth grade EFL Students at
Dong La Primary is the main focus in English class for several years. However, the Grammar
– Translation is still the mainly used method at Dong La Primary. Teachers usually teach
grammar rather than skills. Teaching grammar is only to meet students’ demand at that time.
After tests and exams, students are not able to use English they have learnt for a long time for
the purpose of communication. They cannot speak English even in a daily conversation.
Moreover, generally, the students are not interested in doing speaking tasks that are given the
textbooks. Also, they are not aware of whether these tasks are effective for them or not.
Nevertheless, they express their desire for some types of communicative activities
that they have chances to work with.

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Basing on those reasons, the researcher intends to carry out a quasi- experimental
research study entitled “Using Communicative Activities to Improve Speaking Skill of the fifth
grade EFL Students at Dong La Primary” with the aim to investigate whether the
Communicative Activities have positive effects on the speaking skill of the 5th graders at her
school by comparing with the traditional teaching method.
1.2. Objectives of the study
The study aimed at:
1. Investigating the effectiveness of using Communicative Activities on the fifth grade
students’ speaking skill in Dong La Primary School.
2. Examining students’ attitudes towards the use of Communicative Activities.
1.3. Research questions
In order to fulfill the objectives, the study has been carried out to find out the answers to the
following questions:
1. To what extent do Communicative Activities improve the fifth grade students’
speaking skill?
2. What are students’ attitudes towards the use of Communicative Activities in
speaking lessons?
1.4. Significance of the study
The findings from this study may be a meaningful contribution for EFL teachers in
understanding that Communicative Activities can be a good alternative strategy for teaching
students in speaking classes. EFL students are expected to be better in English, especially in
speaking skill and have positive attitudes towards speaking activities after the use of
Communicative Activities in their class.
1.5. The scope of the study
Due to the time limit and other conditions, this study only focuses on the implication
of some communicative activities in speaking lessons of 5th grade students at Dong La
Primary School.
1.6. The structure of the thesis
The thesis is dived into five chapters: Introduction, literature review, methodology,
Analysis and Discussion, and conclusion.
Chapter 1: Introduction includes rationale of the study, objectives of the thesis,
research questions, significance of the study, scope of the study, and structure of the thesis.

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Chapter 2: Literature Review provides the basis concepts of speaking skill,
Communicative Language Teaching, Communicative Activities, Teaching English to
Children, Attitude and related studies.
Chapter 3: Methodology presents the methodology used in the study including the
research design, setting of the study, participants, data collection, data instrumentation
procedure, and data analysis.
Chapter 4: Results and Discussion shows some findings concluded from the data
analysis.
Chapter 5: Conclusion includes the summary of the study, limitations of the study,
some suggestions for the future study and references and appendices
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
Thêm phần giới thiệu của chương này.
In this chapter, theories of speaking skill, teaching speaking skill and communicative
activities will be revised. Following this, the studies related to the subject conducted are
reviewed.
2.1. Teaching speaking skill
2.1.1. Definition of speaking
Speaking can be seen as the key to human communication. It is a crucial part of
second language learning and teaching. There are many definitions of speaking. Speaking is
“the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal
symbols, in a variety contexts” (Chaney, 1998: 13). Another definition is proposed by Nunan
(1995) which states that speaking is the ability in using oral language to explore ideas,
intentions, thoughts and feelings to other people as a way to make the message clearly
delivered and well understood by the hearer.
Byrne (1976, p.8) describes speaking as “a two-way process between a speaker and a
listener involving the productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill of understanding.” It
can be transferred from his idea that both speaker and listener have the function in the

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interaction. The message has to be encoded by the speaker in order to convey it in appropriate
language, while the listener has to decode the message.
Sharing this point of view Thornbury (2005) reveals that “speaking can be typified as
an activity involving two or more people, in which the participants are both hearers and
speakers having to react to what they hear and make their contribution.” The communication
purpose can be broken when both participant do not have intention to make their contribution
to the conversation.
In short, speaking can be seen as the way people interact and share information. By
mastering speaking skills, students can improve the communicative competence which helps
them much in the process of language acquisition.
2.1.2 The importance of speaking skill
Language is a tool for communication. We communicate with others, to express our
ideas, and to know others’ ideas as well. Communication takes place where there is speech.
Without speech we cannot communicate with one another.
As regards speaking is a crucial part of foreign language learning and teaching.
Despite its importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English
language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or
memorization of dialogues. However, today's world requires that the goal of teaching
speaking should improve students' communicative skills. Because only in that way, students
can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriately in
each communicative circumstances. Nunan (1998, p. 39) sees “mastering the art of speaking”
as the most important aspect of learning a language. While, Ur (1996, p. 56) said that the
most important reason for teaching speaking is to develop oral fluency that is the ability to
express oneself intelligibly, reasonably, accurately and without undue hesitation. Nanda (
2012) states that being able to communicate in English is essential. Students who master
English feel more confident in English speaking community and have greater chance for
further education, of finding employment and gaining promotion."
Nazara ( 2011) points out that speaking has always been considered as the most
essential skill to master along the history of foreign language teaching and learning. And the
success of learning language is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in
the target language
Realizing the significance of English speaking skill, it is very important to find and
use the best instructional methods, materials, activities, media, and other requirements that

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will help the learners master speaking skill. It is also necessary for language learners know
what aspects they need to focus on when studying speaking skill.
2.1.3. Criteria for good Speaking Skill
Speaking is not simply expressing something orally. In order to speak well in the
foreign language, students must acquire some aspects of speaking those are pronunciation,
grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension (Brown, 2001:268). The explanations of
each are as follows:
2.1.3.1. Pronunciation
Pronunciation is the way we make sounds of the language (Harmer 2007:281). It
covers the way for speakers to produce clear language when they speak. To be able to have a
successful communication, the speaker of a language needs to be able to understand each
other with relative ease (Nunan, 2003:112). It means that the speaker has to be able to give
clear message to the listeners. Teaching pronunciation including stress, rhythm, and
intonations is very important in speaking
2.1.3.2. Grammar
Though it is not the most important element, grammar is another aspect of language
that relates whether or not the learners can use the correct form of the language learnt. Ur
(1988, p. 4) says that grammar is sometimes defined as the way words are put together to
make correct sentences. By mastering grammar well, learners can interpret phrases or
sentences on correct form so they can speak in the right form of language, fluently and
accurately
2.1.3.3. Vocabulary
One cannot communicate effectively or express their ideas if they don’t have
sufficient vocabulary. Burton (1982, p. 98) stated that without a large vocabulary, it is
impossible to use English precisely and vividly. This explains that vocabulary is one of the
aspects need to be mastered by learners. A foreign language learner will speak fluently and
accurately if he or she masters enough vocabulary. Therefore, Language learners need to
learn the lexis of the language. They need to learn what words mean and how they are used.
They must learn large and much vocabularies to make their speech fluently. So they can
express idea using sentences in varieties of diction them. It is clear that vocabularies also play
an important role in speaking ability.

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2.1.3.4. Fluency
Fluency is also an important aspect in speaking. Fluency is the ability to speak
quickly and automatically (Harris and Hodges, 1995:14). It implies that a fluent speaker is a
person who can use the language quickly and automatically in a conversation. It can be said
that the ability to keep going the conversation naturally when speaking spontaneously. Thus,
the activities focused on fluency are needed to be conducted by the teacher.
2.1.3.5. Comprehension
Speaking happens in the presence of listener because listener responds to the
speaker’s communication. According to Roger and Johnson (1994) oral communication is a
two – way process between the speaker and the listener and involves the productive skills of
speaking and the receptive skills of understanding . M. Li and Lam (2005, p. 6) states, “oral
communication skills mean both speaking and listening to oral language, both talking and
listening are lifelong activities and probably our most important communication tool”. They
are integrated skills and supports in developing each other. Therefore, for oral
communication certainly requires a subject to respond to speech as well as to initiate it
Students are said to be successful speakers if they master all the criteria above. In language
teaching and learning, to become a successful learner, student must master some aspect
mentioned above
2.1.4. Factors that cause speaking difficulties to EFL Learners
Zhang (2009) argues that speaking remains the most difficult skill to master for the
majority of English foreign learners, and they are still incompetent in communicating orally
in English. According to Ur (1996, p.121) there are four main factors that cause difficulty in
speaking, and they are as follows:
Inhibition: Learners are often inhibition about trying to say things in a foreign
language. They are often worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face,
or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts.
Nothing to say: Learners often complain that they cannot think of anything to say, or
that they have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling.
Low or uneven participation: In a large group, students may have only very little
talking time which leads to the tendency of some learners dominant, while others speak very
little or not at all.

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Mother-tongue use: In classes students tend to use mother tongue because it is easier.
Moreover, they feel unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language and because they
feel less “exposed” if they are speaking their mother tongue.
These problems face the students in mastering the art of speaking. Basing on this view, it
needs to find the appropriate method to improve their speaking skill in speaking lessons.
2.2. Teaching English to Young learners
2.2.1. Characteristics of Young Learners
Young learners are considered to be children at the age of five to twelve and they are by
nature different from adults in term of characteristics. Characteristics of children depend on
their ages in which plays an important role on how they acquire the language. Harmer (2007,
p.82) summarizes young learners’ characteristics into several points .First, children have their
own culture and learning preference, they like moving and playing. Second, children learn
by way of physical activities such as learning through hand-on activities, learning by doing.
Third, children have a short attention span as they cannot do the same thing for a long time
unless it is interesting, fun. Forth, children learn naturally, children are always active in
exploring their environment and accumulating knowledge and experiences. From this
exploration, children construct their understanding of how things work, including the
language they use as both a system and tools for communication. Fifth, children learn best
when learning is meaningful, interesting, and functional. Children will find things
meaningful, interesting, and functional when they are relate these things with their needs and
personal experiences. Sixth, non- verbal language is important because children will indeed
attend very sensitively to the teachers’ facial features, gestures, and touches.
From those statements above, the researcher concludes that young learners have their
own characteristics that are different from adults. They love to play and practice what they
learn in real activities. Therefore, to give the best quality of teaching English to the young
learners, the teachers should know and have a better understanding about them.
2.2.2. Principles of Teaching English to Young Learners
Teaching English to young learners is a challenging and enjoyable experience. It is
challenging for a teacher, because she always has to find new and interesting methods and
approaches in order to stir the learners’ interest. Brown (2000, p.1) states that teacher needs
to find appropriate methods, techniques, and approaches that can lead young learners to
obtain the goal of the language learning. Brown (2000, p. 87 -90) also proposes some
principles that can be applied in teaching young learners so called young children.

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a. Intellectual development
Techniques and activities used in English teaching should fit the children’s
intellectual development. In learning a new language, children depend on the world around
them as they are centered on the here and now and on the functional purpose of language
(Brown, 2001, p. 88). It means that presenting abstract notions will not work well for
children. Moreover, Brown suggests that in teaching children explaining grammar and stating
rules in abstract concept should be avoided. Some grammatical concepts can be introduced
especially for the upper level of children by showing them certain patterns.
b. Attention span
Teacher needs to move children attentions of immediate situation to focus on the
language lesson by providing enjoyable activities in the classroom. Limited attention span
makes the children easily lose their interest in learning unless with ongoing activities.
According to Brown (2001, p. 88), short attention span occurs when children have to deal
with materials that are boring, useless, and too difficult to them. To keep the children’s
attention, activities should be designed to capture their immediate interest. Brown (2001,
p.89) adds that children’s natural curiosity can be used to maintain their attention and focus.
c. Sensory input
The designed activities for children should cover the visual and auditory modes since
children need to have all five sense stimulated, physical activities like role plays, TPR,
projects and games should be included. Those kinds of activities and sensory aids help
children practice meaningful language and internalize the language (Brown, 2001, p.89).
d. Affective factors
Teacher should generate children confidents and self-esteems, and should make them
ignore anything which can interrupt their minds when learning language and doing activities
in the language lesson. According to Brown (2001, p. 89) children still have many inhibitions
in learning English even though they are often innovative in language form. It can make them
reluctant to use the language in communication. To minimize this problem, Brown suggests
that the teacher need to be patient and supportive. It is also necessary for the teacher to elicit
as much oral participation as possible from students, especially to quiet ones.
In the light of the principles of teaching language as mentioned above, it could be concluded
that English teachers, when teaching young learners, have constantly to keep in mind the fact
that they deal with a mixed class with varied abilities, motivation level, knowledge, and

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different learning styles. Therefore, English teachers should create a classroom environment
where students have real life communication, diagnose problems faced by students who have
difficulties in expressing themselves in the target language. The teachers need to vary their
approaches and offer as much opportunity as possible to make the whole class find a little
something to hold on to expand and grow.
2.3. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
2.3.1. Definitions of CLT
For Harmer .J (2001, p. 84) the teaching of the target language (TL) is not just a
process of having grammar and vocabulary competence, but it is rather how to use this last in
real life situation, the communicative language teaching (CLT) is the approach that push the
learners to practice the foreign language. This approach sees language as a tool of
communication that should be practiced by the learners in the oral tasks. Learners are
expected to interact verbally with others. Moreover, the teacher’s talk will be reduced, that is
to say learners are supported to talk more in the classroom. As regards this issue, there have
been some different definitions to communicative approach.
Richards (2006) defines that CLT can be understood as a set of principles about the
goal of language teaching, how learners learn a language, the kind of classroom activities that
best facilitate learning, and the role of teachers and learners in the classroom.
Nunan (1991, p.194) claims that: “CLT views language as a system for the expression
of meaning. Activities involve oral communication, carrying out meaning tasks and using
language, which is meaningful to the learners. Objectives reflect the needs of the learners;
they include functional skills as well as linguistic objectives. The learner’s role is as a
negotiator and integrator. The teacher’s role is as a facilitator of the communication process.
Materials promote communicative language use; they are task-based and authentic”.
Brown (2001, p.46) also states that the main goal of CLT is to enable students to
communicate in the target language fluently and accurately. CLT tends to be learner--centred
rather than teacher-centered. Thus, it requires students to acknowledge the language forms,
meaning, and functions of the language. It leads students to communicate in meaningful ways
in certain situations.
Larsen-Freeman (1986) stated that in a communicative language class students are
actively asked to participative in negotiating meaning and in trying to make themselves
understood even when their knowledge of the target language is not as complete as their own
language. In doing so, students are more motivated to learn a language since they can see the

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immediate relevance of the language in a given social context. If they can see how classroom
learning is achieving the main goal, their interest to learn is more likely to increase.
In conclusion, above definitions of CLT claim that the goal of teaching language is to
develop learners’ communicative competence that involves the ability to use the language
appropriately to a social context.
2.3.2. Characteristics of CLT
According to Brown (2000, p.266), there are four interconnected characteristics of
CLT as follows:
• Classroom goals focus on all of the components of communicative competence and
not restricted to grammatical or linguistic competence.
• Language techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic, authentic,
functional use of language for meaningful purposes. Organizational language forms are not
the central focus but rather aspects of language that enable the learner to accomplish those
purposes.
• Fluency and accuracy are seen as complementary principles underlying
communicative techniques. At times, fluency may have to take on more importance than
accuracy in order to keep learners meaningfully engaged in language use.
• In the communicative classroom, students ultimately have to use the language
productively and receptively, in unrehearsed contexts.
Nunan (1991, p.279) also points out five common characteristics of CLT classrooms:
• An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language.
• The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation.
• The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on
the learning process itself.
• An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as important contributing
elements to classroom learning.
• An attempt to link classroom language learning to language activation outside the
classroom.
In general, the above characteristics of communicative approach are very necessary
and important in helping the students to communicate, interact and transfer what they learn in
the real context outside the classroom. It is necessary for the teachers to take notice of all
characteristics in order to improve communicative ability to students.

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2.4. Communicative Activities
2.4.1. What are Communicative Activities?
Communicative activities can be understood to be those that encourage motivation
and require learners to use their oral skills to communicate with, and listen to others. Their
purposes include finding information, breaking down barriers, talking about self, and learning
about the new culture. Communicative activities have been defined by various researchers.
Nunan (1989) defines the communicative task as “a piece of classroom work which involves
learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language
while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than on form”
(p.10).Furthermore, research on second language acquisition ( SLA) suggests that more
learning takes place when students are engaged in relevant tasks with dynamic learning
environment rather than in traditional teacher – led classes ( Moss & Ross- Feldman
2003).Yang ( 2014) argues that communicative activities which are designed for EFL classes
need to be “close to the real communication and concentrated on meaning” (p.5) since
communication or interaction happens when humans use language in various contexts to
negotiate meaning ( Brown, 2001). Harmer (1991) defines communicative activities as the
ones which involve learning through using language for communicative purpose. They are
activities, in which the learners use the linguistic knowledge they have learnt to communicate
specific meanings for specific purposes.
In communicative activities the students will have to deal with variety of language
rather than one grammatical construction. Therefore, while students are engaged in the
communicative activity, the teacher should not interrupt or correct mistakes so as not to
discourage them from speaking fluently.
I n contrast with communicative activities, non – communicative activities there will be
no desire to communicate on the part of the students and they will have no communicative
purpose. In other words, where the students are involved in a drill or in repetition, they will
be motivated not by a desire to reach a communicative objective but by the need to reach
objective of accuracy. The emphasis is on the form of the language, not its content. Often one
language item will be focus of attention and the teacher will often intervene to correct
mistakes, nominate students and generally ensure accuracy. Harmer (2001: 85) emphasizes
the contrast of CAs and non-CAs in this figure
Harmer (2001, p. 85) emphasizes the contrast of CAs and non-CAs in this figure
Non-CAs CAs
 no communicative desire
 no communicative purpose
 form not content
 a desire to communicate
 a communicative purpose
 content not form

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Table 2.1 : The Communication Continuum (Harmer,2007)
To sum up, Communicative Activities are classroom activities that involve students in
producing, comprehending, or interacting in varied use of the target language to communicate
with many purposes. Communicative Activities can be conducted in the classroom by placing
the students in a situation where they have to perform a task by communicating optimally.
The activities can encourage the students to speak in the target language so that they can give
positive contributions toward speaking learning process.
2.4.2. Purposes of communicative activities
According to Littlewood(1990), communicative activities are designed to provide an
opportunity for learners to produce language that they have learned. Communicative
activities can contribute to language learning the following aims:
- Provide whole-task practice
Through various kinds of communicative activities, learners are provided an
opportunity to train and practice in foreign language learning. In other words, they practice
language in the total skills.
- Improve motivation
The learners’ ultimate objective is to take part in communication with others. Their
motivation to learn is more likely to be sustained if they can see how their classroom learning
is related to this objective and help them to achieve it with increasing success.
- Allow natural learning
There is a fact that many of language learning can take place only through natural
processes, which operate when a person is involved in using the language for communication.
Therefore, communicative activities become an important part in learning process.
-Create a context that supports learning
Learning language through CAs helps learners establish positive personal
relationship to develop among them and between learners and teacher. In addition, CAs
creates an environment which supports individual to show his or her efforts to learn language.

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2.4.3. Types of Communicative Activities
When teaching EFL, there are plenty of activities that teachers can choose from in
order to engage students. However, it is essential to clarify which ones to use in order to
maximize their potential. Thus, it is important for teachers to be aware of the students’ needs
and interests so as to offer them a learning environment which they both enjoy and benefit
from. The role the teacher plays in CLT is vital, given that they facilitate the communication
process in the classroom (Larsen-Freeman & Anderson, p. 2000). Therefore, not only should
teachers be aware of what students need, but they also should be conscious of how the
activities they employ encourage learners to speak and practice oral skills in the classroom.
This is because students are likely to be more engaged if they are provided with a dynamic
learning environment. In this section we will look at those types of activities with a largely
oral focus. Those activities are all designed to provoke spoken communication between
students.
2.4.3.1. Information gap activities
Information-gap is one of learning activities which designed to encourage students to
communicate each other in English in order to get information they do not have. As stated by
Harmer ( 2007, p. 275) that information-gap activities are those where students have different
pieces of information about the same subject and have to share this information in order for
them both to get all the information they need to perform a task.
Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or
collecting information. Normally, in information gap activities, students are supposed to work
in pairs. Each partner plays an important role because the task cannot be completed if the
partners do not provide the information the others need. These activities are effective because
everybody has the opportunity to talk with their friends extensively in the target language
(Kayi, 2006, p.3). Moreover, information gap activities stimulate students to manipulate their
foreign language skills and linguistic knowledge to the full in order to close to the gap and
they can be used as a valuable aid in setting up a need for learners to communicate and ensure
that the transfer is meaning (Baturkmen,1994). Therefore, the teacher should use information
gap tasks in which every student is given the opportunity to speak in English for extended
period of time and thus, they naturally produce more speech than they would
(Neu&Reeser,1997)
2.4.3.2. Communication games

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Harmer (1991) has suggested that in communication games activities students are put
into a situation in which they have to use all or any of the language they possess to complete
a game-like task. This type of communicative activities produces the simplest patterns of
interaction. The situation is always that one student (or group) possesses information which
another student (or group) must discover.
Communication games activities include finding the differences (or similarities),
describe and arrange; story reconstruction and/or poem reconstruction (Bygate, 1987). In
each case of this type of activities, it is the overcoming of the information gap rather than the
production of correct language that signals the success of the performance. In this respect, the
focus of the activity is on “meanings to be communicated” rather than “linguistic form to be
learnt” (Harmer, 1991). The activities of this type provide the teacher with a convenient
bridge between pre-communicative and communicative language use, students are engaged in
communicating meaning for a purpose, but they are not made to dispense entirely with the
“structure crutches” provided by the teacher.
2 4.3.3. Simulation and role-play
According to Harmer (1991), the idea of a simulation and role play is to create the
presence of a real-life situation in the classroom: students “simulate” the real-world. Thus we
might ask them to pretend that they are at a restaurant, we might organize them to be
customers ordering food or drink. What we are trying to do artificially of course is to give
students practice in real-world English. Students are asked to adopt a specific role in this
situation. In some cases, they may simply have to act as themselves. In others, they may have
to adopt a· simulated identity.
There is some controversy about the usefulness of simulations, particularly where
students are asked to play roles, but many teachers feel that they have certain advantages
because students do not have to take responsibility for their own actions and words. In other
words, it is the character who speaks, not themselves. It has certainly been noticed that some
shy students are more talkative when playing roles.
This type of activity could be used for students at different levels of proficiency in term of
complexity of activities. Ladousse (1987: 7) has shown: “Role-play is one of communicative
techniques which develops fluency in language students, which promotes interaction in the
classroom, and which increases motivation”.
2.4.3.4. Discussions

16
Discussions are commonly used activities in speaking lessons. After a content- based
lesson, a discussion can be held for students to discuss a related topic in order to come up
with a solution or response. In this type of discussions, the teacher can form groups of
students, preferably 4 or 5 in each group. Then each group works on their topic for given time
period, and presents their opinions to the class. Celce- Murcia ( 2001) mentions that students
need to be reminded that each person within a group should have a specifics responsibility in
the discussion – either keeping time, taking notes or reporting the results made by the group
members. At the end, the class decides on wining group who defends the idea in the best way.
This activity fosters critical thinking ad quick decision making. According to Sheils ( 1993),
discussion helps learners involve in personal and fluent use of target language. They urge
students to reflect, to evaluate data or arguments, to listen to others, to have open mind and to
develop necessary skills and structures for discussion. In discussion, learners have chances to
express themselves, share their feelings and understand each other better.
For the efficient of group discussions, however, it is suggested not to form large
groups as quiet students may avoid contributing in large groups. The group members should
be varied so that students can work with various people and learners to be open to different
ideas. Harmer (1991), the main thing to remember is that proper organization can ensure their
success, and lack of it can provoke failure.
2.4.3.5. Interview
The purpose of this activity is to help learners to become socialized by giving them
the opportunity to exercise and to apply their speaking skill in the classroom and outside it as
well. One of the most important goals of interviews is that language is sharing what is unique
and special about someone or something and to express appreciation for special qualities and
contributions (Griffin, 2011: 20)
Therefore, the teacher should supply learners with topics and a model of interview
(types of questions and the way to follow in designing their own) so that they can construct
their own interview according to it. The interviews can be conducted with various people and
after completion, each study (interview analysis) can be presented to the class
2.4.3.6. The teacher’s role in Communicative Activities
Due to the shift from traditional teaching models to a new teaching model where
student- centeredness is prompted, the teacher’s role is not to take a dominant role and have

17
power over students’ learning ( Richards, 2005). Instead, the teacher servers as a facilitator
who scaffolds students’ language learning and communication (Larsen – Freeman, 2000)
Freeman (1986) describes the teacher as a manager of classroom activities. In this
role, one of the teacher’s major responsibilities is to set up activities that stimulate
communication among students. During the communicative activities he/she acts as a
consultant answering students’ questions, offering advice and providing necessary language
items. One of the most important roles is to make sure that students know what they are
supposed to practice and check whether they do it effectively or not. These roles are called a
conductor and a monitor. It can be concluded that the teacher’s role in a learning process is
very important not only while participating in the activities but also while monitoring
students. The teacher’s less dominant role in communicative activities offers students the
opportunity to be involved in conversation and improves their speaking skill to be able to
cope with the real-life situations.
2.5. Attitudes towards learning speaking
2.5.1. Definition of attitudes
The concept of attitude has been researched in the psychological field for a long time
and a number of researchers have developed different definitions of this concept. However,
according to Wilkie (1986) the most accepted understanding of attitude is that it shows a
physical or mental response of human body towards a defined target, which is usually an
activity or action. It also indicates whether the individual wants to participate in that activity
or action or not. In other words, it can be understood as “the state of human mind towards a
specific situation or object (Aberg, 1990).
2.5.2. Attitudes towards speaking
The learners’ success in language learning and effectiveness of their English course
are usually evaluated through the progress they have made in their proficiency in speaking (
Rechards, 2009). Thus, it can be said that the learners’ attitudes towards speaking plays an
important role in language learning. Gardner (1985) regards attitudes as components of
motivation in language learning. As far as Gardner’s suggestion is concerned, the students
with positive attitude towards speaking English are those who have high motivation in
communicating orally in this language. Thus, it can be inferred that learners with positive
attitude towards speaking English will be more involved in speaking activities and there is no
doubt that the more opportunities students speak English, the more experiences in coping
with difficulties they could accumulate due to the variety of situations and interlocutors they

18
encounter. Hence, when compared with those who hold negative attitude, the students with
positive attitude might have better ability to deal with communication breakdowns by
themselves.
2.5.3. Components of Attitude
To gain a more comprehensive knowledge and make it easier for researching the
nature of attitude, most researchers such as Mathewson (1994), McKenna (1994), Ruddell
and Undrau (1994) in this field have reached a unified understanding of what composes
attitude, which is called as “Tri-component (or ABC) model of Attitude”. According to this
model, attitude structure can be described in terms of three components: Cognitive, Affective,
and Behavioral.
 Cognitive component is about controlling the conscious way of understanding and
thinking directing at the object or situation in the attitude. More specifically, it refers to the
beliefs/knowledge of the person about the attitude object. For example, “I believe that
education is important to any one”.
 Affective component is associated with the person’s feelings/ emotions towards the
attitude object. For instance, “I am fond of learning”.
 Behavioral component shows the influences/ impacts of the attitude on the human
actions or behaviors. For example, “I will study hard”.
It can be concluded that students’ attitudes decide their successes in language
learning in general and in speaking skill in particular. In this study, with the aim to test the
appropriateness and efficiency of communicative activities through students’ attitudes, a
survey focusing on these three elements of students’ speaking attitude should be conducted (
see chapter 3)
2.6. Previous research
In recent years, there has been a lot of research on using communicative activities in
teaching speaking. Efrizal (2012) carried out the research “Improving Students Speaking
through Communicative Language Teaching Method”. The main purpose of this study is to
know the improvement of teaching English speaking by using Communicative activities
Language Teaching method. The method of this research is classroom action research. The
results indicated that Communicative Language Teaching method was an effective method in
learning speaking. The study showed that most students were interested in this method. They
were confident to express their ideas in speaking inside classroom, and the percentages of

19
students speaking ability were increased well in each cycle. Moreover, the study showed that
Communicative Language Teaching method could motivate students to be active and had a
great participation in speaking activity during teaching and learning process in classroom.
Oradee (2012) conducted a study using three communicative activities (discussion,
problem solving and role-playing) to improve the students’ speaking skills. The purposes of
this research were to study and compare speaking skills of Grade 11 students using three
communicative activities and to study the students’ attitudes towards teaching English
speaking skills using the three communicative activities. The data collection was done in the
authentic classroom. Furthermore, quantitative and qualitative analyses were done by using
test of speaking ability, an attitude questionnaire, student learning log and a semi structured
interviews. The results in this study pointed out that the students‘ speaking abilities after
using the three communicative activities were significantly higher than before and that the
students‘ attitude towards teaching English speaking skills using the three communicative
activities were rated as good.
In the context of Vietnam, there have been several studies on the use of
communicative activities and its effectiveness on learning speaking skill. Ha Thi Lan ( 2003)
conducted an action research project to investigate why the students at her school had
limitation in speaking skill and she wanted to find out whether pair/ group communicative
activities help improve her students’ oral communication skills. The subjects of the action
research were thirty third students at Thai Binh Junior Secondary Teacher Training College.
The results of the action research implementation showed that since teacher applying
pair/group work activities appropriately, the students’ speaking skills improved a lot.
Ngo Thi Thanh Huyen (2012) carried out a four – month quasi – experimental
research to investigate the effect of role play in improving the speaking skill of the second
year non- English major students at Hung Vuong University. 80 students as participants were
divided into a control group which was taught with conventional teaching methods and an
experimental group where role play was applied to teach speaking. Based on the results and
discussions from the speaking pre-test and post- test, questionnaires and observation, she
concluded that role play noticeable contributes to enhancing students’ motivation in speaking
English and improving their speaking skill.
Nguyen Thuy Lien (2015) carried out an action research to investigate the effects of
language games in improving the seven grade students’ speaking skill. In her action research
employed three types of instruments including: observation, serve questionnaire and test. The

20
result of the study showed that students like using language games in learning speaking and
they have positive attitudes towards speaking skill after application of games in lesson.
Especially the results from the pretest and posttest proved that using language games in
speaking lesson motivates students to speak and improves their speaking skill considerably.
In short, the findings of above – mentioned studies show that communicative
activities have been widely applied in teaching speaking at various educational levels,
remarkably improving the speaking skill for students. Those research studies show that
communicative activities could be effective activities which provide students with a lot of
opportunities to practice their English in certain contexts of real life. These activities are
suitable for English learners in all level and age. Thus, the researcher of the study believes
that by conducting Communicative Activities, the speaking skill of the fifth grade students at
Dong La Primary School can be improved
Thêm mục summary của chương này.
Summary
In this chapter, the definition and importance of speaking skill, especially criteria for
good speaking skill and factors causing speaking difficulties are introduced. Second, theories
about teaching English for young learners and communication language teaching are
presented. Next, communication activities literature regarding definition, purposes and types
of activities are revised. Lastly, former studies in related topic are introduced as a foundation
to this research.
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
Giới thiệu

21
This chapter provides background information about action research, the current
situation of teaching and learning speaking skill at of the fifth grade EFL Students at Dong La
Primary and a description of the methodology employed to collect data for the study.
3.1. Research design
Since randomization was not feasible, the current study employed quasi- experimental
design to study the effect of Communicative Activities on the fifth grade EFL students’
speaking skill. This quasi- experimental study involved two groups; experimental group and
control group; where the researcher did the experiment and treatment by using
Communicative Activities as a media in teaching speaking in experiment group, while
control group was taught by using the traditional or conventional technique. The result of pre-
test and post-test of both groups was compared in order to examine whether the treatment
given in experimental group gave more significant effect on students’ speaking achievement.
The model of Quasi Experimental Design would be explained as follows:
Group Pretest Treatment Posttest
E O1 X O2
C O1 O2
Time
Table 3.1: Research Design Framework
With the explanation:
E = Experimental group
C = Controlled group
O1 = Pre- test
O2 = Post- test
X = Treatment by using Communicative
Activities
3.1.1. Quasi –experimental design definition

22
Quasi- experiments could be seen as experiments that have treatments, outcome
measures, and experimental unit, but random assignment is not employed to compare the
difference between treatment group and control group (Campbell, Stanley, & Gage, 1963).
3.1.2. Advantages of quasi- experimental design
Since the quasi- experiment is conducted in natural setting that is easier to set up than
the true experiment. It also avoids additional steps required and potential ethical concerns
which may appear if true experiment design is taken. It is impossible to create a laboratory
environment in education research. That means students in the two groups must have exactly
the same characteristic such as level of proficiency or motivation. However, the study reflects
authentic classroom situation.
As the study cannot control external factors such as their attendance to other English
classes at the same time, the improvement in students’ performance in the post-test may
distort the outcome of the research. Moreover, the equality between two groups could hardly
be ensured as two intact classes are chosen. These two factors may jeopardize the validity of
the study.
The quasi- experimental is appropriate for this study. Experimental design differs
from quasi- experimental design in its randomness. In true experiment, participants are
randomly assigned to control and treatment groups. On the contrary, in quasi- experiment,
intact groups are selected, so the randomness is not seen in this case. In this study, two
classes were naturally formed, but they were not completely randomized. Therefore, quasi-
experimental design reflects the natural setting and suits the purposes of this study.
3.1.3. Variables of the study.
Creswell (2007) defined an independent variable as an attribute or characteristic that
influences or affects an outcome. An independent variable has different names, such as
factor, treatment, predictor, determinant or an antecedent variable. In contrast, a dependent
variable is an attribute or characteristic that is dependent on or influenced by the independent
variable. This kind of variable is labeled variously as the outcome, criterion or consequence
variable. That is to say, in the cause and effect relationship, independent variable is cause,
whereas dependent variable is the outcome or result.
Based on the main purpose of the study which to examine the effects of
communicative activities in speaking lessons to improve students’ speaking skill, the

23
independent variable of this study was the communicative activities, and the dependent
variables of the study were the scores of speaking test and the result of the questionnaire. The
scores of which indicate an overall assessment for students ‘speaking ability were measured
by the pre-test and the post-test administered to both the experimental group and the control
group. Apart from the speaking test, the questionnaire was delivered to students in the
experimental group which helped examine the students’ attitude towards the independent
variable.
3.2. Setting and research context
3.2.1. Setting
This study was conducted at Dong La Primary School in Hoai Duc, Hanoi where
English is the compulsory subject taught at primary school which is set by the curriculum –
Framework Educational program for basic Education and designed and promulgated by the
Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training.
3.2.2. Research context ( yêu cầu viết 2 – 3 trang)
Several studies conducted with the aim of improving the quality of teaching and
learning English in Vietnam show that “traditional pedagogy, emphasizing the acquisition of
grammar and vocabulary rather than communicative competence” (Pham, 2005) is one of the
causes of the problem. However, the use of Vietnamese in the process of teaching English is
common in Vietnam (Nguyen, 2006). Teaching English speaking skills for the fifth grade
students in Dong La Primary School is not an exception. The teachers mostly focus on
grammar and vocabulary rather than communication skills.
Teachers are one of the most important factors in ensuring the effective
implementation of English education at primary level because they can make a great
contribution to motivating children to learn English. Besides, it is not easy to teach younger
children effectively; teaching children a foreign language may be more demanding at primary
level than higher levels because of the children’s greater reliance on oral language (Cameron,
2003). Several researchers agree that teachers should possess a high level of language
proﬁciency with wide knowledge of vocabulary (Cameron, 2003; Halliwell, 1992;Slattery &
Willis, 2001) and good understanding of English teaching methods for children (Halliwell,
1992; Slattery & Willis, 2001). While advocates of English teaching and foreign-language
study praise the increasing attention to primary English programs, concern is widespread that

24
the efforts are haphazard. The greatest concern is in the quality and number of teachers to
carry out these efforts.
In Vietnam, there is still a mismatch between the expected quality of teachers and the
reality, especially for those teaching in primary schools. In an investigation into this issue,
Moon (2005) revealed that there are three main problems: status and motivation, lack of
suitable training, and language competence. The primary teachers who are familiar with
children’s learning characteristics cannot teach primary English because of their low level of
English proficiency. Besides, there is no quota for primary teachers of English. Therefore,
primary schools hire teachers of English on contract. They are not committed to the school
and their pay is low. In Moon’s research (2005: 50), ‘out of ten primary English teachers
interviewed, five had not chosen to teach at primary school’. It can be seen that the low status
and motivation of primary English teachers is an obstacle to improving the practices of
teaching and learning English at primary level. Apart from that, primary English teachers
come from different sources. There is no benchmark for ensuring the quality of teachers. This
is the reason their proficiency in English and ability to teach it are far from satisfactory.
However, the most serious problem is that they are not trained to teach English to primary
age children. Most primary teachers inter-viewed in Moon’s research had graduated from the
College of Foreign Languages (training foreign language teachers) so they were trained to
teach adults and adolescents, not primary children. Moreover, English is not a compulsory
subject so teachers do not have opportunities to attend yearly.
At Dong La Primary School, developing English speaking skill for of the fifth grade
EFL Students has been taken into consideration for many years as those senior students
require more language skills to go the Secondary school. However, the Grammar –
Translation is still the mainly used method at Dong La Primary. Teachers usually teach
grammar rather than skills. Teaching grammar is only to meet students’ demand at that time.
After tests and exams, students are not able to use English they have learnt for a long time for
the purpose of communication.
65% of fifth grade EFL Students in this school admitted that they cannot speak
English even in a daily conversation. This phenomenon is due to the lack of conquering many
language aspects, including fluency, pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Moreover, in
English class, students seldom response to the question in English or they speak with a lot of

25
pauses and errors. They find it difficult to find the suitable words to make sentences or create
expression.
During communicative class work, many students are reluctant to use English
productively as they are afraid of making mistake in front of the class and being criticized by
their partners. These problems are partly affected by teaching methods. Teachers have not
made full use of good communicative activities for teaching in class. For many years,
language teachers have kept teaching speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of
dialogues. Moreover, the traditional teaching approach which focuses on reading and writing
skills is still the dominance in class due to the strong wash back effect of examinations, in
which only written tests are used to assess grammatical and vocabulary accuracy. As a result,
speaking skill has not been emphasized, students do not have enough chance to interact with
each other in English in class or in other words, they have not had the environment to speak
English yet, so their language communicative abilities are not improved as expected and
learners gradually lose interest in speaking lessons.
Moreover, generally, the students are not interested in doing speaking tasks that are
given the textbooks. Also, they are not aware of whether these tasks are effective for them
or not. On the other hand, they express their desire for some types of
communicative activities that they have chances to work with.
3.3. Cirriculum
In order to enhance English language teaching and learning English in Vietnam and
improve the application of Communicative Language Teaching in primary school, the
Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has designed and promulgated a new English
curriculum Framework which focuses on communication and student centeredness.
Accordingly, students are expected to engage with each other in meaningful interaction and
negotiation of meaning within a specific context.
Like other Primary Schools in Viet Nam, the teaching and learning English in Dong
La Primary School is following the curriculum of Ministry of Education and Training and the
textbook English 5 is used as the main material for the fifth grade students. The book is
structured in 20 units and designed with various learning tasks, the purpose of which is to set
up communicative situations for students to practice English language.

26
The English curriculum of 5th
grade includes 105 45-minute periods (approximately
79 hours) with 3 periods per week in 35 weeks. There are 16 units in the textbook,
accompanied by 6 revision lessons. Each unit covers 4 skills as follows:
Reading: A text in which usually contains virtually all the lexical items of the unit
is presented in this lesson with some tasks and exercises which focus on comprehension and
vocabulary practice.
Speaking: This part is usually built up on the same theme with the reading test
but provides students with different tasks so that they can develop their speaking skills.
Listening: Different listening strategies are taught in This part. It also offers students
opportunities to learn some more new words on the theme.
Writing: This part aims to develop students’ writing skills by following the topics
related to social life
Language focus: This part focuses on practicing pronunciation and grammar.
3.3. Syllabus
English 5 is a standard English textbook of Vietnam Education Publishing House for
the elementary levels with common and simple sentences that help learners get familiar with
daily conversations in English. The topics in the book are close to everyday life such as
talking about salutation, making friends, birthday, hobbies, studies, ect.
The software is logically designed with these Functions: Answer, Help, Group and
Game to help children not only understand everything they learn from the lesson but apply it
to the exercises to complete them excellently.
Besides, children can relax with some funny riddles in the Game Function, which can
help them revise what they learn and give them fun as well. The English voices are diverse
and clear, suitable for the level so that children can pronounce the words correctly at the
beginning of their English learning process. Answer Function is intelligently designed based
on the lively images of each lesson.
Children would find it interesting to use this function and check whether they have
done their exercises correctly. The songs provided in the part called “Let’s Sing” and “Let’s
Chant” will excite children to sing along.
3.3. Participants
The study was carried out with the participation of 70 students of grade 5 in two classes at
Dong La Primary School. These participants in the two classes were purposely chosen as they

27
almost have the same range of ability basing on the classification made by the school. The
researcher chose class 5A1 with 35 students as the sample of experimental group and class
5A2 with 35 students as control group. The participants are all at the age of ten and they have
been learning English for 3 years.
No Group Class Students Total
1 Experiment 5A1 35
70
2 Control 5A2 35
Table 3.2: Number of participants
3.4. Treatment
The experimental group and the control group experienced the different techniques and
activities in speaking lessons only, the other lessons focusing on other skills are the same.
3.4.1. The experimental group
The experimental group (class 5A1) was taught by using Communicative Activities.
Teacher designed Communicative Activities basing on the tasks in the textbook.
- Time: Starting from week 2 of the experiment. Each speaking lesson lasted for 40
minutes.
Stages:
 Presentation Stage(10 minutes): Students are asked to look at the pictures and guess
what is going on in those pictures, the key vocabularies will be also introduced
directly to students throughreal objects, gestures and mime or flashcards copied from
the textbook. Then the key structures will be also presented through the dialogue in
which the target structures appear.Asking students to repeat new vocabularies and
structures several times before getting them do oral dialogue in groups, in pairs. Then
give some question to stimulate them.
 Practice stage ( 10 minutes): Students are supposed to do the tasks in pair or group
work which aims to develop students’ speaking skill. The tasks and activities also
supply opportunity for students to practice the accuracy and fluency. During speaking
lesson, the class becomes more student-centered, and the teacher takes the role of a
guide, a consultant and a facilitator who assists students in giving correct speech.

28
 Production stage (20 minutes): Similar to the practice stage, students will practice in
pairs or groups. However, students will have many opportunities to produce the target
language more independentlythrough communicative activities. During this stage, the
students will produce the target language with minimal assistance from the teacher as
opposed to the practice stage where the teacher will be on hand to assist students
rehearse target language that has only just been presented to them. The teacher’s main
role is to help students get involve in what is going on by enabling them to work at
their own speed, by encouraging them to participate, talk, interact, do things.
Suggested Communicative Activities
 Information gap
 Communication games
 Simulation and role-play
 Discussion
 Interview
3.4.2. The control group
The Control group (class 5A2) was taught speaking lessons by using conventional/
traditional techniques. Students are taught speaking by using activities in the textbook only
without adding other communicative activities.
 Presentation stage: Students are asked to read the dialogue in the textbook
individually. Teacher then presents vocabularies, model sentence on the board, then
explains the rules and have the whole class repeat the sentence. Then the teacher asks
the students to repeat the dialogue together line by line after the teacher several times
before nominating some students to practice the dialogue by reading aloud and
translating in Vietnamese.
 Practice stage: In this stage, teacher puts the questions and answers on the board and
have students repeat each one a few times. Then, students practice speaking by
pointing to the pictures in the textbook and elicit the words to fill the gaps. Students
work in pairs. Teacher then call on a pair to demonstrate at the front of the class. The
rest of the class observe and comment. The teacher’s role at this stage is to move
around, monitor the activity and correct mistakes or offers any help when necessary.
 Production stage: Normally, students are required to do the task in written form.
Students are asked to complete the task in the book or in the worksheet individually.

29
Then teacher calls on some individuals to stand up and give his/ her own answers
orally. If there is enough time, the teacher will have the students share their answering
with their friends.
3.5. Data collection instruments
To answer the research questions of the study, the data was collected through tests
and a questionnaire. The pre and post tests were used to gather data on students’ speaking
skill in both groups. However, the questionnaire was given only to the experimental group to
get their opinion about the use of Communicative Activities.
3.5.1. Pre and post speaking tests
Tests play an important role in the research and they can be used as the main data
collection instrument. In this study, tests were chosen as one of the main instruments for
collecting data because they enable researcher to evaluate one item with high objectiveness.
Furthermore, tests are commonly used for obtaining the data in educational research studies.
The pre-test and post-test are in the same format as well as the same level of difficulty.
* Pre-test:
Pretest conducted to find out whether they have relatively the same ability in speaking
before treatment. The pre-test given was speaking test using dialogue (oral production). The
selection of theme for the dialogue was made by the researcher. The pre- test will be
administered to students of both groups. It aims to determine the starting point of the
participants before the experiment and to see whether the students in two groups are similar
in term of speaking skill (See Appendix 1).
* Post-test:
Post-test was given to the students who had been included in the pretest. It was
conducted in the end of the research. It was done after giving treatments and exercises to the
experimental group. The result of the post-test was used to compare the data of the pre-test
and making conclusion whether communicative activities can increase students’ speaking
ability. The procedure of post-test and the kind of test was the same as pre-test. The post-test
will be given after the treatment (communicative activities) given to identify the degree of
improvement of students’ speaking skill in experimental group after being treated by using
Communicative Activities (See Appendix 2).
Through these two tests, the researcher can find out the differences in the students’
speaking skill in the two groups, compare the results before and after the intervention.
* Test design

30
For the present study, the Cambridge Young Learner Tests (CYLT) were
administered to the two groups. The Cambridge tests for Young learners have been
recognized as a reliable and consistent measure because all the items designed in the tests are
familiar to young learner and the topics relate to knowledge learned in primary school. :
Young Learners (CYLT) tests which are a series of fun and engaging activity-based English
language tests are created for children between the ages of 7 and 12.. They introduce primary
and lower-secondary level students to everyday written and spoken English, and are an
excellent way to gain confidence and improve their English.
The tests are created for children and use topics they are familiar with. All of our
exams cover the four language skills: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening. There is no
pass or fail for the test. CYLT tests will encourage children to communicate in real-life
situations in English and create a positive attitude to language tests.
The speaking test includes 3 parts.
 Part 1: Students are showed two similar pictures but have some differences and are
required to describe two pictures using short response
 Part 2: Students are required to ask and answer questions based on a pair of similar
pictures and question prompts.
 Part 3: Students are asked some personal questions on topics such as family and birthday.
* Marking Rubics
In term of scoring the test, the researcher referred to the rating scales modeled by
Kurikulum 2004 which adopted by Testing English as Second Language, Harris, D.P. (1969,
p.84). The scores were taken from five criteria such as pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary,
grammar and comprehension. The descriptions of five components as well as the range of the
scores can be seen in the scoring rubrics. (See appendix 3)
The author and two other teachers who are in charge of teaching English for Grade 5
in Dong La Primary schools except Class 5A1 and 5A2 will mark the speaking test during the
research.
* Test reliability
Nitko (1983: 395) states that a reliable measure in one that provides consistent and
stable indication of the characteristic being investigated. The researcher assumed that
reliability referred to extend the test is consistent in score and gave us an indication of how
accurate the test score. The statistical formula for counting the reliability was as follow:

31
R = Reliability
N = Number of students
D = Different of tank correlation (mean score from rater1/R1-rater2/R2)
1-6 = Constant number
After find the coefficient between rates, researcher then analyzed the coefficient of
reliability with the standard of reliability below:
a. A very low reliability range from 0.00 to 0.19
b. A low reliability range from 0.20 to 0.39
c. An average reliability range from 0.40 to 0.59
d. A high reliability range from 0.60 to 0.79
e. A very high reliability range from 0.80 to 1.00
* Test validity
Hatch and Farhady (1982:250) defined validity as “the extent to which the result of
the procedure serves the uses for which they were intended”. Content validity, the test is a
good reflection of what is thinking and the knowledge which the students to know. Based on
that quotation, validity refers to the extent 36 which the test measures what it is intend to
measure. This means that relates to the purpose of the test. The test measured based on the
indicator.
3.5.2. Attitude Questionnaire
Questionnaire is also considered the most appropriate research instrument for
gathering information relating to the attitudes of the respondents Gillham (2000). Therefore,
with reference to the current study, a questionnaire with entirely close –ended questions was
designed and delivered to participants with a view to identify their attitudes towards the use
of Communicative Activities in classroom. In this study, the questionnaire consisted of 9
Likert-type items with the five point rating scale. The students will rate each item basing on
their feelings and opinion towards the communicative activities used in the classroom by
using the five point scale ranging from level 1 (strongly disagree) to level 5 (strongly agree).
The main focus of the questionnaire was on three components of attitudes included affective,
cognitive and behavioral. To make sure all participants understood the content of the

32
questionnaire; the Vietnamese version was administered to the participants and explained
carefully before they filled the questions. The survey questionnaire includes 10 questions to
examine attitude of experimental group toward the effectiveness of Communicative
Activities in developing their speaking skill. Questions 1-2 identify the appreciation of
students towards CAs. Questions 3-9 identify the aspects of speaking skill which are
improved with CAs. Question 10 identify the desire of continuing CAs in English class. (See
Appendix 4)
3.5.3. Interview
A semi-structured interview was conducted in Vietnamese with 10 random students
belonging to experimental group. Each interview lasted between 10 minutes and 15 minutes.
They were based on the following key questions:
1) Do you think Communicative Activities are effective in motivating you speaking
English?
2) Among all Communicative Activities, what do you think is the most effective
activity in developing your speaking skill?
3) Among all Communicative Activities, what do you think is the least effective
activity in developing your speaking skill?
4) Which do you prefer: Traditional method or class with Communicative Activities?
Why?
Besides the above questions, examples or follow-up questions were included in the
interview schedule to encourage interviewees to give more detailed information.
3.6. Data collection procedure
The experiment was conducted in 10 weeks from beginning of February to the middle
of April in 2018 with the two classes. Speaking lessons were delivered to both control group
and experimental group with the same amount of teaching time. Each group had two 40 –
minutes periods per week focusing on speaking. “English 5” is the textbook for students of
both groups to use. They were taught by the same teacher (the researcher). The difference
between the two groups was that they received different teaching methods only. During ten
weeks of teaching speaking, communicative activities were designed and carried out at each
speaking lesson in the experimental class. Meanwhile, Control class was taught by using
usual techniques.

33
Before the experiment: The first week of the experimental period, both classes were
given a pre-test to determine the starting point of the participants and to see whether the
students in two groups were similar in term of speaking ability.
During the experiment: During the experiment, the students in two groups got
different teaching approaches. The experimental group (class 5A1)was taught by using
Communicative Activities.Meanwhile, the Control group (class 5A2) was taught speaking in
traditional way.
After the experiment: At week 10, the students of two groups had a post- test with
the same level of difficulty with the pre- test. The result of the pre- test and post- test were
compared to find out whether students’ improvement was made or not and which aspect
most improved. Then the questionnaire was delivered to the experimental group after the use
of Communicative Activities for speaking lessons. The aim of the questionnaire was to find
out students’ attitudes towards the use of communicative activities in learning speaking.
The following timetable shows activities should be covered for each week.
WEEK CONTROL GROUP’S
ACTIVITIES
EXPERIMENTAL
GROUP’S ACTIVITIES
LANGUAGE FORCUS
Week 1 Pre- test Pre- test
Week 2 Traditional techniques Communication game
( find the difference)
Unit 11: What’s the
matter with you?
Week 3
Traditional techniques
Discussion Unit 12: Don’t ride your
bike too fast
Week 4 Traditional techniques Interview Unit 13: What do you do
in your free time?
Week 5 Traditional techniques Interview Unit 14: What happened
in the story?
Week 6 Traditional techniques Communication game Unit 15: What would you

34
( slap the board) like to be in the future?
Week 7 Traditional techniques Information gap Activity Unit 16: Where’s the post
office?
Week 8 Traditional techniques Role play Unit 17: What would you
like to eat?
Week 9 Traditional techniques Information gap activity Unit 18: What’s summer
like in your country?
Week
10
Post- test
3.7. Data analysis
3.7.1. Pre- test and post- test
The data were analyzed through software package SPSS version20 (Statistical
Package for the Social Sciences).The significance level used in this research is 0.05. If the
probability value (P) is less than or equal to the significance level (P≤ 0.05), the finding is
statistically significant. In the other hand, if the probability value is greater than the
significance level (P > 0.05), the research finding is not significant. To analyze the collected
data, two types of t- test including independent group t- test and paired samples t- test were
utilized
Firstly, Independent sample t- test was used to compare the results of the experimental
group and the control group in pre- test and post- test check if there was a significant
difference in students’ speaking competence between these two groups.
Secondly, the results of the pre and post- tests were compared within each group,
using paired sample t- test to determine how the new teaching method affected learners’
speaking performance. In addition, a comparison from different aspects of speaking
(pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension) in pre- test and post- test of
both groups was made to find which aspect was significantly affected by Communicative
Activities.
3.7.2. Questionnaire

35
The data of the questionnaire was analyzed by percentage which follows the
qualitative method.
3.6. Ethical consideration
Ethical issues are considered as vital for doing any research project since research
done on humans might affect the human benefits (Wilkinson, 2001). Bryman (2008, p. 133)
supports this point by arguing that “ethical issues cannot be ignored as they relate to the
integrity of a piece of research and of the disciplines that are involved”. He also states that the
main focus of ethical issues is to ensure that people taking part in the research are protected
from any possible harm including physical, emotional, and mental during the research
process (Bryman, 2008). Therefore, In order to conduct an effective and meaningful research,
this study was conducted activities in an ethical manner. All the participants were fully
informed the research procedure, including the Dong La Principal, the involved students and
their parents. The mission of the research are certainly ensured to find the most appropriate
method to improve the 5th
grade students’ speaking ability. Information provided by the
research population must be kept confidential. Therefore, the names were coded as Student
A1, Student A2, Student A3. I would like to ask the Principal to do this research (because one
class teaches communication activities, the other teach only regular ones). Inform parents of
the purpose of this study and make sure this research is targeted to find the most appropriate
way to improve their poor speech skills. Moreover, during the experiment the two groups
were treated equally without any discrimination. Moreover, during the research, the teachers
teaching English in class 5A1 and 5A2 are not included in the experiment and marking
process in order to prevent the bias toward testing results. ( yêu cầu giải thích thêm rõ hơn:
chẳng hạn xin phép Hiệu trưởng để thực hiện nghiên cứu này ( vì 1 lớp đc dạy áp dụng các
hoạt động giao tiếp, còn lớp kia chỉ dạy các phương phps thông thường ). Thông báo cho phụ
huynh biết về mục đích nghiên cứu này và đảm bảo nghiên cứu này đc thực hiện mục đich để
tìm ra phương pháp thích hợp nhất để cải thiện kỹ năng nói còn kém của các con……………)

36
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Findings for research question one: To what extent do Communicative Activities
improve the fifth grade students’ speaking skill?
The aim of the study is to examine the effects of using Communicative Activities to improve
students’ speaking skill and it specifically seeks the answer to the research question: “To
what extent do Communicative Activities improve the fifth grade students’ speaking skill?”
Therefore, in this chapter, the pre-test and post-test results of 70 students of two groups were
analyzed by using SPSS version 20for windows with significance level set at 0.05
(confidence interval percentage: 95%) to find out if their speaking performance changed
positively after the experiment or not. In order to test whether there were significant
differences in pre-test and post-test results between two groups, independent t -test was used.
Besides, paired sample t -test was applied to compare pre-test and post-test results within
each group.
4.1.1 Analysis of pre-test
The following graphic chart gives an overall view of the distribution of the scores achieved
by 70 students in both groups before the experimental period.

37
Figure 4.1 Pre-test score distribution
As can be seen in Figure 4.1 the distributions of pre-test scored obtained by both groups are
quite similar. The scores which most students in two groups achieved were between 11 and
14. The number of students of the highest score group in two groups was the same. The
maximum scores obtained by the experimental group and control group were 15 and 16
respectively and the difference between the highest and the lowest of the experimental group
is 8 while that of the control group was 5. From the chart above, it can be seen that the range
difference between 2 groups is considered to be minor.
Table 4.1. Comparing overall pre-test score of speaking skill of students in the
experiment and the control group
Group N Min Max SD Mean
Mean
Difference t Sig. (2- tailed)
Pre-test
Score
Experiment 35 8 16 1.666 11.85
-0.0285 -0.076 0.94
Control 35 10 15 1.48 11.94
The pre-test results of independent samples t-test shown in Table 4.1 indicate that the mean
of the total scores achieved by each student in both groups were nearly equal. Though the
control group got slightly higher scores than the experimental one .The pre-test mean for the
control group was 11.94, whereas the corresponding mean for each student in the control
group was 11.85 .The mean difference was -0.0285, t = -0.076, and sig. = 0.94. The p value:
sig. (2- tailed) = 0.94 was greater than significance level of 0.05. This shows that there was
no significant difference between the experimental group and control group in the result of
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
8 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Control Group
Experiment Group

38
the pre-test. Thus it was completely safe to confirm that the two groups were quite equivalent
in speaking ability before the treatment. Therefore, it is reasonable to compare the mean score
of the two groups after the treatment to determine which group is better in speaking and to
examine whether communicative activities really have better effects on students’ speaking
skill.
4.1.2. Analysis of post-test
The following graphic chart gives an overall view of the distribution of the scores achieved
by 70 students in both groups after the experimental period (Figure 4.2).
Figure 4.2 Post-test score distribution
Figure 4.2 shows clearly the different distribution of scores obtained by both groups after the
experimental period. All students in the experimental group got higher scores than those in
the control group. The maximum score of speaking test gained by students in the
experimental group was 24 while that of the control group was 19. The most frequently
occurring scores of the experimental group were from 17 to 20, which was 5 points higher
than that of the control group.
Table 4.2. Comparing over all post-test score of speaking skill of students in the experiment
and the control group
Group N Min Max SD Mean
Mean
Difference t Sig. (2- tailed)
Post-test Experiment 35 14 24 2.183 18.37 3.028 6.504 0.000
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 24
Control Group
Experiment Group

39
Score Control 35 12 19 1.679 15.34
The post-test results of independent t-test for both groups: as shown in Table 4.2
indicates that there were statistically significant differences between the post-test results of
students in the experimental group and the control group. The post-test mean for the
experimental group was 18,37, whereas the corresponding mean for each student in the
control group was 15.34 .The mean difference was 3.028, t = 6.504 , sig. = 0.000 . The p
value: sig. (2- tailed) = 0.000 was less than significant value of 0.05. This shows that there
was a significant difference between the experimental group and control group in the result of
the post-test. Therefore, the experimental group got much higher scores in their speaking test
after the experiment than the control group. Thus, the effectiveness of communicative
activities to students’ speaking skill was confirmed.
In addition to comparing over all post-test score of speaking skill of students in the
experiment and the control group, the scores for 5 aspects of the students' speaking in the
both groups including pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension were
also analyzed separately using independent t-test to examine to what extent communicative
activities affected each speaking aspect.
Table 4.3. Comparing post-test score of students in the experiment and the control group in
terms of pronunciation
Pronunciation N Mean SD Mean Difference t Sig. (2- tailed)
Experiment 35 3.88 0.676
1,085 7.189 0.000
Control 35 2.8 0.584
The results shown in Table 4.3 indicate that the mean post test score for pronunciation
achieved by the experimental group was 3.88 , whereas in the control group it was 2.8 with a
mean difference (1.085), which was significant (independent t-test: t = 7.189, sig. = 0.000 <
0.05). Thus, the pronunciation of students in the experimental group was significantly
different from that of the students in the control group. It means the pronunciation in the
experimental group improved more significantly than the control group's ones.
terms of grammar

40
Grammar N Mean SD Mean Difference t Sig. (2- tailed)
0.571 0.373 0.710
Control 35 3.8 0.584
From the data in Table 4.4, the result of the post - test of the two groups revealed that though
the experimental group got slightly higher score than the control one. The mean post test
score for grammar achieved by student in the experimental group was 3.85, where as that of
the control group was 3.80, giving the mean difference (0.571) , no statistically significant
difference was found between the two mean scores ( independent t-test, t = 0.373, sig. =
0.710> 0.05). This result strongly supported that the experimental group and the control
group were equal in outcome of grammatical knowledge. Therefore, this finding maybe
explained that both traditional method and communicative method had equal effectiveness on
students’ grammatical achievement.
terms of vocabulary
Vocabulary N Mean SD Mean Difference t Sig. (2- tailed)
0.571 3.892 0.000
Control 35 3.25 0.505
The results shown in Table 4.5 indicate that the mean post test score for vocabulary achieved
by student in the experimental group was 3.82, where as that of the control group was 3.25,
giving the mean difference (0.571). The independent t-test demonstrated significant
difference in the vocabulary aspect (t = 3.892, sig. = 0.000 < 0.05). It means that vocabulary
in the speaking test of the experimental group improved better than the control group.
terms of Fluency
Fluency N Mean SD Mean Difference t Sig. (2- tailed)
0.800 5.383 0.000
Control 35 2.68 0.529

41
It is apparent from Table 4.6, the experimental group got much higher score than the control
one. The analysis of the fluency aspect gave the post test mean for the experimental group
was 3.48 while the control group was 2.68, with the mean difference (0.800), which was
significant (independent t –test, t = 5.383, sig. = 0.000). Apparently, the students in
experimental group made progress better in term of fluency than students in control group.
terms of comprehension
Comprehension N Mean SD Mean Difference t Sig. (2- tailed)
0.514 3.538 0.001
Control 35 2.8 0.58
As shown in Table 4.7, the mean obtained for the comprehension aspect of the post
test of students in the experimental group was 3.31, whereas in the control group it was 2.8,
with a mean difference (0.514) , showing significant difference ( independent t-test: t = 3.538,
sig. = 0.001 < 0.05). This means that the comprehension aspect of the post test score gained
by students in the experimental group was not similar to that of the posttest gained by
students in the control group.
To sum up, the results presented above reveal that the experimental group got much
higher scores in their speaking test than the control group after the experiment. Besides,
speaking test performed by students of the experimental group were better than students of
the control group in terms of pronunciation, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension.
However, both group got a similar achievement in grammatical aspect with mean 3.85 and
3.80 respectively.
4.1.3. Comparing the pre-test and post-test results within two groups
The paired samples t -test was used to analyze and compare the mean scores of
students' speaking performance within the control group and the experimental group at two
points of measurement before and after the experiment. The results of these tests were
reported in Table 4.8 below:

Usities to Improve Speaking Skill of the fifth grade EFL Students at Dong La Primaryng Communicative Activi

Usities to Improve Speaking Skill of the fifth grade EFL Students at Dong La Primaryng Communicative Activi

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