giving and checking instructions skills among fourth year students during their practicum. dinh t
TRANSCRIPT
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
University of Languages and international Studies
faculty of English language teacher education
ĐINH THỊ HÀ PHƢƠNG
GIVING AND CHECKING INSTRUCTIONS
SKILLS AMONG FOURTH-YEAR STUDENTS
DURING THEIR PRACTICUM
submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of bachelor of arts (TEFL)
Hanoi, May 2011
i
I hereby state that I: Đinh Thị Hà Phương, E1K41, being a
candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the
requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of
Bachelor‟s Graduation Paper deposited in the library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper
deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study
and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by
the librarian or the care, loan or reproduction of the paper.
Signature
Đinh Thị Hà Phƣơng
Date
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
On the completion of this work, I wish to express my deepest
gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Tran Lan Anh, who gave me the benefit of
her wisdom, advice and patience, who made valuable suggestions and
careful critical comments that helped me to carry out this study. Besides,
I want to express my gratefulness to 25 students of E1K41 who
participated enthusiastically in my research as the direct participants. I
am also indebted to the supervising teachers of English Division 1,
Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of
Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University for
agreeing to participate in my paper. Finally, I want to express my love
and gratitude to my beloved friends and family for supporting me
wholeheartedly.
ii
ABSTRACT
As one of the first attempts to investigate giving and checking
instructions skills among fourth-year students during their practicum at
college levels, the paper aims at exploring teacher trainees‟ perception of
effective instructions and the level of effectiveness with respect to time,
speech modification and techniques. To fulfill this primary aim, both
qualitative and quantitative methods with three research instruments
including observations, questionnaires and interviews were adopted. The
participants of the study were 25 fourth-year students of Fast-Track
Program and nine supervising teachers from English Division I, at the
Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of
Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University. The
most significant finding of the research was that the language for
instructions was the most problematic issue among the trainee teachers.
Other difficulties included time and techniques for giving instructions as
well as checking students‟ understanding. The paper, therefore, would
serve as a good reference for both pre-service and in-service teachers who
desire to have a closer look at this issue or to improve their giving and
checking instructions skills.
iii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 – The importance of giving and checking instructions as
perceived by trainee teachers
Figure 2 – The difficulty level of giving and checking instructions
Figure 3 – First rank factors that influence the effectiveness of
instructions
Figure 4 – Effective speech forms for instructions
Figure 5 – Necessity for the use of full sentence when giving instructions
Figure 6 – Most effective techniques for giving instructions
Figure 7 – The appropriate amount of time spent on giving and checking
instructions
Figure 8 – Student teachers‟ self-evaluation of their instructions
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements i
Abstract ii
List of figures iii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the
study
1
1.2. Aims and objectives of the study 2
1.3. Scope of the study 3
1.4. Expected outcomes and significance of the
study
3
1.5. Overview of the rest of the paper 3
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Key concepts 5
2.1.1. Teaching practice 5
2.1.2. Classroom management 7
2.1.3. Teacher talk 10
2.1.4. Giving and checking instructions 13
a. Speech form of instructions 14
b. Types of instructions 15
c. Effective instructions 15
d. Techniques for giving and checking
instructions
18
2.2. Related studies 20
2.2.1. Related studies on teaching practice 20
2.2.2. Related studies on giving and checking
instructions in teaching practice
21
a. In the world 21
v
b. In Vietnam 21
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
3.1. Participants and setting 24
3.1.1. Participants 24
3.1.2. Setting 25
3.2. Data collection instruments 26
3.2.1. Observations 27
3.2.2. Questionnaires 29
3.2.3. Interviews 31
3.3. Data collection procedure and analysis 33
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1. Student teachers‟ perception of giving and
checking instructions
35
4.1.1. The importance of giving and checking
instructions
36
4.1.2. The level of difficulty of giving and
checking instructions
37
4.1.3. Factors that influence the effectiveness of
giving and checking instructions
39
4.1.4. Language for instructions 40
4.1.5. The most effective techniques for giving
instructions
42
4.1.6. The appropriate amount of time for
instructions
43
4.2. The effectiveness of student teachers‟ giving
and checking instructions skills
44
4.2.1. Time for giving instructions 44
4.2.2. Speech modification 48
vi
4.2.3. Techniques for instructions 56
4.2.4. Planning instructions 64
4.2.5. Checking instructions 67
4.2.6. Self-evaluation 70
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
5.1. Major findings of the study 71
5.2. Contributions of the study 72
5.3. Limitations of the study 73
5.4. Suggestions for further studies 73
REFERENCES
APPENDICES
1
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
The first chapter discusses the rationale, the aims and objectives,
the scope as well as the significance of the study together with a brief
overview of the research. The three research questions, in particular, are
clearly identified to work as the guidelines for the whole paper.
1.1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study
Wright (2005) in the introduction of his book titled Classroom
management in Language Education states that “Classroom management
is the central element of every teacher‟s daily professional experience,
but it is a neglected topic in debates on language education.” He also
puts much emphasis on the significance of classroom management for
both teachers and students in language learning which “far outweighs” its
“relative importance in Applied Linguistics Literature.” Classroom
management, hence, could be considered an essential skill that should be
practiced by TELF students who wish to pursue the language teaching
career.
Books on effective classroom management were not few. Some of
them that could be named are Classroom management that works by
Mazano (2003), Winning strategies for Class management by Cummings
(2000). Previously, two research paper of Vo (2009) and Nguyen (2010)
have been carried out at VNU to investigate the classroom management
skill of TELF students in their practicum. However, since most of the
literature on this field often discuss classroom management as a whole,
few attempts have been made to investigate giving and checking
instructions skill, a key component which decides the success of
classroom management among those trainee teachers in details.
2
Moreover, prior to this, through classroom observations in a study on
micro-teaching, the researcher realized that giving and checking
instructions skills was a problematic matter among pre-service teachers
that caused them many difficulties in controlling the class. However, the
skills of giving and checking instructions were not paid much attention by
both the trainee teachers and the teacher trainers and became a big gap in
previous studies on teaching practice and classroom management as a
whole. All of these have become the motivations that stimulate the
researcher to conduct a research on “Giving and checking instructions
skills among 4th
year students during their practicum.”
1.2. Aims and objectives
First, the research paper is aimed to examine trainee teachers‟
perceptions of giving and checking instructions skills. Moreover, the
study is also to find out the common techniques of giving and checking
instructions used by 4th year students in their practicum. Afterwards, the
effectiveness of those strategies is also examined so that it can figure out
the possible difficulties that pre-service teacher students may encounter
when giving instructions in class, and pave the ways to improve their
ability of giving and checking instructions. In short, the objective of the
study is to answer the three following questions:
1. What makes effective instructions with respect to the timing,
speed, speech modification, techniques as perceived by the
teacher trainees?
2. How effective are the techniques of giving and checking
instructions used by the teacher trainees during their practicum
as evaluated by themselves and their supervisors?
3
3. What are the suggestions for better classroom instructions
proposed by both the trainee teachers and the supervisors?
1.3. Scope of the study
The study is aimed to investigate the techniques of giving and
checking instructions among 25 fourth-year students who have their
teaching practicum at college degree. Those students are allocated to
teach different groups of first year students at English Division 1,
FELTE, ULIS, VNU in a six-week teaching practicum.
1.4. Expected outcomes and significance of the study
By conducting this research, the researcher expects to find out the
most commonly used instructing techniques among those students and
evaluate the effectiveness of those techniques.
Once finished, the paper could serve as a good reference for those
who wish to have a closer view into the techniques of giving and
checking instructions used by the trainee teachers in their practicum. The
trainee teachers themselves could also refer to the findings of the study so
that they could draw their own lesson of how to give and check
instructions more effectively.
1.5. An overview of the entire paper
The rest of the paper includes the following chapters:
Chapter II – Literature Review – provides the background of the
study.
4
Chapter III – Methodology – describes in details the participants,
instruments of the study as well as the procedure which the
research follows.
Chapter IV – Findings and discussion – analyzes data found out
and discusses the outcomes of the study.
Chapter V – Conclusion – summarizes the main issue of the paper,
the limitations of the research and gives some suggestions for
further studies.
The References and Appendices includes a list of references that
the researcher used for the research, samples of questionnaire,
observation checklist, guided questions for interview, teacher‟s
instructions transcript and interview transcript.
5
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter embraces two main sections including Key concepts
and Related studies. In the former section, definitions as well as
distinctive features of classroom instructions are examined. These include
Teaching Practice, Classroom management, Teacher talk, Giving and
checking instructions as a part of Teacher talk, common forms, key
features and techniques of effective instructions. The latter part, on the
other hand, gives a brief overview of previous studies related to
researching on Teaching practice and Classroom management
2.1. Key concepts
2.1.1. Teaching Practice
Discussing the process of professional education and training,
Wallace (1991) highlights the importance of practice in developing any
professional expertise including teachers education. In his book titled
Training Foreign Language Teachers, Wallace proposes three major
models of professional education namely the craft model, the applied
science model and the reflective model. However, practice is always
considered the central element for every pre-service teacher training
program regardless which model is applied.
When defining the term Teaching practice, Gower, Phillips and
Walkers (1995, p.6) writes:
A teaching practice (TP) session can range from informal practice
of a particular technique, perhaps with other trainees acting as
students, to a formally assessed lesson. Teaching practice can take
place in an English speaking country or in a country where first
language is not English. The trainees can be native or non-native
6
speakers of English and the classes may be monolingual or
multilingual.
Teaching, like many other skills, needs to be practiced. The critical
role of teaching practicum, in particular, has been widely accepted by
many researchers and educators (Wallace, 1991; Yilmaz & Cavas, 2007;
Lind, 2001.)
According to Purdy and Gibson (2008 as cited in Ong, 2009), by
offering exposure to practical classroom experiences, teaching practicum
plays an important role in education which is similar to “internship or
field attachment” in other professions.
Discussing the issue, Ishihara (2005) highlights that teaching
practicum is often “a required core course” in any language teacher
education program. Although in different teacher training institutions the
duration of the teaching practicum may vary, the practicum usually takes
place during the last semester before graduation. Prior to the teaching
practicum, trainee teachers are expected to be well equipped with theory
of teaching methodology. Moreover, they also acquire certain teaching
experience through some kinds of training activities including
microteaching, “a training context in which a teaching situation has been
reduced in scope and/or simplified in some systematic way” which aims
at familiarizing student teachers with teaching job (Wallace, 1991, p.92).
In the teaching practicum, trainee teachers are assigned to a
supervising teacher and required to observe and teach in language class
for a certain number of hours (Ishihara, 2005). As Ishihara (2005) points
out, teaching practicum is of great importance since it is “the central or
the sole course that assures extensive sense-making opportunities in
actual teaching context.” This view is supported by Johnson (1996 as
7
cited in Ong, 2009) who claims that for most pre-service teachers,
teaching practicum can be regarded as the most important learning
experience in “learning to teach” through reasoning their practices and
being supported by their educators.
According to Gower, Phillips and Walkers (1995), teaching
practicum provides student teachers with opportunities to get first-hand
experience, mainly focuses on the teaching skills and techniques of
directing the learning activities. They also claims that the objectives of
teaching practicum is to provide trainee teachers with an opportunity to
try out those techniques and one of the main emphasis of teaching
practice is put on classroom management skills of trainee teachers. What
trainee teachers are expected to get after the practicum is the ability to be
“in control of basic classroom management skills” (Gower & Walters,
1983, p.3)
2.1.2. Classroom management
According to Kratochwill (n.d.), classroom management, or in his
own words “classroom discipline” has been considered a priority for
teachers and classroom management and instructional skills are always
identified by teachers as their “top need”. The importance of effective
classroom management is highlighted by Oliver & Reschly (2007, p.1)
since “it is critical to achieve positive educational outcomes.”
Although the crucial role of classroom management is widely
recognized by most of the educators and teachers, there is almost no
“fixed definition” of this term (Vo, 2009). According to Sasson (2007, as
cited in Nguyen, 2010), classroom management is “the actions to create
and maintain order in classroom that enable instruction to take place”.
8
Rodriguez (n.d.), however, believes that classroom management is
commonly referred to “issues of supervision, refereeing, facilitating and
even academic discipline.” Although there is no agreed-upon definition of
classroom management, the definition put forward in Longman dictionary
of language teaching and applied linguistics is widely accepted. As stated
in the Longman dictionary, classroom management is “the ways in which
students behavior, movement, interaction, etc., during a class is organized
and controlled by the teacher to enable teaching to take place most
effectively” (p.74).
According to Evertson and Weinstein (2006, p.4) classroom
management initially plays two important roles which are “to establish
and sustain an orderly environment so that students can engage in
meaningful academic learning” and “to enhance student social and moral
growth.” Evertson and Weinstein (2006) also categorize classroom
management into five sub-skills which are:
a. Develop caring, supportive relationships with and among
students
b. Organize and implement instruction in ways that optimize
students‟ access to learning
c. Use group management methods that encourage student
engagement with academic tasks
d. Promote the development of student social skills and self-
regulation
e. Use appropriate interventions to assist students who have
behavior problems.
According to McLeod, Fisher and Hoover (2003, as cited in
Nguyen, 2010), classroom management involves planning the curriculum,
9
organizing routine procedures, gathering resources, arranging the
environment to maximize efficiency, monitoring students‟ behavior, and
anticipating, preventing and handling problems arising.
Although aspects of classroom management may vary according to
different ways of categorizing, most of the researchers all agree upon
three key elements of classroom management including:
a. Managing time and classroom space
b. Managing students‟ behavior
c. Managing instructional strategies
Under the light of this perception, To, Nguyen, Nguyen, Nguyen &
Luong (2010) propose a framework to evaluate the effectiveness of
classroom management which composes of various components of
classroom management skills:
a. Managing time
b. Managing classroom space
c. Giving and checking instructions
d. Checking understanding
e. Monitoring
f. Dealing with disruptive students
g. Giving feedback
h. Motivating students
As mentioned by Clivechung (n.d.), a series of classroom research
studies by Kounin and his colleagues (1970) identified the key concepts
that contribute to effective management of which the central attention
was put on instructions affecting the flow of activities. According to
10
Plevin (n.d.), effective classroom management means that teachers have
to get students to follow their instructions.
Therefore, direction or instruction given to students is a crucial tool
of classroom management. In fact, giving and checking instructions was
considered the most important sub-skills of classroom management which
decide the success of a lesson.
2.1.3. Teacher talk
When discussing about teacher talk and its advantages, Gower,
Phillips and Walkers (1995, p.33) point out that “Teacher talk is needed
for good classroom management […] to give clear instructions”. They
also state that in language classroom, teachers tend to speak more when
setting up activities or giving instructions. Therefore, giving and checking
instructions, other than a part of classroom management skills, can also
be regarded as part of teacher talk in class. Thus, there is a need to get an
insight look into this term to examine its characteristics so that the main
focus of the study, giving and checking instructions, can be thoroughly
understood.
The term teacher talk is defined in Longman dictionary of
Language teaching and applied language as “that variety of language
sometimes used by teachers when they are in the process of teaching. In
order to communicate with learners, teacher often simplify their speech,
giving it many of the characteristics of foreigner talk and other simplified
styles of speech addressed to language learners” (p.543). Another
accepted definition proposed by Ellis (1985 as cited in Xiao, 2006) is that
"Teacher talk is the language that the teachers use when addressing L2
learners in classroom. There is systematic simplification of the formal
11
properties of the teacher's language..." According to Susana (2002),
teacher talk may be regarded as “the central in language class” since it is
the means for controlling students‟ behavior and the key element which
determines the success of classroom organization and affects "the process
of acquisition" of students. Numan (1991, p.190) argues that in language
classrooms teacher talk is a vital element in providing the learners with
“the only substantial live target language input” that they are most likely
to receive.
Because of being "one special variety of the English language"
(Xiao, 2006), teacher's talk in English language classroom has it own
register which differs from other natural discourse. It refers to a
"pedagogic discourse" which is often modified and has "a well-defined
structure" (Coulthard, 1977 as cited in Susana, 2002). The main features
of teacher's talk are:
a. non-linguistic support for comprehension including visibility,
facial expression, body language, reference to real objects, use
of visual aids.
b. regular checks
c. regular pauses
d. familiar words
e. familiar topics
f. immediate repetition or paraphrase
g. slower, clearer talk
h. exaggerated intonation and stress
i. structurally simplified language
j. familiar routine
k. clarity of discourse markers
l. tolerance of "interpreter language"
12
(Longman, 2006)
The reason for teachers to modify their talk is to make their speech
"more comprehensible, and therefore, potentially more valuable for
acquisition" (Numan, 1991, p. 191). In his Speech Accommodation
Theory, Gile (cited in Susana, 2002) also claims that adjustments to the
speech made by the speakers are due to their attitude towards the
interlocutor. In the case of language classroom, teachers' modification of
their speech is aimed at making it more comprehensible to learners,
resembling "caregiver talk" (Longman, 2006).
According to Chaudron (1988, cited in Numan, 1991), the common
modifications of teacher talk may include:
a. Rates of speech appear to be slower.
b. Pauses, which may be evidence of the speaker planning more,
are possibly more frequent and longer.
c. Pronunciation tends to be exaggerated and simplified.
d. Vocabulary use is more basic.
e. More declaratives and statements are used than questions.
f. Teachers may self-repeat more frequent.
This kind of “simplified input” language, according to Numan
(1991, p.191) is to reduce the “cognitive and linguistics load on learners.”
Concerning the distribution of teacher's talk, Hughes (1981) points
out a list of various language functions related to classroom management
including:
- Organization: Giving instructions, Sequencing, Supervision
- Interrogation: Asking questions, Replying to questions.
13
- Explanation: Metalanguage, Reference
- Interaction: Affective attitudes, Social ritual.
2.1.4. Giving and checking instruction
As mentioned above, instruction is also considered one of the
functional allocations of teacher's talk. For that reason, along with its
particular functions, instruction in language classroom shares certain
features with teacher's talk.
According to Huiit, (2003), instructions in class can be defined as
"the purposeful direction of the learning process" and it could be
considered one of the major teacher‟s class activities (along with planning
and management). Sharing the same view, Ur (1996, p.16) also claims
that instructions are “the directions that are given to introduce learning
task which entails some measure of independent student activity”. For
that reason, giving instructions could be regarded as the key element
which decides the success of every activity in class carried out by
teachers. Johnson (2007) points out that “effective classroom
management is about getting pupils to follow your instruction every
time”. According to Millis (n.d.), clear instructions can “eliminate
barriers” to students in their learning process. In contrast, vague
instructions may result in misunderstanding among students leading to
disorganized and ineffective activities in class. To avoid frustration
among students, it is essential for giving precise instructions and
checking whether the students have fully understood what they are
supposed to do. The importance of giving and checking instructions,
hence, should be well aware by teachers.
14
a. Speech forms of instructions
According to Holmes (cited in Susana, 2002), speech forms of
instructions or directives in language classrooms can be divided into three
main categories as in the table below:
Speech function: Directives
Form Example
Imperatives Base form of verb
You + imp.
Pres. Part.
Verb ellipsis
Imp + modifier
Let + 1st pers. pro.
Speak louder
You go on with the
work
Looking at me
Hands up
Turn around, please
Let's try
Interrogatives Modals
Non-modals
Will you read this page
for me?
People at the back, are
you listening?
Declaratives Embedded agent
Hints
I want you to draw a
picture
Sally, you are not
saying much
Of all the forms stated, imperatives are claimed to be most
commonly used by teachers since they are often "explicit enough" to
avoid misunderstanding among students (Holmes, 1983 cited in Susana,
2002)
15
b. Types of instructions
According to Brashaw (n.d.), there are two main types of
instructions in classroom, which are:
Instructions between activities
Instructions to organize an activity
The first type of instructions, which are used to guide the students‟
behaviors between the main activities in classroom, forms a part in daily
use of teacher language. These instructions are often simple and easy to
be understood by the students through the “context” in which they are
given. According to Brashaw (n.d.), this type of instruction rarely causes
misunderstanding among students.
The second type of instructions, instructions to organize an activity
is often problematic because of the „quantity‟ and „over-complexity‟ of
the language used. Those instructions are used to set up or prepare
students to carry out a specific activity. For each activity, instructions
may include explanation and time limit of the task, instruction to group
the students (if needed), checking students‟ understanding of the task and
signal for beginning the task.
c. Effective instructions
Walker & Walker (1991) suggest teachers a research-based
guideline for more “forceful commands”. According to them, effective
teacher instructions:
are brief
are delivered one at a time
16
use specific language so that the student clearly understands
the request
avoid an authoritative, “Do it my way or else!” tone of voice
avoid strong negative emotion or sarcasm
are stated as directives rather than as questions
avoid long explanations or justifications (and present any
explanation before the command rather than after it).
allow the student a short but reasonable amount of time to
comply without additional teacher comments or directives
(Cited in Wright, 2005)
In her book titled „A course in Language Teaching‟, Ur (1996)
presents a guideline on giving effective instructions.
Firstly, she puts much emphasis on teacher‟s preparation before
giving instructions in class. According to Ur, „teacher‟s explanations are
often not as clear to their students as they are to themselves‟(p.16). For
this reason, preparation is worth noticing and this calls for a need of
thinking about the words to use, the illustration to provide for every
complicated instructions. She also advises teachers to draw the class‟s
full attention before giving instruction. Moreover, it is necessary not to
divide students into groups or delivering materials while giving
instructions.
Ur (1996) also highlights the need of repetition when giving
instructions. She states the importance of presenting the information more
than once to provide the students with a second chance to understand
thoroughly what they have to do since „learners‟ attention wanders
occasionally.‟ She advises teachers to “re-present” the instructions in
different mode, either re-stating or writing it up.
17
Furthermore, being brief is another criterion of effective
instructions. Ur points out that since learners have only a „limited
attention span‟, instructions need to be brief and „compatible with
clarity.‟ This is absolutely importance in case the instructions consist of a
„string of directives.‟ It is also suggested that a „dry run‟, an actual
illustration, is often of great help.
Lastly, Ur remarks the need for getting feedback from students
after giving instructions. She believes that merely asking the students if
they understand the instructions is not enough. Students may say that they
do even if in fact they do not. Instead, requesting students either to
paraphrase the instructions or do illustrations of their own is a better
choice for checking instructions.
Meanwhile, Scrivener (2005) proposes five steps „towards better
instructions‟ which are highly recommended for pre-service teachers.
1. Teachers should become aware of their own instruction-giving.
In order to do that, teachers should record themselves, listen to
themselves and ask others to watch and give feedbacks.
2. It is necessary for „newly-qualified‟ teachers to pre-plan the
instructions by analyzing them and including only the essential
information in a sensible order and simple language. Things
which are visible and obvious or not necessary for students to
know at the present moment should be omitted.
3. Teachers need to make sure that students are paying full
attention while they are giving instructions. Scrivener insisted
on clearly separating instructions from other „chit-chat, telling-
off, joking‟ in class. This can be achieved by creating a silence
18
beforehand and making eye contact with as many students as
possible.
4. A demonstration is often better than explanation. Thus, when
giving instructions, teachers should demonstrate wherever and
whenever possible.
5. It is also important to check whether students have understood
what to do and not to assume that they will automatically
comprehend what was delivered. Teachers should get concrete
evidence from the students that they know what is required. A
very simple way to do this is to call one or two to tell what they
have to do.
Beside the five proposed steps, Scrivener also puts much emphasis
on the use of gestures as good companion of instructions in class. He
believes that by developing a range of gestures, teachers could save their
time repeating basic instructions.
Although different authors hold different views on how to give and
check instructions effectively, they share the common beliefs that
instructions are only delivered effectively when teachers can draw
students‟ full attention to them. Then, instructions should be short,
precise and in simple language. In addition, demonstrating the tasks is
often better than just describing them. More importantly, checking if
students understand the given instructions is essential before getting
started.
d. Techniques for giving and checking instructions
Following are some techniques to give and check instructions
proposed by Nguyen et al. (2003, cited in ELT Methodology II):
19
“Step-by-step” or “feed-in” approach: The teacher gives the
students one instruction at a time, not a list of instructions all together.
Breaking down instructions into small, separate steps to help students to
understand them completely, especially when there is a lot of information
in instructions and the teacher wants students to understand every word.
Demonstrate it, “model” it or “Show-don‟t-tell”: The teacher does
not tell what the students must to do: instead he/she shows them what to
do by giving a demonstration. A demonstration is easier to understand
than an explanation and reduces teacher talking time.
Say – Do – Check: The teacher follows 3 steps for each instruction.
First he/ she says the instructions, then he/ she gets the students to do it,
then he/ she checks that they‟ve done it correctly before going to the next
instruction. Using Say-Do-Check the teacher can tell straight away if
students have not understood something and can take action to make sure
that they understand it.
Student Recall: After giving instructions in English, the teacher
checks that the students understand everything by saying, “Telling me
what you have to do in Vietnamese” or “Say it again in Vietnamese”.
Asking students to recall what they will do in Vietnamese is helpful in
lower levels as they may not fully understand the instructions. It makes
them remember what they have to do and allows the teacher to check that
they understand what to do.
20
2.2. Related studies
2.2.1 Related studies on Teaching practice
The importance of teaching practice in teacher training is widely
accepted. Previously, there have been many researchers interested in
carrying out studies on teaching practice. For example, in 2008 Hudson
and Nguyen conducted a case study to investigate pre-service teachers‟
perception on learning and teaching writing before their teaching
practicum. The major findings of the case study revealed challenges
facing pre-service teachers in teaching writing skills. Meanwhile, student
teachers‟ concerns during their teaching practice including not being
regarded as a real teacher, dealing with students‟ disruptive behavior,
becoming a disciplinarian, coping with workload, having little
preparatory teaching practice and being assessed were examined in a
paper by Kyriacou and Stephen (1999). Although there are a number of
studies on teaching practice, the majority of them mostly focused on
either trainee teachers‟ perceptions of teaching practice (Lind, 2005;
Quick & Sieborger, 2005) or the relation between mentors and mentees
and the effects of teaching practice on the development of teaching
expertise (So, Cheng & Tsang, 1996; Tong, 2005; Yilmaz & Cavas,
2007; Yunus, Hashim, Ishak, & Mahamod, 2010, Hamid, Rajuddin &
Saud, n.d.)
There were also studies to investigate the difficulties that pre-
service teachers face during their practicum. However, most of the
studies on this issue focus more on managing students‟ behavior and
maintaining classroom discipline (Bhagava, 2009; Sawar & Hussain,
2010) than on giving and checking instructions skills.
21
2.2.2 Related studies on Giving and checking instructions in Teaching
practice
a. In the world
Previously, a study was conducted by Susana (2002) to investigate
difficulties encountered by student-teachers when giving oral classroom
instructions to EFL young learners during their practicum. The study was
carried out at Faculty of Languages, National University of Argentina.
The findings from the paper revealed an imbalance between the language
competence of the trainee teachers and the language competence needed
to address the learners. In other words, the main problem of the studied
trainee teachers lied in speech modification. Since the trainee teachers
shared the same mother tongue with the students and they themselves
have not been exposed to pedagogical English in reality, the expressions
they used to instruct students in class much resembled their mother
tongue, Spanish. Another problem which was also highlighted by the
study is that instructions given by the trainee teachers were not often
backed up by physical demonstration or modeling.
b. In Vietnam
The issue of giving and checking instructions in language
classroom was examined in two graduation papers for Bachelor of Art in
English Language Teaching conducted by Vo (2009) and Nguyen (2010).
Given that giving and checking instructions was only concerned as one
element of classroom management skills in these two papers, certain
contributions were made by pointing out the difficulties trainee-teachers
often had when delivering instructions in their practicum.
22
Conducted in 2009, the study of Vo aimed at finding out the
difficulties in classroom management during their six-week practicum.
The subjects of the paper were 16 fourth year students who carried out
their teaching practice at Luong Van Tuy gifted high school – Ninh Binh.
Giving and checking instructions skill was perceived as the easiest one
among seven sub-skills of classroom management by the student
teachers. Two major problems discovered in the study were: students‟
misunderstanding of the instructions and too much time for giving
instructions. The causes of ineffective instructions, according to the
study, both came from the trainee teachers and the students. The trainees
tended to use lengthy and unclear instructions in complicated language
and their voice was either too fast or too soft. Besides, student‟s lack of
attention was another reason that makes them misunderstand the teacher‟s
instructions. The suggestions for better instructions proposed by the study
were using simple language, visualizing the instructions, modeling the
task and using signal words. Besides, much attention was paid to
teachers‟ voice since it could help to grasp students‟ notice. Lastly, the
paper highly recommended pre-service teachers to plan their instructions
beforehand to have clear instructions and save their time in class.
Focusing on the same subject of classroom management but being
carried out on another group of population, the research of Nguyen
(2010) studied classroom management skill among 20 fourth year
students when having their practicum at college level. The study showed
a high percentage (87.5%) of trainee teachers encountering difficulties in
giving and checking instructions. Regarding the problems and the sources
of problems in giving and checking instructions, the study showed the
result which is almost similar to that of Vo (2009). Lengthy and unclear
instructions and too much time explaining tasks were the main problems.
23
Particularly, when discussing the possible solutions to more effective
instructions, Nguyen insisted on teachers‟ having a detailed script of
instructions before coming to class.
24
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
This chapter aims at describing in details the participants and
setting of the study, the major research instruments used for collecting
data as well as the procedure of data collection and analysis.
3.1. Participants and setting
3.1.1. Participants
a. Trainee teachers
The target population of the research is 25 fourth-year students of
Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS, VNU. These
students are all from group E1K41 of Fast-track program, who are then
allocated to have their practicum at nine first year groups.
These students are required to conduct their teaching practicum in
the second term of their fourth year at university. Prior to the practicum,
they all took six courses in English Language Skills, one more in
Advance English and other four courses in English Language Teaching.
Thus, they are supposed to acquire certain knowledge and skills in
English Language Teaching after finishing four courses of English
Language Teaching Methodology (ELTM). Particularly, in ELTM II and
III, they have been provided with needed classroom management skills
including strategies of giving and checking instructions in language
classroom. Moreover, they experienced micro-teaching sessions in which
they had to play the role of real teachers when conducting English lessons
and teaching their own classmates.
In addition, in semester seven, these 25 students all took part in a
program namely Tutoring Program to help their junior second year
25
students improve their performance in class with Speaking, Reading and
Listening skills. The tutors worked together to developed a complete 10
weeks‟ curriculum and designed their own lessons.
Generally, they have familiarized themselves to teaching work in
academic classroom setting at college level.
a. Supervising teachers
In addition to the trainee teachers themselves, their supervising
teachers were also invited to participate in the research in order to
increase the validity of the study. Nine supervising teachers were all
lecturers in English Division I, Faculty of English Language Teacher
Education and had experience working at the faculty at least 4 years.
Their duties in the practicum were to observe the trainee teachers in their
lessons and give feedbacks for improving the quality of the novice
teachers‟ teaching. By giving comments on each trainee teachers‟
performance including giving and checking instructions skills right after
the class, those experienced teachers were considered as the indirect but
valuable participants of the research.
3.1.2. Setting
During the six-week teaching practicum, these 25 trainee teachers
were divided into eight groups of three and one groups of two to be in
charge of nine first year groups. These groups include students from
different majors: teacher training, interpreter training and double major
training. The trainee teachers were assigned to teach the first year
students Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing and Pronunciation or all
the skills. They were required to conduct three teaching periods of 50
minutes each and two teaching periods of 100 minutes each. This means
26
that each trainee teachers had to teach at least five times and had seven
periods of teaching in total. For the 50-minute teaching periods, the
teacher students may conduct the lesson in pairs. For the 100-minute
teaching periods, they had to build up completed lessons on their own.
Under the allocation of English Division 1 at FELTE, ULIS, VNU,
these trainee teachers worked under the supervision of experienced
teachers from English Division 1. The supervisors observed and
evaluated the performance of the trainee teachers basing on a given
checklist which is specifically designed for the teaching practicum.
In the first week of the practicum, the trainee teachers observed
model lesson given by their own supervisor. In the following five weeks,
they took turn to conduct their own lessons and observed their peers‟
teaching performance.
Due to the overlapped schedule, the research could not take part in
every lesson conducted by 25 trainee teachers and observe them.
Therefore, the researcher chose to attend 32 lessons conducted by 20
student teachers during the five weeks of the practicum. All of these
lessons were recorded so that it could provide the observer with a reliable
source for further data analysis.
3.2. Data collection instruments
In order to get thorough understanding of the issue, the paper is
conducted in both qualitative and quantitative approach. By using
observations along with interviews and questionnaires, the researcher
attempted to increase the validity of the study.
27
3.2.1. Observation
a. Justification for the use of observation and videotapes
Since giving and checking instructions skill among student
teachers can only be observed in classrooms, there is a need for using a
research instrument which can “provide the researcher with the
opportunity to collect large amounts of rich data on the participants‟
behaviors and actions within a particular context” ( Mackey & Gass,
2005, p.175). Simply defined by Mason (1996, cited in Mackey & Gass,
2005, p.175) as “methods of generating data which involve the researcher
immersing [him or herself] in a research setting and systematically
observing dimensions of that setting, interactions, relationships, actions,
events, and so on, within it”, observation serves well as a useful tool for
researchers of second language research to get insight into the issue and
gather in-depth information. In the light of this methodology,
observations were employed to provide the researcher with a closer look
at giving and checking instructions skill among the trainee teachers
during their practicum.
b. Observation scheme
Due to the nature of a complex second language classroom in
which what happens is always “hard to predict and unexpected problems
occur all the time” (Nguyen, 2010, p.59), structured observation was
chosen to enable the researcher to “compare behaviors across research
contexts in a principled manner” (Mackey & Gass, 2005, p.175). During
the observation, a checklist of different aspects of giving and checking
instructions including speech modification, techniques and teacher‟s
28
manner was utilized so that the researcher could take notes of related data
for further study.
c. Observation procedure
To “lessen any impact of the observation on lesson planning and
implementation” (Mackey & Gass, 2005, p.188), eight supervising
teachers from English Division 1 and 20 trainee teachers were all asked
for official permission beforehand so that the researcher could attend the
teaching sessions conducted by the student teachers. In order to make
sure that the presence of the observer does not have any significant
influence on the classroom setting and avoid the risk of being an
“obtrusive observer" (Mackey & Gass, 2005, p.187), the researcher
attended classes as a non-participant and tried to minimized her presence
by sitting in the back of the classes.
The lessons were videotaped to assist the researcher for further
analysis. The recordings of the lessons were made in the “high-tech
approach” (Wallace, 1991, p.101) which involved the use of a portable
camera to film the lessons in ordinary classrooms. To avoid the pressure
videotape would put on the trainee teachers that might make them
uncomfortable, at the beginning of each lesson the student teachers were
asked for permission for their lessons to be recorded and used as the data
for the study. The camera was set in the back of the class in a position
that would not attract much attention from both the trainee and the
students. The value of this tool was highly recognized by Wallace
(1991). In his words, “undoubted convenience of electronic playback”
(p.101) would be definitely effective as a source of reference for
observers.
29
Moreover, observations were also carried out during the feedback
sessions in which supervising teachers gave comments on the trainee‟s
performance in class. For these observations, field notes were used to
help the researcher take notes of supervising teachers‟ comments on
giving and checking instructions skills of the trainee teachers.
The data collected from observations is used to answer the two
sub-questions of the study:
- How effective are instructions given by trainee teachers as
evaluated by supervising teachers?
- What are the suggestions for better classroom instructions
proposed the supervisors?
3.2.2 Questionnaire
a. Justification for the use of questionnaire
According to Brown (2001, as cited in Nguyen, 2010, p.16),
questionnaire can be defined as “any written instruments that present
respondents with a series of questions or statements to which they are to
react by either writing down their answers or selecting from among
existing answers.”
Mackey and Gass (2005) once regarded the use of questionnaires in
second language research as perfect research instruments for their
economical and practical advantages in revealing data on attitudes and
opinions from a large group of participant. These valuable features of
questionnaires match the aim of the researcher in investigating the trainee
teachers‟ perception of effective instructions as well as their perceived
30
problems in giving and checking instructions during their practicum. For
that reason, questionnaires were employed into the study.
b. Questionnaire design
The questionnaire was designed to yield two main types of data
about the respondents including attitudinal and behavioral information.
The questionnaire was divided into two main parts with fifteen
questions in total. The first section of the questionnaire comprised seven
questions which were all aimed at finding out the trainee teachers‟
perception of effective instructions with respect to speech modification,
time and techniques. In the latter part of the questionnaire, the trainee
teachers were asked about their experience of giving and checking
instructions during the six-week practicum. Most of the questions were
designed in the form of “closed-item” questions that “focus in on
important concepts” and “involve a greater uniformity of measurement
and therefore greater reliability” (Mackey & Gass, 2005, p.93). There
were also some open-ended questions which provided the respondents
with a chance to write down their own answers “in any manner they see
fit” (Mackey & Gass, 2005, p.93) and evaluate the effectiveness of their
giving and checking instructions skills.
The data collected from questionnaires is used to answer two
research questions:
1. What makes effective instructions with respect to the timing,
speed, speech modification, techniques as perceived by the
teacher trainees?
2. How do the trainee teachers self-evaluate their giving and
checking instructions skills?
31
c. Questionnaire procedure
The questionnaires were delivered to 25 trainee teachers after they
had finished their practicum so that the participants could thoroughly
understand what effective instructions are and understand their strengths
and weaknesses in giving and checking instructions. The questionnaires
were printed out and delivered directly to the student teachers.
3.2.3 Interview
a. Justification for the use of interview
Although observations and questionnaires are widely accepted to
be effective tools for a qualitative research, there still exists a need for the
researcher to ask for further explanation of the participants in cases data
collected from these methods are not reliable enough. Mackey and Gass
(2005, p.173) points out that “because interviews are interactive,
researchers can elicit additional data if initial answers are vague,
incomplete, off topic or not specific enough”. Therefore, along with
observations and questionnaires, interview was the third research
instrument chosen to enable the researcher “to investigate phenomena
that are not directly observable” (Mackey and Gass, 2005, p.173). In the
case of the study, the under investigated phenomena include the trainee
teachers‟ perception of effective instructions and their self-reflection on
their giving and checking instructions skills during the practicum
b. Interview design
All the interviews were in semi-structured form in which the
interviewer used a list of guided questions to elicit answers and/or
explanations from the participants. By conducting semi-structured
32
interviews in Vietnamese, the researcher hoped to take full advantage of
the flexibility of this type of interview as well as provide the interviewees
“a degree of power and control over the course of the interview”
(Nguyen, 2010, p.52). Moreover, all the interviews were carried out
orally and face-to-face. Recordings of all the interviews, in addition, were
made for later investigation.
The guided questions for interviews mostly based on the questions
in the questionnaires so that they could enable the researcher to collect
more in-depth data. These questions were divided into two main parts
which in turn cover questions about trainee teachers‟ perception of
effective instructions, their experience of giving and checking
instructions during their practicum and their self-evaluation of the
effectiveness of their instructions. Due to the busy time table of the
supervisor teachers in English Division I, interviews could not be carried
out with them. Therefore, in the interviews with these six trainee teachers,
the researcher also included some questions to ask about their
supervisors‟ comments on their giving and checking instructions skills in
class.
The interviews were conducted after the trainee teachers had
finished their practicum. This was the best time for them to self-evaluate
their giving and checking instructions skills by realizing their strength
and weaknesses.
c. Interview procedure
After the trainee teachers had finished their practicum and
completed the questionnaires, six of them were contacted and asked for
permission to enter individual interview sessions. These student teachers
33
were chosen randomly from 6 groups of trainee teachers so that they
could help to reflect their supervising teachers‟ comments on this issue.
The data collected from the interviews help answer the research questions
number one and three, and the sub-question for research question number
two:
1. What makes effective instructions with respect to the timing,
speed, speech modification, techniques as perceived by the
teacher trainees?
2. How do the trainee teachers self-reflect their giving and
checking instructions skills
3. What are the suggestions for better classroom instructions
proposed by both the trainee teachers and the supervisors?
3.3. Data collection and analysis procedure
The data collection and analysis procedure has two phases.
Phase 1: The researcher designed observation checklist and
questionnaires and guided questions for interview.
Observations were carried out in lessons of 20 trainee teachers
during the six-week period. The questionnaires, then, were delivered at
the end of the practicum so that the trainee teachers had time to evaluate
the effectiveness of their techniques for giving and checking instructions.
Interviews were then carried out individually.
Phase 2: Received data from questionnaires, observations and
interviews were processed afterwards.
The answers of the respondents in the questionnaires and the data
collected from recorded interviews were coded and converted into charts
34
and graphs. The answers of the trainee teachers in the interviews were
synthesized to help clarify their perceptions of effective instructions with
regard to speech modification, time and techniques. The aspects of giving
and checking instruction skills that student teachers perceived as
problematic were also calculated. Meanwhile, the researcher‟s field notes
taken from observations were analyzed to figure out the most noticeable
problems that the trainee teachers often encountered. Furthermore, these
notes were assisted by transcriptions from videotaped lessons so that the
researcher could have an insight look into the issue. Finally, the gathered
data was classified to answer the three research questions.
35
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter presents findings and discussion of the findings in
response to the research questions. The chapter embraces two main parts.
In the first section of the chapter, the student teachers‟ perception of
giving and checking instructions is clearly depicted. The latter part is
about the experience of the trainee teachers during their practicum, the
evaluation of their supervising teachers on their giving and checking
instructions skills, their self-reflection as well as suggestions for better
classroom directions.
4.1. Student teachers’ perception of giving and checking instructions
This part presents data collected mainly from questionnaires and
interviews to answer the first research question of the study. In this
section, the student teachers‟ perception of giving and checking
instructions is revealed, which include their views on the importance, the
difficulty level, the influential factors, the language, the techniques and
the time for giving and checking instructions.
36
4.1.1. Importance of giving and checking instructions
Figure 1 – The importance of giving and checking instructions as
perceived by trainee teachers
As can be seen from the chart, the majority of the trainee students
agreed that giving and checking instructions are very or extremely
important. When being asked, Student 2 argued that giving and checking
instructions is extremely important for teachers in general and trainee
teachers in particular. She put forwards the argument that instruction is
the key element which decides the success of the lesson. She believed
that once teachers fail to give effective instructions, the lesson could not
be run smoothly. This view was supported by Student 5 who claimed that
giving and checking instructions play the central role in deciding if the
lesson is successful or not. She argued that in a lesson even when the
teachers carefully chose materials and planned activities beforehand, the
lesson goals could still fail to be reached if the teachers could not give
effective directions for the students to follow and do the tasks. Sharing
the same point of view, Student 4 said that giving and checking
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Not important Mildly important
Moderately important
Very important Extremely important
Perc
enta
ge
37
instructions were overall important and this was even more essential since
the targeted learners were first-year students whose English competence
was limited, hence, they definitely needed clear instructions to follow and
fulfill their tasks easily.
When being interviewed, Student 3 raised an extremely interesting
point regarding the importance of giving and checking instructions. She
pointed out that in the communicative teaching approach, the teacher
plays the role of a facilitator and an instructor who guides the students to
do the communicative language task rather than a lecturer who gives
lecture on language knowledge. Under the light of this teaching approach,
giving and checking instructions, therefore, become more important than
ever before since it can be considered the main task of teachers, now
regarded as instructors.
4.1.2. The level of difficulty of giving and checking instructions
Figure 2 - The difficulty level of giving and checking instructions
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Not difficult Mildly difficult Moderately difficult
Very difficult Extremely difficult
Pe
rcen
tage
38
The graph reveals the opinions of trainee teachers of the difficulty
level of giving and checking instructions skills. Most of the trainees
(72%) regarded giving and checking skills as fairly difficult. In an
interview, Student 3 pointed out that giving and checking instructions are
only problematic with pre-service teachers or novice teachers due to a
lack of experience. Nevertheless, this trainee believed that this skill,
among many other sub-skills of classroom management, is one of the
easiest ones to improve through regular practice. She also supported the
idea that once the pre-service teachers get familiar with their teaching,
giving and checking instructions would not be a tough task. Student 8
added that in case she failed to make the instructions clear in English, she
could use Vietnamese instead, thereby she felt quite comfortable. Giving
instructions, therefore, was not a major problem for her.
However, quite a number of trainees (24%) thought that giving and
checking instructions are very difficult. When being asked to clarify this
idea, Student 4 considered this one of the most challenging skills beside
choosing materials or designing in-class activities. She argued that
although teachers could definitely prepare instructions in advance,
whether instructions are delivered effectively depends much on the
psychological conditions and the language competence of students.
39
4.1.3. Factors that influence effectiveness of instructions
Figure 3 – First rank factors that influence the effectiveness of
instructions
The bar chart reveals how the six factors influence the
effectiveness of instructions. As perceived by most of the trainees (11 out
of 25), engaging students‟ attention was the most crucial factor that
determines if instructions given really work or not. The importance of
captivating students‟ attention before delivering any instructions was
once highlighted by many researchers in literature (Ur, 1996; Bradshaw,
n.d.; Huit, 2003.) as the very first stage of giving instructions. Besides,
using simple language, speaking loudly with stress on key points and
breaking instructions into steps were also chosen to be the first rank
influential factors by many students, namely 10, 9 and 10 respectively.
On the contrary, only a small number of students regarded the speed of
speaking and teachers‟ manner as the most significant factors. Generally,
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Use simple language
Speak loudly, stress on key points
Speak at an appropriate
speed
Break instructions into steps
Maintain eye contact, use gestures to
support instructions
Engage students' attention
Nu
mb
er o
f st
ud
ent t
each
ers
40
most of the student teachers paid more attention to techniques and
language for giving and checking instructions rather than other aspects.
4.1.4. Language for instruction
Figure 4 – Effective speech forms for instructions
As the chart shows, imperatives were perceived to be the most
effective forms for giving instructions by the trainee teachers.
Declaratives, however, were also preferred by almost one in every four
student while giving instructions in forms of questioning was not in favor
at all. The use of questions for giving instructions, in particular, was
criticized by Student 5 who claimed that if teachers use questions for
giving instructions, then students are expected to answer the questions. In
activities which teachers ask students to do a task by using questions,
then students have the right to refuse to do. In this situation, teacher not
only wastes time for instructing but also fails to get the students to do
what she wants.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
Interrogatives Imperatives Polite requests Declaratives
Pe
rce
nta
ge
41
On contrary to the literature, using polite request was claimed to be
a useful way for giving instructions by quite a large number of trainees
(32%) although nearly half of the student teachers (48%) claimed that it is
not necessary for teachers to show politeness when giving and checking
instructions. Data collected from observation revealed that trainee
teachers tended to use polite requests such as “I would like you to…” or “I
want you to…” when giving directions for students to do a task,
especially when introducing an activity. However, Student 3 opposed to
the use of polite requests since she believed that it is quite lengthy and
time-wasting. This view fits the literature in which teachers are supposed
to have their own power in managing classroom; hence, there might be no
need for teachers to show their politeness in classroom, especially when
guiding students to do something.
Figure 5- Necessity for the use of full sentence when giving
instructions
Concerning the use of full sentence when giving instructions, only
16% of the trainee teachers thought that it is necessary to do so.
Meanwhile, a far higher percentage of student teachers (84%) opposed to
16%
84%
Yes No
42
giving instructions in forms of full sentences. When being asked, most of
the interviewed trainees said that in order to get students follow the
instructions easily, it is necessary for the teachers to use key words for
instructions only. Therefore, the use of full sentence may become
redundant.
4.1.5. The most effective technique for giving instructions
Figure 6 – The most effective technique for giving instructions
As can be seen from the chart, Step-by-step and Say-do-check were
claimed to be equally most effective techniques that should be used for
giving instructions. Talking about the most effective technique, Student 4
supported the use of Step-by-step since she believed that the use of this
technique, along with using signal words like First, second, next, etc. to
indicate the different stages of an activity would help make the
instructions clear for the students. Student 8, on the other hand, preferred
using Say-do-check because she argued that this technique represents all
the needed steps of effective instructions which include giving
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Step-by-step Say-do-check Modeling Using mother tongue
Nu
mb
er o
f st
ud
ent t
each
ers
43
instructions, doing some trial and checking whether students do it
correctly.
Modeling, however, was considered the most useful technique by
only one fifth of the trainees because there were some kinds of activities
in which students could not have chance to try out. Thus, this technique
was not always applicable. Using mother tongue or Vietnamese was
preferred by only one out of twenty-five trainees. When discussing the
use of mother tongue in giving and checking instructions, Student 5
acknowledged the effectiveness of using Vietnamese in helping students
understand the instructions immediately. However, in order to provide
students with the chance to get themselves exposed to real English use
and practice listening comprehension skills, using Vietnamese when
giving instructions was not recommended.
4.1.6. The appropriate amount of time for instructions
Figure 7 – The appropriate amount of time spent on giving and
checking instructions
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
<10% 10%-20% 20%
Pe
rce
nta
ge
44
The chart shows that the majority of the trainee teachers all agreed
that the time spent for giving instructions should not be over one fifth of
the lesson. By stating that, it means that in a 50-minute lesson, teachers
should not spend more than 10 minutes for giving instruction otherwise
the teacher talking time would be too much.
4.2. The effectiveness of student teachers’ giving and checking
instructions skills
This part of the chapter is the reflection of the trainee teachers on
their giving and checking instructions skills during their practicum, their
supervising teachers‟ feedbacks on the effectiveness of the instructions as
well as suggestions for better classroom instructions proposed by both of
the trainee teachers and the mentors. In short, findings presented in this
part of the chapter aimed to answer the two last questions of the research.
In order to provide an insight look into giving and checking
instructions skills, this section is aimed at discussing the issue in details
by covering all the key aspects of giving and checking instructions. They
are: time for giving instructions, speech modification (language for
instructions, speed and voice when giving instructions), techniques for
instructions, planning instructions and checking instructions.
4.2.1. Time for giving instructions
As the observations revealed, many trainees gave instructions after
forming groups, delivering handouts or when students were working in
groups. In a speaking lesson conducted by Student 23, the teacher did not
finish the instructions before delivering materials and forming groups.
The instructions were:
45
Before studying the concept of art, I would like to bring here one
activity and I hope that it‟s very interesting and really fun. So I
hope that you will cooperate well with me. OK? In this task, you
will, your task is… uhm… OK class! I would like you to work in
pairs. SO how many people are there today? <Count the number
of student> 24. OK. So it means that we will have 12 pairs. OK. In
this task I would like you to work in pairs. For example …
<Deliver handouts>… OK class. May I have your attention
please? 10 differences for 5 minutes. OK?
As the teacher delivered handouts before finishing the instructions,
the students did not know what they have to do. It was not until they
received handouts from the teacher and spent time reading the
instructions written in the handouts did they know exactly what to do.
The requirements of the task were that in pairs the students have to
describe their pictures to their partners to see the differences without
showing their pictures to each other. However, as observed, students
compared and discussed the differences of the two pictures in pairs. In
this case, the teacher failed to give effective instructions.
In another filmed speaking section, the trainee teacher gave
instructions when students were focusing on reading the handouts:
I would like you to look through some useful phrases that you can
use when you have speech. Which phrase you will use for the
beginning, for the development and at the end. <Deliver handouts,
Students receive handouts and start reading>. The first is the
beginning, when you stay here you can say “Hello”, “Hi
everybody”, “Good morning everybody” and then say “I‟m going
to tell about …”, “My topic today is…” or “I would like to tell you
46
about”… something and if your content of your topic have many
main points, you can use “Firstly, Secondly, Next” or “Firstly, I
would like to talk about” and then you move to another main point.
You say Yes, Secondly or Next or… And to end you can say Lastly
or Finally. And after you end all of the main points and you want to
end your speech say “That‟s all what I want to share with you
today and thank you for your listening”. Remember to say thank
you and come back to your seat. You have three more minutes to
revise, to read the useful phrases and we will continue to practice
with topic card and I would like you to practice these phrases with
topic cards.
At first, the teacher required the students to read the handouts, right
after that she explained the phrases or the usage of the phrases in the
handouts by herself. This made students confuse since they did not know
whether to listen to the teacher or read the phrases in the handouts on
their own. In fact, when observing this lesson, the researcher noticed that
when the teachers was explaining how to use the phrases in the handouts,
only a few students listened to her while the majority was focusing on
reading on themselves.
According to Ur (1996), once students are in groups, their attention
will be directed to their group rather than to the teachers. In addition, Ur
also states that if students have “written or pictorial materials” in their
hands then the “temptation” to look at the handouts will absolutely
distract the students from listening to what the teacher is talking. Lewis
and Hill (1985, p.43) share the same view and they advise teachers to
keep their language to “a minimum” when students are doing something.
However, when discussing this problem, Student 6 put forward the
argument that there is nothing wrong with dividing groups before giving
47
instructions. According to her, even when students are in groups, the risk
that students pay attention more to each other is rather low since
instructions are not delivered and students do not know what they have to
do. Therefore, even when being grouped already, students still have to
pay attention to their teachers‟ instructions. This is a valid view point.
However, it is still advisable that in order to save time and effort in
calling for students‟ attention a second time, class should not be divided
in groups (for group-work task) before instructions are fully explained.
Moreover, when being asked, 60 percent of the student teachers
confessed that they occasionally forgot parts of their instructions and
added when students were working or doing their tasks. Normally, the
forgotten parts of the instructions were the time limit for the tasks. The
student teacher often forgot noting the time limit for the task in the
instructions. Not until the teachers finished their instructions, the students
were divided into groups and working with their partners did the teachers
remember to remind the students of the time limit. According to
Supervising Teacher D, it is necessary for teachers to include the time
limit for the task in the instructions. This is especially important for group
work activities because it makes students be more alert of their work and
concentrate better to fulfill their task in the time given.
Discussing the best time for delivering instructions, Student 2
mentioned the concept of “falling point” in students‟ attention proposed
by her mentor, Supervising teacher A. According to her, it is vital for the
teacher to ensure that they have captivated students‟ attention before
giving instructions. However, it is not necessary for teachers to wait until
all the students keep silent since this is hard to achieve. She argued that
by calling for attention, giving some time for students to settle down and
raising voice when giving instructions, teachers can be certain that they
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are delivering instruction at the right time. In the words of Student 2,
“attentiveness is more important than silence.”
In short, all the needed instructions for a task including the time
limit should be given to students when they are paying full attention and
before the task is started.
4.2.2. Speech modification
a. Language for instructions
One of the major problems that student teachers often encountered
is the use of lengthy language “in forms of full sentence” which is
contradicted to their perception “no need to use full sentence”. When
giving instructions for a warm-up activity in a listening lesson, Student 10
said:
Each group will send a representative come here and she or he will
receive a sentence from me. Her task is to read and remember this
sentence and then she comes back to her group, repeat... whisper it
to her or his friends and then that friend whisper again to another
friend and continue whispering to the last member of the group...
then the last member come here to write down the sentence. Okay?
And which group is the fastest one and have the most correct
answer will be the winner. Are you clear? What do we have to do
now? Send a... okay representative... read the... sentence...
remember and then...whisper to your friends. Just whisper, don't
speak out loud okay? Now each group send a representative come
here.
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When commenting on Student 10‟s performance in this lesson,
Supervising Teacher A pointed out that using full sentences, in fact, is
one of the weaknesses of many trainee teachers and even lecturers at
college levels in general. Instead of using commands to help students
catch the key points of the instructions and show the authority of the
teachers, the trainees tend to use lengthy language. Even when the
teachers use simple or familiar words when giving instructions, a
direction in form of full sentence is absolutely not as powerful as a short
and sharp command. Imperatives, in fact, are proved by Holmes (1983
cited in Susana, 2002) to be the most effective speech form for giving
instructions. On the contrary, using imperatives too frequently may set
bad sample of classroom language because students might tend to use
imperatives in communication. Therefore, it is preferable for teacher to
consider the suitable type of speech forms to use for instructions balance
between the two.
Giving feedback on a speaking session conducted by Student 6,
Supervising Teacher E also disapproved of this trainee‟s use of long
sentences which then resulted in unnecessary Vietnamese translations.
Following is the transcription of instructions for the activity given by
Student 6 in that lesson.
Now you have chosen who is your Mr. Right. Imagine that you get
married to him already. Cưới rồi. Then you will choose a place to
go to honey moon. Bây giờ cưới rồi thì mình sẽ phải đi honey moon
đúng không? So tell me in your opinion, what is the perfect place
for honey moon? <Ss talking> Listen to me. In your opinion, what
is the perfect place for honey moon? Perfect place thì nó phải như
thế nào? Beautiful, romantic, peaceful ... I heard that somebody
want to goto Libi. <Ss laughing> Có bạn nói là perfect place cho
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honey moon thì phải beautiful, romantic, peaceful, anything else?
How about private for just two people?... Or activities? Do you
want to take part in the activity when you go for honeymoon? Ok.
The class will be divided into 2 groups and each group will … I
will give you 5 places for you to choose the honey moon you want
to go. Okay. So group 1, Which place do you want to go? Mình sẽ
tự chọn 3 địa điểm Việt Nam, 3 địa điểm nước ngoài nhé. Think
about 3 places in Vietnam first. Đà Lạt, Nha Trang,
Sapa….<Brainstorming names of the places> I want you to work
in pairs and imagine that you are a couple and choose among 5, 6
places we have just brainstormed in five minutes and then I will
call some of the couples present in front of class why do you
choose that places… place. Bây giờ các bạn làm việc theo nhóm 2
nhé và chọn cho mình địa điểm mà các bạn muốn đi honeymoon và
imagine that you are a couple. Clear class? <Ss: Yes> Good. Five
minutes for you to work in your pairs.
Another aspect of language use for giving instructions is the
frequent use of polite request and questions rather than commands. In a
reading lesson carried out by Student 18, instructions for the warm-up
were mostly polite requests. For examples:
- First, I would like you to play a small warm-up game to remind
you or to recall your knowledge of breaking news or news
reports on TV.
- So I would like you to play in groups.
- I would like you to have five words and five numbers....
- I would like you to put the numbers on the circle here ...
- First, I want you to face it down
- I would like you to exchange to check your friends' answers.
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- I would like you to come to the board and write your answers...
- Can you please write down the last number here
As Supervising Teacher D pointed out, there was no need to use
polite requests so often. Even when the trainee teacher is new to the
students, she has her own authority in directing the class activities.
Gower, Phillips & Walters (1995, p.40) pointed out that “firm directive
manner” is crucial to in order to make language practice run efficiently
and to avoid confusion or uncertainty among students. They also advised
teachers not to use “ten words when one will do” (Gower, Phillips &
Walters, 1995, p.34). Complicated language structures, polite requests in
particular, plays little role and even slows down the lesson. This appeared
to be true when Student 18 gave out the instructions as follows:
Time's up. Now I would like you to talk to your friends even though
you haven't finished... maybe your friends have finished so now I
want you to stop doing all the exercises. I would like you to start
discussing.<Ss stay still, do not discuss> I would like you to start
discussing. Okey .. Start discussing, sharing the answers <Come to
each table> If you haven't found out the answer, talk with your
friends to find out the answer.
Since this student teacher used polite requests instead of using
short imperatives or commands to guide the students from the beginning,
she wasted a great amount of time repeating the instructions. Eventually,
she then had to turn to use commands and came each group of students to
remind them of the instructions when realizing that her polite requests did
not work.
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Added to this, more than 80% of the trainee teachers admitted that
they often stated instructions in not-very-precise words. These unclear
instructions usually contain obvious information that should be omitted.
Take a writing lesson which was conducted by Student 1 for example.
The instructions for an activity at the beginning of this lesson went as
follows:
Each of you will receive a piece of paper and it‟s just one part of
the paper, of course, each of you will have this paper and you task
is to move around to find your partner and two of you will
complete the whole sentence. Are you clear about that? And you
will have two minutes to find your partner. OK? <Distribute
paper> Chưa làm vội nhớ. OK… start… two minutes
Another example is in a recorded reading session carried out by
Student 18:
First, I would like you to play a small warm-up game to
remind you or to recall your knowledge of breaking news or news
reports on TV. So I would like you to play in groups. There are five
words here <Refers to the handouts in her hand>... five things or
people related to breaking news or news on TV. Okay? The process
of produce news ... producing news on TV. I would like you to have
five words and five numbers.... I would like you to put the numbers
on the circle here ... Okay? To name the things or the people in the
picture. Clear?
The common feature of these instructions is that the teachers kept
repeating the redundant information by themselves quite frequently.
Although it is claimed by Ur (1996) that a repetition or paraphrase is
53
necessary when delivering instructions, what the trainees repeated in
these cases served no purpose of giving students more chance to
understand what they have to do or enforcing the instructions but showed
the panic of the teachers and not-well-organized directions. In order to
avoid unhelpful Teacher Talking Time, Gower, Phillips & Walters (1995)
suggest teachers not to repeat themselves unless they have to.
Moreover, Supervising Teacher E stated that the use of lengthy
language when giving instructions also implies failure in using gestures to
assist instructions when necessary. She highlighted the fact that trainee
teachers are likely to use more words than needed, especially when
forming groups of students in group-work activities. For examples,
instead of directing the students by saying: You are going to work in
groups of 4. Two first tables 1 group, the next two tables 1 group, then
next two 1 and the rest you are 1 group, the teacher can use proper
gesture and mime to indicate which group the students belong to.
According to Gower, Phillips & Walters (1995), using gesture is a useful
tool for managing class. This is supported by Scrivener (2005) who
claims that developing a range of gestures can help teachers save time
repeating basic instructions and this also helps to minimize unnecessary
teacher talk.
Regarding the use of the mother tongue when giving instructions,
the majority (70%) did not prefer using Vietnamese for instructions
because they thought that their instructions for classroom activity were
quite simple and should be in English. 60% of the trainees expressed that
they used Vietnamese for instructions only to make it easier for students
to follow complicated activities. More than half of the trainees instructed
in Vietnamese due to the fear that students are at low level and cannot
fully understand the instructions in English. Another 16% of the student
54
teachers used Vietnamese to make sure that every student understands the
instructions. One in every four trainee teachers strongly opposed to the
use of Vietnamese in class, including giving and checking instructions.
Even when they failed to get the students follow the instructions after the
first time of delivering, they preferred trying a second or even a third time
explaining the instructions in more simple language rather than using
mother tongue immediately. Discussing the use of mother tongue in
language classroom, Willis (1982) argues that first language could still be
used but should be minimized and employed occasionally only. He also
suggests that English should be used when organizing language activities
and listening and following instructions in English for playing a game can
be “a meaningful and useful exercise” for students (Willis, 1982, p.131).
According to him, the mother tongue should be preferable to use at times
including checking students‟ understanding after the presentation stage.
b. Speed and voice inflection when giving instructions
When being asked how often they slowed down when giving
instructions, more than half of the trainees (16 out of 25) admitted that
sometimes when delivering instructions, they forgot to slow down but
kept their normal speed which was claimed to be either too fast or to
difficult for the students to catch up with. In the interview, Student 2 said
that it is her nature to speak fast. However, this put her at a disadvantage
when teaching first year students who are not familiar with listening in
English. It even became more problematic when she kept her normal
speed to give instructions in English as her students could not keep pace
with her. Student 3 and Student 9 experienced the same problems. They
all claimed that because they delivered instructions without slowing
down, they wasted time repeating instructions for the students.
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Another problem is related to voice inflection. In her first writing
lesson during the practicum, Student 5 received overall positive
comments from her Supervising Teacher D. However, her mentor noted
that although her volume of speaking was adequate to be heard by all of
the students, she lacked stress on key points when delivering instructions.
Therefore, when being interviewed, this student ranked speaking loudly
with stress on key point as the most important factor that influences the
effectiveness of instructions. She argued that if the teacher uses simple
words and applies a good technique for giving instructions but forgets to
stress on the key information that students need to remember, the
instructions cannot work well. This valid argument is supported by the
previous literature on the issue. Willis (1982, p.1) states that “tone of
voice are at first more important than the actual words or phrases used to
tell students what to do and how to do it”. Also, Gower, Phillips &
Walters (1995, p.16) point out that if the teachers speak “too quietly or
slowly, or too monotonously, without varying the pitch of the voice”,
then students‟ attention can easily be lost. At this stage, it is vital for
teachers to hold students‟ attention with a “sufficient range” of voice
(Gower, Phillips & Walters, 1995, p.17). In addition, Lewis and Hill
(1985) add that varied voice could help make it much easier for students
to follow teachers‟ instructions. In their words, “even students whose
levels of English is not high can be taught in English providing that the
teacher does not use unnecessary language and providing the stream of
speech is broken up by pauses and changes of voice” (Lewis & Hill,
1985, p.43).
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4.2.3. Techniques for instructions
a. Modeling
Although modeling was mostly used by only one fifth of the
trainee teachers, they managed to do it well. In a wrap-up activity in a
listening lesson, Student 3 gave the instructions like this:
Now I would like you to join a game. Two tables make one team
<grouping by using gestures>... and each team will come over
here <pointing at the position she is standing> and show us a kind
of exhibition. For example, yeap… if you still have these kinds of
tiny things here <Hold a small piece of clay> you can put it like…
uhm... here come the exhibition of pottery or of pop art and one of
the member in your team will present about your exhibition...
<Wait>... You get the idea? Phương <Call one of the trainee
teachers>, can I ask you to come here to ... just to illustrate
something with me... <The other trainee teacher came to the board
and pretended to be a statue>... Hi lady and gentlemen, welcome to
sculpture exhibition. Here is a sculpture from the sixteenth
century... designed by Picasso for example... I don't know... she
represents the beauty of Venus and the Sun and all the things like
that ... Okey... Thank you Phuong <The other trainee teacher came
back to her seat>
At first the teacher explained the rules of the games for the
students. However, as soon as she realized that the students seemed not to
get what they had to do, she did a demonstration by herself with the help
of her friend. This appeared to be very effective as after watching their
teacher doing, the student knew exactly what they were supposed to do.
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Although Student 3 was quite flexible in referring to modeling
techniques to make her instructions clear for the students, in fact her
modeling appeared to be rather an impromptu speaking than planned
instructions. The weaknesses of her unplanned or unorganized
instructions could be seen in the rest of the instructions, right after her
modeling:
... basically, your job is to create an exhibition so that mean that if
your team <Refer to first two tables> choose a sculpture gallery
then five members of your group will portrait as some kinds of
pose, statue, posture and one member will present about your
gallery... Okay... So there are many kinds of art, it can be
sculpture, it can be painting... it can be pottery.... what else it can
be... types of art Class! Pay attention... Now this is time for us ...
first of all to brainstorm what kinds of art can you think of <Ss:
sculpture> painting, pottery, it can be science museum… Some of
you can portrait as an airplane ... or some kinds of ... yeah... Okay
so now you all get the general idea of what you are going to do
now... Right? Class! Are you clear what you have to do now? <Ss:
Yes>. Sure? Okay so now get in your group, decide the form of art
will you portrait over there and then choose one person.... <Ss
discussing>
A good modeling can be seen in videotaped listening session
conducted by Student 17. In this lesson, the teacher began by telling her
own experience without wasting time instructing students. After finishing
her story and analyzing it, she required the students to do the same as
what she had done. The instructions for the activity went as follow:
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So I wanna share with you a personal experience of mine. Before
the Tet holiday I went shopping at a local store and I bought a
huge pile of new T-shirts. Because there was a big sale off at that
store. Because that was the winter and they wanted to get rid of the
summer clothes. So there was a sale off. I bought a lot of sleeveless
T-shirts during the very very cold winter days and now I‟m still
longing for the summer so that I can finally put on my T-shirts, my
new T-shirts. So that was when I bought the product. My product
was? … T-shirts. And the piece that influenced my decision to buy
was? … The price. Yeap. Because of the sale off, 50% off. Ok. So
now I want you guys, in pairs, discuss similar personal experience
about the products that you‟ve just bought recently and the piece
that influence your decisions to buy. OK? In pairs.
According to Gower, Phillips & Walters (1995), giving a
demonstration or example is a good idea for giving instructions. They
claim that showing what to do is always more effective than telling what
to do. Nevertheless, there were still cases in which student teachers did
not succeed in giving a good modeling. It was in a review lesson in which
Student 11 gave out the instructions for the warm-up as the following:
So here I have a box… with… first of all we have a list of
sentences. OK. We have a list of sentences… and we also have the
purpose of those sentences and your task is to match the sentences
with the purpose. For example… Can you choose one of the
paper?<Let one student at the first table choose one piece of paper
in the box> … OK, if you have the… she has the paper: Promising
to do something. So the sentence she has to find is: I promise I
will… for example. OK? Are you clear? We have… Here we have
promising to do something. It‟s the purpose of the sentence. So she
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has to find another one who has the sentence like: I promise I
will… for example. OK? Another example, we have <Pick another
piece of paper in the box>: Arranging a meeting … arranging a
meeting… So the sentence that we want to find is: Shall we meet at
Tuesday morning… for example. OK? Clear? Do you have any
idea of what we have to do? Ok? I will explain it again. We have…
Each of you will receive a piece of paper. It is the sentence or the
purpose of the sentence. So you will have to find the sentence with
match with the purpose of the sentence. OK? Depends on the
content of the sentence. OK? Clear?
As the Supervising teacher A commented after this lesson,
modeling does not mean giving and explaining the examples. If the
teacher gives out an example and explains it, she in fact is giving the
instructions a second time. According to this supervising teacher,
modeling is showing the students what they have to do either by the
teacher doing demonstration herself or letting some students have first-
hand experience of what the activity would be like.
b. Step-by-step
Another problem of the trainee teachers during their practicum is
giving too many instructions at a time. In her speaking lesson, Student 9
spent almost ten minutes giving instructions for a task which had many
requirements like this:
…Today, I will provide you a chance to become the organizer of
that program. I would like you to think of a new program on the
radio. Imagine that in group, you are a team, and you will design a
music program. […] And in your group, I would like you … you
60
will have a questionnaire paper. Each of you will have three
questionnaire papers … and you go around the class and interview
three other people to find out people‟s taste about music. […] You
have to interview three people and after you have interviewed three
people you will come back to your group and draw a pie chart […]
In the next step, you have to decide the songs which will be on air
on the first episode. […] So you have to choose the song but the
songs have to suit people‟s taste, it means that you have to draw a
pie chart to see which kind of music people like most and like the
least, at least…Right? And then you decide the name of the song to
be broadcasted. […]
(See Appendix 5 for the detailed transcript)
According to Gower, Phillips & Walters (1995, p.41), for the
activity that requires a series of steps and each has its own requirements,
it is better to break the instructions down, give simple instructions in
segments rather than “giving out all the instructions in one go.”
Basically, in this case the requirement for the activity is rather
complicated. However, it can be broken into 3 separated phases and it
would be definitely better if the teacher guide the students to do step by
step. The three phases may include:
Phase 1: Interview/ Deliver questionnaires individually
Phase 2: Draw pie chart and choose the songs in groups
Phase 3: Present ideas in front of the class in pairs
According to Supervising teacher A, staging the instruction is
extremely important to help students know exactly the steps they may
need to follow to fulfill their tasks. As mentioned above, breaking
instructions into steps was perceived by 40% of the trainees to be the
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most influential factor when giving instructions. However, it seems that
this perception was not put into practice well. Supervising teacher A
pointed out that most of the trainee teachers tend to give out a chain of
instructions rather than breaking the instructions into smaller steps. She
recommended the trainee teachers to use signal words such as Firstly,
Secondly, Next to indicate the steps that students should remember.
Lewis and Hill (1985, p.42) add that it is preferable for teachers to uses
pauses to “punctuate” what they say. According to them, it is absolutely
worthwhile for using pauses as the “spoken punctuation” so that teachers
could make it clear before each step of instructions.
Moreover, at some point the requirement was rather confusing and
inconsistent. It was when the teacher first asked the students to use the
questionnaire they had to interview the other students in the class.
However, when confirming the instructions she asked the students to
deliver the questionnaire only. According to Gower, Phillips & Walters
(1995, p.40), being consistent when giving instructions is “especially
important with low-level classes”. The problem of giving inconsistent
instructions was once raised by Student 2 in the interview. She strongly
disapproved of the fact that teachers are not clear about the steps of the
activity that they are holding and keep changing the rules when giving
and checking instructions. In this case, only planned instructions could
help solve the problem of unclear in-class instructions.
c. Using visual aids to support instructions
Apart from modeling, it is also advisable for teachers to use visual
aids or any kinds of written clues which may include board writing or
handouts to support their instructions. However, sometimes trainee
teachers wasted time giving instructions without visual aids.
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For example, in a speaking lesson, Student 3 instructed her
students to discuss in groups as follows:
Now I want you stay in your tables and discuss the questions
for me. First, what are the difficulties in working in a different
culture from your own?... and coming with that what are the extra
quality that a good manager needs to deal with people coming
from different background of different cultures.... Okay so now I
give you five minutes stay in your table... discuss and give me the
answers later... So you understand what you are doing now? So
can you tell me again the questions to discuss... you please <Refers
to one student in the back of the class, the student answers the
question>... Okay so the manager can help? Not really the
question... Anyone can repeat me the two questions that I give you?
The girl in yellow please <The student repeating>.. Right. So you
have to do two things. First, point out the difficulties or the
problems when you work in a different culture from your own and
second one, how to deal with this... as a good manager... Okay...
the quality of a good manager to deal with the difficulties. Now
work in your table.
After the lesson had finished, her Supervising teacher, Supervising
Teacher B commented that the student teacher had failed to use written
clues to support her instructions. According to this mentor, in this
situation writing the two questions for group discussion on the board
would help to make clear of the instructions to the students as well as
save time of the teachers in checking students‟ understanding. In another
listening lesson, Student 3 also met difficulties in using visual aids to
support her instructions. In this lesson, after the students had finished the
main task, the teacher wanted to exploit the recordings by asking students
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to gather in groups and discussing eight extra questions. However, instead
of having the questions printed in small piece of paper beforehand and
delivering the set of questions to each group of the students, Student
teacher 3 wasted time writing all the eight questions on board. Since the
number of questions was quite big, in this case, having the questions
written or printed in advance is a wiser choice.
Student 18, on the other hand, was a good example of effective
using written clues to support instructions. In the warm-up for a speaking
lesson, her instructions went as follow:
OK. So today we will have activity number 1 name „Who is Mr.
Right?‟ I want you to work in groups of four. OK. Work in groups
of four. Four of you… four of you… four of you…<Move around
class and use gesture to indicate the groups>. Imagine that you are
one family. One will be father <Write „1 father‟ on board>. One
will be mother <Write „1 mother‟ on board>. One daughter
<Write „1 daughter‟ on board>. And one or two is up to you. You
may be another daughter or son or grandparent if you like. OK.
The daughter wants to marry one man but her parents want
another man. And you have to discuss among yourselves to choose
one Mr.Right for the daughter. Clear? OK. And I will give you the
image of the three men you will choose among. OK. Do you like
Korean and entertainment?<Ss: Yes>. OK. One will be Korean
singer <Write „1 Korean singer‟ on board>… OK. How about Thai
businessman <Write „1 Thai businessman‟>. And should we have
one Vietnamese. Sure. One will be Vietnamese lecturer <Write
„1Vietnamese lecturer‟ on board>….
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Regarding the question when to use visual aid, yet, there still exist
cases in which the trainee teachers wrote instructions legibly on board but
at an inappropriate time. It was when the teacher wrote the key
information of instructions on board after they had finished giving
instructions and students worked in groups already. Take a videotaped
writing lesson which was carried out by Student 7 for example:
About defining and non-defining relative clauses....Now you should
work in pairs and try to make a brief table and compare the two
kinds of clauses. OK. and the two criteria you should use to
compare and contrast them are usage and use of comma. You know
what comma means? Yes. Now work in pairs and you have 2
minutes <Ss start working, T writes a sample table to compare and
contrast on board>
According to Supervising Teacher E, because the purpose of
writing instructions on board is to help make clear of the instructions,
there is almost no point in writing instructions on the board after finishing
giving instructions. Trainee 7, therefore, made a fault.
4.2.4. Planning instructions
As data collected from questionnaire reveals, almost 90% of the
trainee teachers planned the instructions before coming to class either by
carefully writing down the instructions in their lesson plan or simply
thinking of what to say to instruct students. The other 10% supposed that
it was not necessary to plan the instructions in advance since most of the
activities were pretty simple. According to Nguyen (2010), the
underlying cause of the problems that trainee teachers encountered when
giving and checking instructions lies in their lack of preparation. Data
65
collected from all of the triangular research instruments support this view
quite well. As discussed above, most of the problems student teachers
encountered in language for instructions or their techniques for giving
and checking instructions namely unplanned modeling, poor staging or
inadequate visual aids use can all be traced back to their poor planning.
Nguyen (2010, p.77) suggests that one solution for the problem is
to have a “detailed script” of what the teacher should say to instruct
students. However, more than half of the surveyed student teachers (56%)
believed that there was no need to write down every word for instructions
in the lesson plan beforehand. Student 2 and Student 6 both argued that it
was the detailed transcription of instructions written down in their lesson
plans that make them forget a part or parts of the instructions. They
believed that if the teachers write down every word or the whole
sentences for instructions beforehand, they tend to stick to that. Once they
fail to use the exact words or phrases they prepared, they will easily
forget what to say next. To handle this dilemma, Student 3 suggested that
teachers should prepare instructions in advance but should write the key
information that need to be included in the instructions in bullet points
and no proper wording is needed. Orally practicing giving instructions, in
addition, was another good way to prepare proposed by Student 8 in the
interview.
However, the matter of planning instructions does not limit to the
preparation before class. Unplanned instructions can also be seen in class.
Take the following instructions which were given by Student 7 in her
Writing lesson for example:
To start our lesson today, let‟s start with a small game. So I‟ll
divide you into 2 groups. Group 1 and group 2. <Use gestures to
66
indicate group>. And each group send me a representative to the
board and these are the names of some cities and some countries
all over the world. And the representative will pick up… randomly
pick up one piece of paper and then she will try to describe that
place to other members of the team. Understand? OK. And within 2
minutes you will have to guess what… which city or which country
she is trying to describe. Meanwhile you will have to use ….she
will have to use the structure… Please, does anyone has the…
<Use gestures to indicate the chalk > chalk?…<T:wait, Ss: ask
each other about the chalk, one student comes to erase the
board>… OK. Thank you. So we will have to use the structure:
„This city…‟ Any piece of chalk? No. maybe. Anyone can go and
get a piece of chalk for me, please?<Wait> Okay. Where‟s the
monitor? Ok Vice monitor? <The vice monitor goes out to get
chalk>. OK. Basically, you use the structure: „This city or country
is a place where dot dot dot‟. OK?For example, if I pick up the
paper that has the word: „Hanoi‟, I will try to describe like this:‟
This is the city where there is a place called Temple of Literature‟.
What do you think? Understand? OK. …
The problem with the instructions was that the teacher did not get
herself well-prepared before giving instructions. As can be noticed, she
wasted a great amount of time asking for chalk and waiting for students
to get some. Discussing this, Gower, Phillips & Walters (1995) suggest
teachers to get everything ready before starting giving instructions. This
may include prepare students for listening as well as the needed
equipment to support instructions.
67
4.2.5. Checking instructions
After giving instructions, it is a “must” to check whether
instructions are well understood (Gower & Walters, 1983, p.38).
Nevertheless, nearly 50% of the trainees admitted that they occasionally
forgot to check students‟ understanding of the instructions. Student 12
stated that she seldom forgot this stage, but for simple instructions, to
save time she tended to ignore to check if students understand them or
not. However, Scrivener (2005) emphasizes that teachers should not
assume that every student can understand what they have to do. He
insisted on getting “concrete evidence” (p.98) from students to check
whether they thoroughly understand the instructions.
As the data gathered from all three kinds of research instruments
show, the most common technique used by the majority of trainee
teachers for checking students‟ understanding of instructions is to ask
questions. The type of questions that was frequently employed was
mostly Yes/No Questions. For example:
- Do you understand?
- Clear?
- Understand?
- Are you clear about what you have to do?
- Got it?
- Do you know what you have to do now?
However, this is, in fact, not the best way to check instructions. As
Ur (1996, p.17) states, “it is not enough just to ask Do you understand?”
He pointed out that students tend to say that they do understand
automatically even if they, in fact, do not. This was acknowledged by
68
Student 17 who experienced many cases in which her students pretended
to understand the instructions due to their unwillingness to lose face with
their peers. Talking about this issue, Supervising teacher A suggested a
number of ways so that teachers can check students‟ understanding
effectively and, at the same time, help to keep face for the students.
Firstly, she advised the trainee teachers to use another type of questions
for checking.
For examples:
For activity in which students are asked to whisper the words to
their friends, teacher may ask:
- Can I speak out the words?
For activity in which students have to keep their part from their
partners, teacher may ask:
- Can you show you picture to your friends?
For a role play, after assigning roles, teacher may ask:
- Interviewers, where are you?
- Interviewees, where are you?
Moreover, it is also preferable for teachers to ask students to repeat
instructions in their own words. This way of checking was quite popular
among 56% of the student teachers. Student 8 supported this view and
she also added that teachers should not let one student repeat all the
instructions but ask her or him to repeat one part of the instructions only.
Then, teachers may ask another student to continue thereby making
student attentive as well as checking understanding of the whole class.
Student 2 made use of the proposed techniques for checking
instructions in her Writing lesson:
69
… I will divide you into 4 groups. Two tables, two of you, two and
the rest <Use gesture to indicate groups> I want you to analyze the
mistakes here. No need to correct. Just analyze the mistakes.
Analyze and point out which types it belongs to. OK. Analyze and
categorize. Are you clear about what you have to do now? Receive
the paper. You work in?<Ss: Groups>. OK. Groups. Remember
that because we have 23 sentences here. Quite a lot. So I want you
to work in groups. And what you have to do? First? <Ss: Analyze>
Analyze the mistakes. Second one?<Wait> categorize OK to know
what kinds of mistakes it may belong to. OK very good…
In addition, Lewis and Hill (1985) also advise teachers to check
understanding while delivering instructions by using eye contact.
According to them, looking at students‟ eyes is the easiest way to check
whether they are with you and whether they understand what you have
said. In their own words, “any incomprehension or confusion will show
in their eyes long before they tell you that there is a problem” (p.41).
70
4.2.6. Self-evaluation
Figure 8 - Student teachers’ self-evaluation of their instructions
When being asked to self-evaluate the effectiveness of their
instructions, the majority of the trainees agreed that their giving and
checking instructions skills was effective. In particular, 68% of the
trainees gave a score of 4 out of 5 for their instructions which is closely to
the very effective rank. Most of the mentors also agreed that despite some
shortcomings, in general giving and checking instructions skills of the
trainee teachers were effective enough to make the lessons run quite
smoothly without many serious problems.
So far the chapter has discussed the student teachers‟ perception of
giving and checking instructions and how their perception was put into
practice in their teaching practicum. In addition, the major problems of
the student teachers relating to time, speech modification, techniques,
planning and checking instructions along with suggestions for better
instructions proposed by both trainee teachers and supervising teachers
were also revealed.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
1 2 3 4 5
Per
cen
tage
Very effective Not effective
71
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
This chapter will summarize the major findings of the research,
point out the possible contribution and limitation of the study as well as
give suggestions for further study on the issue.
5.1. Major findings of the study
Generally, the paper has provided a thorough investigation into
giving and checking instructions skills among fourth-year students during
their practicum at English Division I, Faculty of English Language
Teacher Education.
Through in-depth analysis and discussion of data gathered from
observations, questionnaires and interview, the outcomes relating to
student teachers‟ perception and the effectiveness of their giving and
checking instructions skills were as the following:
First, as perceived by the majority of the trainee teachers, giving
and checking instructions are of great importance. They all agreed that it
is not difficult to master the skill of giving and checking instructions and
self-evaluated their instructions as effective.
However, data collected from observations and feedbacks from
supervising teachers revealed that despite a certain level of effectiveness,
the trainee teachers did encounter certain problems when giving and
checking directions in class. These problems include language for
instructions, time to give instructions, techniques to instruct students and
checking instructions with the most problematic being lengthy and
complicated language use. Contradicted to their perception, student
teachers tended to use full sentences or complicated polite request rather
72
than short commands to instruct classroom activities. The trainee teachers
also met difficulties in giving instruction at inappropriate time when
students were not fully attentive. Lastly, the student teachers did not have
effective checking techniques to see whether their instructions were fully
understood or not.
To handle these problems, it is suggested that student teachers
should use commands rather than lengthy sentences when giving
instructions. Added to this, teachers should only give instructions when
students are attentive and should make use of the techniques including
modeling, step-by-step and using visual aids to support the instructions.
After delivering instructions, there is a need to check for students‟
understanding by employing techniques to get concrete evidence from
students like asking students to repeat or using alternative questions other
than simple Yes/No questions.
5.2. Contributions of the study
The study provides language teachers in general and trainee
teachers in particular with an insight into giving and checking instructions
skills. By examining their perceptions of effective instructions and
pointing out the common problems that the student teachers have, the
paper aims at reminding them of the key aspects of the issue namely time,
speech modification and techniques. Understanding thoroughly these
factors may help to remind the student teachers of the needed elements
for effectively giving and checking instructions and put them into
practice. Evaluations and recommendations from supervising teachers, in
addition, help the trainees to better their skills. Besides, the outcomes of
the study can also be a good source of reference for teacher trainers who
73
want to make amendments to English Language Teaching Methodology
Course to benefits the student teachers.
5.3. Limitations of the study
To some extent, the paper is a thorough investigation into giving
and checking instructions skills of fourth-year students in their practicum
at college level. However, there still exist certain limitations. First,
because the paper was carried out among a limited population and
observations were not carried out in every lesson conducted, the findings
cannot fully depict the problems encountered by all the trainee teachers.
Another drawback of the study is that it could not involve first-year
students who were taught by the trainee teachers during the six-week
practicum. Therefore, students‟ evaluations of the effectiveness of their
teachers‟ instructions were not included.
5.4. Suggestions for further studies
Since the study was carried out on a limited number of participants
and focused on giving and checking instruction, a single element of
classroom management, further studies can still be done in different
approaches. Other researchers who are interested in the subject may
conduct another study on giving and checking instructions but on a
different target group of participants. Those fourth-year students of
FELTE who have their practicum at high schools or secondary schools
may become potential population for further study on this issue. Another
approach is to concentrate on other elements of classroom management
such as students‟ behavior that may directly affect the effectiveness of
teachers‟ giving and checking instructions.
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APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE
I am Dinh Thi Ha Phuong from group E1K41. I am conducting a research paper on “Giving
and checking instructions skills among 4th year students during their practicum”. Your
assistance in responding to the following questions is highly appreciated. The contents of
your answers in this questionnaire are absolutely confidential and information identifying
the respondents will not be disclosed under any circumstances.
Thank you very much for your kind cooperation! = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
GENERAL INFORMATION
Please fill in the blank with appropriate information.
Your name: …………………………………………………
The group you are assigned to teach during your practicum: …………………………..
The skill(s) that you are assigned to teach: ……………………………………………………….
GIVING AND CHECKING INSTRUCTIONS: Instructions are the directions that are given to
introduce learning task which entails some measure of independent student activity.
Please put a tick or write a number into the box next to the option(s) which is true for you.
A. Your perception of effective instructions
1. How important do giving and checking instructions appear to you?
Not at all
Mildly
Moderately
Very
Extremely
2. How difficult are giving and checking instructions?
Not at all
Mildly
Moderately
Very
Extremely
3. Rank the factors that influence the effectiveness of giving and checking instructions in
the order of importance i.e. 1 being most important.
Using simple language
Speaking loudly, stress on key points
Speaking at an appropriate speed
Breaking instructions into steps
Maintaining eye contact, use gestures to assist instructions
Engaging students’ attention
Others: (please specify) ……………………………………………………………………
4. Regarding language of instructions, which of the following sentences is the most
effective?
Interrogatives (Can you discuss in groups of 3?)
Imperatives (Discuss in groups of 3)
Polite request (I would like you to discuss in groups of 3)
Declaratives (Now you will discuss in groups of 3)
5. When giving instructions, is it necessary for teacher to show their politeness by using
polite request like: I would like you to discuss in groups of 3?
Yes
No
Other opinion (please specify):
………………………………………………………………………
6. When giving instructions, is it necessary to use full sentence.
Yes
No
Other opinion (please specify): ……………………………………………………………………
7. Which of the following techniques is the most effective?
Step-by-step
Say-do-check
Modeling
Using mother tongue
Others (please specify): ……………………………………………………………………………….
8. What is the appropriate amount of time that should be spent on giving and checking
instructions? ………………… % of a lesson
B. Your giving and checking instructions skills during the practicum
During your practicum, did you ….
Never/ Seldom 0%-25%
Occasionally
26%-50%
Frequently
51%-75%
Most of/ All the time 75%-100%
… ensure that you have students’ full attention before giving instructions
… state instructions in clear, precise, specific terms that are easy to understand
… slow down when giving instructions
… use Vietnamese for giving instructions
… repeat yourself when giving instructions
… note time limit for activities performed in groups (e.g.: discussion)
… give students time to comply instructions before asking them to start the activity
9. Do you plan the instructions before coming to class?
No since they are all pretty simple
Yes, I often think of what to say to instruct students in advance
Yes, I often write down instructions for each activity in the lesson plan
Others (please specify):
……………………………………………………………………………………..
10. Have there been any cases in which the students did not understand your
instructions?
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Usually
If Yes, please specify the reasons why:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
11. What did you do when you realize that some students do not understand the
instructions?
Repeat the instructions to those students
Repeat the instructions in simple words to the whole class
Translate instructions into Vietnamese
Ask a student to repeat
Write the instructions legibly on board
Others (please specify): …………………………………………………………………………………
How often did you encounter the following problems?
Never/ Seldom 0%-25%
Occasionally
26%-50%
Frequently
51%-75%
Most of/ All the time 75%-100%
Forgetting parts of the instructions
Using lengthy language for instructions
Spending too much time explaining a task
Giving too many instructions at a time
Giving instructions at an inappropriate time when …
Students do not fully pay attention
Students are working in groups
Students are reading handouts/ doing exercises
Others: …………………………………….
Forgetting to check students’ understanding
12. If you had used Vietnamese for giving instructions, what were the reasons?
To make it easier for students to follow complicated activity
Students are at low level and cannot fully understand instructions in
English
To make sure that every student understand the instructions
You feel more comfortable/confident when using Vietnamese
Others (please specify):
……………………………………………………………………………………………
13. What do you often do to check if students understand your instructions or not?
Ask: “Are you clear?”/ “Do you understand what you have to do?”
Ask a student to repeat the instructions
Ask a student to translate the instructions into Vietnamese
Call some students to do a demonstration
Concept checking: pick an example of concept to check whether students
understand
Others (please specify):
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
14. In your opinion, how effective your instructions were?
(Please circle a number in the following scale)
1 2 3 4 5
Not effective Very effective
15. If you meet any difficulties in giving and checking instructions during your practicum,
please specify them in the blank provided?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
====================================
Thank you for your cooperation!
APPENDIX 2: CLASSROOM OBSERVATION CHECKLIST
Teacher‟s name: ………………………… Date: …………… Group: ……
Supervisor‟s name: ……………………… Lesson: ………………..
Y/N Notes
Before giving instructions
Engaging student‟s attention
While giving instructions
Speech
modification
Use simple, precise
language
Speak loudly, stress on key
points
Techniques for
giving
instructions
Step-by-step
Say-do-check
Modeling
Using mother tongue
Immediate repeating/
paraphrasing
Using visual aids to support
instructions
Teacher‟s
manner
Maintain eye contact with
students
Use gestures to support
instructions
After giving instructions
Check students‟
understanding of
the instructions
Ask questions
Students‟ recall
Other notes
APPENDIX 3:
FIELD NOTE FOR OBSERVATION IN FEEDBACK SESSION
Teacher‟s name: ……………………… Date: …………… Group: ……
Supervisor‟s name: …………………… Lesson: ………………..
Aspects of giving and
checking instructions Comments from supervising teacher
Language
Speed/Volume
Tec
hn
iqu
es
Giving instructions
Checking instructions
Teacher‟s manner
General comments
APPENDIX 4: GUIDED QUESTIONS FOR INTERVIEW
Interviewee‟s name: …………………………… Date: ………………
A. Quan niệm về hướng dẫn hiệu quả
Y/N Notes
1. Theo bạn kỹ năng hƣớng dẫn học sinh trong
lớp học có quan trọng không? Vì sao?
2. Bạn thấy kỹ năng hƣớng dẫn học sinh trong
giờ học có khó ko? Nếu có thì vì sao?
3. Theo bạn nhƣ thế nào là hƣớng dẫn hiệu quả
(xét về phƣơng diện ngôn ngữ sử dụng, giọng
nói, v.v.)
Những yếu tố nào quyết định tính hiệu quả
của hƣớng dẫn?
4. Về ngôn ngữ, theo bạn cách sử dụng câu nhƣ
thế nào là hiệu quả nhất trong khi hƣớng dẫn
học sinh (câu trần thuật, câu hỏi, câu mệnh
lệnh)?
Theo bạn có cần thiết sử dụng câu cầu khiến
trang trọng kiểu “I would like you to…”
5. Bạn có thể cho mình biết thế nào là:
- Say-do-check
- Step-by-step
- Modelling
6. Về cách thức , theo bạn thủ thuật nào hiệu quả
nhất trong việc hƣớng dẫn học sinh (Step-by-
step, Say-do-Check, using mother tongue,
Modelling)
7. Theo bạn thì thời lƣợng để hƣớng dẫn học sinh
chiếm bao nhiêu phần trăm của một giờ học là phù hợp?
8. Theo bạn có cách nào để kiểm tra xem sinh
viên đã thực sự hiểu hƣớng dẫn một cách hiệu
quả nhất?
B. Những trải nghiệm của giáo sinh trong kì thực tập
1. Bạn có chuẩn bị kỹ hƣớng dẫn cho các hoạt
động trên lớp trƣớc khi lên lớp không? Ví dụ
nhƣ viết ra những gì bạn sẽ nói để hƣớng dẫn
học sinh vào giáo án, tập nói trƣớc khi lên
lớp?
2. Có trƣờng hợp nào sinh viên không hiểu
hƣớng dẫn của bạn không?
3. Bạn có thƣờng sử dụng các thủ thuật nhƣ đã
kể trên để hƣớng dẫn học sinh không hay là
bạn thƣờng đƣa ra hƣớng dẫn cùng 1 lúc?
4. Bạn có bao giờ sử dụng tiếng Việt trong khi
hƣớng dẫn học sinh không? Nếu có thì vì lý
do gì?
5. Có trƣờng hợp nào bạn đƣa ra hƣớng dẫn
không đúng thời điểm không?
Thời điểm thích hợp nhất để đƣa ra hƣớng
dẫn là khi nào?
Có trƣờng hợp nào bạn quên hƣớng dẫn và
thêm vào khi học sinh đang làm việc?
6. Bạn thƣờng làm gì để kiểm tra xem học sinh
có thực sự hiểu câu hỏi của bạn?
7. Nếu nhƣ bạn đặt câu hỏi thì bạn thƣờng hỏi
nhƣ thế nào? Câu hỏi Y/N hay Wh-
Bạn có thể cho một vài ví dụ câu hỏi mà bạn
thƣờng dùng để kiểm tra xem học sinh đã
thực sự hiểu hƣớng dẫn?
8. Khi nhận xét về bài giảng của bạn trong kì
thực tập, giáo viên hƣớng dẫn của bạn có chú
ý nhận xét về kĩ năng hƣớng dẫn học sinh
của bạn không? Giáo viên của bạn đã nhận
xét những gì?
APPENDIX 5: TEACHER’S INSTRUCTIONS TRANSCRIPT
Teacher: Student 9 Lesson: Speaking Date: 9/3/2011
…Have you ever thought that you will join that group? I mean you will
be the host, the organizer of that program? Today, I will provide you a chance
to become the organizer of that program. I would like you to think of a new
program on the radio. Imagine that in group, you are a team, and you will
design a music program. So I have first a new program <Write “A new
program” on board>. And in your group, I would like you … you will have a
questionnaire paper. Each of you will have three questionnaire papers … and
you go around the class and interview three other people to find out people‟s
taste about music. First, you have a questionnaire <Write: “Questionnaire” on
board>. I have 2 questions here <Show the questionnaire to Ss> and when you
receive, you go to this person and you ask “Which kind of music do you like or
listen to both?” and they will choose one of the options here… one or two or
whatever and “Name some of your favorite songs?” and you can ask your
friends about that. Do you understand? You have to interview three people and
after you have interviewed three people you will come back to your group and
draw a pie chart <Write “pie chart” on board>. Why do you … Do you know
pie chart <Draw a pie chart on board>. Why, why do you have to draw a pie
chart? In the next step, you have to decide the songs which will be on air on the
first episode. It means that maybe next week you will have the first episode of
this new program and you have to choose songs to be on air, to be broadcasted
in that program…Right? So you have to choose the song but the songs have to
suit people‟s taste, it means that you have to draw a pie chart to see which kind
of music people like most and like the least, at least…Right? And then you
decide the name of the song to be broadcasted. You understand? You
understand what you have to do? Yes or No? Ok. I will ask you. In your group
what you have to do now? Ok Vietnamese <Come to one student>… Đầu tiên
là mình sẽ phát questionnaire cho ba người. Ví dụ em phát cho 1 bạn, 2 bạn, 3
bạn ở ba nhóm còn lại đúng không. Thứ hai, sau đấy, sau khi mà mình đã kết
hợp được hết rồi thì mình sẽ quay về cái group của mình và mình sẽ vẽ cái biểu
đồ này <Point at the pie chat on the board> để xem xem loại nhạc nào mà
người ta yêu thích nhất này, loại nhạc nào ít yêu thích nhất. Như thế thì mình
mới chọn được bài hát nào mà trùng hợp với cái dòng nhạc ấy. Ví dụ như mình
thấy là có 50% người thích nhạc Việt này rồi 20% người thích nhạc Hàn này,
vậy thì mình phải chọn bài hát nào? Chọn bài hát Việt để phát đúng không tại
vì nhiều người yêu thích hơn thì mình phải chọn bài hát Việt. Vậy thì cái việc
vẽ cía pie chart này để phục vị cho việc là mình sẽ chọn bài hát nào để phát
vào cái chương trình đầu tiên, the first episode hiểu không? <Write the words
“episode” on board>. Thì để phát trong cái chương trình đầu tiên này. Các bạn
có hiểu không? Đã hiểu những gì mà mình phải làm chưa? <Ss: Rồi> Và sau
đó thì sẽ có hai người . Thứ nhất là bạn sẽ đưa cái pie chart của các bạn vẽ lên
đây và phải giải thích là à đây là ở trong … thông qua cái pie chart này, bao
nhiêu người thích cái nhạc này, bao nhiêu người thích cái nhạc kia đúng
không? Và chính vì như thế mà chúng tôi đã chọn bài hát như thế nào? OK?
You understand what you have to do? Yes. Ok. So you will have five minutes to
deliver questionnaires, five minutes to deliver questionnaires and then fifteen
minutes to discuss in your group to draw pie chart and decide songs, the name
of the song. Các bạn sẽ có năm phút để đi phát questionnaire cho tất cả mọi
người. Sau đấy sau năm phút, come back và discuss ở trong nhóm trong vòng
mười lăm phút. OK? Mỗi người sẽ lấy ba bản nhé <Deliver handouts>. Nhớ là
không được tự interview mình mà phải đi interview các bạn ấy…
APPENDIX 6: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Interviewee: Student 2 Date: 30/3/2011
Interviewer: Good morning! My name is Đinh Thị Hà Phƣơng from group
E1K41. I am carrying a study on giving and checking instructions skills among
4th
year students during their practicum. Would you mind giving me some
minutes so that I can ask you some questions about your this issue?
Interviewee: OK. I agree.
Interviewer: Ok. Thank you every much. Now in the first part of the interview I
will ask you some questions to know more about your perceptions of effective
instructions. OK? Now first of all, do you think that giving and checking
instructions are important to student teachers? Interviewee: Yes. It is extremely
important, I suppose.
Interviewer: Why do you think so?
Interviewee: In my opinion, it is a vital factor that decides the success of a
lesson. If you cannot instruct the students effectively then it is certain that they
cannot fulfill the task that you have planned. This means that your lesson will
fail.
Interviewer: Ok. So do you think that giving and checking instructions are
difficult skills?
Interviewee: I think that besides other skills like choosing materials and
designing class activities, it is one of the most challenging tasks to every
teacher because you cannot plan it beforehand. I mean, you can plan your
instructions in advance but when you perform them in class there are many
factors that can influence it.
Interviewer: I see. You mean that …. So in your opinion, what are the factors
that influence the effectiveness of giving and checking instructions?
Interviewee: I think the most important thing to be concern is language for
instructions. When instructing students, it is necessary for teachers to use
simple sentence structures like command or request because it helps students
get the point more quickly and follow the requirements more easily. There is no
need to use lengthy sentence like „I would like to…‟ Secondly, speed of
speaking is another important factor. To be honest, I have problem with this
one. I know that it is absolutely necessary for teachers to slow down when
talking in class, especially when giving instructions… However, because it is
my nature to speak fast, I often tend to keep my normal speed when giving
instructions. I know that many other teachers have the same problem with me.
They often stick to their normal speed when talking in class without caring if
their students can catch up with them or not. Lastly, it is also important for
teachers to clear about what they want their students do…
Interviewer: …You mean the purpose of the activity?
Interviewee: Yes the purpose as well as the steps needed for the students to
carry out the activity. For example, a teacher instructs her students to do the
activity in a way for the first time and then for the second time of instructing
she tells students to perform the task in another way. After some times, she
herself changes the rules in the instructions. This means that the teacher herself
is not clear about the rules, then how could she effectively instruct the student
to fulfill the task? And I also think that checking students‟ understanding is
important too.
Interviewer: OK. I see. The next question for you. You have learnt about the
techniques to give instructions in ELT II Right? So can you tell me what is
Step-by-step, Say- do- check and Modeling?
Interviewee: Step-by-step is giving instructions in steps, I mean breaking
instructions into smaller steps. Modeling and Say-do-check are somehow
similar. Say-do-check is after giving instructions, teachers let students do the
activity and check whether they do it correct or not. Meanwhile, Modeling is
more flexible. The person doing the demonstration can be either teacher or
students.
Interviewer: Thank you. So in your opinions, of all the techniques mentioned
above, which one is the most effective for giving and checking instructions?
Interviewee: I prefer using Ste-by-step because it is easier for student to follow
the instruction if the instruction is break into steps.
Interviewer: Regarding time for instructions, what do you think is the
appropriate amount of time should be spent on a lesson?
Interviewee: It depends on the number of activities in each lesson but I think
teachers should not spend more than one fifth of a lesson on giving instructions
otherwise teacher talk will be too much.
Interviewer: OK. In the second part of the interview, I will ask you some
questions about your experience of giving and checking instructions during
your practicum. Did you plan you instructions carefully before coming to class
such as writing the instructions in the lesson plan or practice them orally at
home?
Interviewee: For some of my first lessons, I often wrote carefully the
instructions for each activity in the lesson plan… say the detailed transcripts for
them. However, later I only write some key points of instructions in bullet
points only. I think preparation is needed for effective instructions in class but
there is no need writing detailed transcript for instructions.
Interviewer: OK. So is there any cases you gave instructions at an inappropriate
time?
Interviewee: Yes. It was when I was in a rush and I gave instructions when
students were still discussing about the previous activity. It was when they
were not settled down yet. And then I wasted time repeating the instructions a
second time.
Interviewer: So in your opinion, what is the most appropriate time to give
instructions?
Interviewee: The most appropriate time to give instructions is the „falling point‟
in students‟ attention when students are all attentive.
Interviewer: Falling point? Can you make it clearer?
Interviewee: Yeah. Actually it is my supervising teacher‟s word. She pointed
out that this is the time when students are ready to listen to instructions given
by teachers. In fact, it is very difficult or even impossible to wait for all the
students to keep silent. Some students may keep talking or discussing.
However, given that the teacher calls for students‟ attention, gives them some
time to settle down and raises her voice when giving instructions, it is fine.
Interviewer: Ok. I see. That‟s an interesting point. So have there been any cases
in which you forgot some parts of instructions and added when students were
working?
Interviewee: Yes, I did meet this problem in the practicum. That was in the first
lessons when I tented to stick to the too detailed transcript for the instructions I
wrote in the lesson plan. Since I wrote every word I would use then when I
forget some not-very-important words or failed to use the exact words that I
had prepared, I could not remember all the needed information in the
instructions. However, when forgetting parts of the instructions I often avoided
adding them when students were working. The reason was because I knew that
there is no point in adding instructions because students were working already
and they would not pay attention to what I was saying.
Interviewer: So what did you do if you forget parts of the instructions?
Interviewee: I waited until the students finished the task and then continued to
instruct them to do the next. Forgotten parts of instructions are now considered
as new directions for the next steps of the task. In cases that forgotten parts of
the instructions were not really important, I ignored them.
Interviewer: Have there been any cases in which students did not understand
your instructions?
Interviewee: I think it is quite rare since most of the words I use for instructing
my students were pretty simple and easy to understand. However, sometimes
students may find it difficult to follow me because I spoke too fast.
Interviewer: Have you ever used Vietnamese when giving and checking
instructions?
Interviewee: I do not prefer using Vietnamese in class. Therefore, when giving
instructions I used English by choosing simple words. Even when I failed to get
the students understand the instructions for the first time, I would try another
time explaining the instructions in more simple language rather than using
Vietnamese. I only referred to mother tongue occasionally when checking
students‟ understanding.
Interviewer: What did you often do to check whether students understand your
instructions?
Interviewee: I asked a student to repeat the instructions or call some students to
do a demonstration because I think asking questions like “Are you clear?” is
not effective enough.
Interviewer: OK. That‟s the end of the interview. Thank you very much for
your cooperation.