Functions of teachers

Through six classroom observations at three different centres, the researcher observed that some teachers still use traditional teaching methods in their teaching periods. They still control their classes almost all of the time to explain the lessons, even conducting them in Vietnamese. They did not use a communicative approach and students did not have the opportunity to work in pairs or groups, thus failing to integrate and share information and opinions in any way. However, some teachers at least seemed to understand the benefits of using English in the classroom. They believed that teachers should use English in the classroom to create an English environment in order to help their students achieve their goals of learning English. Hence, it is essential that teachers learn to use communicative approaches in their teaching sessions. However, although they should use English in the lesson, this does not mean that they use English most of the class time just to control classroom activities. Instead, they should guide their students and then create opportunities for them to practise and use the target language

(Lewis, 2002, p.47). Jacobs and Hall, 2002; Lewis, 2002; Richards and Renandya, 2002; Richards and Rodgers 2001 also agreed that one way to maximize opportunities for students to develop English language proficiency is to use collaborative or

cooperative learning activities in the classroom. They should feed students with

vocabulary and knowledge related to the topic prior to students‟ discussion, and follow up activities after to ensure that no one is falling behind. Green et al. (2002) suggested that this can be done through brainstorming and mind mapping. Teachers need to make sure that in teaching and learning English, they include the four skills including

listening, speaking, reading and writing conducted in this order. When students can master their listening and speaking skills, they can feel confident in the others. Also, if students feel confident, they will be excited about going to English classes regularly to improve their English more.

Researcher observations showed that students were not responding to teachers‟ questions promptly, whereas teachers‟ perceptions concluded that students were lazy and passive in their classroom activities. In response to this issue, teachers should make sure that students have enough language to provide answers before asking for responses (Green et al., 2002). Teachers should create opportunities for students to discuss and share their ideas first, as according to Jacobs and Hall (2002, pp. 52-53), these opportunities help students‟ confidence in speaking up. In addition, in order to eliminate the issue of students not promptly responding to their teachers‟ questions in a friendly atmosphere. Teachers need to consider students as their friends so that they do not feel stressed while communicating. As Lea et al. (2003, p.322) point out, with an “increased sense of autonomy in the learner, interdependence between teacher and learner, mutual respect within the teacher learner relationship”, students can openly share their achievements and requirements.

In accordance with students‟ preferences, they should be given extra homework to do including projects that are relevant to the topic being studied in the classroom, to be completed it in pairs / groups. Results of these should also be reported at the end of the course. Mangubhai (2006, p.50) has a similar point saying that one of the ways to motivate students to improve their knowledge of English is by asking them to do extra

work outside school hours, such as using teaching videos or listening to audiotapes in English. Beside their work at school, they can spend more time with friends to search, discuss and complete extra projects so that they can have opportunities to share their ideas, express their opinions and debate with each other during their work

together(Jacobs and Hall, 2002, pp.52-53).

Personal communication showed that teachers understand and know about using communicative approaches to help students achieve their goals effectively, but they are unable to apply it due to high student numbers, poor teaching facilities, inappropriate teaching materials, and a rigid school syllabus. In agreement, constraints affecting the application of communicative approaches into Vietnamese classrooms have been identified by Le Van Canh (1999) and Pham Hoa Hiep (2005) as large class size, lack of teaching and learning facilities, pre-determined syllabus frustrating to teachers, and teaching materials from English speaking countries. As these constraints remain in the majority of English language schools in Vietnam, something needs to be done to improve the situation. In fact, in the first two English language centres researched in this thesis, teachers mostly used traditional methods for the same reasons. Even though their students‟ preferences were otherwise, they either did not know how, or were unable to change their teaching style. In this case, in order to be able to implement communicative approaches, teachers should strongly contribute their opinions to the board of directors in their school, and work together in being flexible and innovative in organizing more communicative classroom activities.

Good classroom practice depends on a learning environment using English integration teaching methods, good teaching facilities and teaching materials, and educated management. The differences were easily seen between a centre with fewer than 20 students equipped with updated facilities and centres with up to 50 or 60 students equipped with few or only simple facilities. Students at the former are able to produce the target language orally, but students at the latter could not. Through the teacher interviews, the researcher learned that they considered their students‟ perceptions unjustified, insisting that students were lazy, passive and unconcerned about their study

just liking to copying and take notes from the board; observation results were the same, indicating that teachers could not implement CLT in their classrooms. However, the questionnaire data found that there was a gap between the teaching methods and students‟ learning preferences for communicative approaches to help them improve their skills. Apparently, teachers either did not understand or did not care about their students‟ preferences. As Richards (2001, p.51) pointed out, “… a sound educational program should be based on an analysis of learners‟ needs. Procedures used to collect information about learners‟ needs are known as needs analysis”. In this study, the analysis showed that teachers should create opportunities for their students to work in pairs / groups so that they can improve their communication skills and feel confident in oral interactions. This is in accordance with Brandl‟s principle #5, “Classrooms are organized so that students work together in small co-operative teams, such as groups or pairs, to complete activities. In second language learning environments, students work cooperatively on a language-learning task or collaboratively by achieving the goal through communicative use of the target language” (Brandl, 2008, p.18). In support of this, Han‟s study (2007) of Vietnamese EFL students‟ perspectives found that when students were asked about their preference between whole and small group discussion, 19 out of 21 participants mentioned that they like to work in small group discussion and by that they have more time and opportunities to share their ideas.

In regard to the teachers‟ responses that students are passive and lazy, one question is that if students are not concerned about their study, why do they spend money and time to go to school and sit there for hours every day? Clearly, they really want to learn, but they are bored with the methodology presented. Therefore, the researcher believes that teachers‟ evaluation of students‟ behaviors should be reconsidered. They should understand that Vietnamese culture has been influenced by Confucianism (Le Van Canh, 1999) which teaches that teachers are the only ones who can help students, and this affects students‟ attitudes. In understanding this, teachers need to work harder to help students relax their attitudes in order to benefit from change. Han (2007, p.16) makes a similar point that students do not have confidence in group discussion because of their cultural and educational background, which may affect their participation in

the classroom environment. Therefore, as teachers do not give their students time to work in pairs / groups using vocabulary resources to empower them, students are unable to catch up and are too shy to ask for help. Instead, teachers should use methods that provide students with opportunities to speak in an interesting classroom

environment which is encouraging for students. Han (2007, p.21) agrees that students should be given opportunities to read the texts first to have a general idea of the topic and develop their vocabulary prior to class discussion. Teachers should not have to focus on a strict teaching curriculum because English is a language which is best studied using a range of activities and situations which are practised again and again. Brandl also explained that the, “… advantage of repetition is that it helps with freeing up memory” and “… learners need many opportunities for retrials, which makes the strategy of task recycling necessary” (2008, p.182).

From observations, the researcher found that teachers closely followed the teaching curriculum rather than checking to see that students understood before proceeding to the next stage. Most of the teachers tried to cover the curriculum but did not create a „fun atmosphere‟ in class, and students did not feel relaxed and comfortable. Hence, teachers should stimulate students‟ learning motivation by using English in the classroom and using games to encourage students to talk in English. Yalden (1983) concludes that in order to help language learners obtain their goals of communication, learners should “be encouraged to participate in interpretation, expression, and

negotiation” (p.73). Students should be assessed on their actual capability of using the target language and teachers should make it clear that the purposes for students‟ learning English are for communication. Therefore teachers should pay attention to both fluency and accuracy, even though students prefer being corrected by teachers just because they are still influenced by the traditional way of teaching which focuses primarily on accuracy.

In addition, teachers should encourage all students to participate, as when they pay more attention to good students and less to quiet students, the passive students have no chance to participate; consequently they continue to be passive. The students‟

questionnaire responses showed that they expect to have opportunities to interact in English with friends. One teacher seemed to understand the needs of her students rather well, and stimulated them to talk and use English in the classroom, but she still

controlled too much of the class time. According to Richards and Rogers (2001), this negates the aim of CLT. He says that “Classroom activities are often designed to focus on completing tasks that are mediated through language or involve negotiation of information and information sharing” (p.165).

Students‟ responses showed that they prefer their teachers to speak English more than Vietnamese. This means that local Vietnamese teachers should make minimal use of Vietnamese in explaining what students do not understand. They need to understand if they use short cuts to save time, their students will forget the language they have been presented. As Richards and Rodgers (2001, p.11) pointed out that, “…. a foreign language could be taught without translation or the use of the learners‟ native language if meaning was conveyed directly through demonstration and action”.