Lesson structure

Typically in the 20 lessons I observed, the bulk of lesson time was taken up with language input and controlled practice. This is similar to findings from other studies of teachers in Vietnam (Moon, 2005, 2009; Nguyen, 2011) and China (Wang, 2007). In most lessons, the lesson structure consisted of a teacher-led presentation of language, usually vocabulary, followed by controlled practice, leading into the introduction of new structures, usually through a short dialogue. Figure 5.2 shows the stages of one of Mai’s observed lessons which exemplify this typical lesson structure.

Setting This is a 35-minute Grade 5 class with 65 students, aged between 10 and 11. The lesson is based on Unit 5 Lesson 1 in Tieng Anh 5 and the focus is on the language “How do you get to your home town?/ By …”

1. Mai introduces transport vocabulary using flashcards. She models and gets the whole class to repeat each word. She checks the meaning in Vietnamese. 2. Mai nominates individual students to repeat words. The students are keen to

volunteer. She sticks the flashcards on the b/b and gets the whole class to repeat each word again.

3. Mai orally highlights the final consonant of each word and writes up the six new words on the board with Vietnamese translations. Then Mai nominates individual students to repeat all the words on the board again. She corrects pronunciation of final consonants.

4. Mai proceeds to rub out the English words on the b/b and asks for volunteers to come and write them back in. She picks students at the front of the class who are able to get to the b/b.

5. Mai introduces language (How do you get to…/ by …) through a dialogue in the textbook. She asks students questions about the picture in the book related to the dialogue.

6. Mai plays a dialogue and the students listen and follow in their books. She plays the CD again and gets the whole class to repeat each line. The students repeat almost as a chant. She then drills each line in two groups, and then open pairs. 7. Mai asks students to work in pairs to practise the dialogue again. The students do

this activity quickly and finish after about 30 seconds. Mai nominates three pairs to display their dialogue. She writes the new language on the b/b and asks students what it means in Vietnamese.

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8. Mai shows flashcards of transport again and gets the students to say each word chorally. She then asks a question ‘How do you get to your hometown?’ and shows a card to elicit a response from the whole class. She does this for all the transport vocab. cards.

9. Mai asks the students to complete the mini dialogues in their books. This is a Q/A activity. Feedback is through open pairs.

10. Mai asks the students to listen to children talking about their hometown. She asks the students to circle the type of transport they hear. After listening Mai elicits the answer for each question onto the b/b. She plays the CD again and the students listen and check.

11. Mai demonstrates a short dialogue with one student using the target language. The students practise this dialogue in pairs. This activity is about 1 minute long and is interrupted by the sound of a drum indicating break time.

Figure 5.2 Lesson extract from T.Mai. (LO3.11.04.14)

As Figure 5.2 shows, Mai begins the lesson by introducing different kinds of transport vocabulary (stages 1 and 2) and later introduces language to use this vocabulary through a dialogue in the textbook (stage 6). Practice involves whole-class and pair repetition of vocabulary or structures in mechanical drills. The focus of the lesson is predominantly on language accuracy with a very tightly controlled manipulation of set target language. The final stage of the lesson has potential to allow students to be more creative and free with their language choice and use. However in reality the students were using language decided by the teacher and repeating set structures from the lesson, with almost no personalisation. Interestingly, this contrasts with Mai’s own rationale for this activity. In the post observation interview, Mai commented that she felt that the final stage was an opportunity for her students to

show everything they like, maybe other things not only the question part…I want them to make production about themselves, yeah.

(T.Mai. O3/11.4.14) This also reflects what she says in section 5.3.2 about the need for students to have a chance to use the language freely: “I want to less controlled practice and finally imagine the real situation and they can make their own dialogues in the real situation; they think” (T.Mai.INT1/4/11/13). It would seem that Mai is aware of the need for students to be creative with language, but has not planned activities which give students an opportunity to create a real situation and contextualise the language. Indeed, all the teachers commented that the procedures and activities in the main part of their lessons are reflective of the “communicativeness” implicit in the new curriculum

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because the students are involved in speaking. Yet in all the lessons I observed, there was little attention paid to ‘production’ or ‘free talk’ previously mentioned in teachers’ talk about ‘communicativeness’ (see section 5.3.2). This highlights some of the misconceptions the teachers have about the notion of ‘communicativeness’; that it is all about speaking and as long as the students are saying something, then they are communicating.

In the majority of lessons I observed, the final practice stage of the lesson was very rushed and usually lasted no more than two minutes, so probably even if Mai (or the other teachers) did plan a freer practice activity, there would be very little time to exploit it fully before the drum sounded to signal the end of the lesson. Figure 5.3 shows an extract of the final stages of one of Chi’s lessons with a Grade 4 class. Here she has already introduced vocabulary for school subjects and days of the week and is practising the structure “What lessons have you got on ….?/ I’ve got …”.

Setting This is a 35-minute Grade 4 class with 36 students, aged between 9 and 10. The

lesson is based on Unit 7 Lesson 1 in Tieng Anh 4 and the focus is on the language “What lessons have you got on …? I’ve got …”

1. Chi elicits the target Q/A from the dialogue in the book using the PPT.

2. Chi drills the Q/A chorally and the gets groups to repeat it. She bangs the ruler on the desk to signal when the groups should swap roles. Then individual students repeat each line.

3. Chi asks students to practise the dialogue in pairs. She stops them after about 30 seconds. Not all the students are ready.

4. Chi provides feedback through open pair repetition of the dialogue. Students are keen to volunteer.

5. Chi drills the Q/A again with the whole class. Chi gets open pairs to display their questions and responses. Chi corrects pronunciation of ‘the subjects

Vietnamese’ and ‘Science’.

6. Chi asks students to do the listening activity where they tick the school subjects they hear. She shows the pictures from the listening activity on a PPT and drills each word in the picture chorally before the students listen to the CD.

7. Chi gets students to swap books to check. Then she elicits answers from individual students and writes the answers on the b/b.

8. Chi asks students to repeat the Q/A structure again chorally from the listening activity in the textbook.

9. Chi ends the class by referring to the target language of the lesson on the b/b and asking students to copy it into their notebooks.

Figure 5.3 Lesson extract from T.Chi (LO1.13.11.13)

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Like in Mai’s lesson, Chi’s focus (Figure 5.3) is on language and accuracy of form and the practice stages only allow for tightly controlled repetition of limited vocabulary items and grammatical structure. This seems to reflect Chi’s beliefs about the importance of the role of grammar and language knowledge and the notion of communication as something that can be learnt rather than communication as a way of learning.

In my opinion teaching students communication means the teacher provides students with certain vocabulary and then structures. Based on this, students will be able to listen and speak successfully. Without vocabulary and structures given by the teacher, it is unlikely that the students will be able to communicate.

(T.Chi.TGNP.translation/17.4.14). Chi’s reference here to successful communication being dependent on the lexical and grammatical input from the teacher suggests an understanding of communicative outcomes bound up in notions of accuracy. This is reflected in all the teachers’ classroom practices, which, as Figure 5.2 and Figure 5.3 have exemplified, focus on accuracy of spoken grammatical form through controlled practice.

What is interesting is that all the teachers seem to equate the ‘communicative’ aspect of the new curriculum with speaking, regardless of how controlled this speaking might be. The teachers appear to see the new curriculum in terms of a shift from written grammatical accuracy to oral accuracy, and correct pronunciation is viewed as an important feature of oral accuracy, which reflects the prevailing beliefs and norms about education and that there is a ‘right’ way of producing language ‘knowledge’.

I think when we teach primary students, pronunciation is the most important part. Good pronunciation gives students confidence in speaking. If they see a word but fail to pronounce it, they will feel discouraged. So if we want to encourage students to communicate in English, we have to help them pronounce words correctly, then they will be more motivated with learning English

(T.Nhung.TGNP.Translation/17.4.14) The first one is the pronunciation skill… if you teach the young children, the very young children, their pronunciation is not as good as the native speaker, but it must be good because it is the basic. When they grow up if you pronounce some words incorrect, the children will be incorrect too.

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While these extracts exemplify the importance the teachers place on pronunciation, their words also suggest the important role they perceive they themselves play in ensuring ‘correct’ pronunciation outcomes. This seems to also have implications on teachers’ conceptions of themselves and the threat that the new curriculum has on their professional self, something I discuss further in section 5.4.1.

It was noticeable that in many of the observations I carried out in Phase 1, the lesson structure differed slightly to include stages where more child-friendly activities such as games and songs were used. However in the observations in Phase 2, these kinds of activities tended not to be present, which suggests that a ‘normal’ lesson closely follows the activities in the textbook. Figure 5.4 summarises the lesson structure for the observed lessons, showing how the lessons are divided into beginning, middle and end stages. The stages with the dotted lines are the ones which were not always included, while the stages with the bold lines formed the basis of all the lessons observed.

Figure 5.4 Typical stages of a lesson (adapted from Wang, 2007, p.173)

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