Speaker
Description
Many Vietnamese students are too shy to speak English despite having learnt this language for many years. This current issue is even true with the students who are very talkative and so confident in their Vietnamese language and those who have got good knowledge of vocabulary and grammar.
To enhance this situation, of the measures I have applied, reading aloud in chorus in class and using Facebook page are the most interesting and effective ways.
That students are asked to read aloud in chorus the sentences or texts in class helps break the silent and serious atmosphere of traditional classes, adds energy, excitement, and fun to the whole class, which plays a very important role to start and develop the language. This helps every student have chance to speak English, even the shyest ones. When all the students read aloud at the same time, the shy ones feel unattended, are not afraid of making pronunciation mistakes and then focus on reading naturally. Teacher can recognize the pronunciation mistakes and find the ways to gradually correct them. This method has been applied to the lowest level class in Lao Cai No 1 High School and proved successful.
Another measure that has been applied is taking advantage of Facebook networking site, which is used by almost all Vietnamese students, even with students from far away villages in Lao Cai. The class creates a Facebook page in which the users as class members have to use English only. The page is used for every member to share their status or post what they like. It is also used as a virtual notice board of the class including class announcement from the class leaders and any activities of the class from anyone or any discussion to get the ideas for an event. The page is also the place where video and projects of English subject are submitted. This method has been used in class D1 of Lao Cai No 1 High School and the confidence of using English of the members has been seen in the page according to the time.
These two measures gradually improve the students in using English and motivate them to use it in their real life, not just to complete English exercises like Math, Physics and other science subjects.
