Enhancing positive effects for the communicative+ language teaching activities in English classrooms

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM TP HỒ CHÍ MINH 
TẠP CHÍ KHOA HỌC 
HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE
ISSN: 
1859-3100 
KHOA HỌC GIÁO DỤC 
Tập 16, Số 8 (2019): 216-226 
EDUCATION SCIENCE
Vol. 16, No. 8 (2019): 216-226
 Email: tapchikhoahoc@hcmue.edu.vn; Website:  
216 
Research Article 
ENHANCING POSITIVE EFFECTS FOR THE COMMUNICATIVE+ 
LANGUAGE TEACHING ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH CLASSROOMS 
Nguyen Van My 
Ho Chi Minh City University of Education 
 Corresponding author: Nguyen Van My – Email: nguyenvanmy@hcmue.edu.vn 
Received: April 10, 2019; Revised: July 13, 2019; Accepted: July 18, 2019 
ABSTRACT 
Nowadays, most English teachers have widely applied the Communicative Language Teaching 
activities (the CLT activities) in English classrooms as a foreign language (EFL) because of their 
outstanding effectiveness. In spite of having many benefits for learning and teaching English, 
activities in CLT also have problems with mixed-level students, un-motivated students and large class 
sizes, as well as lack of language environment for foreign language acquisition. This article is about 
how to enhance the positive effect for the CLT activities by using technology equipment. In this 
article, the author reviews the crucial theory of the improvement effects for the CLT activities, and 
therefrom practical activities are designed to teach English speaking skills. 
Keywords: Communicative Language Teaching activities, mixed – level learners, student’s 
learning motivations, technology equipment. 
1. Introduction 
Understandably, most English teachers around the world have applied the CLT 
activities in EFL classrooms. Many experts, however, have claimed that as mixed – level 
learners, some of the learners may obtain more benefits from these tasks than others. In 
addition, other critics have argued that the CLT activities are not enough to acquire a target 
language (L2) because they are implemented only within a “monolingual community”. 
As mentioned by Manag (2007), “within that wider community, we would need to 
create a learning environment in which the classroom was less rigidly defined so that 
students could reach into the target communities and contribute actively to meaningful 
exchanges there”. Therefore, students should be immersed in target communities and 
consequently, they would gain communicative competence in real-world situations. 
It is obvious that linguistic environment plays an important role in the development of 
language skills for non-native learners while acquiring foreign languages. According to 
Cite this article as: Nguyen Van My. (2019). Enhancing positive effects for the communicative language 
teaching activities in English classrooms. Ho Chi Minh City University of Education Journal of Science, 16(8), 
216-226. 
Tạp chí Khoa học Trường ĐHSP TPHCM Nguyen Van My 
217 
Wang (2009), for the children, when exposure to the different languages, they not only 
acquire their first language but also can acquire the foreign language. For those abroad or 
mixed with speakers of another language, they have a pressing desire to communicate and 
to get their meaning across. They have many opportunities to speak and experiment with the 
language. 
In other words, it is important for all learners to immerse in the target language (L2) 
because non-native learners might have opportunities to practice interactively the target 
language skills. However, most of the recent EFL classrooms often have poor language 
environment condition for learners. Perhaps, adopting technology equipment in teaching 
English is the best solution to these aforementioned problems because of several following 
arguments. 
Min (2013) proposes that the use of multimedia technology motivates students to learn 
English. Instead of the traditional teaching methods that are unpopular and less effective in 
the English language classrooms, multimedia technology, with the help of audio, visual and 
animation effects, motivates students to learn English quickly and effectively. In addition, 
with such features as abundant-information and crossing time and space, multimedia 
technology creates a real-life or native speaking country context for English language 
teaching. 
It must be said in conclusion that the development of technology in this era makes 
positive benefits for teaching English as a foreign language. In addition, it will certainly 
continue to have more enormous achievements in the future. What follows is a general 
overview of the approach of enhancing positive effects for an English lesson applied the 
CLT activities, including some features of the CLT activities, as well as effectively raising 
student motivations by adopting technology equipment keeping up with the Industry 4.0. 
2. Literature review 
2.1. Understanding of the communicative language teaching activity 
A lot of attempts have been made to provide an insight into the definition of the 
communicative language teaching activity. According to Harmer (2010), “activities in CLT 
typically involve students in real or realistic communication, where the successful 
achievement of the communicative tasks they are performing is at least as important as the 
accuracy of their language use”. 
In his introduction to classroom activities in the CLT, Richards (2006) shows that the 
CLT activities in classrooms includes two general types – “activities focusing on fluency” 
and “activities focusing on accuracy”. In detail, activities focusing on fluency which reflect 
natural use of language, focus on achieving communication, require meaningful use of 
language, and produce language that may not be predictable. By contrast, activities focusing 
on accuracy which reflect classroom use of language, focus on the formation of correct 
examples of language, practice language out of context, or control choice of language. 
Tạp chí Khoa học Trường ĐHSP TPHC ... ively advantages 
of technology equipment in teaching English keeping up with the Industry 4.0. 
3. Procedure 
The following is to describe a particular lesson using mobile phones and social 
networks to support the implementation of the CLT activities in English classrooms. In this 
situation, students will work in groups and complete a learning project (making a video about 
their family). 
3.1. Background information 
Learning objectives: The purpose of the lesson is for students to 
 Improve the four English skills, but speaking skills is in priority 
 Work in groups of five or seven students 
 Make a speech in about 10 – 15 minutes 
Student level: The lesson should take place after students had exposure to the basic 
structure of the English language, including the descriptive adjectives, and simple sentence 
structures. The lesson is best used in the context of pre-intermediate English language 
learners 
Class size: The lesson can be implemented in large sized classes from 30 to 40 students 
Organization: individual, groups, and the whole class 
Language focus: Descriptive adjectives, Simple sentence structures 
Alternatives: Review on the English tenses, including the present tenses and past 
simple tense 
Teaching method: Communicative language teaching (CLT), including main activities 
such as Task-completion activities, Opinion-sharing activities, Information-transfer 
activities, Roleplays, or Project-based activities 
Technology equipment: Mobile phones, social networks, and apps for teaching and 
learning English 
Tạp chí Khoa học Trường ĐHSP TPHCM Tập 16, Số 8 (2019): 216-226 
222 
3.2. The implementation of the lesson in English classrooms 
Particularly, the lesson might be implemented following steps 
Step 1: Teachers divide the class into groups. In each group includes from 5 to 7 
students 
Directions to Students: Work in groups of five to seven students 
1 The topic for this lesson is Talking about your family 
2 Each person in the group must have a job to do. Using Table 1, write the names of 
everyone in the group and what each person will do 
Table 1. The task template of each student in groups 
Name: What this person will do: 
A 
B 
C 
Step 2: In the class, teachers show video models of native speakers about this topic. 
Similar videos are available on the Internet, retrieved from some websites 
( or www.youtube.com). Teachers can choose some of them that are 
suitable for the learning content of the lesson. Based on what students saw in the video, they 
can outline something necessary to complete in this project, as well as practice their listening 
skills 
Step 3: In the class, teachers ask students to practice in pairs. In this way, students 
create dialogues following some available questions provided by the teacher 
 Where are you from? 
 How many people are there in your family? 
 What does your father/mother/sister look like? 
 What is your father/mother/sister like? 
 What activities do you often do with your family? 
This activity enables students to practice interactively their speaking skills in pairs 
before they work in groups to complete their projects (making a video about their family at 
home). 
Step 4: Individually, teachers let students make a small talk about their family. In this 
step, students will make an outline of the speech using linguistic materials in the last lessons. 
Teachers call some of the students to speak in front of the class. At the same time, others 
must listen to their friends carefully and give feedbacks 
Tạp chí Khoa học Trường ĐHSP TPHCM Nguyen Van My 
223 
Step 5: In the out of class learning, teachers ask students to work in groups and make 
a video recording about the topic “Talking about your family” 
Directions to Students: 
1. Each group will make a video with the length from 10 to 15 minutes; 
2. All students in the group will have participated in this video; 
3. Students must apply something learned in the lesson to their speaking, including 
descriptive adjectives, and simple sentence structures; 
4. Ideas for mobile phone video projects: Students can consider ideas to make a 
video about the family topic with their mobile phones. To begin, they can get ideas from 
many popular programs on television, including talk shows, game shows, news specials, and 
parodies. 
To support the process of making videos, students can use some special functions at 
websites namely movie/TV scripts creations (www.script-o-rama.com, 
www.simplyscripts.com), or text-to-speech programs creations 
(www.research.ibm.com/tts/coredemo.shtml). 
Step 6: After completing their projects, each of the groups will have uploaded their 
video projects on the website https://classroom.google.com.1 
Step 7: Each of the groups will have evaluated videos, uploaded on the website: 
https://classroom.google.com, following the video assessing rating (see Appendix A) 
Based on what evaluated from the groups, teachers can choose the most interesting 
videos to show in front of the class in the next lessons, and ask the chosen groups to make a 
presentation about their videos. 
4. Discussion 
Through an analysis of implementation the aforementioned example, we found that 
there are many positive effects for English classrooms applied activities in CLT. One of the 
most outstanding effects is that this example can be applied in an unfavorable class-size. It 
might encourage all students to participate in group projects. All students in the class have 
opportunities to practice their speaking skills. Furthermore, the activities in this example can 
engage students in an in-depth inquiry. This means that students are engaged in a rigorous, 
extended process of asking questions, using resources, and developing their ideas when 
working in groups. 
Most of the CLT activities involving pair and group work, as it can be seen in the 
above example, have many benefits for EFL students. In the grouping activities, students 
1 This website allows teachers to make connecting classrooms by email addresses that can help managing 
student tasks effectively. When using this website, teachers can establish deadlines for each particular task, as 
well as handle the task completion of students. In addition, this makes an interactive learning environment 
because students can comment something about their tasks or others. In conclusion, these network tools can help English 
teachers carry out this activity conveniently. Teachers can evaluate the task effectiveness of students and encourage the 
active participating from students in the class. 
Tạp chí Khoa học Trường ĐHSP TPHCM Tập 16, Số 8 (2019): 216-226 
224 
can learn when listening to other students in the group. Additionally, students can develop 
21st-century skills, students build skills valuable for today’s world, such as critical thinking, 
problem-solving, collaboration, and communication, which are taught and assessed. 
In addition, with the support of mobile phones and social networks, students have more 
opportunities to practice their speaking skills out of the class by recording their voices. 
Moreover, they can be more interactive with others when uploading their records on the 
social network as the example above. In particular, students can give their feedback in a 
comfortable way, as well as receive some comments for their speaking from others in the 
class. This is the best solution to barriers of the CLT activities that unmotivated students 
who are too embarrassed or refuse to participate in class activities. As reported by Harmer 
(2010), uncooperative and unmotivated students are a serious problem and can easily disrupt 
the instructional process in this way. 
However, depending on detailed features of each English class, teachers can use other 
social networks to support the English teaching (see Appendix B). We need more studies 
about the effects of the social networks on learning and teaching English in the future. 
5. Conclusions 
 This article discusses how to enhance the positive effect of the communicative 
language teaching activity in English classrooms, including raising student motivations, as 
well as adopting technology equipment. In order to improve the effects of activities in CLT, 
English teachers need to keep up with the development of technology equipment to design 
more effective and creative English lessons. This is increasingly becoming a vital factor in 
helping students to develop the four– English skills and more ready to face the changes from 
Industry 4.0. 
 Conflict of Interest: Author have no conflict of interest to declare. 
REFERENCES 
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Harmer, J. (2015). The Practice of English Language Teaching (5th ed.). Harlow, UK: Pearson 
Education Limited. 
Hilfer, E. (2018). The Agency of Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved from 
https://www.languagemagazine.com/2018/06/10/the-agency-of-artificial-intelligence 
McClure, K. (2018). The Agency of Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved from 
https://www.languagemagazine.com/2018/06/10/the-agency-of-artificial-intelligence 
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Magnan, S. S. (2007). Reconsidering Communicative Language Teaching for National Goals. 
Modern Language Journal, 91(2), 249-252. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-
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APPENDIX 
APPENDIX A 
VIDEO RATING RUBRIC 
Topic:_________________________________Group’s name: ______________________ 
Examiner’s name: _______________________Leader’s name: _____________________ 
Instructions: Evaluate each criterion below by sticking () the corresponding number using 
the following five-point scale: 
EVALUATION CRITERION Needs improvement 
(1) 
Fair 
(2) 
Good 
(3) 
Very good 
(4) 
Excellent 
(5) 
Quality of video script 
Acting 
Video content 
Video organization 
Video pacing 
Overall effectiveness 
Tạp chí Khoa học Trường ĐHSP TPHCM Tập 16, Số 8 (2019): 216-226 
226 
Additional comments: 
__________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________ 
APPENDIX B 
SOCIAL NETWORKS, APPS, WEBSITES SUPPORTING LEARNERS IN 
LEARNING ENGLISH 
Social networks & Supporting websites Language Apps 
 for students to use on smartphones 
1. Facebook, Zalo 
2.  
3. www.youtube.com; 
4. https://classroom.google.com; 
5. www.script-o-rama.com; 
6. www.simplyscripts.com; 
7.www.research.ibm.com/tts/coredemo.shtml 
1. Duolingo – language courses 
2. HelloTalk – chat and Q&A 
3. HiNative – chat and Q&A 
4. Mindsnacks – language games 
5. Memrise – flashcards and SRS 
6. Leaf – context and idioms 
7. Lingua.ly – native reading and materials 
8. Busuu – language courses 
NÂNG CAO HIỆU QUẢ CỦA CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG DẠY HỌC THEO PHƯƠNG PHÁP 
GIAO TIẾP TRONG CÁC LỚP HỌC TIẾNG ANH NHƯ MỘT NGOẠI NGỮ 
 Nguyễn Văn Mỹ 
Trường Đại học Sư phạm Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh 
Tác giả liên hệ: Nguyễn Văn Mỹ – Email: nguyenvanmy@hcmue.edu.vn 
Ngày nhận bài: 10-4-2019; ngày nhận bài sửa: 13-7-2019; ngày duyệt đăng: 18-7-2019 
TÓM TẮT 
Ngày nay, phần đông các giáo viên tiếng Anh vận dụng phương pháp giao tiếp vào các giờ 
học tiếng Anh như một ngoại ngữ vì những ưu điểm nổi bật của phương pháp này. Tuy nhiên, bên 
cạnh những ưu điểm, phương pháp giao tiếp cũng tồn tại những bất cập nhất định liên quan đến sự 
đa dạng trình độ và động cơ học tập của học sinh, lớp có sĩ số đông, và cả việc thiếu môi trường 
thực hành ngoại ngữ thường xuyên. Trong bài viết này, tác giả đi sâu phân tích một số quan điểm lí 
thuyết về những ưu điểm và nhược điểm, cũng như một số giải pháp khắc phục nhược điểm khi áp 
dụng phương pháp giao tiếp, thông qua việc sử dụng các thiết bị công nghệ và nâng cao động cơ 
học tập của học sinh. Dựa trên nền tảng lí thuyết này, tác giả minh họa cụ thể các hoạt động thực 
hành dùng để giảng dạy kĩ năng Nói tiếng Anh cho đối tượng học sinh có trình độ tiếng Anh cơ bản. 
Từ khóa: đa dạng trình độ người học, động lực học tập, hoạt động dạy học tiếng Anh giao 
tiếp, thiết bị công nghệ.