Thesis+5

flat Running head: //Add the first few words of your title (Anywhere from five to seven words).//
 * Alby**

Title of your paper.

How teachers can implement some strategies to promote speaking in basic level in elementary schools

Author's name

Alby Ruiz Gaytan

Institution

Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes

Date

Monday February 6th, 2012 Note: The title page begins your thesis and should include a running head, the title of your paper, your name, institution, and date.

**Abstract** Note: The abstract is on a separate page and is a 120-word summary of your thesis. That is, an abstract should include the problem, purpose, method, and findings of your research.

**Students** **do** **not** **want** **to** **s****peak** **English!** **How** **can** **t****eachers** **e****ncourage** **s****tudents** **to** **s****peak** **it** **in** **their** **c****lassroom**

According to Zhang (2007),” Nowadays, how to communicate effectively in Foreign Language Learning becomes much more important than reading and writing. As a result, communication strategies have turned into a crucial topic for all foreign language learners and teachers” (p.43). In the classroom, teachers are the ones to provide students motivation or interest to develop a communicative ability. According to Gocer (1998), “The first and the most important thing to do in language education and teaching is to evoke interest, desire in the students attitude towards the target language” (p.196). The teachers who make good communication with students are those that determine the methods and strategies to be used, and perform their teaching in a conscious way. When teachers apply different strategies to teach the target language, students get better the opportunity to develop their communicative ability.

Teachers are the ones responsible on implement strategies into the classroom to evoke student´s interest in developing their oral communication in a classroom; this represents a challenge for teachers (Gocer, 1998). With this understanding, the teachers who gives importance to the physical infrastructure of the classroom and make the learning environment interesting for the students will be able to achieve their goals in a short time (Zhang, 2007). The purpose of this investigation is to show benefits of using different teaching strategies for developing speaking in the target language. Because teachers face a big challenge when teaching oral communication in a second language they should use different strategies to promote students interest in developing their communicative ability by using authentic speaking activities and interaction patterns.


 * Different authentic Speaking Activities to Promote Speaking in the Classroom**

**Different authentic speaking activities.**The speaking activities that teacher uses to promote speaking in the classroom should be interesting for students. According to Tanner (1998),”So maybe you need to take a closer look at the type of speaking activities you are using and see if they really capture student interest and create a real need for communication” (p. 2) Teachers can find a lot of speaking activities to use in the classroom, such as role plays, this kind of activities promote speaking in the classroom and students find it very interesting, since students enjoy the activities that they can develop rather than only listen and repeat. For instance role plays help students to activate their imagination and practice what they did. So the introduction of some materials and dynamics into the classroom can increase students motivation. In the same sense, teachers have to realize on students preferences or necessities.

Teachers should know the necessities and preferences of the students and avoid uncomfortable activities in order to facilitates student´s speaking. For instance there are some activities that students do not find comfortable, when the activities are related with student´s feeling, shy students feel uncomfortable to talk about themselves; hence they make long periods of silence, even teacher ask them to talk as much as they can in English. In this case teachers should avoid talking about shame situations for them; on the contrary teachers could search for attractive speaking activities to catch students´ attention. Teachers have the ability to create different activities corresponding students´ preferences and necessities and create good environment in their classrooms. In this sense there are a lot of internet, books, and magazines sources where teachers can consult and look for the appropriate one for their students, for instance games, role plays and so on to motivate students learning, since they speak more when they are in teams or pairs

**Promoting Interaction Patterns in the Classroom**

**Different interaction patterns**. Students speak more English when they are in teams or pairs, learning through social interaction can help students to learn better. Working in teams and groups enhance students to speak more also they support each other while they are completing a task. Working in groups without competing, allows students to help among them since students are learning through experiences and interaction from each other. Besides, they tend to speak more, more people more speaking; they feel more comfortable to belong to a team or to be with a pair. Pairs and groups work different; in a pair the environment seems to be more private, since students feel more protective and private than in a group. Students are more confident with their peers to talk about more personal feelings or experiences students tend to be more collaborative and cooperative. On the other hand groups tend to be friendlier or more talkative among them perhaps in group students tend to have some disagreements and discussions. Discussions are mainly because of the variety of ideas of the group. Students to talk too much is better to work in groups of three and less talkative students work better in groups of four or five. There is a strange group call “pairs of three” this group work better because they often stimulate a better exchange of ideas. So teachers have to take into account all these aspects in order to help students to express themselves better in a second language, this is a way to motivate students to do well. Each group behave different, so teachers should observe their students to identify students strengths and weaknesses and their possibilities arrange the group to fit students necessities according to Jones (2007) “when teacher-led activities are taking place, there may be times when the whole class may want to be involved together” (7).

**Research Questions**

Nowadays, teachers are the ones responsible to promote speaking into the classrooms, but they need to find the appropriate way to do it. Due to this problem the purpose of this research is to show benefits of using different teaching strategies that teachers can apply in the class. In order to show the benefits of using some strategies to promote the speaking in the classroom, is necessary to answer the following research questions through the investigation. How authentic speaking activities promote speaking in the classroom? Do interaction patterns help students to improve speaking?

Once the relevant literature has been presented, the hypothesis (if a quantitative study) or research questions (if a qualitative study) explicity state what is to be researched. The hypothesis or research questions related directly to the problem statement articulated in the introduction above.

**Method (Approx. 500 words)**

**Participants**

The qualitative method was used in this investigation; since there were applied teacher-questionnaires, student-questionnaires and some semi-structured observations were conducted during the process of data collection. The main participants were two teachers and their groups. They were chosen among some teachers from different schools through a questionnaire.The teachers were teaching fourth grade in a public primary school called Gregorio Torres Quintero,. this school is placed in Chicahuales I Jesus Maria Aguascalientes. The main instruments for this investigation were the teacher’s questionnaires and the observation sheets. In order to collect information 18 questionnaires were applied to different teachers from different public schools then two teachers were chosen. Once chosen the teacher some observations and interviews were carrying out. Teacher were observed focus on the authentic speaking activities and interaction patterns they used with their groups. The semi-structure interviews were to know their opinions or points of view about the use of the prior strategies. All the process was schedule and recorded in order to obtain better the information and analyze the data. First of all, one questionnaire was designed to choose the adequate teachers to be observed during six sessions. The questionnaire was applied to 18 teachers from different schools; then according teacher´s answers were chosen only two teacher. these teachers were observed during six classes, the observations focus were in the interaction patterns they used during the classes and the authentic speaking activities they used. later on an interview for each teacher was carried out. In the interviews that I did after the teachers´ observation to know their opinions or points of view about the strategies on focus. Then a questionnaire for students and some interviews were carried out; choosing only three students from the whole group, they were chosen because I observed some particular aspects in their activities. Both teachers cooperated a lot in all the process of investigation. The questionnaires were conducted from March 21st to March 30th, taking in account some permission of principals, head of UAA signs and so on. For the two chosen teachers the observations were scheduled from April 2nd to April 13th. Each observation lasted 50 minutes (a class) the main aspects when I observed the two teacher during each session were the use of authentic speaking activities and the interaction pattern that teacher used during all the observations. The application of the student’s questionnaire was schedule in two days. It was with the purpose to know if students find these strategies useful and fun.
 * Instruments**
 * Procedure**
 * Research design**

**Results and Discussion** The results are the findings of your research. The discussion is your conclusion of your findings. Make sure you have a good mix between results and discussion – not too much of one while sacrificing the other. Provide visuals when doing so makes it easier to understand the data (e.g., graphs, tables, etc.).

**References** Gocer, A. (1998). A qualitative research on the teaching strategies and class applications of the high school teachers who teach English in Turkey as a foreign language. //Faculty of education//, 131 (1), 196-219.

Zhang, Y. (2007). Communication strategies and foreign language learning. //University of science and technology//, 5 (4) 43-48 Follow APA formatting when completing your references section. Alphabetize references according to author or title (when there is no author) and single space between the references themselves but double space between each reference. After the references section, provide an appendix for each item: questionnaire, survey, observation sheet, etc. In your text, say, //(See Appendix A)// - not in italics.

**Appendix A**

**Appendix B**

**Appendix C**