Effects of Using Computer-Based Activities in Teaching English Speaking at a High School in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Thi My Nhu Nguyen

doi:10.54855/ijte.222112

Abstract

It is well-acknowledged that the English language is becoming widespread worldwide, and the application of computer technology in teaching and learning foreign languages in general and English, in particular, has shown significant changes. To improve English speaking skills for high school students, we designed and applied some computer-based activities (CBA) using computer technology. This research aimed to explore the effects of using such CBA in teaching English speaking at a high school in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The study was carried out with a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods. A total of 88 high school students were engaged as subjects in the form of experimental and control groups. The experimental group was given a treatment using CBA in their speaking sections for five months. A set of pre-test and post-test was conducted to assess the effectiveness of CBA on this experimental group in comparison with the control one who got no treatment with CBA. In the assessment, we employed the form of PET speaking and this international test's speaking rubric and a student questionnaire which helped to identify the experimental students' attitudes towards CBA. The results showed the positive effects of using CBA on students' speaking skills and significantly improving their communication problems after treatment. In addition, they were quite interested in using CBA, which is a great encouragement to recommend more use of CBA in teaching speaking to students in Vietnam's high schools and similar contexts.

Highlights

In the past, foreign language learning methods focused on learning grammar rules, describing sentence patterns, memorizing words, and interpreting text sources
This study aims at exploring the effects of using computer-based activities (CBA) in teaching English speaking at a high school in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, and the following research questions are addressed: 1. What are the effects of using CBA in teaching English speaking at a high school?
Research question 1: What are the effects of using CBA in teaching English speaking to grade 10th students at Binh Hung Hoa High School? (1) Results and discussions from the pre-speaking test and post-test speaking The comparison of the score results of the pre-speaking test and post-speaking test of the experimental and control groups is presented in Table 2 and Table 3

Summary

Introduction

Foreign language learning methods focused on learning grammar rules, describing sentence patterns, memorizing words, and interpreting text sources. With the trend of international economic integration, Vietnam has introduced several foreign languages, especially English, into the curricula at high school. English is considered the language of international communication. Some researchers (Sundkvist & Nguyen, 2020; Nguyen & Ngo, 2021; Quoc et al, 2021) have previously asserted that English is the most common language used and taught in Vietnam due to transnational trade and tourism and globalization. Thereby, it can be seen that English has become an important language of communication in different international communication contexts and one of the main subjects taught in Vietnam’s high schools

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