Communicative english grammar teaching to high school learners in Vietnam

 Khuong Thi Hong Cam. Journal of Science Ho Chi Minh City Open University, 7(4), 3-20 3 
COMMUNICATIVE ENGLISH GRAMMAR TEACHING TO 
HIGH SCHOOL LEARNERS IN VIETNAM 
KHUONG THI HONG CAM 
Kangan Institute, Australia - hongcam0604vn@yahoo.com 
 (Received: June 30, 2017; Revised: September 17, 2017; Accepted: November 29, 2017) 
ABSTRACT 
In Vietnamese high schools, English is mainly delivered in grammar translation method to ameliorate student 
achievement in grammar-oriented examinations. In a long term, students suffer from fatigue and failure to 
communicate properly. This research aimed to apply the communicative approach in grammar teaching to improve 
students’ communicative competence and enhance their interest in grammar lessons. To obtain the above targets, a 
conceptual framework of studying grammar was shaped with the view that grammar should be studied in a context. 
The study employed reflective approach as the main research design and quantitative approach as a supplementary 
method. A teaching program with four trialed grammar lessons was implemented in TNH High School, Vietnam and 
data were collected from two instruments of observation and questionnaire. The findings showed that the students’ 
communicative competence and interest in the grammar lessons were significantly enhanced. The research outcomes 
were then translated into several recommendations to improve the quality of grammar teaching and learning at high 
schools in Vietnam. 
Keywords: Communicative approach; English; Grammar teaching; Language in context; Vietnam. 
1. Context of grammar teaching in Vietnam 
In response to the globalization trend, 
English has become a compulsory subject at 
all Vietnamese high schools to provide 
students with a new tool of communication in 
the ‘borderless’ world where it has become an 
international language. It is essential for 
learners to equally develop four skills of 
listening, speaking, reading, and writing so as 
to become competent English users. However, 
in reality Vietnamese students struggle to use 
this language for oral communication 
although they have years of schooling with 
English as a mandatory component (Nhat, 
2017; Phuong and Uyen, 2014). 
One of the detected problems with the 
teaching of English at high schools is the 
grammar dominated exams (Toan, 2013) and, 
consequently, the teachers’ over-use of 
grammar translation method (Ho and Binh, 
2014; Nhat, 2017). Specifically, the teaching 
and learning goes in the following sequence. 
First, the teacher presents grammar rules of 
the target structure and examples and then 
reads the usage of the rules. The students 
passively listen to their teacher’s explanation 
and then write down the rules and usage of the 
grammatical item. The next stage is 
mechanical drills with decontextualised 
sentences. Communicative activities such as 
role-plays, problem-solving tasks, or 
information gap activities are exotic to 
students in most grammar sessions (Anh, 
2013; Canh, 1999). 
In recent years, the Vietnamese Ministry 
of Education and Training has conducted a 
plethora of reforms in the educational system. 
Curricula, teaching materials and facilities are 
undergoing a major overhaul. The English 
grammar in Vietnamese high school textbooks 
is allocated to a separate section of teaching 
explicitly, yet the grammar points are still 
decontextualized. Therefore, prescriptive 
grammar teaching still prevails (Anh, 2013; 
Phuong and Uyen, 2014). Vietnamese 
scholars also agreed that grammar should be 
taught in a communicative manner. Canh 
(2009) conducts a survey of Vietnamese 
4 Khuong Thi Hong Cam. Journal of Science Ho Chi Minh City Open University, 7(4), 3-20 
teachers’ attitudes towards grammar and 
grammar teaching in their own particular 
teaching context. The findings show that the 
teachers favour a discourse, rather than a 
decontextualised approach to the presentation 
of grammar. Anh (2013) also recommended 
that grammar should be taught concurrently 
with its context of use in order to enhance 
students’ performance and interest after 
reviewing the current state-of-the-art English 
grammar teaching at Vietnamese high 
schools. 
This reality stimulated the researcher to 
conduct a study to improve the students’ 
ability to use English to communicate through 
grammar lessons. To achieve the above aim, 
grammar lessons were designed and delivered 
in a communicative way. The research was 
conducted to answer the following questions: 
1 How do the students express their 
feelings and attitudes, and perform 
during the communicative grammar 
lessons? 
2 What are the students’ reflections after 
being taught communicative grammar 
in terms of lesson content, task design, 
and feelings? 
2. Studying grammar: a theoretical 
framework 
There has been much debate among 
linguists about the two models in the study of 
grammar, form-based and function-based, 
which will be elaborated upon in this section. 
2.1. Form-based grammars 
Grammars based on the theory of 
language as an autonomous system includes 
traditional grammar and transformational-
generative grammar. 
Traditional grammar is a theory of the 
structure of language based on ideas from 
Western societies inherited from ancient 
Greek and Roman sources (Sharma, 2005). In 
the traditional grammarians’ perspectives, a 
grammar should provide a set of rules for 
correct language use and the correctness was 
judged through the rules of the grammar of 
Latin. Specifically, this model “relies on 
categorizing words into parts of speech; 
describing grammatical relations such as 
subject, predicate, and direct object; and 
recognizing natural groupings (constituents) 
such as phrases, clauses and sentences” 
(Barry, 2002, p.63). 
This type of grammar is completely 
formal and, hence, contains various 
drawbacks. For instance, it is “normative and 
prescriptive rather than explicit and 
descriptive” (Sharma, 2005, p.85). Similarly, 
it specifies the correct way of using language 
without context rather than provides 
descriptions of the actually spoken language. 
Another representative of the form-based 
model is transformational-generative grammar 
generated by Chomsky (1968). The main 
purpose of his model is to describe the basis 
transformation necessary to create permissible 
sentences in any given language. His idea was 
clarified as follows: 
the grammar of a language must 
contain a system of rules that 
characterizes deep and surface structures 
and the transformational relation between 
them, and – if it is to accommodate the 
creative aspect of language use – that 
does an infinite domain of paired deep 
and surface structures (p.15). 
As such, transformational-generative 
grammar definitely focuses on linguistic 
competence. Although an infinite number of 
grammatical sentences can be generated, the 
formation of rules excludes the generation of 
grammatically incorrect sentences. Well-
formedness is a must, which is against the 
reality that very few people know grammar 
perfectly or use it correctly at all time. 
Furthermore, the syntactic analysis cannot 
deal with non-factual meaning that can only 
be examined in the social context of language 
(Donnelly, 1994). 
2.2. Function-based grammars 
If the form-based grammars deal with the 
language at the level of sentence and 
 Khuong Thi Hong Cam. Journal of Science Ho Chi Minh City Open University, 7(4), 3-20 5 
linguistic competence, the function-based 
ones operate at that text and are concerned 
with communicative competence in the way 
that the meaning of language is always 
considered in its social context. The paradigm 
of socially grounded grammars includes two 
main grammatical types of systemic-
functional grammar and discourse grammar. 
Systemic functional grammar, which 
originated from the theory of systemic 
functional linguistics, deals with both written 
and spoken language with all types of text that 
are used to achieve the social purposes. 
Specifically, “everything in the grammar can 
be explained, ultimately, by reference to how 
language is used” (Halliday, 1994, p. xiii) and 
systemic functional grammar has an aim to 
“construct a grammar for the purpose of text 
analysis: one that would make it possible to 
say sensible and useful things about my text 
either spoken or written, in modern English” 
(p. xv). 
In this model, the clause, not the 
sentence, is considered to be the basic choices 
which are socially grounded and “represent 
the meaning potential of any given language” 
(McCarthy, 2001, p. 59). The choices of 
certain part of speech within the grammatical 
system are dependent on social concerns. 
Therefore, although this grammatical model 
sounds opposite to form-based ones, it does 
not “reject, discard or replace terminology of 
traditional grammar” (Butt, Fahey, Spink, and 
Yallop, 1995, p. 31). Actually, the notion of 
traditional grammar is built on and refined in 
a systemic functional way which means that 
each linguistic element should not be looked 
at in isolation but in relation to others. 
Another distinct function-based theory is 
discourse grammar. This model has an 
explicit stance against Chomskyan one in the 
manner that it denies the view of grammar as 
an autonomous system and emphasizes the 
effects of the context of verbal interaction in 
the form of discourse on linguistic structure. 
Specifically, a clear-cut distinction between 
discourse-based and sentence-based grammars 
is that the former makes “strong connection 
between form, function, and context and aims 
to place appropriateness and use at the center 
of its description” (Hughes and McCarthy, 
1998, as cited in Paltridge, 2006, p. 129). 
What is more, it also “acknowledges language 
choice, promotes awareness of interpersonal 
factors in grammatical choice, and can 
provide insights into areas of grammar that 
previously lacked a satisfactory explanation” 
(p. 129). 
Similarly, this type of grammar views 
“grammatical meaning as interactively 
determined rather than being inherently ‘in’ 
the structure under scrutiny. It is clear that 
such a view of grammar is well out of kilter 
with an idealized, sentence-based, Chomskyan 
approach to language description ” 
(McCarthy, 2001, p. 106). In fact, it ideally 
aims to serve a view of language as socially 
embedded. The value of discourse-based 
grammar over the formal ones is highly 
appreciated by Celce-Murcia along with 
Larsen-Freeman (1991) with an argument that 
the mere focus on grammatical form without 
considering its functional meanings in 
discourse “paints only an impoverished 
picture of language” and “fails to unite 
grammar with its use of interaction” (as cited 
in McCarthy, 2001, p. 109). 
3. Principles for grammar pedagogy 
In the previous section, grammar should 
be studied concurrently with its social context 
rather than autonomously as an abstract 
system. Following it, this part will explore 
how the theory works in the practice of 
grammar teaching. 
3.1. Principles for creating context for 
grammar teaching 
The way to bring context in grammar 
lessons should be carefully considered to get 
the desirable results in its teaching and 
learning. A good context must have three 
characteristics of authenticity, informative 
background provision, and interest attraction. 
6 Khuong Thi Hong Cam. Journal of Science Ho Chi Minh City Open University, 7(4), 3-20 
First, the appropriateness of the context 
can be achieved if the teacher brings 
something “real” and “useful outside the 
classroom” (Lewis & Hill, 1992, p. 28). 
Second, the context should “provide the 
background for a lot of language use so that 
students can use the information not only for 
the repetition of model sentences but also for 
making their own sentences” (Ur, 1996, p. 57). 
Finally, context should attract students’ 
interest. Figuratively, it should be made 
“seductive” in the way that the students 
cannot resist it but they have to “dig” it and 
“get their hand dirty” (Ehrenworth and 
Vinton, 2005, p.89). 
3.2. Principles for creating tasks for 
grammar in context 
When grammatical structures are taught, 
teachers are, or should be asking students to 
learn “a large number of different though 
related bits of knowledge and skills” (Ur, 
1988, p. 6) which are recognition, 
identification and production of the target 
structure. Specifically, they have to know how 
to recognize the examples of the structure 
from a spoken or written text, how to identify 
its form and meaning in context, how to 
produce both its written and spoken form and 
meaningful sentences in appropriate context 
using it themselves. Therefore, teachers need 
to include context while designing tasks for 
presenting, practicing and consolidating the 
target structure. This means that they 
necessarily contextualize the structural forms 
and integrate one or more communicative 
skills in all teaching stages, namely 
Presentation, Practice and Production (3Ps). 
The models for these 3Ps stages will be 
specifically elaborated on the following parts. 
3.2.1. Model of presentation 
The aim of the presentation is to introduce 
students the form and meaning as well as the 
appropriate use of a new piece of language in 
both speech and writing (Harmer, 1991; Ur, 
1996). This stage is of importance to the process 
of learning a structure since it helps students 
take the grammatical point into their short-term 
memory and equips them with necessary input 
for the communicative activities at the later 
stages (Harmer, 1991, p. 56). 
When conducting this stage, teachers 
should replace traditional procedure in which 
rules of a grammatical item are explained 
before examples of its actual use. They, in a 
reversed way, should provide the students with 
an opportunity to discover the underlying 
pattern through context (Ehrenworth & Vinton, 
2005; Harmer, 1991). To do this, they can give 
them a reading or listening (i.e. written or 
spoken) text which contains the target structure 
and let them do some “problem-solving” tasks 
individually or in pairs or groups with the text 
to discover by themselves what the pattern is 
and how it works in that context (Harmer, 
1991, pp.71-72). This procedure attracts their 
attention to the meaning and use before the 
form of the target structure. This shift aims to 
make the concept become clearer and help 
them achieve noticing within a rich 
environment of communication. After they 
finish the tasks, the teacher will ask them what 
they have found and discuss the answers with 
them to clarify the form, meaning and use of 
the target structure, which is implicitly the 
explanation stage. 
3.2.2. Model of practice 
The aim of this stage, specifically, is to 
help students further absorb the form of the 
structure and the focus at this stage is on the 
accuracy of what the students are saying and 
writing (Harmer, 1991; Ur, 1988). 
To achieve that aim, controlled activities 
are designed. However, in the method under 
discussion, although practice tasks retain 
focus on correct production, they need to 
ensure to sound “communicatively authentic” 
and lead learners to recognize the 
“communicative function” of the grammatical 
form (Littlewood, 1981, pp. 10-11). 
Therefore, necessary attention should be 
paid to the techniques of designing the 
controlled practice in context. Traditionally, 
 Khuong Thi Hong Cam. Journal of Science Ho Chi Minh City Open University, 7(4), 3-20 7 
much practice with sentence-based exercises 
creates many students who can learn to 
successfully complete those exercises but 
remain unable to appropriately use the 
features practiced. Thus, Lock (1996) 
suggests giving practice at text level, holding 
that text-based practice, either in speech or 
writing, strongly associates structure with its 
meanings in context; hence, it likely enables 
learners to produce proper items in similar 
contexts in later occasions. 
In designing tasks for this stage, teachers 
can modify the mechanical exercises in the 
textbooks by requiring the students to deal 
with texts rather than isolated sentences or 
they can create the tasks themselves in the 
same way. The tasks that are designed in these 
ways definitely help students practice the 
accurate structural forms simultaneously with 
communicative purposes, but they are more 
controlled in what to say or write. In order to 
fulfill these tasks, students can be required to 
work individually or in pairs to write or talk, 
depending on what activities they are doing. 
Teachers can slightly intervene to give the 
students some immediate guide if their 
language is not formally accurate (Harmer, 
1991, p. 50). 
3.2.3. Model of production 
This stage, which most textbooks are 
devoid of, is the most productive, and hence, 
the most exciting one (Ur, 1988). While the 
controlled practice in the previous stage deals 
with the accurate form, the free one in this 
stage focuses on achieving its meaning and 
fluency in communicating. 
Due to such a shift in focus from 
accuracy to fluency, the tasks designed for 
this stage should accordingly be different 
from those in the previous one in the way that 
they should make learners perform more 
freely and “less controlled by the specific 
prompts but more controlled by the need to 
produce language in response to the functional 
and social demands of social interaction” 
(Littlewood, 1981, p. 10). To put it another 
way, the activities should be able to give the 
students a real purpose to communicate as 
well as a better chance to engage themselves 
in “a varied use of language” so that they can 
“do their best to use the language as 
individuals, arriving at a degree of language 
autonomy” (Harmer, 1991, p. 51). In order to 
design communicative tasks like those, 
teachers should also consider the elements of 
context as the practice tasks but at the higher 
level of challenge and freedom. 
 During this stage, teachers can also ask 
students to work individually, in pairs or in 
groups. Pair work and group work are more 
favorable since students have a chance to use 
language to communicate with their peers 
(Harmer, 1991). Moreover, since the 
appropriacy of using language has more 
attraction in communication than the well-
formedness, greater emphasis of corrective 
feedback is put on mistakes that hinder fluent 
communication than on those concerned with 
accurate forms (Littlewood, 1981). Therefore, 
correction should be delayed to be corrected 
later so as not to prevent learners from 
communicating (Harmer, 1991). 
In brief, the principles for task design in 
the three stages show that the form, meaning 
and use of a target structure should be 
introduced, practiced and consolidated with 
the embedded context. Ideally, four skills 
should be simultaneously integrated in each 
stage. 
4. Research methodology 
This research employs a reflective 
teaching approach – a type of qualitative 
method – as a dominant approach and 
quantitative approach as a supplementary one. 
Reflective teaching is the best method for 
researchers who attempt to make a change 
from “routine action” to “reflective action” 
(Pollard and Collin, 2005, p. 13). Specifically, 
routine action is “static” and “unresponsive to 
changing priorities and circumstance” since it 
is guided by factors such as “tradition, habit, 
and authority and by institutional definitions 
8 Khuong Thi Hong Cam. Journal of Science Ho Chi Minh City Open University, 7(4), 3-20