An Investigation into Using Mind Mapping Strategy in Developing Speaking Skill for EFL Learners at Foreign Language Centers in Danang City

THE UNIVERSITY OF DANANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES ại Đ ĐƯỜNG THỊ THÀNH AN INVESTIGATION INTO USING MIND MAPPING họ STRATEGY IN DEVELOPING SPEAKING SKILL c FOR EFL LEARNERS AT FOREIGN LANGUAGE Đ CENTERS IN DANANG CITY g ẵn N MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATIONAL STUDIES (A SUMMARY) Da Nang, 2022 This thesis has been completed at University of Foreign Language Studies, The University of Da Nang Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr , Luu Quy Khuong Examinar 1: Dr Truong Bach Le Examiner 2: Assoc Prof Dr , Nguyen Van Long ại Đ họ This thesis was be orally defended at Examining Committee Time: 11th August 2022 c Venue: University of Foreign Language Studies Đ - The University of Da Nang g ẵn N This thesis is available for purpose of reference at : -The University of DaNang - The center for Learning Information Resources and Communication -Center for Information Technology and Learning Resources, University of Foreign Language Studies- The University of DaNang CHAPTER : INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE Nowadays, many young people tend to spend much time learning a second language, especially English English becomes an important subject in this global era as it promotes education in many countries in the world It is also considered as a foreign language in Vietnam One of the skills that are more likely to be paid more attention to is speaking Egan (1999) argues that among the four Đ language skills, speaking skill is at the heart of second and foreign ại language learning Actually, it is as important as other skills like họ reading, writing and listening However, speaking is a good example to show how well someone does in understanding English By c speaking, speakers can express their feelings, experience, desire and Đ perception Vietnamese students started learning English speaking skill at N primary and secondary school They have to spend much time on g ẵn learning phonics, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation It is the fact that learning how to develop English speaking skills is so important for EFL students However, speaking is a challenging skill for some students They find difficulties to speak in English because English language is different from their mother tongue They have to imitate the voice of native speakers and try to pronounce correctly Moreover, English vocabularies are very diverse as other languages One word may have two to three meanings when we put in different contexts It makes students confused when they not know how to use it in right forms and situations Especially, children seem to learn new words quickly but it is hard for these words to enter their long- term memory The repetition activities not work for lower students who have little aptitude for languages or lower language acquisition Therefore, the lack of vocabulary leads to trouble in speaking English In addition, problem of some students is generating idea They have difficulties to brainstorm, generate and organize idea when they speak in English For example, sometimes when the teacher asks them to speak in front of the class, they will be confused Students did not know how to answer their teacher’s Đ questions as well as communicate with their classmates naturally ại Sometimes, they have an idea in their mind but not know how to express Or maybe, when they have idea but they just produce a few họ sentences without using correct grammar In order to help students to solve their problems in speaking c English, teachers need to apply appropriate methods Normally, Đ teachers often apply various effective instructional strategies to assist students in learning English One of the methods is mind mapping N strategy Anna Buran & Filyukov (2015: 218) state that “Using mind g ẵn maps in teaching and learning English will be useful for both teachers and students as the amount of information is increasing every second and our brain, which does not work in a linear way that cannot perceive even a small part of it” However, MMS is almost always applied in writing activities while its application in speaking activity is rather limited Moreover, teachers would rather apply mind mapping for high school, university students than for young EFL learners because they think that high school and university students can understand and use MMs effectively The aforementioned reasons have given me the urge to carry out this research paper entitled “An Investigation into Using Mind Mapping Strategy in Developing Speaking Skill for EFL Learners at Foreign Language Centers in Danang City” This piece of research figures out the perception of EFL learners about the mind mapping strategy The author surveys the difficulties that the EFL learners at Foreign Language Centers faced while they are speaking English and find out the solutions for using mind mapping to increase student’s ability in speaking English at ELT class Đ 1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES ại 1.2.1 AIMS This study aims to investigate the use of MMS in developing họ speaking skills for EFL learners in Foreign Language Centre in Danang city; investigates about the learner’s perception about MMS; c figures out the difficulties that the EFL learners face while applying Đ MMS and examine learners’ reflection on the benefit of applying MMS in speaking English at EFL classes N 1.2.2 OBJECTIVES g ẵn The study aims to achieve the following objectives: - Clarify main concepts about mind maps, mind mapping and mind mapping strategy - Investigating perception of EFL learners about applying MMS in learning English speaking skill - Synthesizing, analyzing and evaluating experimental results about applying MMS in teaching and learning lessons of speaking skills directly applying experiment using MMS and not using MMS - Investigating the difficulties that EFL learners when using MMS in developing their English language speaking skills - Investigating the learners’ reflection on the benefit of applying MMS in speaking - Proposing solutions and ideas related to the application of MMS in improving the English speaking ability of language learners 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS In order to achieve the aims and objectives of the study, the following questions are set: What are the perceptions about using MMS in improving speaking skill of EFL learners at Foreign Language Centers in Đ Danang city? ại What are difficulties EFL learners face when using MMS in developing their English language speaking skill? are EFL learners’ reflections on the benefits of họ What applying MMS in speaking? c 1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY Đ 1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY N 1.6 ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY The research consists of five chapters as follows g ẵn Chapter briefly introduces the rationale, presents the aim and objectives, research questions, significance, the scope of the study and the organization of the study Chapter mentions the review of previous studies and the theoretical foundation for the study and offers definitions of the key terms Chapter talks about methods that were conducted to figure out the difficulties that the EFL primary school students face while they are speaking English and finds out the solutions for using mind mapping to increase student’s ability in speaking English at ELT class This chapter presents detailed descriptions of the research design, research methods, participants, data collection, data analysis, and the validity and reliability of the study Chapter reports and discusses the results of the study Chapter is the conclusion of the research, sums up the main findings, provides some strategies for teachers, presents implications, the limitations of the study, and recommendations for further research are discussed ại Đ c họ Đ g ẵn N CHAPTER : LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW Speaking is one of the important basic skills in learning English According to Hedge (2003), learning speaking is very important for students Most learners figure out how to understand and speak English before they comprehend how to write and read the Đ language Thus, the spoken English is usually learned first and later followed by other skills like reading and writing skills Speaking is ại the essential skill of communication and very difficult in nature as it họ does not only rely on the ability to speak but also includes other varying components such as vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, c fluency and comprehension Those aspects should be well prepared Đ in order to have good speaking ability In this part, the writer dealt with the previous researchers N applying MMS in teaching English Nurhayati (2010 235) stated g ẵn “The learners like and feel more confident using MM in storytelling that facilitate or help them in speaking.” It can be said that in the speaking class, MMS can improve the students’ speaking skills The students not think that speaking class is hard subject because MM helps them to explore their ideas and experiences Moreover, MMS also has good impact on the students’ writing skills As Aulia Waloyo (2017: 81-82) stated that “mind mapping strategy was effective and successful to improve the students’ ability in writing skills, particularly in terms of gathering ideas for the target topic, and to facilitate them in learning writing” Consequently, challenges in EFL instruction may be as a result of many cultural and environmental factors, such as the lack of interactive speaking environments, emphasis placed on test scores, and foreign language anxiety (Yen, Hou, & Chang, 2015) Furthermore, applying wrong methods in teaching and learning styles cause many problems and effect to the efficiency of learning Therefore, the present study proposed to employ MMS in teaching EFL learners speaking skill 2.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Đ 2.2.1 Definition of Speaking ại From definition above the writer concludes that speaking is one of four skills of English to express opinion, idea, thought, our họ feeling and etc to the other people, with speaking the people can communicate each other so, the people especially the students have c to mastery this skill because this is oral skill that very important for learners Đ second language or foreign language learners to communication in their life Without speaking we cannot express N what we want to express and it is make people difficult to 2.2.2 Aspects of Speaking Ability g ẵn communicate with other and will caused bad relations As we can see, if the learners want to be good at speaking, they have to practice and pay more attention to the elements which deciding the efficiency in communication 2.2.3 Teaching Speaking Based on explanation above, teaching speaking is an activity to make students as second language learner or foreign language learner to produce their speech so, they can speak fluently and confidently in front of people or other students 2.2.4 Learning Speaking Skill Therefore, applying suitable methods in learning English speaking skill will help EFL leaners save their time and be more fluent in speaking It helps create their learning styles for both class – learning and self-learning 2.2.5 Definition of Mind Maps (MMs) From the explanation above, a mind map is a diagram for representing tasks, words, concepts, or items linked to and arranged Đ around a central concept or subject using a non-linear graphical ại layout that allows the user to build an intuitive framework around a central concept It is considered as an instrument in helping learners’ họ memoring, systematizing and generating the ideas better c Đ g ẵn N Figure 2.1: Examples of MMs 10 2.2.10 The Advantages of Using Mind Mapping Strategy DePorter and Hernacki (in Abdurrahman, 2008: 172) describe that there are some advantages of using MMS, they are as follows; Flexibility Concentrating on the Topic Increasing Comprehension Enjoyment 2.2.11 The Information of iYes English Center Đ Iyes English Center was established in 2011 It has become ại one of the reliable places for English training for children, teenagers, businesses in the locality With many years of experience in the field họ of English teaching, iYes always attaches great importance to improving the practical value of the curriculum, while constantly c researching and developing new training methods to help students Đ learn, practice more effectively and achieve high results in international certification exams g ẵn N 11 CHAPTER : RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES 3.1 RESEARCH METHODS The purpose of this research was to find out the effect of using MMS towards students’ speaking skill at English center In order to achieve the aim of this study, the investigation was based on such methods as the quantitative and qualitative methods in which the priority was given to the qualitative with data from questionnaires Đ Table 3.1 Describe the survey subject as learners class ại Experimental Pre-test Treatment by using mind mapping strategy Post-test họ Treatment by using normal Pre-test methods c Control class without mind Post-test OF SUBJECT, PARTICIPANTS AND POPULATION 3.2.1 Subject of the research 3.2.2 Participants and Population 3.2.3 Sample SAMPLE, g ẵn N 3.2 DESCRIPTION Đ mapping strategy 3.3 RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS 3.3.1 Learners questionnaires 3.3.2 Speaking Test (Pre-test & Post-test) 3.4 DATA COLLECTION The data collection was conducted in three months, from the March of 2022 to by the June of 2022 The data collections were implemented in an English language center, located in Danang city 12 • In the first step, teacher asked EFL learners to complete the questionnaire number one (see Appendix 1) • In the second step, the researcher gave pre-test • During the course, the researcher conducted the treatment • Teacher asked EFL learners to complete the questionnaire number two (see Appendix 2) • The author provided the post-test • Teacher asked EFL learners to complete the questionnaire Đ number three (see Appendix 3) ại 3.5 DATA ANALYSIS 3.6 RESEARCH PROCEDURE họ Before implementing the research technique, the author devised a strategy to ensure that the application ran smoothly c There were three steps in research procedure, they were: N 3.6.3 Reporting 3.6.2 Application Đ 3.6.1 Planning g ẵn 3.6.4 Process of teaching mind mapping 3.6.5 Process of drawing a mind map 3.6.6 The process of developing MMS into speaking 3.7 SUMMARY There were six sections which were mentioned in this chapter The first section discussed the research methods Those were quantitative and qualitative methods in which the priority was given to the qualitative with data from questionnaires The second and third sections discussed the description of the sampling of the study and research instruments How data was analyzed and treated referred in 13 the fourth and fifth section in order The final section discussed the research procedure to show the progress of applying MMS and how the questionnaires and tests carry out in the study Employing specific research methods, the thesis got the results which related to the research questions That would be the focus of the next chapter The research planned to collect and analyze the data carefully so that the results of the study could be highly appreciated ại Đ c họ Đ g ẵn N 14 CHAPTER : FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION This chapter focused on describing the result of the implementation of mind mapping strategy in improving learners’ ability in English speaking skill According to the research questions, the result findings were divided into four parts 4.1 FINDINGS RELATED TO THE RESEARCH QUESTION ONE Đ 4.1.1 Learners’ perceptions about using MMS ITEMS ại Table 4.1: Statistics of Questionnaire Item No.1 YES họ I know mind mapping strategy NO 20 (33%) 40 (67%) c I already applied mind mapping in learning English speaking before Đ I know how to draw a mind map 20 (33%) 40 (67%) 16 (27%) 44 (73%) I like using mind mapping strategy in I apply mind mapping strategy as a learning style I often draw mind maps to outline the ideas before speaking I find mind mapping strategy interesting and effective 15 (25%) 45 (75%) g ẵn N learning English speaking skills 10 (17%) 50 (83%) (15%) 48 (85%) 15 (25%) 45 (75%) In short, most participants did not know much about the MMS Only small group of students already knew about this strategy and applied in learning English The rest of students seem they did not 15 know much and even did not apply MMS in English speaking learning before Some students not like drawing so it is one of the reason they are not interested in MMS which requires students to draw shapes and pictures 4.2 FINDINGS RELATED TO THE RESEARCH QUESTION TWO Table 4.2 Statistics of Questionnaire Item No.2 Items YES Đ I am not good at drawing (15%) ại họ I think applying MMS time-consuming c MMS is not suitable for all topics Đ I have to think too much to outline the ideas N I not know how to present smoothie and I not have chances to present ideas in front of class 51 (85%) 51 (85%) (13 52 %) (86%) (11%) 10 g ẵn logically in front of class (15%) NO 43 (89%) 50 (16%) (84%) 15 45 (25%) (75%) Other Comments: -draw badly - not have time -not everyone pay attention to your speaking Some students did not want to join in activities because they found drawing MMs time-consuming or they were not good at 16 drawing The students did not have ideas to make an outline They also did not know how to put the ideas and express their ideas smoothly because they did not know the way to link between among ideas Some of them used wrong grammar structures Some of students felt too embarrassed to speak in front of the class after making an outline Some of the students less paid their attention or interacted with others in group work projects Some of the learners with lower-level Đ of English obtained fewer benefits from MMS than others In the ại class sizes, it was difficult for the teachers to apply productive activities using MMS involving speaking in pairs or in groups họ because these activities are more demanding and time-consuming Hence, some of students had fewer opportunities to practice speaking c after drawing the outline Đ Instead of only applying MMS in the class, teacher asked learners to draw MMs at home to practice more The tasks were N based on the content of lesson that learners learned that day g ẵn For example: - Apply/draw MMs to systematize learned vocabulary (Figure 4.1;4.2) - Introduce yourself (applying MMS to make an outline) - Which country would you like to visit in the future? (applying MMS to make an outline) (Figure 4.3) - Doing project “Environmental Problems” Figure 4.1: Example of Drawing MMs (Taken from student work) Figure 4.2: Example of Drawing MMs 10 (Taken from student work) Figure 4.3: Example of Drawing MMs 11 (Taken from student work) 17 Figure 4.4: Example of Drawing MMs 12 (Taken from student work) There was the result of the checking tasks after three months applying MMS as homework for learners The data was taken from two classes in Experimental Group which were showed on Figure 4.5 and 4.6 below 60% 40% 20% Đ Always 0% Often ại Lesson Lesson Lesson 46% Always Never 26% 20% 20% 20% 20% 13% 6% c Sometimes 53% họ Often 40% Sometimes 13% 13% Never Đ Figure 4.5: The frequency of applying MMS in class SK5.0 N 100% g ẵn 50% Always Often 0% Lesso Lesso Lesso Always 60% 53% 53% Often 26% 20% 33% Sometimes 7% 27% 14% Never 7% 0% Sometimes Never Figure 4.6: The frequency of applying MMS in class SK5.3 18 In short, the author found that there were some learners who already knew about mind mapping but they did not apply it to learning language They sometimes saw their teachers use this strategy at beginning of the lesson to let students brainstorm Moreover, teachers normally applied MMS in practicing writing skill Some learners did not like drawing so they did not find MMS interesting and useful We can see that MMS were not applied completely before and the learners considered it as a new method 4.3 FINDINGS RELATED TO THE RESEARCH Đ QUESTION THREE ại 4.3.1 Students’ reflection on the benefits of applying mind mapping strategy in Speaking skill họ The two next steps are to evaluate students base on pre-test c and post-test They consisted of the result of pre-test and post –test Đ The pre-test was held on March 16th 2022 Before doing post-test the researcher did the treatments for experimental classes, the treatments were held from February 17th 2022 to June 17th 2022, and the last N was a post-test which was held on June 20th 2022 4.3.3 The result of Post-test g ẵn 4.3.2 The result of Pre-test From the analysis above, the writer finds that achievements in the post -test after learners got the treatment were higher than in the pre-test They can consistently uses appropriate and varied vocabulary and responds with confidence They can recall all of the studied vocabulary words and can speak with fluency in all sentences Learners can understand the meaning of all questions and statements about over 90% 19 4.3.4 The result of Students’ reflection (SA: Strongly Agree, A: Agree, U: Undecided, DA: Disagree, SDA: Strongly Disagree) Table 4.8: Students’ reflection result Items Rating Scales 1.Enhance knowledge of 25 (83%) (17%) U DA SDA (0%) (3%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (3%) 2.Improve ại Đ vocabulary A N SA pronunciation (67%) (20%) (13%) 18 (23%) (17%) structures English 5.Listen more comprehensively 24 (80%) (13%) 10 (67%) (30%) (7%) g ẵn speaking 4.Be fluent in (60%) Đ grammatical c 3.Better use of họ and accent 20 (0%) Learner’s reflection on the benefits of applying mind mapping strategy in Speaking skill were nearly the same as that of the teacher’s perception More than 80% learners agreed that this teaching strategy were very beneficial, which helped them developed both language knowledge and skills and all of them were interested in learning English 20 CHAPTER : CONCLUSION – IMPLICATIONS 5.1 CONCLUSION Speaking is an important skill in English language Learners of English language learning should have mastered this skill Although speaking skill is important to communicate with each other and share our thought, the students faced some problems such as lack of ideas, worry make a mistake at using grammar and struggling to generate Đ idea while speaking From those problems, I tried to solve it and I MMS ại was focused on developing learners’ speaking skill by applying họ First of all, many EFL learners have not gotten familiar with applying MMS in learning speaking yet Therefore, EFL learners c faced to some difficulties while applying MMS such as time- Đ consuming, drawing ability, different levels working in groups and generating ideas, lack of opportunities to practice speaking in class N However, after applying MMS in developing speaking skill, g ẵn EFL learners agreed that MMS helped them develop both language knowledge and skill They were also interested in learning English when applying MMS in learning speaking Based on the result of the test after applying the treatment, this study showed that MMS could be an effective to improve learners’ speaking skill MMS helped students to remembering the points or vocabularies that they want to use in speaking Learners also could generate their idea before speaking by make a mind map Then, when learners finished writing their mind, they could speaking practice with using mind mapping Based on those activities, learners 21 improved their performance in the second cycle Moreover, MMS is one of the alternative technique in teaching English speaking skill It increases learners’ speaking skill in some aspect, such as, pronunciation, grammar, fluency and vocabulary In pronunciation, MMs gives good effect for this speaking aspect Learners’ pronunciation is increased by MMS They have good pronunciation after learned by using MM, because during their study with MMS, they are more often to speak English in front of the Đ class, because mind mapping is an effective way to connect and ại organize our minds by doing colors, images or symbols, and associations So, it can help learners to plan and deliver our speech họ and can generate their own mind map to convey ideas to be presented visually as supporting materials to talk about the lessons Thus, they c are accustomed in speaking English The learners could produce Đ English words with good pronunciation MMS also increased learners’ grammar, learners could speak N English with good grammatical and just a little of grammatical errors g ẵn were done by learners during the researcher gave treatment The researcher also taught the students how to use tenses and study about grammar Leaners’ fluency is also increased by MMS The learners could speak English not in long pauses again They did not need long pauses to search for words of meaning and they also has unlimited expression when they were spoke English, because learners have representation in their minds by knowing central theme and supporting ideas around it The last aspect is vocabulary By teaching with mind mapping, the learners’ vocabulary is increased because, when the learners 22 learned with mind mapping, they could add their vocabulary and select the appropriate words connect with the concepts and ideas that they want to use to express their picture Because of many picture that they have got and they have told, so they could produce many new vocabularies It can be concluded that, mind mapping technique has significance effect on the learners’ speaking skill, and also the implementation of mind mapping on their research was successful Based on the results of this study, it is hoped that the MMS Đ will be used more frequently during teaching and learning speaking ại skills In addition, this strategy can also be used to improve the remaining three skills, especially the writing skill This method họ improves learners’ speaking skill with the hope of being more fluent c in communication This research also wants to provide some Đ effective suggestions for applying this strategy during the speaking lesson to help learners be more confident and comfortable in N generating ideas before speaking It is hoped that this study could be g ẵn useful for learners and teachers to limit the problems in scholarly speaking as well as other aspects of speaking skill 5.2 IMPLICATIONS Based on the conclusion above, the researcher put forward the following implication: 5.2.1 For the teachers It is better to use mind map as one of technique to help the students in teaching learning speaking skill, since the students not only can improve their ability of speaking English but also make their active and enjoyable in the process teaching learning English 23 The teacher should be able to choose the appropriate technique according to the skills and materials that are going to teach to the students 5.2.2 For the learners It is suggested that speaking skill is an important thing in learning language because communication is the key message to show who you are, what you want and how valuable you are So they should pay more attention to speaking skill in order to make English learning more effective Đ The learners must be active and have motivation to learn an ại practice their English at school or out of school họ 5.2.3 For the other author Other researchers are expected to a similar research with a c similar topic by using a wider scope and larger population Đ Therefore, the result will be more applicable in a tertiary level The writer hopes there will be some corrections and critics from the other g ẵn 5.3 SUGGESTIONS N writer who read and investigate this thesis Having analyzed the result of this study, it is found that mind mapping helped the students to develop students’ speaking skill in terms of pronunciation, grammar, fluency and vocabulary The researcher gave some suggestions were as follow English teacher was suggested to use mind mapping as an alternative way in teaching speaking So mind mapping can encourage the students to be more active in learning process The English learner were suggested to be more active, creative and enjoy in exploring their ability in speaking by applying mind 24 mapping technique in order make them easier in expressed their ability in speaking English The readers were suggested to read the findings to widen and broaden their horizon in the theory of learning English and the decision makers were suggested to read the findings of this study as one of the considerations in making decision for the policy of the teaching learning process ại Đ c họ Đ g ẵn N ... Investigation into Using Mind Mapping Strategy in Developing Speaking Skill for EFL Learners at Foreign Language Centers in Danang City? ?? This piece of research figures out the perception of EFL learners. .. about mind maps, mind mapping and mind mapping strategy - Investigating perception of EFL learners about applying MMS in learning English speaking skill - Synthesizing, analyzing and evaluating... about using MMS in improving speaking skill of EFL learners at Foreign Language Centers in Đ Danang city? ại What are difficulties EFL learners face when using MMS in developing their English language