Using Short Stories In Teaching English In The Context Of Vietnam Australia School - Hanoi.pdf

Output file UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES VNU, HANOI POST GRADUATE DEPARTMENT PHAM THU HA USING SHORT STORIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH IN THE CONTEXT OF VIETNAM AUSTRALIA SCHOOL – HANOI ([.]

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES-VNU, HANOI POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT PHAM THU HA USING SHORT STORIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH IN THE CONTEXT OF VIETNAM AUSTRALIA SCHOOL – HANOI (VIỆC SỬ DỤNG TRUYỆN NGẮN TRONG GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH TẠI NGỮ CẢNH TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC VIỆT ÚC – HÀ NỘI) M.A Minor thesis Field: Methodology Code: 601410 HANOI-2009 UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES-VNU, HANOI POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT PHAM THU HA USING SHORT STORIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH IN THE CONTEXT OF VIETNAM AUSTALIA SCHOOL- HANOI (VIỆC SỬ DỤNG TRUYỆN NGẮN TRONG GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH TẠI NGỮ CẢNH TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC VIỆT ÚC – HÀ NỘI) SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS SUPERVISOR: PHÙNG HÀ THANH, M.Ed HANOI-2009 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Research methods 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 Structure of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Literature and language teaching 2.1.1 Concept of literature 2.1.2 Features of literature 2.1.3 Using literature in language classroom 2.2 Short stories in language classroom 2.2.1 Definition of a short story 2.2.2 Benefits of using short stories in language classroom 10 2.2.2.1 Reinforcing the skills 10 2.2.2.2 Motivating students 11 2.2.2.3 Introducing literary elements 11 2.2.2.4 Teaching culture 12 v 2.2.2.5 Teaching higher-order thinking 13 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 16 3.1 Sampling 16 3.2 Data collection instruments 16 3.2.1 Questionnaires 18 3.2.2 Interviews 17 3.3 Procedure of data collection 18 3.4 Procedure of data analysis 20 CHAPTER RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 21 4.1 Reseach question 1: How teachers percieve the use of short stories in teaching English in terms of necessity? 21 4.2 Research question 2: How students percieve short stories as a source of language input in terms of interest and importance? 22 Research question 3: How teachers exploit short stories in teaching English in terms of purpose, strategy and frequency? 23 4.3.1 The frequency of using short stories in teaching English 23 4.3.2 The purposes of using short stories in teaching English 24 4.3.3 The strategies to exploit short stories in teaching English 25 4.4 Research question 4: To what extent teachers feel satisfied with their use of short stories in teaching English? 27 4.5 Research question 5: What are the obstacles that have limited teachers’ use of short stories in teaching English? 28 4.6 Research question 6: What are the obstacles that challenge students in learning English with short stories? 29 vi 4.7 Research quesetion 7: What are the recomendations and expectations for using short stories in teaching English given by students and teachers? 31 4.7.1 Teachers’ recommendations 31 4.7.2 Students’ expectations 31 4.7.2.1 Students’ expectations in terms of length, level of difficulty and theme of a short story 31 4.7.2.2 Students’ expectations for the activities in class 32 4.8 Summary of the findings from the interview 34 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 37 5.1 Major findings of the study 37 5.2 Recommendations 38 5.2.1 Selecting and evaluating short stories 39 5.2.2 Suggested techniques for integrating short stories in English teaching 40 5.2.2.1 Problems solving 40 5.2.2.2 Activities for using a short story in class 41 5.3 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 41 REFERENCES 44 APPENDICES I APPENDIX 1: SOME SHORT STORIES USED IN THE STUDY I APPENDIX 2: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS III APPENDIX 3: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS VII APPENDIX 4: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS (Vietnamese version) X APPENDIX 5: INTERVIEW SCHEDULE XIII vii LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS TABLES Table 1: Students’ practice with short stories 23 Table 2: Teachers’ purposes of using short stories in teaching English 24 Table 3: Teaching strategies 25 Table 4: Teachers’ satisfaction with the use of short stories in teaching English 27 Table 5: The obstacles in using short stories in teaching English 28 Table 6: Obstacles challenging the students in learning with short stories 30 Table 7: Teachers’ recomendations 31 Table 8: Students’ expectations in terms of length, level of difficulty and theme of a short story 31 Table 4.9: Students’ expectations for the activities in class 33 Table 4.10: Profile of the interviewees 34 FIGURES Figure 1: The presense of short stories in the teaching practice of the teachers 20 Figure 2: Students’ perception of short stories in terms of interest 21 Figure 2.3: The frequency of using short stories in teaching English 23 ABBREVIATIONS VAS: Vietnam Australia School- Hanoi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the background information, and states the problems and reasons for the study It also outlines the overall purpose and objectives of the study, describes the significance of the study, poses the research questions to be answered and provides an overview of the research design 1.1 Rationale of the study Today, English is the global means of communication It is now an official language in more than 75 countries, with a total population of over billion speakers Three quarters of the world‟s mail are in English and 80% of the world‟s electrically stored information is also currently in English (Crystal, 1997) English is the working language of the Asian trade group ASEAN and the official language of the European Central Bank (Wallraff, 2000) Briefly, with the spread of globalization and the rapid expansion of information technologies has come an explosion in the demand for English worldwide Unexceptionally, in Vietnam, English is considered the key to success in modern life The number of English learners has been increasing rapidly in the last few decades To meet the demand, a great deal of schools and centers with special English teaching and learning programs have been set up everywhere, especially in big cities Vietnam Australia SchoolHanoi (VAS), a private high school which is located in My Dinh, Hanoi, is one example Established in 2007, VAS is to offer an ideal environment for learning English It cooperates with PLC, a famous school in Australia in curriculum and education programs Students in VAS have to follow the English syllabus of Vietnam carried out by Vietnamese teachers Besides they have global English and global commerce classes with Australian teachers, hence, there are many chances for them to practice and improve English in real life conversations with native speaking people All of the parents hope that their children can have the best learning conditions, especially the best English learning environment so that their children will be able to go on studying overseas or to have the best preparation for their future However, one of the challenges facing English teachers of VAS, including the author of this study, is composing extra materials In VAS, students have five to six periods a week with Vietnamese teachers, which is twice as much as other ordinary schools Therefore, besides the textbooks, extra materials are needed Normally, many teachers select or compose more written practice tests to drill what students have learned in the textbook However, this type of materials does seem to have attracted much interest Sometimes, extra written practice tests are blamed for a boring atmosphere in many classes Thus, there should be variations so that students feel more interested in learning In VAS, a number of sources of teaching materials such as poems, short stories, drama, films, English songs, etc have been exploited now and then Among these, using short stories as teaching supplementary materials has been taken into consideration for some following reasons Firstly, short stories can be seen as an interesting and suitable source of teaching materials As reading texts, short stories can serve the language skill drilling function quite well More importantly, short stories in particular and literary texts in general are favorable for students‟ language and cultural development and personal involvement Since literature enables students to understand and appreciate other cultures and societies, it encourages personal growth and intellectual development According to Ibsen‟s view (1990), literary texts appeal to students in term of emotion and personal experience because each student will meet the text in his/her own way based on experiences and knowledge of literature and life This creates meaningful and interesting discussions among students and draws on personal responses form learners In other words, learners become more personally involved in the process of language learning and can begin to own the language they learn more fully It also retains a good learning climate in a relaxing atmosphere Moreover, in comparison with other sources of teaching materials such as written practice exercises, poems, films, English songs, short stories are believed to have several advantages Written practice exercises as mentioned above not always interest students Poems seem rather complex and abstract for schoolchildren Not every available English song and film which suits the taste of students can serve the language skill drilling function properly Whereas, there is a variety of short stories to choose, ranging from elementary to proficiency levels Relatively short, fun, memorable and meaningful short stories are not too difficult in terms of vocabulary, grammatical structures and syntax Furthermore, they can bring about room for endless debate where students can live in the real human experience world Above language, they can learn many useful lessons about real life to develop their personalities In Vietnam- Australia school, Hanoi, short stories are mostly used as supplementary material for teaching by Australian teachers and sometimes applied by Vietnamese teachers However, there has been no official research on using them in teaching English This study has been conducted with the purpose to investigate how other teachers and students think about the use of short stories in teaching English and to what extents they have employed them in their teaching All these above explain why the author tries to the research It is hoped to result in useful ideas of using short stories in language classroom, especially in the context of Vietnam Australia School, Hanoi 1.2 Aims of the study Parallel with the reasons leading to the research are some following aims: - To investigate the perception of students towards the use of short stories - To study on the current use of short stories by teachers in Vietnam Australia School, Hanoi - To discuss some suggestions of using short stories in classroom such as selecting materials and using these materials in a way that is relevant to the students This study seeks the answers to the following questions How teachers percieve the use of short stories in teaching English in terms of necessity? How students percieve short stories as a source of language input in terms of interest and importance? How teachers exploit short stories in teaching English in terms of purpose, strategy and frequency? To what extent teachers feel satisfied with their use of short stories in teaching English? What are the obstacles that have limited teachers‟ use of short stories in teaching English? What are the obstacles that challenge students in learning English with short stories? What are the recomendations for using short stories in teaching English given by students and teachers? 1.3 Scope of the study In this study, the author intends to deal with the question of using short stories beneficially in language teaching Other literary texts are not concerned in the study The study was conducted in VAS with the participation of 10 teachers, both Vietnamese and Australian, and 100 senior high school students, who were chosen randomly from the alphabetical list of names The number of the teacher participants made up threefourths and the students participants accounted for five-sixths of the whole population However, the focus of the researcher was not put into junior high school students, so the implication might be not applicable in classes of junior high school students 1.4 Research methods Data collection for analysis in the study are mainly gained through survey questionnaires and interviews The questionaires aim at studying the students‟ and the teachers‟ attitude towards using short stories in classroom and their feedbacks after having lessons with short stories Meanwhile, semi-structured interviews were conducted among the teachers to triangulate the data collected from the questionnaires and to gather further information After that, the data collected were collectively analyzed to address the research questions Tables, charts and diagrams were used for clearer presentation and comparison 1.5 Significance of the study By looking into the perception of the use of short stories in English classes, the satisfaction of both teachers and students with their achievements and improvement in teaching and learning process, and the obstacles facing them, the study brings about an overall picture of the exploitation of short stories in VAS It is hoped to raise the awareness of 14 must demostrate their comprehension by comparing, interpreting, giving descriptions and stating main ideas When students become even more proficient, they move to level 3appplication in which they try to solve problem by using the knowledge they have about the story In level 4-analysis, students must have reached the high intermediate level to succeed The reason is that students must analyse, compare, contrast, explain, infer, ect, facts and ideas about the story Upon reaching the advanced level of proficiency, students can synthesize and evaluate what they read, the last two levels of the taxonomy (synthesis and evaluation) Teachers can then ask questions such as “How would you change the plot?”, “What would happen if .?”, “What changes would you make to solve ?”, “Do you agree with the action ?, with the outcome ?” (Bloom‟s critical thinking questioning strategies) Such questions added to each story should train the students to think critically With the short story “The Wisdom of Solomon”, teachers may raise some questions like below: What would have happened if the real mother of the baby who was about to be cut in half had stayed quiet instead of pleading to King Solomon not to cut him and give him to the other woman? 15 What would have happened if King Solomon had heard the real mother of the baby and cut the baby in half, giving half to the real mother and half to the other woman who claimed to be the real mother? Do you agree with the way King Solomon acted? Do you agree with the way the real mother acted? Do you agree with the resolution of the story? The questions and require students to think of a different end to the same story and probably see both the real mother of the baby and King Solomon in different ways from how they were portrayed in the original story Question and require students to make judgement Different stories may elicit different questions The questions will depend on the plot, characters, conflict, limax, complicaions and resolution of each story The more questions requiring higher-order thinking students answer, the better prepared they will be to face in the real world 16 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY In the previous chapter, a brief overview of the literature on the research topic was given, which laid the theoretical basis for the whole study In this chapter, the methods employed to answer the research questions would be described in details The participants, the instruments and the procedure of data collection and analysis would be justified 3.1 Sampling The study was conducted in Vietnam Australia School, Hanoi (VAS) where the author is doing the teaching job The school has totally 350 students including 120 senior high school students According to their English level and their grade in other subjects in Vietnamese, these students are catergorized and assigned into classes from A1 to A3 or V1 to V3 This study was carried out with the participation of 10 teachers and 100 senior high school students in VAS The students were chosen randomly from the alphabetical list of names.They accounted for five-sixths of the whole students in year 10 and year 11 of VAS (the school has not had any students in year 12 yet) Moreover, the students participating in the study came from different classes taught by different teachers with various teaching methods and techniques Therefore the data collected can be believed to be representative There are totally twenty teachers of English in VAS but only ten teachers (five Vietnamese ans five Australian ones), who were in charge of English classes in senior high school, were chosen to take part in the survey questionnaire Due to the shortage of time, four teachers were interviewed after the survey 3.2 Data collection instruments To achieve the research objectives, a combined data collection process using both survey questionnaires and semi-structured interviews was employed 3.2.1 Questionnaires In order to obtain sufficient data, the survey questionnaire was chosen as a main instrument 17 First of all, the structuring of questions was intentional corresponding to the research questions to obtain factual, behavioral and attitudinal information from the participants (the situation of using short stories in teaching English in VAS, the perception of teachers and students and its benefits in teaching and learning in English classes) Secondly, using questionnaires is particularly “efficient in terms of researcher time, effort, and financial resources” (Hoang and Nguyen, 2006, p.10) By administrating the questionnaire, a huge amount of information can be collected from a large number of people within a short period of time, and the personal investment required is a mere fraction of other instruments such as observation Furthermore, the questionnaire construction is made convenient for the data to be processed Specifically, the Likert scale is adopted to reveal the participants‟ attitudes and behaviors Likert scale is believed not only to save space and time but also to enable the respondents to give more specific answers which increases the accuracy of the interpretation of data However, there are some weaknesses of questionnaires such as the “simplicity and superficiality generated in questionnaires” (Dornyei 2003, p.210) and the “fatigue effect” or tiredness and boredom that influence responses towards the end of the questionnaire In order to minimize these drawbacks of questionnaire, the researcher has attempted to make the questionnaire items clear and brief Besides, interviews have been conducted to get more detailed information The survey questionnaire for teachers consists of questions organized into five parts which correspond to the five research questions Part with questions focusses on the exploitation of short stories in teaching English including the purpose and the frequency of the use of short stories and the techniques applied to exploit a short story Part studies the satisfaction with the use of short stories in teaching English Part investigates the obstacles in using short stories in teaching English In part 5, respondents can make any recommendations to ensure the better use of short stories in teaching English.The teachers who have already applied short stories in teaching English have to answer all the questions in the five parts whereas those who have not used short stories in teaching English skip part and and answer the questions in part 1, part and part Part aims to elicit the teachers‟ perceptions of using short stories in teaching English in VAS 18 The student survey questionnaire is designed similarly but shorter (2 pages in length) and simple It is translated into Vietnamese so that the students can understand the questions clearly to give correct answers The questionnaire for students is organized into three parts with five questions It concerns the perceptions of the use of short stories in learning English, the obstacles in using short stories in English class as supplementary materials and their expectations 3.2.2 Interviews Together with the survey questionnaire, the interview was exploited as a valuable research instrument to examine the research problem In light of research methodology, “interviews are particularly useful for getting the story behind a participant‟s experiences The interviewer can pursue in-depth information around the topic Interviews may be useful as follow-up to certain respondents to questionnaires, e.g., to further investigate their responses” (Hoang and Nguyen, 2006, p.47) In this study, the interviews were conducted after the collection of the survey questionnaires, and its content mostly focuses on interesting or controversial aspects noted from the questionnaires Semi-structured interviews were adopted with the participation of four teachers The researcher entered the interview with a general idea of the areas to focus on rather than a fixed list of questions As this research tool allows the interviewer a certain degree of both control and flexibility while it still leaves the interviewee some power over the course of the interview (Hoang and Nguyen, 2006, p.45), it could elicit rich information from the respondents and help address the research questions effectively Its purpose is to triangulate the data collected from the survey and obtain in-depth information, so clarifications and further explanations are frequently provided to the respondents 3.3 Procedure of data collection The procedure of data collection consists of three main phases as follows: 19 Phase 1: Preparation During this period, the survey questionnaire and interview schedule were designed based on the conceptual framework established in the Literature Review Each research question was further divided into sub-questions In any of these instruments, personal information of participants was kept confidential and anonymous for ethical reasons These forms were then sent to the supervisor of the researcher for feedback Besides, the survey forms and interview schedules were piloted on five voluntary students Thanks to this step, the layout of the whole questionnaire and the wording of several questions had been considerably improved to avoid possible ambiguity and misunderstandings of respondents Also, the pilot survey highlighted the need to establish strict supervision and consistent understanding of terms to participants to ensure the reliability of data collected Phase 2: Administering the questionnaires The second phase was to conduct the survey questionnaire Due to difficulties in making direct contact and time constraints, questionnaires for teachers were mostly delivered via email so that the participants could complete it at their convenience As for the students, it took the researcher an enormous amount of time to arrange appropriate time and place to carry out the survey The introduction about the study, instructions and definitions of key terms were given clearly and the researcher was ready to answer any questions that arose in order to guarantee the quality of the information All the questionnaires delivered were returned Phase 3: Conducting interview In the third stage, some teachers were invited to join an interview This was to triangulate the data collected through questionnaires and, at the same time, gather further information about their thoughts and expectations The interview was conducted in the teacher‟s room during after class Permission was asked for in advance to record the interview Besides, the researcher was ready to take note of any special non-verbal behaviors of the interviewees Phase 4: Transcribing the interviews In this final stage of the data collection procedure, all the interviews were transcribed Since data from the interviews came in large amount, the transcripts were then summarized 20 according to the research questions The detailed notes regarding interviewee‟s background, and the setting of the interview were added To avoid potential rigid summary without context and enable reference when necessary, the page number of the quotations in the transcripts was added 3.4 Procedure of data analysis After the data collection process, the information obtained from both the survey questionnaires and interviews was classified according to the research questions Since previously the researcher had intentionally arranged the questions in the questionnaires and interviews corresponding to the research questions, the task became less complicated Consequently, for each research question, participants‟ responses were calculated and transferred into numerical form, for example the percentage of participants who shared similar ideas or their average rating The data were then tabulated and charted for clearer presentation and easier comparison and synthesis Qualitative data like participants‟ answers to the openended questions in the questionnaire or during the interviews were summarized and presented in the form of quotations when necessary to provide more insights into the issue 21 CHAPTER RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The previous chapter has presented the methodology exploited in this study The selection of the participants, the research instruments as well as the process of data collection and data analysis have been described in detail and justified In this chapter, the data obtained from the questionnaires and interviews will be collectively analyzed and discussed to address the research questions 4.1 Reseach question 1: How teachers percieve the use of short stories in teaching English in terms of necessity? From the beginning, the respondents had to answer the questions “Have you ever used short stories besides those in the textbook in your English teaching process?” Nine out of ten respondents said they had used short stories in their teaching process Only one teacher had never applied short stories in teaching Figure 1: The presense of short stories in the teaching practice of the teachers 10% Yes No 90% From the data collected, one fact was drawn out that the teachers not only fulfilled the syllabus but also had great enthusiasm in teaching They took great effort to find supplementary teaching sources besides the textbook Among many sources, short stories were taken into consideration The teacher‟s perceptions of using short stories in teaching English in terms of necessity was studied Almost everyone can realize the necessity of using short stories in 22 teaching English, but how necessary it is depends on individual evaluation None of the teachers (0%) in VAS disapproved of its necessity and also none of them agreed with the fact that using short stories in teaching English was compulsory Only one teacher said that it was not very necessary to use short stories in teaching English Four teachers accepted it was necessary and the rest (five teachers) agreed that it was very necessary It can be concluded from the data that all teachers realized the necessity of using short stories, which led them to use short stories in their teaching 4.2 Research question 2: How students percieve short stories as a source of language input in terms of interest and importance? As can be seen from the chart below, most of the students (75%) were intersted in the teacher‟s use of short stories 20% of them were only interested sometimes However, there was a small number of students who didn‟t care much about it Figure 2: Students’ perception of short stories in terms of interest 0% 5% 20% Not interested at all Not very interested Interested sometimes 75% Very interested Referring to the personal information in the questionnaire, those who didn‟t care much about the teachers‟ use of short stories mostly came from A3 classes which were regarded as lower level They might be a bit lazy or have some difficulty in learning English with short stories, which will be looked into later on Anyway, three quarters of the students felt very interested in short stories, which means that they themslves had motivation and wiould try their best to overcome any challenges to reach their goals of learning Being interesed in learning English with short stories, the students themselves realized its benefit very clearly It can be revealed in the table below 23 Table 1: Students’ practice with short stories a b c d e f g h Items Mean Median Mode I can practice listening and speaking skills more 3.4 4 I can practice reading and writing skills more 3.3 3,5 I can learn more new words and expressions in context 3.4 4 I can enrich my background knowledge about people, 3.24 cultures, countries and the world I have more chances to discuss with my friends and 3.88 4 express my ideas I feel relaxed and interested in short stories 3.8 4,5 I find myself more imaginative and creative 3.2 4,3 My critical thinking gets better 2.8 2,3 The mean scores were all over 3, and nearly (3.88 and 3.8) for items “e” and “f” Also most of mode scores were 4, especially maximum for item “f” Most of them felt relaxed and intersted to express their ideas and discuss with their friends However, among these investigated items, items “g” and “h” got lower scores (mean around and mode=3) They did not think much about the improvement and development in imagination, creativeness and critical thinking Perhaps, it was fairly hard for students themseleves and even for teachers to realize the improvement and development in imagination, creativeness and critical thinking More importantly, the teachers themselves might not consider these their main aims when using short stories Research question 3: How teachers exploit short stories in teaching English in terms of purpose, strategy and frequency? For this research question, nine teachers who have used short stories in their teaching were under investigation The teachers‟ exploitation of short stories in teaching English were examined in terms of frequency, purpose and strategy 4.3.1 The frequency of using short stories in teaching English Although all of them said they had used short stories besides the textbook in their teaching process, only three teachers (33%) used short stories in their teaching practice almost 24 every week Six out of nine teachers (67%) used short stories just from time to time, about several times in a semester Figure 2.3:The frequency of using short stories in teaching English 33% Sometimes Usually 67% Tải FULL (65 trang): https://bit.ly/3k7ccBF Dự phòng: fb.com/TaiHo123doc.net 4.3.2 The purposes of using short stories in teaching English As reviewed in chapter two, short stories have many benefits such as reinforcing language skills, motivating students, introducing literary elements, teaching culture, and higer –order thinking The purposes of using short stories in teaching English of the teachers in VAS have been investigated The question “how often is your use of short stories motivated by the following purposes?” has been raised and the details for the items are as follows Table 4.2: Teachers’ purposes of using short stories in teaching English Items a To develop the four basic language skills, especially reading and writing b To develop the four basic language skills, especially speaking and listening c To develop students‟ language components such as vocabulary and grammar d To raise students‟ cultural awareness e To improve students‟ creative expressions in the target language f To improve students‟ interest in learning and involve them in class activities g To develop their critical thinking Mean 4.44 Median Mode 3.55 4 3.66 4 4.55 4 5 2.22 2 As can be seen, the items for this question received a wide range of mean, mode and median, from to Item “d” and “g” got the lowest scores (mean=2 and 2.22 and mode = median=2), whereas the highest ones belongs to item “f” (5) Except for items “d” and “g”, 25 the rest items got very high scores with mean higher than 3.5, mode and median equal to It means that for all teachers, the purpose of using short stories in teaching English was to improve students‟ interest in learning and involve them in class activities Frequently, their aims of using short stories were to improve students‟ creative expressions in the target language, to develop the four language skills, especially reading and writing skills with the mean of 4, and to develop students‟ language components such as vocabulary and grammar However, the use of short stories in English classes in VAS occasionally aimed at raising students‟ cultural awareness and developing their critical thinking This result was quite consistent with the students‟perception of their teachers‟ use of short stories in teaching mentioned in the previous analysis of research question In short, though the teachers had various aims when using short stories in their teaching practice, all of them had the same long-term goal, that is to form an instrinsic motivation in their students so that they will learn for their excellence, autonomy, and selfactualization, which enhances their master of the language 4.3.3 The strategies to exploit short stories in teaching English The exploitation of short stories in teaching English was examined basing on the techniques applied in pre-teaching, while-teaching and post-teaching Table 3: Teaching strategies Items a Read aloud the stories b Underline or highlight all the unknown words and phrases in the story c Guess the meaning of the unknown words and phrases and explain their use in context d Call out the names of the characters in the story e Do drilling tasks to get more details of the stories f Ask and answer questions about the story g Summarize or retell the story h Translate the story into the target language i Discuss and express opinions and attitudes toward the story and its characters, etc j Role-play the story k Continue the story by imagining what would happen next l Retell the story with a new ending Mean Median Mode 2.55 3 4 3.66 4 2.33 4.55 4.44 2.77 1.44 3.33 3 2, 5 3, 2 2 2 2 26 In pre-teaching, students need to get familiar with the story by understanding the setting of the story or some new words and phrases in the story A variety of techniques are applied in different situations Here, only four techniques were looked into Item “b” and “c” received high mean scores of and 3.66 and the median and mode scores of It means that the teachers frequently asked their students to “underline or highlight all the unknown words and phrases in the story and guess the meaning of the unknown words and phrases and explain their use in context” In other words, in pre-teaching the unknown words were mainly focused on because they are considered to be the most challenging barrier for the majority of students when learning English At times, stories were read aloud in class (with mean=2.55 and median=mode=3) The names of the characters in the story were generally assumed to be easy to remember, therefore, only occasionly students were asked to call out the names of the characters in the story except for a little more difficult ones with a number of characters In while-teaching, almost all the respondents exploited a short story in the same way Normally, after explaining the unknown words, phrases and expressions, a range of tasks were used to make students understand more about the story With very high mean scores (=4.55, and 4.44), median (=4 and 5) and maximum mode (=5), items “e” and “f” show the tendency of exploiting a short story in while-teaching by the teachers in VAS They usually used a set of excercises or comprehension questions to check their students‟understanding of the story Post teaching is regarded as a very important phase in teaching After students have already undertood the story, in post-teaching, students are given chances to discuss with their friends, retell the story in their own words, express their ideas more freely about what they know and what they think about the story and the characters in the story In brief, students‟competence in the target language, students‟ creativeness, and higher-order thinking ability are believed to be enhanced in post-teaching phase As can be seen in the table, item “h” (translate the story into the mother tongue) got the lowest mean of 1.44, median and mode of Very few teachers asked their students to translate the story into their mother tongue It is quite easy to understand this result in the context of VAS First of all, grammar translation approach seems unsuitable in the morden context of language teaching Moreover, four in ten teachers investigated are Australians, hence, it is meaningless and useless to ask their students 27 to translate into the mother tongue Among the other items, item “i”(discuss and express opinions and attitudes toward the story and its characters, etc) and item “g” (summarize or retell the story) had relatively higher scores (with the mean scores around 3, median=3, mode=3, 4), which revealed that half of the times the teachers asked their students to discuss and express opinions and attitudes toward the story and its characters, etc or summarise or retell the story These ways were seen as effective ones to get feedbacks from the students 4.4 Research question 4: To what extent teachers feel satisfied with their use of short stories in teaching English? About 67% (six out of nine) of the respondents said that they were satisfied with their use of short stories in teaching because they had achieved their teaching purposes and most of their students liked their use of short stories in class However, it is rather surprising that no teachers felt completely satisfied The rest about 33 % were not very satisfied because their students sometimes got bored or too lazy to take part in any extra activities The table below shows how the teachers rate the achievements of their purposes when Tải FULL (65 trang): https://bit.ly/3k7ccBF using short stories Dự phòng: fb.com/TaiHo123doc.net Table 4: Teachers’ satisfaction with the use of short stories in teaching English a b c d e f g Items Mean Median Mode My students‟ language skills, especially reading and 3.33 4 writing skills are improved The students‟ language skills, especially speaking and 3.44 4 listening are improved My students‟ language competence is enhanced 3.66 4 My students‟ background knowledge about cultures, 3.11 3 countries, ect is enriched My students‟ creativeness in expression is bettered 3.55 4 My students are really motivated by short stories 4 The critical thinking ability of my students is 3.11 3 developed As can be seen form the table, the results collected are comparatively high Especially, item “f” (my students are really motivated by short stories) got mean, median, and mode of It means that all the teachers agreed that short stories could motivate students in learning Besides, most of them agreed on the benefits of short stories in improving students‟ language components, language skills and creativity Nevertherless, there was suspicion of the fact that 28 short stories could develop the critical thinking ability and enrich students background knowledge of cultures and countries because many responded “undecided” In fact, students‟ interest in learning can be realized very clearly through their attitude and participation in the class activities Students‟ progress and improvement in their language competence can be accessed very regularly However, their critical thinking ability and background knowledge may be more difficult to realized or accessed in a short period of time and teachers need to be more sensitive to decide whether they have achieved these purposes or not In conclusion, the achievements of the seven purposes were rated very high In other words, most goals have been gained in either a short term or a long-term 4.5 Research question 5: What are the obstacles that have limited teachers’ use of short stories in teaching English? Though, as said above, the majority of the teachers were satisfied and rated their achivements of the purposed relatively high, there are still some obstacles that have limited their use of short stories in teaching English such as oversized classes with mixed levels, the lack of time, materials and official management, guides or strategies, the inconsistency in cirriculum and evaluation among the teaching staff and so on Below are the findings from the data collected Table 5: The obstacles in using short stories in teaching English Items a The time is limited b The class is too big with mixed levels c Looking for suitable short stories for students takes too much time and effort d There are no official management, guides or strategies from the department for the use of short stories in teaching English e Designing tasks for students are challenging and time-consuming f It is not easy to evaluate students‟ performance on the given tasks Mean Median Mode 2.77 2 2 3.77 4 4.55 5 3 2,3,4 Unlike the circumstances in many high school in Vietnam, where the biggest difficulty is normally oversized classes with multi levels of students, in VAS it doesn‟t cause much trouble to the teachers With 20 students in one class classified according to their language 6813675 ... exploit short stories in teaching English The exploitation of short stories in teaching English was examined basing on the techniques applied in pre -teaching, while -teaching and post -teaching Table... exploit short stories in teaching English in terms of purpose, strategy and frequency? 23 4.3.1 The frequency of using short stories in teaching English 23 4.3.2 The purposes of using short. .. consideration The teacher‟s perceptions of using short stories in teaching English in terms of necessity was studied Almost everyone can realize the necessity of using short stories in 22 teaching English,