A survey on the use of shadowing in learning english adopted by 2nd year english majors at vietnam national university of agriculture

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS A SURVEY ON THE USE OF SHADOWING IN LEARNING ENGLISH ADOPTED BY 2ND YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE KHẢO SÁT VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG SHADOWING TRONG HỌC TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM HAI NGÀNH NGÔN NGỮ ANH HỌC VIỆN NỒNG NGHIỆP VIỆT NAM Student : Đinh Vũ Hoài Thu Student code : 621238 Major : English Major Supervisor : Bùi Thị Là M.A Hanoi – 2021 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS A SURVEY ON THE USE OF SHADOWING IN LEARNING ENGLISH ADOPTED BY 2ND YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE KHẢO SÁT VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG SHADOWING TRONG HỌC TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM HAI NGÀNH NGÔN NGỮ ANH HỌC VIỆN NỒNG NGHIỆP VIỆT NAM Student : Đinh Vũ Hoài Thu Student code : 621238 Major : English Major Supervisor : Bùi Thị Là M.A Hanoi – 2021 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A SURVEY ON THE USE OF THE SHADOWING IN LEARNING ENGLISH ADOPTED BY 2ND YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2021 Đinh Vũ Hoài Thu Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Date:…………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For the completion of this thesis, I have received great assistance and support from many people without whom the work could not have been fulfilled First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Ms Bui Thi La, my supervisor This thesis could have probably not completed without her patient, enthusiastic and instructive supervision and encouragement I also would like to show my profound gratitude to all the lecturers at Vietnam national university of Agriculture, especially the lecturers in the Faculty of Education and Foreign Languages for tirelessly devoting time and efforts to enrich, broaden and deepen my knowledge over the past four years My special thanks go as well as to the Faculty of Education and Foreign Languages of Vietnam national university of Agriculture for giving me the opportunity and permission to implement this report I am particularly grateful to the first-year English majors coming from course 62 of Faculty of Education and Foreign Languages, Vietnam national university of Agriculture who help me a lot in completing the survey so that I can get the data for my research I cannot help fully expressing my gratitude to all people that direct and indirect support me to accomplish my thesis in time My thesis may still have many shortcomings Last but not least, I owe a debt of gratitude to my beloved family, for their wholehearted encouragement and endless support Thank you sincerely! ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality i Acknowledgements ii Table of contents iii List of tables vi PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study 1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1.2.1 The aim of the study 1.2.2 Objective 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 Design of the study Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Review of previous studies 1.1.1 Abroad 1.1.2 At home 1.2 Review of theoretical background 1.2.1 What is shadowing? 1.2.4 Effectiveness of shadowing 12 Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 15 Research method 15 Research setting/context 15 Data collection 15 3.1 Data collecting instruments 15 3.2 Data collecting procedures 15 iii Data analysis 16 Summary 16 Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 17 3.1 Current situation of the use of shadowing technique to improve learning English 17 3.2 The condition in using shadowing activity of student in learning English 21 3.4 Summary 26 PART 3: CONCLUSION 28 Recapitulation 28 Concluding remarks 28 Reference 32 Appendix 34 iv ABSTRACT Shadowing is not a new method of learning English but very few people know and apply it to learn second language Besides, there is also very little research on this method In this paper, the research analysis of this topic will clarify the learning method and propose solutions to improve students' English learning We will be using theoretical research methods to analyze, synthesize, compare and generalize theoretical and practical research results of researchers on shadowing in order to draw out instrumental concepts and theoretical framework for the research topic Investigation method to reflect the condition in using shadowing technique of students The survey focuses on understanding the application of shadowing methods; preferences and difficulties faced by students in applying the method At the end,as the result, the study show current situation of the use of shadowing technique to improve learning English among English majors at VNUA and solutions to develop English skills of second-years English majors Key word: Shadowing, the perception, the condition, method, solutions v LIST OF TABLES Table1 The shadowing process is based on Murphy's conversational reading theory Table Shadowing Procedure of Katoda and Tamai (2004) 12 Table Essentials use in shadowing 20 Table Difficulties in using shadowing 25 Chart 2nd year English major student’s English level 17 Chart 2nd year English major students’ perception on shadowing definition 19 Chart 2nd year English major students’ perception on shadowing effective 20 Chart 2nd year English major students' shadowing activity frequency 21 Chart Shadowing activities in self-study of 2nd year English major students' reading skills 22 Chart 2nd year English major students' conversation practice habits 23 Chart Shadowing activities in self-study of 2nd year English major students' listening skills 24 vi PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study “Shadowing” this is an extremely effective technique if you want to improve your tune, tongue and pronunciation while learning a foreign language The definition of "Shadowing" is quite simple, learners just need to listen to a sample video or audio with a real human voice and repeat what they say Unlike the technique of listening, stopping and repeating, you will not wait to hear the whole sentence and then repeat what the Speaker said, but you and the Speaker will say almost simultaneously That is, you will completely imitate the way they break sentences, emphasize, attach and avoid procrastination as much as possible According to Clare Maas (2017), shadowing is a technique that language learners try to speak at the same time with an audio text, like singing along with a song (although sometimes there is a transcription in front of them) Therefore, shadowing focuses on sounds, not words Meaning is secondary in shadowing tasks, as learners should imitate the sounds they hear, instead of trying to understand what is being said This technique, which is said to improve pronunciation and listening skills, has been widely adopted in Asia The characteristic of shadowing is imitation that tends to be relevant to the Vietnamese education because this educational culture is based on learn by heart However, in Vietnam, the number of studies on the application of this technique in the classroom has not received much attention Currently, there are very few topics that study how learners apply the fixed phrases they come across from reading comprehension into speaking and writing activities to convey content from meaning-focused communicative output) and steps to be taken to enhance the transitions of these phrases from input information, the readings input to output, the speech or output (Hoang & Boers, 2016 ) Therefore, I chose the subject as my graduation thesis: “A survey on the use of shadowing in learning English adopted by K64 English major at VNUA.” 1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1.2.1 The aim of the study The aim of the study is to investigate the use of shadowing on the process of English learning and teaching 1.2.2 Objective To study on the use of shadowing in learning English adopted by K64 English majors at VNUA Suggest solutions to improve English learning and teaching at VNUA 1.3 Research questions What is current situation of the use of shadowing technique to improve learning English among English majors at VNUA? What suggestions should be given to develop English skills of second-years English majors? 1.4 Scope of the study Studying on the use shadowing of English majors students, faculty of Education and Foreign Language, Vietnam National University of Agriculture The study begins on 01/03/2021 and finish on 30/06/2021 1.5 Significance of the study The results of the study provide insights into the use of shadowing techniques in English learning by second-year English majors students In addition, there are solutions given to improve skills and apply methods to learning a second language Through this, it can be seen that students still not interested in doing this activity in learning English or it is also possible that many students are using this method but they not know the specific name of method For example: you are listening to music and singing along to the lyrics that the singer is singing means you are doing shadowing activity Chart Shadowing activities in self-study of 2nd year English major students' reading skills In this chart, only 18% of students choose to read the passages aloud, 26% choose to read silently and up to 44% choose to open the CD and try to read the pronunciation of the CD and only 12% choose read to find answers to questions The results show that students today often focus on correct pronunciation and the implementation of shadowing activities is very appropriate Nowadays with the strong development of the media, students can practice and improve their English at any time Especially on Facebook or Tiktok platforms, when asked 22 many students think that it only takes one web surfing to find duet videos or English practice videos in the form of shadowing Chart 2nd year English major students' conversation practice habits The next question is quite related to the previous question, which wants to know the students' conversation practice habits Most students choose to practice with their classmates (29%) or listen to the dialogue and then practice along (44%) Practicing with classmates helps students easily imagine the context and especially practicing with classmates creates a sense of familiarity, so when practicing alone in their memory, they will remember the correct practice Therefore, even if students practice alone, they can achieve high results In the second case, as above, reading the dialogue and trying to imitate makes learners improve the most effective and here This is something that many people notice, not only students 23% of students who choose to practice alone out of fear of affecting others or practice alone will focus more intensely and easily Only 9% chose to rewrite the dialogue many times, this method can make learners remember longer but it is easy to get bored 23 Chart Shadowing activities in self-study of 2nd year English major students' listening skills The listening learning method that students choose at least is to look directly at the listening text and then the exercises This number of students when asked said that they want to know what the answer is or the materials are not suitable with their level, but these students are all at low level Only 22% chose to all the steps however there are 33% choose listen to the CD and the accompanying listening comprehension exercises, then check the answers several times with the lyrics, if any Listen to it many times, look at the lyrics This is the fact cause if they just the homework and practicing listening comprehension, students usually only go to the step of listening again to make sure that the exercises are correct, but to practice listening fluently or daily practice exercises, students will complete all the steps 27% choose listen to the CD and the accompanying listening comprehension exercises, then check your answers if any This is the most common way students practice listening at home because these are the simplest and most common steps in any student, and especially for students who only practice for review, not masterful listening 24 Table Difficulties in using shadowing Difficulty in using shadowing Do not have supporting devices (computers, CDs, speakers, etc.) Ratio (%) 36% Do not have time 24% Personally not want to this activity 11% Cannot activity because it affects roommates 24% Another difficulty: - It hard - Feel sleepy when this activity - Secret - etc 5% When doing shadowing activity in self-study at home student get many difficulties such as: Do not have supporting devices ( computer,CDs, spekers, etc.) (36%), not have time (24%), personally not want to this activitty (11%), cannot this activity because it affects roommates (24%), another difficulty like: it hard, feel sleepy when this activity, secret,etc (5%) Thus, we can see main reasons affecting students' learning English using shadowing method First, is not have supporting device many student said that they have computer but they not have CD the material to this activity or speakers to make the sound hear louder or some student not have computer Second, they not have time, many students, when entering the second year of university, will start working part-time to earn extra income to help support the family or to improve communication skills and some other soft skills Students often try to study and work at the same time or study two disciplines at the same time, so they will often have a lot of homework to or too much work in the day so there is no time to it Third, cannot this activity because it affects roommate, Students often not have their own houses, so they will often stay 25 in dormitories or stay with friends, which is convenient for commuting to school and saves money However, the inconvenious is that because in the same group or with other people, students often not have a private space, so self-study is mainly taking notes or reading silently This is disadvantage is that students will not be able to check the pronunciation, intonation is correct as the speech or not 3.4 Summary The findings reveal that the current situation of the use of shadowing technique to improve learning English of 2nd year English majors students are moderate, and they have a certain knowledge but accurate understanding of this activity The majority of students grasped the meaning (definition), advantages, and how to shadowing in English learning The application of shadowing to English learning by second-year English language students is not popular yet Most students only apply this activity sometimes, students still not know how to use the exact steps of the method, so the effect is not really high however many students already know how to apply the method to English learning in an effective and reasonable way Besides, there are students who know about this method but not know how to apply it to study, so it is not effective The difficulties students encountered when doing this activity were mainly due to the students' lack of time and fear of affecting their roommates Thus, it is possible that the need for a suitable study space so that students can conveniently conduct this learning activity is extremely important and students need to arrange their timetable reasonably to improve their learning From the current situation of the use of shadowing we have some suggestions should be given to develop English skills of 2nd year English majors student First, students should learn about shadowing to know more about the benefits of applying this learning method in everyday English learning because shadowing is not only used in one but many other English skills Secondly, it is advisable to arrange their own work in a reasonable way and 26 spend time studying as in the section stating the difficulties encountered, students often not have time to this activity because they many subjects or work part-time So the solution here is that students should have a specific timetable to study and shadowing has an interesting point that the practice time is very short, only about to 10 minutes and can be gradually increased depending on the level your adaptability Because the disadvantage of shadowing is that it makes learners bored quickly due to repetition, so learners should only practice for a maximum of 30 minutes a day Thus, students who work part-time can take advantage of the break between work to practice, and students who study many subjects only need to spend 15 to 30 minutes to apply shadowing to English practice we can see that the problem of lack of time to the activity is no longer a difficult problem because with just a little time, students can use shadowing to learn English Third, nowaday with the strong development of technology, students not need or force to use computers or CDs to be able to implement this activity Learners can use smartphones to access it Social networking platforms like Youtube or Tiktok are easy to this activity 27 PART 3: CONCLUSION Recapitulation Shadowing is a "active and highly cognitive activity”, shadowing has many benefits in second language learning, it can be applied to all skills and helps learners become more sensitive to the language The research was carried out on the basis of surveying English majors students, course 64, using a questionnaire The number of students participating in the survey is 100, they are second-year students Being aware of the problem on the topic, has actively focused on research on theoretical and practical issues to identify possible measures to raise perception in the application of shadowing technique of English major students at Vietnam National University of Agriculture The complete and systematic research has helped the author to have a sufficient basis to analyze the situation and come up with measures to help students better understand the benefits and nature of shadowing technique Concluding remarks It is required that this section provides conclusions on the objectives set forth in the Introduction part of the thesis - Concluding remarks on objective (research question 1) + Objective restored: What is current situation of the use of shadowing technique to improve learning English among English majors at VNUA? + Remarks: The findings reveal that the current situation of the use of shadowing technique to improve learning English of 2nd year English majors students are moderate, and they have a certain knowledge but accurate understanding of this activity The majority of students grasped the meaning (definition), advantages, and how to shadowing in English learning 28 The application of shadowing to English learning by second-year English language students is not popular yet Most students only apply this activity sometimes, students still not know how to use the exact steps of the method, so the effect is not really high however many students already know how to apply the method to English learning in an effective and reasonable way Besides, there are students who know about this method but not know how to apply it to study, so it is not effective The difficulties students encountered when doing this activity were mainly due to the students' lack of time and fear of affecting their roommates - Concluding remarks on objective (research question 2) + Objective restored: What suggestions should be given to develop English skills of 2nd year students English majors? + Remarks: From the research results on the current situation of using shadowing in learning English, we can see that many students already know how to use the correct method Besides, there are still students who not know how to use it and have many difficulties From this we can come up with the following solutions First, students should learn about shadowing to know more about the benefits of applying this learning method in learning English everyday: Shadowing is seen as a beneficial activity for second language acquisition The effect of shadowing is due to a memory stimulant during brain activity (hearing and speaking at the same time) This enhances the automation of bottom-up language processing ( Kadota, 2007, 2012) The shadowing technique outperformed the repetition strategy in terms of overall pronunciation performance, showing that the shadowing approach is beneficial but underutilized in language teaching This effect has been proven by the research “A preliminary study of applying Shadowing technique to English intonation 29 struction”(2013) Shadowing can be applied to all English learning skills, not only that, but this method also helps the brain to remember longer because the activity requires high concentration and the characteristics of shadowing are very suitable for the learning environment based on learn by heart as in Vietnam Secondly, it is advisable to arrange their own work in a reasonable way and spend time studying: As in the section stating the difficulties encountered, students often not have time to this activity because they many subjects or work part-time So the solution here is that students should have a specific timetable to study and shadowing has an interesting point that the practice time is very short, only about to 10 minutes and can be gradually increased depending on the level your adaptability Because the disadvantage of shadowing is that it makes learners bored quickly due to repetition, so learners should only practice for a maximum of 30 minutes a day Thus, students who work part-time can take advantage of the break between work to practice, and students who study many subjects only need to spend 15 to 30 minutes to apply shadowing to English practice we can see that the problem of lack of time to the activity is no longer a difficult problem because with just a little time, students can use shadowing to learn English Third, nowaday with the strong development of technology, students not need or force to use computers or CDs to be able to implement this activity: Learners can use smartphones to access it Social networking platforms like Youtube or Tiktok are easy to this activity As in the research, we learn that today students tend to use more and more, so students can take advantage of social networks to study and many students also said that learning by social networks makes it easier to find more learning materials Fourth, to avoid boredom when doing shadowing, you need to choose your favorite subject: It can be a part of a certain TV show, a movie clip, a news clip 30 or any conversation of a native speaker Many people when practicing speaking with Shadowing technique prefer to choose videos/audios about life rather than academic content The reason is that in everyday videos/audios, the sample voice will have a more natural tone, making imitation of these content both interesting, attractive and more practical for speaking English like a native Limitation of the current research There were some limitations in this study: The thesis only takes place at Vietnam National University of Agriculture and lasts months from 01/03/2021 to 01/07/2021 but it has not been conducted long-term and on other students in the university and this thesis was completed at the time when the COVID-19 epidemic was strongly spreading in society Thus, that was a rough and stressful time There are not many references and previous studies on shadowing because research on this method has not received much attention Recommendations/Suggestions for further study The questionnaire about the use of shadowing in learning English, this technique can be use for all skills when learning English and language learners can be apply in other languages This thesis can continue to be studied in a longer time, on broader research subjects to be able to conclude about the use of learning English adopted by students throughout the academy 31 REFERENCE de Guerro, M.C.M & Commander, M (2013) Shadow-reading: Affordances for imitation in the language classroom Language Teaching Research 17 (4), 433-453 Hamada, Y (2011) Improvement of listening comprehension skills through shadowing with difficult materials Journal of Asia TEFL, 8(1) Hamada, Y (2015) Monitoring strategy in shadowing: self-monitoring and pair-monitoring The Asian EFL Journal, Professional Teaching Articles, (81), 4-25 Hamada, Y (2016) Shadowing: Who benefits and how? Uncovering a booming EFL teaching technique for listening comprehension Language Teaching Research, 20(1), 35-52 Hoang, H., & Boers, F (2016) Re-Telling a Story in a Second Language: How Well Do Adult Learners Mine an Input Text for Multiword Expressions? Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 6(3), 513-535 https://bilingua.io/5-reasons-to-use-the-speech-shadowing-technique Kadota, S (2007) Shadowing to Ondoku no Kagaku (Shadowing and the Science of Oral Reading) Tokyo: CosmoPier Publishing Company Kadota, S (2012) Shadowing, Ondoku to Eigo shutoku no Kagaku (The Science of Shadowing, Oral Reading and English Aquisition) Tokyo: CosmoPier Publishing Company Kun-Ting Hsieh1 , Da-Hui Dong2 , and Li-Yi Wang3 “A preliminary study of applying Shadowing technique to English intonation struction” Taiwan Journal of Linguistics Vol 11.2, 43-66, 2013 10.Lambert, S (1992) Shadowing Meta, 37(2), 263–273 32 11.Murphey, T (2001) Exploring conversational shadowing Language Teaching Research, (2), 128–155 12 Nguyen Thi Huyen1, Nguyen Thi Minh Thao2 , Tran Thi Dung3 , Nguyen Tam Trang “ Shadoing and interpreting performances of English-majored students ” VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol.36, No.1 (2020) 129-14, 13.Shiki, O (2015) < Research Note> A Pilot Study Comparing the Effects of Shadowing and Oral Reading on Oral Reading Rate Kwansei Gakuin University humanities review, 19, 289-298 14.Tamai, K (1997) Shadowing no koka to chokai process ni okeru ichizuke [The effectiveness of shadowing and its position in the listening process] Current English Studies, 36, 105-116 15.Tamai, K (2005) Listening shidoho to shite no shadowing no koka ni kansuru kenkyu [Research on the effect of shadowing as a listening instruction method] Japan: Kazama 16.Yo Hamada “Teaching EFL Learners Shadowing for Listening Developing learners’ bottom up skills” Routledge (2016) 33 APPENDIX A SURVEY ON THE USE OF THE SHADOWING IN LEARNING ENGLISH ADOPTED BY 2ND YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE Purpose: The results obtained through the survey are used for research purposes, absolutely not for other private purposes Therefore, the personal information section can be left blank Please circle your choice! Part 1: Personal information Name : …………………………………………………………………………………… Class: …………………………………………………………………………………… … Self-assessment/or have obtained an international certificate of English proficiency according to the scale of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: A1 A2 B1 B2 C1 C2 Part 2: Perception of shadowing Have you heard about shadowing before? A Never B Know/have heard a little bit C Know throughly In your opinion, what is the correct definition of shadowing? A Read in the dark B Read after someone C Read in a process D Repeat someone's sound Shadowing is an activity that can be used in any English class? A Listening 34 B Speaking C Reading D Writing E All skills Shadowing is very useful for improving any skill in learning English? A Listening B Speaking C Reading D Writing E All skills To doing shadowing, essential use in shadowing: A Just look at a reading in order to read B Need to see a reading and a sample reader C Need to see a reading and a sample reader according to a process D Do not need to look at the text, just a sample reader Part 3: The reality of using shadowing activities in English self-study Do you ever use shadowing when self-study English ? A Never B Occasionally C Often D Always When working on English readings at home, which of the following activities did you do? A Read aloud the passages in the passage B Silently read the passages in the reading passage C Play the reading CD and try to read it at the speed and pronunciation of the CD D Never read passages out loud, only skim/scan for answers to reading comprehension questions When learning dialogues, which of the following actions you usually do? A Reread the dialogue several times by yourself 35 B Practice the dialogue with your classmates C Listen to the dialogue on the CD and then read along, trying to imitate the pronunciation and intonation on the CD D Rewrite the dialogue several times When working with the listening exercise at home, which of the following actions you usually take? A Listen to the CD and the accompanying listening comprehension exercises, then check the answers if any B Listen to the CD and the accompanying listening comprehension exercises, then check the answers if any Listen to it many times, look at the lyrics C Listen to the CD and the accompanying listening comprehension exercises, then check the answers if any Listen to it many times and look at the lyrics Read along the CD over and over D Look at the lyrics when you open the CD, then the accompanying listening comprehension exercises 10 What are the difficulties you face when reading from the CD while learning English at home? A Do not have supporting devices (computers, CDs, speakers, etc.) B Do not have time C Individuals not want to this activity D This activity cannot be doing because it affects roommates E Other difficulties: …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… ……………… Thank you for completing this survey! 36