(Skkn 2023) applying experiential activities in some topics to improve the presentation skill of the 12th grade students

NGHE AN EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT 1-5 UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHING EXPERIENCE APPLYING EXPERIENTIAL ACTIVITIES IN SOME TOPICS TO IMPROVE THE PRESENTATION SKILL OF THE 12TH GRADE STUDENTS (Subject: English) Teacher: Ho Thi Thuy Duong Group: English Academic year: 2022-2023 Phone number: 0986153040 Nghia Dan, April 2023 TABLE OF CONTENTS  Part A I II III IV V Part B I CONTENT Introduction Reasons for the study Aims of the study Methods of the study Scope of the study New features in the study’s result Investigation Theoretical background Experiential learning activities in education Why applying experiential learning in language teaching and learning? Page 1 2 2 3 Presentation skill in learning foreign language Real situation before applying experience Solutions Experiment Material preparations General procedures The illustrated lessons The results of the research Survey on the necessity and the feasibility 10 10 10 11 29 30 Aim of the survey 30 Content and methods of the survey 30 Scope of the survey 30 Results of the survey about the necessity and the feasibility of the research Conclusion Reference 31 II III IV V VI Part C Part D 33 35 PART A: INTRODUCTION I Reasons for the study From the beginning of the education of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, President Ho Chi Minh specified the method to train talented people as: “Learning goes with practice, education combines with labor and production, schools are associated with social activities!” Deploying educational activities with creatively experiential ones is implementing of this viewpoint and orientation The inclusion of creatively experiential activities in the school's educational program contributes to overcoming the shortcomings of the currently educational program, meeting the urgent requirements of fundamental and comprehensive education reform Experiential learning encourages personal input, initiative, and self-direction in the learning process Activities begin with accessing the specific past experiences of students, and then building on these experiences to construct a framework for learning unique to the requirements and learning style of each student Things students underwent become the materials supporting them to access the topics of lesson easily and frequently Since the academic year 2022-2023, the “experiential activities” was officially introduced in National Curriculum as a subject taught for the 10th grade students However, these activities might have been applied during teaching process with some topics, particularly in teaching English Developing students’ ability to speak to audience is one of the greatest benefits that they will derive from their future or higher education Students accumulate the knowledge about a topic from their own experiences in the life, then this becomes the data help students to perform a presentation Actually, for majority of students in my school, especially the students at grade 12th, it seems to be that their presentations have been performed mostly basing on the materials about topics provided in textbook, and students have presented following a given modal These tend to limit students’ ability in using English to express their points of view about the topics that they have observed or experienced in reality Their experiences probably enrich the number of words in English and stimulate learners to come up with good ideals that helps their presentations to become attract the audience From this fact, I decided to choose the topic: “ Applying experiential activities in some topics to improve the presentation skill of the 12 th grade students” for my experienced innovation II Aims of the study The aims of this study are: - To maximize students’ using their own experiences in real life to present their points about the topics Learners can reduce the fear of standing in front of the class by being equipped the materials for the speech - To partly stimulate students’ practice in foreign language about topics that illustrates the real situations in the life III Methods of the study - Drawing from experience of my teaching - Consulting many documents ,especially methods of study - Studying colleagues’ experience IV Range of the study The theme revolves around the issue of research, designed from some experience in teaching English 12 - Standard program to teach speaking skill for students as well as enhance their presentation ability, particularly in the classes 12A1, 12A6 and 12A7 the academic year 2022- 2023 V The new point of this experience Experiential learning method can be used in teaching English to make teaching process much interesting and fun It will increase students’ interest in learning process in classroom, because the circumstances become more interesting It is suitable for characteristics of students who are likely active in English class, so experiential can be helpful in teaching English, especially in speaking class Moreover, using experiential activities can help create environment for students to develop the ability of using language in real situations PART B: INVESTIGATION I Theoretical background Experiential learning activities in education Many teachers have discovered that the interests of students in this present generation have really changed Also, many education systems have made numerous changes making the curriculum developers implement new techniques and methodologies in creating the program This could be attributed to the shift from lecturer-centered to learner-centered approach This technique has led to the development of a powerful reading environment as it facilitates knowledge 2367 construction and discovery Experiential learning theory mostly concentrates on the importance of experience in the human learning process (de Guzman & Choi, 2013; Young & Norgard, 2006) The theory of experiential learning proposed by David Kolb was an inheritance and development from the theory of learning that was related to the experience of famous Psychologists and Educators, such as John Dewey (18591952), Kurt Lewin (1890-1947), Jean Piaget (1896-1980) and many other scientific researchers These useful research works were vital foundation for David Kolb to build up his four stages experiential learning theory which was applied at developed countries in the world Up to now, the theory has become modern educational philosophy with most of the countries to improve their education quality and develop students’ competence and performance to meet job requirements and social demand in the modern life According to the Kolb’s theory “learning is a process in which knowledge is created through transformation learners’ experience” (Kolb, 1984) During the process, learners take part in their active studying steps and activities, so that “knowledge is created by combinations of grasping and transforming the experience” Generally, experiential learning encompasses any learning process that focuses on the application of student's knowledge to real-world situations and whereby the teacher acts as a facilitator and director of the learning process Experiential learning can occur in classrooms or laboratories with the inclusion of activities like art projects and experiments (Wurdinger & Carlson, 2010) Experiential learning incorporates phenomenon observation and acting purposively with it through active participation It focuses on a learning process where the student directly gets involved with the substance being studied rather than just hearing or writing their teachers’ words Although many researchers have come up with different definitions of experiential learning, there is no specific agreed definition Generally, it is assumed that experiential learning is based on the notion that students should be given a key role in the learning process and that self-discovery is the best learning process (Lysiuchenko et al., 2021; Markova et al., 2021) Learning by doing This is the basis for the experiential learning theory Learning through classroom experiences plays a significant role in improving the communication skills of learners Language learning is also a process in which students should not just listen to their teachers’ words, they need to practice using the language depending on their lexical resource, grammar, and their social knowledge about the topics The best way to motivate students take part in useful activities to improve their communication skill is organizing variety of experiential activities instead of sitting quietly and listening to their teachers Students will have chance to make decisions in studying and check the consequences For teachers, creating opportunities for students to have experiences based on the things they are learning about is key Teachers can help create environments where students can learn and have experiences at the same time If you’re a current teacher, or studying to become one, it’s important to get a degree that will give you qualifications and knowledge for your career, and help prepare you to be licensed Additionally, it’s key to understand how different students learn and understand how different learning theories impact education Teachers who understand learning theories can better optimize their classroom and help more students learn in ways that work for them Being a successful teacher means focusing on how best to help students succeed Why applying experiential learning in language teaching and learning? According to Schank & Fano (1995), experiential learning enables students to acquire skills by doing According to him, one of the greatest benefits of experiential learning is that it motivates the students It is evident from his works that students like to learn through engaging in real-world situations and at the same time get entertained while learning and participating in learning activities inside class Learning through classroom experiences plays a significant role in improving the communication skills of learners Language learning is also a process in which students should not just listen to their teachers’ words, they need to practice using the language depending on their lexical resource, grammar, and their social knowledge about the topics The best way to motivate students take part in useful activities to improve their communication skill is organizing variety of experiential activities instead of sitting quietly and listening to their teachers Students will have chance to make decisions in studying and check the consequences The evaluation of the results will determine their future actions Most of the learning institutions are faced with a major problem where learners are not capable of transferring and applying the knowledge acquired in class to the real-world environment Based on this fact, Hamer (2001), recommends the application of experiential techniques as a way of encouraging learners to apply the acquired skills in the outside classroom environment Harmin(1994), agreed with this idea According to him, this goal could be achieved through the development of a classroom that promotes self-respect, self4 management, and consciousness For that reason, some useful activities as real simulation situations were applied in teaching, which was a constructive approach for students at 1-5 High School to practice and improve their presentation skill while studying English subject Presentation skill in learning foreign language Speaking in front of an audience is a daunting task, even more so when a talk has to be delivered in a foreign language Therefore, language learners who want to improve their presentation skills need training opportunities designed to promote the learners’ confidence and linguistic autonomy — as often as possible and early on in the learning process Below, I describe suitable classroom activities for students at B1 level or higher They have been developed in courses for German as a foreign language at university level, but they can, in principle, be adapted for training in any foreign language Whereas Ruuska (2015), for example, focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of presentations in authentic settings, this paper deals with the benefits of delivering (very) short presentations (lasting from a few seconds up to a minute) in the target language At the same time, these minipresentations have to be structured carefully, in the same way that ‘big’ presentations II Real situation before applying experience Students have a great fear when standing in front the crowd They tend to tremble uncontrollably at speaking out something on the pulpit, which makes the words they have prepared disappear Additionally, anxious learners are unwilling to participate in speaking activities Due to speaking anxiety, students cannot enhance their speaking performance Pronunciation, fear of making mistakes, unattractive evaluation, lack of vocabulary and grammar knowledge, lack of preparedness, and even teachers’ attitude are other factors influencing learners’ speaking skills There were weaknesses in students’ presentations regarding preparation and presenters themselves Traditionally, students are often required to speak something after prepare themselves Moreover, they don’t even have enough time to get ready for a presentation As a result, they have no opportunity to get any support from their partners, and using much their experience in their life The respondents in this study were 119 students from classes 12A1, 12A6, and 12A7 at 1-5 High School Most of them have at least forty-minute periods of English per week, some of which was dedicated solely to the speaking skill The experimental design, a method type of research was used since it involved the gathering of information about the present conditions It described the nature of the situation as it existed at the time of the study It aimed to determine the effectiveness of using experiential learning activities in improving students’ English speaking skill The main source of data was the questionnaire and observation to be developed by the researcher The use of questionnaires is one of the most common research methods because it can produce a large amount of information about many different issues such as communication difficulties, preferred learning styles, preferred classroom activities, attitudes and beliefs suggests observation is a way of gathering information about teaching, rather than a way of evaluating teaching, although generally observation is associated with evaluation The questionnaire consisted of six questions to investigate how students speak English in class and ask for the students’ opinions about the necessity of practicing English much more to become good English speakers Table 1: Students' attitudes towards the presentation in English in front of the class: Attitude Rate (%) Being shame when speaking English because they are afraid of making mistakes in grammar, or vocabulary in the process of speaking 65 Being afraid of the teacher and the classmates’ attitude 51 Using Vietnamese when being assigned to work in pairs, groups 80 Not having enough information on assigned topics 58 Shortage of vocabulary, grammar to solve questions related to assigned topics 68 According to the survey, in Table we found that the problems of students at 1-5 High School could be divided into four main groups: a Students felt embarrassed to speak English because they were afraid of making mistakes in grammar or vocabulary in the speaking process It is often seen at the elementary level students are afraid of being criticized by teachers and other students b On being assigned to work in pairs (or groups), students usually use their native language They often use Vietnamese to explain to each other or express ideas when they not know how to use vocabulary c Students often feel that there is not enough information on the topics discussed even in Vietnamese d Students feel lack of language and verbal resources to solve assigned tasks In that case, the teacher should create a friendly atmosphere of cooperation so students will not have to fear admit their mistakes and will accept the criticism There were many causes, including both subjective and objective ones, which led to errors that students often encounter in the English speaking process Most students claimed that the shortage of background knowledge and vocabulary were the main reasons leading to the difficulty in expressing the topics The pronunciation which was not similar, and the natural speaking pace of native speakers and Vietnamese people also caused great difficulties for students to listen to questions and answered In addition, many topics that were unfamiliar to students, lack of knowledge and vocabulary also significantly affected to the content that are needed presenting on the topics, although it had been assigned to the students before their English oral test Based on the interviews, all respondents indicated that not enough vocabulary as well as phonetics, natural intonation led to many difficulties for students during the process of presenting topics Some students said that they had difficulty not only in the vocabulary required for the topics, but also the sentence structures They were unable to translate themselves so they did their task through Google translation Moreover, students borrowed the materials of the ex-student and tried to remember, or memorized before one or two days before the exam though they did not understand the content of the topics which they have to present Especially, all surveyed students indicated that subjective reasons, such as lack of background knowledge, limited vocabulary and insufficiency of communication skills, had the greatest effect on the accuracy of the answers Besides, objective factors such as voice, phonetics, the intonation of the judge lecturers and the students themselves were the factors that led to mistakes they made in English speaking exam III Solutions To attain a effective presentation for students, teachers need to assist them to overcome the obstacles about their emotion of fear, shortage of vocabulary and structures Moreover, learners are provided the handed-on environment that supports them to get more background knowledge relating to the topics by participating in some experiential activities organized in the school Experiential learning occurs in several varieties and encompasses a wide range of strategies that can be applied by instructors Below are examples of how teachers can apply experiential learning in language teaching not only to motivate students in learning but also to get better their communication skill Specific role play Role-play is an effective technique to animate the teaching and learning atmosphere, arouse the interests of learners, and make the language acquisition impressive So this research will mainly focus on how to apply it successfully and take the most advantage of it in English class This regular activity is asking learners to participate in an imaginary role and play it, for example, being a doctor, a visitor to a new city, a manager, a customer 22 3.5 Topic: Nature in danger Project work presentation: Making a short video to present measures to protect wildlife animals * Used in: Speaking lesson and optional lesson * Objectives: - Students can utilize the useful language that involving in nature and the suggested information of the lesson topic and structures they have learnt fluently - They are encouraged to further study in order to raise the awareness of protecting the environment -Learners can express their IT ability as well as presentation skill in English * Procedures: - Teacher has students work in group and make short videos about measures to protect wildlife animals This can be done in the post- stage of speaking lesson - If it is not enough time, students can make their videos at home 23 - Students’ videos can be displayed in the optional lesson - Teacher and the class assess each group’s performance Below are some images extracted from one group’s video of class 12A7: 24 25 3.6 Topic: Water Sports Story telling through watching video: Make a brief introduction the information about water polo * Used in: Post- reading * Objectives: - Students will able to remember vocabulary in reading text and apply the useful language in the talk - They can have further knowledge about a water sport in the Olympic Games * Procedures: - After getting the target language in reading text, teacher shows a video about a game of water polo and get students to recall the information of this sport The video can last 3-4 minutes - Then each student prepares a talk based on the images and then present in front of the class 26 Below are some images of students’ performance: 27 28 V The results of the research Having applied these experiential activities in the Speaking classes and Poststage of some other lessons, I can find that these activities really bring to my lectures much effectiveness and attract students’ attention to my lessons This make students eager to prepare the lessons at home and ready to perform their duties Their usage of the target language appear to be fluent and similar to language in living situations Most of the learners overcome the barriers of psychology when speaking in the audience Students become more confident in presenting one issue in the class as they are prepared language with their partners and these activities illustrate the real living and encourage them to use language that relating the topics After some lessons applied the experiential activities, I made a survey to find my students’ attitude towards the presentation in English in front of the class The questionaire used for table is utilized again The result of the survey shows that students have more positive attitude towards the presentation Most of the students are not shame when speaking English due to reducing the nerve about making mistakes in grammar, or vocabulary in the process of speaking The participants use English more when discussing with their partners are provided enough information and vocabulary about the topics before performing Table 2: Students' attitudes towards the presentation in English in front of the class after the research: Attitude Rate (%) Being shame when speaking English because they are afraid of making mistakes in grammar, or vocabulary in the process of speaking 32 Being afraid of the teacher and the classmates’ attitude 25 Using Vietnamese when being assigned to work in pairs, groups 57 Not having enough information on assigned topics 21 Shortage of vocabulary, grammar to solve questions related to assigned topics 37 29 VI Survey on the necessity and the feasibility Aim of the survey Through the survey, I confirm the necessity and the feasibility of the experiential activities applied in teaching English for the 12 th graders in order to improve their presentation skill From the result, I can adjust the solutions so that they are suitable with practical teaching in my school Content and methods of the survey 2.1 The content The survey pays attention to two aspects of the research: + The necessity of the solutions proposed in the research is for the teachers and students during the process of teaching and learning + These solutions are feasible for enhancing the 12th graders’ presentation skill 2.2 The methods Doing the survey based on a questionnaire finds out about the necessity and the feasibility of the solutions in applying experiential activities on the purpose of improving presentation skill of the 12th graders There is a scale from to in proportion to four criteria consisting of: + unnecessity (1 point), less necessity (2 points), necessity(3 points) and urgent necessity( points) + unfeasibility(1 point), less feasibility(2 points), feasibility(3 points) and really feasibility(4 points) From the results obtained, I proceed an analysis and process the data on the statistical table that includes number of participants assessing(N0) and points for each scale of a solution(Ps) and, then calculate the total score (∑) and the average figure ( X ) of the solutions that have been conducted in the survey Then they are ranked in order to comment, evaluate and come to conclusion Scope of the survey I have carried out the survey with 119 students of the classes 12A1, 12A6, 12A7 and English teachers at 1-5 High School That the subjects of study is students is divided into major groups: the gifted and good students called group and the average and weak students called group Table 3: The subjects of survey Numbers Teachers 07 30 Gifted and good students 67 Average and weak students 52 ∑ 126 Results of the survey about the necessity and the feasibility of the research 4.1 The necessity of the solutions Table 4: Results of the survey about the necessity of the solutions Solutions Figures Very Necessary necessary Rank Less Unnecessary necessary ∑ X N0 Ps N0 Ps N0 Ps N0 Ps Specific role play 32 128 67 201 17 34 12 12 375 2.98 Project work 26 104 61 183 24 48 15 15 350 2.78 27 108 67 201 25 50 7 366 2.90 33 132 63 189 20 40 10 10 371 2.94 Drawing pictures 31 124 64 192 21 42 10 10 368 2.92 Overall average 149 596 322 966 107 214 54 54 1830 2.89 presentation Story telling through organizing reading or watching activities Organizing a survey activity The results of the survey are shown in table It shows that the surveyed subjects assess the necessity of experiential activities to improve the presentation skill of the 12th graders at a high scale with overall average of 2.89 Although the subjects have different methods to evaluate the proposed solutions, most of them consider that all measures are necessary Of these, the activity “ Special role play” is rated the highest rank with X = 2.98, meanwhile the measure “ Project work presentation” is rated as least necessary with X = 2.78 The rests have average scores respectively from X = 2.90 to X = 2.94 The necessity of the proposed measures are relatively equal, the distance of score range among the solutions is not too far (the difference between X max and X is 0.20) Basing 31 on the parameter from the table, it can be that the solutions of the research are necessary 4.2 The feasibility of the solutions Table 5: Results of the survey about the necessity of the solutions Solutions Figures Very Rank Feasible feasible Less Unfeasible feasible ∑ X N0 Ps N0 Ps N0 Ps N0 Ps Specific role play 37 148 69 207 13 26 7 388 3.1 Project work 29 116 66 198 22 44 9 367 2.91 31 124 67 201 23 46 5 376 2,98 34 136 67 201 18 36 7 380 3.01 34 136 68 204 20 40 4 384 3.04 165 660 337 1011 96 192 32 32 1895 3.00 presentation Story telling through organizing reading or watching activities Organizing a survey activity Drawing pictures Overall average The results of the survey about the feasibility of applying experiential activities to improve presentation skill of the 12 th graders are shown in table It shows that the surveyed subjects assess the feasibility of experiential activities rather evenly with overall average of 3.00 The distance of score range among the solutions is not too far (the difference between X max and X is 0.19), which give the evidence of relative unity in evaluating from the surveyed subject However, among the proposed measures, parameters have slight differences The activity “ Special role play” has the highest degree of feasibility with X = 3.10, meanwhile the measure “ Project work presentation” is rated as least feasible with X = 2.91 The rests have average scores respectively from X = 2.98 to X = 3.04 According to the parameter from the above table, the subject groups consider that the feasibility of the topic is rather high 32 PART C: CONCLUSION Experience from the research In conclusion, students' activeness in learning English has become one of the most concerned issues of methodologists and linguistics Especially, in recent years, there have been many changes in learning and teaching method with the purpose of enhancing students' activeness, creativity and communication ability in the real life situation in English language Learner- centered approach and communicative approach are more and more emphasized and appreciated Experiential learning gives an effect, especially for improvement speaking skills of the students and able to show the application of experiential learning it self gives a positive thing from the learning process until the result of learning same as David A Kolb’s definition From the sample speaking lesson, we can see experiential education is “a development of the task-based approach” (Kenney & Savage 1997) [3] in a communicative class However, tasks alone cannot guarantee the realization of a communicative classroom Only those experiences related to a theme of the communicative tasks are valuable The advantages offered by such tasks, however, depend on the behavior of the teacher Therefore, the teacher has to have specific skills to manage a learner-centered task-based experiential class For many teachers, experiential learning and teaching is a new area and moving into it from a transmission model requires a great deal of assistance from other teachers who are themselves heavily engaged in “learning-by-doing” classroom action research in their own classrooms Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to make further research and collect systematic data on experiential learning in communicative classes Proposals Suggestions from the researcher, students skill not only refer to changes in value alone, but how these existing skills can develop or changes so that new skills or better skill emerge from before, of course this is obtained from the results of all the hard work of all teachers, students, parents and school So that in the future these students become the people who have living skills * For teachers: Teachers play an important role in implementation many methods to teach their students Whatever the method is the failure or success is determined by the teachers The strategy of teaching and learning is very significant to gain better output And strategy or learning model is necessary to get good learning outcomes Hopefully, teachers will apply the interesting learning model in teaching and learning process * Students: 33 From this research, students must be better to utilize their experience into an insight to be able to combine with experiential learning, so as create learning process that fun and more varied * Other researchers: Experiential learning has a very broad scope in teaching and learning process, certainly not only in terms of speaking skill, other research can use or apply in different skills, because experiential learning itself is able to be applied anywhere 34 PART D: REFERENCES Tiếng Anh 12 Nhà xuất giáo dục Thiết kế giảng Tiếng anh 12 Chu Quang Bình Sách Giáo viên Tiếng anh 12 Nhà xuất giáo dục Kolb, D A (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall Bound, D., Cohen, R., & Walker, D (Eds.) (1993) Using Experience for Learning, Bristol, PA: Open University Press Nunan, D.(2001) Second Language Teaching and Learning Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press & Heinle&heilele/ Thomson Learning Asia Google.com 35 APPENDIX QUESTIONAIRE Investigating Students' attitudes towards the presentation in English in front of the class Are you shame when speaking English in front of the class? 󠆷Yes 󠆷 No Are you afraid of making mistakes in grammar, or vocabulary in the process of speaking? 󠆷Yes 󠆷 No Are you afraid of the teacher and the classmate’ attitude? 󠆷Yes 󠆷 No Do you use Vietnamese when being assigned to work in pairs, groups? 󠆷Yes 󠆷 No Do you have enough information on assigned topics? 󠆷Yes 󠆷 No Do have enough vocabulary, grammar to solve questions related to assigned topics? 󠆷Yes 󠆷 No