MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HCMC UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INFORMATION LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES GRADUATION PAPER POSITIVE EFFECTS OF STORYTELLING ACTIVITIES IN ENHANCING SPEAKING FLUENCY AND CLASS ENGAGEMENT OF ENGLISH YOUNG LEARNERS IN ILA ENGLISH CENTRE Instructor: Nguyen Huy Khai, M.A Student: Le Hoang Duy Student ID: 15DH710273 Class: SA1501 Major: English Language Ho Chi Minh City, 28 June, 2019 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is impossible for this research to be completed without the support, assistance, contribution, and guidance of these special people The researcher would like to send the appreciation to these followings: Department of Foreign Languages, HCMC University of Foreign Languages and Information Technology for approving this research project to be recognized Mr Nguyen Huy Khai (M.A), an enthusiastic advisor, who provided and suggested step-by-step instruction and constructive feedback for this research to be finished in details Ms Do Dang My Tien, CCS of ILA Hoa Binh Centre, for allowing this research’s experiment to be conducted in the campus Mr Daniel James Pearson and staffs for supporting to carry out the research efficiently Ms Tran Thao My, for being a friend who contributed the research method and assisted technical support while the research was being carried out Leaners from class H20YJ-4B-1901 for the enthusiastic participation in the study experiment All family members and friends who support and encourage the author until the end ABSTRACT Ability to create effortlessly communicate is crucial for people in learning a language This study aimed to discover whether storytelling could enhance young leaners’ speaking competence, specifically fluency and promote class engagement in narratives activities The research examines 12 primary students as English learners in ila Hoa Binh language centre Paired samples t-test along with class observation process was applied to conduct the experiment with numerical measurement and statistical analysis For consecutive weeks, the data showed that there was a statistical significance of the mean score of oral fluency indicated the effectiveness of the technique The findings suggested that storytelling developed speaking fluency and it could be suitable for English speaking instruction Results from class observations also concluded that narratives activities boosted the class participation and encouraged pupils to actively contribute in discussing and preparing the presentation INDEX Table of contents INTRODUCTION LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Young learners’ English communicative competence 2.2 The popularity of storytelling in English teaching 2.3 Storytelling as an effective method to develop young learners’ verbal fluidity 2.4 Storytelling as a motivating tool for more active class engagement 2.5 Research Hypothesis METHODOLOGY 3.1 Participants 3.2 Research methodology 3.3 Brief description of sessions activities 3.4 Conclusion 10 RESULT 11 4.1 The effect of storytelling activities on improving speaking skills 11 4.2 Analysis on students’ speaking fluency in storytelling pretest and posttest 13 4.3 Analysis on observation of class participation in storytelling activities 15 DISCUSSION 18 5.1 The application of storytelling practice in teaching English speaking 18 5.2 Advantages of storytelling in enhancing oral articulacy 19 5.3 Positive effects of narratives technique in uplifting class engagement 20 IMPLICATION 22 CONCLUSION 25 REFERENCE 26 APPENDIX 31 Table of tables Table Criteria for oral fluency evaluation in storytelling activities Table Criteria for oral pronunciation evaluation in storytelling activities Table Criteria for vocabulary evaluation in storytelling activities Table Criteria for grammar evaluation in storytelling activities Table The classification of learner’s speaking ability according to the total score Table Participation rubric in storytelling activities Table The score distribution of students' pretest and posttest 12 Table Result of the storytelling pretest and posttest 12 Table Statistical analysis of students’ speaking fluency in pretest and posttest 14 Table of figures Figure Distribution of speaking fluency scores in pretest and posttest 13 Figure The distribution of scores in group participation 15 Figure The distribution of scores in group’s participation 16 Figure The distribution of scores in group’s participation 17 INTRODUCTION English has become one of the most popular languages that are taught in schools around the world According to British Council (2013), English is known to appear in numerous fields in economy, science, information technology, science, education and so on Considering the importance of learning English, Vietnam witnessed the numerous increase of English training programme in both government schools and private language centers in the 21st century Furthermore, Vietnamese parents also came to the determination that benefits from learning English would ensure and heighten their children’s opportunity to succes in various career aspects (Ur, 2012, p 117) states that among four language skills (reading, listening, writing and speaking), oral competence has been considered naturally essential, and proficiency in a language may turn one to be its speaker Therefore, majority of language learners is inspired to become fluent in verbal communication However, problems in learning and teaching English always hinder the students’ language ability, especially communicative skill Firstly, students have less chance of studying oral English due to short amount of time that grammar and vocabulary were primarily prioritized for examination purposes This phenomena hinders the ability to communicate with people in English fluently even though the students may proficiently grasp the structures Secondly, encouragement to talk with minor errors also prevent students from perform their discourse in class, which led ignorance or minimal attitude toward speaking lessons It is believed that storytelling will become an ideal method to overcome this problem as it is widely exercised by educators around the world (Mujiza, 2016) González (2010) echoes the benefits of narration as one of the powerful method for developing young learners’ language that offers students opportunities to perform their capability of English speaking in a creative and spontaneous way The aim of the research is to find out whether storytelling has benefits on improving speaking fluency and also gives a boost to the class participation in activities of telling stories LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Young learners’ English communicative competence Mastery of a foreign language, especially the oral communication skill, is by far at the top of any person’s wish list Mujiza (2016) identified speaking as an ability to verbally express things, to provide information or to state one feeling in communication Speaking activities involve speakers and listeners to create meaningful and communicative conversation This is in line with Graham (2007) who describes that one of the important goals in learning English is the ability to effortlessly maintain an oral conversation In other words, learners can be actively involved in the conversation regarding information exchange Hence, English had been introduced to become a compulsory or elective subject in primary formal schooling (Butler, 2015) to satisfy the growing need of modern parents who have faith in their children’s early proficiency in English to gain an opportunity for abroad study in the future or communicate with the native if they are able to be immersed in English at the young age In empirical research, speaking is known as the productive and interactive skill which makes learners have more possibility to be involved in practicing vocabulary, grammar application, pronunciation and peer discussion thanks to the early experience to the second language environment (Derakhsan, Khalili, & Beheshti, 2016; Tseng, 2014) Dunn (2013) also supported the opinion by presenting that young leaners have a habit of formulating the rules for themselves as the ability of pronunciation imitation which deviates from studying about guidelines of usage 2.2 The popularity of storytelling in English teaching In modern English language classroom, storytelling has been considered a common teaching method by many teachers and educators all over the world in training learners’ discourse proficiencies which are vital for students to master their English language: fluency, pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar (Mujiza, 2016; Le, 2018) Storytelling is known as an educational technique that encourages young learners to recreate the tales by their memorised language knowledge such as vocabularies and grammar, and it also allows pupils to receive long-term immersion in the language for an extended period of time to enhance comprehensibility and also oral articulacy Fikriah (2016) definined storytelling as an integrated activity which develops writing, speaking, listening, acting and singing; therefore, students may be beneficial from total class engagement and sharing experience through narratives Furthermore, this opinion is consistent with other studies from Panc, Georgescu, & Zaharia (2015) and Soleimani & Akbari (2013) 2.3 Storytelling as an effective method to develop young learners’ verbal fluidity Beside achieving the significant amount of one language’s grammatical rules and vocabularies, being fluent has been a top priority criterion for students in delivering accurate and comprehensible speech with excessive confidence Fluency in a language means speaking easily, reasonably quickly and without repeated pause or halt pause Vallejo & Rincón (2016) considered fluency as a vital aspect in learning verbal English while interacting with their peers more realistic communication environments Rachmawaty & Hermagustiana (2010) support the opinion by stating that learners’ speaking fluency can be improved by applying story retelling technique among six low level students Furthermore, it was shown that in teaching oral skills through freely story-creating activities, students gained both fluency and accuracy because of numerous opportunities to produce speech by imagination and inspiration (Numpaque & Rojas, 2010) 2.4 Storytelling as a motivating tool for more active class engagement According to many researchers, narrative has been proved to become a successful method in uplifting students’ learning inspiration Kalantari and Hashemian (2016) stated that the application of storytelling “motivates EFL students to be active learners, for they are engaged in a meaningful activity in the class” It was proved in previous several works that students are given as many opportunities as possible to freely and effectively prove themselves in oral skills development through peers surveying, creating the questionnaires, giving extra explanations for contributing and supporting the ideas, assisting their classmates with prompts and repetitive listening to complete the story (Marzuki, Prayogo, & Wahyudi, 2016; Lucarevschi, 2016) Furthermore, through observations, it was also verified that storytelling not only generated and enhanced class’ energy in boosting the engagement frequency among pupils, but it also brought a lesser amount of stress to the learning environment by providing learners opportunities to become creative and have fun while making stories In consequence, pupils prefer joining classes that are related to narrative activities, especially when they are allowed to create their own products with effort to impress their peers and teachers about English speaking performance (Yang, 2011; Kalantari & Hashemian, 2016) 2.5 Research Hypothesis By using null hypothesis, any possibility of the study can be displayed If the null hypothesis is rejected, it can be concluded that the experiment works On the other hand, if the hypothesis is accepted, the experiment does not indicate any effectiveness So, the null hypothesis arouses in this research that storytelling technique is not effective in improving students’ speaking eloquence in learning English H0: There is no significant effect of using storytelling method in enhancing oral fluency Ha: There is a significant effect of using storytelling method in enhancing oral fluency METHODOLOGY 3.1 Participants The research had been conducted with a participation of twelve primary school students (4 males and females) from – years old The subjects have been attending ILA English courses for approximately 400 hours of exposure from beginner level The population was selected among Super Junior learners at ILA Hoa Binh Centre because the main curriculum focuses on the application of narrative for teaching speaking proficiencies Permissions were granted from parents, the academic manager, and the centre supervisor to maintain and support the process of the research 3.2 Research methodology Observations were applied to every activity during the research with assessment forms Also, cameras were set to record the subjects’ performance Because of their support together to help leaners gain the goal of speaking skill, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency are focused to appraise the progress of subjects’ performance in each task, table to contained the evaluation criteria for speaking abilities which were revised from the ILA’s “Marking bands for Super Junior speaking test” Students’ performances were based on the scoring system from to points each components of speaking competences Table Criteria for oral fluency evaluation in storytelling activities Score Criteria 1-2 Slow and uneven speech 3-4 Frequently hesitant and pauses 5-6 Maintain flow of speech but sometimes uses repetition 7-8 Smooth, effortless speech without silences 9-10 Speak fluently with little self-correction Mall-Amiri, B., & Ghanbari, E (2014) The comparative effect of story retelling and role playing on EFL learners’ vocabulary achievement and reading comprehension Journal of Language Learning and Applied Linguistic World (IJLLALW), 6(3), 385-399 Marzuki, Prayogo, J A.,& Wahyudi, A (2016) Improving the EFL learners’ speakingabilitythrough interactive storytelling Improving the EFL learners’ speaking, 16(1), 15-34 Mokhtar, N H., Halim, M F., & Kamarulzaman, S Z (2011) The effectiveness of storytelling in enhancing communicative skills Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 163-169 Mostafa, M K (2017, October 19) The effect of chants and short stories on primary stage pupils' communication and attitudes International Journal of Elemetary Education, 6(4), 38-41 Mujiza, I (2016, 11 24) The effectiveness of using storytelling technique on students' speaking skill Retrieved April 2019, from Jakarta: FITK UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta: http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/handle/123456789/33760 Numpaque, N R., & Rojas, M A (2010) TPR-storytelling: A key to speak fluently in English Cuadernos de Lingüística Hispánica, 151-162 Osborn,A.(2018).CollinsCambridgeEnglishqualifications:A1Moversthreepracticetests Vietnam: Nhan Tri Viet Co., Ltd Pabón Arias, J C., & Torres Montaña, E P (2015, 11 20) Storytelling to promote participation in EFL second graders Retrieved March 2019, from The InstitutionalRepository of the University FranciscoJosé de Caldas: http://hdl.handle.net/11349/3552 Panc, I., Georgescu, A., & Zaharia, M (2015) Why children should learn to tell stories in primary school? Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 187, 591-595 28 Rachmawaty, N., & Hermagustiana, I (2010) Does retelling technique improve speaking fluency? Tefflin Journal, 21(1), 1-8 Samantaray, P (2014, June) Use of story telling method to develop spoken English skill International Journalof Language & Linguistics, 1(1), 40-44 Smeda, N., Dakich, E., & Sharda, N.(2014) The effectiveness of digital storytelling in the classrooms: Acomprehensive study Smart Learning Environments, 1-6 Soleimani,H.,& Akbari,M.(2013).Theeffectofstorytellingofchildren'slearningEnglishvocabulary: Acasein Iran International Research Journal of Applied and basic Sciences, 5(1), 104-113 Tseng, Y.-C (2014) Effects of early exposure to a second language on its proficiency at later age Journal of Modern Education Review, 418-426 Ur, P (2012) Teaching speaking In P Ur, A course in language teaching (p 117) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Ur, P (2018, September) Getting students to talk in English: Apractical guide Retrieved from Israel's Ministry of Education: http://meyda.education.gov.il/files/Mazkirut_Pedagogit/English/ guidetotalking.pdf Vallejo, L G., & Rincón, G E (2016, 11 18) Enhancing oral communication through role-playing in EFL primary and secondary school contexts Retrieved from Intellectum - Universidad de La Sabana: https://intellectum.unisabana.edu.co/bitstream/handle/10818/28563/Leonardo%20 Gómez%20Vallejo%20%28Tesis%29.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Velásquez, M B., & Valenciarodríguez, W D (2015) Storytelling as a stratergy to improve speaking skill Colombia: Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira 29 Yang, J (2011) Storytelling as a teaching method in ESL classrooms Retrieved from Digitala Vetenskapliga Arkivet: http: //www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A437819 &dswid=3960 Zare-Behtash,E.,Saed,A.,&Sajjadi,F.(2016,January).Theeffectofstorytellingtechniqueonspeaking abilityoffemaleIranianintermediateEFLlearners.InternationalJournalofAppliedLinguistics & English Literature, 5(1), 209-214 30 APPENDIX Appendix A: Materials for the storytelling activities “Collins English Qualification: A1 Movers - Three practice tests” 31 Appendix B: Materials for the research “The A1 Movers Wordlist Picture Book” 32 SPEAKING TEST Look and describe each of the following pictures You have minute to prepare In pictures 1, Fred and his family were having dinner There were orange juice, fish and fries… 33 Appendix C: Pretest and posttest test material (5 minutes) Appendix D: Student’s speaking evaluation form 34 Appendix E: Materials for each session (three sets of vocabulary and three stories) Figure E.1: Vocabulary set in session 35 Figure E.2: Vocabulary set in session 36 Figure E.3: Vocabulary set in session 37 Figure E.4: Picture story in session 38 Figure E.5: Picture story in session 39 Figure E.6: Picture story in session 40 Appendix F: Students’ engagement observation form 41 Appendix G: Critical values (percentiles) for the 𝑡 distribution Percent 75 90 95 97.5 99 99.5 99.75 99.9 99.95 99.975 99.99 99.995 0.1 0.05 0.03 0.01 0.01 0.0025 0.0010 0.00050 0.000250 0.00010 0.000050 0.02 0.01 0.005 0.002 0.001 0.0005 0.0002 0.0001 127.32 318.31 636.62 1273.24 3183.1 6366.2 99.99 ! One-sided 0.25 0.25 ! Two-sided 0.5 0.2 0.1 0.05 1 3.08 6.31 12.71 31.82 63.66 0.82 1.89 2.92 4.3 6.96 9.22 14.09 22.33 31.6 44.7 70.7 0.76 1.64 2.35 3.18 4.54 5.84 7.45 10.21 12.92 16.33 22.2 28 0.74 1.53 2.13 2.78 3.75 4.6 5.6 7.17 8.61 10.31 13.03 15.54 0.73 1.48 2.02 2.57 3.37 4.03 4.77 5.89 6.87 7.98 9.68 11.18 0.72 1.44 1.94 2.45 3.14 3.71 4.32 5.21 5.96 6.79 8.02 9.08 0.71 1.42 1.9 2.37 3.5 4.03 4.79 5.41 6.08 7.06 7.88 0.71 1.4 1.86 2.31 2.9 3.36 3.83 4.5 5.04 5.62 6.44 7.12 0.7 1.38 1.83 2.26 2.82 3.25 3.69 4.3 4.78 5.29 6.01 6.59 10 0.7 1.37 1.81 2.23 2.76 3.17 3.58 4.14 4.59 5.05 5.69 6.21 11 0.7 1.36 1.8 2.2 2.72 3.11 3.5 4.03 4.44 4.86 5.45 5.92 12 0.7 1.36 1.78 2.18 2.68 3.06 3.43 3.93 4.32 4.72 5.26 5.69 13 0.69 1.35 1.77 2.16 2.65 3.01 3.37 3.85 4.22 4.6 5.11 5.51 14 0.69 1.35 1.76 2.15 2.63 2.98 3.33 3.79 4.14 4.5 4.99 5.36 15 0.69 1.34 1.75 2.13 2.6 2.95 3.29 3.73 4.07 4.42 4.88 5.24 16 0.69 1.34 1.75 2.12 2.58 2.92 3.25 3.69 4.02 4.35 4.79 5.13 17 0.69 1.33 1.74 2.11 2.57 2.9 3.22 3.65 3.97 4.29 4.71 5.04 18 0.69 1.33 1.73 2.1 2.55 2.88 3.2 3.61 3.92 4.23 4.65 4.97 19 0.69 1.33 1.73 2.09 2.54 2.86 3.17 3.58 3.88 4.19 4.59 4.9 20 0.69 1.33 1.73 2.09 2.53 2.85 3.15 3.55 3.85 4.15 4.54 4.84 21 0.69 1.32 1.72 2.08 2.52 2.83 3.14 3.53 3.82 4.11 4.49 4.78 22 0.69 1.32 1.72 2.07 2.51 2.82 3.12 3.51 3.79 4.08 4.45 4.74 23 0.68 1.32 1.71 2.07 2.5 2.81 3.1 3.49 3.77 4.05 4.42 4.69 24 0.68 1.32 1.71 2.06 2.49 2.8 3.09 3.47 3.75 4.02 4.38 4.65 25 0.68 1.32 1.71 2.06 2.49 2.79 3.08 3.45 3.73 4.35 4.62 26 0.68 1.32 1.71 2.06 2.48 2.78 3.07 3.44 3.71 3.97 4.32 4.59 27 0.68 1.31 1.7 2.05 2.47 2.77 3.06 3.42 3.69 3.95 4.3 4.56 df Figure G: Critical values (percentiles) for the 𝑡 distribution Note Reprinted from University of Washington: retrieved from https://faculty.washington.edu/heagerty/Books/Biostatistics/TABLES/t-Tables/ Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, Nikos Drakos, Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds 42