Investigating the effect of project based learning on students speaking skill at truong dinh high school

Trang 1 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY --- ∞0∞--- LE TRAN ANH THU INVESTIGATING THE EFFECT OF PROJECT-BASED LEARNING ON STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL AT T

Rationale for the thesis

In today's 4.0 era, knowing and using a foreign language fluently is considered a great success because foreign language plays an important role and is seen as a bridge among countries around the world in many fields Economic development, educational innovation and cultural exchange in the world referred to as a global village can only be realized through that means of communication that is foreign language in general and English in particular Recognizing the importance of mastering a foreign language for students in the context of integration, the Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has issued the 2020 Foreign Language Project, which is considered a significant landmark in improving the effectiveness of English teaching and learning in schools in Vietnam Developing the communicative skills of Vietnamese students including listening and speaking skills is the objective of this National Project To achieve this aim, MOET and the Department of Education and Training in the provinces have been organizing many training courses to equip English teachers with the knowledge and skills so as to be able to meet the requirements of the innovation in teaching and learning foreign language in the current context According to the National Project, students finishing upper high schools are expected to achieve level three (B1) of the Vietnamese Foreign Language Competence Framework In line with this initiation, the standard textbooks “Sách chuẩn” and the advanced textbooks “Sách nâng cao” known as two sets of the new textbooks were published by MOET to meet the requirements of 2020 Project The teachers and students at Truong Dinh high school are using the standard textbooks as the main materials for teaching and learning

The researcher desires to conduct research on the Project-Based Learning‟s effectiveness in learning speaking skill for the following reasons Firstly, it comes from the reality of teaching and learning English at a high school named Truong Dinh, which is situated in Go Cong town of Tien Giang province After the researcher had taught at this school for about 18 years through several generations of students, she realized that the goal of teaching and learning English at this school was to get good marks and win a place in a famous university Students get used to focusing only on grammar structures, reading comprehension, and vocabulary as these are the requirements of school tests as well as the high school graduation exam Although the school's vice-principal is an English teacher and he pays attention to teaching and learning communicative skills (listening and speaking skills) for students at school by adding an elective period for the English teachers to help students improve these skills, the teaching and learning practice of two skills remains unchanged Learning listening and speaking skills in the target language is considered as a waste of time by most of the students The students participate in the listening and speaking classes‟ activities reluctantly although they are aware of these skills‟ advantages in real-life situation

Moreover, the researcher found that between listening and speaking, speaking skill is more important for most language learners because a person is considered to know a language when they can speak that language and use it to communicate In fact, the researcher discovered that students have many difficulties when learning speaking skills such as interaction reluctance, shyness, fearing of committing mistakes Students also pointed out that they are weak in speaking skill due to lack of opportunities and environment to use this skill Besides, pronunciation is also a big obstacle for students in the process of speaking English because they are afraid that they will pronounce it wrongly and their friends will laugh at them Therefore, students will have a way to avoid losing face in front of the class by keeping silent or speaking unconfidently In short, not only students but also teachers are responsible for problems related to speaking skill because teachers often depend on traditional teaching and learning methods that they have applied for a long time

In Truong Dinh High School, Tien Giang province, English speaking has become a compulsory part for all the teachers and students in English lessons The main objective is to help the students to better their English speaking skills, especially enables them to be confident in simple monologues and dialogues as well as to communicate in daily conversations To achieve this goal, the teachers have to take responsibility of raising students‟ speaking skill through providing various activities and materials in speaking lessons Especially with the grade 10 grade students, it may become difficult for them to be familiar with learning English communication through practical exercises

To solve the problems as mentioned above and find out the technique to better teaching and learning speaking practice in TD high school, the researcher has tried to apply PBL, which is considered as one of the approaches to create a learning environment focusing on the learners When working on projects, students are encouraged to use their experiences, strengths and interests as well as their learning styles to select relevant topics According to Railsback (2002), instructions of PBL are a model of practical instructions that helps learners to improve their social and communicative skills These skills are considered essential for a citizen of the 21st century The end product of PBL is a presentation where students can enhance their fluency, ideas, grammar, pronunciation and confidence known as some aspects of speaking skill PBL can be understood as an authentic learning or organizing model in which students plan, implement and evaluate projects that includes real-life situations beyond the classroom (Doppelt & Yaron, 2003) It is also defined as the methods based on the constructivism by supporting student engagement in problem-solving situation Hence, a successful PBL helps increase learners‟ learning motivation, learning autonomy, and most importantly, enhance their speaking skills to master English communication

After having considered PBL positive impacts and benefits, the researcher desired to conduct a study on the implementation of PBL in learning speaking The researcher hoped through this study to find out a technique not only to motivate but also to develop the English speaking for both Grade 10 and Grade 11, 12 students at Truong Dinh high school.

Aims of the study

The study is aimed at discovering whether the application of PBL influence Truong Dinh high school students‟ English speaking skill or not In addition, the study aims to explore the attitudes of the students towards the implementation of PBL after experiencing it in learning process of their speaking skill.

Research questions

Two research questions based on the purposes of the study are taken into consideration

Question 1: To what extent does Project-Based Learning affect Truong Dinh High school

Grade 10 students‟ English speaking skill?

Question 2: What are their attitudes towards the application of Project-Based Learning in their English speaking learning?

scope of the study

The present research makes an attempt to investigate whether the application of PBL influence Truong Dinh High school students‟ English speaking skill or not and their attitudes toward employing PBL in a public-sector high school, Truong Dinh high school Seventy-nine students from the two non-English majored classes took part in this study to take the tests as well as address the survey questionnaires They studied the curriculum followed MOET‟s English national curriculum which was introduced in 2006 This curriculum aims to form and enhance students‟ communicative skills by adopting the communicative approach to language teaching Basing on this national curriculum target, MOET compiled and published the standard textbooks called English 10.

Background of the study

Teachers and Grade 10 students at Truong Dinh high school

Truong Dinh high school, one of the prestigious school of the province was set up in 1945 and located in Go Cong town, Tien Giang province At the moment, there are

92 teachers and 1,748 students teaching and studying at Truong Dinh high school, which is considered as one of the second ancient and big high school in Tien Giang province There are seven teachers teaching Grade 10 out of eleven English teachers here

At present, Truong Dinh high school has about 580 Grade 10 students who are divided into 13 classes All of them are non-English majored students and have been learning English as a compulsory subject for at least seven years from Grade 3 to Grade

9 The Truong Dinh English Faculty has used the curriculum issued by MOET with 4 periods a week (3 compulsory periods and one optional period) According to the placement test‟s results at the beginning of the year, Grade 10 students‟ English proficiency is quite low, especially in listening and speaking skills

Many students find it difficult to master speaking skill because they lack of vocabulary, do not know grammar structures to express their ideas, and cannot pronounce the words correctly Many of them are not encouraged to learn English especially speaking skill and they are reluctant to join in speaking activities Moreover, the time (45 minutes) for each speaking lesson is limited with the 45 students in each class Therefore, students may not have more chances to practice speaking regularly With those reasons, they are afraid of studying speaking skill and are not motivated in enhancing their speaking skill, so their speaking skill is not improved As a result, they gain a low level of English proficiency when learning English as well as speaking skill.

Material

Textbook is the main source of material which is used in the study Most high schools in Vietnam use English textbooks 10, 11, 12 as the primary material for teaching and learning English The advanced textbooks “Sách nâng cao” and the standard textbooks “Sách chuẩn” are two sets of textbooks used in most of the high school The standard textbooks called English 10, 11, and 12 are chosen as the compulsory materials for teaching and learning English by the Truong Dinh high school‟s principal and the English Faculty Improving students‟ four language skills or communicative competence is considered as the objective of this set of textbooks To achieve this aim, students finishing high school are expected to achieve level three (B1) of the Vietnamese Foreign Language Competence Framework

English 10 is compiled according to the high school English standard program of the MOET, followed by English 6, English 7, English 8, and English 9 There are a CD, the teacher‟s book, students‟ book, and the workbook in a complete set of English 10 The book for students is made up of sixteen units Each unit has its own objective and is divided into five sections include four language skills: reading, speaking, listening, writing and grammar section There are six review units with each after every three official units The book for students has a book map showing the structure of the book through each section of each unit Each unit consists of five lessons with 45 minutes for one The new words‟ phonetic transcription and their Vietnamese meanings are supplied in a glossary at the end of the book Then, teaching techniques suggestions, full procedural notes, answer keys to the exercises and audio scripts are provided in the book for teachers Besides, the workbook is used to supply more exercises for students to practice the knowledge that they have learned in class In the workbook, there are four additional tests so that students can do it as a self-assessment The workbook is used to mirror and reinforce the content of the student‟s book Finally, the CDs including the audio for the listening and reading passages are attached

Each unit in English 10 corresponds to a specific topic and includes the following sections Reading consists of one or more paragraphs of approximately 180-220 words in length, intended to develop reading comprehension skills for students, provide information and material for the entire unit, and familiarize students with the topic of the unit Speaking section includes activities related to language functions and topics of the unit designed for students to practice speaking skills Speaking is presented through communication activities such as speaking practice in pairs, group discussion and individual speaking Listening consists of passages or dialogues related to the topic of the unit The primary target is to train students' listening comprehension skills In addition, listening also helps to reinforce and correct deviations on students' pronunciation and use of language structures Writing includes exercises that develop students' writing skills in different types of texts such as letter writing, data description, narrative Language focus consists of two main sections, pronunciation and grammar and vocabulary Pronunciation is intended to review the pronunciation of single and diphthongs (vowels or consonants) in words and in utterances Grammar and vocabulary deal with the grammar and vocabulary issues that are believed to be the focus of the unit These problems are presented in the form of exercises or communication activities for students to practice Six review units are presented in the form of test yourself and are performed after each major topic specified in the standard curriculum of the MOET Test yourself is designed to help students test their own abilities and knowledge after they have completed two to three units (i.e., 10 to 15 periods) and to help teachers have a reference base to design a forty-five minute test for students.

Teaching and learning speaking at Truong Dinh high school

Accordingly, the curriculum is renewed by the MOET and is applied with a 135 minutes weekly class time, split into three lessons Each lesson is taught in 45 minutes for all grades from grade 6 to grade 12 in all school types nation-wide A set of textbooks was written by teachers and lectures nationwide The textbooks are compiled with themes, topics and skills The communicative approach and the learner-centered approach are two popular ones that are used in language teaching to develop language skill for learners The textbooks are designed based on two these approaches These approaches require learners to be responsible for their learning as well as cooperatively (Hoang et al, 2006) Although teachers are asked to teach 4 skills and 3 linguistic aspects (grammar, lexis and phonetics), students are only tested in terms of phonetics, grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension Le (2009:23) also said that “the Ministry has institutionalized multiple-choice tests as the only testing method for standardized high-stake tests In these tests, pupils are tested in terms of phonetics, grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension Speaking and listening are not tested” That is the reason why speaking skill is ignored by students and, sometimes, teachers Students do not have motivation to learn speaking because the aim of their language study is to pass exams, not to acquire communicative competence Consequently, those students might be incompetent in communication, but they are very excellent and competent in grammar structures, which results in reality that they cannot use English to communicate with other people both inside and outside the classroom Although speaking skill is essential when learning English, this skill is neglected and becomes a fear most of the students at Truong Dinh high school.

Significance of the study

The research findings also give students insights into the possible effects of PBL

Organization of the study

The present research has five chapters with their own aims and contents

Chapter 1, Introduction, provides the context and aims of the study, two research‟s questions guide the whole study, the study significance and the overview of the study Chapter 2, Literature review, is a review of relevant theories to conduct this study including the basic concepts of speaking skill, PBL and attitudes theories, the previous studies are presented as well

Chapter 3, Methodology, demonstrates the research methodology employed to conduct this research paper The presented parts include research site, participants, research instruments, and data collection procedure Chapter 4, Data analysis and findings, presents the data analysis and discussion as well as the findings about the impact of using PBL on Truong Dinh high school students‟ speaking skill Chapter 5, Conclusions and recommendations, concludes the core points of the study and gives implications for the PBL applications.

Speaking

Functions of speaking

Language is considered as a means for communication by expressing our ideas, and knowing others‟ ideas as well as through speech Without speech we fail in communicating with people around us Therefore, speaking skill is very important and its usage is also enormous for language learners We use language to communicate, create a close relationship and to make ourselves to be understood These functions take place within the confines of our community Pattison (1992) pointed out that knowing or leaning a language means having an ability to use or speak the language on purpose In a word, how to use language that a person has learned to express their thoughts, ideas, points of view is the desire of many people

According to Richards (2008), “the functions of speaking are classified into three; talk as interaction, talk as transaction, and talk as performance” (p.21) There is the difference among these speech activities in terms of form and function, so various teaching approaches are required to meet the requirements of each function and talk as interaction is the first function In our daily life, we remain interaction with other people

It relates to the content of our conversation or what our conversation is about It is an interactive communication that is carried out by two or more people spontaneously In other words, This is how people try to convey their message to others by using their speaking skills The main purpose in this function is to establish and strengthen social relationships Furthermore, talk as transaction is the second function of speaking, which refers to situations in which what is said or done will be the focus of the message It is not intended to help participants form social interaction with each other but to send a message and make themselves better understood In this type of spoken language, we will focus on making others understand what we want to convey clearly and precisely Therefore, in the classroom environment students and teachers often focus on meaning or talking their way to understand in order to perform this language function Talk as performance is the last one referring to public talk, which means that there will be audiences listening to the information being conveyed In talk as performance, there are various activities such as presentations, speeches, and public announcements Monologue rather than dialogue is the main function that the speaking activities focus on in this case.

Characteristics of speaking skill

Fitriani et al (2015) concluded that students' conversational skills will determine the success or failure of students' speaking skill The competence to make a conversation in a learned language is one of the criteria used to evaluate speaking skill Speaking skill and writing skill are two productive skills that have an intimate relationship because according to Bygate (1987), speaking is the result of the listening process After people hear messages from others, they will have a need to respond to what they hear, so speaking skill is applied In addition, speaking skill is formed on the basis of listening skill and it is developed naturally at the child's age The verbal language, also known as speaking skill, is formed when words are put together according to a rule of the grammatical structure of that language to create meaningful messages Speaking skill is like writing skill to express and convey the thoughts, feelings, and views of the speaker to the listener but in spoken form Students‟ speaking skill is the ability to use the language they have learned verbally to communicate with teachers and peers in the classroom as well as with people around them outside of the classroom

According to Mazouzi (2013, as cited in Leong et al., 2017), speaking activities should be organized within the balance of fluency and accuracy accomplishment Both fluency and accuracy play the crucial roles in the achievement of the oral performance Fluency is the first element of speaking skills It is defined as the ability to speak a language effectively, without having to stop too much or having too many pauses in a speech Hedge (2000) stated that fluency in a language means the speakers can response to their partners coherently and understandably The second characteristic of oral competence is the accuracy when speaking Accuracy in language, in other words, means being able to use the correct grammatical rules, suitable vocabulary, and accurate pronunciation when producing a speech When it comes to language learning, it often refers to the speakers of that language (Ur, 1996) Therefore, the learners ought to concentrate on the fluency and accuracy of what they say

In reality, when teaching speaking in high school, the teachers try their best to create as much as possible real life contexts so that students can have more and more chances to use as much English as they can However, there are very few opportunities for students to use English to communicate with native speakers as well as people who can speak English in their studying and living environment To deal with this challenge, English teachers pay more attention to fluency in speaking lessons Fluency in the use of language in a real-world context is what communicative approach is about while grammar translation method focuses on accuracy In other words, students are encouraged to convey meaningful messages (fluency) rather than focus on theoretical grammar rules because the purpose of language learning is to communicate In fact, fluency is of more focus than accuracy

In assessing speaking skill, the researcher applies a speaking grading rubric basing on the elements of speaking skill The rubric has five criteria: fluency, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, details and five grading scales Basically, when students express their speaking quickly and meaningfully without much hesitation, pausing a lot, it means that fluency is demonstrated This is considered as one of the criteria to assess students‟ speaking Fluency is influenced by confidence, psychological factors, and regular practice, so fluency does not improve at the same rate as other language skills When assessing speaking skill, fluency is always considered as a required criterion

ESL students find it difficult to sound like a native speaker because of the influence of their mother tongue‟s pronunciation If students have poor or incorrect pronunciation, it will reduce the effectiveness of communication and sometimes lead to misunderstanding Therefore, pronunciation is an important criterion considered when learning a language as well as assessing speaking skills

The next criterion that the researcher pays attention when assessing speaking skill is vocabulary including vocabulary production and vocabulary comprehension The researcher assessed students‟ excellent control of language features, a wide range of well- chosen vocabulary

The fourth criterion is grammar An important issue in studying foreign language is the correct use of the language styles In this part, students are evaluated the ability to use accuracy and variety of grammatical structures to express their ideas

Finally, students‟ level of description, additional details are considered in speaking test It can be said that using language to express what we want to say is one thing, but how to interact with other people is quite another The better students‟ overall language skills, the more creative students will be with the language and the more unique they will be in expressing themselves in a variety of ways

2.1.5 The category of speaking performances

According to Brown (2000), classroom speaking performances are divided into six distinctive categories as the following They are imitative, intensive, responsive, transactional, interpersonal and extensive speaking

Imitative is defined as a simple classroom speaking performance It relates to phonetic level of oral production Students only reiterate something that they listen from a human tape recorder They practice pronouncing a certain vowel sound correctly and intonation naturally Due to the limited time of a class period, learners simply imitate and mechanically repeat the pattern presented by the teacher This imitation usually focuses on the pronunciation of some basic vowels and consonants It is not intended to communicate, but just a way to help learners pronounce correctly sounds what they have just learned In other word, only some particular elements of language form are focused

Intensive speaking is a way that the students can know how to produce the language by themselves, which means they can response to their teachers‟ questions or interact with others in real-life situations A small range of phonological, lexical, grammatical, or phrasal competences are required to make utterances Intensive speaking is a category that follows imitation It includes any speaking activity designed to practice certain phonetics and grammatical structures Intensive speaking manifests itself in pairs in which certain forms of language are produced by learners

Responsive is a process in which teacher or other students ask questions and students are required answer them shortly, meaningfully and authentically This form of speaking performances is popular in the classroom activities because when teaching in class the teacher always asks questions to check whether the students understand the new lesson or not

Speaking performances in which students make longer speeches and more complex forms of responsive technique are used is called transactional (dialogue) This technique is aimed at helping students be accustomed to conveying or exchanging information, opinion, or fact with others It happens when students work in pairs to make a conversation about the topics that they have just learned This activity focuses on interaction and exchange information smoothly and naturally

Interpersonal (dialogue) aims to maintain social connection In this technique students must know ellipsis, slangs, humor, sarcasm, casual register, and other sociolinguistics dimensions It is more important to establish social connection than to transmit the events and messages in interpersonal dialogue

Extensive (monologue) is known as a linguistic product and the participants are listeners who can respond to speech but in a nonverbal form Retelling a story, picture cued storytelling, news event, oral presentation are the activities of extensive Only students who have reached the intermediate or advanced level are required to give presentations, speeches, reports, summaries in which registration must be formal and intentional

According to the curriculum in high schools, in the process of speaking teaching and learning, students are required to use all forms of speaking performance The types of speaking performance that were used by students are extensive (monologue), interpersonal (dialogue), transactional (dialogue), responsive, intensive, and imitative The level of speaking that students in high school learn is explained by textbook-based syllabuses Students can use a variety of spoken simple English to express accurately, well and fluently personal conversations or transactions By using various simple spoken English expressions, students can ask and give opinions, ask for clarification, ask and give services, express likes and dislikes, ask and give things, response individually and cover in the form of descriptive and procedure texts, ask and give fact in daily context

As a result, in teaching speaking procedure, the teacher focuses on helping students develop these performances

2.1.6 Speaking difficulties in foreign language learning

The category of speaking performances

According to Brown (2000), classroom speaking performances are divided into six distinctive categories as the following They are imitative, intensive, responsive, transactional, interpersonal and extensive speaking

Imitative is defined as a simple classroom speaking performance It relates to phonetic level of oral production Students only reiterate something that they listen from a human tape recorder They practice pronouncing a certain vowel sound correctly and intonation naturally Due to the limited time of a class period, learners simply imitate and mechanically repeat the pattern presented by the teacher This imitation usually focuses on the pronunciation of some basic vowels and consonants It is not intended to communicate, but just a way to help learners pronounce correctly sounds what they have just learned In other word, only some particular elements of language form are focused

Intensive speaking is a way that the students can know how to produce the language by themselves, which means they can response to their teachers‟ questions or interact with others in real-life situations A small range of phonological, lexical, grammatical, or phrasal competences are required to make utterances Intensive speaking is a category that follows imitation It includes any speaking activity designed to practice certain phonetics and grammatical structures Intensive speaking manifests itself in pairs in which certain forms of language are produced by learners

Responsive is a process in which teacher or other students ask questions and students are required answer them shortly, meaningfully and authentically This form of speaking performances is popular in the classroom activities because when teaching in class the teacher always asks questions to check whether the students understand the new lesson or not

Speaking performances in which students make longer speeches and more complex forms of responsive technique are used is called transactional (dialogue) This technique is aimed at helping students be accustomed to conveying or exchanging information, opinion, or fact with others It happens when students work in pairs to make a conversation about the topics that they have just learned This activity focuses on interaction and exchange information smoothly and naturally

Interpersonal (dialogue) aims to maintain social connection In this technique students must know ellipsis, slangs, humor, sarcasm, casual register, and other sociolinguistics dimensions It is more important to establish social connection than to transmit the events and messages in interpersonal dialogue

Extensive (monologue) is known as a linguistic product and the participants are listeners who can respond to speech but in a nonverbal form Retelling a story, picture cued storytelling, news event, oral presentation are the activities of extensive Only students who have reached the intermediate or advanced level are required to give presentations, speeches, reports, summaries in which registration must be formal and intentional

According to the curriculum in high schools, in the process of speaking teaching and learning, students are required to use all forms of speaking performance The types of speaking performance that were used by students are extensive (monologue), interpersonal (dialogue), transactional (dialogue), responsive, intensive, and imitative The level of speaking that students in high school learn is explained by textbook-based syllabuses Students can use a variety of spoken simple English to express accurately, well and fluently personal conversations or transactions By using various simple spoken English expressions, students can ask and give opinions, ask for clarification, ask and give services, express likes and dislikes, ask and give things, response individually and cover in the form of descriptive and procedure texts, ask and give fact in daily context

As a result, in teaching speaking procedure, the teacher focuses on helping students develop these performances.

Speaking difficulties in foreign language learning

The goal that almost all language learners in general and speaking skill learners in particular is to be able to use it to communicate However, there is still too much hesitation, repetition and pauses in the process of making oneself understood There are many reasons why learners have difficulties in speaking learning, such as lack of motivation to learn, lack of confidence, and no environment to practice and apply Ur

(1991) claimed that there are four main problems that students have to overcome when learning speaking skill in a foreign language classroom They are: inhibition, nothing to say, low or uneven participation, and mother-tongue use

First, inhibition is a problem faced by EFL learners especially when engaging in classroom activities This makes it difficult for them and reduces the ability to speak confidently and fluently in front of teachers and classmates Ur (1991) stated that

“learners are often inhibited about trying to say things in a foreign language in the classroom: worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts” (p.121) In other words, inhibition make learners become passive observers, they rarely participate, express their opinions, feeling, or ideas, because of fear of making mistakes, being laughed, or being criticized by both teachers and students Baker and Westrup (2003) suggested some ways to help students overcome their fear of making mistakes They said that teacher can give students many language preparations Besides, teacher should explain that making mistakes is a part of the learning process People sometimes make mistakes when they speak in their first language but these small mistakes do not prevent other people from understanding them

The second difficulty that EFL learners often face is that their mind is empty They cannot think of any ideas to say, and they do not have the motivation to try to express themselves “I have no idea”, “No comment”, “Sorry I don‟t know what to say” or they keep silent, which are seen as safe ways to keep them from losing face or being laughed at for saying the incorrect thing Monath and Kase (2007) also believed that people who lack confidence and preparation often feel confused and don not know what to say or speak hesitantly without fluency when speaking in public meetings Baker and Westrup (2003) asserted that teacher should think about how they can personalize the information in the course book to make it relevant to the students‟ life experiences

Third, another obstacle for learners when learning speaking skill is low or uneven participation This refers to the amount of each student‟s talking time Ur (1991) stated that “only one participant can talk at a time if he or she is to be heard; and in a large group this means that each one will have only very little talking time” (p.121) This trouble becomes more serious because learners' ability is different, so while some say very little or do not say anything at all, others talk a lot and dominate Tanveer (2007) recommended that students will participate in the classroom discussion actively if they feel comfortable when they speak in the class Therefore, the teacher should have friendly, helpful and cooperative behaviors to provide students with friendly, supportive and informal learning environment

Fourth, mother tongue use is one of the difficulties for EFL learners Ur (1991) stated “that in classes where all, or a number of, the learners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use it: because it is easier, because it feels unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language, and because they feel “exposed” if they are speaking their mother tongue” (p.121) Harmer (2001) stated that “it is an entirely natural thing to do; when we learn a foreign language we use translation almost without thinking about it, particularly at elementary and intermediate level” (p.131) In many situations, learners use their mother tongue unconsciously This is not only the responsibility of the learners, but also the teachers themselves have to think about their responsibility in this regard In the process of teaching foreign languages, if teachers often use learners‟ mother tongue in the classroom, it will create an effect that learners also feel that it is normal to use their mother tongue in the foreign language classroom As a result, their language proficiency will be low and not be improved (Harmer, 2001) The use of English in class should be encouraged Sometimes at first learners will find it difficult to hear and understand what the teacher says in English, but over time they will get used to it and become interested in it Therefore, teachers should not use students' mother tongue when communicating with them

Besides the four difficulties that students often face when learning a foreign language mentioned above, Heriansyah (2012) indicates twelve types of difficulties that students face when learning to speak English Those twelve difficulties are classified into two large groups called non-linguistic problems and linguistic problems Non-linguistic problems include lack of confidence, fear of speaking, fear of making mistakes, fear of being laughed, which are related to the speakers‟ psychological and emotional state Linguistic problems include lack of vocabulary to express information, lack of knowledge of grammar and poor pronunciation.

Factors enhancing speaking performance

It is essential for the teacher to figure out the elements that enhance speaking performance so that the teacher can know how to help students get over difficulties that they had in learning speaking There are four factors that may increase students‟ speaking ability in the classroom These factors come from motivation, knowledge of language, speaking activities and classroom atmosphere

When learning a language, the students will try their best to be able to understand and to use it fluently if they have a clear goal and the right learning motivation It means learning motivation will influence on learning success Motivation was said to be seen as a set of feelings, beliefs, and thoughts that are turned into action (Ellis, 1997) From the above definition, motivation is an intellectual and physical effort to achieve a set goal Motivation is the inner strength that everyone has, but how to exploit the inner potential depends on each person‟s efforts It affects whether learning the second or foreign language will succeed or fail In other words, the higher the motivation the learners have, the greater degree of success they get and vice versa Dornyei (2001) described that the motivation is associated with the guidance and degree of behavior of human When we do anything with motivation, we will stick with it, find a way to do it well, and finally we will not be afraid of difficulties but will try our best to overcome it In short, motivation will help learners make efforts and find inner strength to overcome difficulties to succeed in learning the second or foreign language Moreover, motivation is defined as an internal drive that leads someone to do everything on purpose to achieve objectives that are set up (Harmer, 2001) According to Brown (2000), “motivation is an inner drive or stimulus, which can be like self-esteem, or task oriented” (p.160) He also stated that “success in any task is due simply to the fact that someone is motivated” (p.160)

The higher learning motivation the students have, the higher achievement they gain The students‟ motivation will influence and contribute to what they gain from a learning procedure Therefore, motivation can be called an important element in a learning process Besides, Lile (2002) agreed that motivation is the key to all learning The positive factor that motivation brings is focusing students' attention and efforts on learning The effort and learning results of students greatly depend on their learning motivation Students with high motivation will obviously study better than those with low or no motivation to learn When students are motivated in learning a language, they will work harder to achieve the goals they have set for themselves

Clement and Kruidenier (1983) asserted that the factors influencing learners‟ speaking competence are cognitive factors, linguistic factors and affective factors Moreover, according to Nunan (1999), to be able to communicate well, the speakers need to have communicative competence Communicative competence includes socio- linguistic and communicative skills, linguistic competence These skills and competence help learners know what to say, to whom and when or in other words, the content, the object and the time when the communication takes place

Knowledge of language consists of linguistic knowledge (pronunciation, stress, intonation, vocabulary and grammar) and socio-linguistic knowledge (pragmatic knowledge and cultural elements).Vocabulary is one of the most indispensable parts in learning a language, and definitely a factor that influences the students‟ English speaking skill Everyone agrees that vocabulary is important if we would like to communicate with other people in a foreign language because when ideas fail, words come in very handy Language is for communication, and there is not much point in learning it unless it is accurate and the meaning is clear Speaking well always requires accuracy in which grammar rules are mentioned Therefore, the students cannot become good without accuracy in his or her speech

Practical activities in and out of the classroom are known as the ways through which learning and teaching goals are realized These activities help students demonstrate their ability In addition, they also help teacher assess students‟ competence Therefore, students should be given as many opportunities as possible so that they can frequently use the language they have just learned The more students practice, the faster students learn Teachers should organize speaking activities to accommodate a wide range of students‟ ability levels so that all students can participate Each student has his/her own strengths and weaknesses because in the teaching process, teachers need to understand the students' ability and then give appropriate tasks All students in the class have the opportunity to express themselves and use the language they learn to communicate with each other Scrievener (2005) stated “ the aim of the communicative activity in class is to get learners to use the language they are learning to interact in realistic and meaningful ways, usually involving exchanges of information or opinion” (p.152) In short, whether students' speaking skill is improved or not depends on the organization of teachers' activities Learning tasks and activities should be appropriate to the curriculum and the student's needs

To encourage students to learn speaking actively, the teachers should create an English speaking environment where students have real-life communication, activities, and tasks that promote oral language These promote students‟ speaking skill by giving them practice of language items such as vocabulary, grammar functions and developing students‟ ability speak fluently and interactively It is essential that teachers pay great attention to organizing suitable speaking activities in teaching process Teacher should not just ask students to memorize language knowledge mechanically Teachers need to design practical activities where real communication takes place These activities will create excitement for students in learning process When they are interested and motivated, they will study well These activities also help students develop other social skills besides language skills

Speaking activities also serve to infuse fun into learning as well as bolster student confidence and the ability to think critically, promote social learning that can enhance collaborative skills Through real-life activities, learners have the essential opportunity to communicate in the target language and collaborate in small and big groups to complete a task and to achieve a goal All in all, a variety of speaking activities will attract students‟ interest as well as engage them and they participate in learning speaking actively As a result, they enjoy the learning and have positive energy to overcome difficulties in speaking performances

When students are provided a safe and comfortable environment, they will be encouraged to discover themselves in speaking skill Group work sets up a natural setting for conversation because through working in groups students can communicate face- to- face (Long and Porter, 1985) According to Kutnick, Ota, and Berdondini (2006), the natural environment in the classroom fosters students to communicate in a higher quality than during independent or teacher directed work period Furthermore, “students are more likely to participate orally in class when they feel supported by their teachers and peers” (Long and Porter, 1985: 19) The language competence of students is different, so working in group is a chance for students to help each other Students feel more secure and confident to share their ideas with their friends in groups More importantly, they are not nervous about not being able to understand the language and speak well

A pleasant and supportive atmosphere will create ideal learning environment It encourages students to express their opinions and thinking On the contrary, a concrete atmosphere will make up dump environment in which students always keep quiet In high school, classroom atmosphere is one of the factors that enhance students‟ speaking ability because it makes students feel confident, comfortable to express their ideas without anxiety about losing face They do not take risks because they are afraid of being criticized if they make mistakes A good learning and teaching environment will bring high learning efficiency It is both teachers and students who work together to create an optimal learning environment It is necessary to define clear learning goals, ensure that English is used as much as possible, and organize extracurricular activities, involving all the students To sum up, learning environment takes into account several variables that have direct and indirect effect on students‟ learning.

Stages of teaching speaking

A speaking lesson can bridge for students the gap between the classroom and the world outside The teacher needs to follow three major stages to build this special bridge in teaching procedure

This stage is aimed at providing the students with clear information about the language they are learning, so teacher must present them both the meanings of the language and how to use it so that they can see the connection between forms and functions, which is really useful for them to know how to choose the right patterns to express their ideas and feelings (Nunan, 1999) One of effective ways to present a new language use is in contexts (Harmer, 1991), which can be shown through texts and activities Dialogue and passage are two specific types of texts which supply students with not only models of spoken language which are necessary for them to build up their oral ability but a framework of showing how speakers interact (Byrne, 1984) He also divided activities into structured and unstructured ones In particular, with structured activities, students are given a systematic introduction to an item of language to make its meaning clear Furthermore, through unstructured activities, students can communicate by using the language they have already known

Accuracy is considered as the goal of while-speaking stage In order to increase the amount of students practice, pair work, group work and class work are effective choices especially in the case of large class (Harmer, 1991) Besides, students are actually prepared for oral opportunities of communicating outside the classroom (Nunan, 1999) Activities for practice should be great fun, slightly communicative and provide students with an acceptable blend of confidence and enjoyment He suggested that oral drills, information gap activities, games, personalization and localization and oral interaction are such typical techniques for oral practice (Harmer, 1991)

All activities at the post-speaking stage are aimed at oral fluency which is promoted by two main factors (Byrne, 1987) Firstly, students have to work on their own in different ways such as working individually, working in pairs and working in groups Secondly, students need to be provided with the activities which are appropriate to their level and can involve students It is necessary to give students opportunities to reflect upon their performance As a result, their speaking skill can be gradually improved.

Project-based Learning

Principles of project-based learning

PBL is developed and implemented in education contexts underlying various principles including: authentic learning, learner autonomy, cooperative learning and multiple intelligences Firstly, PBL is known as a way to improve authentic learning for students in acquisition the language PBL provides the authenticity in learning ( Bell,

2010), which means that students are instructed to study through real things relating to their real life or things occurring in the real world As a result, students learn best when they are interested in meaningful things

In addition, PBL gives students the right to decide on their self-learning and take responsibility for their learning success, which means developing learner autonomy Students are expected to take responsibilities for their own learning (Kumaravadivedu,

2003) Students become more active and make real efforts to study by themselves With PBL model, students raise their awareness in learning process and try their best to manage themselves and their own learning To implement the project, the teacher will introduce the steps to the students Students follow those steps to create products based on their interests and ability While working in groups, students will divide specific tasks according to their individual capacity, so all students participate in the learning process When all learners participate in the learning process, it means they feel motivated In short, PBL is a way of learning that brings positive learning motivation to students

When carrying out the work in their group actively and decisively, student has to discuss with other members to agree on the project they take, so cooperative learning is very essential In PBL, students are asked to work together in groups where the students will learn how to work collaboratively Students will discuss, collaborate, brainstorm and share ideas, and find information to complete projects All students have an equal opportunity to create products Through PBL, the students will try to stop their monotone such as only asking and answering the question, but through project based learning the activities will be more dynamic (Musa et al, 2011; Musa et al, 2012)

Multiple intelligence is the last one in applying PBL in teaching and learning language Project-based instruction undertakes the principle of multiple intelligences among students (Baş and Beyhan, 2010; Baş, 2008) Students are different from each other in terms of abilities, interests and personalities, so when participating in PBL they have a chance to show their strength and their opinions There are many duties when carrying a project and students can plan their responsibilities according to the competence or skill PBL promotes the development of different abilities among students and create many chances for them to learn new things from each other.

Advantages of project-based learning

According to Fragoulis (2009) and Bell (2010), PBL is used widely in in EFL teaching and learning because of its six benefits

First, PBL is seen as a method of creating a contextual and meaningful learning environment Through PBL, students complete practical activities by participating in communication activities to exchange information needed for their project Therefore, they are given the opportunity to use language in a comparatively natural setting and join in meaningful activities in which authentic language is used The authentic activities can provide the opportunity for students to examine the task from different perspectives, enhance collaboration and reflection, and allow competing solutions and diversity of outcome

Second, PBL can create optimal environment to practice speaking English PBL is an open, accessible and practical method of learning when it allows students free chances to speak and upgrade other skills during their project work Through PBL, students are engaged in a variety of activities and meaningful interaction to doing project work, thus they have opportunities to use language both inside and outside classroom to communicate and exchange ideas The force of cooperating with other members to find out the best form of projects and make the best product would motivate students to learn speaking and improve other skills

Then, PBL can also make students actively engage in project learning While participating in projects, students take greater responsibility for their own learning than during more traditional classroom activities (Railsback, 2002) The reason is that Projects put students in different active roles such as: problem solver, decision maker, investigator, or documentarian Hence, students have to work responsibly to complete their duty

Moreover, PBL enhances the students‟ interest, motivation, engagement, and enjoyment From a motivational perspective, projects being authentic tasks, are more meaningful to students, increase interest, motivation to participate, and can promote learning (Brophy, 2004) Enjoyment and motivation also stem from the fact that classroom language is not predetermined, but depends on the nature of the project (Larsen-Freeman, 2000)

In addition, PBL promotes social learning that can enhance collaborative skills Coleman (1992) discussed the benefits associated with students' increased social skills, cooperation, and group cohesiveness Social relationship among group members as well as within the class is close through PBL One or two students cannot complete a project, so PBL is seen as a solution to strengthen the connection among teachers, learners as well as other members of the community In foreign language teaching, pair and group work is used very often and effectively This helps students feel more comfortable and secure, so they are encouraged to talk more

Last but not least, PBL can give an optimal opportunity to improve students‟ language skills PBL integrates the four language skills, speaking, listening, reading, and writing and requires the use of a variety of activities While working on a project students have opportunities to “recycle known language and skills in a relatively natural context” (Haines, 1989:1) Because students engage in purposeful communication to complete authentic activities, they are given the occasion to use language in a comparatively natural setting (Haines,

1989) and participate in meaningful activities which require practical language use

In summary, with these benefits, PBL responses the conditions for students to enhance their speaking skill Firstly, PBL is an approach of learning where the students engage with a real world and hand on project Therefore, their knowledge of language is used as well as improved when discussing with their peers and presenting in front of class Secondly, PBL provides real-life communication, authentic activities, and meaningful tasks, which means contextual and meaningful learning for students They perform tasks such as telling stories, interviewing, conversing with other people by using language in multiple context The students engage with the authentic materials, real life issues, complex solution and problems which can assist them to develop their speaking skill Furthermore, PBL is known as a student-centered method focusing on students‟ interests In process of completing project, students have chances to help each other and to show their strengths They become self-confidence and comfortable to express their thought verbally in the class without worrying about losing face In a word, PBL provides friendly classroom atmosphere for students to enhance their speaking skill Finally, through PBL students can improve their knowledge language They become interested in authentic activities and confident about their ability Therefore, they will be motivated in learning process especially speaking learning considered as one of the most difficult skill for high school students The more enjoyable they are in the learning, the more actively they will engage in it Consequently, this experience will help them learn and enhance their speaking skill.

2.2.4 Strategies and steps for PBL implementation

In order to apply PBL successfully in language class, teachers need to discuss with the students steps that are used in completing the project work It is important for teachers to clarify step by step clearly for students so that they can take on the project effectively Stoller (1997) proposed 10 stages of implementing PBL in classroom which are useful and efficient to help teacher manage the learning process and facilitate students develop their product work and content learning

The stages are (1) agreeing on theme for the project, (2) determining the final outcome, (3) structuring the project, (4) preparing students for the language demands of step 5, (5) gathering information, (6) preparing students for the language demands of step

7, (7) compiling and analyze information, (8) preparing students for the language demands of step 9, (9) presenting final product, and (10) evaluating the project

In Step 1, teacher explains about the characteristics of PBL and the mode he/she uses in the classroom After that, teacher will divide class into small groups of 4 or 5 students Every member in the group has to discuss and agree on the theme of their project

Step 2 and 3 give students the opportunities to decide their final outcome based on their preferences and their strength In this stage, teacher should explain the features of each project before letting the students decide the format of their final outcome This will motivate them to devote their energy on their favorite project Afterward, all groups need to negotiate their project structures Students have to submit to teacher their final ideas about the structures and get the feedback on their choice These steps will help students completely well prepare and focus on their project

In Step 4, after agreeing on the format and structure of their project, teacher has to explain for students the language demanded in their projects and introduces sources to help them have a consultation and investigation to support their projects

In Step 5 and 6, all groups have a clear idea of what they have to do for their projects At this time, every group member should be assigned on different role which suit their strength and preferences to begin their role Usually at this stage, students start searching and gathering information and write down their own notes After that, they will use this information and edit for the language demanded in step 6

In Step 7, students have information and language demanded in step 6 to continue to compile and analyze information They have to edit and remain necessary and important information for their projects language demand at stage 8 Otherwise, group

Strategies and steps for project-based learning implementation

In Step 9 and 10, all groups have to submit their projects to the teacher and present their final products to other groups Teacher and other students have to observe and give presenting group feedback on their performances Then every group has to discuss and edit their projects under teacher‟s instruction Finally, teacher will evaluate the students‟ performances and announce the results.

Attitudes

Definition of attitude

According to Brown (2001), the attitude that comes from life experience, from the knowledge we have, from which a positive or negative attitude about an issue is formed Attitudes are governed by emotions, feelings and relationships in community Oxford Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary (2008, 84) defined the term attitude as: “the way you think and feel about somebody or something, and the way that you behave towards somebody or something shows how you think and feel” Allport (as cited in Gardner,

1985) defined attitudes as “a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual‟s response to all objects and situations with which is related”.

Components and types of attitudes

Recently, more studies have been conducted regarding the influence of attitude on learning outcomes to gain a more comprehensive understanding of this topic There are three components of attitudes, namely affective, cognitive, and behavioral factors First, the affective component is seen as the emotional response towards an attitude object Eagly and Chaiken (1998) defined the affective factor as the “feelings, moods, emotions, and sympathetic nervous system activity that people have experienced in relation to an attitude object and subsequently associate with it” (p 272) According these authors, emotional experiences and preferences influence on the affective component It is actually a person's feeling of liking or disliking an object or subject The reason for mentioning attitudes when studying PBL is that students will have effective learning strategies, which depends on whether they have a positive or negative attitude towards it (Railsback, 2002)

Second, cognitive component of attitudes refers to the thought, perception or ideas of the person about an object or experience Schiffman and Kanuk (2004) stated that the cognitive factor consisting of two elements, information and perception, which can be found through the mixture of information from different sources and experiences with attitude objects It is considered as the general knowledge that a person possesses This aspect of attitude can be altered based on experiences or others‟ opinions In terms of PBL, positive attitudes are produced when people have experienced an object and realized its benefits From there, people will feel enjoyable and want to experience it more in the future

Third, a person‟s response towards attitude objects is seen as the behavioral component It includes the behaviors people engage in as well as their emotional reactions to those behaviors This attitude influences on how we act or behave The behavioral component is in attempt to explain the participation of an individual in tasks as well as actions concerning an attitude object (Defleur and Westie, 1963) It decides the ways on which individuals act or behave

Although the three components of attitudes have different features, they have a close relation The cognitive component affects the affective component, and two these components further affect the behavioral component In addition, Azjen and Fishbein

(1980) explained that the cognitive and affective components together partly determine the behavioral intention Even though a change in, for example, interest from situational to individual interest is observable when knowledge is developed, an individual interest often leads to a will to learn more (Hidi and Renninger, 2006) Cognitive and affective components are bases for such behavior Former two components cannot be seen, only the behavior component can be seen Former is important because it is a base for the formation of attitude When the three components of attitudes join together, they will construct an overall attitude about an object They can influence students‟ success or failure in their learning process Gardner (1985) stated that students with a positive attitude are academically far more successful than students with a negative attitude It is positive attitudes that help students be interested in the speaking lessons This leads to better students‟ performance in their learning speaking and stimulates them to get higher scores in their exams These three components would be examined in this study to identify whether Grade 10 students had positive change after studying speaking with PBL

In short, attitudes towards language learning play an important part in students‟ language learning Abidin & Alzwari (2012) said that attitudes affect students‟ success or failure Having positive attitudes towards students‟ process of learning a language, they will like their lessons and are eager to catch up with more knowledge as well as the skills of the language they are learning By contrast, if students own negative attitudes toward their learning process, they will not pay much attention to it and they will be reluctant to complete the tasks during their learning activities.

Previous studies

Studies over the world

First, Bas (2011) carried out a research to investigate the effects of PBL on Grade

9 students‟ educational accomplishment and their attitudes towards English lessons The research was conducted in the school year 2010–2011in a lower high school in Nigde, Turkey The participants in this study are 60 students in two different classes in the Grade

9 of this school To analyze the data of the study, the researcher used SPSS 20 (a computer program used for the analysis of statistical data) The Independent Samples T- tests was used to get the figures for testing the significance between the groups Basing on the results of the research, the researcher concluded that the attitude scores of the experiment group and the control group was different significantly At the end of the research, it was revealed that the participant who studied English through Project-Based Learning was more fruitful as well as had higher attitude levels towards the lesson than the students who studied with the instructions based on student textbook

The second research about the use of Project-Based Learning in improving the students‟ speaking skill for Grade 4 students‟ class at a primary school in Bandung was conducted by Filippaton, Diamanto and Stavroula Kaldi (2010) The researchers did participatory observation There were eight meetings observed by the researchers Then, the researchers conducted speaking assessment that happened three times to collect the data In this study, the researchers used qualitative analysis to carry out the aims of the study The study was concluded that the students‟ speaking skill covering comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, fluency, and pronunciation was improved after applying PBL Significantly, comprehension and vocabulary were improved most significantly of all the five aspects From the findings based on this study, the researchers recommended that in primary schools Project-Based Learning should be put in practice in teaching speaking

In addition, Nassir (2014) has conducted the research entitled “The Effectiveness of Project-Based Learning Strategy on Ninth Grader‟s Achievement Level and their Attitude towards English in Government School” The researcher would like to investigate whether PBL was effective to the achievement level of Grade 9 students or not The researcher also would like to explore students‟ attitudes toward English after using PBL for teaching and learning The experimental approach was conducted by the researcher using pre-test, post-test and questionnaire The pre-test and post-test‟s mean scores of were different significantly The conclusions of the study were the students in the experimental group made significant progress in speaking evaluation and had positive attitudes towards PBL Finally, the researcher would like to recommend the application of PBL strategy to develop English language

The fourth study was carried out by Poonpon (2014) to investigate English skills enhanced through PBL at Khon Kaen University, Thailand There were forty-seven undergraduate students participating in the study They took an English course on Information Science In this course, those students were required to complete an interdisciplinary-based project in groups The researcher used a semi-structured interview to collect students‟ opinions about the implementation of the project A semi-structured interview was also used to survey whether language skills of undergraduate students were enhanced after doing the project or not After the interview, data were analyzed qualitatively In conclusion, the researcher concluded that to enhance the learners‟ English skills the teacher should put in practice the interdisciplinary-based project in a language classroom.

Studies in Vietnam

In Vietnamese EFL contexts, studies on PBL application, students‟ attitudes towards PBL were conducted at high school and tertiary levels First, an action research was carried out by Pham (2014) at high school named An Lao by using PBL to develop English speaking skills for Grade 10 students The research instruments are pre-test, post-test to compare students‟ speaking results between and within two groups Then, the students were delivered two questionnaires about their attitudes towards PBL Then, the researcher interviewed two teachers and the teacher‟s journals The researcher concluded that the students‟ attitudes towards PBL are positive after experiencing projects completion in their English lessons The researcher suggested that PBL should be applied so that students‟ speaking can be improved in speaking lessons

Second, Duong (2019) conducted a study with the participation of 70 students at Cua Ong high school, Quang Ninh from the two classes 10A1 and 10A2 The study is aimed at discovering the effect of students‟ English-speaking performances through PBL and finding out the reasons why students at Grade 10 in Cua Ong High School are fond of learning speaking English through PBL Tests, questionnaires, observation and interview as data collection are used by the researcher in this study The researcher used

Miles and Huberman‟s view of qualitative data analysis consisting of data reduction, data display, and drawing conclusion to analyze the result of observation and interview in the second phase The findings of study revealed that the effect of PBL toward students‟ speaking ability was significant Moreover, to create the effective procedures for the implementation of PBL, the researcher divided the class into groups, explained the project and performed the project Finally, the researcher revealed that the students showed significantly positive attitude toward the implementation of PBL in speaking class

Third, investigating the attitudes of the learners towards project work for motivating autonomy of learners in English speaking classes at Vien Dong College was conducted by Truong (2017) The researcher chose eighty-one students to conduct the study Class observations, semi-structured interviews, and an open-ended questionnaire were research instruments The conclusion of the research showed that towards project work students‟ attitudes were expressed positively Moreover, students found it possible to improve their learner autonomy

To sum up, EFL students‟ attitudes in these studies were positive after their experience about PBL in studying language.

Research gap

From these studies, students have a positive attitude towards PBL and express their interest when learning speaking with PBL Positive attitudes towards PBL of students are important elements to activate students‟ willingness and attention Students show positive attitudes towards the projects which relate to their real lives, which means they are encouraged to acquire knowledge actively Then, they employ it to deal with the troubles in authentic context more effectively and efficiently However, most of these studies are conducted about applying PBL on science and focused on attitude of students to PBL Moreover, only few studies are conduct about the application PBL in English lessons and the researches seem not to be in favor of high school level especially in Cua Ong and An Lao high schools

In summary, these studies aimed to highlight the influences of PBL on students‟ life skills, academic achievement, learning motivation as well as teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes towards PBL PBL could improve the students‟ speaking skill with the following stimuli: First, PBL can provide optimal environment to practice speaking English Second, through PBL fluency, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary known as the students‟ speaking aspects are improved Moreover, PBL creates learner-centered environment and students have opportunity to improve their language skills Consequently, students interest, motivate, engage and enjoy learning the speaking skill Lastly, PBL gives contextual and meaningful learning for students with authentic activities – tasks Generally, with these benefits, PBL is a learning model that meets factors enhancing students‟ speaking ability such as increase motivation, enrich knowledge of language, gain confidence, create a friendly learning atmosphere

Referring to the previous research above, most of them conducted research on PBL on science and there are only few studies on the application PBL in English lessons especially in Truong Dinh high school, there is a need to conduct more studies on this issue Therefore, the researcher interested in investigating the effect of PBL in order to raise students‟ speaking ability and its effective implementation on the quality of teaching and learning English.

Theoretical framework

This section is a presentation of the summary of the theories involved in this study and the relationship between them Those theories have been presented in the previous subchapter in details These theoretical contents aim to achieve the research goal, which is to investigate the answers of two research questions They are to find out if PBL was effective in improving the speaking skills of high school students and their attitudes toward employing PBL in learning the speaking skill This section aims to help the researcher make sense the basic principles of the theories in this research which have mentioned in the previous discussion

The central goal of learning English is to know, understand, and ultimately apply language knowledge to communicate with others in authentic situations Learners in turn experience six distinctive categories of classroom speaking performance depending on tasks and objectives Thus, Pattison (1992) showed that knowing or leaning a language means being able to speak the language Richards and Renandya (2002) informed that it is especially difficult for foreign language learners to speak a language because to oral communication effectively the learners are required to be able to use the language properly in social interactions In fact, mother tongue is the language used by high school students in daily communication with people around them They only use English in English classes to exchange information with friends and teachers

The teacher needs to discuss the steps of application of PBL in the classroom with the students before implementing PBL for the topics based on syllabus Stoller (1997) recommended that there were 10 steps to implement PBL in a language classroom By following Stoller‟s steps, the students can carry out the project in good procedure, so they will have good end products of the project The students need to follow these steps in doing project process so that they can discover the benefits from every single step This will help them to develop their language knowledge and speaking skill

Rubric is known as a good tool in testing the oral proficiency A rubric is defined as a scoring tool that lists the criteria for a piece of work (Goodrich, 1996) Mertler

(2001) also gave another definition of a rubric He said that rubrics are rating scales that are specifically used with performance assessments They are formally defined as scoring guides, consisting of specific pre-established performance criteria, used in evaluating students‟ work on performance assessments The researcher applies a speaking grading rubric basing on the elements of speaking skill This rubric was built and used by Truong Dinh English Faculty in assessing students‟ speaking skill The rubric has five criteria such as fluency, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and details which are mentioned in 2.1.3 and five grading scales (appendix 1)

To answer the second research question “what are the students‟ attitudes towards the application of PBL in their speaking learning?”, the data will be gathered from the questionnaire The questionnaire will be based on the theories of language learning attitude, speaking, and PBL There are three components of attitudes, namely affective, cognitive, and behavioral factors These three components would be examined in this study to identify whether Grade 10 students had positive change after studying speaking with PBL

This chapter describes the research methodology of the study It covers the discussion of the research design, the research site, the participants, data collection instruments as well as the data collection procedures for the effectiveness of PBL in developing students‟ speaking skill.

Research design

The research was designed with the purposes of examining the effectiveness of implementing PBL on English speaking skill of Grade 10 students of Truong Dinh high school and their viewpoints towards the use of PBL In order to examine the objectives of the study, the researcher has employed a quasi- experimental study using a pretest- posttest control group design Along with that, questionnaires were used to find out the students‟ attitude toward PBL application in speaking class Quantitative method was chosen to use as a dominant approach to investigate the result from the tests to response the first research question This method is also used to collect and analyze the information of questionnaires to answer the second question

According to Gay and Airasian (2000), this kind of research design is seen as powerful in investigating the impact and the effectiveness of the treatment The two involved groups were assigned After dividing class into groups according to the total students group assignment, pre-test was carried out for both of the groups, each group received a type of treatment, then both groups did post-test The measurements were collected and the results were compare between and within the two groups

The figure below presents a diagram of how this design was applied in the current study

Figure 3.1 The current study’s design

The treatment was offered in eight weeks with forty-five-minute speaking lesson per week in the period of three months during the second semester of academic year 2020-2021.

Research site

The research was conducted at TD high school There are 92 teachers and 1,748 students teaching and studying at Truong Dinh high school, which is considered as one of the second ancient and big high schools in Tien Giang province.

Participants

The study was designed utilizing quasi-experimental method, part To collect quantitative data, the convenience sampling method was used, which means that the participants are collected from the target population because of their availability, geographical proximity or easy accessibility In the school year of 2020-2021, the researcher was assigned to teach three classes (Class 10 1 , 10 7 and 10 10 ) in which Class

10 1 consists of excellent students with high scores in the school's Grade 10 entrance exam At the end of the first semester, results of the two classes, Class 10 7 and Class 10 10 , were nearly the same In other words, students of the Class 10 7 and Class 10 10 might have the similar levels of speaking competence before the treatment with the low level of speaking ability (60.7 % and 61.1 % below average) These figures were analyzed from the results of the speaking test of two these classes in the first semester Therefore, the researcher chose two classes 10 7 and 10 10 as the participants in the research

The sample consisted of 79 Grade 10 students from two classes (Class 10 7 and Class 10 10 ) who were invited to voluntarily participate in the study All participants had been learning English as a school subject for at least five years The researcher chose Class 10 7 as the experimental group (EG) and applied PBL with Class 10 7 while the control group (CG) Class 10 10 followed the conventional techniques of teaching English in speaking class Pre-test and post-test were handed out to both groups, but the treatment (learning speaking through PBL) was provided only to experimental group During the learning procedure, students in the experimental group made the projects, namely Video making and Wall poster while the control group learned speaking with three steps Pre, While and Post under the instruction from the textbook and the teacher For example, students took part in some followed-up activities such as presenting in front of the class or write a paragraph to express their opinions about the topics they have just learned

In terms of background, all participants come from villages in Go Cong town, Tien Giang province Despite the fact that approximately half of the participants took the extra English class offered by English teachers at the school, the participants did not have the opportunity to enroll in any other extra English classes As a result of this, Grade 10 participants might possess the homogeneous level of English Together with the researcher, an English teacher of the faculty was invited to participate in scoring tests with the intention of confirming the objectiveness of the measurement.

Research instruments

Speaking tests

VSTEP (Vietnamese Standardized Test of English Proficiency) is a proficiency test in line with the Six-level framework for foreign language proficiency in Vietnam issued by the MOET dated March 3, 2015 According to Vietnam‟s National Foreign Language 2020 Project, grade 10 students are supposed to achieve level A2, so a pre-test and a post-test were conducted in the form of Vstep speaking test to evaluate the students‟ speaking skill The content of the speaking test was taken from the English text book for Grade 10, which was designed with a view to developing students‟ communicative skills at basic level: reading, speaking, listening and writing The objective of speaking test is to examine sub-skills of speaking including interacting, discussing and presenting a topic There are three parts in the test Part one is social interaction in which the students answer three to six questions on two topics in the text book that they have already studied Part two is a solution situation In this part, the students are provided a situation with three suggested solutions The students need to give their own opinions of the best solution among three options Part three is topic development In this part, the students give a talk about a topic with suggested ideas or their own ideas There are some follow-up questions when they finish their talk

On Monday, 11 th January, 2021, the experimental group did the pre-test while the control group did the pre-test on Tuesday, 12 th January, 2021 The pre-test which was a test for speaking skill was done in the form of oral in two meetings with one meeting consisted of 45 minutes After that, after the implementation of PBL, the post-test was delivered The experimental group did the post-test on Monday, 29 th March, 2021, and for the control group was on Tuesday, 30 th March, 2021 An analytic rubric with five criteria of speaking performance (fluency, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and details) are used by the researcher to process both pre-test and post-test‟s speaking scores (Appendix

1) This rubric was built by Truong Dinh English Faculty based on the elements of speaking skill, the students‟ background and teaching and learning condition of the school All the English teachers at Truong Dinh high school use this rubric for scoring speaking tests In order for the grading of the tests to be objective, the researcher invited another teacher in the English faculty to score the tests independently The researcher and this teacher teaching Grade 10 used the rubric to score the students‟ speaking performance in pre-test and post-test Finally, two teachers discussed the results of pre- test and post-test‟s final scores The researcher used Independent Samples T-Test and Paired Samples T-Test to analyze the data Then, the researcher compared the results of students‟ speaking between and within the two groups before the implementation of PBL and after the implementation of PBL.

Questionnaires

The second stage was to gather data about students‟ attitude toward using PBL in speaking lesson by using questionnaire Questionnaire is considered as a research instrument consists of a large variety of questions serving for the gathering information from respondents According to Meadows (2003), a well-designed questionnaire can simplify the tasks of the delivering, responding, and data processing but producing reliable data Because of this reason, in this study, the researcher used a-set of questionnaires (Appendix 2) to investigate students‟ attitudes towards the application of PBL in their learning speaking

The questionnaire contents were designed by the researcher in this study related to students‟ attitudes towards learning speaking after the application of PBL The contents of the questionnaire were based on the three components and types of attitude They are affective, cognitive, and behavioral factors Although the three components of attitudes have different features, they have correlation, which is the cognitive component affects the affective component, and the two components further affect the behavioral component When the three components of attitudes join together, they will construct an overall attitude about an object They can influence students‟ success or failure in their learning process These three components were examined in this study to identify whether Grade 10 students had positive change after studying speaking with PBL

Specifically, the questionnaire was delivered to the experimental group after they studied speaking through PBL The questionnaire consisted of 15 items designed relating to the three components of attitudes mentioned above Seven questions (From question A1 to question A7) aimed at reflecting students‟ cognitive attitudes toward PBL The next four questions (From question B1 to questions B4) explored students‟ effective attitudes toward PBL The final four questions (From question C1 to question C4) explored students‟ behavioral attitudes towards learning speaking through PBL from then on at high schools Students were expected to show their feeling via the five linked scales from strongly disagree to strongly agree The researcher made the questionnaire based on related concept covering speaking skill (fluency, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and details) and language learning attitudes (cognitive, affective and behavioral)

The researcher used Likert Scale to examine the result of questionnaire Singh

(2006) stated that a Likert scale was composed of a series of four or more items that represent similar questions combined into a single composite score/variable Likert scale data can be analyzed as interval data, i.e the mean is the best measure of central tendency The items were given to a group of subjects for responding to each one in terms of their agreement or disagreement In the questionnaire, the students gave their perceptions towards the statements; they showed their agreement or disagreement In order to conveniently collect the average value for each of the items in the questionnaire, each of the five choices was designated a value, namely, strongly disagree = 1, disagree 2, uncertain = 3, agree = 4, and strongly agree = 5 Descriptive data derived from pre- tests, post-test and questionnaire data were analyzed, using frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation

Mackey and Gass (2005) suggested that questionnaires should be administered in the learners‟ native language whenever possible As a result, a version of Vietnamese questionnaire (Appendix 3) was translated by the researcher and checked by other teachers of English faculty to ensure to convey what needed to be measured exactly as well as to make sure students‟ understanding and clarity in their responses and avoid misunderstandings.

Pilot study, validity and reliability

A pilot study is carried out to “trial survey instruments and procedures” (Nunan,

1992, p.142) In a pilot study, a researcher evaluates and improves an instrument by having a small group of participants complete the instrument and receiving feedback from them (Creswell, 2012) According to Anderson and Arsenault (1998), “pilot testing will identify ambiguities in the instructions; it will help clarify the wording of questions, and it may alert you to omissions or unanticipated answers in multiple choice or ranking questions” (p.190)

In the present study, the researcher piloted the questionnaires in two pilot studies as suggested by Dornyei (2003) and Griffee (2012) The first pilot study aimed at offering an insight into the instrument with detailed feedback from a small group of individuals “who are reasonably articulate and willing to help, and who are in circumstances similar to those the target respondents will be in” (Griffee, 2012, p.142) After the researcher had modified the instruments based on the information obtained from the first pilot study, the second pilot study was conducted in a group of 10 Grade 10 students replicating the same procedure intended for the main study The second pilot study helped to see whether the participants could complete the instruments without questions and how long it took them to do it Also, data derived from the second pilot study helped the researcher estimate the reliability and validity of the instruments to make necessary adjustments before employing them in the primary study

The first pilot study was carried out on January 1 st , 2021 with a group of two Grade 10 students The researcher delivered the questionnaires to this group of students and went through every item in the two questionnaires The pilot group read and explained how they understood each item and how they would respond to it while the researcher observed their reactions, took notes, cleared up their queries and revised the item if needed After receiving feedback from the pilot group, the researcher modified the questionnaires and prepared for the second pilot study

The second pilot study was conducted with a group of 10 Grade 10 students which was equal to 10 to 20% of the sample size of the main study as suggested by Baker

(1994) and Dornyei (2003) The second pilot study was carried out with the same group of students at two different times The researcher decided to separate the two administrations by an interval of four weeks which was far enough for the participants to forget their exact answers in the first administration and close enough for them not to change their viewpoints substantially The first administration of the second pilot study was on January 30 th , 2021 At first the researcher stated the purpose of the study, instructed the pilot group how to complete the questionnaires and asked them to feel free to raise questions during questionnaire completion The researcher distributed the questionnaires to each participant in a specific order and asked for the exact seating plan from the head teacher to make sure the participant received the questionnaire with the same identification number in the second administration The second administration of the second pilot study was on April 29 th , 2021 with the same group of students

After conducting the two pilot studies, the researcher looked back at the whole process and had some evaluations The duration of questionnaire completion was 15 minutes, which was acceptable Also, when asked about the spacing, layout, wording and length of the questionnaires, most of the pilot group stated that they were appropriate For the content of the questionnaires, most of the participants agreed that the items were clear and easy to understand However, there were some suggestions for modification concerning the wording and order of items in session 2 of the questionnaire After discussing with the pilot group and reappraising, the researcher decided to adjust this session as suggested The Cronbach‟s alpha value and the correlation coefficients computed from the data obtained in the two pilot studies confirmed the reliability of the two instruments

To establish the validity of the two questionnaires, the researcher used face validity and construct validity strategies Face validity shows “the extent to which an instrument appears to measure the concepts which it purports to measure” (Anderson & Arsenault, 1998, p 261) or “the degree to which a survey instrument looks valid to untrained people” (Brown, 2001, p.176) To assess the face validity of the questionnaire, the researcher conducted the pilot studies in which the students looked at the items, experienced the process of questionnaire completion and gave feedback The feedback showed that all the students agreed that the questionnaire looked valid to them, which meant the questionnaire had face validity Construct validity is “whether or not the measurement, as worded, properly reflects the underlying construct of interest” (Lavrakas, 2008, p 657) To ensure the construct validity of the questionnaires, the researcher thoroughly defined the constructs under investigation based on a review of existing literature In addition, the Vietnamese version of the questionnaire was reviewed and revised with guidance from the supervisor and feedback from experts (one MA and two MA candidates in TESOL); it was also piloted in two pilot studies with modifications to make sure the participants clearly understood all the items in the questionnaire and provided valid responses The coefficient alpha () of the piloted questionnaire was 78 The index stated that the questionnaire became an officially reliable instrument in the current study.

Experiment procedures

This study was conducted in the second term of the school year 2020-2021 The researcher selected 79 students from two Grade 10 classes who do not major in English to participate in this study Firstly, the researcher had a meeting with both classes to present the purpose, the procedure method to conduct the research At this meeting, the researcher announced which class was selected as the experiment group and which was selected as the control group Next, the researcher gave two groups a speaking test to analyze and compare the speaking results of both groups before applying the treatment Then both groups had eight weeks to learn speaking skills based on the curriculum chosen by the school The control group learned speaking skills through three steps Pre, While and Post whereas the experimental group learned speaking skills through PBL After that, both groups participated in a speaking test so that the researcher had data to assess how the students were progressing in both groups in speaking skills and also an insight of the effectiveness of PBL for improving students' speaking skills Finally, the experimental group was surveyed through a questionnaire about their attitudes after experiencing the PBL approach in speaking lessons The researcher collected the questionnaires from students and conduct data processing

Students in the control group learned speaking with instructions from the tasks in the English 10 text book through three steps: pre-speaking, while-speaking and post- speaking In the pre-speaking step, the researcher had some activities such as guessing game, skim game, filling a gap in a sentence or answering comprehension questions or group/pair discussion about the topic, brainstorming …, related to the topics the students would expose Then the researcher introduced the students with new vocabularies and useful language occurring in the speaking lessons before starting the speaking lesson In the while-speaking step, students were expected to work in pairs or groups and did the tasks following to practice speaking And finally in the post-speaking, students took part in some activities following such as presenting in front of the class or write a paragraph to express their opinions about the topics they have just learned

The experimental group learned speaking with project work (video making and wall poster) PBL was implemented in four units with four themes in speaking lesson The researcher applied PBL in teaching speaking skills for the Grade 10 students at Truong Dinh high school The researcher asked students in experimental group to carry out two projects according to the following steps In Step 1, the researcher explained about the characteristics of PBL and the mode was used in the classroom After that, teacher divided class into small groups (41 students/ 8 groups/ 5 students) The researcher provided topics based on the themes in book English 10 (The Story Of My Village, Undersea World, Conservation, National Parks, Music, Film And Cinema, The World Cup, Cities, Historical Places).The researcher had students choose two themes that they were interested to conducts projects Every member in the group had to discuss and agree on the theme of their project They chose two topics Conservation and Historical Places to do the project The purpose of this activity was to activate the students‟ need to know content by launching a unit in a way that engaged interest and initiates questioning When having a chance to discover real situation related to the content of the lesson, the students become more motivated and active to learn relevant materials through carrying out a project Moreover, the researcher negotiated the criteria to assess students on their final presentation and project outcome based on the agreed grading practices

Step 2 and 3 gave students the opportunities to decide their final outcome based on their preferences and their strength In this stage, teacher explained the features of each project before let the students decide the format of their final outcome This would motivate them to devote their energy on their favorite project Afterward, all groups need to negotiate their project structures Students had to submit to the researcher their final ideas about the structures and got the feedback on their choice

In Step 4, after agreeing on the format and structure of their project, teacher had to explain for students the language demanded in their projects and introduces sources to help them have a consultation and investigation to support their projects

In Step 5, all groups had a clear idea of what they have to do for their projects At this time, every group member should be assigned on different role which suit their strength and preferences to begin their role Each group appointed the group leader so that the researcher could contact to know and assist the group if necessary The group leaders assigned the task for each member depending on each member‟s ability Group‟s members discussed and decided on how to design, create and present their products effectively Usually at this stage, students start searching and gathering information and write down their own notes In step 6, they would use the information and edit for the language demanded

In Step 7, students had information and language demanded in step 6 to continue to compile and analyze information They had to edit and remain necessary and important information for their projects language demand at stage 8 Otherwise, group members needed to gather all parts of their project and arrange them into appropriate order as they discussed previously The students searched for sources such as websites, newspapers and their real lives to get materials to carry out the project And then, they compiled information, chose the pictures and the information to display on the poster The researcher checked students‟ progress of working on the project and give feedback on the regular basis by dividing the project into smaller phases, asking students to report about their progress one or two times during the project and giving timely oral or written feedback The students updated the product based on what the researcher‟s scaffolding during the stage of doing the project

In Step 9, all groups have to submit their projects to the teacher and present their final products to other groups Teacher and other students have to observe and give presenting group feedback on their performances Then every group has to discuss and edit their projects under teacher‟s instruction The students presented the project in front of the class Each group showcased their final product to the whole class and made a presentation about the content of the poster, the project‟s core value of the project They were assessed based on the criteria such as structuring a presentation, designing PowerPoint slides, projecting their voices and handling questions

Finally, in step 10, the researcher would evaluate the students‟ performances and announce the results The researcher had students reflect on their process of working on the project and draw useful lessons The researcher assessed students‟ poster basing on the criteria discussed before The researcher used her assessment, combining with students‟ self -assessment and peer assessment to evaluate students‟ work, gave them comment as well as compliment

The students carried out two production projects, namely Video making and Wall Poster In video making project, students were required to create a video of English speaking using topics related to the themes in course book In wall magazine, students were required to design a wall magazine to present the topics related to themes in course book that their groups are interested in After finishing both of the projects, students had to present their products orally in front of their classmates and teacher to get feedback and evaluation

The following table showed the procedures of this experimental research, from conducting pre-test to conducting the questionnaire

Students‟ discussion to agree on the theme for the project

Teacher‟s explanation about the speaking tasks from the students‟ module

Students‟ discussion to determine the final outcome

Learning speaking through tasks in the text book

Students‟ discussion to structure the project

Learning speaking through tasks in the text book

Students‟ discussion to prepare for the materials

Learning speaking through tasks in the text book

Learning speaking through tasks in the text book

7 Monday, 8 th Students‟ discussion Tuesday, 9 th Learning speaking

March, 2021 to compile and analyze the information

March, 2021 through tasks in the text book

Students‟ discussion to complete the project

Learning speaking through tasks in the text book

Presenting and evaluating the project

Learning speaking through tasks in the text book

Delivering the questionnaires to the participants

Table 3.1: The experiment time plan

The projects were carried out from week four to week seven Each group carried out their project with four stages of PBL (speculation, designing the project activities, conducting the projects activities, and evaluation) In week eight and nine, all groups presented their projects in about 5 to 7 minutes for one group and 5 minutes were spent on asking and answering questions and making comments When a group presented, other students listened, observed, and took notes Finally, the researcher and students gave constructive feedback on the presentation so that students could improve their speaking skill.

Data analysis methodology

In this research, the data were analyzed quantitatively Quantitative data were collected from the questionnaire with closed questions for the second research question and from students‟ speaking scores of tests to answer the first questions The researcher used mean to compare the speaking scores T-test was relied to examine whether the difference between the scores between the EG and CG, and among groups, were statistically significant to find the answer for the first question

According to Bluman (2007: 484) T-test is used to test the difference of means of the two groups in pre and post-tests For analysis, data collected from tests in both conditions and the questionnaires were submitted to the SPSS version 20 In order to answer the research questions, four analytical tests were run First, the Descriptive Statistic Tests were computed to determine the minimum, the maximum, the means and the standard deviation of scores of the questionnaires as well as the speaking tests Then, the Independent Samples T-tests were used to explore the mean differences between the two conditions Third, the Pair-sample T tests were calculated to contrast mean scores within the control group and the experimental group

CHAPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

This study aims at finding out the impacts of PBL on students‟ speaking skill and their attitudes towards learning speaking in general as well as their attitudes towards the use of PBL after the trial time To approach the answers to these objectives, in Chapter 3, the researcher presented the methodology utilized to collect and analyze data In Chapter

4, the information about the data gathered, analyzed and discussed, including the students‟ results in speaking tests and the questionnaire conveying their attitudes were presented in turn.

Data analysis methodology

Percentage and mean were used for the descriptive statistics analysis in this study for both tests and questionnaires Firstly, for the analysis of the first research question, tests were relied to find out the variance in speaking skill performance of students before and after the intervention The researcher also employed Pair-sample T tests with α 0.05 to explore the significant differences in the mean score of tests in each group, and then Independent Samples T-tests with α = 0.05 was applied to compare the differences in the mean score of tests between the groups during the treatment Specifically, the comparison between the Pre-test and the Post-test‟s results within CG and EG group was presented first, then the comparison of the Post-test results between CG and EG

Meanwhile, in other to find out the answers for the second study questions about students‟ attitudes towards the learning speaking through PBL, questionnaires were collected and analyzed to see if PBL enhanced students‟ awareness and their emotion as well as the level of their desire in learning speaking lessons through PBL in the future To do the analysis, the researcher classified the means of their perception reflection into four levels of agreement: Mean (M) < 2.5 as “disagree”, M ≥ 2.5- < 3.0 as “agree to some extent”, M ≥ 3.0- < 4.0 as “agree”, and M ≥ 4.0- 5.0 as “strongly agree”.

Test analysis and discussion

Students‟ speaking results between two groups

4.2.1.1 Statistics about students’ speaking results between the two groups

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation

Table 4.1 Descriptive Pre-test (Control group)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation EG_pre-test 41 2.00 7.50 4.4366 1.19849

Table 4.2 Descriptive Pre-test (Experimental group)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation

Table 4.3 Descriptive Post-test (Control group) Descriptive Statistics

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation EG_post-test 41 3.50 9.00 5.8561 1.25480

Table 4.4 Descriptive Post-test (Experimental group)

The Descriptive Statistics Test was run on to investigate the minimum, the maximum, the means and the standard deviation of scores of the vocabulary pre-test and post-test The descriptive data visualize differences between the two groups both before and after the instructional treatment It is clearly seen from the table that before the experiment the mean scores of both control and experimental groups were relatively equal (4.45; 4.43 respectively) After the experiment, both groups had an increase in mean scores to 5.09; 5.85 respectively

4.2.1.2 Comparison of CG and EG Pre-test results

Here in the Table 4.5 below was the comparison of speaking scores between the

CG and EG before they started their experiment

Independent Samples T-Test pre-test (between CG & EG)

Levene's Test for Equality of Variances

T-test for Equality of Means

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper

Table 4.5 Comparison of Pre-test between CG and EG

In order to see whether the two groups performed statistically differently on the speaking pre-test, the raw scores gained from the administration of the speaking pre-test were subjected to the Independent Samples T-Test at 05 significance level The mean difference (MD = 019) in learners‟ speaking pre-test score between the two groups of students was very small, indicating that the initial level of students‟ speaking competence between the control group (M =4.45, SD =1.0) and the experimental one (M =4.44, SD

=1.2) was very similar These results indicated that both groups did not differ significantly (t = 074, df =77, p = 94) in their speaking competence Therefore, the control group was evidently parallel to experimental groups, and two groups were distributed homogeneously at the beginning of the experiment

4.2.1.3 Comparison of CG and EG Post-test results

Independent Samples T-Test post-test (between CG & EG)

Levene's Test for Equality of Variances

T-test for Equality of Means

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper

Table 4.6 Comparison of Post-test between CG and EG

Another Independent Samples T-test was run in order to make a comparison about the performance of the two groups on the speaking post-test The results revealed that the mean difference (MD = -.76) in students‟ speaking post-test scores between the two groups was significantly different (t = -3.0, df =77, p = 00) The experiment group (M

=5.85, SD =1.0) outperformed the control condition (M =5.09, SD =1.2) on the speaking post-test Given the above comparisons it is a reasonable assumption that the students who were taught speaking through PBL achieved much more than students who received speaking teaching techniques through three steps such as pre-speaking, while-speaking and post-speaking.

Students‟ speaking results within two groups

After the eight weeks of the experiment, students from EG and CG were asked to take their speaking test The results from Post-test (details in Appendix 6, 7) helped the researcher to measure the extent of students‟ speaking development within group as well as the differences between the results of CG and EG after application of PBL The scores of the test from the two groups regarded as the result of Post-test were arranged into four groups; from eight to ten (8-10) were considered as good; from six to seven point five (6- 7.5) as fair; from five to five point seventy-five (5-5.75) as average and below average with scores under five (