The effects of smartphones on students’ speaking performances a case study of senior english majored students at nguyen tat thanh university

STARS’ NGUYEN TAT THANH FINAL REPORT THE EFFECTS OF SMARTPHONES ON STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCES: A CASE STUDY OF SENIOR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT NGUYEN TAT THANH UNIVERSIT

STARS’

NGUYEN TAT THANH

FINAL REPORT

THE EFFECTS OF SMARTPHONES ON STUDENTS’ SPEAKING

PERFORMANCES: A CASE STUDY OF SENIOR ENGLISH MAJORED

STUDENTS AT NGUYEN TAT THANH UNIVERSITY Lecturer: Nguyễn Kim Phương

Group 1 Students’ name: Y Ai

Mai Thi Thuy Hang Trương Thị Kiều Diễm Trần Thị Mỹ Hằng

Nguyễn Anh Thư Nguyễn Thúy Nga

A dissertation submitted to the Nguyen Tat Thanh University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Bachelor of English Studies FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES NGUYEN TAT THANH UNIVERSITY

October 04", 2020

Word count: 7,029

TITLE

THE EFFECTS OF SMARTPHONES ON STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCES:

A CASE STUDY OF SENIOR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT

NGUYEN TAT THANH UNIVERSITY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Firstly, we would like to extend our best wishes to all lecturers of Nguyen Tat Thanh University for their dedication to education, especially our instructor Ms Phuong She dedicatedly guided and gave us some helpful information when we started writing research articles for graduation subjects The helpful lessons we learned from university’s lecturers have given us many good things in our life, as well as foundation knowledge for us to successfully complete the research period For nearly four years of university, we have refined our experience from the valuable lessons from teachers, especially our future We were worried about our knowledge not being able to work effectively, but thanks to the helpful instructions from our lecturer, we completed the research paper successfully Although we encountered some difficulties in doing the project during the project, in the end we did it well Finally, we would like to thank all of our parents and friends for always supporting and helping us They are always the solid rear that gives us overcome difficulties and challenges in education and life

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, speaking English is one of the significant skills in life, it helps people increase the ability to communicate effectively, to support different people from different

countries to understand, get on well with each other, and work together in a multi-cultural

working place Nevertheless, the fluency of English speaking among college students is also a worrying issue Therefore, this study was conducted relying on students’ speaking levels within smartphones; thereby find out students’ attitudes, the impacts of smartphones, and possible replacement of smartphones on teacher roles in speaking classrooms The research uses quantitative methods The tool used to collect the data was the questionnaire The questionnaire was sent to final year students, who are belonging to the faculty of foreign languages at Nguyen Tat Thanh The surveys are conducted to gather specific data based on the research purpose and objectives The key finding showed that students have positive attitudes when using smartphones

in learning to speak, the benefits that smartphones bringing to students were undeniable, and the role of teachers was still considered as irreplaceable in speaking classrooms By revealing the common matters in the questionnaire that students may deal with, researchers honestly hope students can overcome the obstacles during their learning process of speaking English Besides, students are able to change or choose appropriate methods of not only speaking but also three remaining skills through smartphone learning Thus, researchers also hope that foreign language students will utilize the full use of smartphone features in improving their English speaking skills

Keywords: effects, smartphones, student’s speaking performance, senior student

Table 4.1 Student’s attitudes when using smartphones in learning speaking

Table 4.2 Smartphones assist students in speaking performance

Table 4.3 The abilities of smartphones in replacing teachers’ role

5 Piloting the study 15

1 Research Question 1: What are the student’s attitudes when using smartphones in learning speaking? 18

2 Research Question 2: How do smartphones help students in their speaking performances? 21

3 Research Question 3: Can smartphones replace the role of teachers in speaking classroom? 24

This chapter shows the background and context of the study, the rationale of the study as well as the organization of the whole paper The research questions are mainly specified and detailed in this part to direct the whole research

1 Context:

Until now, although there are many changes in the educational technology revolution, the traditional classroom is still a tangible value that cannot be changed Instead, multifunctional electronic devices are leaded into universities like a supporting friend such as laptops, iPods, projectors, etc Clearly, the integration of technology devices in teaching process is essential and

an invention cannot fail to mention is smartphone — a smart electronic device which helps students improve their learning results

Nowadays, English has become a common language of communication for many

countries around the world (Smith, 2005; Crystal, 2004) Hence, most universities are extremely

concemed about how students can use their English effectively, especially in English speaking skills because speaking is one of the most primary and difficult skills in learning English What

is more, each individual will have their own ways of approaching languages to communicate effectively (Ur, 1996) Besides, students almost get troubles due to their lack of abilities in using the right words to express what they want to say

These days, most students use smartphones for their studies at university Smartphones are electronic devices which are very useful in accessing the Internet without space and time limitation (Melhuish & Falloon, 2010) Moreover, using smartphones is too already familiar to

students as well as teachers, so with the mobility, availability, and flexibility of smartphones,

students can only learn at any time without the need of computer access but also can find any academic materials with Internet connection on their devices In other words, the combination of

applications in smartphones will promote the process of practicing students' speaking performance In addition, some English pronunciation practice applications or online speaking classes on phones can improve learners’ speaking skills by recording their voice then compare with the original document to indicate the points that users need more practice

The benefits that smartphones bring have been shown by previous studies giving smartphones have some constructive impacts on students’ real learning ability It could be mentioned that smartphone’s probability when being recognized in creating the benefits,

conveniences, user-friendliness, authentic language context, and so on Besides, the salient

features of smartphones which make them useful for language learning, it brings interests among the learners and transforms the learning process as it helps learners to raise their self-esteem and self-confidence (Ahmed El Hariry, 2015) Additionally, it helps learners to inspire learning interests, foster learner autonomy and realize personalized learning (Zhang, 2016) Thanks to these smartphone applications and features, smartphone as a friend who is always ready to assist students to practice and improve their English speaking skills Therefore, smartphone usage has been claimed to have a contribution to the learning approach and attracting students during class

time

2 Rationale:

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of smartphones on students’ speaking performances Thereby, it supports lecturers to create effective learning activities in their speaking class This study also tries to find out the student’s attitudes as learning speaking via smartphones and their feedback in the class time Most students utilize smartphones for many reasons such as entertainment, working, and educational purposes Thus, this study aims to observe previous relevant materials about the use of smartphones and smartphones’ effectiveness

in college students' community Furthermore, the conclusion of this research can be a helpful paper for further relating studies

3 Research questions:

To specify the aims of the study, the research questions are as follows:

1 What are the student’s attitudes when using smartphones in learning speaking?

2 How do smartphones help students in their speaking performances?

3 Can smartphones replace the role of teachers in speaking classrooms?

4, Significance of the study:

The results of this study will provide a comprehensive understanding about the effects of smartphone on speaking activities of students major in English at Nguyen Thanh University Theoretically, this study is expected to contribute as a relevant source for further and more extensive research in this area This study is going to find out the student’s attitude when they use smartphone as a learning tool to enhance their speaking skill A survey will be carried out to discover which applications or online channels that senior student English majored usually choose to boost their speaking during utilizing smartphone The study also explores the common issue whether students have used their smartphone in an effective way or they could be distracted

by this device In fact, the findings of this study are expected to be helpful for lecturers to identify the appropriate strategies so as to apply for their students in learning speaking process or students self-studying Moreover, readers who are interested in this specific area may have additional reading material for analysis to compare or enrich their insight

5 Scope of the study:

The research focuses on discovering the effects of smartphones on student’s academic performance, specifically fourth-year students in the faculty of foreign language at Nguyen Tat Thanh University The objective of this research will not cover other issues that are not considered as effects of smartphones on student’s speaking performance Basing on the survey

results, lecturers should consider how to guide their students using smartphones in an efficient way to achieve the best results in learning speaking Hence, the research is going to carry out by using questionnaire which is sent to students as a survey and reference

6 Structure of the research:

This research project consists of five chapters, including Introduction, Literature Review,

Methodology, Findings and Discussion, and Conclusion

Chapter one — Introduction presents information about the context, rationale, research

questions, significance of the study, scope of the study and structures of the study

Chapter two — Literature Review shows the background of the studies with the definition

of key concepts and the review of previous studies relating to the three research questions Chapter three — Methodology describes the details on the setting of the study, samples and sampling methods, justification of methodology, data collection and data analysis, piloting the study and ethical issues

Chapter four — Findings and Discussion shows the result of collected data with analysis

and discussions

Chapter five — Conclusion summaries the whole study, significant findings, proposes recommendation, states out the limitation and suggestion for further studies

CHAPTER IT: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter describes the main concepts along with theories of previous researchers about the role as well as the effectiveness of smartphone use in the educational environment In addition, this paper focuses on students' attitudes in using smartphones and how it affects the role

of teachers in teaching Therefore, this purpose is to find the similarities and the gaps when comparing the results of this study with previous studies; these are reasons motivating this paper

to be carried out

It will provide the following details: an overview of speaking, the role of speaking in academics, methods in learning speaking through smartphones, and a conclusion of the effects of smartphones on student's speaking performances

Smartphone is a new kind of technology device, invented and “permanently connected to

respond to the tastes of consumers, the speed of the spread and development of smartphone's features have been incessantly innovative and creative (Banks & Burge, 2004) Therefore, many phone manufacturers have launched super thin, super light smartphones and have many useful applications such as Apple, Samsung, and Nokia Besides listening and calling functions, it can

help users send emails, search for learning materials on the Internet, study online, watch videos,

and so on In particular, some applications installed on smartphones help a lot of students in learning speaking, in particular learning English speaking skills through pictures, sounds, data, video clips and so on ( Sevari, 2012)

1.2 Speaking performance:

Speaking is a process of producing information which is conveyed from speaker to listener (Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997); that is, speaking skills are very important to

enhance effective communication Likewise, speaking performance is the process of creating oral communication fluently and accurately (McNamara, 1996)

There are some previous researches conducted to get some in-depth information about student’s speaking performance According to Akdil S6nmez and Akpinar (2017), performance

is the achievement of each individual measured by a certain standard In other words, student's speaking performance is the student’s ability to speak English based on accuracy, speed, skill and real scores in educational environment (Ismail, Mahmood & Abdelmaboud, 2018) According to Aissa and Katagiri (2019), the cause of student’s speaking skills with low scores is due to lack of interaction and practice

Moreover, the varied foundations in social, cultural and financial aspect of individual

students come accompanied with a variety of students’ motivation, personalities and abilities, led

to the fact that they may not achieve at the same level in their academic journeys (Fraser & Killen, 2005, as cited in Sikhwari et al., 2019) Therefore, it is vital that educator should examine

the factors which have effect on their students’ achievement

Speaking is a common and essential skill that humans always use to communicate daily, wherever they come from (Bygate, 2006) The flexibility in using language and attitude while speaking is a key to continuing a conversation ( Firmansyah & Valatansa, 2019) Along with the growth of the digital age, smartphone applications have been supporting the transmission of information in any language and anywhere

Speaking gets an important role in human life (Ehsan, 2019) In general, speaking is the best way to communicate effectively, it not only takes place whenever but also has become popular in the present time Sharing agreement on this point, pervious researches claimed that speaking offers to the resilience of the human spirit For example, the mission of speaking can

be found in daily conversations from the interview look for jobs, debating to the audiences with politician’s speeches to making friends, and so on (Boonkit, 2010)

There are many different definitions of speaking According to Tarigan (2008), speaking

is the ability that a person uses their tongue to create sounds or words to convey thoughts and opinions In the dictionary, speaking is simply explained as the act or skill of delivering a speech

at a public event (dictionary.cambridge.org, n.d.) Besides, speaking is a complex process, is a difficult skill to learn, but it is also the most important skill to interact with others (Ad, 2008) On the other hand, speaking skills permit all people to share and interact with all people around the world (Marriam et al., 2011) Moreover, the phonetic symbol system used in speaking was chiefly inspired by the symbols of the International Phonetic Association (IPA) to be standardized and apply in international communication

Therefore, speaking is one of the most difficult in learning the four skills (including reading, writing, and listening); it requires the speaker's voice to develop a communication bridge between the speaker and the listener (Quinn, 2014) What is more, when sharing or discussing something, it asks all participants in their conversation must utilize several forms of communication to get the target In particular, speaking is one of four skills that creates the highest interaction between people in society

In short, speaking is a very important and essential skill to enhance effective communication Moreover, it is how people observe something in society through the interaction between people Speaking differently, it helps humans to share, to express their emotions, and give their own opinions and ideas on that matter with others, especially when everyone has good speaking skills they will feel more confident in communication (Hastari, & Hartono et al, 2019) Last but not least, speaking not only helps people maintain good relationships in the community but also builds a positive, active, and friendly living environment (Thi, 2015)

3 The role of speaking:

In the learning four English skills, Gerald Gillis (2013) claimed that the ability to speak fluently brings many benefits for communicators in their life He pointed out that fluency in speaking skills will “hold gain the attention of listeners” and “forming a message” that is understood and able to convey the contents clearly In fact, some people are not used to speaking

in public so they cannot express their thoughts in words, especially English language In addition, speaking English language in a skillful way is the key for students to get a good job from recruiters (Pandey, M., & Pandey, P 2014) Therefore, developing and improving English skills, especially speaking skills play an important role to succeed in future career

Varasarin (2007) had conducted surveys in leaming speaking skills based on

“Pronunciation training and Language Learning Strategies” courses at universities in Thailand The results of his study showed that it helped students can be more confident in communication and enhance their speaking skills In consequence, the role of speaking skills is very important in educational environment; students not only have the opportunity to communicate but also can make friends, improve knowledge, confidence and get a great job

Furthermore, practicing speaking regularly with partners will help students get used to reflex, interact, use the right words, and enhance “students' motivation” in learning the language (Raba, 2017) What is more, having good speaking skills not only helps students communicate easily but also helps them to be able to adapt quickly to any communication environment All of this will open the door for students to learn and gain more experience to prepare for their following future who are confident enough with their speaking ability

Machmud and Abdulah (2018) had shown that using smartphone features, especially audio and video recorders, during the teaching and learning process provides the opportunity for

smartphone apps, students are able to enhance their speaking skills day by day

Pangestika (2017) had reported that in university life, public speaking is essential, so students need to improve their speaking skills more Therefore, smartphone apps such as Dictionary online, Elsa Speak app, Cake app, etc are very useful in this case For example, one

of the common dictionaries used by almost students and lectures is the “Oxford Dictionary” (Liu

& Chu, 2010) because of with high accuracy of pronunciation and transliteration

The positive outcomes bringing to students of smartphone apps can not help recognizing

It was proved throughout the students’ speaking achievement A survey by Aamri and Suleiman (2011) indicated that when being asked about their attitudes on smartphones in speaking classrooms, more than three-quarters of the responses agreed smartphones motivated their learning performances in general, a half of that agreed smartphones enables them to have better preparation of their studies

A study about using smartphones in learning English speaking by Gromik (2015) shown that the study's limitations are not absent, particularly in gathering proofs originating from student's perspectives Baecher, Kung, Jewkes, and Rosalia (2013) explained that students tend

to have a favorable evaluation of their learning progress They also explained self-assessment among students may lead to a higher or lower evaluation and stick with humility tendency Juniardi et al, (2020) admitted that they cannot oversight the students’ attitudes in classrooms because students are more likely to use smartphones for surfing the Internet than seeking academic materials In a similar study by Toland, Mills and Kohyama (2016), they pointed out a remarkable limitation in the survey, that is, the quantitative method in their study did not bring the reliability in interiority This restrained researchers from using the data coming from the statistical check and deducibility to examine whether any differences in participant's feedback

In summary, smartphones are fast becoming a key instrument in learning speaking as well as they provide many of its convenience, safety, and benefits to student achievement In other words, the integration of smartphones into the process of learning English speaking skills

of student get highly effective because of its advantageous features

A study by Mohammadjafar and Ali (2015) reported that not many students who were surveyed said the use of smartphones in classroom was worthy Nonetheless, Saidouni and Bahloul (2016) pointed out many students shared their readiness and willingness with the integrating of smartphones in speaking classrooms Additonally, in a study of Blasco (2016), he claimed that it was a great support to combine smartphones in educational environment, particularly in student’s speaking performance

Basing on the research paper by Thomas, O’Bannon, and Bolton (2013), the percentage

of teachers who support students to use phones to look up information in class is about 70.5% In addition, this study has found a similar point of view from Saidouni and Bahloul (2016) is that teachers and learners have a positive attitude towards efficiency when using smartphones According to Nalliveettil and Alenazi (2016), smartphone apps give their students the freedom to find materials related to teachers’ lectures freely However, there are conflicting opinions assumed that the abuse of a phone during school could prevent students from listening to lectures (Stuht & Colcord, 2011)

Although some opinions still do not support using smartphones in the classroom, convenience and popularity are undeniable when the combination of smartphones and classroom learning will contribute to improving students’ outcomes What is more, the preeminent smartphone features will help users not encounter too many obstacles as well as take too much time to think by themselves After all, there is undeniable that the role of the teachers is still the most important

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CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

The targeted participant of this research is senior students majoring in English language

at Nguyen Tat Thanh University, District 7 The faculty of foreign language has approximately

150 senior English majored students; they are divided into 3 classes According to the school’s curricula, three mains English skills are taught for students namely listening, speaking, reading and writing Nonetheless, only speaking skills among final-year students will be studied in this research In fact, there have been larger numbers of senior students at Nguyen Tat Thanh having bad score in their speaking achievements although they are going to graduate in a few months This becomes an issue that should not be underestimate because the quality of student relating on school’s reputation When smartphones become indispensable friends of people particularly students, requiring lecturers to find appropriate methods of teaching in their speaking classes Moreover, smartphone utilities could help students improve their speaking without lecturers’ presence Therefore, a question is whether smartphones can replace the role of lecturers or not The question will be answer in the result of this study Additionally, due to the requirements in language fluency of Vietnamese learners of English, this becomes challenges among senior students who are weak in speaking skills Thus, the aforementioned reason above becomes the worth and notable point promoting researchers doing this study

Before starting to collect data based on the questionnaire, the first step of this study was

to “clearly define target population” and the second step was to “select the sampling frame” by Taherdoost (2020) In his research, relating to how to choose sample and sampling methods, he also pointed out the targeted population means a group of people in a specific area will be selected to participate in research Similarly, in this study, the selected participants are all 150 final-year students majoring in English language at Nguyen Tat Thanh University The study

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used probability sampling (simple random sampling) as sampling technique In terms of sample selection, 100 samples were randomly selected from the default student list which was numbered from | to 150 on computer This approach brought high certainty because any student had the opportunity to be selected for the sample of the study (Brown, 2001) Also, statistical approach applied in the research is a large scale survey because it provides an equal chance for all participants It resulted in a high degree of accuracy when applying a representative sample with

a large size, the probability of error was less (Gill et al, 2010) Therefore, to ensure the accuracy, the sample size was done on the website https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/sample-size-

calculator/

Quantitative method was applied as a methodology for this study Researchers found it was the most likely to be an appropriate approach in this research since its following merits Initially, researchers were allowed to cover big and small populations because quantitative method contains large samples which are randomly selected (Carr, 1994, as cited in Rahman, 2016) The second benefit is that the process of data analysis makes up less time when being analyzed by statistical software programs (Connolly, 2007) Besides, to evaluate the variables, this approach also directs the rationalist prototype as a stable ground (Kauber, 1986, as cited in Rahman, 2016), A prime example in a study of second language by Préfontaine, Kormos, and Johnson (2016), there were many different variables which were measured such as variables of class and variables of native speakers Furthermore, the quantitative approach enables researchers to carry out research anon Abhay (2020), which encouraged participants to feel free

to give their perspectives about worldviews without releasing their information Nonetheless, along with the strengths, quantitative approach shares the demerits According to Denzin and Lincoln (1998), the prototype of quantitative study ignores the ordinary meanings of social views The implications and interpretations could not be deeply defined by this approach (Rahman, 2016) Additionally, quantitative method fails in interpreting the forming and

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maintaining of society in practice or the way people explain their behaviors and the others (Blaikie, 2007)

The survey was presented under online questionnaire before spreading out The questionnaire contains many questions which belong to the three research questions of the study

By following this approach, researchers are able to collect the data in a convenient way

4.1 Data collection procedures:

4.1.1 Participants:

Participants who were picked are final year students majoring in English at Nguyen Tat Thanh University, District 7 In this study, merely 100 participants in total senior English majored students are randomly selected to involve in the survey The levels in English speaking skills of students were regarded as the base leading to the key purpose of the research, that is to gather data toward students’ attitudes and their point of views, next is to examine the impacts of smartphones, and final is to discover some helpful aspects when integrating smartphones in speaking classrooms

4.1.2 Preparing the questionnaire:

The designed questionnaire with 30 items from the three research questions was performed under Google form and sent to targeted participants via mail, group, and messenger

on Facebook The answers were equivalent to five levels, from 1 “strongly disagree” to 5

“strongly agree” (Dérnyei, 2003, as cited in Halimah et al., 2018) After collecting participant's responses, only fulfill answers were accepted, the remains which do not meet the qualifications were rejected to ensure the authenticity of the survey

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4.1.3 Management of questionnaires:

All participants’ answers would be collected via laptops or smartphones Because of the remarkable features of them that could connect to the Internet, as well as monitoring systems and data analysis functionality Besides, conducting surveys online would save researchers time

while they can handle other tasks (Llieva, Baron, & Healey, 2002) However, online

questionnaire surveys found it difficult to receive enough responses (Nulty, 2008) Consequently, a clear identification of the sample and sampling methods can reduce the

likelihood of error in taking unsatisfactory results (Taherdoost, 2020) In addition, in some cases,

online questionnaire was also sent privately to each individual via email, messenger, to ask them

to participate in the survey

4,2 Data analysis procedures:

In order to be spread out, the questionnaire must be revised through the pilot study process After that, the researcher’s team will reveal the complete questionnaire to participants and wait for responses The coded data were presented under percentage that correlates with agreement levels of participants on Google form The received results were illustrated under data tables which allow researchers easily to recognize and analyze the information because the respective item was performed clearly and logically

Before sending to participants, the designed questionnaire would be sent to the mentor for review After that, it would be sent to three students who have a qualified level of English to help researchers revise the 30 items of questions, which is able to meet lecturers’ requirements The feedback from pilot respondents enables researchers to recognize if there were any mistakes

in the questionnaire Through that, the questionnaire of this survey was edited again in some aspects such as words and grammar, the meaning of each statement, and the relationship of the question with the surveyed participants, and so on Finally, after the editing of content as well as

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designing of questionnaire, the complete version is sent to targeted participants and then the process of conducting data collection started

Ethics is one of the conditions that cannot fail to be carefully considered in conducting research, especially research on life, sciences, and society The development of “ethical regulation” becomes more and more appreciate and the way to address the main ethical issues that are “accountable”, respected, protected of all rights, and personal interests of the participants (Wiles & Boddy, 2013; Resnik, 2015)

6.1 Voluntary informed consent:

The consent form was provided to all participants to ensure that they understand the information, their rights, and the purposes of the research Before starting the survey process, participants need to complete the ethics forms and take a tick off the “confirm” item This is to ensure that those invited actually agree to join the study

6.2 Confidentiality:

Certainly, all participants’ personal information is carefully and safely stored according

to the principles of respect for participants’ rights (Oliver, 2010 & Denscombe, 2014) Additionally, all participants’ private data is completely confidential and safe following a security process that is supervised by researchers Of course, no one could access or get the participants’ information except researchers and all of their identities are personalized by pseudonyms when being used for this study

6.3 Participants’ rights and benefits:

The picked participants play an important role in gathering the data source Prerequisite, researchers are under an obligation to keep all personal information confidential as well as responses of studied participants In other words, the problem of collecting information and

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feedback from the participants is not allowed to release during the analysis process Also, participants have the right to not keep surveying at any time without giving a reason Finally, they have every right to give personal opinions or feedback; and most importantly, they have the right to request that all their personal information to be removed when they have done the study

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CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter will begin to synthesize all the collected data and proceed with the process

of analyzing, discussing and discovering new findings After that, the actual results of this study will be verified through three research questions and combined with the theory of previous

I find it difficult to practice

my English speaking skills by

using smartphones

I am motivated by the use of

learning speaking

I find my speaking skills

being improved by watching

smartphones

I think the use of smartphones

as a learning tool for English

speaking in the classroom is

important

Strongly disagree