Using storytelling to develop oral skiils for the 8th graders in speaking lessons

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY LE THI HUONG

USING STORYTELLING TO DEVELOP ORAL SKIILS FOR THE 8!@ GRADERS

IN SPEAKING LESSONS

MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION

Nghe An, 2013

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY

LE THI HUONG

USING STORYTELLING TO DEVELOP ORAL SKIILS FOR THE 8!" GRADERS

IN SPEAKING LESSONS

FIELD: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

CODE: 60.14.10

MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION

SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN THI KIM ANH, MA

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ACKNOWLEGDEMENTS

During the process of conducting this thesis, I have been fortunate to receive supports and assistance from a variety of people

First and foremost, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, MA Nguyen Thi Kim Anh, who allows me to draw fully on her wisdom and experience in implementing this study Her guidance, encouragement and invaluable detailed critical feedback have been most generous

I would like to convey my thanks to all my teachers of the Post graduate course 19 whose fundamental knowledge about language teaching and learning is of great importance to the achievement of my academic study I would also like to take this opportunity to express my deepnest thanks to all the teachers and colleagues, especially Ms Vu Kim Ngan at Hoa Hieu lower secondary school for their help in completing the survey questionnaires, for their constructive suggestions to this research, and for their willingness to share their relevant problems with me

I am most thankful to the students of classes 8A and 8C whose cooperation is great significance to the completion of the study

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ABSTRACT

It is the fact that speaking is an important language skill However, in the reality, the teaching and learning English speaking are still far from satisfactory

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study

English, which has long proved its significant role as the international language, becomes more and more important in the context of globalization Therefore, in some recent years, the focus of teaching has been promoting oral skills in order to respond to students’ needs for effective communication

However, due to some objective and subjective reasons, teaching and learning English in general and teaching and learning speaking skills in particular have not come up to the expectations despite teachers’ efforts to provide students with opportunities to develop their communicative skills, teaching and learning speaking effectively is quite a problem to both teachers and students at many schools in Vietnam

At Hoa Hieu lower secondary school, the situation is the same For most students, they find speaking especially important yet most challenging one It has been proved that some students get into a habit of learning “mute English”, which is obviously harmful to a language learner It also seems to the writer that the techniques exploited during a speaking activity such as: role plays, simulations, discussions, ete are not always really effective Therefore, it is necessary to find a supplementary technique used in teaching speaking

In language teaching, storytelling has proved itself not merely as “relaxing activity” but as an important factor which can create more chances and interest to motivate students to speak Nevertheless, storytelling has not successfully been applied to speaking classes at Hoa Hieu lower secondary

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All the above-mentione is hot topic today, so I will talk about it in my presentation today d reasons and factors have inspired the writer to conduct a research entitled “using storytelling to develop oral skills for the 8" graders in speaking lessons”’

1.2 Aims of the study The study is aimed at:

e Investigating the situation of teaching and learning speaking to the 8” graders at Hoa Hieu lower secondary school

e Investigating the effectiveness of using storytelling in teaching speaking to the 8" graders at Hoa Hieu lower secondary school

e Providing some suggestions and implications for the improvement of speaking teaching at Hoa Hieu lower secondary school by using storytelling in addition to other techniques

1.3 Scope of the study

The study focuses specifically on using storytelling in improving oral skills to the 8" graders at Hoa Hieu lower secondary school Therefore, the study limits itself to the teaching and learning speaking only, and the subjects of the study are six teachers and seventy students from two classes studying “English 8” textbook at Hoa Hieu lower secondary school

1.4 Significance of the study

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° Practical significance of the study: The research provides the language teachers and learners a variety of stories used in all stages in speaking classes based on new “Tieng Anh 8” textbook

1.5 Methods of the study

This study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods including survey questionnaire, informal interview and classroom

observation

Firstly, for its versality and straightforward data processing, the survey questionnaire was employed to quickly collect data from a large number of participants The survey questionnaire used to collect data for this study consists of pre-task survey questionnaire (for teachers and students) and post task survey questionnaire (for only students)

Secondly, informal interview was carried out among teachers and students to get more reliable data and intensive understanding about the matter raised in research questions

Lastly, classroom observation was used as the indispensable method since it offered a double-checking scheme of participants’ responses, helping the researcher to investigate the issue in practice with an objective view

1.6 Organization of the study

This paper is divided into five main chapters:

Chapter 1 is the Introduction In this part, the rationale, the aims, the

scope, the significance and the methods of the study, and also its organization are presented

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Chapter 3 is the Methodology This part investigates the situation of teaching and learning speaking and the feasibility of using storytelling in teaching speaking to the 8” graders at Hoa Hieu lower secondary school through the analysis of collected data

Chapter 4 are Findings and Suggestions This chapter is by far the most dominant one in which some suggestions on using storytelling are made and some sample lessons are provided

Chapter 5 is the Conclusion which includes the summary of the study, limitations of the study and suggestions for further study

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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Overview of oral skill or speaking skill

The terms “oral skill” and “speaking skill” are basically similar Oral

skills are skills or abilities in oral speech In other words, oral skills are

abilities of speech, fluency in speaking And speaking is the productive skill

in the oral mode It, like the other skills, is more complicated than it seems at

first and involves more than just pronouncing words Whereas, the single most important reason for teaching speaking skills is to develop oral fluency, the ability to express oneself intelligibly, reasonably, accurately and without undue hesitation so speaking skill is also called “oral skill” Therefore, in this part, the author only mentioned speaking skill instead of oral skills

2.1.1 Definitions of speaking skill

Speaking is crucially important for the whole learning process “speaking makes you a more fluent language user, speaking is a chance to notice the gaps between what you want to say and what you can say, it is a chance to test hypotheses about language.” The term “speaking” catches much attention of linguistics Therefore, many definitions have been offered

to this term so far

According to the Oxford Dictionary of Current English (2004, p.414), speaking is “the action of conveying information or expressing ones’ thoughts and feelings in spoken languages.”

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Sharing the same viewpoint, Florez (1999, p.1) added that speaking is an “interactive” process, which consists of three main stages “producing, receiving and processing information.”

In language teaching and learning, speaking is considered a skill to practise and master In this light, Nunan (2003, p.48) put it that “speaking is the productive oral skill It consists of producing systematic verbal utterance to convey meaning.”

Also considering speaking as a skill, Bygate (1987, p.3) investigated the distinction between knowledge and skill in speaking lessons, which he considered to be crucial in the teaching of speaking Indeed, to be a good learner of speaking, studying knowledge of grammar, vocabulary,

pronunciation, intonation, etc is not enough but the skill to use this

knowledge to communicate successfully is indispensable He also discussed further at great length the two sub-skills of interaction skills that the speakers use when they speak: the routine skills and negotiation skills Routines are the conventional ways of presenting information such as descriptions, comparisons, story telling They can be either expository, concerning presenting factual information, or evaluative where the speakers explain, reason, justify, predict and draw conclusions They can also be interaction routines that can be found in interactions in different specific situations like

interviews or discussions, etc

In brief, there are different concepts of speaking, i.e speaking as an action, a process and a skill In this study, the term “speaking” will be used to refer to a skill related to language teaching and learning

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Recognizably, accuracy is one of the most important criteria to measure one’s linguistic ability and to shelter language users from communication breakdowns According to Richards (1992, p.31), accuracy concerns “the ability to produce grammatically correct sentence” In other words, accuracy in language means grammatical accuracy only

Based on Nguyen Bang and Nguyen Ba Ngoc (2001), accuracy

involves “the correct use of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation.”

Nevertheless, with Thornbury (2005), the term “accuracy” seems to cover more than that Specifically, speaking English accurately means doing without or with few errors on not only grammar but vocabulary and pronunciation as well He also set the clear scale for assessment of accuracy

° Grammar: Students use correct words order, tenses, tense

agreement, etc Students do not leave out articles, prepositions, or difficult

tenses

° Vocabulary: Students have a range of vocabulary that corresponds to the syllabus year list and uses words you have taught

° Pronunciation: Students speak and most people understand Even

broader than that

2.1.2.2 Fluency

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Nguyen Bang and Nguyen Ba Ngoc (2001) considered fluency as “the ability to keep going when speaking spontaneously” When speaking fluently, language learners should be able to get message across whatever resources and abilities what they have got, regardless of grammatical and other

mistakes Meanwhile, many educators believe that in a communicative class

“Tt is not necessary to teach conversational features or push students to communicate accurately” and that “fluency can be developed by simply providing students with lots of conversational practice”

More specifically, Thornbury (2005) pointed out the criteria for assessing fluency:

° Lack of hesitation: Students speak smoothly, at a natural speech They do not hesitate long and it is easy to follow what they are saying

° Length: Students can put ideas together to form a message or an argument They can make not only the simplest of sentence patterns but also complex ones to complete the task

° Independence: Students are able to express their ideas in a number of ways, keep talking and ask questions, etc to keep the conversation going

2.1.3 Teaching speaking skill

2.1.3.1 Methods of teaching speaking skill

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emphasizes “learning to communicate through interaction in the target language.” (Nunan, 1991, p.56) considerably enhances _ students’ communicative skill In the CLT classrooms, students are supposed to work in pairs or groups requiring negotiation and co-operation to do not only accuracy-based tasks but also fluency-based ones Besides, they are provided with authentic activities and meaningful tasks, students feel free with real-life communication

2.1.3.2 Stages of a speaking lesson

In Terry’s (2008) presentation about “how to teach speaking in an EFL class”, it was proposed that a speaking lesson consists of three main stages

Specifically, in the pre-communicative stage, teachers are supposed to introduce the communicative function, highlight the fixed expression, point out the target structure and provide students with the necessary vocabulary and the language of interaction

In the practice stage, teachers prompt and correct students if necessary In the last stage of communicative interaction, teachers encourage language negotiation among students, take notes of any aspects that may hinder communication such as pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, etc

After this stage, teachers give students feedback on pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary and ask students to repeat the task if necessary

2.1.4 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity

There are many characteristics of a successful speaking activity which

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° Learners talk a lot: As much as possible of the period time allotted to the activity is in fact occupied by learner talk This may seem obvious, but often most time is taken up with the teacher’s talk and pauses

° Participation is even: Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority of talkative participants, all get a chance to speak and contributions are fairly evenly distributed

° Motivation is high: Learners are eager to speak because they are interested in the topic and have something new to say about it, or because they want to contribute to achieving a task objective

° Language 1s of an acceptable level: Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other and of an acceptable level of language accuracy

In practice, however, few classroom activities succeed in satisfying all the criteria mentioned above Therefore, language teachers should make great efforts to employ a variety of effective techniques to create some of the mentioned-above criteria

2.1.5 Problems with speaking activities

According to Ur (1996), there still exist some problems with speaking activities as follows:

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° Nothing to say: Even if they are not inhibited, you often hear learners complain that they cannot think of anything to say: they have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should be speaking

° Low or uneven participation: 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 time talking This problem is compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate, while others speak very little or not at

all

° Mother-tongue use: 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 less “exposed” if they are speaking their mother tongue If they are talking in small groups it can be quite difficult to get some classes-particularly the less disciplined or motivated ones-to keep to the target language

In order for the learners to develop their communicative skills, it is advised that the language teachers should help the learners to overcome these problems with speaking activities

2.1.6 Ways of organizing speaking activities

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performance, whereas in a highly student-centered classroom, students will be observed working individually or in pairs and small groups The followings are different ways of organizing classroom activities according to Doff

(1990):

e Pair work: the teacher divides the whole class into pairs Every student works with his or her partner and all the pairs work at the same time e Open or public pair work: as with the pair work, the class will be

divided into pairs, and each pair of students speaks in turn in front of

the class

e Group work: the teacher divides the class into small groups to work together, and as in pair work, all the groups work at the same time e Whole class activity: the whole class takes part into an activity

together An example of this activity is Circle games These games involve the learners sitting in a circle and working as a whole class e Choosing different ways of organizing the class depends on many

things, for example, the activity, level of the students, personal characteristics of the students, the teacher, subject matter, and so on

Doff (1990) argued that for certain types of activities, pair work and group work have a number of advantages over working with the whole class These advantages are as the followings:

e Pair work and group work give students far more chance to speak English

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e Students feel less anxious when they are working privately than when they are on show in front of the whole class

e Pair work and group work encourage the students to share ideas and knowledge

2.1.7 Principles in teaching speaking skills

As I mentioned above, the single most important reason for teaching speaking skills is to develop oral fluency, the ability to express oneself intelligibly, reasonably, accurately and without undue hesitation The learners of English will want to use speech principally for two reasons The first reason is that they want to give and receive information, that is, for transactional or message-oriented purposes The other is that they want to maintain good social relationships, that is, for interactional purposes focused on sharing personal experiences and opinions Language educators and teachers have made great efforts to find out the main principles of teaching speaking so far Here the author wishes to suggest some main principles presented by Ur (1996) as follows:

e Take account of the student as a person: It means that the teachers should be sensitive, sympathetic and encouraging They should select materials that are motivating and within the students’ ability e Reduce anxiety by moving from easy to less easy: It means that the

teachers should provide a familiar, private environment and help students take short turns

e Maintain a careful balance between accuracy and fluency: It requires that the teachers should provide practice in pronunciation,

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should also provide students with opportunities for fluent use of speech

Provide a good model for students to imitate: The teachers should consciously teach correct pronunciation and repeatedly use target speech patterns

Provide appropriate stimuli for eliciting speech: The teachers can

use a wide variety of sources such as: books, radios, audio and video cassettes, pictures, stories, songs, etc

Vary classroom interaction modes: The teachers can arrange the class activities in different ways: individual to whole class, in pair work or group work

Give clear instructions: The teachers should speak loudly, slowly and clearly and it is a good idea that the teachers demonstrate the proposed task themselves

Monitor student activity continuously: The teachers should encourage those who find the activity difficult and praise students who perform well or try hard to fulfill the task

Prepare well for class: The teachers should make a checklist of things to obtain and a checklist of things to do

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mean?”) And the teachers should remember that corrections should be made in accuracy phase, not fluency phase

2.2 Overview of storytelling

2.2.1 Definitions of storytelling

Storytelling can be used in language classes So what are stories and what is storytelling?

First of all, what are stories? Bill Wren (2010) defined that “stories are about people, told by people, told to people In other words, a story is people involved in events told by people to people”

A different definition expressed by Helen McKay and Berice Dudley

(1996) is that “a story is defined as a narrative or tale of real or fictitious

events Stories are a nourishment for our hungry souls Often stories we regard as fiction have elements of truth dressed up to make them more palatable Stories are magic, taking us everywhere: backwards, forwards or happening right in the present time, transporting us to many places and situations we might never go"

So, what is storytelling? According to Davidson and Michelle (2004), “storytelling is a means for sharing and interpreting experiences Stories are universal in that they can bridge cultural, linguistic and age-related divides Storytelling can be used as a method to teach ethics, values, and cultural norms and differences”

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spontaneously, and improvisationally adjust the tones, wording, and pace of the story to better meet the needs of the audience Also, the member of the National Storytelling Association (1997) commented that “storytelling is a process, a medium for sharing, interpreting, offering the content and meaning of a story to an audience Because storytelling is spontaneous and experiential, and thus a dynamic interaction between teller and listener, it is far more difficult to describe than is the script and camera directions of a movie, or the lines and stage direction notes of a play Storytelling emerges

from the interaction and cooperative, coordinated efforts of teller and

audience”

This is summed up very well in Jeff Gere’s definition (2002) “storytelling is the act of using language and gesture in colorful ways to create scenes in a sequence Flexibility is key as new versions of the story may bubble up and surprise the teller Storytellers may even find the story taking on a life that is coming out of the teller and not the author The story then rings true for the teller and the listener A storyteller’s cultural background and unique personal attitudes and experiences shine through in words and gestures”

2.2.2 Types of stories

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° Fable - a short moral story not based on fact, using animals as

characters, such as, Aesop's Fables-The Fox and the Grapes, Lion and the

mouse and others

° Fairytale - The best-known would be Grimm's fairytales about

imaginary folk, such as elves, giants, witches, gnomes, and fairies

° Folk tale - a traditional story, in which ordinary people gain special insight, transforming them and enabling them to overcome extraordinary obstacles See The Magic Orange Tree & other Haitian Folktales by Diane Wolkstein

° Legend - a story based on the life of a real person in which events are depicted larger than life, for example, The Stories of Robin Hood, or King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table

° Myth - a story about gods and heroes, explaining the workings of nature and human nature Such as, Psyche and Eros or Inanna by Diane Wolkstein

° Parable - a fictitious story told to point to a moral, for example,

The Sower and the Seed from the New Testament of the Bible

° Personal story - a life story from your own or your family's experience, such as, Streets and Alleys by Syd Lieberman

° Religious story - an historical and philosophical story based on a particular culture and religious persuasion, for example, The Story of Lazarus

from the Bible

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° Traditional tale - a story handed down orally from generation to generation, such as the Polynesian stories - Maui, and The Coming of the Maori

Meanwhile, according to Mariam Ispahani (2005), there are five main following types of stories:

° Myth - a legendary story that ancient people created to explain the mysteries of life, death, the beginning of the world, and natural powers

° Saga - a story of heroic deeds of a medieval Norwegian hero Gradually, it came to mean a long eventful narrative about a family, social group, or dynasty with several chapters, cantos or even volumes

° Fable - a short tale which involves animals as essential characters

in it and carries a moral for the readers

° Folk-tale - a light imaginary story handed down orally from generation to generation They are popular because they describe the hopes and fears of common people in a natural fanciful way

° Fairy-tale - a magical story about fairies A fairy is a tiny imaginary being with supernatural powers

2.2.3 Using storytelling in the English language classroom

Effective teaching in classroom environment requires different types of methods and techniques Storytelling is one of the activities that these techniques use There has been quite a lot of research done on the use of storytelling in particular

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knowledge, of making sense of experiences, and of seeing oneself in relation to others In the classroom, storytelling is an important activity with strong links to literacy As professional storyteller Helen Forest (2000) pointed out, “storytelling can encourage students to explore their unique expressiveness and can heighten a student’s ability to communicate thoughts and feelings in

an articulate, lucid manner, etc In our fast-paced, media-driven world,

storytelling can be a nurturing way to remind children that spoken words are powerful, that listening is important, and that clear communication between people is an art”

According to Haven (2000) “using storytelling in the classroom is a powerful and effective way to improve and develop language skills, and moreover activities where students participate in telling, writing, reading and listening to stories can motivate them to be active learners, developing within them a constructive approach towards English language learning”

A similar opinion expressed by Isabel et al (2004) is that “stories are pervasively used as a powerful and promising educational means for teaching and learning Stories draw the learners’ attention and thus can convey certain messages more easily to them” In storytelling, the words are not memorized, but are recreated through spontaneous, energetic performance, assisted by audience participation and interaction

Andrews, Dee, Hull, Donahue (2009) also reported that “Learning is

most effective when it takes place in social environments that provide authentic social cues about how knowledge is to be applied Stories provide a tool to transfer knowledge in a social context”

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even goofy at times Some students love storytelling, and some hate it But because the ability to speak with comfort and conviction in front of people is important to success in this world, students must be encouraged to practice these skills Teachers must have the same determination and the same performance expectations they would have if they were teaching math”

2.2.4 Benefits of using storytelling in developing oral skills or speaking skills for students

Storytelling has many key values for both the individual telling the story and the people listening to the story being told Among the values that storytelling instills into its participants as stated by Margaret Read Macdonald, in The Storytellers Start-Up Book, is that “it hones our literary and imaginative skills We improve our ability to listen, speak, imagine, compose phrases and create stories” Macdonald continued on in her book to say that “storytelling broadens our awareness of our own as well as other

cultures, allows us to understand ourselves better, gives us a sense of

belonging to a group and increases our vocabularies”

Similarly, Jack McGuire listed the benefits in his book, Creative

Storytelling, by stating “the specific educational and social benefits to storytelling from a child’s point of view are numerous and well documented” Some of the values McGuire touched upon are “helping a child recognize patterns in language, stimulating a child’s powers of creativity, providing a child with problem solving and decision making activities, strengthening a child’s capacity to form objective, rational and practical applications, assisting a child to develop skills in dialogue and cooperative interpersonal

behavior” It also familiarizes and introduces a child to symbols, and

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them There are tremendous gains to be made through storytelling as a strategy to increase the oral language of second language learners in particular

Besides, stories are motivating and immensely interesting, can best attract listeners and promote communication “The excitement and drama of storytelling provide a context that holds students' attention” (Cooter, 1991; Black, 1998)

Furthermore, the lively atmosphere and real life environment created by stories encourages the students to talk and discuss with each other When telling and listening to a story, the learners will easily be plunged into the plots and the scene and forget about themselves, which will, to a great degree, relieve their nervousness Colon-vila (1997) also commented _ that “storytelling helps language learners become more self-confident to express themselves spontaneously and creatively”

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CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

3 1 Aims of the research

As mentioned in the first part of the study, this study is aimed at testing the following hypothesis: the use of storytelling used as an effective teaching technique and a motivator for students to speak so that students’ oral skills as well as the quality of teaching and learning English can be improved

3.2 Research questions

In order to meet the aim of the study, the following research questions were generated:

1 What are the current situations of teaching and learning speaking to the 8" graders at Hoa Hieu Lower Secondary school?

2 Can storytelling work as an effective technique to improve speaking skills for the 8" graders at Hoa Hieu Lower Secondary school?

3.3 Participants

3.3.1 Subject of the study

The research was carried out at Hoa Hieu lower secondary school with the participation of six teachers and seventy 8" graders All of the surveyed students have learned English for at least two years at their schools, especially some of them have learned English for five years Most of them can do grammar excercises very well but they have difficulties in mastering four language skills Of the four skills, as many of them revealed, they fnd speaking especially important yet challenging one That was the reason why most of students felt bored and unmotivated in speaking classes

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“English 8” textbook consists of sixteen units for two terms Each unit focuses not only on four different language skills: reading, speaking, listening and writing but also such language elements as grammar and vocabulary

Speaking lesson is the second one in each unit introduced just after reading lesson These speaking lessons are under the theme-based and task- based approaches In general, the textbook provides students with a variety of topics and speaking activities with the aim of helping students improve their speaking skill To be more specific, some of the topics are of the students’ interest such as talking about one’s friends (unit 1) or talking about one's study habits (unit 5), etc However, there are some speaking topics that are unfamiliar and far from the students’ background knowledge such as talking about a first-aid course (unit 9), talking about recycling (unit 10) Consequently, the students will lose their interest during the lesson Therefore, an effective technique should be exploited to motivate students in these speaking lessons

3.4 Data collection

3.4.1 Data collection instrument

The main instrument for data collection in this study is survey questionnaires Survey questionnaires were chosen because they allow collecting a large amount data in a relatively short time and economical way

The survey questionnaires include pre-task survey questionnaire (for both teachers and students) and post-task questionnaire (for only students) with close and open-ended questions used for six teachers and seventy 8" form students The data of the survey questionnaires will be analyzed based on this target population

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The study was done through the following steps:

° The researcher taught two classes of seventy 8 -form students for a month and then asked six teachers and the students to complete the pre- task survey questionnaire

° The researcher adapted speaking activities given in the textbook by supplementing them with a variety of stories for three months Then the post-task survey questionnaire was distributed to these seventy students to find out the effectiveness of the use of storytelling in speaking classes

Both survey questionnaires were administered during the class time Before the questionnaires were given to the informants, the researcher spent time explaining the purpose of the questionnaires, the requirements from the informants The informants were also encouraged to raise any questions if there was anything unclear in the survey questionnaires Then they were instructed to complete the questionnaires

3.5 Data analysis

3.5.1 Pre-task questionnaire for teachers

The pre-task survey questionnaire for teachers includes two main parts: ° Part one aimed to collect information about the teachers’ background: their English teaching experience

° Part two aimed to collect information about the teachers’ attitudes toward speaking skill, speaking topics and speaking activities introduces in the textbook “Tieng Anh 8”, their difficulties in teaching speaking skills and their suggestions for the improvement of the quality in teaching speaking

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In order to find out the attitudes of the teachers toward speaking skill, two questions were designed

Question 1: How important do you think speaking skill is to your students? Question 2: What is your purpose of teaching speaking to your students ?

The following column chart represents the results 100! 80 60: 40 20 Question 1 Question 2

Chart 3.1 The teachers' attitudes toward speaking skill

The first question of the questionnaire deals with the importance of speaking skills to students As can be seen from the two charts, 67% of the teachers considered speaking very important About one-third agreed that this skill was as important as the other language skills None of them thought that speaking was not important Thus, the teachers’ good attitudes towards English speaking classes will be very beneficial to the teaching and learning process

The figure also indicates that the majority of the informants were aware of the importance of speaking skills to their students’ higher studying in the

future

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foremost priority This suggests that in speaking lessons, the teachers usually spent most of the time presenting vocabulary and structures related to the speaking topic 83% of the teachers answered that they taught speaking to the students in order to develop their oral skills and the other language skills (listening, reading and writing) Only one-third of the teachers thought that speaking topics and activities could improve their ability of thinking in English Just a few informants chose knowledge of the culture of English speaking countries Obviously, the surveyed teachers paid much attention to vocabulary as well as structures and ignored the purposes of speaking activities This raises a question: Are the surveyed teachers’ methods of teaching speaking skills appropriate?

3.5.1.2 What are the attitudes of teachers toward speaking topics and speaking activities introduces in the textbook “Tieng Anh 8”?

In order to find out the attitudes of the teachers toward speaking topics and speaking activities introduces in the textbook “Tieng Anh 8”, firstly, question 3 was designed

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Difficult Interesting Boring

Brot difficult/ not interesting/ not boring Bdifficuly interesting/ boring

Bvrery difficult’ very interesting/ very boring

Chart 3.2 The teachers’ attitudes toward speaking materials

As can be seen from the above chart, when being asked about their

attitudes toward the speaking topics and speaking activities in the textbook “Tieng Anh 8”, 67% of the teachers shared their point of view of the difficulty of the topics and the activities However, one-third of the teachers claimed that the speaking topics and speaking activities were not difficult None of the teachers supposed them to be difficult Half of the teachers found the speaking topics and speaking activities not interesting No teachers agreed that the speaking topics and speaking activities were very interesting Similarly, none of the surveyed teachers said that speaking topics and speaking activities were too boring According to two-thirds of the teachers, the topics and the activities were boring

From the data above, it can be refered that there should be some

adjustment in the present speaking material and teachers should be aware of the attitude of their students toward the speaking topics and speaking activities so that they can choose appropriate methods of teaching This also led to question 4

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Question 4: How often do you use supplementary materials in teaching speaking? 100 80 60 40: 20

Chart 3.3 Supplementary materials to the teachers

Obviously, all the surveyed English teachers saw the importance of supplementary materials in teaching speaking Two-thirds often used them and one-third sometimes gave their students extra speaking However, how to use these kinds of materials should be put into consideration They should go in accordance with the purposes of teaching and learning speaking Besides, English teachers should make full use of them, not just to interest the students

In short, all the figures above are statistically significant for understanding the teachers’ attitudes toward speaking topics and speaking

materials Nevertheless, to know more about the difficulties in teaching

speaking skills to students, questions 5 was designed The below section will

discuss this

3.5.1.3 What are the difficulties in teaching speaking skills?

It is undeniable that there are some difficulties in teaching speaking skills to students at Hoa Hieu lower secondary school Thus, the fifth question was designed to identify these

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Questions 5: What is your difficulty in teaching speaking skills to your students? The below chart present the results 100 + 8ø | H4 BB oo } aC 40+ GD OE 21 mƑ

Chart 3.4 The teachers’s difficulties in teaching speaking skills

Half of the teachers thought that students' limited vocabulary and background knowledge were their difficulties One third claimed that their students had grammar problems which decreased their reading ability 17% said that finding supplementary speaking materials were not easy The same percentage can be found in the fifth choice in which the informants admitted that they did not have enough time for developing their students’ speaking ability

In short, it is possible that the lack of interesting materials and uneven students’ ability of speaking and level of background knowledge as well as English make the quality of teaching speaking skill ineffective as expected Therefore, the last question of the survey was designed with a hope that the teachers would make useful suggestions for the improvement of the quality in teaching speaking at Hoa Hieu lower secodary school

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In order to know the teachers’ suggestions for the improvement of the quality in teaching speaking, question 6 was designed

Question 6: What do you do to encourage your students to speak and get them more involved in speaking activities? BA m5 Bc aD GE OF OG

Chart 3.5 Suggestions made by the teachers

As can be seen, when being asked what should be done to make speaking lessons more interesting, most of the informants suggested using games, using group and pair work as well as classifying students’ level of English They also thought that developing the present speaking material would improve speaking ability 67% of the teachers ticked this choice

Only 50% and 33% of the surveyed teachers chose using visual aids and storytelling None of them made other suggestions This proves that storytelling has not successfully been applied to speaking classes at Hoa Hieu lower secondary school

3.5.2 Pre-task questionnaire for students

The pre-task survey questionnaire for students consists of two main

parts:

Part one aimed to collect information about the students’ background: their English learning experience

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Table 1: Data collected from pre-task survey questionnaire ariables | 4 B C D E Question focus Scales N |% |N |% |N |% |N |% |N |%

1,2 Students’ attitudes towards English QI 36 ¡514/30 |42.9)4 57 |0 0

learning Q2 8 114/30 1429/30 429/2 2.8 3 Perceptions of four language skills 40 |57.1|/27 |386.0 0 3 43 4 Students’ attitudes towards speaking skill 3S |50 |27 |386|6 8.6 |2 28

5 Perspectives of the speaking | 5.1 How interesting ¡2 28 (18 |257/39 |557|11 | 158 topics & speaking activities 5.2 How difficult 3 43 35 |50 (|29 |414/)3 43 6 Students’ participation in speaking lessons 8 114/35 |50 |27 |386

7 Students’ difficulty in learning speaking skills 46 |657/35 |50 |35 |50 |57 |8I 17 125

8 Different techniques exploited by teacher 37 |529/70 |100 |48 |686.12 |17.1)5 71

9 Purposes of using storytelling in teaching speaking | 4 5.7 10 0 66 |943/0 0

10 Willingness towards using storytelling 70 |100 (0 0

Ouestion 8 is a nultiple choice one so the total percentages are more than 100%)

@Q ip p Si

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With the aim of finding out the real situation of learning speaking skill as well as students’ preferences and expectations in speaking lessons, seventy copies of the survey questionnaires were distributed to students from two classes 8A and 8B The data of the pre-task survey questionnaire was analyzed based on this target population

3.5.2.1 Students’ attitudes towards English learning (Question 1, 2) Question 1: How necessary is English in the school courses?

Question 2: How do you like learning English?

As can be seen clearly from the table 1, most of the surveyed students found it important to learn English More specifically, 51.4 % admitted that it was very important to learn English Meanwhile 42.9 % appreciated the importance of English in study courses However, it is unexpected that only 54.3 % liked learning English

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The descriptive static in chart 3.6 indicates that the majority of the participants (57.1%) found listening the most troublesome language skill There exist 38.6 % of the students who had difficulties in speaking Only 3 informants revealed that writing was the most challenging language skill and unsurprisingly, none of the students claimed reading as the most problematic

Question 4: How is speaking skill important to you?

Chart 3.7 Students’ attitudes towards speaking skill DA Very important @B Important (CAC Normal (ID Not important at all

As mentioned above, speaking skill is the second difficult and challenging language skill to students However, the importance of speaking skill can not be denied Most of the students raised their great awareness of the importance of this skill, which accounted for 88.6 % Only 2 students voiced that it was unimportant to master this language skill It is hoped that the students’ good attitudes towards English speaking classes are very beneficial to the teaching and learning process

Chart 3.8 Perspectives of the speaking topics and speaking activities

introduced in the textbook

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Chart 3.8.1 How interesting? Chart 3.8.2 How difficult ? 50.00%

A Very interesting C Normal A Very difficult C Normal B Interesting D Boring B Difficult D Easy

Looking the two charts above, it is clear that students had different

perspectives of the speaking topics and speaking activities introduced in their textbook More than half of the surveyed students (55.7%) found those topics and activities neither interesting nor boring while 15.8% complained that they were really boring Only 28.5% thought that these activities were interesting enough to motivate them to get involved in speaking lessons as well as developing their oral skills

In addition, the majority of the informants (about 50%) perceived speaking classes as uneasy experience because they found the speaking topics difficult and unfamiliar to them They revealed that sometimes they wanted to take part in speaking yet they found no way to express their ideas in English

Question 6: Are you willing to speak in speaking classes?

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Chart 3.9 Students’ paticipation in speaking lessons GA always willing B sometimes willng OC never willing

The students’ level of participation was measured via question 6 The number of the participants, who were willing to join speaking classes, only accounted for 11 % Meanwhile half of the students voiced that sometimes they found it interesting and motivating to participate in these speaking classes 39% of the respondents said that they were unmotivated and reluctant to speak