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

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGVINH UNIVERSITY LE THI HUONG USING STORYTELLING TO DEVELOP IN SPEAKING LESSONS LANGUAGE TEACHING MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION Nghe An, 2013... Once, prob

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

LE THI HUONG

USING STORYTELLING TO DEVELOP

IN SPEAKING LESSONS

MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION

Nghe An, 2013

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

LE THI HUONG

USING STORYTELLING TO DEVELOP

IN SPEAKING LESSONS

LANGUAGE TEACHING

MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION

Nghe An, 2013

During the process of conducting this thesis, I have been fortunate to receivesupports 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 andinvaluable detailed critical feedback have been most generous

I would like to convey my thanks to all my teachers of the Post graduatecourse 19 whose fundamental knowledge about language teaching andlearning 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 allthe teachers and colleagues, especially Ms Vu Kim Ngan at Hoa Hieu lowersecondary school for their help in completing the survey questionnaires, fortheir constructive suggestions to this research, and for their willingness toshare their relevant problems with me

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

Finally, I owe a great debt of gratitude to my parents, my husband, mychildren whose loving support has been encouraging me to fulfill this thesissuccessfully

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

The study focuses on the teachers’ and students’ attitudes towardsspeaking skill as well as the analysis of the present teaching and learning tospeak English Once, problems have been identified, suggestions for teachers

to improve the situation of teaching and learning speaking English by usingstorytelling to the 8th graders would be made

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study

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

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

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

In language teaching, storytelling has proved itself not merely as

“relaxing activity” but as an important factor which can create more chancesand interest to motivate students to speak Nevertheless, storytelling has notsuccessfully been applied to speaking classes at Hoa Hieu lower secondaryschool

All the above-mentione is hot topic today, so I will talk about it in mypresentation today d reasons and factors have inspired the writer to conduct a

research entitled “using storytelling to develop oral skills for the 8 th graders

in speaking lessons”.

1.2 Aims of the study

The study is aimed at:

 Investigating the situation of teaching and learning speaking to the 8th

graders at Hoa Hieu lower secondary school

 Investigating the effectiveness of using storytelling in teachingspeaking to the 8th graders at Hoa Hieu lower secondary school

 Providing some suggestions and implications for the improvement ofspeaking teaching at Hoa Hieu lower secondary school by usingstorytelling in addition to other techniques

1.3 Scope of the study

The study focuses specifically on using storytelling in improving oralskills to the 8th graders at Hoa Hieu lower secondary school Therefore, thestudy 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

 Theoretical significance of the study: The study supplies theEnglish language teachers with the understanding of speaking skill andstorytelling in terms of types, advantages when employing them The studyalso suggests some ways to exploit storytelling successfully during all stages

in teaching speaking

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

1.5 Methods of the study

This study employed both quantitative and qualitative methodsincluding survey questionnaire, informal interview and classroomobservation

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

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

Lastly, classroom observation was used as the indispensable methodsince it offered a double-checking scheme of participants’ responses, helpingthe 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 organizationare presented

Chapter 2 is the Literature Review In this part, theoretical

background related to the study: speaking skills and storytelling are discussed

Chapter 3 is the Methodology This part investigates the situation of

teaching and learning speaking and the feasibility of using storytelling inteaching speaking to the 8th graders at Hoa Hieu lower secondary schoolthrough 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 madeand 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

References and Appendices are presented in the last pages of the study.

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

The terms “oral skill” and “speaking skill” are basically similar Oralskills are skills or abilities in oral speech In other words, oral skills areabilities 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 atfirst and involves more than just pronouncing words Whereas, the singlemost important reason for teaching speaking skills is to develop oral fluency,the ability to express oneself intelligibly, reasonably, accurately and withoutundue hesitation so speaking skill is also called “oral skill” Therefore, in thispart, 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 tonotice the gaps between what you want to say and what you can say, it is achance to test hypotheses about language.” The term “speaking” catchesmuch 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’ thoughtsand feelings in spoken languages.”

Chaney (1998, p.13), however, considered speaking as “the process ofbuilding and sharing meaning through the use of verbal or non-verbalsymbols in a variety of contexts”

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 topractise and master In this light, Nunan (2003, p.48) put it that “speaking isthe productive oral skill It consists of producing systematic verbal utterance

to convey meaning.”

Also considering speaking as a skill, Bygate (1987, p.3) investigatedthe distinction between knowledge and skill in speaking lessons, which heconsidered to be crucial in the teaching of speaking Indeed, to be a goodlearner of speaking, studying knowledge of grammar, vocabulary,pronunciation, intonation, etc is not enough but the skill to use thisknowledge to communicate successfully is indispensable He also discussedfurther at great length the two sub-skills of interaction skills that the speakersuse when they speak: the routine skills and negotiation skills Routines are theconventional ways of presenting information such as descriptions,comparisons, story telling They can be either expository, concerningpresenting factual information, or evaluative where the speakers explain,reason, justify, predict and draw conclusions They can also be interactionroutines that can be found in interactions in different specific situations likeinterviews or discussions, etc

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

2.1.2 Elements of speaking skill

2.1.2.1 Accuracy

Recognizably, accuracy is one of the most important criteria to measureone’s linguistic ability and to shelter language users from communicationbreakdowns According to Richards (1992, p.31), accuracy concerns “theability to produce grammatically correct sentence” In other words, accuracy

in language means grammatical accuracy only

Based on Nguyen Bang and Nguyen Ba Ngoc (2001), accuracyinvolves “the correct use of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation.”

Nevertheless, with Thornbury (2005), the term “accuracy” seems tocover more than that Specifically, speaking English accurately means doingwithout or with few errors on not only grammar but vocabulary andpronunciation as well He also set the clear scale for assessment of accuracy

 Grammar: Students use correct words order, tenses, tenseagreement, etc Students do not leave out articles, prepositions, or difficulttenses

 Vocabulary: Students have a range of vocabulary thatcorresponds to the syllabus year list and uses words you have taught

 Pronunciation: Students speak and most people understand Evenbroader than that

2.1.2.2 Fluency

Fluency is also used as a criterion to measure one’s speakingcompetence Speaking fluently means being able to communicate one’s ideaswithout having to stop and think too much about what one is saying Richards(1992, p.141) defined fluency as “the features which gave speech the qualities

of being natural and normal.”

Nguyen Bang and Nguyen Ba Ngoc (2001) considered fluency as “theability to keep going when speaking spontaneously” When speaking fluently,language learners should be able to get message across whatever resourcesand abilities what they have got, regardless of grammatical and othermistakes Meanwhile, many educators believe that in a communicative class

“It is not necessary to teach conversational features or push students tocommunicate accurately” and that “fluency can be developed by simplyproviding students with lots of conversational practice”

More specifically, Thornbury (2005) pointed out the criteria forassessing 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 anargument They can make not only the simplest of sentence patterns but alsocomplex ones to complete the task

 Independence: Students are able to express their ideas in anumber of ways, keep talking and ask questions, etc to keep the conversationgoing

2.1.3 Teaching speaking skill

2.1.3.1 Methods of teaching speaking skill

So far, teaching foreign language in general and teaching speaking skill

in particular has experienced three main methods, i.e grammar-translation,audio-lingual and communicative language teaching (CLT), respectively.Whereas the two previous methods show a big number of drawbacks resulting

in learners’ failure to make achievement in speaking skill, CLT which

emphasizes “learning to communicate through interaction in the targetlanguage.” (Nunan, 1991, p.56) considerably enhances students’communicative skill In the CLT classrooms, students are supposed to work inpairs or groups requiring negotiation and co-operation to do not onlyaccuracy-based tasks but also fluency-based ones Besides, they are providedwith authentic activities and meaningful tasks, students feel free with real-lifecommunication

2.1.3.2 Stages of a speaking lesson

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

Specifically, in the pre-communicative stage, teachers are supposed tointroduce the communicative function, highlight the fixed expression, pointout the target structure and provide students with the necessary vocabularyand the language of interaction

In the practice stage, teachers prompt and correct students if necessary

In the last stage of communicative interaction, teachers encourage languagenegotiation among students, take notes of any aspects that may hindercommunication 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 whichwere introduced by Ur (1996) as follows:

 Learners talk a lot: As much as possible of the period timeallotted to the activity is in fact occupied by learner talk This may seemobvious, 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 contributionsare fairly evenly distributed

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

 Language is of an acceptable level: Learners express themselves

in utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other and of anacceptable level of language accuracy

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

2.1.5 Problems with speaking activities

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

 Inhibition: Unlike reading, writing and listening activities,

speaking requires some degree of real-time exposure to an audience Learnersare often inhibited about trying to say things in a foreign language in theclassroom: worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face,

or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts

 Nothing to say: Even if they are not inhibited, you often hearlearners complain that they cannot think of anything to say: they have nomotive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should bespeaking.

 Low or uneven participation: Only one participant can talk at atime if he or she is to be heard, and in a large group this means that each onewill have only very little time talking This problem is compounded by thetendency of some learners to dominate, while others speak very little or not atall

 Mother-tongue use: In classes where all, or a number of, thelearners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use it: because it iseasier, because it feels unnatural to speak to one another in a foreignlanguage, and because they feel less “exposed” if they are speaking theirmother tongue If they are talking in small groups it can be quite difficult toget some classes-particularly the less disciplined or motivated ones-to keep tothe target language

In order for the learners to develop their communicative skills, it isadvised that the language teachers should help the learners to overcome theseproblems with speaking activities

2.1.6 Ways of organizing speaking activities

The way in which a classroom is organized can have a significantinfluence on language learning processes The dominant view of secondlanguage classroom processes today favors a great amount of student-centeredlearning instead of the traditional teacher-dominated classroom The teacher-dominated classroom is characterized by the teacher’s speaking most of thetime, leading activities, and constantly passing judgments on students’

performance, whereas in a highly student-centered classroom, students will beobserved working individually or in pairs and small groups The followingsare different ways of organizing classroom activities according to Doff(1990):

 Pair work: the teacher divides the whole class into pairs Every studentworks with his or her partner and all the pairs work at the same time

 Open or public pair work: as with the pair work, the class will bedivided into pairs, and each pair of students speaks in turn in front ofthe class

 Group work: the teacher divides the class into small groups to worktogether, and as in pair work, all the groups work at the same time

 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

 Choosing different ways of organizing the class depends on manythings, for example, the activity, level of the students, personalcharacteristics of the students, the teacher, subject matter, and so on.Doff (1990) argued that for certain types of activities, pair work andgroup work have a number of advantages over working with the wholeclass These advantages are as the followings:

 Pair work and group work give students far more chance to speakEnglish

 Working in pairs or groups encourages the students to be moreinvolved and to concentrate on the task

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

 Pair work and group work encourage the students to share ideas andknowledge

2.1.7 Principles in teaching speaking skills

As I mentioned above, the single most important reason for teachingspeaking skills is to develop oral fluency, the ability to express oneselfintelligibly, reasonably, accurately and without undue hesitation The learners

of English will want to use speech principally for two reasons The firstreason is that they want to give and receive information, that is, fortransactional or message-oriented purposes The other is that they want tomaintain good social relationships, that is, for interactional purposes focused

on sharing personal experiences and opinions Language educators andteachers have made great efforts to find out the main principles of teachingspeaking so far Here the author wishes to suggest some main principlespresented by Ur (1996) as follows:

 Take account of the student as a person: It means that the teachersshould be sensitive, sympathetic and encouraging They shouldselect materials that are motivating and within the students’ ability

 Reduce anxiety by moving from easy to less easy: It means that theteachers should provide a familiar, private environment and helpstudents take short turns

 Maintain a careful balance between accuracy and fluency: Itrequires that the teachers should provide practice in pronunciation,word stress, sentence stress and intonation Moreover, the teachers

should also provide students with opportunities for fluent use ofspeech

 Provide a good model for students to imitate: The teachers shouldconsciously teach correct pronunciation and repeatedly use targetspeech patterns

 Provide appropriate stimuli for eliciting speech: The teachers canuse a wide variety of sources such as: books, radios, audio and videocassettes, pictures, stories, songs, etc

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

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

 Monitor student activity continuously: The teachers shouldencourage those who find the activity difficult and praise studentswho perform well or try hard to fulfill the task

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

 Handle errors sensitively and effectively: The teachers shouldignore performance errors However, it is necessary that the teacherscorrect errors in language that they recently taught or errors thatmight shock the listeners (e.g childrens) In addition, errors instructures that need to be used frequently by students should also becorrected (E.g “What means that?” instead of “What does it

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 andwhat 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 ispeople 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 fictitiousevents Stories are a nourishment for our hungry souls Often stories weregard as fiction have elements of truth dressed up to make them morepalatable Stories are magic, taking us everywhere: backwards, forwards orhappening right in the present time, transporting us to many places andsituations we might never go"

So, what is storytelling? According to Davidson and Michelle (2004),

“storytelling is a means for sharing and interpreting experiences Stories areuniversal in that they can bridge cultural, linguistic and age-related divides.Storytelling can be used as a method to teach ethics, values, and culturalnorms and differences”

Storytelling is also an interactive performance art form Directinteraction between the teller and audience is an essential element of thestorytelling experience An audience responds to the teller's words andactions The teller uses this generally non-verbal feedback to immediately,

spontaneously, and improvisationally adjust the tones, wording, and pace ofthe story to better meet the needs of the audience Also, the member of theNational Storytelling Association (1997) commented that “storytelling is aprocess, a medium for sharing, interpreting, offering the content and meaning

of a story to an audience Because storytelling is spontaneous andexperiential, and thus a dynamic interaction between teller and listener, it isfar more difficult to describe than is the script and camera directions of amovie, or the lines and stage direction notes of a play Storytelling emergesfrom the interaction and cooperative, coordinated efforts of teller andaudience”

This is summed up very well in Jeff Gere’s definition (2002)

“storytelling is the act of using language and gesture in colorful ways tocreate scenes in a sequence Flexibility is key as new versions of the storymay bubble up and surprise the teller Storytellers may even find the storytaking on a life that is coming out of the teller and not the author The storythen rings true for the teller and the listener A storyteller’s culturalbackground and unique personal attitudes and experiences shine through inwords and gestures”

2.2.2 Types of stories

Classifying stories into categories can be very difficult becausecategories often overlap Therefore, different linguists use different ways toclassify stories According to Helen McKay and Berice Dudley (1996), "thereare many different types of stories The most important consideration whenchoosing a tale to tell is whether you like it enough to tell it with enthusiasm.Stories should communicate to you a need to be told" They classify storiesinto many more categories as follows:

 Fable - a short moral story not based on fact, using animals ascharacters, such as, Aesop's Fables-The Fox and the Grapes, Lion and themouse and others

 Fairytale - The best-known would be Grimm's fairytales aboutimaginary folk, such as elves, giants, witches, gnomes, and fairies

 Folk tale - a traditional story, in which ordinary people gainspecial insight, transforming them and enabling them to overcomeextraordinary obstacles See The Magic Orange Tree & other HaitianFolktales by Diane Wolkstein

 Legend - a story based on the life of a real person in whichevents 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 ofnature and human nature Such as, Psyche and Eros or Inanna by DianeWolkstein

 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'sexperience, such as, Streets and Alleys by Syd Lieberman

 Religious story - an historical and philosophical story based on aparticular culture and religious persuasion, for example, The Story of Lazarusfrom the Bible

 Tall tale - an exaggerated story, often humorous Fishing stories,Australian Bush stories, such as, The Loaded Dog by Henry Lawson

 Traditional tale - a story handed down orally from generation togeneration, such as the Polynesian stories - Maui, and The Coming of theMaori.

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

 Myth - a legendary story that ancient people created to explainthe 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, socialgroup, 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 fromgeneration to generation They are popular because they describe the hopesand fears of common people in a natural fanciful way

 Fairy-tale - a magical story about fairies A fairy is a tinyimaginary being with supernatural powers

2.2.3 Using storytelling in the English language classroom

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

storytelling in particular

There is a common perception that storytelling can make a significantcontribution in the language classroom to build speaking, writing, reading andlistening skills Besides, storytelling is one of the most basic ways of sharing

knowledge, of making sense of experiences, and of seeing oneself in relation

to others In the classroom, storytelling is an important activity with stronglinks to literacy As professional storyteller Helen Forest (2000) pointed out,

“storytelling can encourage students to explore their unique expressivenessand 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 arepowerful, that listening is important, and that clear communication betweenpeople is an art”

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

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

Andrews, Dee, Hull, Donahue (2009) also reported that “Learning ismost effective when it takes place in social environments that provideauthentic social cues about how knowledge is to be applied Stories provide a

tool to transfer knowledge in a social context”

Contrary to the opinions mentioned above is Jeff Gere's one(2002)

“storytelling is not like math A storyteller must be loose, expressive, and

even goofy at times Some students love storytelling, and some hate it Butbecause the ability to speak with comfort and conviction in front of people isimportant to success in this world, students must be encouraged to practicethese skills Teachers must have the same determination and the sameperformance 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 thestory and the people listening to the story being told Among the values thatstorytelling 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 tosay that “storytelling broadens our awareness of our own as well as othercultures, allows us to understand ourselves better, gives us a sense ofbelonging 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 recognizepatterns in language, stimulating a child’s powers of creativity, providing achild with problem solving and decision making activities, strengthening achild’s capacity to form objective, rational and practical applications,assisting a child to develop skills in dialogue and cooperative interpersonalbehavior” It also familiarizes and introduces a child to symbols, andtraditions of different cultural heritages shared among the people around

them There are tremendous gains to be made through storytelling as astrategy to increase the oral language of second language learners inparticular

Besides, stories are motivating and immensely interesting, can bestattract listeners and promote communication “The excitement and drama ofstorytelling 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 Whentelling and listening to a story, the learners will easily be plunged into theplots 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 expressthemselves spontaneously and creatively”

However, teachers have not been zealous to use storytelling in the classroombecause “storytelling consists of more than just telling stories It may includenot only creating a story but also the use of pictures, acting, singing, and soforth” (Alvey, 1977)

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

3 1 Aims of the research

As mentioned in the first part of the study, this study is aimed at testingthe following hypothesis: the use of storytelling used as an effective teachingtechnique 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 questionswere generated:

1 What are the current situations of teaching and learning speaking

to the 8th graders at Hoa Hieu Lower Secondary school?

2 Can storytelling work as an effective technique to improvespeaking skills for the 8th 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 withthe participation of six teachers and seventy 8th graders All of the surveyedstudents have learned English for at least two years at their schools, especiallysome of them have learned English for five years Most of them can dogrammar excercises very well but they have difficulties in mastering fourlanguage skills Of the four skills, as many of them revealed, they fndspeaking especially important yet challenging one That was the reason whymost of students felt bored and unmotivated in speaking classes

3.3.2 The textbook

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

Speaking lesson is the second one in each unit introduced just afterreading lesson These speaking lessons are under the theme-based and task-based approaches In general, the textbook provides students with a variety oftopics and speaking activities with the aim of helping students improve theirspeaking 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'sstudy habits (unit 5), etc However, there are some speaking topics that areunfamiliar and far from the students’ background knowledge such as talkingabout 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 inthese speaking lessons

3.4 Data collection

3.4.1 Data collection instrument

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

The survey questionnaires include pre-task survey questionnaire (forboth teachers and students) and post-task questionnaire (for only students)with close and open-ended questions used for six teachers and seventy 8th

form students The data of the survey questionnaires will be analyzed based

on this target population

The study was done through the following steps:

 The researcher taught two classes of seventy 8th-form studentsfor 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 thepost-task survey questionnaire was distributed to these seventy students tofind 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 spenttime explaining the purpose of the questionnaires, the requirements from theinformants The informants were also encouraged to raise any questions ifthere was anything unclear in the survey questionnaires Then they wereinstructed 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 activitiesintroduces in the textbook “Tieng Anh 8”, their difficulties in teachingspeaking skills and their suggestions for the improvement of the quality inteaching speaking

3.5.1.1 What are the attitudes of teachers toward speaking skill?

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

Chart 3.1 The teachers' attitudes toward speaking skill

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

The figure also indicates that the majority of the informants were aware

of the importance of speaking skills to their students’ higher studying in thefuture

Responding to the second question concerning the purpose of teachingspeaking, all of the informants put vocabulary as well as structures to their

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

Question 3: How do you find speaking topics and speaking activities introduced in “Tieng Anh 8” textbook?

Difficult Interesting Boring

not difficult/ not interesting/ not boring difficult/ interesting/ boring

very 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 theirattitudes 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 claimedthat the speaking topics and speaking activities were not difficult None of theteachers supposed them to be difficult Half of the teachers found thespeaking topics and speaking activities not interesting No teachers agreedthat the speaking topics and speaking activities were very interesting.Similarly, none of the surveyed teachers said that speaking topics andspeaking 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 someadjustment in the present speaking material and teachers should be aware ofthe attitude of their students toward the speaking topics and speakingactivities so that they can choose appropriate methods of teaching This alsoled to question 4

Question 4: How often do you use supplementary materials in teaching speaking?

Chart 3.3 Supplementary materials to the teachers

Obviously, all the surveyed English teachers saw the importance ofsupplementary materials in teaching speaking Two-thirds often used themand one-third sometimes gave their students extra speaking However, how touse 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 thestudents

In short, all the figures above are statistically significant forunderstanding the teachers’ attitudes toward speaking topics and speakingmaterials Nevertheless, to know more about the difficulties in teachingspeaking skills to students, questions 5 was designed The below section willdiscuss this

3.5.1.3 What are the difficulties in teaching speaking skills?

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

Questions 5: What is your difficulty in teaching speaking skills to your students?

The below chart present the results

Chart 3.4 The teachers’s difficulties in teaching speaking skills

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

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

3.5.1.4 What are the suggestions made by the teachers?

In order to know the teachers’ suggestions for the improvement of thequality 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?

0 20 40 60 80

B C D E F G

Chart 3.5 Suggestions made by the teachers

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

Only 50% and 33% of the surveyed teachers chose using visual aidsand storytelling None of them made other suggestions This proves thatstorytelling 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

 Part two aimed to collect information about the students’attitudes towards English learning (question 1, 2), their attitudes andperspectives towards speaking lessons (question 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), students’preferences and expectations of the teachers’ methodology in Englishspeaking lessons (question 8, 9, 10).

Table 1: Data collected from pre-task survey questionnaire

5 Perspectives of the speaking

topics & speaking activities

9 Purposes of using storytelling in teaching speaking 4 5.7 0 0 66 94.3 0 0

(Question 8 is a multiple choice one so the total percentages are more than 100%)

VariablesScalesQuestion focus

With the aim of finding out the real situation of learning speaking skill

as well as students’ preferences and expectations in speaking lessons, seventycopies of the survey questionnaires were distributed to students from twoclasses 8A and 8B The data of the pre-task survey questionnaire wasanalyzed 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 studentsfound it important to learn English More specifically, 51.4 % admitted that itwas very important to learn English Meanwhile 42.9 % appreciated theimportance of English in study courses However, it is unexpected that only54.3 % liked learning English

3.5.2.2 Students’ attitudes and perspectives towards speaking lessons

The descriptive static in chart 3.6 indicates that the majority of theparticipants (57.1%) found listening the most troublesome language skill.There exist 38.6 % of the students who had difficulties in speaking Only 3informants revealed that writing was the most challenging language skill andunsurprisingly, 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

D Not important at all

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

Chart 3.8 Perspectives of the speaking topics and speaking activities introduced in the textbook

Chart 3.8.2 How difficult ?

Looking the two charts above, it is clear that students had differentperspectives of the speaking topics and speaking activities introduced in theirtextbook More than half of the surveyed students (55.7%) found those topicsand activities neither interesting nor boring while 15.8% complained that theywere really boring Only 28.5% thought that these activities were interestingenough to motivate them to get involved in speaking lessons as well asdeveloping their oral skills

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

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

A Very interesting C Normal

B Interesting D Boring

A Very difficult C Normal

B Difficult D Easy

Chart 3.9 Students’ paticipation in speaking lessons

C never willing

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

to speak

When being asked “What are your reasons for unwillingness to speak?”those who chose B or C in question 6 raised their voices Being affected bytheir learning experiences at secondary school, many participants answeredthat they were not accustomed to speaking in front of the crowd During thespeaking classes, they just kept silent and listened to others speaking as theywere too shy to express their ideas A number of informants confessed thatthey were afraid of being laughed at by their classmates because they mightpronounce words incorrectly or they might not speak fluently Some of thestudents complained that the speaking activities were either boring ordifficult In addition, the teaching way was not interesting enough Thesefactors discouraged them from joining the speaking classes despite theirawareness of its great importance