Using short stories to improve speaking skill of students at preintermediate level

ABSTRACT This research investigates the attitudes of students towards short storiesand the benefits of using short stories in teaching speaking skill for students atpre-intermediate leve

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

First of all, I would like to express my very affectionate and deeply-feltthanks to my supervisor, Dr Tran Ba Tien, for giving effective instructionsand invaluable advice during the preparation and completion of thisgraduation paper I owe him a dept of gratitude that cannot be measured

I also wish to acknowledge my debt to all the teachers of the ForeignLanguages Department at Vinh University as well as some teachers fromVietnam National University, Hanoi – College of foreign languages, whoselectures and ideas have inspired my thesis and who it is impossible to thankindividually

My appreciation also goes to the students at ASEM Vietnam for theirvaluable assistance in completing my survey questionnaire and providing mewith a lot of useful information

Finally, I would like to send my great thanks to my family, my friendswho have directly or indirectly helped me with their encouragement andadvice

On the whole, without all these help my graduation paper would nothave possibly been completed

Due to limited scope, it is sure that in this graduation paper, mistakesare in evitable, that is why I hope to receive further comments and advice tomake it better

Vinh, August 2013

Ho Thi Hai Yen

Table of contents

Acknowledgements ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

TABLES AND CHARTS vi

ABBREVIATION vii

ABSTRACT ……… ……… viii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 The Purposes of the Study 2

3 The Scope of the Study 3

4 The research questions 3

5 The Methods of the Study 3

6 Organization of the Study 3

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5

2.1 Literature and language teaching 5

2.2 Difficulties with using literature 7

2.3 Literature in ESL classroom 8

2.4 Short stories 9

2.4.1 What is a short-story? 9

2.4.2 Characteristics of short-story 9

2.5 Some commonly used approaches to teaching literature 10

2.6 Speaking skill 12

2.6.1 Concepts of speaking 12

2.6.2 Characteristics of speaking 13

2.7 Problems with speaking and speaking activities 14

2.7.1 Problems with speaking 14

2.7.2 Problems with speaking activities 15

2.8 Principles for speaking techniques 17

2.9 Stages of a speaking lesson 18

2.10 Short stories in ESL classroom 20

2.10.1 Why use short stories? 20

2.10.2 Problems of using short stories in pre-intermediate language class 21

2.10.3 Choosing short stories 22

2.10.4 Short stories and speaking skill development 24

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY 25

3.1 Practical situation of teaching and learning English speaking skills at ASEM Vietnam center 25

3.1.1 Description of the English courses and their objectives at ASEM Vietnam center 25

3.1.2 Description of the Students at ASEM Vietnam center 26

3.1.3 Description of the Teachers at ASEM Vietnam center 26

3.2 The Study 27

3.2.1 Participants 27

3.2.2 The Setting of the Study 28

3.2.3 The data collection methods 28

CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 31

4.1 Students’ attitude towards literary texts 31

4.1.1 Question 1: Which genre of literature do you prefer? 31

4.1.2 Question 2: Which topics are you interested in? 33

4.2 The effects of short stories in teaching speaking 34

4.2.1 Question 3: What are your difficulties when speaking about the text? .34

4.2.2 Question 4: What are your reactions towards pre and while speaking activities in class? 35

4.2.3 Question 5: What is the activity you like most in post-speaking

phase? 42

4.2.4 Question 6: After doing speaking activities in the premise, what do you find? 44

4.2.5 Question 7: Your suggestions about methods of teaching and learning speaking with short stories .45

4.3 Suggestive approaches to using short stories to teach speaking 46

4.3.1 Selecting and evaluating literary texts 46

4.3.2 Anticipating students’ problems 49

4.4 Suggested techniques for integrating short stories in the teaching of speaking skills 52

4.4.1 Pre and while speaking activities 52

4.4.1.1 Brainstorming 53

4.4.1.2 Picture activities 55

4.4.1.3 Discussion 57

4.4.1.4 Making survey 59

4.4.1.5 Information-gap 60

4.4.1.6 Improvisation 61

4.4.1.7 Role-playing 62

4.4.3.8 Story telling 64

4.4.2 Post- speaking activities 64

4.5 A sample lesson ……… 65

Conclusion .69

Suggestions for further research 70

REFERENCES 71

APPENDIX 73

TABLES AND CHARTS

- Chart 4.1: Retelling the story 38

Chart 4.2: Discussion 39

Chart 4.3: Role – playing 40

Chart 4.4: Information – gap 41

Chart 4.5: Brainstorming 42

Chart 4.6: Improvisation 43

Chart 4.7: Picture activies 44

Chart 4.8: Making survey 45

- Graph 4.1: Post – speaking activities 46

- Table 4.1: Students’ preference towards certain genres of literature 34

Table 4.2: Topics students are interested in 36

Table 4.3: Aspects that cause difficulties when speaking literature 37

Table 4.4: Students’ reactions after speaking about short story 47

Table 4.5: Students’ suggestions about method of teaching and learning speaking with short story 49

ABBREVIATION

ESL: English as second languageEFL: English as foreign language

ABSTRACT This research investigates the attitudes of students towards short stories

and the benefits of using short stories in teaching speaking skill for students atpre-intermediate level as well as effective techniques for teaching Englishspeaking skill with short stories

The related theories and approaches are read carefully and included inthe second chapter of the study The investigation focuses on what studentsfind about short stories and what topics they prefer to read Furthermore, theresearch studies how suggestive techniques effect on their learning and whatstudents find about their speaking skill developing process after learning withshort stories

The findings of the research indicate that short stories which areselected carefully and appropriately will be a useful source of teaching,increase students’ interest In addition, teaching methods also should beconsidered before utilizing in three stages of a lesson

To conclude, if teachers know how to use short stories with effectivemethods such as brainstorming, storytelling, picture activities or information-gap will make more exciting studying atmosphere and help students havebetter speaking skill

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale:

People nowadays do not think that English is only a compulsorysubject at schools It is known an essential and important subject They do notfeel to be forced to study it any more but rush and want to learn English formany purposes, such as to enrich their knowledge, to have a chance working

at a foreign company or just to communicate with foreigners in English That

is why more and more people enroll English courses in centers

To achieve English mastery, people need to be well-trained all fourskills: listening, speaking, reading and writing However, Vietnamesestudents seem to learn written form better than spoken form Affected fromthe traditional teaching and testing, teachers seem focus on how students can

do grammar and their speaking and listening abilities were ignored Seeingthe mistakes and the requirement to innovate the education ways, four Englishskills are being taught more equally

As a teacher in ASEM Vietnam center, I see that most of studentswish to get fluent speaking skill because they do not have much time andmany chances to develop it at schools It is clear that if students have a stock

of vocabulary, study in a comfortable environment, know about some aspects

of national cultures in the world, they will be more confident to speak Muchresearch has been done to motivate students to speak, such as peer interaction,competition or using activities with short stories

Among them, short stories have many benefits because they are notonly a source of teaching but also include language knowledge and culturalaspects of the countries where they are from It was discovered that literature

is a valuable and interesting material for enhancing students’ language ability

With effort of the educators, literature will “be an effective tool forstimulating and achieving language learning and equipping learners withrelevant linguistic and socio-cultural competences” (Sell, 2005).

Many researchers claimed that short stories will be a powerfulsource if it goes with a proper teaching method That leads to an effectiveresult in teaching English, especially, speaking skill Duff and Maley (1990)presented the efficiency and necessity to teach literature with an integratedapproach From the linguistic perspective, teachers can do the purpose oflanguage classes that is to help students acquire structures and meanings ofauthentic texts Methodologically, literary lessons enable learners to be skilledand understandable reading texts by knowing some strategies The last reason

is due to motivation That teachers use the integrate method with short storiescan warm the interest and makes learners enjoy the lesson as long as selectingthe texts which are worth teaching

As its significance, short stories may be utilized to teach all fourEnglish skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing However, in a limitedtime and papers and framework permit, the author has attempted to conduct

the study entitled “Using short stories to improve the speaking skill of

students at pre-intermediate level” It is hoped that the study may

contribute on students’ success at ASEM Vietnam center and further more

1.2 The purposes of the study:

The study has the following purposes:

Studying the values of literature in language teaching

Integrating short stories and teaching English speaking

Introducing techniques to use short stories in teaching speakingeffectively

3 The scope of the study:

There are many types of literary genres, such as novels, poems, dramas,short/long stories or non fiction They can be used to teach all four skills:listening, speaking, reading and writing This study is aimed to focus on onlythe use of short stories in improving English speaking skill The short storiescan be cut into parts to suitable for teaching goals The topics of short storieschosen are based on students’ interest This study will be done with studentswho are at pre-intermediate level and take evening classes in ASEM Vietnamcenter

4 Research questions:

1 What is students’ attitude towards short stories?

2 What are the benefits of short stories for students’ speaking skill?

3 What are effective techniques for teaching English speaking skill withshort stories?

5 Method of the study:

In order to achieve the purposes mentioned above, the method applied inthis study is quantitative method All data is collected from questionnaires.There are two sets of questionnaires The first one is to investigate thestudents’ attitude toward different genres of literature which is given at thebeginning of the course to know what genre of literature they prefer anddecide the literary type to teach and study The second set is to collectstudents’ feedbacks towards certain techniques It is conducted after speakinglessons with short stories using the techniques After collecting and analyzingthe data, effective recommendations about teaching speaking skill integratingshort stories are found and given

6 Organization of the study:

The study consists of five chapters:

Chapter 1 entitled “Introduction” outlines the background of the study Inthis part, the author presents the reasons for choosing the topic, the purposes,the scope, the research questions, and the organization of the study.

Chapter 2 with the title ‘Theoretical background’ presents an overview ofwhat is literature, its values in language teaching and how literature relates tospeaking skill

In Chapter 3, “Methodology”, the author presents the detailed procedure

of the study: the methodology, population selection, data collection andanalysis

Chapter 4 is the “Findings and Discussion” in which provides datadescription and analysis with findings

The last chapter, “Conclusion and Recommendations”, summarizesmain points and contents of the study based on the results of the study;suggests some techniques for teaching and presents the recommendation forfurther research

The study ends up with “References” providing a list of sources ofmaterials which are used during the process of writing the study and

"Appendix" with the survey questionnaires for students

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.1 Literature and language teaching:

Readers nowadays seem to use literary texts for entertainment only.Even some people rarely touch a literary book as they have other ways ofentertainment At schools, the main goal of an ESL class mostly focuses ongrammatical accuracy In fact, not many language teachers dare use literaturefor teaching skills in their classes Because if they do not know how to modifythem, that may let to difficulty in teaching, students’ bore and time over Soquestions are brought out that why should a language teacher modify literarytexts for his teaching language class, especially if no examiner specificallyrequires doing so and there is little extra time available? What works aresuitable for the ESL classes? How can teachers change the way presentingliterary texts and involve learners in studying?

There are good reasons to use literary works in language teaching:

Firstly, literature is valuable authentic material Most of literary worksreflect the living reality With rhetorical arts, authors bring the world ontopapers with vivid colours, bountiful pictures and especially, truthfully theculture and life styles all around the world There are so many interesting andsignificant themes and contexts which we can not find in lots of books Thesetopics and conventions are “readily recognizable to foreign language learnersfrom their mother-tongue experience” (Marley and Duff, 1989, p 8)

Furthermore, literature “transcends the time and culture to speakdirectly to a reader of a different country at a different period of time” (Collie

& Slater, 1987) Nothing is forever, but lots of literary works are, such as

“Romeo and Juliet” of Shakespeare, “Gone with the wind” of Margaret

Mitchell, “The old man and the sea” of Ernest Hemingway or “The thornbirds” of Colleen McCullough (listed in English only).

Secondly, literature aids to enrich language and culture Literature is apath way to language improvement Different from textbooks which isdesigned for studying purposes, literary works are “things which mattered tothe author when he wrote them” (Marley, 1989, p 12) That is why words intextbooks are not as varied and rich as in them By learning literature,students can discover the different norms of the language use, forms orconventions That is really helpful for their language development andsensitiveness to the features of it Not stop at that, authors use many ways toexpress their ideas, to describe things, to create multiple layers of meaning.Hence, literature encourages interaction Through discussions and sharingfeelings or opinions, readers can enrich their vocabulary, broaden their mind,and improve their sense of speaking and reading skills

Besides that, literature is also a doorway into other cultures. Eachwork contains its national characters in society, politics, history and culturalevents Learning literature enables students “to understand and appreciatecultures and ideologies different from their own in time and space, and tocome to perceive traditions of thought, feeling and artistic form within theheritage the literature of such cultures endows” (Carter and Long, 1991, p.2) If readers do not have chances to travel to many places, thanks toliterature, they still can know and perceive the cultural colours of countriesall around the world Thus, literature is the best material for enhancingstudents’ knowledge about national cultures

Thirdly, literature involves persons Literature expands language

awareness and educates persons By exploring whole meaning of works,intends of authors, readers can broaden their mind with new looks about the

world, new experience and new knowledge They may relate the philosophies,events and things found in the works to their own lives That will contribute

“to stimulate the imagination of our students, to develop their critical abilities,and to increase their emotional awareness” (Lazar, 1993, p 19) Furthermore,

if teachers well motivate and “the experience of engaging with literature iskept sufficiently interesting, varied and non-directive to let the reader feel that

he or she is taking possession of a previously unknown territory” (Collie &Slater,1987), it is believed that students’ reading skill will be improvedefficiently

2.2 Difficulties with using literature:

Using literature in teaching is interesting and effective However, hardlycan all students understand and enjoy the materials According to Lazar(1994), there are some difficulties with using literature for low level students

Language grading

Firstly, there is the issue of language grading Many literary texts,whether prose or poetry, are written in language which includes vocabulary,grammatical structures, and syntax considered too complicated to be included

in the syllabus for learners at lower levels There may be rhetorical or literarydevices in the text (such as complex metaphors) which students might finddifficult to unravel, or the language in the text might be markedly ‘deviant’ inthe way it breaks the usual norms of language use (Leech 1973: 29-33) Awell-known example of a ‘rule breaking’ literary usage is found in DylanThomas’s poem ‘A Grief Ago’, where the word ‘ago’ is made to collocatewith the abstract noun ‘grief’ rather than with a noun denoting a period oftime (Thomas 1978: 49) Teachers often express concern about using

‘deviant’ language with students when these students have not yet even fullyacquired the basic rules of English grammar, syntax, and word formation

Literary competence

A second objection to using literature at lower levels relates to theliterary competence of the students, and hence their ability to generate validinterpretations of a text By literary competence is meant an implicitunderstanding of certain conventions of interpretation which skilled readersdraw on when reading literature (Culler 1975: 113-15) For example, skilledreaders of a poem may be highly sensitive to the way the formal properties ofthe text (such as metre, rhyme scheme, etc.) can be said to reinforce the mainthemes or underlying meanings of the poem

Students who do not read literature in their own language, or whose languagehas a literature very different from literature in English, may remain mystified

or intimidated by the formal properties of the literary text, without being able

to suggest any interpretations of its meanings And even if students at lowerlevels do reach their own interpretation of a text, they often lack sufficientproficiency in English to express it

Motivation

A further problem with using literature at lower levels is that it isconsidered too highly specialized an activity to be of interest to less advancedstudents In addition, many teachers often have very limited time in which tocomplete a syllabus, and consider including literary texts in the lessons anunnecessary and time-wasting distraction, while students themselvesfrequently lack the interest and motivation to work with such texts

2.3 Literature in EFL classroom:

In the nineteenth century, The Grammar Translation Method was

the dominated teaching method at schools At this time, literature was one ofthe main materials in classroom However, the method was soon replaced byStructuralism Approach, Direct Method, the Audiolingualism, Community

Language Learning, Suggestopedia, the Silent Way, Total Physical Response,the Natural Approach, and then Communicative Approach in the late 70`s andvery early 80`s During that era, the main purpose of teaching in ESLclassroom was to teach usably, practically and enable students communicativeorally Thus, literature was ignored because of its complexity Until the1980s, the different consideration about using literary in teaching wasresearched, that was to improve language and culture awareness and point out

“a springboard for the development of critical thinking and aesthetic

appreciation” (Bretz, 1990: 335-338) Due to a stock of benefits of literature,

it can be exploited for many teaching purposes in all four English skills:listening, speaking, reading and writing

2.4 Short stories:

2.4.1 What is a short story?

A short story is, in some ways, like a photograph- a captured moment

of time that is crystalline, though sometimes mysterious, arresting, thoughperhaps delicate But while a photo may or may not suggest consequences, ashort story always does In the story's moment of time something important,something irrevocable has occurred The change may be subtle or obvious,but it is definite and definitive.” (Marilyn Singer 1998) He had an interestingcomparison: “while it is the audience that supplies the back story for a photo,

it is the writer who must give the audience a beginning, middle, and end of ashort story Without that structure, the piece is not a short story at all but ascene, a vignette, a fragment-evocative, yes, but not emotionally orpsychologically satisfying.”

2.4.2 Characteristics of short stories:

A short story is often opened arrestingly, built interesting plot, well

developed and has appropriate structure It is formed with action, tension,

clearly recognizable climax and satisfying ending The use of language inword choice, narrative voice and imagery is effectively According toSumarjo and Saini (1997), “short story is fiction, narrative and having a single

impression” Lubis pointed out in the Tarin (1985) that “short stories should

contain the author’s interpretation of the conception of life, either directly orindirectly” Short stories should have become an actor or a main character.Short stories should be one interesting effect or impression

A short story is “a piece of prose fiction” which we can sit and read forawhile It usually constructs description of real objective and poeticatmosphere It needs to present a unified impression of tone, colour andeffect, "unity of effect" (Poe, 2008) Mostly a decisive moment of life isshown A short story often has a challenging opening and surprise ending Ashort story is allocated to one setting only (fixed place and time, socialsurroundings)

2.5 Some commonly used approaches to teaching literature:

It is really important to choose suitable approaches to teach in alanguage class, especially, when we are teaching literature due to its complexlevel It depends in each situation, students’ level or specific lesson thatteachers should apply a specific method There are three main approaches tothe teaching of literature which were described by Carter and Long (1991):

The cultural model

This model is considered as a traditional procedure in teaching Studentslearn with the model often have to search and interpret the specific contexts ofsociety, politics, literature and history The texts and teachers supply theuniversality of knowledge about national specific traits, thoughts or ideals.This model is not supported largely because it goes on teacher-center way anddoes not encourage students to focus on language

The language model

This is a popular model and used commonly It is a ‘language-basedapproach’ (Carter and Long, 1991) and as its name, the approach helpsstudents explore a text systematically and methodically in order to simplifyliterary structures This approach allows teachers do many activities, such ascloze procedures, brainstorming, summarizing, jigsaw reading, etc whichplay a part in helping learners understand the text

The personal growth model

In this approach, personal experience is a decisive orientation ofteaching and learning in order to engage students in literary works (Lazar,1993) Teachers hold activities to exploit learners’ knowledge about the lifeand encourage them to give out their thoughts and ideals and integrate theirreal-life experiences and those expressed in the text The more prominentthing of this model is that it helps learners improve their admittance about life

as well as their knowledge

The three approaches are presented and exploited base on thefunctions of literature The first model focuses on the developing culturalcompetence The second one aims to improve learners’ language competence.And lastly, the third model concentrates on growing personal experiences forstudents A problem is taken out is to find out an approach to integrate thesemodels in an alternative approach that enables learners to develop all threedimensions

An integrated model for teaching literature

According to Duff and Maley (1990), there are three main reasons formerging the models namely linguistic, methodological and motivational Thefirst one is linguistic competence building The purpose of language classes is

to help students acquire structures and meanings of authentic texts Thesecond one is appropriate method using Teaching every linguistic item need

to have a suitable method That helps learners acquire knowledge quickly andefficiently The last reason is motivated atmosphere Teaching method needs

to wake up the learning enthusiasm and make learners interested in the lesson Timucin (2001) claimed that an integrated approach includes language-based approach and stylistics in contexts He did a study on students’ attitudestowards the integrated model and pointed out that there is a positiverelationship between the approach and their interest, enjoyment as well asunderstandability

In short, each teacher has his own method to make his lessoninteresting and understandable However, searching a suitable and universalapproach is important for improving the teaching skill Using integratedapproach for teaching literature in the language classroom gives chances forsecond language learners to enhance both their linguistic and culturalcompetence and personal experience

2.6 Speaking skill

2.6.1 Concepts of speaking

Speaking is the productive skill in the oral mode It is crucial to humancommunication Different linguistics have different concepts of speaking:Brown (1994) defines speaking as a process of constructing meaning thatinvolves producing, receiving and processing information Brown and Yule(1983) also pointed out that spoken language consists of short, fragmentaryutterances in a range of pronunciation, adding that spoken language is made

by using the loosely organized syntax, and non-specific words, phrases and

filters such as oh, well, uhuh etc Speaking requires learners to use grammar,

vocabulary or pronunciation to produce speech and understand when, where,why and in what ways to produce language

2.6.2 Characteristics of speaking

Spoken and written language makes different demands on languageproducers, (Brown, 1983) Unlike readers or writers, speakers may needpatience and imagination They take turns by turn in a conversation After aspeech, the speaker should let a gap of time for the listener to say.Communication rarely works when two or more people are speaking at thesame time To have an integral and equal relationship, each person needs tofeel that others are listening to their problems and speech, and they need to beable to do the same for others.

The following are characteristics of speaking:

The context in which it occurs creates its form and meaning, “including theparticipants themselves, their collective experiences, the physicalenvironment, and the purposes for speaking” (Maryann, 1999) It is oftenunlimited, open-ended, and evolving Nevertheless, speech may bepredictable Language roles that tend to repeat in some discourse contexts can

be recognized and painted

Speaking offers that participants know how to use and give out certain points

of language called “linguistic competence” such as vocabulary, grammar,intonation, as well as that they understand when, why, and in what ways toproduce language (“sociolinguistic competence”)

Not as the same as written language, speech has its own colors, structures,and conventions A good speaker unifies the statistics of skills and knowledge

to get through a given speech act

Bygate (1987) confirms speaking as an undervalued skill in many ways Asthe fact that almost all people can speak, and so take speaking skill too muchfor granted He also asserts that speaking skill deserves attention every bit asmuch as literacy skilled Learners often need to be able to speak with

confidence in order to carry out many of their most basic transactions Bygatealso highly appreciates speaking by stating that speaking is the mediumthrough which much language is learnt

In conclusion, it is reasonable that speaking is a way to communicatewith people By studying what a speaker should do, what activities should beused in a speaking class, and what students’ needs and suggestions, teacherscan help learners enhance their speaking skill and oral competence

2.7 Problems with speaking and speaking activities

2.7.1 Problems with speaking

Brown (1994) studies characteristics of spoken language and finds outwhy they make speaking skills difficult What he points out as follows:

- Clusterings: In order to speak fluently, speakers have to select from their

store of language clusterings that is groups of words, not word by word

- Reduced forms: Contractions, elisions, reduced vowels, etc create

difficulties in teaching and learning spoken English If learners do not learncolloquial contractions, they can develop the kind of speaking that is stilted,bookish

- Colloquial language: Colloquialism appears both in monologues and

dialogues If learners are only exposed to standard English and/or “textbook”language, they sometimes find it hard to understand and produce words,idioms and phrases of colloquial language

- Stress, rhyme and intonation: Learners of English often find it difficult to

pronounce English words, to stress the right syllables, to follow the times rhythm and intonation patterns of spoken English

stress Affective factors: Learners learning to speak often encounter the risk of

saying out things that may be wrong, stupid and incomprehensible At thosetimes, they tend to be anxious because they do not want to be jugded by otherlearners

- Interaction: The greatest difficulty that learners face in learning to speak

originates from the interactive natural of most communication Engages inprocess of negotiation of meaning with many discourse constraints, learnershave to do the complex task of choosing what to say, how to say, when tospeak, etc Learners are affected by their interlocutors’ performance

2.7.2 Problems with speaking activities

Speaking activities seem exciting, attractive and easy to design.Nevertheless, there are problems teachers often meet when carrying out Ur(1996:121) lists out the following:

- Worries: Unlike reading, writing or listening activities speaking requires

some degree of real-time exposure to an audience The student speaker has toface the teacher and other students in class Learners are often worried abouttrying to says something in a foreign language in the classroom because theyare worried about making mistakes, afraid of criticism or losing face, orsimply shy of the attention that their speech attracts

- Nothing to say: Teachers often hear learners; even if they are not worried or

nervous, complain that they can not have anything to say They may have nomotivation to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they shouldspeak When they say something in class, they feel that they are forced to say

- Uneven or low participation: Usually, there are many students in one class

(between 25 and 35 students) Only one student can talk at a time in a largegroup This means that each one have only very little time for talking This

problem is compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate thegroup, while others speak very little or not at all In some cases some studentshaven’t got any chance, intentionally and unintentionally, to speak for a longtime.

- Mother-tongue use: When all, or a number of the learners share the same

mother tongue, they may tend to use it frequently This happens because thenative language is easier to use and because they feel unnatural to speak toone another in a foreign language and become learners feel less “exposed” ifthey are speaking the language they master If they are talking in a smallgroup, it can be quite difficult to get some classes, particularly the lessdisciplined or motivated ones, to keep to the target language

- Teacher domination: Teaching in a crowded class, many teachers tend to

spend much time explaining words, phrases and grammar structures in detailsfor fear that otherwise the students can not understand and fail in their tests.During explanation, teachers find it is easier and less time consuming to theuse of the mother tongue Another important thing is that the teachers seemmore interested in individual work (between teacher and one student or thewhole group, or one student and another student or the whole group) Theyfear that other kinds of student grouping (pair work and group work) maycause noise or discipline problems

2.8 Principles for speaking techniques.

It is clearly seen from the fact that if teachers utilize appropriate speakingtechniques, they will have really effective results on students’ speakingaccuracy and fluency Nevertheless, to have a good lesson plan with usefultechniques needs lots of energy and experience Brown (1994) presents some

speaking techniques that teachers should consider deeply before designing alesson His principles are as follows:

Techniques should cover learners' needs, from focus on accuracy to focus on interaction, meaning and fluency Students now still follow the

traditional learning ways, that they learn how to do the grammar correctlyfirst to do the test well, and then notice the other factors They believe thatgrammar focus will aid them to pass highly the exam; interaction and fluencyare only used after graduating Good studying result at school consequently ishoped to achieve first Therefore, teachers should know that and help them toget accuracy integrating with communicative skills and fluency shortly after

Techniques should be intrinsically motivating That is really important.

Whether students like our lessons or not depends much on techniques Someteachers use the same plan but can not succeed as others because they do nothold in hand motivating methods We should look for students’ interests andgoals to appeal them in lessons We should also help learners see howactivities benefit them by telling them why teachers organize those activities

Techniques should encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts Authentic materials are close and useful to students.

They can help them to understand easier and quicker as well as relateproblems to life effectively Therefore, they can help motivate participants

Provide appropriate feedback and correction In most ESL situations,

learners are totally dependent on teachers for useful linguistic feedback It isimportant that teachers take advantage of their knowledge of English toproduce the kinds of corrective feedback that are appropriate at the moment

Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening Teachers

should integrate these two skills because many interactive techniques that

involve speaking also include listening and these two skills can reinforce eachother Skills in producing language are often initiated through comprehension.

Give learners opportunities to initiate oral communication Teachers

should allow learners to initiate language because parts of oralcommunication competence are the ability to initiate conversation, tonominate topics, to ask questions, to control conversations and to change thesubject

Encourage the development of speaking strategies Teachers should make

the classroom the place for learners to be aware of and have a chance topractice their personal strategies for accomplishing oral communicativepurposes

2.9 Stages of a speaking lesson:

According to Erin Lowy (1999), a speaking lesson should have threestages: pre, while and post

The Pre-speaking stage: prepares students by getting them to think aboutthe topic or situation before they speak about it Pre-speaking tasks can bebrainstorming or discussion tasks, where students collect all their ideas on thetopic; vocabulary preparation tasks, where the teacher pre-teaches keyvocabulary to help students express their ideas more easily or train studentswith pronunciation drill so that they can speak English in good stress andintonation and this will help them speak out their ideas in English easily andfluently In this stage, the teacher will have to set up a pre task, organize pair/group work and give clear instructions about the task

The while-speaking stage: the teacher lets students work with eachother without interfering with correcting any mistakes in order not to stopstudents from being influent She/ he just gives assistance when/if necessary

At the while-speaking stage, the teacher doesn’t have to do a lot of teaching –because his/her students will be working on the while-task by themselves,individually or in groups In stead, the teacher will have to do a lot ofmonitoring and assisting weaker students who are having difficultycompleting the task

The post-speaking stage: is like the follow-up stage After students havepracticed speaking skill in the while-speaking stage, they do an extensionspeaking activity This helps students take the information from other groups

or whatever they have produced in the while- speaking stage, and dosomething meaningful with it At this stage, the teacher gets students to reporttheir work and let the whole class share what they have got from pair/groupwork The teacher might give feed back, correct serious mistakes here andgive students marks

2.10 Short stories in ESL classroom:

2.10.1 Why use short stories

Looking back the advantages of literature, there are some difficultieswhen using literary genres in teaching language Many teachers do not dare toutilize them because the class is too crowded, the time is limited, and thestudents’ level is not equal whereas literary materials have somedisadvantages First, they take students long time to understand the impliedsentiment and figurative language of poetry Second, novel is too long to besuitable for students study within 45 minute period Finally, it is impossible toact out a drama at class with so many students and little allowed time

It is short stories that are the most suitable literary genre to use inEnglish teaching due to its strong points According to Collie and Slater(1991, p 196), they list four advantages of using short stories in languageclassroom First, ‘their practical length’ is suitable for teacher and students

finishing lesson within one or two periods Second, students will feel lighterand more motivated to take a language task with short stories and have asense to finish it ‘sooner’ Third, there are lots of short-story topics forteachers using to fit students’ interests and tastes The last but not less benefit

of short stories is that they can be used for all levels of students, fromelementary to advance; for ages, from young to adult learners; for all classes,

at schools or centers Arigol (2001) listed the following benefits foreducational purposes of short stories over other literary genres:

 Short stories makes the students’ reading task easier because it is simple and short

 Give learners a better view of other people and other cultures

 Requires more attention and analysis

 Offers a fictional and interesting world

 Helps students to be more creative and raise the critical thinking skills

 Raise cultural awareness

 Reduce students anxiety and helps them feel more relax

 Are good for multicultural contexts because of its universal language Krashen (2000) also made a survey in Hong Kong found that the result

of people who read literary texts was to have improvement in vocabulary andspeaking And adult Hong Kong Chinese students’ attitude towards shortstories among four genres of literature (short story, novel, poetry and drama)was that 43% of them enjoyed and less feared the genre than others Onemore claim is that courting literary texts can lead learners to be ‘criticalthinker’ (Erkaya 2005) During and after reading, students interact with thecharacters in the texts, analysis and find out practical truths and living values.All that makes them be more creative and critical

2.10.2 Problems of using short stories in pre-intermediate language class:

Using literature in teaching English has both advantages anddisadvantages Besides the big benefits, there are some problems whichshould be considered deeply before applying them

Firstly, teachers often have challenging at students’ level Many shortstories are written ‘in language which includes vocabulary, grammaticalstructures, and syntax considered too complicated to be included in thesyllabus for learners at lower levels’ (Lazar, 1993) It is logical that they will

be bored and not want to response the requirement

Secondly, the literary competence of students is not high enough tounderstand the interpretations of the texts According to Culler (1975),literary competence is an implicit understanding of certain contexts or theauthor’s implication as reading literature Readers who are skilled willunderstand what is behind the satirizing words, what the author wanted to say

as using rhetorical arts If there are so many differences in culture betweenstudents’ country and the country the text is from or the language structure in

it is too complex, they can not comprehend the interpretations of thedocument Not only that, even if students can catch the meaning of the text,

“they often lack sufficient proficiency in English to express it” (Lazar, 1993) The last problem with using short stories at pre-intermediate level is that

it is hard to do motivation and make learners interested in the lesson Whiletime is limited for teachers to complete the syllabus, literary texts areconsidered too long and time-wasting Student themselves frequently lack theinterest and motivation to work with such texts

In conclusion, everything has two sides The more important is thateducators have to know how to use teaching materials efficiently and

scientifically That is what the following part is saying: how to select shortstories which can be used to motivate learners to study more excitingly

2.10.3 Choosing short stories

This is an important step which decides the success of the teaching The

teacher should consider the readability of the text Short stories should beshort enough, interesting and suitable for students’ level

The reasonable shortness will make students feel their reading-taskeasier and they can handle by their own Furthermore, selection the length ofmaterial helps teacher and students go on procedure timely and not overloadthe syllabus If it is too long, they will have daunting feelings and spend toomuch time to finish it or give up at the middle

Although the short fiction is served for teaching purpose and relates tothe lesson, it is necessary to choose the topic which goes well with learners’interest McKay (2001) and Rivers (1968) claimed that students will followteacher’s requirement and enjoy a story if the content of the text is appropriate

to their life experience and interests If the document is not fit their taste andhard to nibble, it is difficult to make them motivated In contrast, “if theassigned literary text is meaningful and enjoyable, learners will try toovercome the linguistic obstacles enthusiastically” (Collie and Slater, 1994, p.6-7)

Lastly, the chosen short stories ought to be balance with learners’language competence and culture competence Carter and Long (1991, p 5)suggest, “as a general rule, it is better to choose for teaching literary textswhich are not too far beyond the students’ normal reading comprehension” Ifculture and language is beyond students’ knowledge, they will havedifficulties in reading Carter and Long (1991, p 142) share this problem that

the content of the texts must have some similarities to the country or culture

of the readers

In speaking classes particularly, the preference is choosing short storiesmade in films or audio that will grow up students’ interest and enable them tofollow the native pronunciation and enjoy the culture More perfectly, theselected stories should give opportunities for integrating the four languageskills in effective way: speaking, listening, and writing as well

To sum up, teachers should modify and simplify the texts beforepresenting them in front of the class We may cut the story into pieces foreach lesson requirement Do as Carter’s and Long’s (1991, p 3) suggestionsthat teachers should select the document that “students can respond and inwhich they can participate imaginatively … which will make the reading ofliterature a memorable, individual and collective experience”

2.10.4 Short stories and speaking skill development:

Short-story is a powerful source and will bring a new atmosphere forstudents to be eager for speaking in class in a condition that it is motivatedenough Murdoch (2002) believes that if short stories are exploitedappropriately and used properly, teachers can integrate speaking skill andothers, reading, listening and writing; and doing that ‘allows instructors toteach the four language skills to all levels of language proficiency and canenhance ELT courses for the learners’

In deed, there are many activities teachers can apply for practicingspeaking after reading the interesting text, such as retelling, summarization,oral reading, improvisation, role-playing, and discussion All the activitieshelp learners not only improve their speaking skill, pronunciation but alsolistening skill The followings are some activities cited in journal of English

teaching of Parlindungan Pardede (2011) that teachers can design with shortstories to improve students’ speaking skill

■ A reading chain activity Students, turn by turn, read the text loudly.Teacher may select a paragraph or the whole story if it is short Speaking skilland pronunciation are practiced The activity is suitable for beginner class

■ A retelling chain activity Students work in small groups Everyone haschance to speak A student retells some details and then switches to another.The activity is good for intermediate class

■ ‘A Long Walk Home’ activity Teacher takes out an opinion related to one

of the contexts in the story Then he divides the class into two groups Oneprotects the appropriate meaning Another goes against the opinion Both twogroups have to prove their choice Each saying spoken will be marked onepoint The activity continues until what group can not say and another willbecome the winner That a perfect opportunity for them to practice speaking

■ Role-play This activity can be used in post speaking stage Teacher selects

a particular context students interested in, and then divides the roles Doingthat helps learners recall the story details, act with friends interestingly byspeaking English

In conclusion, short stories are efficient material that gives a hand toenhance communicative competence of EFL learners and develop criticalthinking and aesthetic appreciation Furthermore, they contribute ondeveloping EFL learners’ interpretive abilities and expand their languageawareness (Bretz ,1990)

When coming to the center, students are required to do a placement test

to check what level they are in for putting in a suitable class Currently, thereare following training programs in ASEM Vietnam:

 English for kindergarten children program (from four to seven yearsold): there are six levels with the textbook “Tiny talk” (1A, 1B, 2A, 2B,3A, 3B)

 English for youngling children program (from eight to fifteen yearsold): there are twelve levels with the textbooks “Get set go” (1 to 6),

“Oxford Primary Skills: Reading and Writing” (1 to 6) and “GrammarFriends” (1 to 6)

 General English program (from fifteen years old): there are six levelswith the textbook “First choice” and “Smart choice” (2 to 5)

 Academic English programs: training for internal TOEFL and IELTStests

 Listening and Conversation program: with 100% foreign teachers.

 Commercial English program

In each program, students are trained of all four skills: listening, speaking,reading and writing, from easy to difficult, simple to complex Each coursefor each level lasts from one to more three months, depending on how manydays they learn a week Most of people coming to the center are pleased andattach to the school, study from low levels to higher levels After a course andpassing the exam, they can get a certificate

3.1.2 Description of the students at ASEM Vietnam

Students studying in the school are at different ages, from many places

in Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Thanh Hoa or other provinces Different from otherregular schools, all students can enroll courses in ASEM Vietnam They arechildren, primary, secondary and high school students and students fromuniversities and colleges; they are employed or unemployed people Somemay not know a letter in English but can study and then become skilled Asfor children, many of them do not know how to write and read Vietnamesebut can read, speak and sing in English Most of them love English and learnfor many purposes

3.1.3 Description of the teachers at ASEM Vietnam

If students are the most important factor in the learning process,teachers are the most important factor in the teaching process There arearound fifty teachers working at the center All the teachers at the Schoolpassed the courses of English Pedagogy from the University Most of themalso have attended the extra courses for approaching the new English teachingmethodology Among of them, there are eight native English teachers fromthe U.S and 50% Vietnamese teachers got Masters Level and 40% in each of

these studied and trained abroad Many teachers are teaching at ASEMVietnam and also at elementary, secondary, high schools or universities One

of the best solutions to ensure the quality of teaching in ASEM Vietnam is theprocess of recruitment, supervision and strict management for teachers Inaddition, the school organizes weekly meetings for teacher expertise, and themonthly seminars with the participation of national and foreign experts

3.2 The study

3.2.1 Participants

This study was carried out with the participation of 120 students whoare at pre-intermediate level and learning General English Program with thetextbook Smart Choice 1 at ASEM Vietnam

As mentioned earlier, although literature is very interesting and literarytexts are really helpful when are integrated to develop language skills, thereare some defense things preventing it from using in teaching such as takingfor preparation, out of students’ knowledge competence, culture competence

or difficult in motivation Therefore, they are still not popularly used in VietNam, and ASEM Vietnam is not out of the area Almost of teachers have noidea about using literature in language teaching especially the four skills That

is the reason why the author does not include the teachers in this study andshe really wants to make a new path way in language teaching in general and

in speaking teaching in particular

The students under investigation are between 19 and 22 including bothmale and female students studying in universities Their backgroundknowledge is almost of the same level They had all passed the test of the firstlevel and their language level is between the pre-intermediate andintermediate

3.2.2 The setting of the study

The study was conducted at ASEM Vietnam center where the author isteaching English is the only one subject there The students have chances to

go through many levels in unlimited time learning both background andspecialized knowledge They learn in a comfortable environment and smallclasses which consist of only from ten to eighteen students per class Theclassroom is equipped with modern technologies such as projector, television,computer and loudspeaker Desks and chairs are convenient for them to sitand move one person with one private desk and chair All that makes studentsmotivated, feel eager for studying and helps them to get the better results

3.2.3 The data collection methods

Due to the reason that, no teachers in the center uses short stories toteach speaking lessons, the author can not use observation or diaries to do theresearch To achieve the crucial study purposes, a survey questionnaire hasbeen chosen as the main method for data collection for this particularresearch It is considered that questionnaire is a logical and easy option as away of collecting information from people (Wisker, 2001) They gatherinformation directly by asking people questions and using them as data foranalysis Questionnaires are often used to collect information aboutpreference, opinions, attitudes, activities, and reactions to events Inconsequence, the study aims at sounding out the students’ attitudes toward theuse of short story in developing speaking skills and their responses to certainactivities carried out in class Hence, it will certainly be valuable for thestudy Furthermore, this research method is cost-effective, easy to analyze,reduces bias and less intrusive

In this study, the questionnaire consists of two main parts: the first one

is intended to explore the students’ attitudes towards literary genres, thesecond one is dedicated to know the effects of short stories in teachingspeaking The survey questionnaire with 7 questions is for pre-intermediatelevel students to identify their opinions on the speaking lessons, theirachievement after learning with short stories, and to find out theirexpectations to achieve better speaking skills and techniques to teach shortstories effectively To make sure that the subjects understand the questionsproperly, the author asks them to answer the questions truthfully andtrustworthily with the translation from English into Vietnamese

In the first part, two questions are given Question 1 is to get the literarygenre students prefer The purpose of question 2 is to investigate the topicsthat students are interested in

The second part focuses on activities students do in the speaking class(from question 3 to question 7) Question 3 aims to find out what thingsstudents feel difficult when doing speaking activities and then give outeffective suggestions for them to do the tasks better The reactions of studentstoward certain techniques using short stories in speaking class areinvestigated in question 4 which is specially divided into eight smaller onesand aims at finding the effects of the activities carried out at pre and whilespeaking stage What is more, question 5 is listed to see advantages and weakpoints of post speaking activities Question 6 is designed to collectinformation about the achievement of students after studying with shortstories and certain techniques All the questions above are formed withmultiple choices To know more about learners’ desires in studying speakingskill, an open question is created that is question 7 They will give outsuggestions what the teacher and students should do to get better results

Consequently, the teacher will know in what field she should consider andedit to have standard lessons.

To get the best effects of the study, the author investigated the first part

of the survey - the preference of students to short stories and the attractivetopics at the beginning of the course (five months ago) and has taughtspeaking lessons with short stories right after that In result of doing so,certain techniques are introduced to them and students have enough time tostudy with the new method, thus, they know how to answer the questions

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter of the thesis is the treatment of the data collected from thesurvey questionnaires conducted on 120 pre-intermediate level students fromASEM Vietnam

4.1 Students’ attitude towards literary texts (Question 1 and 2)

4.1.1 Question 1: Which genre of literature do you prefer?

There are many ways to divide genres of literature, however, due to thecomplexity of definition of genres and their popularity which students havedifficulty to comprehend and distinguish, the author only use four commontypes which learners know more clearly to investigate, they are short stories,novel, poetry and drama

Options

Percentage

s of people who choose the genre

Ideas about each genre

Short stories 60%

- short, time saving and understandable

- interesting, entertaining and imaginary

- practical, colorful and meaningful

- emotional, exciting and adventurous

- rich in content and scenes

- not real, too long and time-killing

- rhythmic and romantic

- imaginary and short

- figurative vocabulary and sense

- difficult to understand

- dramatic and very long

Drama 4% - very difficult to understand

- lots of slang words and strange words

Table 4.1: Students’ preference towards certain genres of literature

The table shows how many percentages students prefer the literary

genres It can be clearly seen that the amount of people choosing each typevaried considerably across the four ones

According to the figures, short stories take the most favor with 60% ofchoice It is due to the prominent benefits of the text in comparing with othertypes If teachers carefully select appropriate short stories which haveinteresting content and reasonable length and are suitable for the students’language competence, learners will be more eager in studying In the contrary,only 4% of learners want to read and study with drama in class According tothe majority of students, drama is too difficult for them to understand Inaddition, they are often very long with words that hardly can they learn to use

in communication Learners can get disorderly and over-excited

The second rank of students’ preference is poetry which takes 21%.Although most of them share that poetry is quite attractive and rhythmic, theyclaim that understanding a poem is not an easy task A taken requirement ontheir learning style is to have sensitiveness, imagination and creation to findout the hidden sense of the poem and what content the author inferred

Novel come the third with 15% of choice Some students like to readnovel because it is exciting and adventurous Reading a novel makes theirsoul fly with romantic and emotional scenes However, novel are a form ofescapism and often makes people feel really inspired to change some aspects

of their life, or look at life from a whole different perspective Furthermore,they are too long for learners to complete within limited time lessons