Hiệu quả của việc sử dụng giáo cụ trực quan để phát triển kỹ năng nói cho học sinh lớp 12 tại trường THPT cẩm phả

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITYSCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

NGUYEN THI DUONG

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING VISUAL AIDS TO PROMOTESPEAKING SKILLS FOR THE 12TH GRADERS

AT CAM PHA HIGH SCHOOL

(Hiệu quả của việc sử dụng giáo cụ trực quan để phát triển kỹ năng nói chohọc sinh lớp 12 tại trường THPT Cẩm Phả)

M.A THESIS

Field: English LinguisticsCode: 8220201

THAI NGUYEN – 2019

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITYSCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

NGUYEN THI DUONG

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING VISUAL AIDS TO PROMOTESPEAKING SKILLS FOR THE 12TH GRADERS

AT CAM PHA HIGH SCHOOL

(Hiệu quả của việc sử dụng giáo cụ trực quan để phát triển kỹ năng nóicho học sinh lớp 12 tại trường THPT Cẩm Phả)

M.A THESIS (APPLICATIONORIENTATION)

Field: English LinguisticsCode: 8220201

Supervisor : Dr Nguyen Thi Huong

THAI NGUYEN – 2019

I hereby certify that no part of the thesis has been copied or reproduced by me fromany other person’s work without acknowledgement and that the thesis is originallywritten by me under strict guidance of my supervisor.

Quang Ninh, September 20th 2019

Nguyen Thi Duong

This study was approved by

Second, I would like to thank all lecturers at Foreign Languages Department,Thai Nguyen University for their valuable teaching and tremendous assistance thathave enlightened my study path.

Third, I am grateful to my colleagues at Cam Pha high school for theirconstructive suggestions about this research Without their help and cooperation, theresearch would have been made impossible.

I also would like to give my special thanks to the students at Cam Pha highschool who have actively participated in my study.

Last but not least, my sincere thanks go to my family, my classmates at theMaster Course Class, my friends, especially my husband, who also encourages andshares the hardship with me.

These people deserve all the credit I highly appreciate all their support andcontribution.

Nguyen Thi Duong

This study is an attempt to investigate the use of visual aids in teachingspeaking to 12 graders at Cam Pha high school The main purposes of the study areto find out: the current English speaking teaching and learning situation at Cam Phahigh school; activities and techniques of teaching with visual aids applied byteachers and students’ preferences; the difficulties in learning and teaching Englishspeaking and then give some suggestions for teachers to stimulate students inspeaking and overcome the difficulties they have to face with in teaching speakingEnglish for students The study adopts action research approach, with the use ofmixed research methods involving both qualitative and quantitative data Twohundred 12th grade students and four teachers took part in the study The findingsshow that the use of visual aids significantly enhanced students’ interest andengagement in speaking skills Students also reported their improvement in variousaspects of speaking skills The study proposes implications and suggestions forusing visual aids in improving speaking skills.

1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Scope of the study 2

1.5 Significance of the study 3

1.6 Design of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Speaking skills 5

2.1.1 Mỉco and macro skills of speaking 6

2.1.2 Fluency and accuracy 7

2.2 Teaching speaking 7

2.2.1 Teaching and learning speaking skills 7

2.2.2 Principles for designing speaking techniques 8

2.2.3 Problems in learning speaking 9

2.3 Visual aids 10

2.4 Roles and functions of visual aids in language teaching and learning 14

2.5 Use of visual aids in language teaching and learning 15

2.6 Previous studies 17

3.5 Validity and reliability 32

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 34

Questionnaires 34

4.1.1.The reality of the current learning speaking English 34

4.1.1.1 Students’ purposes of learning speaking English 34

4.1.1.2.Students’ assessment on the importance of speaking English 35

4.1.1.3 students' opinions towards speaking activities 35

4.1.1.4 Students’ frequency of speaking English in speaking class 36

4.1.1.5 Causes of students' reluctance to speak in class 37

4.1.2 Students' attitudes towards using visual aids in the speaking lesson 38

4.1.3 Teachers' attitudes towards using visual aids in speaking lesson 42

4.2 Observations 45

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1.1 Rationale of the study

Nowadays, English has an important role in the world Most countries in theworld use English as medium of communication in many aspects of life Meanwhile,in Vietnam, English is considered as a foreign language It also has been introducedto educational institutions, which is learnt from Junior High School up to universityas a compulsory subject.

Oral communication competence or speaking skills is the goal of Englishlearning in many schools Speaking skill is considered as an initial skill that leadslearners to develop the other communication competences (reading and writing).However, it is assumed that developing speaking skill to 12th graders in our schoolis not easy because of the status of English as a foreign language in which it is notused in national or social life.

With more than 8 years of experience in teaching English at Cam Pha highschool, the researcher find that students have to learn English in 2 semesters in thecurriculum At the end of each semester, the students have to take a written tests andspoken tests However, the result of spoken test is always lower than the one ofwritten test With my own teaching experience and what I have observed from mycolleagues’ teaching, I found certain of reasons why students usually obtainunsatisfied achievement:

1 There are plenty of different levels of ability in learning English the class2 As soon as we put them in groups, our students speak Vietnamese not English3 The students always make too much noise

4 We would like to do more speaking activities, but our students just won’t co- operate

5 The students make so many mistakes that we cannot correct them6 We do not have time to give them enough speaking practice7 Some topics are not interesting.

Supiyati (2011) stated that practically the use of visual aids is one of theappropriate techniques to develop students’ speaking skills Actually, there are

kinds of visual aids that the researcher will describe like pictures, graphics,charts, illustrations etc Through visual aids, the students are more enthusiastic.Students enjoyed the process of teaching and learning more Teaching speakingusing visual aids gives a big chance to the students to speak Due to the identifiedissues of speaking skills of high school students in Vietnam and the effects ofemployment of group work on enhancing the students’ speaking skill, this research

employs the treatments of action research to conduct the research on: “Theeffectiveness of using visual aids to promote speaking skill for the 12th graders atCam Pha high school”.

1.2 Aims and objectives of thestudy

The overarching aim of this current research is to investigate the Vietnamesehigh school students’ speaking behaviors and performance under the effects of usingvisual aids in English speaking lessons in the context of public high school from theperspectives of both the EFL teachers as instructors and students.

The following specific objectives will be supportive to the areas of research:1 To find out the 12th grader’ attitudes towards using visual aids to teaching

speaking at Cam Pha high school.

2 To evaluate the effectiveness of using visual aids in teaching speaking at Cam Pha high school.

Pha high school?

2) What are Cam Pha high school students’ perceptions of and attitudestoward using visual aids in speaking lessons?

3) What are Cam Pha high school teachers’ attitudes toward using visualaids in speaking lessons?

1.4 Scope of thestudy

The study is carried out at Cam Pha high school This study investigated theissues and changes that arise from an EFL speaking class This study included 200students of grade 12 at Cam Pha high school Students are surveyed to find outthe

effectiveness of using visual aids to promote their speaking skills Furthermore, theresearcher’s intention was to carry out classroom observation, and interviewteachers and students to see if they workable and effective, and to make somesuggestions to help the students better their speaking skill The report has carried outin the first semester of academic year 2018-2019 with only 12th-grade students;hence, the respondents does not represent for all students who study English major inVietnam.

1.5 Significance of thestudy

This current study is devoted to generate both theoretical and practicalcontributions Theoretically, although there are certain number of studies previouslyconducting the investigation into the use of visual aids in the EFL context, the majorconcerns of these studies lie on other aspects of English as vocabulary or listening,not speaking skills Particularly, in Vietnam there is a scarcity of research exploringthe implementation of visual aids in English speaking teaching and learning atupper elementary level There has been little evidence supporting the effectivenessand implementation of visual aids in an English class Therefore, the study findingsexpect to fill the gap of literature in this aspect and provide valuable information forthe researchers who are interested in cooperating visual into their teaching.

Concerning the practical contributions, it is expected that the present studymay benefit teachers and students at high schools, particularly, which have problemsin instructing English speaking skills, contributing to the reform of Englishcurriculum design and teaching pedagogy at upper elementary level Most of thetypical problems that the students of grade 12 face while speaking are that theycannot speak beyond short segments because of lack of vocabulary, poor grammarand pronunciation Due to this problem, they cannot participate actively inconversation and activities based on daily life situations They have frequentcommunication gaps and misunderstandings results in lack of communicationstrategies therefore they speak slowly and take a lot of time to compose sentences.All of these problems can only be solved by improving student’s speaking skillsthrough visual aids In the scenario of Vietnamese public school the teachers tend to

see their role merely in terms of an instructor or a director The implementation ofvisual aids in English speaking classrooms enables the teacher

to shift their teaching approach from teacher-centered to student-centered inalignment with the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) which has beenpromoted in English teaching in all educational levels in Vietnam.

1.6 Design of thestudy

The study is divided into three parts: the Introduction, the Development and the

Conclusion with reference to fivechapters.

Chapter 1: Introduction - deals with the rationale, aims, scope, methods,

significance and design of the study

Chapter 2: Literature Review- is intended to give some theoretical

background related to speaking, speaking problems, Communicative LanguageTeaching (CLT), visual aids, and previous studies relating to the topic of research.

Chapter 3: Methodology- deals with research governing orientation, research

methods and presents the situation analysis, participants, data collection instruments,data collection procedures and data analysis The detailed results of the survey and acomprehensive analysis on the data collected are focused.

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussions- show major findings and discussions

and offer some recommendation for teachers to motivate students to speakand overcome some difficulties they meet in teaching speaking through theemployment of group work activities.

Chapter 5: Conclusion- is a review of the study, suggestions for

further research and limitations of the study.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

It is stated in the previous chapter that the purpose of this study is to improvethe students’ speaking skills by using visual aids Thus, in this chapter, to supportthis study, some theoretical descriptions on speaking and visual aids will bedescribed thoroughly.

2.1 Speaking skills

There are many definitions of speaking by experts According to Spratt,Pulverness, and William (2011), speaking is a productive skill, like writing Itinvolves using speech to express meanings to other people When people speak, theyuse different aspects of speaking depending on the type of speaking they areinvolved in That is why speaking is a complex activity.

Brown (2004) defines speaking as a productive skill that can be directly andempirically observed Speaking is the product of creative construction of linguisticstrings, the speaker makes choices of lexicon, structure, and discourse.

Thornburry in Harmer (2007) suggests various dimensions of differentspeaking events in order to describe different speaking genres There is adistinctionbetween transactional and interpersonal functions Transactional functionhas its main purpose conveying information and facilitating the exchange of goodsand services, whereas the interpersonal function is all about maintaining andsustaining good relations between people.

According to Riddell (2003), speaking is one of two things in a lesson.Speaking is not reading aloud (pronunciation), either reading the answer to agrammar question (accuracy) Speaking is neither reading the answer to areading/listening question (comprehension) In each of these cases the aims are notspeaking-related It could be a speaking activity designed to give practice oflanguagejust learned or reviewed.

From many definitions and explanations about speaking above, it canbe concluded that speaking is actually a way of how people communicate andinteract toeach other and convey the meaning they want the hearer to get.

2.1.1 Micro and macro skills of speaking

In teaching speaking, teachers also help students to learn micro skills andmacro skills of speaking, as stated by Brown (2004) The microskills andmacroskills of speaking are listed as follow:

8) Use grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), systems (e.g., tense, agreement, pluralization), word order, patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.

9) Produce speech in natural constituents: in appropriate phrases, pause groups, breath groups, and sentence constituents.

10) Express a particular meaning in different grammaticalforms.

11) Use cohesive devices in spoken discourse Macroskills

1) Appropriately accomplish communicative functions according to situations, participants, and goals.

2) Use appropriate styles, registers, implicature, redundancies, pragmaticconventions, conversation rules, floor-keeping and yielding, interrupting, andother sociolinguistic features in face-toface conversations.

3) Convey links and connections between events and communicativesuch relations as vocal and peripheral ideas, events and feelings,newinformation and given information, generalization andexemplification.

4) Convey facial features, kinesics, body language, and othernonverbal cues along with verbal language.

5) Develop and use a battery of speaking strategies, such as emphasizingkey words, rephrasing, providing a context for interpreting the meaning ofwords, appealing for help, and accurately assessing how well the speakers’interlocutor is understanding conveyed messages.

Those micro and macro skills above can be a checklist of objective whenassessing spoken language Teachers should pay attention to these when they areteaching speaking skills.

2.1.2 Fluency and accuracy

According to Riddell (2003), the ability to talk fairly freely, without toomuch stopping or hesitating is called fluency It requires the listener understandswhat is being said, so there must be intelligibility and meaning With accuracy theemphasis is on “correct English” – the right grammar, the right vocabulary Bothfluency and accuracy are equally important But Riddell has different thought It isactually depends on what the teachers are teaching If they teach a high-level studentwho is about to take an exam to enter college, accuracy is very important indeed.

On the other hand, when teaching beginners, or other very low levels,teachers cannot possibly expect fluency Here, teachers really do have to help thembuild their language accuracy bit by bit until they reach the stage when they canspeak more fluently What is far more important is that they can make themselvesunderstood, and can talk relatively fluently Teachers need to give their studentsconfidence when speaking and not to be obsessed with constant correction.

2.2 Teaching speaking

2.2.1 Teaching and learning speaking skills

Kimble and Garmezy in Brown (2000) state that learning is a relatively

permanent change in a behavioral tendency and is the result of reinforced practice While teaching

is showing or helping someone to learn how to do something, giving instructions,guiding in the study of something, providing with knowledge, causing to know orunderstand.

Brown (2000) breaks down the components of the definition of learning, and extract the domains of research and inquiry: Learning is acquisition or “getting”, learning is retention of information or skill, retention implies storage systems, memory, and cognitive organization, learning involves active, conscious focus on and acting upon events outside or inside the organism, learning is relatively permanent but subject to forgetting, learning involves some form of practice, perhaps reinforced practice and learning is a change in behavior Brown also cites that teaching is guiding and facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, setting the conditions for learning Regarding the definitions about teaching and learning above, it can be concluded that both of them cannot be separated Teaching and learning are two processes to achieve something It is also a process oftake and give, in this case, knowledge.

2.2.2 Principles for designing speaking techniques

According to Brown (2000), there are seven principles for designing speaking techniques They are stated as follows:

1) Using techniques that cover the spectrum of learner needs, for based focus on accuracy to message-based focus on interaction, meaning, and fluency;

language-2) Providing intrinsically motivating techniques;

3) Encouraging the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts;4) Providing appropriate feedback and correction;

5) Capitalizing on the natural link between speaking and listening;6) Giving students opportunities to initiate oral communication;7) Encouraging the development of speaking strategies.

In teaching speaking, it is very important for teachers to consider thespeaking techniques The tasks should include techniques designed to help studentsto perceive and use the building blocks of language It is also needed to make any

speaking becauseteachers should help the students to see how the activity willbenefit them It

usuallypays to tell them why we as a teacher ask them to do certain things Anotherthing that is not easy to keep coming up with is meaningful interaction Even ittakes energy and creativity to devise authentic contexts and meaningful interaction,with the help of a storehouse of teacher material, it can be done.

When it deals with teaching speaking, feedback and correction are otheraspects to be highlighted It is important that teachers take advantage of theirknowledge of English to inject the kinds of corrective feedback that are appropriatefor the moment Many interactive techniques that involve speaking will also includelistening Teachers should integrate these two skills in teaching A good deal oftypical classroom interaction is characterized by teacher initiation of language Partof oral communication competence is the ability to initiate conversations, tonominate topics, to ask questions, to control conversations, and to change thesubject The last, teacher should build the atmosphere so that the students can usethe expressions for asking someone to repeat something, getting someone’sattention, and many others.

2.2.3 Problems in learningspeaking

There are so many problems related to speaking, especially speaking theforeign language People have to consider about many things Vocabulary,grammar, intonation, pronunciation and the meaning sense of what they are talkingabout.

Brown (2000) states that there are some characteristics of spoken languagethat can make the speaker easily to convey the meaning, but in contrast, they also canmake the speaker difficult to speak.

1) Clustering: Learners can organize their output both cognitively and physically(in breath groups) through clustering It will be difficult for the junior highschool students since they still confuse about the vocabulary used.

2) Redundancy: The speaker has to make meaning clearer through theredundancyof language.

3) Reduced forms: Contractions, elisions, reduced vowels, etc., all form special

4) Performance variables: One of the most salient differences between nativeand nonnative speakers of a language is in their hesitation phenomena.

5) Colloquial language: Students are not well acquainted with the words,idioms, and phrases of colloquial language.

6) Rate of delivery: Learners are difficult to achieve an acceptable speed alongwith other attributes of fluency.

7) Stress, rhythm, and intonation: The stress-timed rhythm of spoken Englishand its intonation patterns convey important messages.

8) Interaction: It is still difficult to find the creativity of conversationalnegotiation for students.

9) From the characteristics of spoken language above, it can be said that thosecharacteristics haven’t been achieved by the students They can be problemsfor the students since they were not getting use to English in their daily life.

2.3 Visual aids

This section refers to the contributions and descriptions some authors give tothe concept of visual aids, their description and classification Visual aids have beenused since the beginning of learning and teaching Most early reviews wereconcerned with the meaning of visual aids As there are many authors who refer tovisual aids, this literature review attempts to define them from manifold differentpoints of view, thus provide the audience with complete and varied information.Moreover, this paper defines visual aids in different aspects; use, design, function,and the advantages of using them in the teaching-learning process Gilbert Weaberand Elroy Bollinger (1949) define visual aids as “any specifically prepared drawing,illustration, model, motion picture, film strip, or other device that will expeditelearning through the sense of vision” (p 1) Current thinking contends that “[ .]educational media or aids refer to all forms of information carriers that can be usedto [ .] store, preserve and transmit or retrieve information to promote andencourage effective teaching and learning activities” (Babalola, B., 2013, p 108).Therefore, visual aids yield in improving the teaching-learning process Visual aidsare intended to help both the teacher and the students in order to make the contentsbetter understood, to contextualize vocabulary and make it meaningful for thelearners.

In this respect Yi-Hsun Lai (2011) maintains that using visual aids “not onlystimulate students’ learning interest, but students can also interact with these visualaids, and can relate them to their past experience or their daily life experience” (p.3) This leads us to confirm that using visual aids properly in the teaching-learningprocess stimulate students to participate and be familiarized with their ownexperiences Not exempt of defining visual aids, M, Jessa (2008) claims that they“refer to graphs, maps, pictures etc used as aids in learning” and these can beseparable into four categories:

- NON-Projected 2D: wall board, roll-up board, picture, poster, chart, cartoon, cue sheet, flannel board, flash card;

- NON-Projected 3D: cut-out, model, mock-up, puppet, marionette, diorama, vocabulary wheel, keyboard, teaching machine;

- Projected 3D: slide, transparency sheet, film strip, microfilm, video cassette, CD;- Verbal: text book, supplementary reader, workbook, magazine,

document, duplicated materials, reference book, newspapers, and clippings (p 93)

Regarding this categorization Callista (1938) suggests how visual aidscontribute to the teaching-learning process pointing out that visual aids firstly“provide for the learner a concrete picture of the situation in question” (p 4) Visualresources accompany what is verbally said and help to understand ambiguoussituations Moreover, the school and the teacher must provide interesting sources tooffer attractive educative experiences to the students Callista (1938) alsoasserts that “another significant value of visual aids is economy of time” (p 3).Teachers in general must be aware of the time while teaching, and in order to makeuse of it according to the contents and the learning outcomes it is necessary tomanage every single activity and save as much time as possible in order to fulfill theobjectives of the lesson.

Aina (2006) establishes useful characteristic of visual aids and makessuggestions to prepare and use them inside the classroom The author includessome12 features of visual aids as well The characteristics Aina (2006) contends arethe following:

- The pictures, maps and charts should be attractive and with suitable colors.

- Writing must be large enough and clear enough to be easily read from the back of the class.

- The charts and posters should be accurate in spacing and planning.- The figures and the letters should be well formed.

- Objects and pictures should be big enough for children to see from their sitting places.

- There should be a great deal of pictures or materials to go round the children if possible.

- Apparatus must be accurately prepared and be ready before the lesson.- Let all pupils first see any materials or apparatus before individuals

or agegroup can see [them].

- All pictures on the television must be clear and the radio should have a clear sound.

- When preparing apparatus, the correct, accurate language and spelling mustbe considered (p 28)

Aina (2006) also outlines that these characteristics are essential when usingvisual aids properly because they “transmit information in such a fashion that willmodify the attitude, habits and practices of students” (p 35) The fact that thestudents are interested in an activity provides teachers with a useful tool that teachersmust take advantage of.

There are a range of types of visual aids used in language learning which use different media, but the researcher limits the visual aids including picture and

video Picture

Pictures are aids that can help the teachers in the teaching learning process.Pictures are the simplest and commonly used Pictures are very effective Picturesprovide associations for the learning of new words But we cannot use pictures forevery unknown or abstract word as they cannot be illustrated easily The moreconcrete a word is, the easier it is to find and uses a picture for its illustration(Ariningsih, 2009).

Callahan (2006) stated that one of visual instructional media that is going tobe used in this research is picture Pictures are aids that can help the teachers inthe

teaching learning process Suggesting the teachers to use pictures effectively is veryuseful for the teaching Many interpretations can be made in a picture It can be anexcellent tool and can illustrate what teachers wish to teach It is also used to addinterest of the topic for the students.

Picture is something drawn or painted: a shape or set of shapes and linesdrawn, painted, or printed on paper, canvas, or some other flat surface, especiallyshapes that represent a recognizable form or objects Showing pictures or bydrawing them on the board the teacher can also ensure that the students understandthe meaning of a word (Harmer, 1988).

Pictures facilitate comprehension and learning are explained by Levin andMayer They proposed some principles called the seven “C” According to theirwords pictures make the text more: concentrated, compact/concise, coherent,comprehensible, correspondent and codable Other authors have also numberedsome reasons for the benefits of the pictures, such as Peeck(1993) This authorhighlighted that pictures help increasing motivation, focusing attention, depth ofprocessing clarification of text content, dual-coding theory, decreasing interferencedecay, process support for the type of information and serve as mental models (Maria, 2012).

The use of video in teaching English classroom has become a commonpractice for in language teaching Nowadays, internet facilities and availability ofdifferent technology have made the task of the language teachers easier Teacherscan download different videos appropriate for the learners from internet As thereare thousands of readymade videos designed for language teaching, teachers caneasily choose according to their needs Videos can facilitate language teaching indiverse ways It makes the classroom interesting removing the monotony of thelearners Moreover, it helps the learners to generate ideas for discussion.

It makes the class more interactive and effective (Al Mamun, 2014) Usingvideo in language teaching ensures authentic language input to the learners.Moreover, using content related videos helps the learners to conceptualize the ideasand get in depth thought on that topic Besides, learners can concentrate on the use

language in the videos along with non-verbal features of language that helps them tohave better understanding of the target language use The usefulness of using videosin language teaching stating that video provides stimuli to the learner whichfacilitates an opportunity to the learners to get a background schemata of the subject.Also the use of videos helps the learners to have an idea of the stress and rhythmpattern of the target language (Al Mamun, 2014).

2.3.1 Roles and functions of visual aids in language teaching andlearning

Visual aids play a very important role in the language teaching process Thecontents of the lesson require abstract thinking, logical thinking will be concretizedthrough the means of hearing, seeing directly (Salazar and Larenas, 2018) Whenteachers use appropriate, flexible and adequate visual tools to clarify the lessoncontent, students will easily acquire knowledge in that lesson.

When preparing visual aids for teaching, teachers must ensure that students inany position in the class can easily observe the tools In addition to using clearimages, the use of appropriate colors also helps increase the effectiveness of visualaids In addition to the two basic colors, white and black, teachers can combinedifferent colors to increase the attractiveness and appeal of the teachers (Bobkina,2012).

In fact, visual tools not only help students understand, memorize lessoncontent easily and quickly, but also make the lesson become closer, lively and moreattractive In order to fully exploit the characteristics and advantages of the visualtool, teachers need to invest time, effort and enthusiasm to prepare the visualequipment and utensils to ensure the content and fit lectures and best quality(Slavíková, 2014).Besides, teachers also need to regularly exchange and learnexperiences to update and innovate teaching methods, in accordance with therequirements of innovating the current teaching and learning situation in Vietnam.

Visual aids are versatile tools applied in most subjects As for English, usingvisual aids will make the lesson more exciting, exciting and interesting,helping students to acquire knowledge easily and quickly (Shabiralyani, Hasan,

Teachers can use pictures, charts, large diagrams, etc to summarize the maincontents of the lesson instead of recording all of the content on the board Unliketraditional teaching methods, this method of teaching helps teachers save timewriting tables, which means more time to lecture(Garfield and Burrill, 1996).Whenvisual aids are introduced at school hours, students will have many approaches toknowledge: Listening - seeing - interaction At the same time, the visual tool willalso provide the most illustrative and vivid examples, helping students not onlyremember the lesson faster but also maintain the memorization of the image for along time (Bobkina, 2012).

Abbas described the importance of audiovisual devices in this way, (Unesco,

2000): (1) Promote mutual understanding and empathy in classrooms; (2)Make significant changes in student behavior; (3) Express the relationship of theproblem to the needs and interests of the student, with an increase in learningmotivation; (4) Express the relationship of the problem to the needs and interests ofthe student; (5) Brings freshness and diversity to the learning experience; (6) Makelearning meaningful across a range of student abilities; (7) Encourage the meaningfuluse of the problem by allowing imaginative involvement and active participation "Ihave had" felt that academic results increased; (8) Provide the necessary feedback tohelp students discover how well they have learned; (9) Provide richexperiences from which meaningful concepts will be developed; (10) Expand therange of students "experience in a process that will be faster than non-verballearning and making generalized accuracy; (11) Ensure order and clarity of thoughtthat the student will need if he comes from conceptual structures and set up a systemof meaningful ideas.

2.3.2 Use of visual aids in language teaching andlearning

Visual aids evoke the learners interest and helps teachers explain conceptseasily Visual support is the instructional support that is used in the classroom toencourage instructional learning speaking As Singh (2012) defines that any devicewith vision and sound enhances individual practice, in fact achieved throughspeaking as a visual aids device Visual support is the teaching device used in the

classroom to encourage learning speaking and make it easier and more motivating.Materials such as

models, charts, strips, projectors, radios, televisions, maps, etc are called teaching aids, (Instead, 2004).

In addition to the available visual tools or prepared by teachers, teachers canalso guide students to prepare tools to serve the lesson content A typical example isthe use of magnetic cards Instead of giving the whole class the same word card, theteacher can give students the blank word cards and ask to design their own flashcardsfor their own interests and creativity (Gevers and Murphy, 2002).

Using visual aids in teaching gives us a rich and lively source of information,lets lectures become more intuitive, lectures are more lively, attracting focus, passionfor learners’ interest, making learners easy to understand and remember for a longtime, helping to reduce the time to learn about the problem and make knowledgemore durable, faster and easier (Shabiralyani, Hasan, Hamad and Iqbal, 2015).

Visual aids reflect true objective reality and thereby provides learnerswith accurate and specific knowledge of the issues being studied Visual aids areespecially suitable for simulations where the program is complex, abstract andhighly dynamic Visual aids allow learners to visualize the process and buildintellectual models (Shabiralyani, Hasan, Hamad and Iqbal, 2015).

Visual aids contributes to enhancing awareness, feeling and perception ofthings and phenomena, helping to acquire new knowledge more conveniently andmore firmly Moreover, visual aids provide teachers with communication indifferent ways the amount of information needed for the acquisition of students'lessons The acquisition of knowledge is highly effective when their students receiveinformation from many different sources of knowledge and in their own activities,synthesizing and refining those sources (Shabiralyani, Hasan, Hamad and Iqbal,2015).

Visual aids also contribute to preventing the form of tedious teaching andlearning in terms of facilities and laboratory equipment, and lack of backward andobsolete practice rooms It also aims to make learning more social, moreinterdisciplinary and more knowledge linked together in a world (Shabiralyani,Hasan, Hamad and Iqbal, 2015).

Moreover, there are advantages and disadvantages using visual aids Themain advantage of using real objects in the classroom is to make the learningexperience memorable for the learners Because there are criteria for selectingaudiovisual equipment, these conditions are often not applicable because there aremany obstacles to the proper and effective use of such materials(Mamun, 2014).The nature of these issues differs from teacher to teacher Inadequate teachers mayfind it difficult to choose the right supportive devices for targeted activities in othertechnical areas, and this can be time-consuming, (Tasnubha and Dil, 2017).

2.4 Previousstudies

Many researchers search about how effective visual aids are In article studyconducted by Park (2000), he examines the best learning styles for a sample ofAsian students: (visual, auditory, sensory and motor and touch) In addition, itshows the students their strengths and offers ways for them to help themselves.Suggestions include diversification in the teaching methods commensurate withthe students’ learning style In article research study conducted by Ajayi (2008), itexamined the ability of the media (video, pictures, cartoon…etc) to clarify themeaning of certain words Also, the author explores the possibility of the media toimprove the students’ conversation, and the participation in the class.

In the research study conducted by Cooper (2002), the author examines therelationship between the student and visual source, and highlights the need to focuson the elements that affect its successful implementation Second, the environmentis examined, and how it could influence our interpretation of visual information,symbols, pictorial conventions, and skills in learning.

From this research, it was concluded that it is recommended to utilize this method touse with ESL to improve students’ proficiency In the research article byCunningham (1991), the possibility of improving students’ education by using slideshows was explored Also, the author examines whether it will stick in the student’smind or not Additionally, in the article by Gorman and Eastman (2010), the authorsrecommended utilizing classroom activities for actively engaging students in

In a research study conducted by van Berkel (2004), the author discussed thelevel of learners at the beginer and how they lack the necessary prerequisites for aphonological strategy It is claimed that, in spelling acquisition in English a foreignlanguage, a visual strategy must play an important role, and the importance ofvisual aids as strategies to improve the skill of spelling In their study, Shaw,Baggett, and Salyer (2004) stress that computer technology can be incorporated intothe EFL programs to improve students’ motivation Using visual thinking toolsto extend students’ thinking is effective As an EFL teacher who observed andworked with kids from K-12, just from the perspective of the teacher, that you are amonolingual teacher of students with visual impairments and don’t speak English.What will you teach? How will you teach it? Where will you begin? Oneinstructional approach to facilitate second-language learning for students with visualimpairments is total physical response (TPR) (Asher, 1969) In the research studyconducted by Conroy (1999), the author applied different ways to use TPRdepending on students’ ages, abilities, and language levels and the size of the group.

To conclude my literature review, all these and other research pointed to theimportance of the use of visual aids and its positive impact on stimulating studentsand how much it enriches the students’ learning experience This review alsoindicated the extent of facilitating the learning process through the use ofmultimedia and how multimedia improves the students’ concentration and classparticipation.

2.5 Summary

The visual method is the bridge between theory and practice, is the mostobjective and honest reflection of the theoretical knowledge, promoting the positiveand proactive learning of students These visual aids are effective for students toeasily receive new knowledge, through which students are more interested inlearning, creating curiosity, passionate about research (Bobkina, 2012) Using visualmedia helps students understand the concepts, characteristics, processes, proceduresand manipulations in each specific subject, equipping necessary knowledge andbuilding basic career skills, necessary for later students.

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter contains five subchapters It covers the research design, the researchmethod, the data collection techniques, the data analysis technique, and validity andreliability of the study.

This research investigates the Vietnamese high school students’ speakingbehaviour and improvement with the implementation of visual aids in Englishlearning and teaching Thus, there was a need to see the teaching and learningperformance through class observation to know about the students’perspectives within questionnaire surveys and to elicit teachers and students’feelings towards problems in speaking skills and group learning benefits throughinterviews The point from using these instruments is to form a completeunderstanding about the study and make the findings more valid and objectivethrough a mixed method research Hence, this research employed mixed methods -both qualitative and quantitative.

Mixed method research has been defined as “the class of research where theresearcher mixes or combines quantitative and qualitative research techniques,methods, approaches…in a single study” (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie, 2004,p.17) This combination arises from the belief that both of them are useful andimportant This mixed method has also been seen by (Hesse-Biber, 2010) as a multimethods or a rich field since it gathers between the qualitative data includingwords, pictures and narrative with the quantitative numerical data in a way thatallows the researcher to generalize the results for future studies However, the termsmixed methods and multi methods have been confused with one another since multimethods indicates to the use of more than one quantitative method to measure apersonality trait (Tashakkkori and Teddlie, 2003) Anyway, this mixed methodenriches the study conclusions, enables the researcher to full understand theresearch problem, aids in the development of the research project, unifies theadvantages of quantitative and qualitative paradigms, bridges the schism betweenthem in a third one, meets the needs of current dynamic research world to multiple

This does not mean that mixed method research is immune from criticismbecause it may not provide perfect solutions; for example the quantitative methoddisregard the researcher as a part from the social group, whilst, the qualitativemethod supports relativism which hinders the systematic standards for judgingresearch quality However, this method attempts to fit together the insights ofquantitative and qualitative research into a workable solution and superior results.

In this research, the data are collected from the questionnaires Qualitativedata deals with any occurrences and changes happen during classroom activities.Students’ behaviour, classroom situation, and the process of classroom activity arethe examples of qualitative data The researcher collected qualitative data by usingobservation, field notes, and interview.

3.2 Research design

This research, using visual aids to improve the speaking skills of gradetwelve students of Cam Pha high school in the academic year of 2018/2019 is anaction research study, which focuses on the efforts to improve the real condition ofthe English teaching and learning process.

It is stated by Richards and Rodgers (2001) that action research is used torefer to teacher initiated classroom investigation which seek to increase the teacher’sunderstanding of classroom teaching and learning, and to bring about changein classroom practices Burns (1999) refers to action research as the systematiccollection of information that is designed to bring about social change The actionresearch study was an experimental intervention It aimed to analyze the use ofclassroom group work activity in a relation with speaking skill with the possibility ofapplying group work in classroom and to use the results of that analysis to make away out about the status of the interaction hypothesis.

The purposes of action research in school and classroom fall broadly into fivecategories (Cohen, 1989) First, it is a mean of remedying problems diagnosed inspecific situations, or improving in someway a given set of circumstances Second, itis a mean of in-service training, thereby equipping the teacher with new skills andmethods, sharpening his analytical powers and heightening his self-awareness Third,it is a mean of injecting additional or innovatory approaches to teaching and learninginto

an on-going system which normally inhibits innovation and change Fourth, it is amean of improving the normally poor communication between the practicingteacher and academic researcher Fifth, it is a mean of providing a preferablealternative to more subjective approach to problem solving in the classroom.

In addition, other idea describing the topic is one of Borg, Gall, and Gall(1993) that state other five purposes of classroom action research First, classroomaction research contributes to the theory and knowledge base needed for enhancingpractice Second, it support the professional development of practitioners by helpingthem become more competent in understanding and utilizing research finding andcarrying out research themselves when appropriate Third, it builds a collegialnetworking system for sometimes it involves several educators, even students andparents, working together Fourth, it helps practitioners identify problem and seeksolutions in a systematic fashion Fifth, it can be used at all levels and in all areas ofeducation, such as a mean of in- service training for principals Even though theexplanation of different experts above seems to be different in form of statements,the essence of the idea is perfectly similar.

A classroom action research is done through a cycle and is designed into foursteps Kemmis and Taggart (1988) stated that the research is started by planning foran action Then the plan is implemented as an action in classroom and the action isthen observed The reflection is done to analyze the data obtained during the action.

The following diagram displays a model of an action research cycle:

Figure 3.1: Classroom Action Research Model

The model presents action research as a cycle, starting with a question and

Strickland (1987) discusses the following sequence: 1) identify an issue, interest orproblem; 2) seek knowledge; 3) plan an action; 4) implement the action; 5) observethe action; 6) reflect on your observations; 7) revise the plan.

In line with Strickland, Borg, Gall and Gall (1993) explain that there areseven steps of action research Firstly, identify a classroom related question that theresearcher would like to research In this research, the questions triggering theresearch motivation includes “Do the students encounter the problems of speakingdeficiency?” and “Do visual aids really help to improve the speaking skills ofstudents?” The second step is to examine any research applicable to the questions.This research examines the current situations of 12th grade student at a high schooland the effects of use of visual aids by the instructors on the improvement inspeaking skill of students; hence, the research findings definitely meet the questions.Thirdly, the researcher chose a teaching design that would work most effectively inanswering the research questions In this steps, actions (intervenes) were employed.200 students as the samples of the research are divided into four classes Fourthly,the researcher collected the data that is needed to help answer the research question,such as questionnaires, observations and interviews Fifthly, the researcheranalyzed the data collected to come to a conclusion The researcher used graphs,categorized various anecdotes or made an annotated time line during the analysisprocess In the next step the researcher proposed a strategy based on the findings Ifthe researcher discovered that the strategy of visual aids which the teachers werealready using was helpful, the new strategy would simply build on what the teacherswere already doing If the researcher found, however, that an alternative way ofteaching was more effective, the researcher could brainstorm various ways to putthat method of teaching into practice Lastly, the research was communicated for theconstructive feedbacks.

To conclude, classroom action research follows a series of repeated steps.Finishing the first cycle, then the cycle begins once more, with the revisionincorporated in a new action, which is itself observed, and so on This processallows teachers who wish to investigate events in their own classroom to takeconstructive steps toward solving immediate problem, systematically reflecting on

Thus the goals of classroom action research are achieving local understanding and developing viable solutions to problems.

3.2.1 Students

There are 200 students who participated in this current research; they arestudents of 12A1, 12A2, 12A3, and 12A4at Cam Pha high school The students areaged from 16 to 18 years old and have learned English at least nine years Theinvestigation into the academic achievement of students in the previous academicyears indicates that the majority of participants are at pre-intermediate level; onlysome students have reached the intermediate proficiency In terms of gender, morethan a

half of participants (68%) are female while the rest (32%) are male.

Students bygender

Female Male

Figure 3.2.1: Students by gender

The students share the similar background concerning culture, education andliving conditions The majority of students have graduated from Cam Pha secondaryschool as a public school.

3.2.2 Teachers

In public high school in Vietnam, each teacher may be responsible for one ormore classes; in this current study, four teachers are in charge of English subjectfor

12A1, 12A2, 12A3, and 12A4 class respectively All teachers participating into the

12A4 is a newbie who has worked as an English teacher for the first year ofexperience.