An action research on using body language in teaching english to 5 year old children at sao mai kindergarten

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES **************** ĐỖ THU HƯƠNG AN ACTION RESEARCH ON USING BODY LANGUAGE IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO - YEAR - OLD CHILDREN AT SAO MAI KINDERGARTEN NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG VỀ DẠY TIẾNG ANH CHO TRẺ TUỔI QUA NGÔN NGỮ CỬ CHỈ TẠI TRƯỜNG MẦM NON SAO MAI M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI - 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES **************** ĐỖ THU HƯƠNG AN ACTION RESEARCH ON USING BODY LANGUAGE IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO - YEAR - OLD CHILDREN AT SAO MAI KINDERGARTEN NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG VỀ DẠY TIẾNG ANH CHO TRẺ TUỔI QUA NGÔN NGỮ CỬ CHỈ TẠI TRƯỜNG MẦM NON SAO MAI M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: TÔ THỊ THU HƯƠNG, Ph.D HANOI - 2014 DECLARATION I hereby state that I, Đỗ Thu Hương, being a candidate for the Degree of Master of Arts, accept the requirement of the University relating to the retention and use of M.A Thesis deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper July 20th, 2014 Đỗ Thu Hương i ABSTRACT The present research aims to discover the attitudes of five years old children towards the use of body language in their English lessons and the subsequent changes in their speaking and listening competences after being taught English with body language To achieve the objective of the study, the students were observed in traditional English language lessons where the teacher used teacher-centered methods with less body language and in innovative lessons where teacher taught with more body language The obtained results showed the children‟s positive attitude which could assist them in learning English faster and more effectively Additionally, the students‟ speaking and listening competences appeared to be improved evidently with teachers using more body language in teaching English Furthermore, the study provided implications for teaching English through body language to children, especially to five year old ones at Sao Mai Kindergarten With the main findings mentioned above, the researcher believes that this study provides EFL teachers with relevant knowledge in designing and implementation activities with body language for children in English classes ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The study could not have been fulfilled without the help, encouragement, and support of a number of people First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Tô Thị Thu Hương, for her valuable advice, constructive comments, patient support and encouragement in the completion of this M.A Thesis Secondly, I would like to send my sincere thanks to my informants in this study, whom I selected as the target subjects of this research Without their enthusiastic contribution and cooperation, this research would certainly not have been completed In the thesis, it is inevitable that the ideas of many other writers in this field are reflected and developed Their ideas have stimulated my thinking on doing this paper My debt to the authors listed in the references is equally great To all these scholars, I offer my sincere thanks Finally, I am greatly thankful to my family and friends, who are forever a great source of support and encouragement iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS % Percent ELT English Language Teaching EFL English as Foreign Language Ss Students T Teacher LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES Table 1: Evaluating the students‟ English speaking competence 22 Table 2: Evaluating the students‟ English listening competence 23 Table 3: Evaluating the students‟ English speaking competence 31 Table 4: Evaluating the students‟ English listening competence 32 Table 5: Involvement and attention in the activities 34 Table 6: Students‟ attitude toward ELT 34 Table 7: Idea and feeling expression 35 Table 8: Vocabulary understanding 36 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration………………………………………………………………….…i Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii List of abbreviations and symbols iv List of charts and tables iv Table of contents v PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the research Aims of the research……………………………………………… Scope of the research……………………………………………… Research questions………………………………………………… Methodology……………………………………………………… 5.1 Action research design…………………………………………… 5.2 Participants……………………………………………………… 5.3 Procedures………………………………………………………… PART B: DEVELPOMENT………………… CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Teaching English to children………………………………………… 1.1.1 Typical characteristics of children………………………………… 1.1.2 The teaching of English to children……………………………… 1.2 Using body language in teaching English to children……………… 10 1.2.1 Body language…………………………………………………… 10 v 1.2.1.1 Definition………………………………………………………… 10 1.2.1.2 Classification of body language………………………………… 11 1.2.2 Advantages of using body language in teaching English to children 13 1.2.2.1 Vocabulary improvement……………………………………… 13 1.2.2.2 Speaking improvement………………………………………… 14 1.2.2.3 Daily language understanding…………………………………… 15 1.2.3 Some kinds of body language used in English teaching class……… 16 1.2.3.1 The use of gestures……………………………………………… 16 1.2.3.2 The use of facial expression……………………………………… 16 1.2.3.3 The use of eye contact…………………………………………… 17 CHAPTER II: THE STUDY – USING BODY LANGUAGE IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO CHILDREN…………………………… 19 2.1 Research questions and design……………………………………… 19 2.2 Planning stage……………………………………………………… 19 2.2.1 The problem……………………………………………………… 19 2.2.2 Observing a lesson that illustrated the problem…………………… 19 2.2.3 Analyzing the video-taped sessions……………………………… 25 2.2.4 Consulting with colleagues………………………………………… 25 2.2.5 Drawing a plan of action to solve the problem…………………… 27 2.3 Acting stage………………………………………………………… 27 2.3.1 Speaking lesson using body language…………………………… 27 2.3.2 Listening lesson using body language…………………………… 29 2.4 Observing stage……………………………………………………… 31 vi 2.5 Evaluation stage…………………………………………………… 31 2.5.1 Student evaluation………………………………………………… 31 2.5.2 Teachers‟ evaluation……………………………………………… 33 PART C: CONCLUSION……………………………………… 37 Conclusions……………………………………… 37 Limitations………… 38 Implications and suggestions for teaching English through body language…………………… 39 REFERENCES 41 APPENDICES I vii PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the research The professor of linguistics and English as a Second Language, Andrew Cohen (1975: 65), once said: “Learning another language frees you, broadens your mind and enhances your cognitive flexibility The more languages you know, the more doors open to you” Knowing more languages seems to create you more good chances in your life Additionally, English is becoming a global language today Therefore, learning English is becoming a popular trend, especially in Vietnam English is so important that it has been taught in many schools and universities of all levels and Vietnamese children are approached English at very early age So many Vietnamese parents want their children to learn English as early as possible and to have a head start in their children‟s lives To meet these parents‟ need, the teaching English for kids in kindergarten has emerged British Council and Apollo are popular English centers considered as models taking the lead in this field However, there is a fact that many English teachers are not trained comprehensively to teach English to such special learners with special characteristics, children in kindergarten Almost the students in these kindy classes are only four or five years old, which creates a huge difficulty for the teaching in general and English teaching in particular Furthermore, teaching methods and techniques to those so young learners is still a big gap Hence, the study reported in this thesis, on using body language in teaching English to five year old children, especially to improve their English speaking and listening skills, was carried out as an effort in filling the quality gap mentioned above by finding out suitable and effective techniques to make contribution to teaching English for kids 1 Warm up: Let the Ss listen and dance with the song “Hello” Pre listening - T reviews Ss the words studied in the previous lesson: a ball, a book, a pencil - T uses body language to express the words + A ball: T does the action of putting the hands up and down as playing with a ball + A book: T does the action of putting the hands together, closing and opening them continuously as reading a book + A pencil: T does the action of using one hand to write down the another as writing something on the paper with a pencil - Ss look at the teacher‟s action and guess the words - T gives “high – five” to Ss having the correct answers Listening - T gives to each child a real ball, book and pencil - T plays the song “Listen! What‟s this?” for the first time Then when the song records to the part containing the words “a ball, a book, a pencil”, T pauses and does the actions again to suggest the Ss to think about the words and speak out - Then T plays the song for the second time and asks Ss to show the real ball, book and pencil when the song sings to the part containing these words - T gives Ss a big hand with the smiling eyes to encourage them 30 Post listening - T asks Ss to sing the song “Listen! What‟s this?” with the music After ten thirty minute trying-out lessons with some successful changes and improvements, the author starts to observe the lesson to collect data and evaluate the Try-Out Stage 2.4 Observing stage - Ten volunteer teachers were asked to observe a lesson and observation checklist were used - The result of observation was used to evaluate the effects of using body language in English teaching - Comments and conclusions were made 2.5 Evaluation stage 2.5.1 Student evaluation The 30 students were given the test which was carried out in the planning stage – identifying the problem for evaluation There were criteria of evaluating each student‟s speaking and listening abilities in their English lessons Table 3: Evaluating the students’ English speaking competence Level (students) high low Criteria Identifying people, animals and things 15 31 Slightly Does not meet underperforms expectations Saying simple sentences Giving 12 5 15 basic information themselves It was clearly seen in the table that the students‟ identifying people, animals and things competence was improved dramatically with 15 children (made up to 50%) who met the expectation high, 20% met the expectation low, 20% slightly underperformed and 10% did not meet expectation Evaluating the students‟ speaking competence in saying simple sentences, the result showed that there were 12 students (made up to 40%) who met the expectation high, 26.66% met the expectation low, 16.66% slightly underperformed and 16.66% did not meet expectations Evaluating the students‟ ability of giving basic information, it can be seen in the table that there were 15 students (made up about 50%) who met the expectation high, 23.33% met the expectations low, 16.66% slightly underperformed and 10% did not meet expectations Table 4: Evaluating the students’ English listening competence Level (students) high low Criteria Slightly under- Does not performs meet expectations Listening for names 16 32 Listening for words, colors and specific 15 3 13 information Listening for specific information of various kinds The table showed the students‟ listening competence improvement in listening for names with 16 kids (made up to 53.33%) who met the expectations high, 10% met the expectations low, 16.66% slightly underperformed and 20% did not meet expectations Besides, the students‟ competence in listening for words, colors and specific information was lifted with 50% who met the expectation high, 10% met the expectations low, 30% slightly underperformed and only 10% did not meet expectations At a very first look at the table, we could see that in listening for specific information of various kinds, the number of kids who met the expectations high was increased in comparison with the ones in planning stage with 13 students (up to 43.33%) There were students (16.66%) who met the expectations low, 13.33% slightly underperformed and 26.66% did not meet expectations 2.5.2 Teachers’ evaluation The ten teachers were given observation checklist (see APPENDIX 2) with parts for evaluation 33 Part 1: Presenting good involvement and attention in the activities Table 5: Involvement and attention in the activities Criterion Levels (No of teachers ticking) Presenting good involvement and attention in the activities Low Medium High (0%) (20%) (80%) As can be seen from Table 3, 80% of the teachers saw that the children got well involved and paid much attention to the lesson at high level when the teacher used body language in teaching vocabulary and organizing speaking activities However, 20% of the teachers thought that the children presented involvement and attention in the activities at medium level There were no teachers having ideas that the kids did not get involved in the activities This might be concluded that the try – out stage of conducting lessons using body language have certain good effects Part 2: Revealing good attitude toward English Language Teaching Table 6: Students’ attitude toward ELT Criterion Levels (No of teachers ticking) Low 34 Medium High Revealing good attitude toward English Language Teaching (0%) (10%) (90%) The children‟s good attitude toward ELT is clearly presented in Table 90% of the teachers agreed that the students were very interested in activities using body language because they were funny and the kids could study while having fun The table also showed that only 10% of the teachers believed that the children had good attitude toward the teacher‟s teaching at medium level A noticeable result from the table was that there were no ideas about the students‟ attitude at low level In the overall analysis, it can be inferred from the fact that most of the students are motivated by using body language in English Language Teaching Part 3: Communicating ideas and feelings Table 7: Idea and feeling expression Criterion Levels (No of teachers ticking) Communicating ideas and feelings Low Medium High (0%) (10%) (90%) As can be seen from the Table 5, there were teachers (made up 90%) who realized clearly that the children could understand what the teacher was saying and practice speaking effectively when she used body language in ELT They could express their ideas and feelings by both speaking and using 35 their facial expression, gestures, eye contact… It seemed to be very interesting and involved them a lot Part 4: Demonstrating vocabulary understanding Table 8: Vocabulary understanding Criterion Levels (No of teachers ticking) Demonstrating vocabulary understanding Low Medium High (0%) (30%) (70%) It is clearly seen from the table above, listening skill is very difficult for the children to be able to complete the tasks teachers observed that the kids could understand the words the teacher expressed and got improvement in listening skill by teacher‟s applying body language in English teaching There were observers who believed that the kids could obtain the words and complete the tasks at medium level There was no idea at low level As a short term result, these findings provides us one part of the evidences to believe that the children‟s listening skill can be improved if the teachers effectively apply body language in teaching English 36 PART C: CONCLUSION Conclusions From the analysis of the collected data in previous chapter, it can be seen that body language is confirmed to be appropriate for teaching English to children and some main findings are given in the next paragraph Firstly, using body language in teaching English improves children‟s attitude and motivation Activities using body language, which are often funny and interesting, are not only stimulating for the children but they also catch their attention, make them be attentive and focus on the lessons The kids feel freely involved in the learning process and become an active part of the activities because they are in a free – stress class environment Having good attitude toward using body language in teaching English can help the children to learn English in a fast and effective way Secondly, the results of the research showed that the children‟s speaking competence was enhanced evidently through teacher‟s using body language in teaching English When the students are becoming active part of the class, their attitude and motivation increase and then their outcomes are successful Being not under a condition of oppression, the children can memorize the vocabulary by remembering the action and they can also understand the meaning of the words even when the commands are not translated, which helps them communicate their ideas and feelings correctly and effectively in the most natural way Thirdly, learning the words through movements, the children‟s listening ability is also improved Listening seems to be one of the most difficult parts in English skills, especially to the children In the listening lesson using body language in the chapter 3, teachers did the actions and repeated the words 37 while the students listened, repeated and represented these words attentively When the kids listened and understood the vocabulary, they were more able to give the correct responses to the song Therefore, they had a clear comprehension of the song owing to the emphasis on listening, which proved their improvements in listening skill It has also been revealed from the research that using body language may affect the classroom environment in term of classroom control It means that too much noise may be created and it may be very hard for the teacher to control the class The children can run, jump, play and speak by their own way, which is not in order Besides, classroom facilities and lack of applicable activities may make teachers meet lots of difficulties Small classrooms or so many tables and chairs in the class can prevent the students from complete the tasks using body language effectively Furthermore, not all the lessons can be applied by body language So, the teachers should pay attention to these factors and choose the suitable lessons as well as activities which can be applied in each particular class to have successful lessons Limitations This study still has some limitations First of all, this study is small – scale, which focuses on only two language skills – speaking and listening of 30 five year old children Besides, there were still some problems that this study could not solve absolutely during the try – out stage: some of the students cannot co-operate with the teacher and other peers in their presentation or cannot adapt the teacher‟s command Hopefully the above problem can be solved in other studies after this research in the near future 38 Implications and suggestions for teaching English through body language Body language is beyond words, so using effectively body language will make English lessons more successfully Basing on each lesson, teachers should choose the appropriate kinds of body language applied in the activities to enhance the children‟s comprehension In addition, the teachers need to capture the children‟s interest and help them to feel safe before introducing a new thing, which makes the kids more confident and comfortable to follow the teacher‟s actions naturally In the research, the teacher created funny atmosphere by let the kids listen the song before starting the lesson or gave them “high – five” to each child having the correct answer These activities could motivate them noticeably since the author observed that they smiled happily and showed their excitement in each activity Besides, body language needs to be taught to the kids and the teacher‟s gestures or facial expression should be clear and familiar with the kids‟ daily lives as much as possible By this way, the children can recognize the teacher‟s implication easily In the speaking lesson in this research, the teacher expressed the human‟s feelings in a very common way such as happy, angry, and hungry and the students could catch the teacher‟s implication easily Furthermore, teachers may combine body language with others visual support such as flash cards, songs, puppets… to increase the children‟s attention to the lesson and help the lesson more interesting In this research, the author kept them focused by giving each student real objects including balls, books, and pencils in the listening lesson Listening is considered as one of the most difficult skills and needs various supports For this reason, the teacher should revise words and structures needed for the activity before asking children a listening task In the research, the teacher reviewed the words as a ball, a book, and a pencil 39 before teaching the song “What‟s this?” Besides, teachers are able to support language with gestures and actions during a dialogue or a song to enhance the kids‟ comprehension In the listening lesson, the teacher improved the students‟ listening competence by pausing the song and doing the actions expressing the objects when the song recorded to the part containing the words “a ball, a book, a pencil” It is also clear that speaking is a challenging task for the children in learning English With a lot of speaking activities when using body language such as acting, guessing, physical response…, the students are able to improve their speaking abilities Especially, teachers should have a short time for the children to think after doing an action or asking a question The teacher also needs to demonstrate through a model how to an activity before asking the kids to practice Moreover, the teachers had better show their sympathy through eye contact or facial expression instead of being angry when the kids make errors The study deals with using body language in teaching English to five years old children in Sao Mai Kindergarten shows the effects of using body language in teaching English to children In ELT, there are many methods and techniques which can interest students and body language is one of those It can be inferred from the study that techniques of applying body language in teaching English should be taught to English teachers, especially with teachers in primary and kindergarten schools Additionally, students in kindergarten need to be taught the basic types of body language which are easy and useful in their daily lives The author of this research does hope that this study would be of some values to all English teachers in their language teaching process 40 REFERENCES Barbara, K (1957), Body Language in Literature, Canada: University of Toronto Press Characteristics of Kindergarten Children (n.d) Retrieved March 10, 2014, from http://teacherweb.com/MA/North Falmouth Elementary/MRS Cooke/apt 6.aspx Cohen, A (1975) A Sociolinguistic Approach to Bilingual Education Newbury, England: Newbury House Guirdham, M (1999) Communicating Across Cultures London, U.K.: Macmillan Hewes, G.W (1957) The Anthropology of Posture, 196, 122-132 Hudelson, S (1991) EFL teaching and children: a topic-based approach In English Teaching Forum, 29, 2-40 Krashen, S.D and Terrell, T.D (1983) The Natural Approach New Jersey: Alemany Press Regent/Prentice Hall Nguyen Quang (2008) Nonverbal Communication across Cultures Nhà xuất khoa học xã hội Scott, W.A and Ytregerg, L.H (1990) Teaching English to Children Longman: Education Texts Retrieved March 5th, 2014 from http://avaxhome.ws./ebook/elearning-book/languages/Wendy 42 Children.htlm Sukarno (2008) Teaching English to Young Learners and Factors to Consider in Designing the Materials Retrieved http://journal.uny.ac.id/index.php/jep/article/view/603 41 from Valencia Forero, M.A (2011) Teaching English Vocabulary to Third Graders through the Application of the Total physical Response Method Retricted from http://www.scribd.com/doc/120563489/Teaching-vocabulary Yin, L (2001), On the Usage of Body Language in English Teaching Retrieved 5th, March 2014 from http://www1.open.edu.cn/elt/26/12.htm Zhang, X.M (2013), The Use of Body Language in English Teaching of Primary Schools Retrieved March 5th, 2014 from http: bdxx Gnjy.wsjy.org/jykx/jhgd/18068.htm 42 APPENDICES Appendix 1: PRE-TRYING-OUT QUESTIONARE FOR TEACHERS This survey questionnaire is designed for my thesis: “A study on using body language to teach English to five – year – old children in Sao Mai Kindergarten” Your assistance in completing this survey questionnaire is highly appreciated Please circle the most appropriate options or write the answer where necessary Question 1: How often you use body language in teaching English to children? a Always b Sometimes c Never Question 2: Do you think using body language can enhance the students‟ speaking and listening skills? a Yes I think so b Not at all c I am not sure Question 3: What you think should be done to solve the problem that five years old children have a low level of English speaking and listening competence? ………………… …….……………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………… …….……………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… Thank you very much for your assistance! I Appendix 2: OBSERVATION CHECKLIST Criteria Levels Low Presenting good involvement and attention in the activities Revealing good attitude toward English Language Teaching Communicating ideas and feelings Demonstrating vocabulary understanding II Medium High ... (plan for action) : planning lessons to try out the use of body language in English teaching to motivate Sao Mai five years old students to learn English and to improve their English speaking and... implications for teaching English through body language to children, especially to five year old ones at Sao Mai Kindergarten With the main findings mentioned above, the researcher believes that... the action on using that to teach English to the five years old students at Sao Mai Kindergarten Next, the conclusion and commendations were made 5. 2 Participants 30 five - year - old students and