Using cue cards to improve speaking skills for 10th graders

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY LE THI HA GIANG Using Cue Cards to IMPROVE speaking SKILLS for 10th graders MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION Nghệ An, 2018 sn MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY LE THI HA GIANG Using Cue Cards to IMPROVE speaking SKILLS for 10th graders Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Code: 14 01 11 MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Quyet, Ph.D Nghệ An, 2018 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge the study entitled “Using Cue Cards to Improve Speaking Skills For 10th Graders” is my own work The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission, and have not been published elsewhere Author Le Thi Ha Giang i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to extend my deep gratitude to my supervisor Dr Nguyen Thi Quyet for her helpful encouragement, constructive comments and precious advice at all stages of the development of this graduation paper Second, I would also like to express my appreciation to all lecturers at the department of post graduate studies of Vinh university for the knowledge, guidance and encouragement they gave me during my course Next, I would like to show my special thankfulness to Hong Linh high school students, my colleagues who helped me to carry out the experimental study Last but not least, I would like to extend my special thanks to my family for their love and encouragement during the process of the study ii ABSTRACT This study was conducted to explore how cue card using influences EFL students’ speaking ability To reach the goal, the researcher employed the experimental research Two groups were involved in the research, one was experimental group which received the treatment and the other was control group without the treatment To collect data, the researcher used instruments of questionnaires and the students’ achievement in pre test and pot test in order to support the data collected The data obtained was presented in two ways: qualitatively and quantitatively The research findings showed that the speaking activities with cue card were effective in improving the speaking abilities for 10 graders at Hong Linh high school Cue card using can motivate the students to speak English This can be seen from the improvement in the mean scores in pre-test and post-test.T The improvement was also seen based on the result from the students’ responses that showed positive and good responses from the students after the implementation of cue cards iii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF TALBES vi LIST OF FIGURES vi CHAPTER INTRODUCTION .1 1.1 Rationale .1 1.2 Aimsofthestudy 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Significance of the study .3 1.5 Research Methodology .3 1.6 Organization of the study .4 CHAPTER THEORETICAL BACKGROUND .5 2.1 Speaking skill 2.1.1 The definition of speaking 2.1.2 The importance of speaking 2.1.3 Teaching speaking .8 2.1.4 Assessing speaking 13 2.2 Cue cards 16 2.2.1 The definition of cue cards 16 2.2.2 Advantages of Using Cue Cards Media 17 2.2 Classroom Activities Using Cue Cards 18 The Relevant Research 21 CHAPTER 3: METHDOLOGY .22 3.1 The Research Design 22 3.2 The Time and The Location of the Research .23 3.3 The Subject of the Research .23 3.4 The Object of the research 24 3.5 Research questions .24 3.6 Materials .24 iv 3.7 Procedure 28 3.8 Data collection instruments 29 3.8.1 Questionnaire 29 3.8.2 Test 30 3.9 Data collection and analysis procedure 33 3.9.1 Data collection 33 3.9.2 Data analysis 33 CHAPTER FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 35 4.1 Results 35 4.1.1 The Data Presentation of Pre-Test and Post-Test on Students’Ability in Speaking 36 4.1.2 The comparison of the scores on the pre-test and post-test on general English by participants from the treatment group and the control group 37 4.1.3 The data presentation of the pre-attitudinal survey questionnaire 42 4.1.4 Students’ attitude towards the implementation of using cue cards in teaching speaking .50 4.2 Discussions 53 4.2.1 The Effect of Using Cue Card toward Students’ Speaking Ability before Using Cue Card and after Using Cue Card 53 4.2.2 Students’ attitude toward the implementation of cue cards in teaching speaking .54 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 56 5.1 Summary of the main findings 56 5.2 Implications 57 5.3 Limitations 59 5.4 Suggestions for further research .59 REFERENCES Error! Bookmark not defined v LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Research type 22 Table 3.2: Demographic information of participants 23 Table 3.3 The speaking topics of 16 units and speaking sections 24 Table 3.4 Scoring Rubric of Speaking Performance 30 Table 4.1 The Statistics of Pre - Test and Post Test 36 Table 4.2 The comparison of the mean in Pre-test and Post- test of the two groups .37 Table 4.3 The proficiency of the two groups after the implementation 38 Table 4.4 The score variables after the treatment by participants from the two groups 39 Table 4.5 The score distribution and the percentage of the two groups after the implementation 40 Table 4.6: Students’ opinions towards the importance of learning speaking 42 Table 4.7: Students’ interest in learning speaking skill 43 Table 4.8: Students’ self-evaluation towards students’ speaking ability 44 Table 4.9 Language used by students in speaking lesson 44 Table 4.10 Problems the students encountered in learning speaking skills .45 Table 4.11 Factors affect your speaking performance .46 Table 4.12 General understanding about the term “Cue Cards” 48 Tale 4.13 Students’ interest in the type of task with cue cards” .49 Table 4.14 Students’ attitude in learning speaking with cue cards 50 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1 The change of the mean in pre- and post tests by two groups 38 Figure 4.2 The post-test score of the treatment group in comparision with control group 41 Figure 4.3 Factors affect your speaking performance 47 vi CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale English has been considered as the dominant means of communication, both in written and spoken forms all over the world where it is widely used in such fields as business, education, politics, social relationship and many other aspects In Vietnam since the development of market economy, English is not only a great interest but also an increasing demand for most people English now is therefore a compulsory subject in many schools and universities For students, the ability of English speaking is an important measurement of academic success Among the four skills namely listening, speaking, reading, writing that students are supposed to master during their learning process, speaking is one of the most important language skills that students should be taught to improve oral communication Speaking is the key to oral communication, an integral interaction in our daily life For EFL second language learners, speaking is one of the four skills that need to be acquired during learning process However, this skill cannot be easily acquired by the learners As observed during speaking lessons, the participation of students in language activities is not even, some students with good background knowledge and language knowledge may be more active than those with poor knowledge of language Most of students have problem in organizing and expressing idea, they not know how to make the right sentences, and support their ideas properly Moreover, in actual learning practice, students not have many opportunities Even if they are given opportunities to practice, the same things that happen to almost every student are those including their mother tongue dominance rather than English, their preference to be silent or wait to be pointed rather than eagerly taking part in the learning activities The reasons may come from the fact that they tend to have little courage to face this kind of situation or may be afraid of making mistakes Some of the students who find it hard to express what they want to say may turn to their mother tongue as an alternative And more seriously, there are still some others having nothing to say and seem to keep silent when they are asked to take part in any learning activities Most of them also still have problems in organizing and expressing idea, mastering vocabulary, and pronouncing English words correctly Another problem during the process of English teaching and learning does not result from the students but from the class activities If the learning activity appears to be monotonous or boring, it will get only a few students to be actively involved in In this case, the output of the lesson is poor as students not get any speaking achievement in learning process That is to say, the teaching activity is not attractive and little or no real practice is given The causes of these may be from the teacher’s preference in choosing the method, the kinds of interactive activities implemented during the lesson or the types of media used to support the English teaching and learning process In order to activate learning activity so that students can develop speaking skills, any language teacher should take into account such factors as teaching approach, students’ motivation, and preference or interest and also the use of media in language learning In this study, cue cards are introduced as one of the teaching media used to enhance speaking skill for students Cue cards are interesting and effective due to its simplicity and attractiveness Besides inexpensiveness, the process of making it is not so complicated Cue card as the modification of picture has many advantages, one of which is that it is clearly visible Thus, when students are asked to describe something/someone in detail, cue cards can make it much easier for students to produce the tasks Cue cards as the list of details are of great use for students to develop the ideas during the oral presentation in any discussion and debate As things can be seen above, the writer intended to carrying out a research entitled “Using Cue Cards To Improve Speaking Skills For Tenth Graders” with a view to helping students feel more confident, speak English more fluently and more actively take part in learning activities in class 1.2 Aims of the study The study is conducted with the aim of investigating the use of cue cards in speaking lessons at Hong Linh High School In details, the aims of the study are: However, the findings of the post-questionnaire indicated that the participants enjoyed using English in speaking lessons more than they did before the experiment They were quite satisfied with their speaking performance with cue cards and started to use more English than Vietnamese All the responses indicated that the speaking lessons with cue cards positively affected the students’ attitudes towards English speaking skills as most of the participants admitted that they were more confident in using English in communication and that working with cue cards gave me more motivation in speaking In additionally, activities with cue cards could lower their anxiety and develop confidence Speaking lessons therefore seemed to be easier for students and more importantly speaking activities with cue cards could orient and control students what they would like to talk about As a result, cue cards could help increase talking time for students The results from post-questionnaire data were in line with those from the data from the pre-test and post- test The researcher concludes that cue cards have positively affected students’ speaking performance As a consequence, cue cards can improve students’ speaking skill 55 CHAPTER CONCLUSION As mentioned above in the study, speaking is the key to oral communcation and seems to be the most important skills of all the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) because people who know a language are usually referred to as speakers of that language (Ur, 1996) Knowing a language is not merely knowing the grammatical rules but also knowing when to say, what to say and to whom However, to master speaking is not easy In realility it poses so many problems to teachers and students when teaching and learning speaking The study therefore conducted this study with the aims of introducing new media facilitates teaching and learning speaking This chapter presents the three main points: summary of the main findings, implications and limitations of the study 5.1 Summary of the main findings This experimental research was employed to explore the effectiveness of cue card using on speaking skill for ten graders at Hong Linh High school Another purpose of the research was to find out how students respond to the implementation of cue cards in speaking lessons In this part of the thesis, the main findings and limitations of the research will be presented In addition, there are some suggestions for further study and classroom implications for teachers who want to apply cue cards in teaching speaking In order to fulfill the purposes, the experiment was carried out among 38 students who were in grade 10 The results derived from the experiment have revealed that the use of cue cards has facilitated speaking performance as well as made several contributions to the second language in general and speaking teaching in particular Firstly, the improvement in speaking score was measured in the post-test in comparison with that in the pre-test, which takes the mean score on the post-test minus the mean score on the pre-test From the data about the students’ scrore 56 improvement which was assessed by two inner-raters (the score of each participant was measured by two independent raters but result was not much different, which ensured the reliability of the test), it can be clearly seen that cue card using has significantly affected students’ speaking ability Secondly, the improvement in speaking skill was clearly seen in the attitudinal questionnaire after the implementation of cue card As can be seen from the data collected, at the beginning of the course of treatment, most of the students asked to the pre-survey questionnaire considered themselves not to be good speakers of English Students reported that they still encountered many problems in their speaking lessons Sometimes they felt to have nothing to say so they turned to their mother tongue as an alternative Now that, in the post- survey questionnaire, students have overcome most of the problems they often encountered in their English speaking Students were said to use more English in speaking lessons They were more eager to take part in speaking activities, which mean that they had motivation to speak and the speaking lessons seem much easier to them More importantly, students had more talking time and the participation of students in the lessons was much higher than that before Form things considered above, it can be concluded that cue cards as a type of teaching media have enhanced students speaking performance 5.2 Implications On the basic of the research findings, I would like to make some recommendations for teachers who are teaching English as a second or foreign language at high school when using cue card in teaching speaking skill in the hope of developing speaking skills for students First of all, cue cards are considered to be effective as teaching media to solve the certain problems that inhibit students’ speaking achievement Cue cards are simple, practical, and easy to make, so they are potential tools in teaching and learning process These media can be in the form of small cards with words on or pictures They are considered to be a stimulus for students to speak easily, for 57 example in describing things, persons, or other objects Cue cards are also clearly visible, which can help the students to describe the object of speaking easily According to Harmer (2001), pictures as cue cards really help to reduce preparation time Sets of pictures can be re-used; especially it can be laminated and applicable at any level Second, our brains rely heavily on stimulus from the outside for learning, this is just one of the reasons that teaching with media is brain friendly Moreover, both the teachers and the students can modify them basing on the current topic being discussed on the lesson Later, in practice, the use of cue card will be combined with other activities Through this study, the researcher would like to make a recommendation to combine the use of media in cooperative learning, which is defined as a set of instructional methods through which students are encouraged to work on academic tasks (Slavin,1995) It also refers to a teaching technique where students work in groups on a certain activity in order to maximize one another’s learning and to achieve certain goals (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1998) Moreover, teachers should design more activities as well as games with cue card to make the lessons more interesting and effectively Most students like to compete with their friends Therefore, different games create fun atmosphere among students and promote the whole class to take part in the activities Additionally, for learners whose background knowledge is limited, cue cards would be of great use as cue card can provide essential cues and prompts which can facilitate students in their learning process if learners are encouraged to join the class activities or word game voluntarily, they will become more active and hardworking More importantly, cue cards used in the lessons should be carefully chosen and properly designed so that they can match the right types of learning activities and the correspondent level of students and that students can take full advantage of this type of media in their learning process 58 5.3 Limitations The research was successful to the best of my belief and awareness However, there were still some points that the researcher myself was not satisfied with First of all, the experimental course lasted only eight weeks for six lessons There were no proficiency tests between the pre-test and the post-test so the improvement of students in speaking skill cound not be measured quanlitively during the implementation of cue cards This may be a relatively short time to come to a general conclusion of the effects of cue card on students’ speaking skill Perhaps if the course of the experiment were a bit longer with more lessons to be involved in, the effects of the cue card using would be more convincing and much more reliable Another point the researcher would like to mention is that the researcher did not pay much attention to analyze the data on the improvement of specific components of speaking namely, vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, fluency and comprehension The data only presented the overall result of the pre-test and posttest on students’ speaking performance only Additionally, the improvement on students’ speaking skill was not high as expected ( only 1.2 point development in the mean score between the mean score in the pre-test and the post-test) The limitations emerged in the research make some suggestions for further research on the issues which were not examined in this study 5.4 Suggestions for further research Based on the findings and limitations of the study, the researcher would therefore make some suggestions for further research as below Firstly, investigating cue card using in speaking again with two groups at different levels of proficiency over a longer period of time, emphasizing qualitative research 59 Secondly, more interviews with different groups of students would provide insights concerning the effects of cue cards Additionally, another interesting research area would be included to explore the attitudes of teachers towards the employment of cue cards in speaking lessons or in other skill lessons such as listening, reading, and writing Cue cards as teaching media are easy to create and to be used by anyone Teachers use cue cards to attract students towards the subject matter in warm-up activities Therefore, researchers can study on the effectiveness of cue card on warm- up activites One more point needing to take into account is that, cue cards with pictures are very eye-catching and easy to attract students’ attention The researcher would like to make further suggestions that cue cards would be very useful and effective if they were used in games or quiz show To conclude, cue cards as a type of teaching media can be enhanced in many other angles of language teaching 60 REFERENCES Arsyad, Azhar 2011 Media Pembelajaran Jakarta: PT Raja Grafindo Persada Advantages of Cue Card Retrieved on 20 April 2011, 10.00 a.m http://itesljorg/Articles/Cue Card html Bazo, Placido 2007 Cue Cards: Some Ideas for Using Themin the Primary Classroom (Online) Available: http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Bazo- CueCards.html (March 2007) Brown, Doughlas (2001) Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy San Francisco: San Francisco State University press Brown, Douglas (2004) Language Assessment Principle and Classroom Practices San Francisco State University: Longman Brown, H D (2007) Principles of language learning and teaching NY: Pearson Education Burns, Anne 1999 Collaborative Action Research for English Language Teachers Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Byrne, D (1986) Teaching Oral English Harlow Longman Group UK limited Burns, A & Joyce, H (1997) Focus on Speaking Sydney: National center for English Language Teaching and Research Budiastuti (2007) The Use of Cue Cards in Teaching Spoken Descriptive Text: The Case of Eighth Year Students of SMP N 13 Semarang Bygate, M (1997), Speaking, Oxford University Press Bygate, M (1987), Language teaching: A scheme for teacher education, speaking, Oxford University Press Chaney, A L., and T L Burk 1998 Teaching Oral Communication in Grades K-8 Boston: Allyn & Bacon David Nunan Second Language Teaching and Learning (Canada: Henle Publisher, 1999) p 117 Fenny Elvita (2011) : The Effect of Using Cue Card toward Students’ Speaking Ability at the Second Year of Islamic Junior High School Al-idayah of Islamic Centre Boarding School Kampar: State Islamic University of Sultan Syarif Kasim Riau 61 Harmer, J (2007) How toTeach English Edinburg: Person Education Limited Harmer, J (2009) The Practice of English language Teaching, Amerika Longman Press Harmer, J (2001) The Practice of English Language Teaching (Third 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London: Pearson Education Limited Heaton,J B (1995) LanguageTesting.Amerika Longman Group Hornby.(1995) Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionay of Current English (Oxford University Press, p 1331) Kayi, Hayriye 2006 Teaching Speaking: Activities to Promote Speaking In a Second Languag (The Internet TESL Journal, Vol.XII, No.11) Retrieved on Feb 2011 http://iteslj-org/Articles/Kayi-Teaching Speakng.html Levelt, W J M (1989) Speaking: from Interaction to Articulation Cambridge Mass, Mass: MIT Press Lazaraton, A (2001) Teaching Oral Skills In M Celce-Murcia (Ed.) Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language (3rd ed., pp.103–115) Mochammad Sudrajad and Armeria Wijaya (2016) The effectiveness of insideoutside circle method by using cue card for students’ speaking ability at seventh graders Nunan, D (2003) The Impact of English as a Global Language on Educational Policies and Practices in the Asia-Pacific Region TESOL Quarterly, 37(4), 589613 Nunan,D (2003).Practical English Language Teaching Singapore: Mc Graw Hill Contemporary Nunan,D & Linse, C (1992) Research Methods in Language Learning NewYork Universityof Cammbridge Press Oxford Learner’s Pocket Dictionary Sholichah,N (2010) The use of Inside-Outside Circle to improve tenth graders’speaking ability at SMAN Manyar, Gresik Unpublished thesis: Surabaya Universitas Negeri Surabaya.’ Suryani, Lilis 2011 The Use of Cue Cards in Teaching Spoken Descriptive Text Bandung: UPI 62 Team coco Podcast 2011 “Cue Card, in the International Dictionary of Broadcasting and Film” Retrived on 22 April, 11.00 a.m http://itesljorg/Articles/Cue Card.html Thornbury, S 2005 How to Teach Speaking London: Longman Underwood, M (1996) Teaching Listening New York: Longman, Inc Ur, P (1991) A Course in Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Wang, Ur, P (1996) A course in Language Teaching Practice and Theory Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Ur, Penny, Hellen Lee (1996) Simple Audio visual aids to Foreign Language Teaching.Oxford: Oxford University Press http://iteslj-org/Articles/Cue Card.html https://www.slideshare.net/uroojshafqat/experimental-research-11401013 63 APPENDIX A STUDENTS’ PRE- QUESTIONNAIRE This survey questionnaire is designed to investigate your opinion about the importance of speaking skill, your interest and your self-evaluation about your speaking competence and what problems you encounter and what factors affect your speaking performance This survey questionnaire also investigates how much you know about cue cards and what types of activities you have more interest in Please put a tick (x) in the box beside the option(s) you choose Part I: Demographic information Gender:  Male  Female Age:  Under 15  15- 17  18-20 How long have you been learning English?  Under year  2-4 years  5- years  More than years Part II: Factors affecting students’ speaking performance and speaking problems What you think about the importance of teaching speaking skill at high school? A Very important B Important C Not very important How much are you interested in speaking activities? A Very much B Not very much D Not at all What is your opinion about your speaking competence? A Poor B Average C Good D Excellent Which language you often use in speaking lessons? A Using English only B Using more English than Vietnamese C Using more Vietnamese than English D Using Vietnamese only Which problems you encounter in learning speaking skill? (You can have more than one choice) You are worried about making mistakes  You are fearful of criticism or losing face  You have nothing to say  You have no motivation to express yourselves  You have little or no orientation or guidance to speak  You use Vietnamese  You are shy  Other factors (please specify)………………………………………… What factors affect your speaking performance? (You can have more than one choice) Time for preparation  Pressure to perform well  Motivation to speak  Anxiety  Topical knowledge  Media  Other factors (please specify)………………………………………… To what extent you know about the term “Cue Card”? A It is a type of supportive media providing suggestions for the speaking performance B It can orient speakers so that they can cover all the requirements of the topic and drive the talk the way they want to go C Both of them D No idea What types of speaking tasks you enjoy taking part in? (You can have more than one choice) Information gap  Jigsaw  Picture prompts  Problem solving  Picture description  Topic discussion  APPENDIX B STUDENTS’ POST-QUESTIONNAIRE This questionnaire is designed to get students’ responses to the implementation of cue cards in teaching speaking” Please answer the following questions by putting an “X” in the box of the appropriate choice Your answer is used for research purposes only Strongly Questions agree agree Neutral I enjoyed doing speaking activities with cue cards I am satisfied with my performance with cue cards I used more English than Vietnamese in speaking lessons with cue cards Working with cue cards gave me more motivation in speaking Activities with cue cards could lower anxiety and develop confidence Activities with cue cards could increase my talking time Speaking activities seemed to be easier with cues on cards Cue cards allowed me to control what I was doing Cue cards helped orient what to say about the topic given 10 Cue cards offered me a chance to contribute fairly even to the discussion Thank you for cooperation! Disagree Strongly disagree APPENDIX C The score of pre-test and the post-test on on students’speaking ability by the two groups Treatment Pre-test Post-test Control Pre-test Post-test group T1 T2 group T1 T2 E1 5,5 C1 5,5 E2 4,5 C2 5,5 5,5 E3 C3 6 E4 6,5 7,5 C4 7 E5 7,5 C5 6,5 E6 C6 6,5 E7 C7 8 E8 5,5 C8 6,5 E9 C9 4,5 4,5 E10 7,5 8,5 C10 6 E11 8,5 C11 6,5 E12 6,5 8,5 C12 E13 4,5 C13 4,5 E14 6,5 C14 7 E15 C15 8 E16 C16 6,5 E17 6.5 C17 5,5 6,5 E18 C18 6,5 E19 5,5 C19 5,5 5,5 E20 C20 6 E21 5,5 7,5 C21 7,5 E22 6,5 7,5 C22 5,5 E23 5,5 6,5 C23 6,5 E24 7,5 C24 5,5 6,5 E25 6 C25 6 E26 7,5 C26 6,5 E27 8,5 C27 6,5 E28 6,5 C28 5,5 E29 7,5 C29 5,5 E30 5,5 C30 5,5 E31 5,5 C31 6 E32 6,5 7,5 C32 6,5 E33 C33 6,5 E34 7,5 C34 6,5 E35 5,5 C35 5 E36 4,5 6,5 C36 5,5 E37 6,5 7,5 C37 5,5 E38 5,5 C38 5,5 Mean 60.3 6.26 Mean 6.01 7.21 APPENDIX D PRE-TEST AND POST-TEST Part I: Introduction and interview Do you like travelling? On what occasion you travel? Who you often travel with? How you travel? How many cities have you been to in What you often prepare for your travel? Part 2: Long- turn/ topic card Describe an interesting city you know and like Where is it? How did you go there? What did you there? Explain why you found it so interesting Part 3: Discussion / follow-up Say something about the tourism development in your country, facility, services and the effect on environment What is the importance of travel and tourism industry? What you think the function of tourist guides? What are the benefits of travelling? ... treatment of cue cards - To find out the effectiveness of applying cue cards in teaching speaking to students - To give some recommendations in using cue cards to teach speaking and other skills 1.3... things can be seen above, the writer intended to carrying out a research entitled ? ?Using Cue Cards To Improve Speaking Skills For Tenth Graders? ?? with a view to helping students feel more confident,... AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY LE THI HA GIANG Using Cue Cards to IMPROVE speaking SKILLS for 10th graders Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Code: 14 01 11