Using kinesthetic activities to engage efl 10th graders in speaking lesson

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI NGOC TU USING KINESTHETIC ACTIVITIES TO ENGAGE EFL 10TH GRADERS IN SPEAKING LESSON MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION Nghe An,2018 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI NGOC TU USING KINESTHETIC ACTIVITIES TO ENGAGE EFL 10TH GRADERS IN SPEAKING LESSON Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Language(TESOL) Code: 8140111 MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISIOR Assoc Prof., Ph.D Ngo Dinh Phuong Nghe An,2018 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby certify that the thesis entitled: “Using Kinesthetic Activities to Engage EFL 10th Graders in Speaking Lesson” is the result of my own research for the degree of Assoc Prof., Ph.D Ngo Dinh Phuong., Vinh University and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution in any other degree or qualification Signature i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First and foremost, I am deeply grateful to my supervisor, I would like to grateful and respectfully acknowledge my supervisor, Assoc Prof., Ph.D Ngo Dinh Phuong for his support in doing this thesis Without his help, the thesis would have never finished Additionally, I wish to express my deep gratitude to the teachers in the Foreign Languages Department for advising me a lot of reference books related to my graduation thesis Also, I wish to thank teachers and students at Nghe An talent sports school for supporting me in obtaining data necessary for the paper Last but not least, I wish to express my special thanks to my parents and all the members of my family, who always give me their love, care, support and encouragement ii ABSTRACT In the current era of increasing international integration and rising foreign trade investment into the country, learning English is a crucial issue in Vietnam to the point that there even exists a national project for it Amongst the approach to promote engagement of EFL 10th graders in speaking lesson, the adoption of kinaesthetic activities in teaching English has been around for many years In this study, the aim is to investigate into the effective of kinesthetics activities on teaching speaking English skill on a whole 10th grade class at Nghe An talent sports school high school The purpose of the approach is to find out whether the difference between teaching approaches, particularly the VAK one, would have positive influence toward students’ test performance In details, there were 62 students at grade 10thstudents school year 2017 – 2018 who will participate in an action approach research with data obtained from testing prior and after the implication of VAK, and questionnaire responses of the same population The study was performed with consideration to many input factors like gender, age, income, attitude, motivation, and studying ability Through a regression analysis on a selected data of 48 students, the paper has found statistical significance evidences behind the impact of kinaesthetic teaching methodology toward students’ speaking ability The findings also lead to few recommendation strategies for teachers and a suggestion for future research iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION - 1.1 Rationale of the study - - 1.2 Aims of the study - - 1.3 Object and scope of the study - - 1.4 Significance of the study - - 1.5 Organisation of the study - - CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW - 2.1 A summary on English teaching in Vietnam - - 2.2 Speaking skill - - 2.2.1 About language and English-speaking ability - - 2.2.2 Motivating and demotivating factor during English speaking learning process - 10 - 2.2.3 Successful English teaching experience in other non-English- speaking country in the region - 14 2.2.4 2.3 Factors undermining the success of the practices - 17 Theoretical background of kinaesthetic activities - 22 - 2.3.1 Concepts of kinaesthetic activities - 22 - 2.3.2 Practices of kinaesthetic activities in speaking lessons - 28 - 2.4 Implications of kinaesthetic activities in English teaching in Vietnam- 30 - iv 2.5 Summary - 32 - CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY - 33 3.1 Participants - 33 - 3.2 Method - 34 - 3.3 Data collection method - 36 - CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND ANALYSIS - 41 4.1 Pre-test result and the group division - 41 4.2 Questionnaire result - 44 4.3 Post-test result and Comparison with the Post-test - 51 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION - 56 5.1 Summary of the study - 56 5.2 Pedagogical implications - 57 5.3 Limitations of the study - 59 5.4 Suggestions for further study - 59 5.5 Conclusion - 60 REFERENCE - 62 APPENDIX - 66 Appendix - 66 Appendix - 68 - v LIST OF TABLES Table 1:English proficiency ranking, GNI per capita, and education inputs in Vietnam, Singapore, and Philippines in 2017 - 15 Table 2: Summary of the study sampling population, sample size, research method, research instruments, and data type - 37 Table 3: Statistics of the pre-test for the 44 participants altogether - 42 Table 4: Statistics of the pre-test dividing into the control group and the experimental group - 43 Table 5: Gender statistics of the control group and the experimental group - 44 Table 6: Statistics on students perceiving English as an important subject - 46 Table 7: Statistics on students interested and drive in learning English - 48 Table 8: Statistics of the pre-test and the post-test of the control group - 52 Table 9: Statistics of the pre-test and the post-test of the experimental group - 54 Table 10: T-test result for the pre-test and post-test of both groups - 55 Table 11: Survey questionnaire used in the paper - 68 - vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: The three areas of the speaking capability - Figure 2: Factors and relationships in the teaching process - 18 Figure 3: The eight types of intelligence in the multiple intelligences theory - 24 Figure 4: The three main learning styles for non-English speakers - 27 Figure 5: Gender statistics of the sample data - 43 Figure 6: Statistics on students’ frequency of participating in building lectures and missing doing homework - 50 - vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study Learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam has become a pressing issue in recent years Evidence for this urgent need is that the foreign language project in the national education system for the period of 2008 - 2020, presided over by the Ministry of Education and Training, shows the necessity of learning foreign languages aiming to meet the human resources requirements for the industrialization and modernization of the country until 2020 in the context of globalization and international integration(Nguyen, 2017) In fact, for Vietnamese students nowadays, English is no longer crucial for taking exams With the trend of integration, the business of each agency and business is not only domestic but also cooperation with many different enterprises in the world making the ability to communicate in foreign language an essential skill Not only foreign companies require English applicants but also domestic and foreign institutions This seems to be a mandatory requirement for workers to apply for a job although they may rarely use English It represents the trend of international integration of Vietnamese companies and enterprises Particularly for a developing country like Vietnam, English was taught very early as many young people were aware of its importance for reasons such as finding a high-quality job, communicating with the outside world, approaching the scientific resources that they are pursuing That is why many universities and colleges now teach many contents in English as well as standardize the foreign language output (popular in English) for graduate students Meanwhile, English language skills include listening, speaking, reading and writing, where speaking is one of the crucial skill in communication However, despite its’ importance, there is a fact that most students after high school graduation cannot speak English well even though they have been taught English for seven consecutive years In order to be able to speak English relatively well, -1- Group T-test Control group 0.002386 Experimental group 0.000213 Table 10: T-test result for the pre-test and post-test of both groups In brief, while the current evidence shows considerable positive effect on the influence of the kinaesthetic approach, further study with consideration of other factors affecting students like attitude and motivation should be carried out After all, what if, there are more serious students in the experimental groups and they are solely the ones who saw their results improved disregarding the teaching approach Such case would answer both the increase in average mark and standard deviation of this group Certainly, the survey did show that students in the experimental group have more drive in studying for grades than the control one Though, in speaking test, it should be those with more drives in learning for future prospect or communication with foreigners who perform better But, clearly, it was not the case - 55 - CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Summary of the study This concluding chapter will present a summary of the main findings as they relate to the research questions and discuss some pedagogical implications of the study It will also draw attention to the limitations of the study and make suggestions for how future research could build on the findings of this study In this paper, inspired by many previous studies in similar topic, the author employed an experimental study in a class of 62 students at grade 10th students school year 2017 – 2018 at Nghe An talent sports school, Nghe An The study lasts for weeks which incorporates a pre-test and a post-test on speaking ability, a questionnaire survey, and ten speaking lessons on selected topic Although there are 62 students in the class, only 48 students were picked and divided into two groups These groups were taught using different method: the traditional and the kinaesthetic approaches Furthermore, the experiment took into consideration ethical issues like the requirements for professionalism and the Codes of Practice The findings disclose that while both approaches seem to statistically significantly increase students’ speaking test result considerably, the kinaesthetic approach slightly edges out in term of effectiveness However, such influence may also be the result of the personal characteristics of the students In details, this result lead to recommendation on the implication of the VAK teaching approach to selective students who are female, average test score with small divergence in English studying ability, strong drive toward learning for grades, reserved personality, and hard workers Furthermore, from literature review, teachers should also reduce speakingtime in classroom, frequently ask open-ended questions, provide positive feedback when commenting on student speaking, continuous change speaking activities depending on the topic and the level of the student, create a comfortable - 56 - atmosphere, and allow students to work in groups like pairs to foster positive behaviour like collective learning and self-correcting 5.2 Pedagogical implications Therefore, from the outcome above, teachers and students altogether may benefit from the adoption of kinaesthetic teaching methodology While the study was carried out without further consideration to many factors, such analysis should be left to future study Given the findings from this study, it should be noted that the teaching approach may not be applicable to all students Therefore, the implication of the teaching approach should be optional with focus on certain students type For instance, in this case, the students in the experimental group who are mostly female, average test score with small divergence in English studying ability, strong drive toward learning for grades, reserved personality, and hard workers Furthermore, from literature review, here are some suggestions for teaching and learning Speaking skills help students participate in speaking English actively, more actively First, for teachers: - The teaching approach should provide the maximum opportunity for English-speaking students by creating a learning environment in which students share knowledge, materials, work, etc for each other in the group or in pairs (like in the two tests in this paper).When working in groups or in pairs, students can support each other in terms of vocabulary, grammatical structure as well as sentence expressions, words and especially selfcorrecting In fact, when working in pairs or in groups, students feel more restless, more confident, not afraid to make mistakes, be commented or taunted - Provide students with the vocabulary they may need, while anticipating problems students will encounter in speaking activities After all, in this research, the improvement in the post-test result may have been partly influenced by the preparation on the topic prior to the test - 57 - - Reduce teacher speaking time in the classroom while increasing student talk time The teacher moves around the classroom to ensure that the student is on track, always observes, makes suggestions, and is able to make corrections and remedies for each group, each student avoids disruptive groups self and ineffective work However, it is important to avoid correcting pronunciation errors regularly for students while they are speaking so as not to interrupt the students' speech - Frequently ask open-ended questions like 'What you mean? To encourage students to think and participate in more talk in class In addition, the teaching approach should also provide positive feedback when commenting on student speaking Positive reactions, positive comments will help motivate students to say more In addition, teachers may encourage students to speak in the form of praise, grades, and awards, such as setting aside a certain percentage of the grade for the student's speaking class - Continuous change speaking activities depending on the topic and the level of the student In addition, teachers should also create a comfortable atmosphere during class hours to encourage students to speak English more Meanwhile, as for students, since the teaching approach should be selective to individuals with certain characteristics Therefore, teachers should: - Determine their learning motivation, so that the right attitude and learning strategies are appropriate In this case, the students should have average test score with small divergence in English studying ability, strong drive toward learning for grades, reserved personality, and hard workers - In addition, they should actively participate in speaking activities at class, make the most of class time to practice communication with classmates, create the habit of thinking in English, practice pronunciation standard, speak fluently, and create a daily English environment for themselves, from watching movies, listening to music, attending English speaking clubs, - 58 - setting up study groups and discussions, etc with the motto as much as English speak English more advanced 5.3 Limitations of the study However, the study has few restrictions ranging from sample details, data gathering methodology, and analysis approach Initially, the sample consists of just students at Nghe An talent sports school and thus the implications of the findings may be limited to just the school After all, participants in other regions may have different backgrounds and have different perspectives and responses Moreover, the analysis approach was merely data discussion Furthermore, the survey questionnaire and questions used was limited to time, money, and type of questions from the beginning In fact, the survey is limited to closed-ended question with only one pick to choose In other words, the study may be benefited from closed-ended question with multiple answer, open-ended question, and combination However, such study would require more time and budget Also, the study fails to consider many other factors affecting students including attitude and motivation 5.4 Suggestions for further study Nonetheless, given the limitations in this paper, further study with consideration of other factors affecting students like attitude and motivation should be carried out to ascertain the extent of effectiveness of the VAK approach For instance, the future study should add more determinants into model consideration, not limited to just gender and starting point Furthermore, it should be recommended that further research using larger sample data with backgrounds in different regions and more types of questions in the questionnaire would be advisable - 59 - 5.5 Conclusion In summary, learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam has become a pressing issue in recent years In Vietnam, along with the emergence in foreign companies English was taught very early as many young people were aware of its importance for reasons such as finding a high-quality job, communicating with the outside world, approaching the scientific resources that they are pursuing Hence, the methodology in English teaching is nowadays a very important issue Meanwhile, from previous literature review, it was learned that speaking is an interactive process involving the generation, reception and processing of information(Byrne, 1986; Brown, 1994; Burn & Joyce, 1997) The process of English speaking learning is, known, to be divided into five stages including pre-production, early production, speech emergence, intermediate fluency, and advanced fluency (Bashir, Azeem, & Dogar, 2011) Throughout the five stages, learners move from starting to listen, perceive, and may be repeat few words, to speaking short chunks, then to simple phrases, following by complex sentences with personal styles, thoughts, and opinions, and finally ends in nearnative capability However, regardless of the process and the approach, it is understood that there are many other barriers to learn a foreign language speech including the original mother-tongue and confidence On the other hand, kinaesthetic teaching approach, which was inspired by the emergence of multiple intelligence concept and the individual preference to varying approach to learning styles, was adopted previously by many institutions all around the world In details, in Vietnam, in recent years, the VAK teaching approach is adopted by many extra-curriculum centres like EZI, Lavata, and Language Link But even with the implication of this new teaching method, the impact from other factors are not negligible In fact, improving students' speaking skills is both a process of effort for both teachers and students Teachers themselves must invest time to prepare the lesson - 60 - plan, full and reasonable with the students of each class Students themselves must also make every effort, aware of the importance of general English as well as speaking skills in particular Classroom atmosphere is also very important Teaching is a hard job and requires a lot of enthusiasm, enthusiasm and creativity of the teacher, taught for love and responsible for students - 61 - REFERENCE Bailey, R M (2005) Practical English Language Teaching: Speaking McGrawHill Companies, Inc Bashir, M., Azeem, M., & Dogar, D A (2011) Factor Effecting Students’ English Speaking Skills British Journal of Arts and Social Sciences, 2(1), pp 34 50 Retrieved March 18, 2018, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228840274_Factor_Effecting_Stud ents'_English_Speaking_Skills Bejtullahu, V (2016) The factor that cause anxiety in learning English speaking skills among high-school students Master thesis Retrieved March 18, 2018, from https://aab-edu.net/assets/uploads/2016/12/Vlora_Bejtullahu.pdf Brown, H D (1994) Teaching by Principles: An interactive Approach to Language Pedagory Prentice Hall, Inc Burn, A., & Joyce, H (1997) Focus on Speaking Sydney: National Center for English Language Teaching and Research Byrne, D (1986) Teaching Oral English Longman Group UK Limited Chu, L., & Chew, M L (2005) How we learn best? 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65 - APPENDIX Appendix Unit 10, page 106, tasks on Conversation (Pre-test topic) Work in pairs Read the paragraphs and answer the questions For what purpose are zoos of the new kind opened? What are their main features? A Zoos are very sensitive about their image nowadays They don't want to be seen as places where animals are imprisoned against their will Instead, they want to be seen as places where endangered species can develop They want to reconstruct the animals' natural environment So there appears a new kind of zoo B Howletts Zoo in Kent is owned by John Aspinall, who is famous for his programme of breeding endangered animals and reintroducing them into the wild The zoo has the largest gorillas in the world and its policy is to provide as natural an environment as possible for the animals At times, this can be risky, and some keepers have been injured and one has been killed - 66 - Unit 16, page 169, task on Historical places (Post-test topic) A foreign visitor has taken some notes about President Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum Ask and answer questions with a partner, using his notes - 67 - Appendix The following questionnaire should take below minutes to complete, please spare a few minutes to complete it In the following survey, please pick the extent of agree or disagree to the statement in accordance to the choice below: = totally disagree; = quite disagree; = so-so; = quite agree; = totally agree Statement Responses English is an important subject English is an important subject even if it is not compulsory You study English because you want to communicate with foreigners You study English for your future prospect You study English for grades You are always willing to participate in building lectures You always your home works on time Table 11: Survey questionnaire used in the paper - 68 - Appendix 3: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE TEACHERS This questionnaire is conducted with a view to finding out the reality of teaching and learning speaking lesson in in the old textbook English 10 at Nghe An talent sports high school Your assistance in completing the survey is highly appreciated All the data collected are only used for the study purpose Thank you very much for your cooperation! Age ………………… Sex: Male Female Years of teaching: ……………… For each question, from to 5, please tick one option that you think is the most appropriate or give your own opinion 1.How important you think speaking lesson is ? A Very important B Important C Not important - Please explain why you think so……………………………………………… What you think about the pre-tests in Speaking lessons in English 10?Why? A Interesting B Normal C Monotonous D.Other opinion:……… According to you, Speaking exercises in English 10 to your students are: A Very difficult B Difficult C Normal - 69 - D Easy E Very easy ...MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI NGOC TU USING KINESTHETIC ACTIVITIES TO ENGAGE EFL 10TH GRADERS IN SPEAKING LESSON Major: Teaching English to Speakers... kinaesthetic activities in speaking lesson - Investigate whether kinaesthetic activities would promote engagement in speaking among 10th graders in speaking lesson or not - Propose recommendations on kinaestheticactivities... ‘attitudes toward the use of kinaesthetic activities in speaking lesson? - Do kinaesthetic activities promote engagement in speaking among 10th graders in speaking lesson? 1.3 Object and scope