An investigation into how pictures are used to teach speaking to the children in han thuyen primary school

Ministry of education and training Hanoi University Le thi khue An investigation into how pictures are used to teach speaking to the children in Han Thuyen primary school Submitted in patial fulfilment of requirement of the degree of master in Tesol Hanoi November 2008 Ministry of education and training Hanoi University Le thi khue An investigation into how pictures Are used to teach speaking to the children in Han Thuyen primary school Submitted in patial fulfilment of requirement of the degree of master in Tesol Supervisor: Nguyen Thu Le hang, Ma Hanoi November 2008 Table of contents TABLE OF CONTENTS I STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP III ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IV ABSTRACT V LIST OF ABBREVIATION VI LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS VII CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY 1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 1.5 OUTLINE OF THE THESIS CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 CHILD LANGUAGE LEARNING 2.1.1 First language acquisition 2.1.2 Second language acquisition 2.2 SPEAKING SKILLS AND THE TEACHING OF SPEAKING SKILLS 2.2.1 Definition of speaking skills 2.2.2 Teaching speaking skills 2.2.3 Factors affecting the development of speaking skills 2.3 PICTURES AND DIFFERENT VIEWS ON THE USE OF PICTURES IN ELT 10 2.3.1 Different views on the use of pictures in ELT 11 2.3.2 Different uses of pictures in English language teaching 15 2.3.3 Some principles for choosing, designing and using pictures in ELT 18 2.3.4 Classification of pictures 19 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 21 i 3.1 DESCRIPTION OF THE PARTICIPANTS 21 3.1.1 The teachers in Han Thuyen primary school 21 3.1.2 The primary school children 23 3.2 DESCRIPTION OF THE DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENT 23 3.2.1 Questionnaire 23 3.2.2 Observation 24 3.2.3 Interviews 25 3.3 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES 26 3.4 PROCEDURE OF DATA ANALYSIS 28 3.5 SUMMARY 28 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS 29 4.1 RESEARCH QUESTION 1: HOW ARE PICTURES USED TO TEACH SPEAKING TO THE CHILDREN IN HAN THUYEN PRIMARY SCHOOL? 29 4.1.1 The teaching methodology 29 4.1.2 The teaching procedures 31 4.1.3 The teaching techniques 32 4.1.4 The amount of time spent on using pictures to teach speaking 33 4.1.5 The students’ activities in the speaking lesson 34 4.2 RESEARCH QUESTION 2: WHAT KINDS OF PICTURES ARE MOST FREQUENTLY USED? 36 4.3 RESEARCH QUESTION 3: WHAT ARE THE MAIN PURPOSES FOR USING PICTURES IN THE SPEAKING CLASS? 39 4.4 RESEARCH QUESTION 4: WHAT ARE THE TEACHERS’ AND THE STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD THE USE OF PICTURES IN THE SPEAKING CLASS? 44 4.4.1 The teachers’ comments on pictures in the textbook 45 4.4.2 The teachers’ problems when using pictures to teach speaking 47 4.5 SUMMARY 48 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS 50 References Appendixes ii Statement of authorship Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree diploma in any other tertiary institution Date Le THi Khue iii Acknowledgements This study has been completed with the assistance and guidance of many people First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Nguyen Thu Le Hang, M.A for her valuable suggestions, academic guidance, critical comments and practical advice Without her generous help this thesis cannot be completed My sincere acknowledgements go to the teachers in Han Thuyen School who have helped me to complete the survey and proofread my thesis Last but not least, I would like to thank all the people in my family and my friends who have spared no time and efforts to help and encourage me while the thesis is written iv Abstract Pictures have been widely used in English language teaching and learning in many countries in the world including Vietnam But, how pictures are used to teach speaking effectively to the young learners in the primary school is a problem for many ELT teachers in Viet Nam Basing on the theoretical frame work of child language acquisition, English language teaching methodology gained in the M.A training course and the personal experience obtained in the teaching job, the writer of this thesis hopes to make an investigation into the use of pictures to teach speaking to the young children in Han Thuyen Primary school This action research focuses on four problems (1) the teaching methods employed when pictures are used to develop the speaking skills for the children, (2) the kind of pictures used in the speaking lesson, (3) the purposes of pictorial use in the speaking class and, (4) last but not least the teachers’ and students’ attitudes toward the use of pictures for English language instruction in a Vietnamese school where there is a lack of natural language environment In this research the data were gathered using three data collection instrument namely, questionnaire, interview and observation The collected data on the use of pictures to teach speaking to the young children in the school were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistic analysis with the help of the Microsoft Excel The research concluded that the systematic use of pictures as a supplementary teaching source has actively contributed to the successful teaching and learning of English to the young children in Han Thuyen School despite many difficulties on the part of teachers and students v List of abbreviations In English A-L: Audio- lingual ALM: Audio-lingual Method AP: Arranging pictures A-V: Audio- visual B.A: Bachelor of Arts C-M: Communicative method DP: Describing pictures ELT: English language teaching HT: Hàn Thuyên p.: page Ph.D.: Doctor of philosophy Pra: Practice Pre: Presentation Pro: Production Q&A: Question and answer T; Teacher Three Ps: Presentation, Practice, Production TPR: Total physical respond TV: Television program In Vietnamese NXB ĐHQG: Nhà xuất đại học quốc gia vi List of tables and charts Tables Table 1: Personal background of Han Thuyen teachers Table 2: The classification of teachers in Han Thuyen School Table 3: The students’ number in different groups and the amount of their learning time Table 4: Han Thuyen teachers’ teaching methodology Table 5: Han Thuyen teachers’ techniques to teach speaking skills Table 6: The amount of time spent on using pictures to teach speaking Table 7: Han Thuyen students’ activities in speaking lessons Table 8: Kinds of pictures to teach speaking Table 9: Purposes for using pictures in speaking lessons Table 10: The teachers’ evaluation of the textbook pictures Charts Chart 1: The procedures for teaching speaking skills in Han Thuyen School Chart 2: Evaluation of the children’s speaking skills in Han Thuyen School Chart 3: Children’s attitudes and reactions toward pictorial use vii Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Background to the study Nowadays English has become one of the most popular languages in the world and it is almost considered to be the international language It is widely used in science, technology, diplomacy, tourism, foreign trade, etc It seems easier for people from different countries to communicate, understand, study and exchange cultural and spiritual values through English In Vietnam since we have carried out economic reforms and open- door policies to attract foreign investment and cooperate with other countries, learning English has become more and more popular English has been widely taught everywhere in Vietnam Different methods have been employed but the result is still far from satisfactory Pictures as visual supplementary teaching materials so far have been used for different teaching purposes Pictures have been used as a story stimulus to generate writing ideas or evoke emotional expression or as an effective guided writing tool to facilitate students’ writing process and to improve their writing proficiency Pictures are a good and useful tool for examination purposes because they encourage the learner to predict, infer, and deduce information from a variety of sources Pictures help to bring the outside world into the classroom, thus help to make the situation more real and in turn help the learner to use appropriate associated language Pictures have been used to present different linguistic elements Pictures have been so widely used that textbooks are filled with pictures However they have not been appropriately exploited to teach speaking effectively in many primary schools in Vietnam Statistics issued by the Ministry of Education and Training showed that the quality of English language teaching and learning in Vietnamese schools has been very poor A lot of time and money has been spent on teaching English to not only young children in the primary school but also the students in secondary schools but the result is far from desired However, there are some schools which succeed in helping young learners to learn English effectively as a means of communication In these schools the government- selected textbooks have been taught Some supplementary textbooks in the training programs are the same as those used in other primary schools throughout Viet Nam But the communicative abilities of the students in these schools are surprisingly good Han Thuyen School is one of them What has led to this success may be contributed to many causes, but the References Bowen, J (1985) TESOL Techniques and Procedures Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers Brown, H (1987) Principles of language learning and teaching San Francisco State University Brown, H (1994) Teaching by Principles an interactive approach to language pedagogy San Francisco State University Brumfit, C (1984) Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Bygate, M (1987) Speaking Oxford: Oxford University Byrne, D (1976) Focus on the classroom Modern English publications Byrne, D (1986) Teaching Oral English (New edition) Longman Canning- Wilson, C (1996) Using pictures in EFL and ESL classrooms Journal of ERIC Document Service No: ED 445 526 Chomsky, N (1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press Chomsky, N (1969) The acquisition of Syntax in Children from to 10 Cambridge, Mass MIT Press Corder, S.P (1966) The Visual Element in Language Teaching Longman Cummins, J (1981) Bilingualism and Minority Children Ontario: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Diller, K (1981) Individual Differences and Universals in Language learning Aptitude Rowley, Mass: Newbury House Ellis, R (1994) The study of Second language Acquisition Oxford University Press Finocchiaro, M( 1984) The Functional- Notional Approach From Theory to Practice Oxford University Press Flege, J( 1987) A critical period for learning to pronounce foreign languages Applied Linguistic Fries, Charles C (1945) Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language University of Michigan Press Krashen, S (1982) Principle and Practice in Second Language Acquisition Oxford: Pergamon Lee,L (1994) Using Pictures as a Guided Writing Environment Journal of ERIC Document Service No : ED 386 951 Lee, W.R and Coopen, H (1970) Simple Audio- Visual aids to foreign language teaching Oxford: Oxford University Press Lenneberg, E (1967) Biological Foundations of Language New York: Wiley and Sons Mayer, R.E & Moreno, R (2002) Animation as an aid to multimedia learning Educational Psychology Review, McNeil, D (1970) The Acquisition of language New York: Harper Row 53 Nunan, D (1989) Designing tasks for the communication classroom Cambridge: Cambridge Univeristy Press Nunan, D (1991) Language teaching methodology Macquarie University, Sydney Nunan, D (1991) Communicative tasks and the language curriculum TESOL Quarterly Omaggio, Alice C (1981) Helping Learners Succeed: Activities for the Foreign Language Classroom Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics Prator, Clifford H and Celce-Murcia, Mariane (1979) “An outline of language teaching approaches” In Celce- Murcia, Marianne, and McIntosh, Lois Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language Newbury House Richards, J (1983) Language and Communication London: Long man Richards, Jack C and Rodgers (1986) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching Cambridge University Press River, W M (1968) Teaching Foreign- Language Skills The University of Chicago Press Thanasoulas, D (2002) The changing winds and shifting sands of the history of English Language Teaching http://www.englishclub.net/ articles/ The changing winds.htm Wajnryb, R (1992) Classroom Observation tasks Cambridge : Cambridge University Press 54 Appendix Teacher s Survey questionnaire QUESTIONNAIRE I am Le Thi Khue from Hanoi University This questionnaire is designed to gather information for the investigation into how pictures are used to teach speaking to the young children in Han Thuyen primary school We pledge that all the information gathered will be used for scientific purposes only and all personal information will be kept confidential Please put a tick or ticks in the appropriate boxes or write short answers in the provided space Thank you very much for your cooperation Personal information Please tick in the box next to your answer Your gender:  male Your age female  Years of work 1-3  4-6  7-9  10-15  16-20  above 20 years  Which grade you teach? First grade  Second grade  Fourth grade  Fifth grade Third grade   What textbooks have you been using? English for children  Connection  Let’s learn English  Let’s go  Get set go  Departure  Other textbooks: Do you use other supplementary teaching materials? No  Yes  Why? 55 Which of the following methods you use when you teach English? (you can tick more than one boxes) Grammar translation  Direct  Audio-lingual  Natural  Audio-visual  TPR  Communicative  Other Which of the following skills you think is most important for the primary school children? Reading, listening, writing, speaking (Write them in the provided space in orders of importance) 1- 2- 3- 4- How often you teach speaking? (Per week) period  periods  periods  periods  periods  periods  Above  What teaching techniques you you use when you teach speaking? (You can tick more than one choice) Question and answer  Picture matching  Arranging pictures  Presentation  Finding differences in pictures  Story telling  Describing pictures  Other What activities you ask your students to take part in when you teach speaking? Pair work  Group work  Games  Songs  Discussion  Presentation  Interview  Role plays  What kinds of pictures have you used? Drawings  Printed pictures in the textbook  Picture cards  Flash cards   Video clips  Selected paintings VCD & DVD films  Pictures from Video films  Other  Projected 56  10 What is your purpose when using pictures in the speaking lesson? To present the new words and structures  To create the situations for speaking practice  To motivate the students  To introduce culture  To illustrate  Develop interactive and monologue skills  Test the speaking skills  Develop presentation and debating skills  Other (please specify) 11 What procedure you follow when you use picture(s) in your speaking lesson? No procedure  Presentation practice free production  Free production presentation practice production  Presentation production practice production  Production presentation production practice  Practice presentation production practice  12 How long you spend time on using pictures to teach speaking? 10 minutes  25 minutes  15 minutes  30 minutes  20 minutes  40 minutes  13 How often you use pictures to teach speaking? 14 What you think about the pictures in the textbook you are using? (Circle the number to indicate the degree 3= very, 2= quite, 1= little 0= nothing Informative 1 Not informative Good quality 1 Of low quality Suitable 1 Not suitable Enough 1 Not enough 15 What problems have you encountered when using pictures to teach speaking? 16 What suggestion you want to make for the use of pictures in your school? 57 Thank you for your cooperation APPENDIX Teacher s Interview schema Time Date Place of interview - Gender: - Experience What you think about the advantages of using of pictures to teach speaking English in your school? What you think about the importance of speaking skill in teaching English to young children in your primary school? What methods you choose to teach English in you school? What teaching procedure you follow? Please explain why? 58 What you think about the students’ reaction when pictures are used in the speaking lesson? What amount of time should be spent on using pictures to teach speaking in one period? Do you think the textbook you have been using contain enough pictures for you to exploit to teach speaking to your students? If not what should be done? How you evaluate the speaking skill of your school children? What you think about the effect of extensive pictorial use on the students’ speaking skills? 10 What you think the school authority should in order to encourage teachers to use more pictures to teach speaking in particular and other skills in general? 59 Thank you very much APPENDIX Student s survey questionnaire Questionnaire Dưới câu hỏi chúng tơi đưa để tìm hiểu số thông tin việc học tiếng Anh em trường tiểu học để phục vụ cho việc nghiên cứu phương pháp sử dụng tranh ảnh cho việc dạy học tiếng Anh trường tiểu học Hàn Thuyên Rất mong em đọc trả lời câu hỏi phiếu điều tra Các em đánh dấu  vào câu trả lời viết vào chỗ cho sẵn Cảm ơn em nhiều How old are you ? Are you a boy or a girl? Where you study? How long have you been learning English? How many periods of English you have a week? Do you like learning English ? Yes  No  Do your teachers use pictures to teach speaking? Yes  How? No  What you in the speaking lesson? Describing pictures  Matching pictures Guessing   Drawing pictures  Ask and answer questions when you look at the pictures  Finding the differences between pictures  Telling stories  How you feel when you learn English through pictures? Excited  Bored  10 What you think about your English? 60 Nothing  Excellent   Good Fair  Bad  11 What you think about learning English in Han Thuyen School? Very difficult   Difficult Easy  Very easy  Thank you very much APPENDIX OBSERVATION SHEET SETTING Place Time Number of students SUBJECT Period Teacher: Male  Female  OBSERVATION CONTENTS + Are pictures used in the lesson ? + What kinds of pictures are used? + Are the pictures suitable for the teaching purpose? + Teaching method + Teaching techniques + Teaching procedures + Students’ activities + Students participation + Students’attitudes and reactions to the use of pictures in the lesson + Teaching aids + The amount of time spent on using pictures to teach speaking 61 GENERAL EVALUATION Appendix List of macro skills put forward by Richards (1983) Here is the list if the micro skills of speaking Produce chunks of language of different lengths Orally produce differences among the English phonemes and allophonic variants Produce English stress patterns, words in stressed and unstressed positions, rhythmic structure, and intonation contours Produced reduced forms of words and phrases Use an adequate number of lexical units (words) in order to accomplish pragmatic purposes Produce fluent speech at different rates of delivery Monitor your own oral production and use various strategic devices- pauses, filters, self- correction, backtracking- to enhance the clarity of the message Use grammatical word classes (Nouns, verbs, etc.), systems (e.g., tense, agreement, pluralization), word order, patterns, rules and elliptical forms Produce speech in natural constituents- in appropriate phases, pause group, breathe group and sentence constituents 10 Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms 11 Use cohesive devices in spoken discourse 12 Appropriately accomplish communicative functions according to situations, participants, and goals 13 Use appropriate registers implicative, pragmatic conventions and other sociolinguistic features in face to face conversations 14 Convey links and connections between events and communicate such relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization and exemplification 62 15 Use facial features, kinesics, “Body language”, and other non-verbal cues along with verbal language in order to convey meanings 16 Develop and use the battery of speaking strategies, such as emphasizing key words, rephrasing, creating a context for interpreting the meaning of words, appealing for help, and accurately assessing how well your interlocutor is understanding you 63 64 65 66 67 ... question 1: How are pictures used to teach speaking to the children in Han Thuyen primary school? The way which pictures were used to teach speaking to the young children in Han Thuyen School was...Ministry of education and training Hanoi University Le thi khue An investigation into how pictures Are used to teach speaking to the children in Han Thuyen primary school Submitted in patial... questions: How are pictures used to teach speaking to the children in Han Thuyen primary school? What kinds of pictures are most frequently used? What are the main purposes for using pictures in the speaking