PERFORMANCE IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSES
The last research question: “How well can role- play practice help students to overcome their difficulties in speaking lessons?” was conducted to explore how the most popular and effective instructional strategy of the English teachers affect the students’ results in English speaking classes.
After this study was approved, the researcher spent 2 weeks observing the colleagues’ speaking lessons to examine which instructional strategies were suitable and which were not. After observing, the author found that the strategy the English teachers applied the most in their speaking classes was role- play. From the data of the questionnaires and semi- structured interviews, it was very obvious that role- play was used the most widely and effectively at VTTC. Therefore, the researcher applied this instructional strategy for her students: 30 students from class K17C took part in role- play activity week by week with video- clip, visual aids, pictures, handouts, etc, and 30 students from class K17A would be participated in this type of the instructional strategy without the teacher’s help. After 6 weeks, the researcher would check the students’ performance. Before applying this instructional strategy, the speaking proficiency levels of the two classes was rated as almost similar.
2.1. Data from questionnaires
The students were asked to share their opinions on role- play by checking the statements on the 5-point Likert scale that ranged from 1 = Strongly disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, to 5 = Strongly agree.
No. Statements 1 2 3 4 5
1 Role- play increases students’
interactions, promotes their communicative competence, interactive skills, and interpersonal relationships.
0% 0% 8,3% 25% 66,7%
2 Role- play helps the students more actively in the English speaking skills.
0% 0% 10% 15% 75%
3 Role- play creates chances for students to use English more.
0% 0% 8,3% 10% 81,7%
4 Role- play helps the students more 0% 0% 15% 10% 75%
confident to present about the topic
5 Role- play forces the students to practice 0% 0% 25% 8,3% 66,7%
6 Role- play helps the students overcome their shyness
0% 0% 10% 28,4% 61,6%
7 Role- play is time- consuming 88,3% 1,7% 10% 0% 0%
8 Role- play leads misunderstanding among the members of the groups.
80% 6,7% 13,3% 0% 0%
Table 8: Students’ perceptions towards role- play
As shown in the table, the students’ perceptions towards role- play was very positive. The majority of the respondents agreed that role- play activity had a lot of advantages. 66,7% strongly agreed that: “Role- play increases students’ interactions, promotes their communicative competence, interactive skills, and interpersonal relationships”, while 25% of the students agreed with the above statement. Only 8,3%
had neutral opinions.
Added to this, 75% strongly agreed: "Role- play helps the students more actively in the English speaking skills”, many of them expressed their agreement (15%), and the last 10% stated that they had neutral ideas with this advantage of role- play.
Continuously, the table also showed other advantages of this instructional strategy. 81,7% indicated that they strongly agreed with the statement: “Role- play creates chances for students to use English more”.
Many students said that: “Role- play helps the students more confident to present about the topic”, they strongly agreed with this idea (75%), some of them stated their agreement (10%), and 15% were neutral.
They continued to express their opinions. They strongly agreed that: “Role- play forces the students to practice” (66,7%), some took a stand on agreement (8,3%), and there were quite a large number of the respondents who maintained neutral (25%)
Additionally, many students strongly agreed that role- play helped them overcome their shyness in their speaking classes (61,6%), there were a large number of the students took a stand on agreement with the advantage(28,4).
In contrast, there were various opinions on disadvantages of role- play. As seen in Table 8, the last two statements about this matter all received many responses from the students. The majority of the statement explained that they completely disagreed with the statement that role- play was time- consuming (88,3%), 1,7% disagreed, and 10%
of the students expressed their neutral opinions.
Lastly, they continued to give their opinions about the disadvantage of role- play:
“Role- play leads misunderstanding among the members of the groups”, there were a large number of the respondents maintained their strong agreement (80%), 6,7% agreed with the statement, and 13,3 % of the students had neutral opinions.
Through the table, all of the readers can see that role- play practicing has many advantages.
2.2. Data from mid- term test
After 6 weeks of applying this activity, the researcher checked her students’
understanding through a mid- term test. The researcher designed 4 subjects for the students. Each includes three parts (see Appendix 7):
The students’ understanding is transcribed in Appendix 8 and Appendix 9 After checking, the results are described as follows:
K 17 ENGLISH A K 17 ENGLISH C
Average point 6,9 (=69%) 7,33 (= 73,3%)
Excellent 13,3 % 23,3%
Good 53,4% 60%
Average 13,3% 10%
Below average 20% 6,7%
Table 9 : Students’ result from the mid- term test
%
Figure 9: Students’ result from the mid- term test
As shown in the figure, the results from the mid- term test of K 17 ENGLISH A and K 17 ENGLISH C are of different levels although the levels of the two classes were the same 6 weeks ago. At the moment, the average point of K 17 English A is much shorter than that of K17 English C. The average point of all the students of class K17 English A is 6,9 while class K17 English C is 7,33. The numbers of the excellent and good students of the two classes are quite unequal. Excellent and good students of K 17 English A account 68,7 %, while this number of Class K17 English C accounts 83,3%. It can be seen that the numbers of average and below average students of class K17 English A is much higher than those of class 17 English C. Through the mid- term test, all the readers can easily find that role- play with well-prepared instructional strategies (using visual aids, handouts, video clips…) changed the students’
performance in the English speaking classes.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Average point
Excellent Good Average Below
average
69
13.3
53.4
13.3
20 73.3
23.3
60
10 6.7
K17 ENGLISH A
K17 ENGLISH B
2.3. Data from the observation
The aforementioned situation was explored and illustrated evidently through the statistics obtained by the observations. Those observations were conducted with 8 participants. In terms of the number of turns taken by different members in a role- play activities, (See Appendix 12), only one student took more than three turns, at least twice fewer than those of the person participating most actively. Furthermore, a great participation imbalance could be seen clearly in every observed activity. The total amount of talking time of the students also had obvious difference. (See Appendix 12, observation 1). However, after 6 weeks, the students’ participation changed dramatically. The numbers of turns taken by the different members were nearly the same. The total amount of talking time of the members was more equal. The researcher found that the students participated in English speaking lessons more actively. Their shyness was limited. They were more confident to talk in front of the class.
To sum up, the data from the questionnaires, mid- term test and observations supported the claim that role- play activities with the teacher’s instructional strategies such as video- clips, visual aids, pictures, handouts, etc contributed a lot to the students’ understanding and performance in the English speaking classes.
SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTER
This chapter has demonstrated the data collected from questionnaires, semi- structured interviews, test, and observations. The major findings can be summarized as follows: Firstly, there were many instructional strategies that the English teachers applied in their English speaking classes. They were applied widely and effectively with the actual context of VPC in which role- play practice was used the most widely by the English teachers.
Finally, the researcher of the study applied the role- play practice for her students in 2 classes with and without the use of visual aids such as video clips, visual aids, pictures, handouts, etc, the findings were obviously different.
PART C: CONCLUSION 1. SUMMARY OF THE STUDY
The study was conducted as an attempt pinpoint the instructional strategies the English teachers often used in their speaking teaching process, and recommended several pedagogical implications to motivate students to participate in English speaking activities.
In conclusion, it came up with the following findings.
Firstly, there were many instructional strategies the English teachers applied in their English speaking classes. These instructional strategies included role- play, pair work, group work, task- completion activities, information- gap activities, etc. They were applied widely and effectively with the actual context of VTTC in which role- play practice was used the most widely by the English teachers.
Next, the students commonly had many difficulties in their English speaking classes. They lack vocabularies. They are shy and inconfident.
Finally, the researcher of the study applied the role- play practice for her students in 2 ways: the first one for one class with the role- play designed as in the coursebook, and another for one class with teacher’ better-prepared instructional strategies using visuals aids, handouts and video clips. The finding showed that well-prepared instructional activities appeared to be more effective in helping students to overcome their difficulties in speaking lessons and thus speak better.
In short, the collected data helped to answer the two research questions satisfactorily.