VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES HUỲNH THỊ NHẬT UYÊN APPLYING A BLENDED LEARNING PROGRAM TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ IELTS SPEAKING PERFORMANCE IN AN IELTS SPEAKING CLASS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT (ÁP DỤNG MỘT CHƯƠNG TRÌNH HỌC KẾT HỢP CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN VÀ O LỚP HỌC TRUYỀN THỐNG ĐỂ CẢI THIỆN KHẢ NĂNG NÓI IELTS CỦ A HỌC SINH TRONG MỘT LỚP HỌC NÓI IELTS: NGHIÊN CỨU CẢI TIẾN SƯ PHẠM) M. MAJOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60140111 HÀ NỘI – 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES HUỲNH THỊ NHẬT UYÊN APPLYING A BLENDED LEARNING PROGRAM TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ IELTS SPEAKING PERFORMANCE IN AN IELTS SPEAKING CLASS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT (ÁP DỤNG MỘT CHƯƠNG TRÌNH HỌC KẾT HỢP CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN VÀ O LỚP HỌC TRUYỀN THỐNG ĐỂ CẢI THIỆN KHẢ NĂNG NÓI IELTS CỦ A HỌC SINH TRONG MỘT LỚP HỌC NÓI IELTS: NGHIÊN CỨU CẢI TIẾN SƯ PHẠM) Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60140111 Supervisor : Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify that the major thesis entitled “Applying a Blended Learning Program to improve students‟ IELTS speaking performance in an IELTS speaking class: an action research project” is the study of my own research and the substance of this research has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution. Hanoi, 2017 Approved by SUPERVISOR i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this work to: my beloved father.
my mother who has sacrificed her life for me……. a friend of mine whose love, continual support, and patience encouraged me to reach my goal……. my adorable sister who supported me until the finish of this research ……. all those who gave me love, strength and patience….
ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, my respect and appreciation is to my dear mother, the greatest mother in the world, my beloved father and my sister whose prayers and love guided, helped and supported me to carry out this work. My gratitude is deeply paid to my supervisor, Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan for his invaluable assistance and insightful guidance on every taken step of the research. Special thanks are due to two friends of mine - The Nguyen, who devoted his time and experience to cooperate with me during my thesis work, and Truong Giang Do, who dedicatedly cooperated with me in designing the Website (iespeaking.club) for the Blended IELTS speaking course in my research.
Finally, my great appreciation is to the teachers and students of the Institute of Equest Education, where the study was carried out. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This thesis explores the design of a blended learning environment in an on- ground traditional face-to-face IELTS course and seeks to determine the extent to which the Blended IELTS speaking course significantly affects the improvement in students‟ IELTS speaking performance as well as the learner satisfaction levels toward the model in terms of their improvement in IELTS speaking performance. 30 ELT students from two IELTS classes (intermediate level) were involved in an IELTS intermediate course (IELTS 5.5) lasting for 16 weeks in the Institute of Equest Education. This course covered all the four skills of IELTS (Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking), but only Speaking skill was the focus for the researcher to design the blended learning environment.
Every two weeks, each participant was asked to complete a variety of assignments both online and offline such as recording an audio. The audio recorded interview of each student or a pair of students must be posted on the web page and the other students in the class will comment on the recorded audios in a certain lesson with the management of the researcher. Multiple data collection instruments were used in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the blended course including pre-test and post-test, observations, survey questionnaire and interviews. The results from the data revealed that the Blended IELTS speaking course significantly affected the improvement in students‟ IELTS speaking performance.
In addition, most of the participants were satisfied with the Blended IELTS speaking course in terms of their improvement in IELTS speaking performance, instructor‟s feedback and the interaction and communication aspects; by contrast, they showed dissatisfaction with peer feedback due to weak peer feedback, which could be considered the only drawback of the blended course. Albeit results of the present research indicated that Blended IELTS speaking course was perceived positively by learners, further research is still necessary to examine if the identical results and findings might be achieved in other courses in different educational environments. iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Statement of the problem.
Aim and objectives of the study. Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Organization of the study.
6 Chapter II: LITERATURE REVIEW. The IELTS speaking test: an overview. IELTS speaking performance through Performance Descriptors. Fluency and coherence in IELTS.
Lexical resource in IELTS. Grammatical range and accuracy in IELTS. Pronunciation in IELTS. What is blended learning? .The Terminologies: E-learning and Blended Learning.
Characteristics of blended learning. Levels of blended learning. Methods of the Blend. Factors that influence the application of blended learning and promote successful blended learning.
Learning outcomes in blended learning environment. Advantages and disadvantages of blended learning. Advantages of BL. Challenges of blended learning.
The review of related studies. 36 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY. Strengths and weaknesses of action research. The Validity and Reliability of the Action Research.
Participants of the study. Data collection methods. Pre-test and post-test. Blended IELTS speaking course Satisfaction Survey.
Data collection Procedure. Phase One: Pre-intervention (The Observing, Planning and Designing of the Blended Learning Environment for the IELTS speaking course). Statement of the problem. The blended learning model for the Blended IELTS speaking course.
Data analysis procedures. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. The significant level of the blended IELTS Speaking course in the improvement of students‟ IELTS speaking performance. Participants‟ Satisfaction levels with Blended IELTS speaking course.
Participants‟ general satisfaction with Blended IELTS speaking course. 68 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Participants‟ satisfaction levels with the Blended IELTS speaking course in terms of the improvement in their IELTS speaking performance. Participants‟ satisfaction with the feedback aspect of the blended IELTS speaking course.
Participants‟ satisfaction towards the Communication and Interaction aspects of the Blended IELTS speaking course. Recommendations for Further Research. 91 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF THE TABLES Table 2.1: Opposed Forms, Contexts and Practices in Blended Learning .1: Survey questions mapped to research question and survey question type .1: Paired Samples Statistics .2: Paired Samples Test .3: The students' mean scores, standard deviations, t-value and level of significance of the study samples in the pre-test and post-test of the students‟ IELTS speaking performance .4: The recommended table for analyzing the effect size level .5: The effect size of the Blended IELTS speaking course on the students‟ IELTS speaking performance .6: Participants‟ general satisfaction with the blended IELTS Speaking course .7: Participants‟ satisfaction levels with the Blended IELTS speaking course in terms of the improvement in their IELTS Speaking performance .8: Participants‟ satisfaction towards the feedback aspect of the Blended IELTS speaking course .9: Participants‟ satisfaction with communication and interaction. 73 viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF THE FIGURES Figure 2.1: A taxonomy of Blended learning .2: Combining the Options in a Decision .3: The Eclipse Diagram by Markos Tiris, LSDA, 1999 and the Definitions Used in the Centre for Excellence in Leadership‟s Report (CEL, 2003).4: A Diagram of the Blended Learning Definition .1: Homepage of Blended IELTS speaking course (before login).2: Homepage of Blended IELTS speaking course (after login) .5: Discussion Forum Page .6: Extra sharing resources .1: Five stars rating system.
81 ix LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the problem: In the age of the fourth industrial revolution, almost all professions and sectors of society are affected by this general trend with strong dominance of information technology, especially the Internet in the operation modes. Education in general and ESL in particular are not the exceptions. At the beginning of the 21st century, it may be hard to imagine what English teaching and learning will be like within the next 100 years, but many researchers subscribe to the idea that blended learning can be closer to second language teaching in the future.
Historically, right from the early days when education began to apply information technology, two forms of the learning environments which are traditional face-to-face environment and online classroom environment were separately existed because they used different communication channels or different methods of combinations and aimed at different audiences. For instance, traditional face-to-face learning regularly took place in the teacher-centered environment with person-to-person interaction in a directly synchronous environment. In contrast, online learning focused on asynchronous interactions in the virtual environment. At the very beginning of the period, only asynchronous interactions were probable because at that time the technology had limitations in the methods of instruction used.
Therefore, the model of online learning environment put emphasis on merely online materials and learners interacting in an only text environment, while the traditional classroom environment was a priority for human-to-human interaction. Following the period, the phenomenon of e-learning was an alternative way of delivering education to students who could not attend the traditional classrooms by offering added "the full advantage of anytime, anywhere learning" (Young, S. Besides the valuable contribution to education, e-learning environment has some disadvantages to some extent. The first drawback of such educational setting is that the motivation of students is ignored due to the fact that online learning environment does not focus on human interaction that is normally regarded as a 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com center in traditional face-to-face educational environment.
According to Kirby (1999), one of the major weaknesses of e-learning classroom is the shortage of face- to-face physical interaction. Moreover, another critical requirement of attending an online class is the knowledge and skills of applying information technology into learning; hence, teachers‟ guidance is essential for students, which is another limitation of online learning (Hajsadr, 2005). Therefore, the demand for a virtual educational setting where students are enabled to not only gain knowledge but also interact physically with their partners are becoming inevitable aspects of such technology-assisted learning environments. As Kern and Warschauer (2000: 11) state, “a shift in dynamic away from learners interacting with computers to interacting with other humans via the computers” began to be very important aspect of such educational settings in the last few years.
Thus, the need for accelerating person-to-person interactions and decelerating the isolation from other learners in online learning environments stimulates the educational experts and administrators to search for a measure for the sake of improving teaching and learning process. It is obvious that the combinations of all the advantages of both traditional face-to-face and online learning environments are inevitable, which leads the educators to a new approach to teaching and learning English that is “Blended Learning” (Rogers, 2001: 11) (BL). (2012) recommends the definition of BL in his report of defining Blended learning: „“Blended learning” designates the range of possibilities presented by combining Internet and digital media with established classroom forms that require the physical co‐presence of teacher and students.