PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE OF BINH DUONG PROVINCE THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY DAM LUU BAO CHAU USING STORYTELLING TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILLS FOR NON- ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY AT THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER OF THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY MAJOR: ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR CODE:8220201 MASTER THESIS Binh Duong, 2022 i PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE OF BINH DUONG PROVINCE THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY DAM LUU BAO CHAU USING STORYTELLING TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILLS FOR NON- ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY AT THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER OF THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY MAJOR: ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR CODE:8220201 MASTER THESIS SUPERVISOR’S NAME: TRAN THANH DU, PH. Binh Duong, 2022 ii ABSTRACT Speaking skills play a significant role in communication, especially in English speaking. In Vietnamese schools, English is considered a foreign language subject. Students are still very passive in speaking English, so their speaking skills still need to be improved and make motivation in speaking classes.
There are many reasons students need help with speaking, such as a lack of ideas to tell, lack of knowledge (such as topic structure, vocabulary, and grammar) to express their thoughts, lack of the chance to speak, and lack of an exciting method to motivate them to speak. In this study, the writer focuses on a case at the Foreign Language Center of Thu Dau Mot University, where eighty percent of students belong to the group of non-major foreign language students. The researcher desires to find a suitable technique to enhance students' speaking skills and bring interest to students in English-speaking classes. Therefore, this study is done to identify storytelling as an effective technique for helping non-English major students improve their English-speaking skills and to support teachers with a deep understanding and knowledge of the role of storytelling in applying teaching in speaking classes.
The subjects are seventy students from two classes, all first-year students, and five teachers at the Foreign Language Center of Thu Dau Mot University. This research data is obtained from the questionnaire, interviews, observations, and speaking tests. The result showed that using the storytelling technique to teach English-speaking lessons is effective. This study recommends using storytelling technique to effectively improve speaking skills and make students interested in speaking classes.
Key words: storytelling; speaking skill; first-year students. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to express my great appreciation to Ph. Tran Thanh Du, a lecturer at Thu Dau Mot University and my keen supervisor, for his support and excitement. He is willing to spend his time giving me great advice and making corrections numerous times in order for this research paper to be completed.
Secondly, I am grateful to the teachers and students at the Foreign Language Center of Thu Dau Mot University for the help where I have been working and gathering information for my study. Thirdly, I am also grateful to my lecturers at the Faculty of English, Thu Dau Mot University, for all their kind guidance and help. Other than this, I am thankful to all teachers who have commented on and proposed improvements to my paper. Last but not least, I significantly thank my family for their sacrifice in offering me an opportunity to the interest of my higher education.
You are not only my pride but also my quality. It is worth naming the thoughtfulness of my soul mate in giving me great support, tolerance, and help. DAM LUU BAO CHAU ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT. ii LIST OF FIGURES.
vi LIST OF TABLES. Rationale of the study. Statement of problem. Aims and objectives of the study.
Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Organization of the study. Objectives and student level.
Expected course learning outcomes. Definitions of speaking. Aspects of speaking. The importance of speaking ability.
Assessing speaking skills. Indicator of speaking skills. Fluency and accuracy in speaking assessment. Rubrics for assessing EFL speaking ability.
Teaching speaking to EFL learners. Principles for teaching speaking. Techniques of teaching speaking skills. Definition of storytelling.
The communicative competence of storytelling technique. Benefits of storytelling technique in ELF teaching and learning. Technology in storytelling. Research design of story.
Population and sample. Data collection and analysis. Procedure of data collection. Procedure of analysis.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. Students’ attitudes towards the use of storytelling technique in speaking classes. Teachers’ attitudes towards the use of storytelling technique in speaking classes. The effectiveness of using storytelling techniques to help non-English majored students improve their speaking skills.
For curriculum design. Summary of the study. Implications and recommendations. Implications for teachers.
Implications for students. Limitation of the study and suggestions for further study. TEST FOR EXPERIMENTAL CLASSES. SPEAKING PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT RUBRIC.
SCORES OF EXPERIMENTAL CLASSES. SYLLABUS OF THE SUBJECT GENERAL ENGLISH 1. 82 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4. The benefits of using storytelling in learning speaking English.
Scores in experimental group before and after using storytelling. Scores in control group before and after using storytelling. The number of students in pre and post-test results of two groups. Web storytelling technique.
The Network tree. 55 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 4. Students’ attitudes towards speaking learning. Students’ feelings and attitudes towards learning speaking skills with storytelling.
Students’ trouble when speaking. Students' opinions on the improvement in speaking skills after using the storytelling technique. The pre-test result of two groups. Mean, SD and P in the pre-test and post-tests.
Number of students and percentage in pre-test and post-test results of two groups. Compare and contrast matrix. Rationale of the study Globalization creates a necessity to communicate English effectively in all aspects of life. People usually assume that the ability to speak is the product of language learning (Aye & Phyu, 2015).
Speaking is a basic skill and important in a second language acquisition process. Speaking is one of the most challenging skills language learners have to face. Despite this, in traditional English classes, English teachers only spend all their classroom time trying to teach their students how to write, read, and sometimes even listen in an L2 because these skills have a long-written tradition (Bueno et al. Shumin (2002) discussed that speaking a language involves more than knowing the linguistic components of the message and developing language skills; therefore, it needs more than grammatical comprehension and vocabulary memorization.
Chastain (1988) stated that, like any language skill, foreign language learners need explicit instructions in speaking. Language students need to learn to speak the language to communicate with each other. Speaking supplies a change of pace in the classroom routine. Speaking is the natural state of language, as all humans are born to speak their native languages.
It is thus the most distinguishing feature of human beings. This verbal communication involves not only producing meaningful utterances but also receiving others’ oral productions. Therefore, most language learners consider speaking a critical skill in learning a second or foreign language, and their success in learning a language is measured in terms of their accomplishment in oral communication (Nunan, 1998; Nunan, 2001). The field of second language acquisition has witnessed a hot debate in the last few decades on how second language learners acquire a new language, the best ways to help them learn, and what teachers need to focus on while teaching.
Storytelling has emerged as a technique that offers comprehensible input and positively impacts memory. From past to present, storytelling is constantly proving that it is an ageless technique that can 1 be used anytime and anywhere. According to many researchers, storytelling has many qualities that qualify it to be a best practice to be used with ESL/EFL students. For example, storytelling offers language input in a very understandable way.
Using gestures, facial expressions, body movements, vocalization, repetitions, and slowing down the speech rate when needed helps students understand the input delightfully. These linguistic or paralinguistic techniques facilitate the input students receive, even if it is a little beyond their current level of comprehension (Krashen, 1982). Students can still get the meaning from the context and the teacher's cues while telling the story. In addition, the atmosphere where students listen to the stories is very relaxing and enjoyable.
Unlike traditional instructional practices such as lecturing and teacher-centered classrooms, storytelling engages learners and improves student-teacher relationships. The storytelling method incorporates the four communicative skills in each session and coordinates two communicative aptitudes in each movement. Storytelling as a learner-centered method checks students’ characteristics, such as age and conceptual level, needs and interests, language level, and past language-learning experience (Dujmovic, 2006). In storytelling, it is significant to catch learners’ attention by displaying past exercises to extend the lexicon, and hone elocution, body language methods, and vocalization (Peck, 1989).
As the story develops, a few emotional delays take at certain times to voice changes and body movements to act characters and special situations of the story. Vietnam is a multi-ethnic and multilingual country, with fifty-four different ethnic groups who speak more than ninety other languages (Lien, 2021). In terms of Kachru's influential Circles of English model (Kachru, 1988), Vietnam is considered a country belong the Expanding Circle. English is taught as a foreign language and the most helpful vehicle of international communication.
Vietnamese use English to communicate with foreigners who come to Vietnam on holiday, work, or study. The influx of foreign business dealers and visitors has created a great demand for English 2 proficiency among Vietnamese people, especially the younger generations. English is currently the most popular foreign language taught and learned in Vietnam. It is a compulsory subject from elementary school in the Vietnamese education system.
Increasing awareness of the benefits of English proficiency has resulted in English becoming a medium of instruction in some areas of Vietnamese education. According to the website of Thu Dau Mot University (2022), the university has 775 staff and lecturers, including 22 professors or associate professors, 135 PhDs, and 557 masters who belong to different fields. In training activities, by June 2021, the university has 20,000 students and 1,000 graduate students studying and researching in 50 undergraduate programs, 11 post-graduate programs, and 1 Ph. program in fields such as Economics, Technology, Natural Sciences, Humanities, and Pedagogy.
As a public university of Binh Duong province, Thu Dau Mot University has become the study choice of local and neighboring students. Over eighty percent of students are non- English majors. Though all students have been learning English for at least ten years in primary, secondary, and high school, most of them are still very passive in speaking English, so their speaking skills still need to be improved and make motivation in speaking classes. The problems students encounter will be discussed in the next part.
Statement of problem According to Chens (2009), difficulties in English Speaking of students are common because they lack confidence and still have limited fluency and vocabulary. Oxford (1990) reported that most students have scared to speak English. Leong & Ahmadi (2017), learners are worried about making mistakes when speaking English, and they are afraid of criticism from other students. They feel embarrassed by the attention of other students.
Latha & Ramesh (2012) argue that lack of motivation is one reason students are not active in-class lessons. It causes students to be passive and reluctant to speak in class. According to Nunan (1999) said that students who lack confidence indeed suffer from fear when communicating. Rivers (1968) states that 3 students do not have anything to express because the teacher chooses a topic of conversation that is unsuitable for students or issues that are not familiar to students.
Therefore, students are challenged to respond when the teacher invites them to say something in English. (2005) pointed out that many factors cause students to struggle to speak English as a foreign language. These factors are related to the students, teaching strategies, curriculum, and environment.