STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. Date: 1/ 3 / 2016 Signature Le Minh Tan i ABSTRACT This study was conducted to describe the implementation of sitcoms situations in speaking classes and explore how it influences on students’ motivation, and language proficiency. The study used both quantitative and qualitative research approaches.
In methodology, the post test and pre test were designed to provide the reliable data. Interviews data was also collected from 36 students who were at different levels of English. In addition, observation was applied in all classes. The Results highlighted the complexity of how the use of sitcoms can facilitate the development of students’ oral skills and how using sitcoms increase students’ motivation in learning oral skills and what aspects of oral skills the use of sitcoms enhance.
The research shows that sitcoms indeed are great and useful tools for English learners and for teachers of English as well. Moreover, persuasive figures in this study demonstrated the great improvement of student’s Speaking skills and ability of becoming aware of the implication after learning with sitcoms. Both teacher and students found that sitcoms brought them completely new English learning experiences and they seem satisfied with the sitcoms used in classes. Based on the findings of the study, the research gave some discussions, conclusions and some suggestions for the future research.
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have been fortunate to receive invaluable help from many people during my assignment. First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Truong Bach Le , my supervisor, for his immense encouragement, whole hearted and detailed guidance, without which the assignment could not have been completed. I would like to thank all the teachers who have taught me during the course and have given me useful advice and favorable conditions for the completion of the thesis. I would like to express my deepest appreciation to Mr.
Alex Porter for his valuable suggestions and useful help. I also would like to show my special thanks to my students who help me a lot in giving their invaluable comments and suggestions while the work of this assignment was in progress. Last but not least, I also owe my indebtedness to my family and colleagues for their kind co-operation and encouragement which help us in completion of this study. Hue, March 2016 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF TABLE. vii CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION. Background of the study.
Purpose of the study. Scope of the study. Definition of terms. Significance of the study.
4 CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Authenticity material in language teaching and motivation .1 Gardner's motivation theory .2 The Dornyei- Otto process –oriented model of L2 motivation. Sitcoms and language teachings. Sitcoms and motivation .2 Sitcoms and humor in the language classroom .3 Sitcoms and culture .4 Sitcoms and pragmatics.4 Research of using videos and sitcoms in Language Classrooms .5 Theoretical Framework of the research. 16 CHAPTER 3 - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .2 Selection of Participants.
The procedure of building a lesson around a sitcom .1 Only sound, no picture .5 Data Collection Methods. Pre- test and Post- test .1 Active classroom interactions. Entertaining Teaching Material. Teacher’s teaching style.
Teacher’s feed back. Motivation enhancement summary. Data analysis results. Intonation analysis report.
Pragmatic tests result.1 The usefulness of sitcoms .2 Levels of students’ motivation. Student’s awareness levels of implication .4 Students’ sentence stress improvement .5 Students’ question intonation improvement. The effectiveness of Prediction from the Snapshots activity. The effectiveness of Mediated –watching activity.
The effectiveness of Dubbing activity. The effectiveness of Role play activity. Students’ favorite activities .4 Drawbacks of using Sitcoms in speaking class. 51 CHAPTER 5 - DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION.
Suggestion for future research. 92 vi LIST OF TABLE Table 3.1 Demographic information of student Participants. Advantages and Disadvantages of the sitcom- based instruction compared to textbooks. Wh / How – Yes / No question intonation analysis report.
Sentence stress analysis report. Pragmatic tests results report. 38 vii LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS FIGURE 2.1 Gardner and Smythe’s Model of Motivation (1975). A Process Model of L2 Learning Motivation.
Infinite circle of humor, culture and language. The progress of analyzing and collecting the data. Students’ attitude toward the usefulness of sitcoms. Students’ attitude toward levels of motivation.
Students’ attitude toward awareness levels of implication. Students’ attitude toward sentence stress improvement. Students’ attitude toward question intonation improvement. Students’ attitude toward the effectiveness of Prediction from the Snapshots activity.
Students’ attitude toward the effectiveness of Mediated –watching activity. Students’ attitude toward the effectiveness of Dubbing activity. Students’ attitude toward the effectiveness of Role play activity. Students’ favorite activities.
50 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1. Background of the study All English major students at Vinh university had to spend at least 7 or 8 years studying English since elementary school before enrolling the professional long term English course, but most of them frequently failed to use English to communicate. The reasons, which were pointed out, were the lack of exposure of students to an English environment, they have few chances to listen to and speak in English, and the speaking lessons were not interesting enough. According to the input hypothesis and studies in second language acquisition, a large amount of exposure to a language speaking and listening environment is the key to a success in language learning (Hammond, 1898; Nicola, 1989; Nikolov & Krashen, 1997; swaffer & woodruff, 1982; wolfe & Jones, 1982; Winitz, 1996, cited in Krashen, 1997).
Over the past decade, there have been numerous workshops, journal papers on the use of the authentic materials in language classroom in order to increase learner’s motivation and effective learning. In her TESL journal, Christine Canning Wilson mentioned that “Video is at best defined as the selection and sequence of messages in an audio-visual context. Considerable confidence is placed in the value of audio-visual aids to enhance the learning of foreign languages”. Arthur( 1999) claims that : “ video can give students realistic models to imitate for role-play , can increase awareness of other cultures by teaching appropriateness and suitability, can strengthen audio/visual linguistic perceptions simultaneously, can widen the classroom repertoire and range of activities, can help utilize the latest technology to facilitate language learning, can teach direct observation of paralinguistic features found in association with the target language, can be used to help when training students in ESP related scenarios and language, can offer a visual reinforcement of the target language and can lower anxiety when practicing the skill of listening”.
At the workshop “ Short and sweet: using short films to 1 promote creativity and communication” , Kieran explores how short films can be used in the classroom, and how we use it to promote creativity , and both oral and written communication by doing communicative activities based around a variety of short films. Moreover, in terms of learner motivation with videos, a number of studies and journals have shown that “video appear to be more interesting to students so that they are likely to become actively involved in the lesson” (Chiang, 1996, 1997; Lin & Fox, 199a; Lin, 2002a; Lo, 2004). Stephen Ryan in his journal on “using films to develop learner motivation” says that “Students will often express an interest in using movies as a medium for language learning.” Furthermore, psychologists say that a film is great when it reflects a person’s own values. In another word, great films help us discover our personal values, when you have a strong feeling while watching movies, you may see personal value inside of you that movie is reflecting.
Movies can teach you a lot about you self. Sineta (1993) claims that “Films can be consciousness-raising tools; their stories are personal mentors that lessen fear or illuminate the love, virtue, and wholeness already present in our lives”. It can be seen that, students will have a great motivation if they have chance to study with films in class, and teachers will have a very new and exciting teaching experience as well comparing to using traditional textbooks. It goes without saying that Film is one of the greatest authentic tools of teaching English in class.
Freda Mishan (2005) claims that “any teacher who has used a film with learners will have felt the thrill of excitement in the class, the learners’ anticipation of entertainment and enjoyment at the sight of the VCR. Of all the cultural products discussed here, film is the one that is designed to appeal most directly and fully to our emotions.216) In the context of ESL of ESL/EFL teaching, abundant studies have recognized the importance of using videos to enhance learner’s listening comprehension and to train student’s oral skills (Baltova, 1994; Chung & Chiao, 1999; Lin, 2000a, 2002a; Lo, 2004; Markham, Peter, & McCarthy, 2001; Secules, Herron, & Tomasello, 1992; Synder, 1988, cited in Hui- 2 Ying Bai, 2008) Exploring sitcoms, which are a powerful source of authentic language with a reference to the cultural back ground of characters, in teaching and improving student’s English listening and speaking proficiency would be the main aim of this study. Purpose of the study This study aimed to describe the implementation of using sitcom situation in speaking class and explore how it influences on student’s motivation, language proficiency. Research questions The following research questions were guided by the mentioned purposes.
How can the use of sitcoms facilitate the development of student’s oral skills? 1a. How does using sitcoms increase student’s motivation in learning oral skills? 1b. What aspects of oral skills does the use of sitcoms enhance? 1. Scope of the study This study was conducted in the freshmen’s basic speaking class in the Foreign languages Department of Vinh university.
Moreover, this study would concentrate on the changes in 36 students’ performances in term of “wh / how and yes/ no questions intonation”, “ sentence stress”, and “the ability of becoming aware the implication of situation” after 3 sitcoms-based classes, even though some other student’s mistakes still occurred. Definition of terms 1. Sitcom According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, “A regular programme on television that shows the same characters in different amusing situations” 2. Motivation “Interest in and enthusiasm for the materials used in class, persistence with the learning task, as indicated by levels of attention or action for an extended duration; and levels of concentration and enjoyment” (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991) 3.
Authentic materials 3 Materials designed for native speakers for real purposes rather than language “invented” by linguistics and textbook writers (Baddock, 1996). The input hypothesis. Which applies only to language acquisition and not to language learning, posits the process that allows second language learners to move through the predictable sequence of the acquisition of grammatical structures predicted by the natural order hypothesis. According to the input hypothesis, second language learners require comprehensible input, represented by i+1, to move from the current level of acquisition, represented by i, to the next level of acquisition.
Comprehensible input is input that contains a structure that is “a little beyond” the current understanding— with understanding defined as understanding of meaning rather than understanding of form—of the language learner (Krashen, 1982). The affective filter hypothesis. This hypothesis states that “language learning must take place in an environment where learners are ‘off the defensive’ and the affective filter (anxiety) is low in order for the input to be noticed and gain access to the learners’ thinking”.