VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS A SURVEY OF LEARNERS’ ATTITUDES WHEN THE TEACHER USES STORYTELLING IN SPEAKING LESSONS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS AT BLOOMING KIDS ENGLISH CENTER KHẢO SÁT THÁI ĐỘ CỦA NGƯỜI HỌC KHI GIÁO VIÊN SỬ DỤNG HOẠT ĐỘNG KỂ CHUYỆN TRONG CÁC BUỔI HỌC NÓI CHO HỌC SINH TIỂU HỌC TẠI TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ BLOOMING KIDS Student : DANG THI MAI UYEN Student code : 621202 Major : ENGLISH LINGUISTIC Supervisor : TRAN THU TRANG, M.A HANOI – 2021 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS A SURVEY OF LEARNERS’ ATTITUDES WHEN THE TEACHER USES STORYTELLING IN SPEAKING LESSONS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS AT BLOOMING KIDS ENGLISH CENTER KHẢO SÁT THÁI ĐỘ CỦA NGƯỜI HỌC KHI GIÁO VIÊN SỬ DỤNG HOẠT ĐỘNG KỂ CHUYỆN TRONG CÁC BUỔI HỌC NÓI CHO HỌC SINH TIỂU HỌC TẠI TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ BLOOMING KIDS Student : DANG THI MAI UYEN Student code : 621202 Major : ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Supervisor : TRAN THU TRANG, M.A HANOI – 2021 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT In order to complete the graduation thesis with the topic of “A survey of learners’ attitudes when the teacher uses storytelling in speaking lessons for primary school students at Blooming Kids English Center”, besides my own constant efforts, I have received a lot of attention and support from teachers, family and friends. I would like to express my sincerest thanks to the teachers in the Faculty of Education and Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University of Agriculture. In particular, I would like to express my sincerest and deepest thanks to M. Tran Thu Trang for her enthusiastic guidance and support during the process of completing my graduation thesis.
Next, I would like to thank the director and management team at Blooming Kids English Center and the students there for creating the best conditions for me to learn and understand the issues related to the process. do a thesis at the center. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends who always encouraged and helped me when I faced some difficulties. During the process of doing my graduation thesis, I feel that I have learned and experienced many useful things.
From there, let me learn and draw experience for my future working process. My thesis will not be able to avoid limitations and shortcomings. I look forward to receiving comments and suggestions from teachers and classmates to help improve the thesis. Ha Noi, 24th May 2021 The writer Dang Thi Mai Uyen i CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “A SURVEY OF LEARNERS’ ATTITUDES WHEN THE TEACHER USES STORYTELLING IN SPEAKING LESSONS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS AT BLOOMING KIDS ENGLISH CENTER” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor in English Language.
Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis. Hanoi, 2021 Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Date:…………………… ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. i CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
vi LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES. vii PART 1: INTRODUCTION .1 RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY .2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY .1 Aims of the study .2 Objectives of the study .4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY .5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY .6 DESIGN OF THE STUDY. 5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 REVIEW OF THE PREVIOUS STUDIES .2 REVIEW OF THEORETICAL BACKGROUND .1 RESEARCH GOVERNING ORIENTATION .1 Definitions of action research (AR) .2 Rationale for choosing action research .3 The procedures of action research.5 Data collection instruments. 29 Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS .1 RESULTS OF THE QUESTIONNAIRES .1 The affective aspect of attitude towards learning speaking .2 The behavioral aspect of attitude towards learning speaking .3 The cognitive aspect of attitude towards learning speaking .4 Students’ positive evaluation on the effects of storytelling .5 Students’ negative evaluation on the effects of storytelling .2 RESULTS OF PERSONAL INTERVIEWS .1 Analyzing the students’ answers for interviews .3 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY.
RECOMMENDATIONS/SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY .2 For other researchers. 52 APPENDIX 1: PRE-QUESTIONNAIRES. 52 APPENDIX 2: POST-QUESTIONNAIRE. 54 APPENDIX 3: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS.
57 APPENDIX 4: RESULTS OF THE QUESTIONNAIRES. 58 APPENDIX 5: TRANSCRIBE STUDENTS’ INTERVIEW DATA. 61 APPENDIX 6A: A SAMPLE LESSON PLAN. 68 APPENDIX 6B: UNIT 6: THE BEST BED!.
71 v ABSTRACT The aim of this thesis is to find out the influence of storytelling activities on students' attitudes towards their learning to speak. An action research project was conducted in 4 classrooms at Blooming Kids English Center. Storytelling was conducted over the 12 weeks of term 2. Participants (60 primary school students) answered two questionnaires at the beginning and end of the semester.
In addition, the students were interviewed at the end of the semester. Questionnaires and interviews were used to collect data on students' attitudes towards learning speaking when teachers used storytelling in English speaking lessons. The data collected before the intervention showed that the students were reluctant and afraid to speak English. However, after the 12-week action research project, the students showed positive attitudes towards the speaking lessons.
It was concluded that storytelling could have beneficial effects on learners' attitudes towards learning speaking skills. Key word: attitudes, storytelling, speaking lessons vi LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Figure 2.1 : Cyclical AR model based on Kemmis and McTaggart (1988)……21 Figure 3.1: The affective aspect of attitude before and after intervention.2: The behavioral aspect of attitude before and after intervention….3: The cognitive aspect of attitude before and after intervention….4: Students’ positive evaluation on the effects of storytelling…….5: Students’ negative evaluation on the effects of storytelling…….…39 vii PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY Education is one of the particularly important fields, of interest to the Party, the State and the whole society, investing in all educational levels; especially primary level - the initial stage to get used to learning activities in general and English language in particular. In addition to the remarkable achievements in improving the quality of English teaching and learning in primary schools, there are still many limitations that need to be overcome, especially the speaking skills of children. Currently, there is a large part of children who are learning English the wrong way, with a reversed sequence: Writing – Reading – Listening - Speaking.
Children learn English in a passive and extremely boring way, the two skills of Listening and Speaking are not focused properly but only interested in grammar. The wrong teaching method both limits the child's English communication skills while forming a habit of being afraid to communicate, making wrong pronunciation, and the more they grow up, the more difficult they will be to correct. Obviously, to communicate in any language, but specifically English, speaking skill is the golden key to learning English better, helping students improve their proficiency and confidence to communicate. Realizing the limitations of traditional teaching, recognizing the importance of speaking skills, as an English teacher, I have been constantly searching for different methods to improve learning to speak as well as creating excitement for learners.
There are many ways to improve students' English speaking: using English songs; watching short English cartoons, … Among the above methods, I have found that: the method of using storytelling activities is very suitable for students. Because the storytelling method is suitable for the psychology of elementary school age, not only brings a lot of fun and excitement for children in the 1 learning process, it also helps stimulate the creative movement of their intelligence because students will actively use English in a flexible way. In short, for the purpose of helping students learn English effectively, teachers need to have good teaching methods, not simply imparting knowledge but also inspiring and motivating learners. In order to objectively evaluate the impact of teaching methods by storytelling activities during speaking lessons for primary school students, specifically for 10-year-olds, I have conducted this study to assess the attitudes of learners.
and the effectiveness of the above method. All of the above–mentioned arguments present a need to carry out “A survey of learners’ attitudes when the teacher uses storytelling in speaking lessons for primary school students at Blooming Kids English Center”.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 1.1 Aims of the study The main aim of the study is to investigate the attitudes of learners when using storytelling as a classroom activity in teaching speaking skills.2 Objectives of the study The objective of this study is to reveal the students’ emotional reaction through 3 components of attitude: affective component, behavioral component and cognitive component.3 RESEARCH QUESTION To achieve the aims, the following research question will be solved: What are the students’ attitudes towards learning speaking when the teacher uses storytelling technique in speaking lessons? 1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY The study focuses on using storytelling technique in speaking lessons to investigate attitudes of 60 students at 5th grade of Blooming Kids English 2 Center. I teach here for 4 months in the second semester, 8 periods a week, applied to the textbook Family and Friends 4.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY In today's integration trend, the importance of English cannot be denied and ignored, because it is widely used all over the world. Recognizing such importance, most of the countries where English is not the main language are trying to develop more languages.
And Vietnam is no exception, here English has become one of the main subjects in the student's curriculum. The Ministry of Education and Training in Vietnam is always interested and constantly improves and innovates the curriculum to be more suitable for students. Instead of only focusing much on grammar before, nowadays it focuses more on developing four skills, especially speaking skills. According to Nunan (1991, p.39), “For most learners, mastery of speaking is the most important element of learning a foreign language and success in speaking is assessed by ability to develop a conversation in that language”.
Thereby, we see that speaking skills are one of the very important keys to the success in developing a language and moreover, teachers' teaching methods also affect learners. During class time, the teacher is the communicator, the student's child is the receiver. The success of a verifiable lesson is determined by the teacher's teaching method. Good and creative teaching methods, students will be interested in learning which also means that their ability to absorb will be higher and vice versa.
Therefore, the teacher's teaching methods have a significant impact on the students' ability to receive. Seeing the importance of teaching methods, I have been constantly thinking and searching for good teaching methods to apply in lessons, especially teaching methods for English speaking lessons. During my research time, I found that the method of using storytelling activities for English speaking lessons was very effective. So, I decided to do the topic “A survey of learners’ attitudes when the teacher uses storytelling in 3 speaking lessons for primary school students at Blooming Kids English center” to see the attitude of students as well as recommend this method, for teachers to make speaking lessons more effective and enjoyable.6 DESIGN OF THE STUDY The thesis is organized into 3 main parts: Introduction, development, and conclusion.
Part 1: Introduction, presents the rationale why the researcher chose the topic, states the aim, the research significance, the scope and outlines the organization of the thesis. Part 2: Development, includes 3 chapters. Chapter 1 covers theoretical background related to the issues such as teaching speaking and storytelling techniques. It also includes some previous studies related to using storytelling in language speaking classes.
Next chapter 2 describes the research method – action research, the data collection instruments and information of participants in the study and the steps to conduct the study.