VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN HỒNG HẠNH USING DRAMA TO REDUCE ANXIETY IN SPEAKING ENGLISH FOR SIXTH GRADERS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT A LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL IN THANH OAI DISTRICT (Sử dụng kịch để làm giảm sự lo lắng trong việc nói tiếng Anh cho học sinh lớp 6: Nghiên cứu cải tiến sư phạm ở một trường THCS ở huyện Thanh Oai) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 HANOI - 2018 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN HỒNG HẠNH USING DRAMA TO REDUCE ANXIETY IN SPEAKING ENGLISH FOR SIXTH GRADERS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT A LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL IN THANH OAI DISTRICT (Sử dụng kịch để làm giảm sự lo lắng trong việc nói tiếng Anh cho học sinh lớp 6: Nghiên cứu cải tiến sư phạm ở một trường THCS ở huyện Thanh Oai) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Mai Hương, Ph.D HANOI - 2018 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I, the undersigned, declare that this thesis is the result of my own research and has not been submitted to any other university or institution partially or wholly. Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‘s work has been used without due acknowledgement in text of the thesis.
Student, Nguyễn Hồng Hạnh Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Date:…………………… i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from a number of people. First and foremost, I would like to send my sincere thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyễn Thị Mai Hương for her enthusiastic guidance, insightful comments, and valuable support throughout my research. I would also like to thank all of the lecturers of the Faculty of Post - Graduate Studies, Vietnam National University for their useful lectures and materials which are of great value to my thesis.
A special word of thanks goes to all of my colleagues and the students under my investigation for their useful support. Last but not least, I owe my gratitude to my family members for their support and encouragement. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT Speaking is regarded as a key skill in real-life communication and in language learning alike. This study was conducted to help 35 sixth graders to reduce their anxiety level towards speaking the target language in an EFL classroom setting.
The study was carried out for six months of the academic year (2017-2018), using pre- and post-intervention questionnaires, observations and students‘ reflections. The findings showed that the students‘ English proficiency, the teacher‘s strictness and explicit mistake/error correction, the learners‘ communication apprehension, fear of being called to speak the target language and fear of being negatively evaluated were the factors causing the students‘ nervousness in speaking the target language. Besides, the findings revealed that drama assisted considerably in lowering the students‘ anxiety level towards speaking the target language in their EFL classroom. Key words: Reduce, anxiety, target language, EFL classroom, drama iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION.
iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vii LIST OF TABLES. viii LIST OF CHARTS. ix PART 1: INTRODUCTION.
Aims and objectives. Scope of the study. Methods of the study. Significance of the research.
Structural organization of the thesis. 5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). Anxiety in L2 speaking.
Drama in language teaching. Roles of drama in language teaching. Types of drama techniques. Review of previous related studies.
Previous studies overseas. Previous studies in Viet Nam. 19 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY. Restatement of the research questions.
The setting of the study. Research design and research instruments. 33 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS. Data analysis methods.
Pre- and post- intervention questionnaires. Items from 2 to 4. Items from 5 to 16. What factors contribute to the students‘ anxiety in speaking English in their EFL classroom?.
How do drama activities help to lower the students‘ anxiety level in speaking English in their EFL classroom?. 53 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further studies.
I Appendix 2: STUDENTS‘ REFLECTIONS. X Appendix 5: CHECKLIST FOR TEACHER‘S OBSERVATION. XV Appendix 6: SOME DIARY ENTRIES. XVI Appendix 7: SAMPLES.
XVII vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CA Communicative Approach EFL English as a foreign language ESL English as a second language FLA Foreign language anxiety FLCAS Foreign language classroom anxiety scale L2 Second language SLA Second language acquisition TEFL Teaching English as a Foreign Language vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Frequencies and Percentages of each Individual Variable for the Pre-intervention Questionnaire .2: Frequencies and Percentages of each Individual Variable for the Post-intervention Questionnaire .3: Extent of anxiety in speaking L2 by the Means of Questionnaire Score .4: The Overall Means and the Means of components in the Pre- intervention Questionnaire .5: The Overall Means and the Means of components in the Post- intervention Questionnaire. 44 viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF CHARTS Chart 3.1: Frequencies of each Individual Variable for the Pre-intervention Questionnaire (Items from 2 to 4) .2: Frequencies of each Individual Variable for the Post-intervention Questionnaire (Items from 2 to 4). 36 ix LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Theoretically, much emphasis has recently been put on the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language, using the "Communicative Approach".
It is widely considered that English language teaching is synonymous with Communicative Language Teaching. The fact is that the art of language teaching cannot be isolated from the social setting of language learners, so drama becomes an effective tool that involves students in a shared context, facilitating language learning in an effective and pleasant style. Drama can be used in instruction of English as a second language because of its enriching values in enhancing language learners‘ communicative competence, which are confirmed by various educators and researchers in linguistics. In language teaching, drama refers more to informal drama as it is used in the language classroom, but not on stage.
Accordingly, the participants in the drama activities are thus learners, but not actors. Practically, in Viet Nam, although English has become a compulsory subject in secondary schools for years, the teaching of English language falls short of fulfilling its goals in that most learners suffer from anxiety or fail to gain enough confidence of using the language in and outside the classroom. In many secondary schools in the countryside, normal English language classes hardly give learners an opportunity to develop skills in communication, especially speaking skill. The school where the researcher (teacher) is working is one of these cases and in order to solve this matter, an attractive alternative for the researcher (teacher) is integrating the use of drama techniques in the language classroom.
Despite the fact that the school, where the researcher (the teacher who did this study) is working, is considered as one of the high-quality lower secondary schools in Thanh Oai district, the school children here are not very good at the four communicative skills and only about one fourth of them are fairly good at doing English grammar and vocabulary exercises. Since the beginning of this school year, 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com the researcher (teacher) has been assigned to teach English for one class of sixth grade students plus two classes of seventh grade students. The fact is that the researcher‘s class 6A2 used to be considered to be at the same level of English in comparison with the other normal sixth grade classes in the school except for the two special classes (class 6A1 and class 6A7). During the first days of being the English language teacher of class 6A2, the researcher (teacher) felt that all of the students of class 6A2 did not enthusiastically get involved in L2 oral production in the classroom setting.
This fact made the teacher get devoted to this action research study with a desire to solve the problem. Aim and objectives The aim of the study is to lower the sixth graders‘ speaking anxiety in L2 in the language classroom context. The study has been conducted to explore some factors causing the students‘ nervousness towards speaking English in the classroom context. Another target is to figure out how drama helped to reduce the sixth graders‘ anxious feelings in L2 oral production in the classroom setting.
Research questions This study addresses two questions as follows: (1) What factors contribute to the students‘ anxiety in speaking English in their EFL classroom? (2) How do drama activities help to lower the students‘ anxiety level in speaking English in their EFL classroom? 4. Scope of the study The aim of this study is to reduce the students‘ anxiety in their L2 oral performances. Among the numerous benefits of using dramatic techniques in a classroom, drama is believed to be entertaining, fun and useful to engage language learners in oral communication. In fact, there are various drama techniques used for teaching the target language, but in this study, the teacher paid attention to some of them such as mine, role-playing and drama games, from which various drama activities could be 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com designed in accordance with the contents and task patterns of the course book.
Indeed, the inclusion of drama-based activities has not been so evident in current ELT course books, resource books, supplementary materials and teacher training courses. The researcher (teacher) clearly needs practical step by step applications on how to incorporate drama more comprehensively and cohesively into her teaching. In addition, this study was conducted to solve the current problem of only one small group of sixth graders in the language classroom setting and due to the limit of time, only Cycle I of this action research project is shown in this study. This cycle will inform the design of the next cycles, which will be conducted but not reported in this study.
Methods of the study This action research study employed both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The study was carried out by some steps as follows: First, the pre-intervention questionnaire was employed to identify the classroom problem of L2 speaking anxiety among the sixth graders. Besides, some factors contributing to these students‘ nervousness in speaking L2 in the classroom setting were revealed through this questionnaire. Second, the data of the while-intervention process was collected through the teacher‘s observations and the students‘ reflections.
This data made a considerable contribution to the answers to the two research questions. To end with, the post-intervention questionnaire was addressed to the participating students to collect the data, which was compared to the data collected from the pre-intervention questionnaire so as to partially reconfirm the factors negatively affecting the students‘ classroom L2 oral production and partly help to figure out how the drama application helped to reduce the students‘ English language speaking anxiety level in their classroom. Significance of the research From reading different drama-related academic documents in English teaching, the teacher has learned that drama is a vital tool for language development as it simulates reality and develops self expression. Additionally, drama activities 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com are considered to provide various interactions in English teaching and learning process.