Brainmax and sight words methodology the amazing combination to improve speaking skills for children from 5 to 8 at thanh danh english center graduation paper, major english pedagogy

This paper aims to investigate the combination of Brainmax and sight words to enhance speaking skills for young learners.. Threeobjectives of the study were to identify the effect of the

Foremost, I would like to express my sincere \gratitude to my advisor, M.A Le ThiThu, for the support of my graduation paper, for her patience, enthusiasm and

immense knowledge In addition, she suggested that I could try sight words method

together with my idea because that was also an interesting way to teach English foryoung learners She was also the one who wrote a reference letter to help me receive

a scholarship from Luong Van Can Fund, which motivated me so much

Besides my advisor, I would like to express the deepest appreciation to Mrs TruongThuy Mai Khoi for giving me a right to use the Brainmax method in this graduationpaper

I must acknowledge my indebtedness to Directors, Professors and the staff of LuongVan Can Fund for putting their trust in me Without them, I will not be confidentenough to make any challenge decision

I also would like to thank to the rest of professors and counsellors in Department ofEnglish ofHochiminh University of Foreign Language and Information Technologyfor their supports and instruction in the completion of this paper

I am extremely grateful to my fellow, Duong Dang Ngoc Tram in class BA1503, forher deepest encouraging and helps I can firmly announce that she takes an importantpart in this research paper for she spent her precious time on reading it and gavesome recommendations

I also give big thanks to Thanh Danh English centre, 14 young learners and 3teachers for helping me with the data collection from the observation, tests andpractical teachings

Finally yet importantly, lowe the greatest thanks to my family and my parents fortheir love and motivation.

Once again, I would love to show my heartfelt appreciation to all

NGUYEN MINH PHI

People nowadays choose English as a second or foreign language, andspeaking skills is the target of all learners Through the global trend, in Vietnam,

a lot of people are learning English, and they also let their children study at very

young age This paper aims to investigate the combination of Brainmax and sight

words to enhance speaking skills for young learners According to the theory, each

side of the brain - left-brain and right-brain - specializes in different missions(Nielsen et aI, 2013) Brainmax, a method based on DMIT Science(Dermatoglyphics Multiple Intelligence Test, focuses on some activities toexercise right brain In addition, Hayes claims that through sight-words reading,students are able to raise self-confidence and motivation (Hayes, 2016) Threeobjectives of the study were to identify the effect of the combination between

Brainmax and sight words about enriching speaking skills, introduce a number of

activities of Brainmax, and illustrate the role of Brainmax in English learningmotivation The writer used pre-test, post-test, observation and practical teaching

to conduct the data The results presented the great effects that most of younglearners, from 5 to 8 age range, could respond correctly and confidently.Furthermore, their attitude toward studying English changed positively Thetechniques used can support and encourage young learners to speak English

naturally Generally, Brainmax and sight words could be combined to help young

learners enhance speaking skills

Key words: Brainmax, sight words, children, English speaking skills

3.4.3.1 Brain-gym: A story of a hunter 22

3.4.3.5 Relaxation exercises: dancing with music 25

Picture 3.5: I'm a Gummy Bear- Source: Screen capture 26

4.3.1 Practical teaching on December 15 th, 2018 36

5.1.2 Review ofimportant findings and discussions 48

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter shows the introduction of the case study First, the writermentions numerous studies related to this research in the backgrounds andliterature review Next, the writer gives information about the scope Finally, theresearcher presents the organization of this study

Albert and Thomas emphasized, "The English language of today reflectsmany centuries of development" They also claimed in their research that thepolitical and social issues that have got in the course of English historysignificantly influenced by the English individuals in their national life havecommonly recognizably affected their language (Baugh & Cable, 1993).Sneddon's point of view shows that English is a global language and it obviouslyplays an important role in the international communication, which includesfinancial relationship among nations, international business relations, worldwidetrading, and others (Sneddon, 2003) One of the greatest variables influencing thewide spread of English was obviously the advancement of the WorId Wide Web

in the U.S The Internet was conceived in the U.S., (Leiner, et aI., 2017) thus, thevast majority of everything is in English language At present, English seems, byall accounts, to be the most famous language on the Internet (Group, 2019).Because of such importance and popularity, the vast majority of people learnEnglish as a second language or a foreign language.

In Vietnam, parents follow the global trends and let their children studyEnglish at very young age The children are able to learn English at home or inEnglish centres The purpose of this research is to gain further findings of themethods to improve English speaking skills for young learners

1.2 Literature review

Several of studies, which were conducted, have referred to situations orissues that are related to this research Scovel (1988) mentioned the reason whychildren might acquire native pronunciation and intonation In addition, Zaremba(2012) also concerned about speaking skills as a motivation and academic

certification for new recruitment for employment Furthermore, story completion

was one of the effective methods to enrich speaking skills (Hamsia, 2018).According to Leon and Cely (2010), games could encourage students to speakmore actively

researcher wants to illustrate the role of Brainmax in motivating young learners to

study English

1.4 Scope

The study is conducted at Thanh Danh English Center (Tay Ninh), onNovember 17th, 2018 We have got opportunity to work in this centre as a TFL

teacher, so we choose to apply Brainmax combining with sight words as

experimental teaching method In this research, the writer focuses on observingand recording the improvement of young learners' speaking skills Fourteenparticipants are children in the 5-8 age range

1.5 Organization

The fIrst chapter of this case study is the introduction, from page 1 to page

3, where the researcher gives background information about how English languageinfluences some countries, including VN With the purpose to fIgure out theeffectiveness of teaching method to enhance speaking skills for children from 5 to

8 years old, the writer spends much time to reads plenty of relevant studies, he

decides to apply Brainmax and sight words at Thanh Danh English Center in Go

Dau district, Tay Ninh Province In the second chapter, the writer presents studiesrelated to this research, called Literature Review from page 4 to 11, consist ofreasons the parents want their children to learn English at early age The secondchapter also explains numerous methods used in well-known English centre inSaigon The next chapter, which begins from page 12 to page 28, shows severalprocedures utilized for collecting the data After defIning the fIndings and results

in chapter four, the writer discusses and gives out the number of recommendationsthrough involvement page 47

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter mainly mentioned a review of literature related to the study.Because of the various elements in this study, several issues are inspected First,the writer wants to find out the importance of English nowadays The wide spread

of English includes several claims from other researchers and surveys on theInternet Then, the writer explores the purpose of his study is to improve Englishspeaking skills through common ways applied in other countries Next, the writeralso mentions a few methods used in some English centres in Saigon as well asthe strong points and the weaknesses Finally, the study, which is based on anumber of famous methodologies and other studies combining with the new one,

Brainmax, from Elite Global Language School, is examined.

2.1 Reasons for children to learn English at the early age

English, nowadays, plays a major role in international communication.Therefore, most people consider the benefits of starting learning English at earlyage In a research of Keith Breene, a national journalist, by 2016, a number ofnative English speakers are 400 million and approximately 1.1 billion people useEnglish as a second language or foreign language (Breene, 2016) Although thereare some arguments among the critical period hypothesis (CPR), children are nowlearning English at young ages English was taught compulsorily in the primarygrades in Croatia (Nicolov, 2009) Through their surveys on teachers from 55countries, Shin and Randall (2011) found out that approximately 50 per cent ofthose places shared that English was a compulsory subject for students since thethird grades Reason why educators wanted children to learn English at young age

was about native-like pronunciation (Scovel, 1988) Having the same idea, Harley(1998) claimed that children would be more confident in speaking to express theirideas Furthermore, children will have got many opportunities to get suitable jobs

if they know more than one language (Carreira, 2014)

At present in Vietnam, the number of students learning English becomesyounger and younger To meet the requirements of parents, a large number ofEnglish centres have founded, especially in Saigon For example, Super YouthLanguage school focuses on the children from 5 to 15 with 9 levels VUS Englishcentre has got various curriculums, which fit for children of many ranges of age.There are four important skills that learners are familiar with: listening, speaking,reading and writing However, the purpose to learn language from most learners

is to communicate with foreigners Therefore, speaking skills seem to be the mostimportant skills required in communication (Zaremba, 2012) Since then, therehave been numerous of ways to elevate the speaking skills of English learners as

a foreign language based on basic methods of teaching speaking skills

2.2 The ways to improve English-speaking skills.

Chaney and Burk claimed (1998) "Speaking is the process of building andsharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety ofcontexts" Speaking skills was also emphasized to be a key to learning andteaching a second language Zaremba (2012) also emphasized that speaking skills

or communication skills were generally considered to be the priority over workexperience, motivation and academic certification for new recruitment foremployment

Alonso (2012) showed his point of view in his study that speaking wasthought to be the most essential of the four skills However, one disappointmentordinarily commented by students was that they had spent years learning English,but they still cannot speak With that matter, Brown (2001) stated that Englishpronunciation turned out to be the key to gain full communicative competence.

For the best effective oral communications, the learners must also berequired to use the language accurately which makes most of them feel hard tospeak out their ideas (Richards & Rinandya, 2002) Therefore, Dian claimed inher study "Speaking ability requires that learners not only know how to producespecific points of language like linguistics competence but also they understandsociolinguistics competence." (Shumin, 2002) In another study for improvingStudent's Oral Communication Skills, Bashiruddin (2003) found out some reasons

of shortcoming of learners in communication were the English language teachers(EL Ts) were certainly not capable in communicating in English and it also theprimary impediment in the way to teach English in Pakistan

Dr Madhavi's study (2013) used smartphones and multimedia languagelabs as methods for college students The scholar explained that using suchsoftware such as "learn to speak English" and "Pronunciation power 2" incombination with the use of smartphones in the learning process that yieldssignificant results The smartphone was easy to carry and had the potential to storemuch data The research pointed out many positive changes from students: theyenjoyed various speaking activities, they developed confidence levels, they usedlanguage appropriately and majority of students enjoyed themselves viewing theirvideos Furthermore, learning with Multimedia Language Lab and Smartphones,

understudies could also give instant feedback and reviews, which helped learners

to identify their mistakes and cope with the demanding situations

In a related study by Akdemir, Barin, and Demiroz (2012), newspaperarticles were considered appropriate materials, which were used in speakingactivities The materials could contain daily expression, particular languagethrough conveying news over the ways of life and cultures However, there weresome limitations besides many advantages mentioned above Teachers had toprepare carefully about the news information and vocabulary In conclusion, thestudy gave out not only some benefits for learners such as culture, daily news, andbasic expression; but also advantages for the teacher like direct access to materialsand time and money saving Generally, the study claimed that newspaper articlesare reasonable sources by many aspects to teach speaking in FLT classroom

According to other research, story completion was one of the effective

methods to explore learners' ideas to enhance speaking skills (Hamsia, 2018)

With story completion, learners had got many opportunities to enjoy free talking

and that was the way for them to increase their imaginations and interestingreasons for listening to each other The conclusion indicated that most of studentswere especially enthusiastic and cooperative in practicing through this method.Furthermore, the students totally agreed that this way of learning was extremelyhelpful to encourage them and help them overcome their difficulties to express

Leon & Cely (2010) applied games to make English more fun andinteresting The research experimented on twenty young boys and twenty younggirls from 14 to 18 years old coming from Federico Garcia Lorca School inColumbia The techniques used to collect data were video recording, teacher's

journal and questionnaires The results showed that most of the understudiesconsidered speaking skills was the most difficult one to develop However, gamesmotivated them to try speaking, encouraged them to feel more confident and theycould feel better when performing in front of classmates Having the sameagreement Leon & Cely; Chirandon, Laohawiriyanon, & Rakthong (2014)claimed that "games is one effective alternative treatment which encourages theactive learning atmosphere as well as stimulates students' interest in an Englishclass"

2.3 Methods applied in teaching English in Ho Chi Minh City.

In Vietnam, most students start learning English while they are inSecondary schools However, six-year-Iearning English grammar withoutinteracting with foreigners makes almost learners become passive and unable tospeak English Many students said that they could understand what the foreignerswere speaking but they did not know how to respond Therefore, some Englishcentres appear and bring a lot of new strategies and methods with the purpose oflearning language efficiently There are some popular English centres withparticular methods, which are appropriate for each range of age in Ho Chi Minhcity

Super Youth Language School founded in 2001, is well known for teachingEnglish for children from 5 to 14 The centre has applied "4 skills learningmethod" with the aim of focusing on four English skills and "motivation method"which means motivating students to be enthusiastic and hard working Dornyei(2001) claimed that "teacher skills in motivating learners should be seen as central

to teaching effectiveness" Teachers in Super Youth School are also trainedcarefully to understand the types of learners and the ways to deal with each

student's style However, the learners in this school have to study Englishgrammars at an early age Sometimes, there are some 8-year-old students reach tolevel 6, a start of grammatical level, and they "struggle" with the grammar lessons.Although some students having great aptitude for learning languages can speakEnglish fluently, there are a lot of learners find it hard to convey their ideas.

With four different courses of English for Juniors (Kindergarten, Primary,Secondary, and IELTS), Apollo English classifies the range of age clearly andproperly In each course, Apollo applies "LETS method" which means LearningEnglish Through Subjects to help students use English as a tool to study othersubjects Therefore, in addition to the ability to use English confidently andfluently, students are equipped with knowledge, developing thinking, and trainingskills to be able to adapt, improvise and develop in all circumstances of the reallife

As a TFL teacher at Thanh Danh English Center, the researcher wants tofind out the most effective way to teach English for young learners According

to Phillips (1993), "young learners" means the children who are from the veryfirst year at elementary school (six years old) to twelve years old Sarah also saidthat there were various kind of factors influencing the learning attitude ofchildren such as gender, living environment and parents Therefore, she claimedthat English should be taken as a guide, not a fast rule, although there was asuggested age range for every activity

Teaching a foreign language is vastly different from teaching adults.Cameron (2001) pointed out that the children were the most enthusiastic and livelylearners Children will do anything as long as they get attention and praise from

teacher for their job done They are always eager to talk and they do not feel muchembarrassed like the adults always do That is the reason why the children getmore native-like accent than the adolescents because of the lack of inhibition.Cameron (ibid.) also claimed teachers should organize the lesson plan that issuitable for students or they would not understand about teacher's presentation.

Thanh Danh English Center was established in Go Dau town, Tay Ninhprovince in 2014 In spite of youth, Thanh Danh English Center is the very firstsuccessful pioneer to focus on Cambridge certification and four English skills in

Go Dau town The researcher has got an agreement about applying the Brainmax method, sight words combining with the official course books Hangout starters for teaching children who are from 5 to 8 years old Brainmax method is based on

DMIT Science - Dermatoglyphics Multiple Intelligence Test - a new method ofanalyzing brain potential based on the science of: Fingerprint biometrics; Medical

birth; Neurology; Genetics; Anatomy and Statistics Brainmax program was first

franchised for Elite Global Language School in Vietnam with the purpose ofmotivating young learners to study English

According to the theory, each side of the brain -left-brain and specializes in different missions (Nielsen et aI, 2013) Left-brain controls most ofthe work on numbers, languages or analytical thinking while the right-brainspecializes in expressing emotions and imagination Therefore, it is often said thatpeople with left brain often think logically and people with right brain often thinkemotionally Most of the time people use the left brain to think, work and study.Hence, there is an imbalance between the two hemispheres of the brain and that isthe reason why people always feel headache and exhausted after studying orworking with papers, numbers and languages

right-brain-The program of Brainmax including some activities such as "brain gym",

"relaxation exercises", and "eyeball gym"; combining with watching emotionalmovies and listening to Dongle music promises to awaken the habit to use the rightbrain efficiently not only for studying English but also for all jobs related topaperwork

The sight words is a collection of words that a child ought to figure out

how to perceive without sounding out the letters Children just need to read aloudthe words and the sentences through a simple story By repeating many times,children can naturally remember the sentences and new vocabulary In order tocheck students' improvement, the researcher decided to do the mini -experiment inthe pre-starters class with 14 students from five to eight year-old age The level ofthe learners was pre-elementary The research started on November 3rd, 2018 andusually on Saturdays and Sundays and ended on March 3Pt, 2019

Previous studies above give a large amount of general information aboutvarious teaching techniques utilized in some countries and in Vietnam At Elite

Global, the method Brainmax is high evaluated and has got a lot of good comments

from young students However, there is no report left about the improvement ofstudents' language speaking That is the reason the writer wants to investigate the

combination between brain exercises and sight words for enhancing speaking

skills

CHAPTER 3.METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the writer presents the methods used for this study At first,the researcher has got the inspiration ofDMIT Science (Dermatoglyphics Multiple

Intelligence Test) together with the study about sight words (Hayes, 2016) Next,

the writer mentions the participants, the context, and the research instruments.Finally, the data collection and analysis methods of the study are shown

3.1 Research paradigm

Working as a TFL teacher in Thanh Danh English Center, the writer desires

to fmd the most appropriate way for his students to learn and enjoy Englishlanguage Hayes (2016) claimed in his research, "Sight word instruction can alsoraise students' self-confidence and motivation while reading" This thought

captures my essence With the background of DMIT Science through Brainmax

method and the interest in the study by Hayes, the researcher decides to employthese paradigms for his study

3.2 Participants and context

The research took place at Thanh Danh English Center, a school located in

a small town belonging to Tay Ninh province, which is not really far from SaigonCity For the purposive sampling, 14 students from 5 to 8 years old were selected

as participants for this study The participants have been studying English about 6months The learners have had opportunity to study with native speakers alongwith Vietnamese teachers

3.3 Research instruments

This research is descriptive qualitative in a form of a case study which usedobservations, practical teachings and some questions for pre-test and post-test.3.3.1 Observation

Observation is ultilizied in the sociologies as a strategy for gatheringinformation about individuals, processes, and societies It is likewise a device,which is used normally to collect information by educator researchers in theirclasses Marshall & Rossman (2014) defined observation as "the systematicdescription of the events, behaviours, and artifacts of a social meeting." As aresearcher as well as TFL teacher who was interested in studying social science,the writer strongly believed that observation was a useful tool to help him collectdata effectively

The observations were done at Thanh Danh English Center in Go Dau town.The last observation was on November 4th, 2018 In the observations, the writerused observation sheets (appendix 1, 2 and 3) and a smartphone to record theinteractions in English classes used by the local teachers, how the learners weretaught and put into practical situations and what could be improved

3.3.2 Pre-test and Post-test

With the purpose of investigating the students' improvement on oralcommunication, some questions were used as a pre-test and post-test The pre-testconsisted of four popular simple questions that almost students have been asked

for many times before The writer wanted to re-check the reflex of each learnerbefore he started the study The questions in the both tests are based on the lessonsand the daily expressions that the students have been taught The time for pre-testwas about 30 minutes The post-test, which took approximately 75 minutes to do,was conducted after the researcher had completed the last practical teaching in theclass on March 3 Pl, 2019 There were nine questions in the post-test includingfour questions in the pre-test.

3.3.3 Practical teaching

The practical teachings were applied because the writer had chance to work

in this English centre as a teacher and he had agreement from the general managerfor doing this study The researcher started the first practical teaching onNovember 17th, 2018 with the class Pre-starters 1 Hangout starters was the main

course book This class is upgraded from the class Kinder 6

1, 2, 3 were employed to take note The last observation was made and finished

on November 4th, 2018

3.4.2 Pre-test

After the observations, the researcher started doing the pre-test onNovember 10th, 2018 The pre-test took about 30 minutes to complete Eachparticipant was interviewed, from two to three minutes, through four basic popularquestions that most Vietnamese and foreign teachers employed them to teach ortalk The questions for interviewing were based on the structures in the learners'course books and the daily expressions The students' answers were recorded with

a smartphone for data collection

3.4.3 Practical teaching

The writer began the first practical teaching on November 17th, 2018 andended on March 16th, 2019 The class had upgraded from level "Kinder 6" to "Pre-starters 1" There were 2 sessions per week; one session for Vietnamese teacher

and the other for foreign one The course book Hangout starters was applied for this level The researcher prepared the lesson plans appropriately using Brainmax and sight words for this case study The course outlines listed below.

Table 3.1 Course outline

Brainmax

activities

Brain-gym A _ How are you?

story of a hunter

(first half)

_ My name is

-_ I'm years old

I like to eat

I'm (ok, good, sad, soBrain-gym: reVIew so )

the story and the _ My name isexerCIse _ I'm years old

I'm (ok, good, sad, soso )

Educational mOVIe _ My name is

- The dream _ I'm years old

I like to eat

_Do you have a (schoolthing)?

I'm (ok, good, sad, soso )

with

_ My name isI'm years old

I like to eat

I have a/one/two +-

Dongle music class?

There are

Brain-gym A so )story of a hunter _ My name is

(last half) _ I'm years old

I like to eat

Dongle music with - I have a/one/two +school

-soft melody things +in my backpack

_ Do you have a (schoolthing)?

_ How many students in theclass?

There are

Who is he/she?

He/she IS my + family members

How are you?

Unit 3 (there are, there

-February 16th, Unit 3 - exerCIses - I like to eat

_ Dongle music class?

There are

Where IS the ?

-(inion/under/next to)Where is she/he?

Unit 4 (dancing with so )

2019

_ I'm years old

I'm (ok, good, sad, soso )

-_ My name isMemory

_ I'm years oldgame

I like to eat

(identify colours

_ How many students in theclass?

What colour is it-

-There are

_ What shape is it?

It's (square/rectangle/triangle,round/star)

What colour is it?

-Mar 16th,

Post test

2019

The writer considerably applied the Brainmax activities alternately for not

making students bored He had experienced with some other classes in EliteGlobal- The International Language School and Super Youth Language School, so

he learnt how to deal with the students' demand There were some selectedactivities used for the case study

3.4.3.1 Brain-gym: A story o/a hunter

This activity contained some exercises with hand-gestures that related toright brain stimulation With the guiding by teacher and colourful pictures on theslides show, the learners could follow the action easily For making the exercisemore joyful, one story had been told The original story was about a hunter going

to the forest to hunt something for the dinner However, the researcher changedthe plot of the story into looking for a pet for making it less aggressive Thegestures and the story were attached in APPENDIX 6

3.4.3.2 Educational movies

The researcher considered educational movie as one ofthe strategies relying

on the theory of Nielsen (Nielsen et aI, 2013) The movies were about family,friendship or dream jobs with the purpose of motivating and fostering the children

to have got better behavior with their own lives The movies used in this case studywere "My dad is a liar" and "The dream" These short movies came from Thaicommercial advertisements Although they were ads, the meaning contained waseducating, touching and emotionaL

Picture 3.1: "My dad is a liar" - Source: screen capture

Picture 3.2: "The dream" -Source: Screen capture

3.4.3.3 Dongle music

Dongle music was a kind of alpha music, which could bring the listenersboth relaxed mood and calmness (Hassan et aI, 2012) In general, music took animportant role in enhancing emotional intelligence (Jus lin & Vastfjall, 2008)

Therefore, the organizer of Brainmax method used this activity to not only relax

but also improve brain's function

Picture 3.3: Dongle music -Source: Screen capture

3.4.3.4 Brain-gym: Dancing with music

In this strategy, the researcher wanted to change the process of exercisingbrain-gym Normally, students had to do brain-gym together with the story about

a hunter However, in this way, the leaners would enjoy more when they exercisedtogether with music The gestures used for this exercise were the ones in the story

of a hunter A group of Malaysian people made the video The video lasted foralmost 4 minutes

Picture 3.4: Braingym - dancing with music-Source: Screen capture

3.4.3.5 Relaxation exercises: dancing with music

In class, this exercise aimed to make the children feel comfortable andenjoyable while studying Students were required to dance together with friendsand teacher When dancing, learners could feel delighted and confident.Christensen also claimed that dancing through music could enhance emotionalresponses (Christensen et aI, 2014) "I'm a Gummy Bear" was the song used forthe dancing

Picture 3.5: I'm a Gummy Bear- Source: Screen capture

3.4.3.6 Memory game

It was recommended that games were the effective methods supportinglearners' interest and disposing of stress in class (Wright et aI, 2005) Memorygame was both game and challenge for students to play There was a picture withparticular topic such as animals, school things and housewares The students had

to pay attention to the image in a short period and try to remember as much as theycould The picture for this case studied was attached in APPEND IX 7

3.4.3.7 Imaginative stimulation

Another selected Brainmax activities was imaginative stimulation This one

was about some hypothetical situations that students had to solve It was helpfulbecause learners could imagine a lot of interesting ways to deal with problems.Furthermore, children could have got opportunities to practice speaking English

as well as train their presentation skills The situations used were listed in theAPPENDIX 8.

3.4.3.8 Practical teaching on December 15 th, 2018

This practical teaching was among 13 lessons The class started at 9:45 amand lasted for one hour and a half To warm up the class and remind the dailyexpression, the teacher played a video clip with a song name "Hello" as usual.After that, teacher reviewed the vocabulary of previous lesson with flashcards, andthen he started teaching part A in the course book On that day, teacher used two

Brainmax activities: Dongle music and brain-gym with music He also used game

"Hangman" to check student spelling and game Station to practice sight words.

3.4.3.9 Practical teaching on March 2 nd, 2019

The lesson on March 2nd, 2019 was the twelfth one In order to formstudents' speaking habit, the "Hello" video was played as usual The writerreviewed some shaped before he started the lesson He used some games that can

encourage learners to speak English and perform in front of the class Brainmax:

memory game and Dongle music were employed for this lesson

3.4.4 Post-test

Finally, the post-test was conducted to value the research on March 9th,

2019 The writer spent about more than 60 minutes on doing the speaking test.Like the pre-test, each participant was interviewed from three to five minutes.There were nine questions in the post-test including four questions used in the pre-test Those questions were based on the structures they had learnt in official coursebook and the pre-test The writer also used the smartphone to record the learners'answers

CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH FINDINGS

This chapter deals with the findings of the research by analyzing the dataand the information collected through the observations, pre-test, post-test andpractical teaching The writer will firstly present the findings from observationsand discuss about the tests Finally, we will mention our experiences and resultsrecorded after practical teachings

Brainmax and sight words are used as teaching techniques in this case study.

(Dermatoglyphics Multiple Intelligence Test) and the theory of left-brain and

right-brain Sight words is the collection of words making young learners speak

out the sentences without sounding out the letters Those sentences will be utilized

in a story for getting young students' attention

4.1 Observations

There were three observations done and the details were mentioned III

appendix 1, 2, and 3 Through being a participant in each class, the researcherfound out some pros and cons in each class as well as a few recommendation foreach case

With the very first class, Kinders 3, started from 9:45 to 11:30 am onNovember 3rd, 2018; the writer figured out that the foreign teacher applied mimesand games most of time The children were really into and paid attention to thelesson They volunteered to speak aloud what they had in their mind although,sometimes, the things they spoke were not correct There were somethings that thewriter admired the foreign teacher, Barney, a lot for his performance Barney knewhow to manage the class well enough to convey his ideas to learners When asked,

Barney gave the writer some advice that teachers should follow the rules: Powerful

- Caring - Friendly That means they have got to be powerful at the first sight.That is the way to get respect from the students Then teachers show their caringwith each student in each activity in the class, and even after class Finally, theyshould sometimes show their friendly while teaching such as smiling on the faces.Through these steps, students might get used to it and teachers could control classeasily

"Kinders 6" was the next class, which was observed by the researcher onNovember 4th, 2018 This next class also started at 9:45 and ended at 11:30 TheVietnamese teacher played a song to warm up before teaching After that, Ms.Thai started the lesson with pictures on smart TV She modeled the structure inpast tense and asked students to repeat chorally and individually several times.Then, she organised game "change chair" for students to relax Finally, doinghomework, colouring, was the final "mission" The teacher ran the class smoothly

as she planned The writer found out that Ms Thai should plan the game relating

to the lesson not only for relaxing but also for reviewing the vocabulary Thelearners did not have got chance to work in pair or group was the shortcoming forthe class that day Furthermore, the teacher should speak English all the time formaking students try their best to guess the words and involve in the lesson.However, the researcher just had one day to observe Miss Thai, so he was not sure

to define her methods or teaching style

The last class to be observed was Miss Doan's class It was from 2:00 to3:45pm on the same day with class "Kinders 6" mentioned Phuc began the lessonwith a warm up game She hid some flashcards that the learners had learnt before

surrounding the class, then she asked the children to find them When they foundthe correct one, they had to speak aloud the word of the flashcard and thepreposition of it She made the class become lively and joyful While saying out-loud the words, Molly also encouraged the students who could not catch up withothers to speak anything in English to mimic Dornyei & Ushioda (2013)emphasised that "teacher skills in motivating learners should be seen as central toteaching effectiveness" Miss Doan also employed mimes and body language todescribe the new words, for she spoke 100% English in the class She alsoexpanded a structure to combine with the new vocabulary that the leaners had justlearnt Molly asked students to practice the sentences with new words severaltimes then she had them work in pair Finally, she asked each pair to come in front

of the class and practice what they had learnt The students were delighted owing

to teacher's energetic activities Through this observation, the writer learnt alesson that teachers should be the factors who were full of energy to motivate andencourage students feel free to speak

4.2 Pre-test:

Fair 79%

Poor 7%

Good 14%

• Excellent Good Fair • Poor

Figure 4.1 The evaluation of students' response for the question "What's your name?"

The pie chart shows the percentage of students can answer a simple popularquestion In general, almost students in the class could understand and answer thequestion However, there were only 14 per cent (2 students) could respond in fullsentence They just forgot to pronounce the final sounds after the word i$ or

name 'soMore than three quarter ofleamers replied their first names only and therewas one student (7%) considering and keeping silent after being asked

Fair 86%

14%

_ Excellent Good _ Fair _ Poor

Figure 4.2 The evaluation of students' response for the question "How are you?"

The figure 2 shows us the responses of students with another daily question Theresult marked a noticeable point for the answer that twelve learners (86%) couldrespond while there were 2 students struggled to answer However, the 86 per centlearners just got the fair grade because they just responded according to the basicdialogue Here was the model that most Vietnamese students got used to replying:

A: "Hello, how are you?

B: l'mfine thank you, and you?

A: l'mfine Thanks"

Fair 79%

_ Excellent Good _ Fair _ Poor

Figure 4.3 The evaluation of students' response for the question "How old are you?"

With the third question, the pie illustrates 11 students (79%) can realize thedifference between the question 2 and 3 However, there are three young learners

replied: "I'm fine" for the question "how old are you?" The researcher tried to

speak slowly and clearly, said aloud each word, but their answers remained thesame The reason why 79 per cent students got the fair grade is they did not speak

in full sentence