Using audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary students' speaking skills = Sử dụng tư liệu nghe - nhìn để nâng cao kỹ năng nói cho học sinh trung học cơ sở

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES --- BÙI THỊ PHƯƠNG THẢO USING AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS TO IMPROVE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-

BÙI THỊ PHƯƠNG THẢO

USING AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS TO IMPROVE LOWER SECONDARY STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS

(Sử dụng tư liệu nghe-nhìn

để nâng cao kỹ năng Nói cho học sinh Trung Học Cơ Sở)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field : English teaching methodology Code : 60 14 10

Hanoi - 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-

BÙI THỊ PHƯƠNG THẢO

USING AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS TO IMPROVE LOWER SECONDARY STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS

(Sử dụng tư liệu nghe-nhìn

để nâng cao kỹ năng Nói cho học sinh Trung Học Cơ Sở)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field : English teaching methodology Code : 60 14 10

Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Thom Thom, M.A

Hanoi - 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-

BÙI THỊ PHƯƠNG THẢO

USING AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS TO IMPROVE LOWER SECONDARY STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS

(Sử dụng tư liệu nghe-nhìn

để nâng cao kỹ năng Nói cho học sinh Trung Học Cơ Sở)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field : English teaching methodology Code : 60 14 10

Hanoi - 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-

BÙI THỊ PHƯƠNG THẢO

USING AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS TO IMPROVE LOWER SECONDARY STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS

(Sử dụng tư liệu nghe-nhìn

để nâng cao kỹ năng Nói cho học sinh Trung Học Cơ Sở)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field : English teaching methodology Code : 60 14 10

Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Thom Thom, M.A

Hanoi - 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION

1 Rationale of the study

2 Aims of the study

3 Scope of the study

4 Method of the study

5 Design of the study

PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Speaking and speaking skills

1.4 The effect of audio-visual materials on learning English and

learning speaking skills

1.5 Review of previous studies

CHAPTER II THE STUDY 2.1 Participants

2.2 Instruments

2.2.1 Questionnaire

i

ii iii

iv

v

P.1 P.2 P.2 P.3 P.4

P.5 P.5 P.5 P.6 P.7 P.7 P.7 P.8

P.12

P.14 P.15 P.15

2.2.2 Pre-test and post-test design

2.2.3 Observation

2.3 The procedure of collecting the data

2.3.1 Pre-test and Post-test

2.3.2 Questionnaire

2.4 The procedure of analyzing the data

CHAPTER III RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

1 Review of the study

2 Application of the study in English language teaching

3 Limitations of the study

4 Recommendation for further study

REFERENCE APPENDIX APPENDIX 1 - Survey questionnaire

APPENDIX 2 - The scores of pre-test

APPENDIX 3 - The scores of post-test

APPENDIX 4 - 8 Topics for pre-test and post-test

P.15 P.15 P.16 P.16 P.16 P.17

P.18 P.26 P.26

P.27 P.30

P.32 P.32 P.33 P.34

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Table 1: Audio-visual materials are helpful for the students’ speaking-practice p.18

Table 2: Audio-visual materials help improve the students’ pronunciation p.19

Table 3: Audio-visual materials help the students recall and use vocabulary better p.19

Table 4: Audio-visual materials help the students reduce grammatical mistakes p.20

Table 5: Audio-visual materials help the students’ speaking become more fluent p.21

Table 6: The students feel enjoyable with a speaking lesson illustrated by sound and

images

p.21

Table 7: Audio-visual materials distract the students from practicing speaking skills p.22 Table 8: The quality of sound and image is good p.23

Table 9: The results of pre-test and post-test are analyzed by SPSS 10.0 p.24

Table 10: The collective figures from the questionnaire p.26

Chart 1: The final scores of pre-test and post-test p.26

PART A INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

English has become a world language It is the world‟s most widely spoken language and the common means of communication between the people of different nations There is

no doubt that the process of teaching and learning language has recently experienced great changes by the continuous efforts of teaching forces and the support of new teaching methodology Nowadays, only “talk and chalk” is not enough for teaching and learning process Skilled crafts-man usually chooses his tools with care in order to accomplish certain tasks A teacher of English like a skilled crafts-man needs a teaching medium: especially when the process of teaching and learning English happens between non-native teachers and non-native learners Both will widely get benefits from the application of good materials Such materials will make the teacher teaches less and the learner learns more They will also enable students to listen, speak, read and write the foreign language well

The role of materials in English-teaching process is indispensable, especially the implementation of audio-visual materials As a teacher of English at a lower secondary school, I realize that audio-visual materials are useful for teaching speaking-skill, an important productive skill in oral mode A learner cannot master language if there is a lack

of creating communication in that language as Nunan (1991) wrote, "success is measured

in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the (target) language” In other words, learning the language is as learning how to speak the language – the fundament to human communication Because of the importance of speaking skills, teaching speaking must reach the aim to make students dominate the process of learning speaking with personal activeness and creativeness However, the real speaking periods at my school show the students‟ hesitance to communicate in English for their shyness or the shortcoming in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, etc The speaking periods cannot stir the students‟ learning inspiration Both teacher and students feel tired of such boring periods Consequently, my students‟ speaking results are not good Facing such a worrying situation, I use audio-visual materials in teaching speaking to expect a change Fortunately, the speaking periods become more enjoyable with students‟ active and self-confident participation In my point of view, Audio-visual materials are lively illustrations and a diverse source of information supporting the students‟ speaking-practice.Therefore, in this

writing I would like to conduct a research on the effect of using audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary students‟ speaking skills There are two benefits expected from this study Theoretically, it gives out useful references for further research on using audio-visual materials to develop lower secondary students‟ speaking skills Practically, the result

of this research will suggest new directions for exploiting the effects of audio-visual materials to improve the quality of teaching English, especially the quality of teaching speaking

The effect of using audio-visual materials on improving lower secondary students‟ speaking skills is investigated in this writing Although this is only the personal writer‟s study for limited time on certain participants, not all students of all lower secondary school, the findings and results still assure the objectivity of research process or at least, they are also beneficial to the writer‟s applying audio-visual materials in teaching speaking skills for lower secondary students

2 Aims of the study

The aims of this study are as follows:

+ Review the implementation of audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary students‟ speaking skills

+ investigate the effective ways to exploit audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary students‟ speaking skills

To obtain the above aims, three research questions are addressed:

- What are the benefits of using audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary students‟ speaking skills?

- What are the limitations of using audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary students‟ speaking skills?

- Is it effective to use audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary students‟ speaking skills?

3 Scope of the Study

Materials are very important with the existence in the form of textbooks, video and audio tapes, computer software, and visual aids, etc As the Allwright's point of view, textbooks are too inflexible to be used direct or Swales (1980) contends that any given course-book will be incapable of catering for the diversity of needs which exists in most language classrooms while the effect of audio-visual materials are confirmed by many researchers

In the words of Edgar Dale (1946) “Because audio-visual materials supply concrete basis for conceptual thinking, they give rise to meaningful concepts enriched by meaningful association, hence they offer the best antidote for the disease of verbalism.” From my real experience in teaching, audio-visual materials can reduce some difficulties in teaching speaking, which cannot be done by other types of materials like textbook Therefore, in this writing I would like to explore the effect of audio-visual materials, more specifically the effect of audio-visual materials in the range of improving speaking skills, not listening, writing, or reading skill The actual teaching proves that these basic skills go hand-in-hand with mutual impacts in the language-learning process and audio-visual materials put their effects on teaching and learning all these skills However, due to the limitation of time and the foremost need of improving speaking skills for students at my school, this thesis only focuses on the use of audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary students‟ speaking skills

4 Method of the Study

To address and explore the research questions, qualitative and quantitative method (Witte,

R S & Witte, J.S (2009) for one questionnaire and a pre-post test are exploited The questionnaire consisted of eight items related to the research problems stated above It is worth mentioning that the questionnaires contained 8 close-ended questions serving 2 targets to find out the benefits and limitations of audio-visual materials in improving lower secondary students‟ speaking skills The pre-post testing including a pre-test and a post test

is carried out at the beginning of pilot teaching process with audio-visual materials and at the end of the process after 2 months A comparison between the result of pre-test and post-test is useful for teacher to control students‟ progress during teaching process Questionnaire and pre-post test are conducted to investigate the effect of using audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary students‟ speaking skills However, due to the limitation of time, I cannot conduct the study with all lower secondary students I just choose a class with 40 students of grade 8 as one sample The students of this class are my selection because they have some-year experiences in learning English to compile a necessary amount of vocabulary and basic communicative factors The pre-test and post-test are conducted in the same way with the same oral topics The tested students are divided into groups of five to take 8 different topics for oral test The different results of

pre-test and post-test help teacher control the students‟ progress during the pilot teaching process

5 Design of the study

In order to make this research easy to understand, the writer would like to present the structure of the study

Part A Introduction This part mentions the rationale of the study, the aims of the study, the scope of the study, the research questions, the method of the study, and the design of the study

Part B Development This part contains three chapters as follows:

Chapter 1 is Literature Review Introduction that contains underlying theories about speaking and speaking skills, materials, audio-visual materials, effect of audio-visual materials on learning English and learning speaking skills, and review of previous studies Chapter 2 is The Study that presents participants, instruments, the procedure of collecting the data, and the procedure of analyzing the data

Chapter 3 is Results and Discussion

Part C Conclusion

The reference and appendix are at the ending part of this study

PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Speaking and speaking skills

1.1.1 Speaking

Speaking is an important part of second language learning and teaching Despite its importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued English language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as memorization of dialogues Now a day the goal of teaching speaking is to improve learner's communication skill Mulgrave (1987: 34) said: “Speaking is an instrument in expressing messages to the listener directly whether the listener understands the material or not and whether the speaker or listener is in control and able to adjust the situation when he is communicating his idea or not” "Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information" Brown (1994) and Burns & Joyce (1997) According to Chaney (Chaney, 1998: 13) “Speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" Speaking is an activity involving two or more participants as hearers and speaker who react to what they hear and make their contribution Each participant has interactions that he wants to achieve in the communication Speaking, as a productive skill, is very complex so it requires the simultaneous use of a number of different abilities, which often develop at different rates

1.1.2 Speaking skills

Speaking skills is the ability to communicate in a new language – target language - based

on its grammatical, contextual, social, and cultural rules, while variations are always difficult for English foreign language learners (Shumin, n.d.) There are many factors affecting the students‟ learning speaking We can name some of major factors: voice, accent, intonation, stress, pronunciation, speed, etc The students often feel difficult to have the correct stress and intonation as the native speakers They also feel it not easy to keep up with the speed of speech by native speakers The teacher at class can partly help the students solve these problems However, in fact, many teachers also face the same difficulties Each language has its own phonetic characteristics, which not many language learners can imitate In this case, sound and image from audio-visual materials can help much when the students can hear the direct pronunciation and see the operation of

articulator organs The students‟ leaning speaking can be fostered by the effective sound and image from audio-visual materials

1.2 Materials

In the case of traditional conceptions, teaching materials tend to be considered to be an instrument to access the target language They are a means of dealing with grammar, syntax, phonetics, and cultural matters among others Apparently, materials only have the purpose of “presenting” the language in study They are perceived as instrumental objects

to inform students and help teachers deal with the curricular aspects For some other authors such as Tomlinson (1998: 2), a teaching material is regarded as anything that is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of a language Materials could obviously be cassettes, videos, CD-Rooms, dictionaries, grammar books, readers, workbooks or photocopied exercises They could also be newspapers, food packages, photographs, live talks by invited native speakers, instructions given by a teacher, tasks written on cards or discussions between learners In other words, they can be anything that

is used to increase the learners‟ knowledge and/or experience of the language Materials attempt to diminish the level of difficulty when accessing the linguistic aspects of the target language At this point, materials are vital resources because they stimulate and develop students‟ linguistic skills

The characteristics of materials are debated (by Littlejohn and Windeatt, 1989) as follows: materials have a hidden curriculum that includes attitudes toward knowledge, attitudes toward teaching and learning, attitudes toward the role and relationship of the teacher and student, and values and attitudes related to gender, society, etc The curriculum is a statement of the goals of learning, the methods of learning, etc Teachers have to follow the curriculum and help learners to learn They may adapt, supplement, and elaborate on those materials and also monitor the progress and needs of the students and finally evaluate

students Materials influence the content and the procedures of teaching and learning The

choice of deductive vs inductive learning, the role of memorization, the use of creativity and problem solving, production vs reception are all influenced by the materials Allwright (1990) emphasizes that materials control learning and teaching while O'Neill (1990) emphasizes that they help learning and teaching

Teaching materials can help teachers and students develop critical thinking, or avoid misconceptions and ideas about language and its linguistic communities Materials work as ideological constructs that promote and maintain certain power relationships among the individuals immersed in the language learning process In this sense, McDonough and Shaw (1993: 56) stated that “most of the teaching we do is to learners in a class with others, so all materials necessarily have to be a compromise, as teachers‟ interpretations of material do.”

or through a combination of both senses The New Encyclopedia Britanna Volume (1995) also defined audiovisual in education as the use of supplementary teaching aids such as recordings, transcripts, tapes, motion pictures and video tapes, radio, television and computers to improve learning The term audio-visual (AV) may refer to works with a sound and a visual component Hence, audio-visual materials are the most powerful instruments available for influencing high recall in learning The impact of audiovisual materials (filmstrip, slides, tapes, films, records etc.) can be shown in many other ways

1.3.2 Classification of Audio-visual Materials

The audio-visual materials are divided into three categories: visual materials, audio

materials and both audio-visual materials (Abdul Mannan Bagulia, 2005)

Classification:

Audio Materials, Visual Materials and Audio-visual materials

Audio Materials Visual Materials Audio-visual materials

Language laboratories Bulletin boards Demonstrations

radio chalk boards films

sound distribution system sets charts printed materials with recorded sound tape and disco recordings drawings etc sound filmstrips

exhibits study trips film strips television flash cards videotapes flannel boards

flip books Illustrated books Magnetic boards Maps

models Pictures posters Photographs self-instructional silent films slides

1.4 The effects of audio-visual materials on learning English and learning speaking skills

The new era assigns new challenges and duties on the modern teacher The traditional methods on teaching English have drastically changed because of the remarkable entry of technology in the arena of teaching The modern technology provides many options to make the teaching more interesting, more effective and more productive in terms of students‟ improvement Most educators and teachers regard audio-visual materials as valuable tools in English Language Teaching The merits of using audio-visual materials in teaching are touchable and undeniable

Video materials for teaching and learning English, especially for teaching and learning speaking are available with various types at different prices It often takes people much time to go to a bookstore then find and select a suitable book after reading through its main

content However, choosing a video tape seems more easily Because video tapes in English for rent or for sale at stores are numerous As Voller, P., & Widdows said, “Video materials (films) are accessible English language products available to EFL students

(Voller &Widdows, 1993, P 340)

Many learners find it effective to watch a film as a way of learning language The process

of watching and listening to the language from the film really helps the learners more

familiar with the communication environment of real life Finocchiaro (1989: 151) stated:

"(Video) can present a communicative transaction in its totality The learners can see the people and the situation (the setting where the interaction is occurring) They can see and hear the attitude of the persons involved (the interlocutors) They can hear the linguistic registers and the appropriateness of the language within the situation They can appreciate cross-cultural relationships by asking themselves if this piece of business can be conducted in the same way in their country They will become aware of other cultural aspects, such as the gestures used and the distance maintained between the people involved It is a replica of natural conversation in the real world"

Learning foreign language requires the chances to meet and communicate with people speaking that language, but in fact, not many people, especially lower secondary students have those chances My students at Hoang Dieu lower secondary school share the same difficulties, but they still want to improve their listening and speaking skills They intelligently buy video tapes or CD with English movies or English songs to practice the skills at home The audio-visual materials really help their language study Benda (1982: 21) claimed the role of audio-visual materials: “is a continuing source of listening material especially for countries where the opportunities to meet people who speak English may be rare” I may add that since good listeners are good speakers, the audio-visual materials will eventually help students to be good speakers

According to Stoller (1990: 62), “films and later videos bring authenticity, reality, variety, and flexibility into the second-language classroom” To build upon this point, Kritzer (1976: 29) stated that “television can bring liveliness and immediacy to education that no

other medium can provide” Allan shared the same comment: “Video, on the other hand, has an immediate impact and the language is supported by visual clues” (Lonergan 1984,

Allan, 1985) This simply means that audio-visual materials reflect real world environment

since they combine seeing and listening together This satisfies both visual and auditory senses of the students The students often feel excited when seeing a film or a video tape The sound and pictures from the film bring a lively word beyond the limitation of the classroom The process of seeing and listening stir the student‟s vocabulary store They want to seek out the suitable words for pictures or something interesting in the film they saw In this case, the audio-visual materials bring the students closer to the real world Allan (1986 P.48) also had the same comment of the audio-visual materials: “video is a good means of bringing „a slice of living language‟ into the classroom” The use of audio-visual materials also give teacher a good chance to create a virtual world in the classroom itself The teacher can go beyond words, beyond the limitation of verbal description by the power of sound and image As a result, the learners grasp things easily, without any confusion or misunderstanding

Videos and films are excellent instruments to present “the country and its culture” (Allan,

1985, P 19) We all know that learning a language is learning the culture of this language Learning speaking is on the same track The students need to know about the culture and know how other people live, act and interact based on their beliefs and values Video-audio material meets these requirements when it crosses cultural boundaries

Video materials are useful in motivating students‟ language learning That is the reason for teachers‟ usage of pictures as a lead-in First, Video materials „creates an attractive enjoyable learning environment.' Tomalin (1991: 48) and as Lonergan says, "By generating interest and motivation, video can create a climate for successful learning." (1984: 5) According to Dewing (1992), “video can act as a catalyst for thinking, inspiring (students)

to learn” Or “provide added incentive to learn and are interesting for the students” Finocchiaro (1968: P17)

Audio-visual materials also make students “feel their interest quicken when language is experienced in a lively way” This combination of moving pictures and sound can present language more comprehensively than any other teaching medium and more realistically too" Stempleski & Tomalin (1990: 3) At the same time, audio-visual materials encourage and support the various learning styles Gunter, Jones & Moss (1991: 10) Because of the

seen-heard feature in videos, students with visual learning style and those with auditory learning style both will be satisfied with the presented material Even learners, those who learn through motion and physical action, may find some sort of comfort in the video material

Audio-video materials are useful in developing language skills, especially developing students‟ speaking skills For example, the improvement in the students‟ pronunciation of the target language results from the appropriate use of audio-video materials In the language laboratory, we often find these kinds of materials used for the purpose of checking and correcting the pronunciation The students receive instructions to use right pronunciation of the words by means of audio-video materials then imitate it They can easily understand the pronunciation of consonants, vowels, diphthongs A sustained practice with audio-visual materials forms the exact pronunciation for students This technique can be far better than the teaching of all sorts of theoretical elements of phonetics Indeed, the teaching of phonetics can be enriched with the aid of audio-visual materials In addition, audio-video materials also help students to remember and know the use of vocabulary and grammar better with lively situations through images

The audio-visual materials can be applied in the class easily; teacher can step in the process whenever he wishes; he can stop, start and rewind to repeat it for several times where necessary To pay special attention to a particular point in the program it is possible

to run in slow motion or at half speed or without sound Besides, the learner can concentrate on the language in detail and interpret what they heard, repeat it, predict the reply and so on The learner can also concentrate in detail on visual clues to meaning such

as facial expression, dress, gesture, posture and on details of the environment

These kinds of materials can be used at all the levels of teaching for different subjects and categories, providing that the teacher knows what kind of material he is supposed to select and knows how to use it For example, one can use audio-video materials in pre-primary

or primary schools He can have variety of options like presenting animal video clips in front of the students to enable them to know the elementary words and the students will enjoy in a great deal In secondary level before the lesson, a particular video relating to that lesson will be shown in the classroom This not only improves students‟ understanding of language but also improves their vocabulary Some special videos can be brought into

classroom to invoke the students‟ interest for the subject In tertiary level depending upon the syllabus a teacher can use variety of audio-video materials

Audio-visual materials help to reduce verbalism They help giving clear concepts A good deal of energy and time of both the teachers and students can be saved on account of the use of audio-visual materials as most of the concepts and phenomena may be easily clarified, understood and assimilated through their use The use of audio-visual materials also provides a touch of reality to the learning situation Seeing a film show, students learn more effectively than learning by reading

There are big individual differences among learners Some can be helped through sound, some can be helped through visual demonstrations, while others learn better by doing The use of a variety of audio-visual materials can meet the needs of different types of students The use of audio-visual materials stirs the imagination, thinking process and reasoning power of the students, and calls for creativity, and inventiveness and other higher mental activities and thus it helps the development of higher faculties among the students

1.5 Review of previous study

The use of audio-visual materials in teaching language has been mentioned in many writings These writings can be about the effects of audio materials in developing listening skills Salazar Jorge (Website: http://does.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:gr4Pfcbbbbg) states that audio-visual materials can develop many types of listening activities at classroom Audio-visual materials are abundant source of sounds and images, and they have characteristics of authentic materials” in the study “Interactive Audio Strategies For Developing Listening Skills Lindsay Miller (Website:

http://www.calico.org/html/article_436.pdf) gives out her similar opinion in “Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials” when showing that audio-visual materials are helpful for all pre-while-post listening activities Debra Hoven with his writing “A Model for Listening and Viewing Comprehension in Multimedia Environments” in the Website:

http://auspace.athabascau.ca:8080/dspace/bitstream/2149/1682/1/full.TJ.doc

explores the effects of multimedia to listening comprehension with the writing From many writings, we can see that audio-visual materials are of many benefits to develop listening

or listening comprehension In terms of developing reading skills, it is a reference to read

“the use of authentic materials in the teaching of reading” by Sacha Anthony Berardo

(Website: http://www.readingmatrix.com/articles/berardo/article.pdf) The authentic materials are highly motivating, giving a sense of achievement, reflecting the changes in the use of language with a wide variety of text types to encourage further reading-skill Robert Leestma (1954) confirmed the effects of audio visual materials in teaching reading with the book “Audio-visual materials for teaching reading” In terms of enhancing writing skills, audio-visual materials are instruments to develop writing style, vocabulary…with certain essays and studies, for example, “Learning vocabulary through authentic video and subtitles” Audio-visual materials are beneficial to teaching basic skills Many types of these materials are exploited, for example: internet, multimedia, video… Dr Dehghani (Website: http://www.aare.edu.au/05pap/deh05013.pdf) makes his own writing on the role

of internet for teaching foreign languages: “Internet as an education aid in teaching foreign languages” or the writing “the use of video as an audio-visual material in foreign language teaching classroom” discusses the impacts of video in teaching language Audio-visual materials express their role in many aspects of teaching language at many levels from the primary education to tertiary education We can read “Using authentic audio-visual materials in primary school English language classrooms”, “audiovisual resources in Nsukka primary school”, as references In Vietnam, there are also studies on certain types

of audio-visual materials, especially the application of multimedia, informative technology

in teaching language, for example: “Multimedia and teacher‟s roles in a language classroom” by Nguyen Van Long (Website: http://www.kh-

applications in language teaching” by Nguyen Thi Huynh Loc (Website: sdh.udn.vn/zipfiles/so29/23.5.loc-thao.pr1.tram.pdf), “ICT in language education: benefits, challenges and solutions” by Nguyen Van (Website: http://www.kh-sdh.udn.vn/zipfiles/so30/20.6.nng.long-nguyenvan.pdf) However, the writing on audio-visual materials is still in narrow number

http://www.kh-After reading reference books and essays, I would like to develop a study on the application of audio-visual materials to improve speaking skills for specific subjects: lower secondary students At the same time, this study exposes the limitations of these materials

in teaching speaking The results of this study will be useful for me in the process of applying audio-visual materials to promote lower secondary students‟ speaking skills

CHAPTER II THE STUDY

The procedure of collecting data performs with using self-administered formatted questionnaire, pre-test and post-test after 2-month duration of teaching at a selected class The study mainly focuses on strong and weak sides of using audio-visual materials to improve students‟ speaking skills Then the data is analyzed and summarized

2.1 Participants

Participants in three phases: conducting survey questionnaire, pre-post test and pilot teaching procedure are 40 students of class 8B1 at Hoang Dieu lower secondary school Those students are of different English ability Most of them are not good at speaking, although speaking is one important skill of four ones My students often feel shy to speak English and prefer a discussion in mother tongue The reason probably comes from their lack of vocabulary or the inflexible arrangement of words into sentences My students often feel difficult to express their thought in oral English Their disorders of words easily lead to the misunderstanding of the content or the wrong grammatical mistakes The fear of making mistakes makes them hesitant to speak Their response in communication is also not quick enough In other word, it is difficult for them to speak English fluently Besides, the students‟ different backgrounds also affect the communication The disparity of English linguistic ability among 40 students in the class makes more contributions to the problem Another difficulty in teaching speaking at my lower secondary school is that the periodical tests often concentrate on listening, writing and grammatical structures, not speaking skills There are no real speaking tests in allocated curriculum Therefore, many

students do not pay attention to learn and practice speaking skills

2.2 Instruments

2.2.1 Questionnaire

Questionnaire with 8 close-ended questions will be completed by the students The first part including 6 questions aims to investigate the benefit of audio-visual materials Question 1 aims to know the students' overall assessment on the effect of audio-visual materials in their speaking-practice Questions: 2, 3, 4, 5 try to find out the impact of audio-visual materials to the students‟ improvement on vocabulary usage, pronunciation, grammar, and word expression in speaking Question 6 is to investigate students‟ inspiration in a speaking class with the illustration of sound and images for speaking topic Part 2 including the last 2 questions is to investigate the limitation of audio-visual materials

in speaking lessons

2.2.2 Pre-test and post-test

Pre-test/post test assessment is a method used at the beginning and at the end of the observation At first, students take a pre-test in speaking Each group of 5 students takes a topic for oral test The scores of pre-test are collected Then the teacher works with the class for 5 pilot periods of teaching speaking, supported by the audio-visual materials After these periods, a post-test for students with the same topics takes place The scores of the post-test are also collected Then the teacher analyzes and compares the results between pre-test and post-test The differences enable the teacher to monitor students‟ progresses for pilot teaching duration of about 2 months Moreover, they are also useful for determining where the students‟ deficiencies in skills and knowledge exist and where their skills and knowledge frequently develop most with the support form audio-visual materials

self-in teachself-ing process

2.2.3 Observation

The writer as a teacher of English at a lower secondary school prepares the lesson plan in pilot teaching periods for about 2 months In these teaching periods, at class 8B1 with 40 students, the teacher uses the audio-visual materials to illustrate the speaking topics, and the time allocated for each topic in every period is from 10 minutes to 15 minutes After pilot teaching process, the students take the post-test in the same way of taking the pre-test The real teaching process will help draw different results between beginning and the end of process Then, the teacher compares the differences and has useful assessments on the effects of these materials in improving students‟ speaking skills

2.3 The procedure of collecting the data

2.3.1 Pre-test and post-test

The writer uses pre-test and post-test in this study The test is formed to measure students‟

speaking skills To give speaking scores, the writer put out 5 criteria, as follows:

- Pronunciation This is an important element in measuring students‟ speaking skills The highest score is 2 and the lowest one is 0

- The level of vocabulary: This is a criterion to assess students‟ diversity of vocabulary and their ability of using words The highest score is 2 and the lowest one is 0

- Grammatical usage It is an ability viewed by grammatical usage in the students‟ speaking If the students are good, the highest score is 2 and if the students are bad in their grammatical usage, they will be given by the lowest score 0

- Fluency It is a criterion of speaking fast and good in pronunciation The highest score is

2 and the lowest is 0

- Comprehension That is about the logical content in students‟ speaking about the topic and the ability to answer extra questions given by interviewer The highest score is 2 and the lowest is 0

The measurement form consisted of pronunciation, the level of vocabulary, grammatical usage, fluency and comprehension has been prepared before The teacher interviews each student according to the chosen topic Then, the students‟ achievements of speaking test are calculated

2.3.2 Questionnaire

Once I completed the pre-test and post-test, then I start my teaching in 5 pilot teaching periods as a basis for a survey questionnaire of 8 closed-questions in Likert-scale type later The questionnaire is delivered to the 40 surveyed students There are 8 items in the questionnaire, which aimed to elicit the overall impacts of using audio-visual materials, then explore the students‟ perception of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, as well as students‟ study inspiration and their ability of verbal expression The questionnaire is administered in a class of 40 students over 5 periods Before they answer the questions, they are briefed about the survey and they were provided with explanations of some of the key words, such as „audio-visual materials‟, „speaking skills‟ that some of the participants may not be familiar with Moreover, they are encouraged to talk about their thought and feeling Participants re given 10 minutes to fill out the questionnaire and turn it to the

questionnaire administrator The answers to the questionnaire are used as a springboard for assessing the effect of audio-visual materials in improving the students‟ speaking skills

2.4 The procedure of analyzing the data

The information of questionnaire is displayed in the form of frequency counts and tables The data from each table is analyzed and then an overall collection of analyses is compiled

to become the basis for assessing the benefit and the limitation of audio-visual materials in improving lower secondary students‟ speaking skills

The data collected from pre-test and post-test were analyzed with SPSS 10.0 and the findings were explained in forms of tables A t-test method is utilized to test the significance of the difference between the scores of pre-test and post-test