using movies in teaching speaking listening to enhance motivation of secondyear nonenglish majors in can tho university

CAN THO UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION ENGLISH DEPARTMENT USING MOVIES IN TEACHING SPEAKING-LISTENING TO ENHANCE MOTIVATION OF SECOND-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJORS IN CAN THO UNIVERSITY B.

CAN THO UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

USING MOVIES IN TEACHING

SPEAKING-LISTENING TO ENHANCE MOTIVATION OF

SECOND-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJORS IN CAN

THO UNIVERSITY

B.A Thesis

Code: 7032463 Class: ELT 02 Course: 29

Can Tho, June 2007

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research is accomplished with the enthusiastic help of many people First and foremost, I would like to express my whole-hearted appreciation to my supervisor, Mr Nguyen Hai Quan for his dedicated assistance and valuable advice during the time of doing this study He is also the one who gave me permission to conduct the experiment in three of his classes

Secondly, I also would like to send my deep gratitude to Mr Trinh Quoc Lap and Mr Tran Minh Tuan for their useful SPSS class on data processing and analyzing which aided me efficiently in completing my thesis

I especially wish to acknowledge the help of my friend Nguyen Kim Thao, student of Bachelor of English 04, course 29 who devoted precious time and effort to contribute in

my study as peer-observer

In addition, this thesis cannot be completed without 150 participants of three English majored classes, course 31 I am sincerely thankful for what they have done in

non-my experiment and their honest opinions in interviewing

Finally, my special thanks would like to go to my family and friends for their support and encouragement within my research doing time

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ABSTRACT

This research attempts to examine the effectiveness of using movies in English classroom to see whether it can help improve motivation and speaking ability of second-year non-English majored students of Can Tho University through experiment, pre-test and post-test 150 second-year non-English majored students of three classes took part in six-week special designed movie classes, using the cartoon “Shark Tale”, integrated into the curriculum These classes were recorded by observations A pre and a post-questionnaire were delivered before and after the experiment to measure the students’ motivation After the experiment was conducted, interviews with 10 students from target groups were performed to assemble students’ opinions about classes with movies Data analysis showed the considerable effectiveness of using movie in English classroom on students’ motivation In addition, results after the experiment also indicated a noticeable improvement in students’ speaking-listening ability However, problems and suggestions for this special movie course were also recorded

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

à Acknowledgements ii

à Abstract iii

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale 1

2 Research questions 2

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 1 Motivation _A general view 3

1.1 Definition 3

1.2 Motivational Theories 4

1.2.1 Behavioral views of Motivation 4

1.1.2 Cognitive views of Motivation 5

1.1.3 Humanistic views of Motivation 7

1.3 Categorization 8

2 Using movies in English classroom as way to enhance motivation 11

2.1 The trend 11

2.2 Success of using movies in classroom 12

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 1 The objectives of this study 15

2 Participants 15

3 Research instruments 16

3.1 Pre-test 17

3.2 Experiment_Steps of teaching a movie lesson 17

3.3 Post-test 18

3.4 Peer-observation and interview 18

CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH RESULTS 1 Pre-test Analysis 20

1.1 Attitudes toward learning Speaking-Listening English 20

1.2 Intrinsic Motivation versus Extrinsic Motivation 21

1.3 Classroom Observation 23

2 Post-test Analysis 24

2.1 Attitudes toward learning Speaking-Listening English 24

2.2 Intrinsic Motivation versus Extrinsic Motivation 26

2.3 Classroom Observation 28

3 Interviews Analysis 30

CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION, SUGGESTIONS AND LIMITATIONS 1 Discussion and implications 33

1.1 Research question 1 33

1.2 Research question 2 36

2 Limitations 37

3 Suggestions for further research 37

à Appendices 39

à References 50

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Introduction

Rationale

Motivation is considered one of the most essential factors of second language acquisition According to Dulay (1982), foreign language learners do not acquire all what is exposed to them, but select what they find suitable, relevant and interesting Later, in the Affective Filter Hypothesis, Krashen (1982) also affirmed the same thing As a result, learning is usually

most effective and rapid when the leaner is motivated and attentive

Many language learners fail to reach their full potential in English due to lack of

motivation This is especially true for non-English majors in the context of Can Tho

University who have not been well- equipped with any English speaking countries’ culture classes, such as British culture or American culture or semantics, pragmatics…which can be

a great help in successful communicating, or even chances to apply what they have learned into real situations Whereas English majors benefit a lot from such special classes and many other opportunities to learn English effectively and authentically through modern hi-tech and teaching approaches such as authentic material, PowerPoint lessons… their non-majored

counterparts have to encounter many difficulties in learning English In a non-majored class, due to limited time of 4 periods per week, lessons usually focus more on grammar and

reading and therefore communicative skills are sometimes very limited Therefore, these two important skills Speaking and Listening receive inappropriate concern and become barriers for English learners in future Furthermore, in such a class with students from many different level and English is just a subsidiary subject, low motivation in English learning is

understandable

Recently, studies into the field of motivation as well as suggestions, solutions of learners’ motivation enhancing are numerous The use of authentic materials, modern technologies…is exploited successfully to serve this purpose Similarly, movies as a kind of materials, widely Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

used in many countries, have been a powerful tool in English classroom to encourage

students’ exposure to a real target English

However, in the context of Can Tho University, these researches just mainly focus on English-majors or high school students Based on these practical problems, I would like to conduct a research on using movies in teaching Speaking-Listening to enhance motivation of second-year non-English majors in Can Tho University to see whether this kind of authentic material can do any help to improve students’ motivation which is hypothesized very low In

my study, I especially focus on English speaking skill, which is very vital but limited in majored classes Increasing students’ speaking time, ability of using new words in speaking and interest in English learning is what my research wants to achieve through experiment

non-Research questions

My research endeavors to answer two questions:

y Does the use of movies help increase motivation of second-year non-English majors in Can Tho University?

y Does the use of movies help improve their English Speaking-Listening skills?

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Literature review

Motivation: a general view

The term “motivation” is widely used in our daily life A student studies hard and tries for top grades may described to be “highly motivated”, a frequently asked question to a

successful businessman is “What is the motivation of your achievement?” For a criminal, the question is “what is the motive for committing crime?”…Such statements imply that

motivation has a major influence on our behavior and even on what happens in our mind Its importance is so vital that we now have many things involved with motivation: in business there is customer or employee motivation study, in education that is learner motivation, in law we have crime motivation, etc…So, what is motivation? And how does it have such a strong impact in our live and learning? Can the understanding about its mechanism do any help to improve our effectiveness in working or learning?

In this literature review, I would like to provide some basic notions about motivation and the reasons why enhancing motivation is important in teaching and learning Furthermore, examining the use of movies to assist teacher in encouraging students’ motivation in some outstanding researches will offer a practical viewpoint when applying this in the context of Can Tho University

Definition

There are numerous definitions about “motivation” In the most common understanding

as indicated in The American heritage Dictionary of English language (2000), motivation is the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior Moreover, motivation is also interpreted in many various ways: internal state or condition that activates behavior and Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

gives it direction (Kleinginna, 1981), the arousal, direction, and persistence of behavior

(Franken, 1994)…

In the area of second language acquisition, Krashen in his hypotheses in SLA categorized motivation as a kind of affective filter that constitutes a barrier or a facilitator to learners’ acquisition for the second language learners do not acquire all what is exposed to them but select what they find suitable, relevant and interesting enough Dulay et al (1982) totally agreed on Krashen’s viewpoint to see motivation as the incentive, the need or the desire to learn Similarly, another definition from Bomia et al (1997) also confirms that motivation is student’s willingness, need, desire and compulsion to participate in and be successful in the learning process

Motivational Theories

Since the importance of motivation is obvious, studying this field is attracting great

concern from many scientists and becomes a science in application Psychologists from all branches of the discipline study the topic of motivation Over the years, different theories of motivation have been proposed based on research on the wide range of topics, including:

hunger and obesity, the effects of reward and punishment, and the needs for power,

achievement, social acceptance, love, and self-esteem Some theories state that people are motivated by the need to satisfy physiological needs, whereas others state that people seek to maintain an optimum level of bodily arousal Still other theories focus on the ways in which people respond to external incentives such as money, grades in school, and recognition

Although no single theory has been universally accepted so far, the effort itself shed light to humans about the future of this study The followings are three of outstanding theories that contribute a fundamental part to the better understanding about this abstract and complex topic:

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Behavioral views of motivation:

This point of view based on Skinner’s Reward and Punishment theory to emphasize the role of reinforcement in balancing human’s motivation According to Skinner, behavior can

be shaped by reinforcement Students are motivated to complete a task by being promised a reward of some kind or to avoid a punishment or failure The reward may take the form of praise, grade or even the privilege of engaging in certain activities

Operant conditioning interpretations of learning may also help reveal why some students react favorably to particular subjects and dislike others Skinner believes that such

differences can be traced to past experiences That is reasonable in explaining why a student enters the required math class with delight while another may feel bored to death He argued that the student who loves math has been shaped to respond that way by a series of positive experiences with math, good grades for example The math hater, in contrast, may have

suffered a series of negative experiences

Another attention in behavioral views supposed by Albert Bandura, a social learning

theorist, is the importance of observation, imitation, and vicarious reinforcement (expecting

to receive the same re-inforcer that we see someone else get for exhibiting a particular

behavior) For example, a student who admires a teacher of some subjects may work hard partly to please the teacher and partly to try becoming like him/her A young child who

observes his older brother or sister earning rewards or compliments from studying hard or being obedient may strive to do the same things with high expectation to get the same results

A student who notices that a classmate receives praise from the teacher after acting in a

certain way may decide to imitate such behavior to win similar rewards Therefore, both

vicarious reinforcement and direct reinforcement can raise an individual's sense of

self-efficacy and effort for a particular task, which, in turn, leads to higher levels of motivation

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Cognitive views of motivation:

There are 3 theories in cognitive views of motivation that trace their roots to the

information processing approach to learning The first one is cognitive dissonance theory,

developed by Leon Festinger (1957), which states that when there is a discrepancy between two beliefs, two actions, or between a belief and an action, we will respond to solve this

conflict by changing or adjusting our behaviors It can be inferred that the need for problem solving does become a kind of motivation Hence, the implication is that if we create an

appropriate amount of disequilibria, this will in turn lead to the individual changing his or her behavior which in turn will lead to a change in thought pattern which will in turn leads to

more change in behavior and so on…The second cognitive approach is attribution theory,

founded by Heider (1958) and developed by Weiner (1974) This theory proposed a

probability that each individual’s success or failure can be explained by certain

“attributions” These attribution are either internal or external and are either under control or uncontrollable, stable or unstable The chart below shows examples of four attributions:

In teaching/learning environment, it is important and quite possible to assist the learner to develop a self-attribution in terms of effort (internal, control) If the person has an attribution

of ability (internal, no control) as soon as the individual experiences some difficulties in the learning process, he or she will decrease appropriate learning behavior (e.g., I'm not good at this) If the person has an external attribution, luck for example, then nothing the person can

do will help that individual in a learning situation In this case, there is nothing to be done by Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

the individual when learning problems occur However, in some cases, teacher can contribute

a considerable part to certain attributions, for example task difficulty, which can turn to be motivator or de-motivator to learners Thus, adjusting the task difficulty to suit with student’s level is some kind a way to encourage students’ motivation in learning This can be explained

by the third cognitive approach, expectancy theory by Vroom (1964), which proposes the

following equation:

Motivation = Perceived Probability of Success (Expectancy) * Connection of Success and Reward (Instrumentality) * Value of Obtaining Goal (Valance, Value)

Vroom’s formula states that the three components of Expectancy, Instrumentality, and Valance or Value must be present in order for motivation to occur for one low value will

result in a low motivation That is, in order to have a high motivation in certain assignment,

an individual must strongly believe that she/he can do the task successfully AND she/he sees clearly what she/he may get for a good result AND she/he highly values the result of success

In other word, all three variables must be high in order for motivation and the resulting

behavior to be high

Humanistic views of motivation:

One of the most important theories in the area of motivation was proposed by Abraham Maslow (1954) which said that that human’s motivation or human behavior is determined by the satisfying certain needs in their life Maslow ranked human needs in 6 levels as illustrated

1) Physiological needs: needs for maintaining one’s live, such as: food, water, oxygen… 2) Safety needs: needs for security, defense or protection from danger

3) Belongingness and love needs: needs for affection to and from people around, need for acceptance…

4) Esteem needs: needs for achievement, competence, approval…

5) Cognitive and aesthetic needs: needs to know, understand, explore; needs about

symmetry, order, beauty…

6) Self-actualization/ self-transcendence: needs to find self-fulfillment and realize one’s

potential; to connect to something beyond the ego or to help others find self-fulfillment and realize their potential

The most outstanding feature in Maslow’s hierarchy of human need is the notion of potency”, which means the higher level of motivation won’t be achieved unless the lower on

“pre-is sat“pre-isfied For example, if one “pre-is occupied with physiological need, hunger or thirst for

instance, he cannot or has any interest on going to the next level, safety need or love need

Maslow's basic position is that if one is in the top of the hierarchy, self-actualization/

self-transcendence, one becomes wiser (develops wisdom) and automatically knows what to

do in a wide variety of situations Daniels (2001) suggests that Maslow's ultimate conclusion that the highest levels of self-actualization are transcendent in their nature may be one of his most important contributions to the study of human behavior and motivation

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Categorization

Most of researchers dealing with motivation focus on the distinction between two

important kinds of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic motivation Morgan (1983) presented

a useful distinguishing between these two kinds:

own sake:

satisfaction derived directly from

understanding/

skill

Desire to succeed: “I'm not going to let this beat me”:

mastery represents something important

In order to gain social acceptance, either within the class/course etc

(“Pleasing teacher” or being one of the in-crowd, or outside

In order to gain a tangible reward or avoid negative consequences

Potentially fickle

What the learning

May concentrate

on the appearance

of achievement to the detriment of

“deep” learning

Achievement rests on strict criteria of

“relevance”

Aspirations may be Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

represents to the student may not

be the same as what it

represents to you

Social aspirations may change

met in other ways

Anxiety may impede learning

According to Morgan, intrinsic motivation is the doing for one’s own sake while extrinsic motivation facilitate one to do for other purposes or other people, for example: to please

teachers, parents or get rewards…Students with extrinsic motivation usually do not realize the real benefits of their studying and thus, they try to achieve the short-term goals, such as: performance, competition, score… As a result, success in learning an L2 may result in more

or less motivation i.e the learners may feel de-motivated when getting bad credits or failing

or when those aspirations change, the learners might find no motivation in learning a second language Extrinsically motivated learners, unlike intrinsic counterparts, usually lean toward competitive rather than cooperative or group work in learning

Whereas, intrinsic motivation is usually more stable for they learn for their interest

However, each kind has its own weakness as analyzed by Morgan Intrinsic motivated

students sometimes spend time focusing on what they are interested in but not the whole

learning process For example, a student may find it interesting to improve listening or

speaking but not writing and he just ignores writing That is what Morgan called “loses sight

of wood for trees.”

Carol Bainbridge gave a similar viewpoint about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation She defined intrinsic motivation as motivation that comes from inside an individual and that

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motivation comes from the pleasure one gets from the task itself or from the sense of

satisfaction in completing or even working on a task Extrinsic, on the contrast, is the

motivation that comes outside an individual in terms of rewards, competition… Generally, Carol agrees with Morgan in highly appreciating the importance of encouraging intrinsic

motivation in teaching and learning However, she has no idea in disclaiming the role of

reward in intrinsic motivation She means that such external rewards are not enough to keep a person motivated, doesn’t have a strong influence on that person’s intention or motivation For example, an intrinsically motivated student may want to get good grade on a task, but if the assignment is not interesting to that student, the probability of a good grade is not enough for the student to put a great effort into what he is doing

Shared the same idea with Morgan and carol, Malone and Lepper (1987) have defined intrinsic motivation more simply in terms of what people will do without external

inducements They proposed a general view about characteristics about the two kinds of

2 If the task is mundane or algorithmic, the extrinsically motivated student may be superior

to the intrinsically motivated student

3 If the task is conceptual or requires higher level thinking skills, the intrinsically motivated student is likely to be superior to the extrinsically motivated student

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4 The intrinsically motivated student is more likely to apply effective meta-cognitive

strategies and "deeper" study strategies

5 The intrinsically motivated student is more likely to select problems and sub-goals of moderate difficulty, whereas the extrinsically motivated student is more likely to select the easiest problems and sub-goals

6 The intrinsically motivated student is more likely to take risks and to explore freely

7 If the task is complex, the intrinsically motivated student is more likely to employ logical and efficient performance strategies

8 Students who have previously been extrinsically motivated to engage in a particular

activity are less likely to engage in that activity when external incentives are no longer available

9 Intrinsically motivated students are more likely than extrinsically motivated students to

be able to handle artificial rewards without experiencing negative consequences

To conclude, the three motivational theories above do offer valuable founded knowledge about what motivation is and how it is viewed from different aspects They also explained what might cause failure in language acquisition of many learners as well as what can help facilitate the progress through the investigation the external and internal factors Grounded

on that theoretical framework, this research would like to develop the viewpoint of Gardner (1985) to see motivation as a sequence of goal, desire, attitudes and effort According to him, learners’ motivation is firmly built on positive attitudes toward learning and it has a direct correlation to the learners’ orientation or set of goals that can be put into 2 categories:

instrumental orientation (extrinsic motivation) and integrative orientation (intrinsic

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component motivation test so called the Attitude/Motivation Test Battery, which is made up

of around 130 items focused on various variables This Battery, which then was developed in numerous studies on L2 motivation, revealed that learners with higher positive attitude tend

to learn faster and more effective in acquisition compared with the lower one Gardener et al.’s study (1983) supported the claim that proficiency in second language learning was

affected by attitudinal factors A later study conducted by him (1985) also confirmed the

similar claim and showed the correlation between motivation and situational anxiety and

second language achievement Therefore, attitude can be considered an essential factor in determining the motivation of second language learner, which then decides the learner’s

effort and success in learning process

Using movies in English classroom as way to enhance motivation

The trend

Film, as a kind of authentic material which defined by Rogers (1988: 467) as 'appropriate' and 'quality' in terms of goals, objectives, learner’s needs and interest and 'natural' in terms of real life and meaningful communication or by Harmer (1991) as which are designed for

native speakers; they are real materials; designed not for language students as well as

language teaching purposes, but for the speakers of the language, is used widely in language classroom recently as way to enhance learner’s motivation

Since Thomas Edison invented motion pictures in the 1889s, the world has experienced a great boom in the development of mass media TV, films, cinema soon became an integral part of entertainment industry as well as in every household Edison himself stated that:” the scope of the motion picture is equally great, in the education line especially, geography,

history, literature…can be taught much more entertainingly, authentically and convincingly Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

by film’s aid than is now with possible with present methods…” Since then, film was not merely a means of entertainment but made powerful invasion into the field of education

1930s, Payne Fund found that film has the potential to be educational tool because of a

“combination of important qualities inherent in the medium: wide variation in content,

gripping narrative techniques and an appeal to basic human motives and wishes” His

statement was proved convincingly after the fever of the famous children TV show “Sesame street”(1969-1973) and “Zoom” (1973) made a big influence on children education Corbit concluded that the wise educator does not ignore the popularity of film and instead, learns how to use it

Success of using movies in classroom

Success and advantages of authentic materials in language teaching and learning have been proved in a number of studies, projects, prestigious articles, teachers’ experiences (Ferit Kilickaya, 2004; Christina Smart, 2005; Elizabeth Peterson and Bronwyn Coltrane, 2003) … The main advantages of using authentic materials are (Philips and Shettlesworth, 1978;

Clarke, 1989; Peacock, 1997, cited in Richards, 2001):

• They have a positive effect on learner motivation

• They provide authentic cultural information

• They provide exposure to real language

• They relate more closely to learners ' needs

• They support a more creative approach to teaching

Movies have proved the same benefits when used in English classroom An article by Professor Larry M.Lynch (Cali, Columbia) has assessed movies as which “are highly

practical for English teaching.” Scientifically, in a comprehensive report, James Marshall - Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

an educational technology specialist- illustrated a connection between technology and human memory According to him, technology with images, sound and text can create a “rich

environment conducive to the acquisition of knowledge” (Marshall 6) By that way, medium can function as a link between old and new information that helps students remember deeper and also more interested Many teachers have been very successful with this new interesting approach, especially in teaching speaking and listening which are very difficult to develop in

an artificial environment of classroom Jiang Hemei (1997) informed that he has used movies

in teaching English for years and the result is optimistic He advised that the success of this approach depends on methods and techniques as well as the kind of activities the teacher

offers the class in which he himself plays a key role Melanie Gilbert (1993) sees it as way to teach listening and speaking to low-level students of English in her classes in Chinese,

especially in speaking which she found “very formal and not very appropriate in daily

conversations” This is also what my research wants to achieve Recently, in a lecture on the use of visuals in research, Canning-Wilson (2000) claims that the use of illustrations, visuals, pictures, perceptions, mental images, figures, impressions, likenesses, cartoons, charts,

graphs, colors, replicas, reproductions, or anything else used to help one see an immediate meaning in the language may benefit the learner by helping to clarify the message, provided the visual works in a positive way to enhance or supplement the language point She reports that images contextualized in video or on its own can help to reinforce the language,

provided the learner can see immediate meaning in terms of vocabulary recognition in the first language

In fact, videos are powerful tool in helping English learners improve their language skills Video provides visual stimuli such as the environment, context for learners that can lead to prediction generating or speculation and a chance to activate background knowledge about what they have known about the language and the world It can be argued that language

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found in videos could not help non-native speakers understand the movies and it will bring

no effect that way However, this can be explained in the way how teacher use certain kinds

of movies for certain level of students At elementary level, students can be encouraged to watch a simple movie with less slang or with subtitle At higher level, more complicated

language will be added in the movies or without subtitles On the other hand, videos allow learners to see body rhythm and speech rhythm in second language discourse through the use

of authentic language and speed of speech in various situations Videos allow contextual

clues to be offered In addition, video can stimulate and motivate student interest Overall, the use of visuals can help learners to predict information, infer ideas and analyze the world that is brought into the classroom via the use of video instruction It can offer a solid link between the materials being learned and its practical application in a practical situation; the video can act as a stimulus or catalyst to help integrate materials or aspects of the language; videos can help manipulate language and at the same time be open to a variety of

interpretations that may help improve learner’s creativity and imagination

Research by Herron, Hanley and Cole (1995) on English speaking students learning

French indicates that the support of visual aid in the form of educational videos and movies did create a significantly improvement in students’ extensive listening comprehension and aid in the retention of information A recent large-scale survey by Canning-Wilson (2000) suggests that students like learning language through the use of videos One of the results of her survey shows that learners prefer action/entertainment films to language films or

documentaries in the classroom

In a large survey study on teachers use of TV and videos conducted by the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, 92% teachers informed that using TV and video helps teach more effectively, develops student’s ability and willingness to participate in discussion Another Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

evidence of successful using movies in teaching comes from a case study on “Using English language movies in teaching English as foreign language experiences” by Yan Liu, which

placed on a specially designed movie course for students of Master of Education in Teaching English as a foreign language in Beijing Normal University in China Based on the data, Yan Liu drew out some outstanding advantages of this approach that are: helps improve students’ English competence through watching, listening, speaking and writing, helps gain self-

confidence in speaking, improves presentation skills and develops an awareness and

understanding of cultures in English- speaking countries

On the whole, the efficacy of movies in teaching languages, which has been firmly

asserted through a number of projects, teaching experiences that provide by educators,

scientists, and teachers all over the world, has placed a solid foundation for this research to carry such similar experiment in the context of Can Tho University

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

Methodology

The objectives of the study

In recent years, research into the field of motivation is numerous, so are studies about using movies in English classroom Many of famous cinematic works including cartoons, love story films, comedies… have been used for this purpose e.g “Finding Nemo” (A

Delaney Walker, 2003), “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” (Melanie Gilbert, 1993), “Moby Dick” (Valerie Muller, 2000) “Shrek” (Andrew Johnson and Mark Sheehan, 2006)…

However, movies used in those projects were all executed in extra classes, well equipped with modern technology For example, in the movie course “Shrek”, students have their own video watching section and control whenever they want to replay, stop or pause the chunks of movie to better understand the aural text Besides, many comprehension activities, such as activation questions, cloze, reflection questions, forums… (“Shrek”) are accompanied with the movie, which students can do and share with each other directly on computers through a special designed program As the result, effectiveness will be considered as the best for both teaching and learning Movie is exploited at the highest rate so it can offer a convenient

environment with the help of technology In my study, I try to investigate whether using

movies in English classroom can bring any effect on student’s motivation as well as listening and speaking skills in the condition that movie classes are integrated into the curriculum and without the supportive help of modern technology in the context of Can Tho University

Participants

My research is accomplished with the involvement of 1 teacher and 150 second-year English majored students of three classes of the course 31 at Can Tho University They are from many different majors: mechanics, economics, education, engineering, computer

non-Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

science etc … Their age ranked from 19 to 22 years old They are all of General English 4, studying Reward textbook (Unit 31 – 39) and generally achieve the elementary level of

English proficiency This subject best suits for my study for they have at least one year

habituating to the university environment, learning style as well as the teaching method In addition, their English proficiency is good enough to take part in my experiment

Furthermore, they seem to have more available in time and enthusiasm than their counterpart

in third or fourth year who are studying English for specific purposes

Research instruments

In my research, I choose to carry out an experimental study, piloting a movie course in three target groups in 6 weeks, using the cartoon “Shark Tale” The reason I use that cartoon

in this special course is its funniness, simple language and easy-to-understand content

According to what I knew, most of the class have not watched this cartoon before so it

becomes a convenient factor to introduce this to them Moreover, this film is less popular than “Shrek” or “Finding Nemo” which fully available on the market, it can partly help

preventing students from foreseeing the movie in Vietnamese subtitle

A pre-test and a post-test are included to measure and compare the level of students’

motivation before and after the experiment Student interviews and observation are also

carried out to ensure the reliability of the study

The reason I choose to carry such kind of research is its effectiveness, practicality and appropriateness to my topic

Pre-test

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

The pre-test takes the form of a questionnaire, which comprises of 20 modified items, adopted from motivation survey of Gardner (1985) The questionnaire includes two parts: The first part is for personal information and the second one is a table of 20 statements about students’ speaking motivation, focusing on 3 main parts: statement 1-8 surveys attitude

toward Speaking-Listening English learning in which 3 statements (1-3) are about positive attitude and 5 (4-8) are about negative attitude, statement 9-14 is about intrinsic motivation and statement 15-20 explores extrinsic motivation Students are asked to read carefully each

statement and put a cross (X) to indicate how true it is for him/ her (See Appendix 1, p.47)

The scale is of five levels, including Strongly Disagree, Disagree, No idea, Agree and

Strongly Agree

The questionnaire is translated into simple Vietnamese and explained in details by

teacher so there is no problem for students to fulfill it

This pretest is delivered before the experiment to measure students’ actual state of

motivation

Experiment- Steps of teaching a movie lesson

The cartoon “Shark Tale” is cut into three chunks; each clip is 20-25 minutes long Every two weeks, students spend two periods studying with movies The experiment started in the

3rd of April, prolonged in 6 weeks and finished in 15th of May Firstly, teacher introduces to class what they are going to watch For example:

_Teacher: What do you know about shark? Can you give me some adjectives to describe it?

_ Students: (give out answers)

_ Teacher: But today, we will watch a cartoon about a very special shark

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

Before watching, teacher provides students with some key vocabulary that are essential to

understand the film in English or Vietnamese sometimes Students are asked to take note these new words and pay attention to the context where they appear in the video clip later Teacher also presents the comprehension check, explains and asks students to take a few minutes to read through the questions about the film While watching, students watch the clip while teacher monitors the class and control the buttons Teacher can play backward, forward, pause or stop a scene, explaining the plot to make sure that all students follow the speed At this stage, many other activities are also involved, such as: frame freezing, is which teacher pauses at a particular scene and asks students to describe the scene or predict what is going next Here is an example:

_ Teacher: What is the shark going to do with the fish?

_ Students: (give out prediction)

After watching, students spend some minutes to complete the comprehension questions

based (See Appendix 5 p 55) on what they get from the cartoon Teacher then organizes

some activities related to the film just seen to encourage students’ speaking time Mainly, this activity is group discussion in which students work together, discussing about what the story may go in the next part or their feelings about the characters… Sometimes, teacher gives out topic for students to talk about For example, in the first clip of the cartoon, possible topics for discussion are: shark, “fish eat fish” world, the food chain, jobs and social position…

Post-test

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

The post-test is also a questionnaire, which aims to compare the students’ motivation and attitude after the experiment to see whether film can make any difference to their motivation which is predicted rather low The post-questionnaire also has a similar format as the pre-one with 20 statements, using the same scale with the pre-test, which consists of Strongly

Disagree, Disagree, No idea, Agree and Strongly Agree ( See Appendix 2, p.50) Its

questions somehow changed a little bit to survey students’ attitude and motivation toward the movie course, which they have just gone through Statements 1-8 investigates students’

attitude towards learning Speaking-Listening English; statements 9-14 inquires students’

intrinsic motivation towards film using in English classroom, which revealed through

students’ interest; statement 15-20 indicates students’ extrinsic motivation towards film

using, showed through students’ pleasure to learn due to certain external factors, such as: credits, obligation, task difficulty….The result was then compared with that of the pretest

Observation and interview

To assure the reliability of the study, a friend of mine from Bachelor of English is invited

to observe the movie classes with me during the experiment Observation sheet are offered

after each class, which includes 5 statements about class’s activities during the lesson (See

Appendix 3, p.52) The 6-level scale ranks from 0% to 100% of participation At the end of each class, my colleague gives the sheet back to me with some comments about the class on which I will base to adjust the method or lesson plan for the next class

Together with observation, the movie class’s successfulness is also evaluated through students’ feedback by interviewing 15 students from 3 classes will be randomly chosen for personal interviews There are 6 interview questions to find out what they think about

studying with movie (See Appendix 4, p.33) Interviews were conducted in Vietnamese so

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

the interviewees can express their ideas more freely and avoid misinterpretation This part is carried out at the end of the experiment when students finished studying with film

In addition, at the same time, 3 normal classes without movies are also noted so as to

compare with the 3 experimental classes through observation sheets similar the ones

mentioned above I want to see how different in class activities organizing and students’

attitude toward lessons between the movies and the normal classes

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

Results

Pre-test analysis

With 110/150 participants, 105/150 valid collected copies, the questionnaire, highly reliable with α= 874, has revealed information about students’ motivation and

attitudes toward learning Speaking-Listening English

Attitude towards Learning Speaking-Listening English

Table 1: Mean score of Attitude in pretest (N=105)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation

students of non-English majors However, the table 2below indicated the number of

students who do not express a clear attitude toward learning English still hold a rather

large percentage of more than 14% (except statement 4 and 6) This can be inferred that

these students do not have a serious attitude toward learning English in general

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

Table 2: Frequencies of Attitudes

1 Studying Speaking-Listening is quite enjoyable

15 (14.3%)

25 (23.8%)

39 (37.1 %)

15 (14.3%)

33 (31.4%)

24 (22.9%)

19 (18.1%)

25 (23.8%)

9 (8.6%)

4 I hate Speaking- Listening English 12

(11.4%)

43 (41 %)

7 (6.7%)

26 (24.8%)

17 (16.2%)

5 I would rather spend my time on other things than Speaking-Listening English

11 (10.5%)

29 (27.6%)

40 (38.1%)

22 (21%) 3 (2.9%)

6 I think Speaking-Listening English is dull

11 (10.5%)

43 (41%)

5 (4.8%)

28 (26.7%)

18 (17.1%)

7 When I leave school, I shall give up the study of Speaking-Listening English because I am not interested in it

9 (8.6%)

24 (22.9%)

35 (33.3%)

24 (22.9%)

13 (12.4%)

25 (23.8%)

34 (32.4%)

24 (22.9%)

11 (10.5%)

Note: N = 105

1 =Strongly Disagree ; 2 =Disagree ; 3 =Neither disagree nor agree ; 4 =Agree ; 5

=Strongly Agree

A majority of 37.1% students do not enjoy learning this subject at all Some even

think that learning Speaking-Listening English is dull (26.7%) and 12.4 % of them

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

strongly confirm that would give up the study of these two communicative English skills

as soon as they leave the university Irrespective of the little bit higher percentage of

positive attitude in some statements, the negative one is still overwhelming on the whole

as illustrated in the following chart:

2.844 2.9676

0 1 2 3 4 5

Chart 1 Students' attitudes towards learning

Speaking-Listening in pretest

Positive Attitude Negative Attitude

Essentially, the attitude of learning Speaking-Listening in non-English majors is not

very positive Only 7.6% really enjoy learning these skills and 9 students decidedly

continue these English skills after graduating

Intrinsic motivation versus extrinsic motivation

Attitude toward learning has a close connection to students’ learning goals which

categorizing them into intrinsic or extrinsic motivation Very often, students with positive attitude are intrinsically motivated by inherent pleasure in language learning They are

expected to maintain effort and engagement in the L2 learning process, even when there

are no external rewards or stimuli provided (cited in Meihua Liu, 2005) Conversely, the negative ones are usually of extrinsic motivation, which refer to pressure to learn second Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

language due to the affect of external factors: career advancement, course credit, rewards,

etc.… (Noels et al., 2001)

Table 3 Mean score of Motivations in pretest

Note: N = 105

The value of M=3.3206, Std= 40145 means that extrinsically motivated students

predominate by far over intrinsically motivated counterparts (M=3.0841, Std= 98605) in

learning Speaking-Listening Table 4 listed some major factors that sway strongly on

students’ motivation

Table 4: Frequencies of Extrinsic Motivation

15 Speaking-Listening English well can

be important to me because other people will admire and respect me

4 (3.8%) 12 (11.4%)

36 (34.3%) 51 (48.6%)

2 (1.9%)

Extrinsic

Motivation

16 I try to finish my Speaking-Listening tasks as prefect as I could to get high credits or compliments from teacher and friends

2 (1.9%)

13 (12.4%) 30

(28.6%)

43 (41%)

17 (16.2%)

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17 If the Speaking-Listening task is too difficult or unfamiliar to me, I will quit

12 (11.4%) 28 (26.7%)

15 (14.3%) 19 (18.1%)

31 (29.5%)

18 Learning Speaking-Listening can be important for my future job

1 (1%)

3 (2.9%)

16 (15.2%) 57 (54.3%)

28 (26.7%)

19 I learn Speaking-Listening because I plan to go abroad someday

12 (11.4%)

22 (21%)

40 (38.1%)

22 (21%)

9 (8.6%)

20 I learn Speaking-Listening English because I am asked to do so

14 (13.3%) 32 (30.5%) 19 (18.1) 26 (24.8%)

14 (13.3%)

It is clearly to see that future career is that most influential factor to learners’

motivation with 54.3% This might be due to the fact that English nowadays becomes

internalizing into every fields of life Every career with satisfactory salary or high

promotion all needs a certain level of English proficiency As a result, it is an essential

need for students to equip themselves with English for a good job in the future In

addition, respect and admiration also an important goal for students to learn

Speaking-Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

Listening English well In today society, it is implied to understand that an educated

person needs to master hi-tech and foreign language A large number of 48.6% of

students’ agreement in this statement has proved that The third major reason for students

to learn Speaking-Listening English is credits and reward, which holds a considerable

percentage in students’ perception of more than 40% Additionally, task difficulty is also

an important factor that contributes 29.5% of extrinsically motivated students All of

listed reasons above bring a negative thinking toward learning Speaking-Listening

English as an obligation as 13.3 % of students strongly agreed

On the whole, the overall picture about motivation in non-English majored classes is rather dull with the prevalence of extrinsic motivation as fore predicted as compared in

the chart This is quite corresponding to what recorded through class observations

presented in the following part

Class observation

With 3 days observation in normal classes without movies, students’ motivation in

learning Speaking-Listening, covered in 5 components: attention, interest, participation in Speaking-Listening tasks, new words using in Speaking tasks and task fulfillment, was

illustrated as chart below:

0123456

Level of

Motivation's

components

occurence

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3

Chart 3: Students' motivation in normal English classes

Attention Interest

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

The chart revealed that students’ motivation in classes is somewhat low in terms of

Participation, Interest and ability to apply just learned new words in speaking tasks

Factually, students are rather passive in classroom’s activities They sit quietly listening

to teacher’ lecture; rarely participate in contributing the lesson At speaking tasks, such as discussion, they mainly use mother tongue to chat or keep silent Task fulfillment is

slightly high for they work under teacher’s aid and guide, mostly for textbook exercises

Another noteworthy thing showed in these observations is the disparity in students’ level

of English perceiving During the class, just some good students work hard for lesson

while the rest have no idea

In conclusion, the pre-test analysis reported that students’ attitude and motivation

towards learning Speaking-Listening English is somehow pessimistic Extrinsic

motivation and negative attitude dominate the English classroom of non-English majors Reasons for this can be traced to some external factors like rewards, credits, task

difficulty, etc…and not for the interest or the sake of themselves, which is a better

support for language learning

Post-test analysis

After the movie course experiment, another questionnaire was delivered to

re-measure students’ attitude and motivation Collected data of 102 valid questionnaires,

highly trusted with α= 859, has offered an interesting result of how movie course

influences students’ attitude and motivation as described below:

Attitudes toward learning Speaking-Listening

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

To compare the students’ attitudes in learning Speaking-Listening English, a Paired

Sample T-Test is carried out and the result is displayed as below

Table 5: Paired Samples Test of Attitudes

Paired Differences t df Sig (2-tailed)

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Lower Upper

Pair 1 Attpre -

Attpost -.67402 1.29009 .12774

- 92742 -.42062 -5.277 101 .000

Chart 4: Mean scores of Students' attitudes towards

learning Speaking-Listening

3.59 2.92

012345

With Sig.= 000, df=101 the comparison of pre-test and post-test provided a trusted

source to claim that there is a statistically significant difference (p<0.1) between attitudes

toward learning Speaking-Listening before and after the experiment and that is rather

positive as can be compared clearly in the chart 2.1.2, interpreted from table 2.1.3 which

indicates the mean scores of students’ attitudes in pre and post-test:

Table 6: Mean scores of Attitudes in Pre and Post test

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu