Ứng dụng hình thức kể chuyện để cải thiện kĩ năng nói cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất tại trường cao đẳng kinh tế tài chính thái nguyên

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGESBUI NGOC MAI APPLYING STORYTELLING TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILL FOR THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN COLLEGE OF ECONOMICS AND FINANCE

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

BUI NGOC MAI

APPLYING STORYTELLING TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILL FOR THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN COLLEGE OF

ECONOMICS AND FINANCE

(Ứng dụng hình thức kể chuyện để cải thiện kĩ năng nói cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất tại trường Cao đẳng Kinh tế Tài chính Thái Nguyên)

M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201

THAI NGUYEN – 2018

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

BUI NGOC MAI

APPLYING STORYTELLING TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILL FOR THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN COLLEGE OF

ECONOMICS AND FINANCE

(Ứng dụng hình thức kể chuyện để cải thiện kĩ năng nói cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất tại trường Cao đẳng Kinh tế Tài chính Thái Nguyên)

M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION) Field: English

Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Dr Nguyen Thi Viet Nga

THAI NGUYEN – 2018

-***** -I certify that the minor thesis entitled “Apply storytelling to improve speaking skill for the first year students at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Finance” is my own study in the fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree

of Master of Arts at Foreign Language Faculty, Thai Nguyen University

Signature:

Bùi Ngọc Mai

Thai Nguyen, 2018

This research has enabled me to investigate a new aspect of storytelling whenintroduced as a curricular innovation and gain more insights into my teachingpractice I am grateful to many people who have supported and encouraged me tocomplete this minor thesis

I would like to express my gratitude to Dr Nguyen Viet Nga, Academy of Journalism and Communication Without her insightful advice, encouragement anddedication, this thesis would not have been successfully completed

My sincere thanks also go to my colleagues and students at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Finance for their assistance during the process of data

collection I am also grateful to 50 students who took part in my research Theirefforts and cooperation during the innovation are highly appreciated

My final indebtedness goes to my family, colleagues and friends who have given me in-time support and encouragement Their care and sharing have enabled

me to complete this thesis

Bùi Ngọc Mai

This minor thesis reflects on a qualitative research project to explore theeffectiveness of storytelling on 50 first year students’ speaking skill during fiveweeks of learning and interaction.

Three research instruments including observation, evaluation sheet, andsemi-structured interview were designed to investigate the improvement of thestudents’ speaking skill via telling stories and their engagement in the classroomactivities over the given period of introducing storytelling as a curricularinnovation

The results showed that the students’ speaking skill, especiallypronunciation, intonation, body language and eye contact, were improved It alsoshowed that students were engaged by listening attentively to their classmates’stories in the classroom

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

LIST OF CHARTS iv

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale for the study 1

1.2 Aims of the study 3

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Significance of the study .3

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Design of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Storytelling .5

2.2 Speaking skill and speaking competence 7

2.3 Storytelling and digital storytelling as a useful pedagogical tool to improve speaking skill 7

2.4 Storytelling as a method of engaging students 10

2.5 The objectives and the steps of applying storytelling in speaking class .11

2.6 Review of Related Studies 13

2.7 Theoretical Framework 14

2.8 Summary 15

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 16

3.1 Research approach 16

3.2 Participants, Course Syllabus and Materials .16

3.2.1 Participants……… 16

3.2.2 Course Syllabus……… 16

3.2.3 Materials……… 16

3.3 Research Methods 17

3.3.1 Observation 17

3.3.3.Interview 20 3.4 Data collection and data analysis 22

3.5 Triangulation 23

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS 24

4.1 Elements of English grammar and speaking skills improved by storytelling…24 4.2 The ways storytelling helps students engage into the classroom activities .31

4.2.1 The shift from being passive to active 31

4.2.2 Factors that help engage students 32

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS 35

5.1 Recapitulation 35

5.2 Limitations of the study 36

5.3 Suggestions for further study 36

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale for the study

Nowadays, English has become an officially international language in theworld Due to its popularity, in Vietnam, the teaching of English is taken intoconsideration and paid more attention in terms of the attitudes in society, thepolicies of government and the efforts from teachers It is an undeniable fact thatEnglish is also a very important subject at college today However, the results of theEnglish learning are not very good due to a number of reasons One of which is thatthe teaching of English has been strongly influenced by the teaching traditionalmethods in which teacher played the role of the knowledge provider and thestudents were the passive knowledge recipients Teachers as well as students focus

on grammatical structures whereas four English skills especially speaking skill isnot considered As a result, they have encountered a number of problems whendealing with spoken English in real life Vietnamese students have lots ofdifficulties practising speaking skill because they are often shy or even express feartoward public speaking However, many students show their desire to learnspeaking skill; some of them even urge teachers to include speaking activities in thelessons It is the fact that speaking English well depends on the numer of factors.They are personal characteristics of the learners, chances to communicate withnative speakers, or motivation of learners, methods of teachers….For collegestudents, these factors can only work well with the help of the teachers usingdifferent methods in language teaching

We cannot deny that traditional teaching methods are slowly moving towardsmore innovative practices in Vietnam particularly in the Teaching English as aSecond Language (TESOL) which is an educational priority in Vietnam (London

2014, p.4) The Ministry of Education and Training, (MOET) has legislated reaching changes that insist on all students in Vietnam learning English as a secondlanguage (MOET 2020 Policy) This project is the result of a modest classroominnovation where students were asked to construct brief stories and convey themorally to each other This process is called storytelling The stories were based onfamiliar Vietnamese proverbs and folk tales which the students then translated into

far-English and presented to the group Processes such as storytelling allow for a morestudent-centred approach to learning, and have received very positive anecdotalresponses to date Student-centred approaches have a long history in Western-basedlearning, but are still rather new and under-researched in the Vietnamese context.

An Indian well known proverb says ‘tell me a fact and I’ll learn Tell me the truthand I’ll believe But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever’ In theVietnamese educational context, historical figures did use storytelling in theirteaching, and storytelling has, in the past, been a widely ‘accepted practice’ used bythem (London, 2011, p.6-7)

Recent researchers beyond Vietnam share the view that storytelling isinstrumental in the learning and teaching language According to Ohler (2007), ascited in Somdee and Suppasetseree (2011), and Yuksel, Robin, and McNeil (2011),storytelling has increasingly been applied as a useful teaching technique They pointout that storytelling is more actively engaged in many countries both inside andoutside the classroom for educational purposes Indeed, storytelling has long beenused in the practice of teaching and has been suggested by many researchers to beboth a powerful tool to develop oral skill and a useful method of getting studentsengaged in the lessons Previous research has been launched outside Vietnam atdifferent levels of education However, the particular elements of speaking skillsand the degree to which students are engaged in speaking while telling and listening

to stories are areas which are under-researched In addition, research to date has notbeen adequately done to investigate the relationship between storytelling andspeaking skill within the Vietnamese context

Being a teacher of English at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and

Finance, the researcher is well aware of the importance of applying storytelling in

English classes to improve speaking skill for students This led me to the choice of

the study: “Applying Storytelling to Improve Speaking Skill for the first year students at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Finance” as a trial to

investigate the effectiveness of storytelling in teaching students speaking skill anddetect an effective way to improve speaking skill for the first year students at ThaiNguyen College of Economics and Finance It is also hoped that this study may

offer the teachers of English at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Finance ways on how to use storytelling in teaching English speaking skill more effectively.

1.2 Aims of the study

The aims of the study are:

- To find out the elements of English grammar and speaking skills improved

1 How does storytelling help students improve speaking skill?

2 To what extent does storytelling engage students into the classroomactivities?

1 4 Significance of the study

This research study is to acquire the results that can be beneficial to both students and teachers at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Finance

Students: The result of this study are helpful to the students They clearly

acknowledge the importance of storytelling with the hope of improving theirEnglish speaking skill This research also pointed out some of students’ commonmistakes in pronunciation and detected English grammar aspects that could beimproved by storytelling Consequently, students’ speaking performance will bemuch improved

English teachers: The result of this study provides teachers with the

recognition of some common difficulties in pronunciation as well as grammarticalaspects which their students had to face with when storytelling This research alsofound out the way that storytelling engaged students in class.With this awareness,teachers, then, can cooperate with students with view to helping them overcome theproblems they met in English communication

1.5 Scope of the study

As mentioned above, the study focuses on the effectiveness of storytelling toimprove English speaking skill for the first year students at Thai Nguyen College ofEconomics and Finance The researcher intendes to draw a brief overview ofapplying storytelling in class at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Financeand to find out the ways to apply storytelling in teaching speaking skill moreeffectively Any other related issues should be included in further research.

1.6 Design of the study

This study consists of five chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction presents rationale, aims, scope, research questions, methods and design of the study

Chapter 2: Literature review: reviews the theory of storytelling and related studies Chapter 3: Methodology: provides the methods that the researcher uses in the paper.Data collection and analysis are also presented in this chapter

Chapter 4: Findings and suggestions: focuses on the elements of English speaking skill that are improved by storytelling and how storytelling engages students in classand gives some suggestions for the teachers to apply storytelling in teaching English speaking skill with view to helping students imrove their speaking skill Chapter 5: Conclusion: summarizes all the key issues as well as the limitations ofthe study and makes suggestions for further research

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter is devoted to building a conceptual framework for the research

It consists of eight sections which present a critical analysis of recent literature onstorytelling and its role in language acquisition This literature is presentedchronologically and covers both local and international settings

2.1 Storytelling

Up to now, different views on storytelling and digital storytelling have beenproposed by researchers, most of whom agree that storytelling plays certain usefulroles in human history Haigh and Hardy (2011, p.408) agree that however differentthe definitions of storytelling may be, they are common in the sense of “the effort tocommunicate events using words, images, and sounds often including improvisation

or embellishment” Hunter and Hunter (2006) state that ‘Humans are storied people’because through such types of documentaries as novels, myths, or history, humanexperiences are transferred in the form of stories These two researchers suggest thatstories function as a mean of educating people, recording facts, teaching culture,forming standards and values, and sharing common knowledge Similarly, Wilson(2002), as stated in Anggryadi (2014), believes that the habit of sharing stories iscommon in every culture It is considered as a method of entertaining, educating,and maintaining cultural and moral values It is concluded that via telling storyactivities, connections and understanding between individuals are evident Abma(2003) also has the same viewpoint These authors emphasize that telling storiesforms a social context where the same interest group of people will be able to shareexperiences, connect themselves with others

Other researchers consider storytelling as a technique of teaching fromeducational perspectives Widdershoven and Sohl (1999), as cited in Abma (2003),state that besides playing a role of defining self and complex experiences, storieshelp teachers to identify an action cycle and influence others In addition, Cangelosiand Whitt (2006) further develop the use of storytelling in education by stating that

it has long been applied as a useful method regardless of formal or informalsettings These two researchers emphasize that past generations keep traditionalpractices alive through verbal storytelling whereas the present convey meanings by

the art of story writing Liu, Liu, Wang, Chen, and Su (2012), moreover, signify thevital role of storytelling in children’s learning a language They see storytelling as agood tool to create opportunities for children to interact, self-express, and mostimportantly sympathize with each other A conclusion is drawn from their argumentthat “telling stories collaboratively between children should be encouraged” (p.39)

The recent technology boom has made researchers pay attention to theeffectiveness of digital storytelling Somdee and Suppasetseree (2011) agree thatdigital storytelling is a ‘powerful technological tool in education’ which combinesthe use of computers and the art of telling stories These two authors furtherelaborate this idea by presenting a set of previous researchers’ statements forsupport Porter (2004), as stated in Somdee and Suppasetseree (2011), states thatdigital storytelling is an art of telling stories which is combined with images,posters, or music Ohler (2007), as cited in Somdee and Suppasetseree (2011),points out that digital storytelling has been more commonly employed inclassrooms With the same standpoint, Sadik (2008) states that the use of digitalstorytelling enables students to build their own knowledge to express or presentthem more lively and attractively Lynch and Fleming (2007), as cited in Sadik(2008), share the view that with its ‘aural, visual and sensory elements’, digitalstorytelling develops students’ multiple intelligences such as language, music,space, interpersonal, and intrapersonal In agreement with Lynch and Fleming,Robin and Pierson (2005), as stated in Sadik (2008), argue that digital storytellinghelp capture both teachers’ and students’ imagination and therefore, unfold theirexperiences

Yuksel, Robin, and McNeil (2011) suggest that digital storytelling should beused in teaching because it brings specific benefits According to them, should thedigital storytelling be employed, students will be able to firstly shape theirunderstanding and experience in a certain targeted content area, secondly workeffective in groups, and finally improve critical thinking skills Moreover, thismethod develops other important skills such as reflection skills, language skills andartistic skills (p.1267-1268) Hwang et al (2014) further confirm the previousauthors by stating that with the support of computers, this activity is a vital tool to

develop speaking skills because animations act as a tool for students to describetheir stories and help them remember new words and structures.

2.2 Speaking skill and speaking competence

In order to implement the innovation in speaking skill, an understanding ofspeaking and its components is crucial Nolasco (1997), as cited in Akhyak andIndramawan (2013), suggests that a student is competent in speaking if he or she isable to show the mutual understanding and interactive norm of a conversation,which means an awareness activity and feedback ability must be ensured in orderfor the students to be aware of the target task and for the teacher to evaluatestudents’ progress It means that in any context of launching a speaking activity,students are competent in speaking if they are conscious about the task designed bythe teachers and the teachers are able to give assessment after that

Brown (2004), as stated in Akhyak and Indramawan (2013), puts forwardindicators of speaking competence, based on which the teachers are able to evaluatetheir students’ abilities to present a short talk with a certain level of precision ofgrammar, stress, and lexical resources, to exchange information, and to maintainsocial relationship (p.20)

Ur (1999), as cited in Akhyak and Indramawan (2013), also suggests another set ofcriteria for a successful speaking classroom, including:

1 Learners maintaining speech as long as possible

2 Equal participation among learners

3 Learners’ eagerness to speak

4 A certain level of accuracy and relevance

Looking at these characteristics of speaking competence, the researcher can employ them in feedback activity and assessment criteria

2.3 Storytelling and digital storytelling as a useful pedagogical tool to improve speaking skill

Internationally, storytelling has been engaged into the curriculum as atechnique of teaching with its primary aims of encouraging students at differentlevels to speak and accordingly, conveying core lessons In 2001, Gold and Holmancarried out research on the effectiveness of using storytelling and argument analysis

in management education In this research, stories were told among managers with aview to: 1 highlighting managers’ issues in their reality and checking whether theymight be problematic, 2 making them aware of their preference choices, valueorientation, and daily arguments, 3 helping managers realize expectations to findsolutions from others The two researchers conclude that storytelling encouragesmanagers to reflect, promote self-awareness and self-development Moreimportantly, storytelling helps managers to engage different perspectives into theirnegotiations in hope of reaching a consensus Using the same technique, Hunter andHunter (2006), Cangelosi and Whitt (2006), and Haigh and Hardy (2011)introduced storytelling in their curriculum to teach nurse and midwifery students.Regarding Hunter and Hunter’ research, the two researchers emphasize thatstorytelling is a strategic tool in educating nurse-midwifery students The latterauthors further support this point by indicating that stories told by teachers andstudents help to form a ‘collegial relationship’ between teaching and learning Byusing stories, the instructor can check students’ comprehension and identifystudents’ learning styles.

Directly related to the linguistic aspect, Sadik (2008) and Somdee andSuppasetseree (2011), whose work was considered above in more generaleducational terms, support the effectiveness of digital storytelling in teachingspeaking skills According to Sadik, students were motivated to deepen theirthoughts about the given topic, personalize their experiences before presenting theirstories orally Furthermore, in addition to reporting facts, students were able toreflect their own thinking and typify their own or other issues Robin (2005), ascited in Sadik (2008) agrees that practitioners at all level can use digital storytelling

to support students by motivating them to reflect their knowledge Comb and Beach(1994) further share the view that storytelling helps students to understanddemocratic and cultural ideas, improve their oral skills and create a sharingenvironment via stories (as stated in Sadik, 2008, p 490) Unlike Sadik, whosefocus was on motivating students to deepen their thoughts, Somdee andSuppasetseree (2011) focus their attention on the relationship between storytellingand speaking skills They conclude that digital storytelling is suitable to teach first-

year students knowledge of English In this method, students were motivated todevelop and practice their speaking skill Bell (1991), as stated in Somdee andSuppasetseree (2011), argues that the basic feature involved in oral languagecomprehension is by connecting language and thought with imagery.

In the same view with Somdee and Suppasetseree, Isbell et al (2004),Mokhtar, Halim, and Kamarulzaman (2010), Lockett (2011), Afrilyasanti andBasthomi (2011), and Nguyen, Stanley and Stanley (2014) also pointed out theinfluence of storytelling on students’ speaking skills According to them, studentswere more dynamic in terms of asking for elaboration, contributing to discussions,and presenting their own new ideas Another point worth discussing is that studentsspoke more during the process of organizing and presenting their stories, than theydid in any other form of specifically spoken activity Particularly, duringstorytelling, students’ pronunciation and fluency were enhanced because of theirrepeated exposure to some new words and listening to their recorded performances.The two authors’ findings are backed up by other two previous researchers in thefield Indeed, Porter (2007), as stated in Afrilyasanti and Basthomi (2011), agreesthat students will be more creative in their communication skills and think moreinventively due to storytelling More notably, digital storytelling will equip studentswith needed communication skills – whether oral, written or digital – which enablestudents to function well in the society Likewise, Neal (2004), as stated inAfrilyasanti and Basthomi (2011), emphasizes the effectiveness of digitalstorytelling in conveying information by clarifying its advantages These factors arestories’ nature of catching attention, subtlety, and ability to transfer different shades

of meaning

Other researchers unveil other findings from the assistance of storytelling inspeaking skills With regard to specific aspects of speaking competence, Akhyakand Indramawan (2013) find that storytelling enables students to improve their

‘fluency, grammar pronunciation, vocabulary, and content’ They add that studentsare motivated and stimulated to speak with fluency thanks to storytelling.Abdolmanafi-Rokni and Qarajeh (2014) also suggest storytelling be acomprehensive teaching tool because it helps promote creativity and other language

skills thanks to its rich cross-cultural values Besides, the two researchers argue thatstorytelling is an effective method of teaching basing on its ability to assist learners

to understand the whole content of a story, use wide ranges of words and clearlyexpress their thinking (p.253)

They conclude that storytelling is a powerful technique to higher student’scognitive ability and boost their imagination

2.4 Storytelling as a method of engaging students

Beside its capacities to improve students’ speaking skills, storytelling provesbeneficial for teachers to engage their students into the classroom activities Inmanagement education, Greene (1997), as stated in Abma (2003), considersstorytelling as a collaborative process in which people will dynamically participatefrom the start to the end Moreover, both organizers and participants in theworkshop will approach the activity of telling stories as knowledgeable partners andwill, therefore, take turn to control the flow of stories David (2004), as stated inSomdee and Suppasetseree (2011), agrees that digital storytelling inspires students

by giving them motivation, engagement and a sense of interest This suggestion isfurther supported by Neal (2004), as stated in Afrilyasanti and Basthomi (2011),who states that students are encouraged by digital storytelling to participate into thespeaking class activity Gils (2005), as stated in Sadik (2008), similarly suggestsfive advantages of digital storytelling as follows: 1 Providing teachers more options

in organizing activities, 2 Individualizing personal experiences, 3 Making speakingactivities more inspiring, 4 Approaching daily social situation more easily, and 5.Involving students in learning In nurse training, Cangelosi and Whitt (2006) statethat a sense of inclusiveness and community for learning and teaching will becreated through storytelling Most important of all, Afrilyasanti and Basthomi(2011) indicate that in digital storytelling students are empowered to express theirown stories and so they will be more encouraged in the lesson Hence, an active andresponsive class is expected because students are confident to speak based on anavailable source of ideas from their own lives

Other researchers focus their attention on the ability of storytelling to booststudents motivation Palmer et al (2000, p.100) confirm that storytelling is ‘an

exceptional teaching tool’ because it motivates children to follow sentence modelsfrom the stories told and them make them their own The most common phrasesimitated are ‘Once upon a time’ and ‘Long ago in a faraway land’ Lockett (2011,p.9) and Mokhtar et al (2011, p.164) both agree that storytelling can attract listenersand promote speaking skills because it helps students learn how to pay attention tothe storytellers, caters for students’ interests and improve their motivation Mokhtar,Kamarulzaman, and Halim (2012) explain the reasons why storytelling is able toimprove students’ participation They believe that this activity emphasizes thesignificance of listening, conveying ideas, and interacting with other students.Therefore, students gain more confidence and with ‘improved self-esteem andconfidence, the students could learn their second language better’ (p.227).

2.5 The objectives and the steps of applying storytelling in speaking

Another set of objectives is also shared by Samantaray (2014) The authorsuggests that the activity of storytelling should contain the following characteristics:

1 To enable the students to learn English language skills

2 To enhance their confidence and speaking skill

3 To increase the student’s knowledge of vocabulary, structure, context andgrammar

4 To develop problem solving skills

5 To shed inhibition

6 To teach narrative structure and practice description

7 To create interest and develop listening comprehension

9 To enhance the skills of connecting to content, connecting to learners andmodeling

10 To create fluency in speaking and to think about narration in writing

11 To encourage interaction and share culture

(Samantaray, p.41)

To ensure these objectives, sets of criteria to select appropriate stories areneeded Burn and Broman (1975), as stated in Akhyak and Indramawan (2013),emphasize four factors as follows: a predictable plot with one main character, arepetition of key vocabularies and structures, careful word choices (p.21)

Ellis and Brewster (1991), as stated in Akhyak and Indramawan (2013), suggest a more detailed selection category with nine elements as follow:

1 Appropriate level of difficulty

2 Pronunciation: stories should contain factors that listeners find interesting toimitate

3 Catchy content or topic: stories should be chosen in a way that catches

8 Positive feedback and attitude form listeners

9 Appropriate language content with the target culture

(p.21)Andrew Wright (1995), as stated in in Akhyak and Indramawan (2013), alsoputs forward other characteristics to the list by stating that a good story should catchstudents’ attention from the start of the story, be relevant with students’ age, becomprehensible with simple and brief content, and create confidence for students.(p.21)

Another thorough set of characteristics of storytelling is suggested by a recentauthor According to Samantaray (2014), an activity of storytelling should engagestudents altogether, provoke and build students’ curiosity and interest, and improve

students’ communicative skills, particularly vocabulary, comprehension and storysequencing Other two key points are to help students with their short term memoryand erase their misery (p.41)

Finally, Anggryadi (2014) proposes a procedure of eight steps to engage storytelling in the classroom It contains:

1 Teachers’ giving samples and modelling

2 Selecting and prescribing topics

3 Carrying out and ordering students to build up stories

4 Sharing vocabulary

5 Fifteen – twenty minute preparation

6 Presenting the story

7 Discussing the stories

8 Inviting the next turn

(p.6)Among these lists of categories, Ellis and Brewster’s list, provided above —for the purposes of this current research project — appears to be the mostcomprehensive as it covers almost all aspects of language competence and benefitsboth presenters and listeners The recognition of ‘positive feedback and attitudeform listeners’ and ‘appropriate language content with the target culture’, which arethe final two items on their list, are particularly useful in a setting such as that inwhich the current research took place

2.6 Review of Related Studies

The researcher reviews several studies conducted before this study whichdiscussed the effectiveness of storytelling in speaking class The first study was

conducted by Jason Ohler (2007) titled “ Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathway to Literacy, Learning and Creativity” The study consisting three

main parts with fifteen chapters was carried out for a large number of purposes Ithelps readers to see the significance of digital storytelling in the classroom, tounderstand students’attraction to a good digital story and to introduce digitalstorytelling procedures

The second study also gives the researcher better understanding on how to

use digital storytelling in education The study is titled “ Educational Use of Digital Storytelling Around the World” written by Pelin Yuksel, Benard R Robin, Sara

McNeil (2011) This study is to investigate how educators, students as well asothers around the world use digital storytelling to support the educational process Italso gives a general framework about educational use of digital storytelling indifferent countries and highlights the perceptions of people about this techonology

In 2001, Gold and Holman conducted the research on the effectiveness of

using storytelling and argument analysis in management education The title is “ Let

Me Tell You a Story: An Evaluation of the Use of Storytelling and Agrument Analysis in Management Education” In this research, stories were told among

managers with a view to highlighting managers’ issues in their reality and checkingwhether they might be problematic, making them aware of their preference choices,value orientation, and daily arguments and helping managers realize expectations tofind solutions from others The two researchers conclude that storytellingencourages managers to reflect, promote self-awareness and self-development.More importantly, storytelling helps managers to engage different perspectives intotheir negotiations in hope of reaching a consensus

Recent researchers beyond Vietnam share the view that storytelling isinstrumental in the learning and teaching language They point out that storytelling

is more actively engaged in many countries both inside and outside the classroomfor educational purposes Indeed, storytelling has long been used in the practice ofteaching and has been suggested by many researchers to be both a powerful tool toboost oral skill and a good method of getting students engaged in the lessons

2.7 Theoretical Framework

The theoretical underpinning of this research is based on the ideas madepopular by Stephen Krashen (1981) As an internationally acclaimed expert in thefield of linguistics, Krashen has specialized for the past 20 years in theories oflanguage acquisition and development His work is widely known and wellaccepted and has had a large impact on second language research and teaching sincethe 1980s Krashen’s theory offers the basis for the choice of stories as a tool to

create a condition in which students have interactions and convey meaningfulmessages to their peers Stories also provide a foundation for communicativeactivities for students so that they can put more focus on the meaning conveyedthanks to their speaking skill rather than grammar or written reports.

2.8 Summary

In conclusion, this chapter covered the theories related to the concept ofstorytelling, the concept of speaking and speaking competence , storytelling as auseful pedagogical tool to foster speaking skills, storytelling as a method ofengaging students, the objectives, selection, and implementation of storytelling inspeaking class In view of the previous research, it can be seen that storytelling has

a well-founded background as a helpful pedagogical technique in education It iswidely applied in almost every field of learning from management education, nursetraining to English language classroom Despite looking at storytelling fromdifferent angles, all researchers whose work has been considered in this TheoriticalBackground affirm its advantages in the practice of teaching Storytelling can firstly

be a powerful tool of unfolding personal experiences, conveying meanings andlessons, forming a sense of inclusiveness and active participation Related to theresearcher’s own context, storytelling is seen as a technique to improve students’English speaking skills and engage them in the classroom activities Theinformation relating to digital storytelling, provided above in this TheoriticalBackground, is relevant to this current research because many elements are sharedbetween digital storytelling and the type of real-life, face-to-face storytelling thatformed the basis of this current research project Many of the benefits of digitalstorytelling apply also to the type of storytelling that was implemented during thisproject It is also important to note that all the research was carried out outsideVietnam This forms the foundation for the researcher to implement this innovationwithin a local classroom of Vietnamese first year students

3.1 Research approach

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

This study employs qualitative approach to find out the effectiveness ofstorytelling in teaching speaking skill for the first year students.

3.2 Participants, Course Syllabus and Materials

5 weeks of learning and interaction

3.2.2 Course Syllabus

Detailed course outline is attached in Appendix 2

The scores collected from the Evaluation Sheet were counted and transcribed in 2separate sheets of paper Then Mean and SD were counted to build up the tables foranalysis (See Appendix 3)

3.2.3 Materials

The videos used as materials for the students’ presentations were selectedaccording to the students’ favourite themes They are mostly about common andfamous Vietnamese and English proverbs and Oscar-winning animated short films

To ensure the suitability, the videos contain English at pre-Intermediate andIntermediate levels with both British and American accents The studentssummarized the content of the videos at home or in class, shared them with theirclassmates, and finally showed their point of view or impressions on the chosenvideo The time for each individual presentation and group presentation is 3 and 7minutes respectively After the presentation finished, the videos were showed to the

whole class for a thorough understanding Both individual and group presentation were collected and analysed.

3.3 Research Methods

Golafshni (2003, p 600) argues that to enjoy details of both numbers andwords in a naturalistic-oriented research, such methods as interview and observationare dominant Sharing the same view with Winter (2000), as stated in Golafshani(2003), who agrees that qualitative researchers should involve and play a role in theresearch, Patton (2001), as stated in Golafshani (2003), affirms that researchers’involvement is important because the real world situations are likely to change andaccordingly the researchers are there to record the process during the course ofchange Based on Golafshani’s argument, the researcher used observation,Evaluation Sheet, and interview to find such evidences to address the two researchquestions

3.3.1 Observation

Observation is a favoured and dominant method used in qualitative research.Pratt (2006) concludes that there are three main ways of observations: participantobservation, non-participant observation, and systematic observation In this paper,only non-participant observation is discussed because it suits the researcher’scontext most The author claims that in this method, the researcher only plays a role

as researcher and observes targeted situations The researcher may stand at the back

of the classroom or behind the scene as long as his or her presence causes the leastdisturbance possible by using ‘fly on the wall’ technique This method requires lesseffort and helps the researcher avoid being ‘going native’ or being biased Pratt(2006) also agrees that once the researcher set up the observed subject, the taskbecomes much easier because the researcher only needs to note down as many bits

of information as possible via taking notes, recording tape, filming These bitsbenefit the researcher in such a way that recorded courses of action can be analysed

in detail later However, in analyzing such information the researcher is required toput effort in watching, noting down, coding the targeted details carefully Patton andCochran (2002) share the view that observation is vital to fully understand howcomplex a situation is The two authors state that data gained from observation

helps the researcher distinguish the differences between what is being said and what

is being done and discover the unaware behavior of participants Another benefit ofobservation that the two authors suggest is that observational set of data is helpful inplanning good interviews and selecting appropriate interviewees

In their case study on using digital storytelling to teach speaking skills,Afrilyasanti and Basthomi (2011) employed observation to have an overview ofstudents’ participation and presentation Their findings pointed out that ‘studentsparticipate actively and supportively’ in class activities and classmates’presentation Moreover, observation enabled them to conclude that digitalstorytelling encouraged students to speak more, respond to questions withconfidence and be brave in asking questions and introducing new topics

Sadik (2008) in his research ‘Digital storytelling: a meaningful integrated approach for engaged student learning’ used observation to check theroles of teachers and students, the quality of student work and the extent ofstudents’ engagement The author used modern cameras to record and video class’soverall activities and students’ performance He emphasized that observationprovided an overview of the whole implementation process, contributed to ‘thevalidity of the data collection and gave ‘additional perspectives to the research’(p.500) The results of his study revealed that despite teachers’ efforts to encouragegroup work, a small number of students followed the instruction and they even hadsome difficulties in organizing and discussing within their groups Moreover, theteachers’ role was not efficient because a considerable number of students askedthem to give instructions although students had been told to work without theteachers’ direct assistance An important conclusion given via observation is thatstudents’ engagement increased as well as their level of using computer

technology-Regarding my own research, in order to find whether students were engaged

in storytelling activities, both individual and group work, observation method wereapplied This method contained the researcher’s notes during a lesson of 120minutes Before the launching of the Innovation, piloting on observation had beendone so that a set of criteria for the observation was set up by the researcher Theresearcher played a role as a non-participant observer, meaning the students took the

stage and felt free to present their stories while comments from their classmateswere welcome in the feedback section All those activities went on naturally withoutthe intervention of the researcher Notes were taken whenever one student or grouptook part in one activity To confirm the precision, one recorder was used to recordthe whole class’s performance and groups’ presentation Students were informedwell in advance that their performances would be recorded, and were very familiarwith having previous performances recorded, so that all of their behavioursoccurred the most naturally.

3.3.2 Evaluation Sheet

An Evaluation form was used to assess and compare students’ presentation

of their stories in week 1 (before the Innovation), and week 4 and 5 (after theInnovation) According to Allen and Tanner (2006), as stated in Sadik (2008), ascoring rubric reveals ranking levels of achievement or comprehension for a fixednumber of criteria of a given performance It provides ‘extensive definition anddescription of the criteria of quality that characterize each level of accomplishment’.However, the difficulty lies in the fact that there is ‘no valid and reliable scoringrubric instrument which could be found to evaluate students’ performance in digitalstorytelling’ (Sadik, 2008) Hence, it is vital to design such a scoring rubric whosevalidity and reliability are adequate to assess students’ presenting stories

There are some suggestions towards designing a scoring scale based ondifferent categories, but in this paper the researcher is in favour of Moskal’s.obviously, Moskal (2003), as stated in Sadik (2008), suggests six features inconstructing a scoring rubric: 1 Clear alignment with the given task and objectives;

2 Observable criteria; 3 Clarity in language; 4 Sensible categories; 5 Clearseparation between score levels; and 6 Free-bias and fair statements In fact, Sadikwas successful in designing a scoring rubric which enabled him to find the neededevidence showing students’ competence in their telling a story In his research, ascoring rubric ranging from 0 to 4 with 0 representing poor performance and 4representing exceptional presentation was employed Overall, the findings fromSadik’s research showed that students performed well in their tasks Many groups

presented clear point of view in their stories, but their sources of language were limited.

With similar scoring rubric, Afrilyasanti and Basthomi (2011) also applied ascoring rubric ranging from 1 to 4 to assess four categories: clarity of purpose,image, grammar, and vocabulary Likewise, another five set of features were alsoevaluated by this scoring rubric: voice consistency, fluency, pronunciation,conversational style, and voice pacing By using this rubric, the two authors wereable to give descriptive and detailed results of each student’s performance.However, had the two authors given further implications rather than stopped atshowing students’ mark, the research results could have been more valuable andinformative

Based upon the two previous studies, the researcher adapted a scoring rubriclike Afrilyasanti and Basthomi’s but with a different set of criteria namely:Appropriate loudness, Pronunciation, Intonation, Eye-contact, Body language,Speed, Comprehension, Character identification, Clear Ending, and Listener’sattention In this Evaluation Sheet, ten elements are aimed at exploring data toanswer the research question 1: How does storytelling help students improvespeaking skill? This form was completed by both the teacher and students toevaluate a target group’s or individual’s presentation by giving a score ranging from

1 to 5 with 1 means Strongly disagree and 5 means Strongly agree (Appendix 1)

3.3.3 Interview

Interviews take after daily conversation, but they are more topic-focused andguided by the researcher in order to find a given set of data and ensure validity andreliability (Patton and Cochran, 2002) These two authors emphasize that interviewsshould be ‘reproducible, systematic, credible and transparent’ (p.11) There arethree main types of interviews ranging from unstructured through semi-structured tostructured While Patton and Cochran focus on participants – individual or groupinterview, Thuy Minh (2008) pays more attention to formality – context-oriented.This paper only looks at semi-structured interview because of its advantages.According to Dowsett (1986), as stated in Thuy Minh (2008), concludes that semi-structured interview gives, firstly, interviewees a certain extent of power and

freedom Secondly, the interviewer gains more flexibility Finally, vivid and richinteractions between the interviewer and interviewees and data on interviewees’ lifecan be acquired by asking open-ended questions However, this method requires theinterviewer time to transcribe and code the information Moreover, the informationgained is sometimes overloaded as well as irrelevant to the given theme Thuy Minhsuggests that the interviewers should launch the piloting first to anticipate possibledifficulties and be careful in the way they explain with a long questions in order toensure an effective interview Another point should be taken into consideration isthat the questions should be open-ended and free from bias.

Sadik (2008) used a semi-structured interview to investigate teachers’concerns and points of view on the implementation and integration of digitalstorytelling into learning First, the author transcribed the interviewees’ speech; hethen experienced a process of coding to find common set of responses He finallydivided the responses into three groups: 1 Teachers’ concerns about theimplementation of the technique, 2 The effectiveness of the technique, 3 Itsadvantages and limitations By employing this method, informative and descriptivefindings showing teachers’ opinions were found and the author was able to reachsound conclusions

In this current research, semi-structured interviews were used to investigatethe information about students’ opinions on their engagement and improvement –that is, which speaking element which students improve most and which one least

A process of piloting was implemented with volunteer interviewees in order forvalidity and reliability to be ensured The interviews took place in the classroom sothat it is convinient for both the teacher and students Moreover, sometimes theinterview was taken as a feedback activity after the class or a presentation so thatstudents could feel the most comfortable and convenient

For the first research question, the students gave their responses in thefeedback activity after each presentation to the following questions:

 For the presenters: Which part(s) are you satisfied most? And which

part(s) do you think you need to improve?

 For the listeners: What are your comments on your friend(s)’ story?

Please pay attention to the following aspects: your comprehension of the story, grammar accuracy, and story logic

For the second question, a semi-structured interview was conducted in thelast class session to obtain the data on the level of engagement of the students Thefollowing questions were asked:

 What are your opinions about the course/innovation?

 Did you get engaged in the stories told by your friends? (if the answer isYes) What factors made you involved in? What factors put you off beinginvolved in?

 Do you wish to take part in if storytelling is to be introduced in the nextcourse? (If Yes) What are your suggestions to make the course better?

3.4 Data collection and data analysis

This innovation lasted for five weeks over ten lessons of two hours each Asmentioned on above, observation was conducted by the researcher The researcherplayed a role of an observer during four optional lessons Besides, the students wereinformed that their activities would be video-taped by the camera and recordedsimultaneously as a part of assessment procedure and as data for the research andbetter organization of activities for the coming lessons After the presentations,students were asked to hand in the transcripts of their stories as a further source ofdata The observation and presentations did not begin until Lesson 2 because Lesson

1 was intended to serve as the orientation week during which the researcher carriedout the introduction as well as samples of storytelling and gave the students ageneral preparation of features in telling stories

The teacher’s notes, videos and recording of individual and grouppresentations were collected in week 1, week 4 and week 5 as the research data toanalyse In addition to observation, interviews as a giving feedback activity wererecorded During this stage, the researcher played a role as a teacher and gave hintswhere needed, for example, giving elaboration for complex questions or explaining

in Vietnamese In the meantime, Evaluation sheets were passed on to the studentsand filled in during the time that their classmates were making their presentations