Applying english drama project to foster naturally speaking skill and individual''''''''s involvement in grop work activities of students at school of foreign languages, Thai Nguyen university

The aims of the study were therefore investigating the ways that English Drama Project impacts on students‟ natural speaking skill and their contribution to their team work.. Two groups

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

LANGUAGES, THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

Sử dụng đề án Kịch nhằm thúc đẩy kỹ năng nói tự nhiên và sự tham gia hoạt động nhóm của sinh viên Khoa Ngoại Ngữ, Đại Học Thái Nguyên

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

LANGUAGES, THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

Sử dụng đề án Kịch nhằm thúc đẩy kỹ năng nói tự nhiên và sự tham gia hoạt động nhóm của sinh viên Khoa Ngoại Ngữ, Đại Học Thái Nguyên

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

SUPERVISOR: DƯƠNG ĐỨC MINH, Ph.D

Hanoi, 2014

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DECLARATION

This thesis is a presentation of my original research work Wherever contributions

of others are involved, every effort is made to indicate this clearly, with due reference to the literature, and acknowledgement of collaborative research and discussions The work was done under the guidance of my supervisor, Dr Duong Duc Minh, at the University of Languages and International Studies, VNU

Student‟s name

Vu Thi Quyen

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to give my cordial thanks to Dr Duong Duc Minh for his kind guidance that he provided me as my supervisor I particularly appreciate his helpful advice, insightful comments and most of all his endless patience

My thanks also go to all my lecturers from Vietnam National University for their valuable lectures which help me to orient the research

I am most thankful to all my colleagues and undergraduate students at Thai Nguyen School of Foreign Languages for their support in data collection

Finally my special thanks go to my parents, my husband and my son, for their love and support throughout this study Without their encouragement I could not have completed this thesis

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ABSTRACT

During a long time, implement of English Drama Project in English Language Teaching classes has been increased all over the world Many researches have been carried out to investigate its benefits on students‟ learning English However, very little empirical research has been conducted to evaluate advantages that the Project brings to students The aims of the study were therefore investigating the ways that English Drama Project impacts

on students‟ natural speaking skill and their contribution to their team work Two groups of students were taught speaking by two different methods: one group was taught in a traditional way and the other was taught with a company of English Drama Project Two groups were assessed in the same way after a five-week experiment Results of the assessment showed significant differences in the two groups: the group taught with English Drama Project got better results for the speaking test and better involvement in their teamwork It is suggested that English Drama Project should be taught to all students whose major is English at Thai Nguyen School of Foreign Languages

Key words: English Drama Project, natural speaking skill, teamwork

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TABLES OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION……….I

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLES OF CONTENTS iv

LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LISTS OF CHARTS AND TABLES vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for the Study 1

2 Aims of the Study 2

3 Research Questions 2

4 Scope of the Study 2

5 Methods 2

6 Design of the Study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Drama Project 4

2.2 Drama Benefits in English Language Teaching 5

2.2.1 Motivation 5

2.2.2 Meaning in Context 6

2.2.3 Psychological Benefits 7

2.3 Drama and Naturally Speaking Skill 8

2.3.1 Naturally Speaking Skill 8

2.3.2 Roles of Drama in Speaking Skill 8

2.4 English Drama Project and Students’ Group Working Ability 11

2.5 Previous Studies in the world and in Vietnam 11

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CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 14

3.1 Participants 14

3.2 Setting of the Study 14

3.3 Data Collection 16

3.3.1 Data collection instruments 16

3.3.2 Data Collection Procedures 18

3.3.3 Data analysis procedure 19

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 20

4.1 Findings 20

4.1.1 Influence of English Drama Project to Students‟ Speaking Skill 20

4.1.2 English Drama Project and Students‟ Involvement in Group Working 24 4.1.3 More Findings on the Impacts of English Drama Project 27

4.2 Discussion 28

4.2.1 English Drama Project and Students‟ Speaking 28

4.3 Pedagogical Implication 31

PART C: CONCLUSION 33

5.1 Conclusion 33

5.2 Limitation of the Study 33

5.3 Suggestions for Further Study 34

REFERENCES 35

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LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS

TNSFL: Thai Nguyen School of Foreign Languages

ELT: English Language Teaching

EDP: English Drama Project

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ESL: English as a Second Language

L1: English as the First Language

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LISTS OF CHARTS AND TABLES

Chart 1: Students‟ Scores for Fluency and Coherence

Chart 2: Students‟ Scores for Lexical Resource

Chart 3: Students' Speaking Overall Scores

Chart 4: Students‟ Contributing Positive Ideas in Team Discussions

Chart 5: Students‟ Sharing Positive Ideas and Feedbacks in Team Discussions Table 1: Students‟ Scores for Grammar Range and Accuracy

Table 2: Students‟ Scores for Pronunciation

Table 3: Students‟ Scores for Non-verbal Language

Table 4: Students‟ Self Assessment on Teamwork Contribution

Table 5: Students‟ Contribution to Their Teamwork from the Observations Table 6: Students‟ Co-operation through Classroom Observations

Table 7: Students‟ Quality of Work from the Observations

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the Study

In learning a language, speaking is one of the most important language skills since

it is the most common and important means of providing communication among human beings The key to successful communication is speaking nicely, efficiently and articulately, as well as using effective voice projection, speaking is linked to success in

life, as it occupies an important position both individually and socially (Ulas, 2008)

When learners are engaged in group work, they can learn by exchanging information with other group mates in a socially structured way Learners will be not only responsible for their own learning but also able to learn from each other (Olsen & Kagan,

1992, Breen & Littlejohn, 2000) Littlewood also shows that most learners favor “learning contexts in which they work together with others towards common goals and in which their success also benefits others” (Littlewood, 2002, p.38)

Many investigations on the advantages and benefits that educational drama activities bring to students in English Language Teaching (ELT) classes have been conducted over the world for a few last decades In 1969, Hoetker stated that drama increases creativity, orginality, sensitivity, fluency, flexibility, emotional stability, cooperation and examination of mortal attitudes while developing communication skills (Hoetker, 1969) Ratliff (2001) indicates that Drama enhances students‟ reading, writing and listening skills Davies and Pearse (2002) agree with Hoetker by stating that drama is a way of encouraging students to improve their communication skills It can not be denied that drama brings students chances to improve not only their language skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing but also their creativity, sensitivity, flexibility, emotional stability, cooperation In other words, drama activities can help students to learn language well (Bas, 2008)

Even though English Drama Project (EDP) has been applied in EFL classes over the world for quite a long time, it seems to be pretty new in Vietnam Thai Nguyen School

of Foreign Languages (TNSFL) is one of the leading institutions in Vietnam who has been implementing EDP as one of the studying projects in the curriculum and the project is likely highly interested in by most of students since the Project helps them much in building speaking skill and group working However, there is little empirical research on

2 Aims of the Study

The study is conducted with two aims:

First, the study aims at investigating how EDP benefits students speaking skill Second, the study aims at investigating the way that EDP benefits their contribution

in their teamwork

3 Research Questions

The research is going to find the answers to the research question “How can EDP help French-English students at TNSFL foster their speaking skill and team working?”

4 Scope of the Study

As mentioned above, EDP can have students‟ all four language skills and soft skills improved However, the main aims of EDP at TNSFL are to provide students with chances

of promoting their speaking skill and group working ability; hence, in this study, the researcher mainly focuses on students‟ natural speaking skill and their contribution in team working in the Project The study is also conducted on second year students majoring at French-English at TNSFL

5 Methods

The researcher borrows the experimental method to conduct the study due to the reason that “the experiment involves control and careful observation and measurement, this research method provides the most convincing evidence of the effect that one variable has

on another.” The previous researchers also defined the experimental research as “a

scientific investigation in which the researcher manipulates one or more independent variables, controls any other relevant variables, and observes the effect of the manipulations on the dependent variable(s) An experimenter deliberately and systematically introduces change and then observes the consequences of that change” and

“the goal of experimental research is to determine whether a causal relationship exists between two or more variables (Ary, Jacobs, Razavieh, & Sorensen, 2009, p.265)

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Zimney also defines an experiment as “an objective observation of phenomena which are made to occur in a strictly controlled situation in which one or more factors are varied and the others are kept constant.” Zimney (1961, p.18) In the current study,

“phenomena” is the changing in students‟ speaking skill and team working The

“variables” or “varied factor” is applying EDP instead of the traditional way of teaching speaking while the number of students and their gender are kept constant

In other words, in this study, EDP is the “independent variable” while speaking and team working abilities of thirty two second year French-English students are “dependent variables” The goal of the study is determining whether EDP can improve the students‟ speaking skill and their teamwork skill

6 Design of the Study

The study is divided into 3 parts

Part A: Introduction presents rationale, aims, research hypothesis, the scope, the

study method, and the design of the study

Part B: Development in which literature review with brief and most remarkable

issues on EDP, its values on students‟ speaking and group working are presented The chapter also performs details in methodology, findings and discussion

Part C: Conclusion gives a brief review of the whole study and some limitations

of the study and suggestions for further study

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter is going to present definition of EDP and EDP at TNSFL, its values in EFL classes, its influence on speaking skill and team working

2.1 Drama Project

Drama is defined by many different authors in many ways Holden defines drama

as "any kind of activity where learners are asked either to portray themselves or to portray someone else in an imaginary situation" In other words, drama is concerned with the world of "let's pretend"; it asks the learner to project himself imaginatively into another situation, outside the classroom, or into the skin and person of another person" (Holden,

1982, p.14) Merriam-Webster also shares the same idea with Holden in defining drama as

a composition in verse or prose intended to portray life or character or to tell a story usually involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue and typically designed for theatrical performance

Drama defined by Bolton and Neelands as an activity in which teacher and students invent and enact dramatic situations for themselves rather than for an outside audience This activity, perhaps most widely known as drama education, has also been called classroom drama (Bolton, 1992, 1998, 2007; Neelands, 2008)

By definition, a drama is a story enacted on stage for a live audience, Wessels distinguishes drama from theatre as “drama in education uses the same tools employed by actors in the theatre But while in the theatre, everything is contrived for the benefit of the audience, in classroom drama, everything is contrived for the benefit of the learners.” (Wessels, 1987, p.8) The distinction between drama and theatre is also made by Dervishaj when he states that in the classroom, drama is often referred to creative dramatics and focuses on the process of dramatic enactment for the sake of the learner, while theatre arts mainly focus on entertaining and relaxing audience In classroom drama, students do not learn about drama, but they learn through drama combs” (Dervishaj, 2009)

It can be inferred from all above that theater is performed on stages in cinema and theaters and it functions as a means of entertainment, however, drama in language classroom is often found to promote students‟ learning No mater how drama is defined, drama is a helpful and educational activity in which students play the roles of actors or

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actresses to portray dramatic characters under the teachers‟ guide Moreover, besides taking roles of actors and actresses, students are also required to do many other works of playwrights, editors and directors in EDP In other words, they are ordered to do many things including writing the scenarios, editing them and rehearsing as well as performing the play in groups These tasks result them in improving all their language skills and group working ability

Regarding types of drama, Dervishaj states some kinds of educational drama namely mining, role play (which includes dramatic plays, story dramatization and socio-drama, seminar style presentation, debates and interview), simulation and improvisation (Dervishaj, 2009) Basing on the classification, EDP at TNSFL may be classified either dramatic plays or story dramatization since students are allowed either to write plays based

on available stories or create their own stories

At TNSFL, EDP which accounts for two credits, is a dependent subject and is taught for students majoring at English Language or English Education In the Project, students work in groups of four or five and they are responsible for writing a play, practicing it and performing it at the end of the term In EDP, students are required to reveal all their four language skills, yet their speaking skill and team working ability are mainly focused on

2.2 Drama Benefits in English Language Teaching

Recently, educators have started to explore the use of drama as an integrated way of learning the curriculum According to Fleming, “drama is a learner-centered approach” (Fleming, 2006, pp.54-64), so it allows learners to become active participants in the learning and teaching process It should be emphasized that “drama is

a communicative language-learning technique because it is student-centered and

meaning-based and it is “fun but not unstructured” (Sarah, 2000, p.133) It can not be denied that

there are many researches showing the values of EDP in ELT Below, the present researcher is going to show some of the most remarkable benefits of EDP in EFL classes

2.2.1 Motivation

EDP is said to inspirit students to learn English Good motivation is one of the necessary factors for efficient learning Harmer defines motivation as “some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to achieve something.” (Harmer,

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2001, p.51) In 2007, he also emphasized that “Drama gives students the chance to learn by doing because EDP‟s stage is a place “where students are involved in experimentation in order to arrive at knowledge” (Harmer, 2007, p.20)

In a study in 1990, Gaudart asserts that drama techniques help teachers to organize the class well and to engage all the students more actively in the English learning process (Gaudart, 1990, p.235) In 2008, Schiller (2008) also claimed that drama games or drama activities could encourage some at-risk students who were at low level to communicate with others and express themselves bravely

The use of drama undoubtedly represents one of the methods of work used by teachers to provoke intrinsic motivation Not only does it help to build a good teacher-student relationship, but it also actively engages all the students at all the time, therefore

“in a sense, motivation is not needed when working through drama, because the enjoyment comes from imaginative personal involvement.” The researchers further explain that

“drama activities also help students to get rid of the diffidence and boredom that come from being forced to stay passive most of the time” (Maley & Duff, 2005, p.13)

EDP can provide students with internal motivation which helps them to increase their love for English and it also makes their studying results improved even they are at risk level

2.2.2 Meaning in Context

Drama brings students into real contexts; as a result, they can acquire the language faster in an active way Desiatova indicates that drama is an ideal way to encourage learners to guess the meaning of unknown language in a context Learners will need to use

a mixture of language structures and functions if they want to communicate successfully (Desiatova, 2009)

Harmer (2007) also claims “meaning of language depends on where it occurs within a larger stretch of discourse, and thus the relationship that the different language elements have with what comes before and after them In other words, speakers and writers have to be able to operate with more than just words and grammar; they have to be able to string utterances together” (Harmer, 2007, p.59) He also emphasizes his statement by claiming that drama represents an ideal method of work if teachers want to put the meaning for students into a sizeable context Unlike in guided practice, students are

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involved in real communication while they “activate language to communicate real meaning, rather than just practicing language” (Harmer, 2007, p.270) Wheeler also suggests that drama is an effective tool to help teachers create more experiential learning tasks and offer “purposeful and contextualized activities” (Wheeler, 2001, p.24)

To sum up, context is very important in communication Utterances may have no meaning without context and context is created in EDP, as a result, it may be concluded that EDP is one of channels that make speakers‟ utterances understandable and meaningful

2.2.3 Psychological Benefits

Drama can help students to overcome the psychological barrier from speaking in a foreign language because it is a kind of stress-free, fun teaching that encourages pupils to participate without embarrassment” (Hamilton & McLeod, 1993, p.4)

Hamilton and McLeod describe drama as a process of social learning by getting student to be involved in relations with others, it promotes social and adaptive skills in the process of learning a foreign language Learners are encouraged to explore themselves and their reactions in relation to the outside world in a way which can be both strengthening and enriching (Hamilton and McLeod, 1993, p.5)

Additionally, Sam (1990) indicates that drama activities can be used to provide opportunities for the students to be involved actively Davies (1990) agrees that when students dramatize, they use all the channels (sight, hearing, and physical bodies) and each student will draw to the one that suits them best In other words, students will all be actively involved in the activity and the language will "enter" through the channel most appropriate for them Via, Stern, Kao & O'Neill (1998) agree with Davies by stating that drama increases in students‟ self-esteem, self-confidence because “by taking a role, students can escape from their everyday identity and "hide behind" another character When students are given special roles, they are encouraged to abandon their shyness” Davies (1990) also shows other psychological and social benefits including developing problem-solving skills, working well in groups, and taking more risks

Generally speaking, the most important aim of education drama is the overall development of a personal and social aspect of learner‟s personality Drama stimulates creativity, imagination and also critical thinking as students are often asked to find

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solutions to diverse problems It also improves students‟ self-esteem and self-confidence because they are capable of performing in front of the audience, although the audiences are their classmates Moreover, education drama forms students‟ learning autonomy

2.3 Drama and Naturally Speaking Skill

2.3.1 Naturally Speaking Skill

In the last century, naturally speaking was believed to be “accompanied by greater overt motor activity that occurs in several non-speaking activities The increase is especially marked for gestures (Kimura, 1973, p.43) Whitear (1998) also states that speaking is not only about words, structure and pronunciation, but also feelings

Nunan suggests that in language lessons-especially at the beginning and

intermediate levels – learners must be given opportunities to develop both their fluency and accuracy He also defines the terms “accuracy” and “fluency” in speaking skill Accuracy

is the extent to which students‟ speech matches what people actually say when they use the target language Fluency is the extent to which speakers use the language quickly and confidently, with few hesitations or unnatural pauses, false starts, word researches, etc (Nunan, 2003, p.55)

In 2009, the definition of naturally speaking was defined again by Heidegger as

“Natural speaking means speaking as it always takes place initially and for the most part,

and where other mode of speaking with the world is at hand, namely the scientific mode” (Heidegger, 2009, p.18)

From these definitions of speaking, a definition of naturally speaking should be made for this research only Although speaking naturally does not necessarily mean speaking like a native speaker, naturally speaking should be accompanied with accuracy, fluency and feelings (or emotion) with the help of non-verbal expression In other words, naturally speaking is the ability of making quick, accurate and confident verbal reaction in

a certain context with good non-verbal language

2.3.2 Roles of Drama in Speaking Skill

Smith noted that although drama has existed as a potential language teaching tool for hundreds of years, its applicability as a language learning technique to improve oral skills has come to the forefront (Smith, 1984, p.51) Bas (2008) claimed that drama activities can help students to communicate well It offers great opportunities for them to

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communicate with others even when they have limited vocabulary Phillips encourages teachers using drama in second language teaching because “it encourages children to speak and gives them the chance to communicate, even with limited language, using non-verbal communication, such as body movements and facial expressions” (Phillips, 2003, p.6) In short, drama can help students improve their both verbal and nonverbal communication Benefits that drama brings to students are presented in detail below

It is believed that drama motivates students to speak Maley & Duff shows the reasons why learners are not willing to speak “the problem of not wanting to speak or, more often, not knowing what to say is practically resolved because the activity makes it necessary to talk” (Maley & Duff, 2005, pp.13-14) Students with low proficiency and low confidence can be benefited from drama, just like “good” students Hamilton & McLeod also state that drama provides students with a broad range of opportunities in learning English and drama motivates them to learn speaking English and gives them more confidence to speak English (Hamilton & McLeod, 1993, p.23) Drama can also bring motivation to less confident students to speak up before the class “even some students who

do not have confidence to speak up in public are willing to join in the drama activities They have a lot of fun and become creative and often able to speak naturally.” (Guida,

1995, p.33) Before Guida, Pietro (1987) says that students who are not naturally talkative often appear more willing to join in the discourse in drama activity when they realize that

they are not dominated by a teacher Additionally, Desiatova (2009) discusses “drama

gives learners an experience of using the language for genuine communication and real life purposes; and by generating a need to speak In short, drama provides students need and good chances to speak It is drama that pushes students to speak even they are not confident or not naturally talkative

Drama helps students‟ speaking more emotional and fluent Gomez finds that steps

by steps, drama can help students enhance their speaking skill more emotional, accurate and fluent by learning syntax and fundamentals then sounds and idioms (Gomez, 2010, p.30) Whitear (1998) believed that speaking is not only about words, structure and pronunciation, but also feelings, motivations and meanings that are valuable benefits for bringing drama to the language learner Moreover, it is known that one of the requirements

of naturally speaking is emotion which is expressed by gestures, facial expressions which

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really matches with Wagner‟s idea when he indicates that drama requires students to produce appropriate words emotionally by using gestures and facial expressions Students can be free to act and create the character that they want to be (Wagner, 2002) Furthermore, drama activities can provide students with an opportunity to use language to express various emotions Drama activities are also useful in the development of oral communication skills, and reading and writing as well These ideas also were discussed by Barbu (2007) when he claims that using drama to teach English results in real communication, involving ideas, emotions, feelings, appropriateness and adaptability Verriour says “as pedagogical process, drama can provide the means for connection student‟s emotions and cognition” (Verriour, 1985, p.150) O‟Gara (2008) also shares the same ideas with Verriour by stating that drama motivates students to be involved in the language class emotionally and cognitively Moreover, Vernon also supports the view that this conversational use of language also promotes fluency He states that while learning a play, students are encouraged to listen to, potentially read and then repeat their lines over a period of time By repeating the words and phrases they become familiar with them and are able to say them with increasing fluency by encouraging self-expression, drama motivates students to use language confidently and creatively (Vernon, 2009, p.2)

Drama is a good methodology to increase students‟ pronunciation Goodwin (2001) states that drama is a particularly effective tool for pronunciation teaching because various components of communicative competence (discourse, intonation, pragmatic awareness, non-verbal communication) can be practiced in an integrated way Gomez (2010) showed that drama activity combines action and entertainment for students while achieving the teaching goals Students don‟t only have fun but also learn a variety of components from acting the story, like how to make an English accent or imitate voices and intonations Mok believes that drama, which “integrates language use in a meaningful way”, can give

“students the opportunity to use the language to perform tasks and to integrate their knowledge of form and function, as well as their ability to express themselves using appropriate stress, intonation and pronunciation” (Mok, 2001, p.26)

In summary, Drama brings many benefits to speaking skill Students are motivated

to speak and provided chances of promoting their speaking accuracy, fluency, pronunciation (including intonation, stress) and emotion through Drama

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2.4 English Drama Project and Students’ Group Working Ability

Larson and LaFasto (1989) define a team as a unit of two or more people who interact and co-ordinate their work to accomplish a specific goal Northouse defines team

as “organizational groups composed of members who are independent, who share common goals, and who must co-ordinate their activities to accomplish these goals” (Northouse,

2001, p.161)

Individuals‟ team working ability is also taken concern in EDP besides speaking

skill However, there has been a little empirical research that investigates the impacts of EDP on students‟ involvement in their team working Sam (1990) indicates that group

work is an effective form in drama activities, which takes every student‟s initiative to process the learning Students who have strong linguistic aptitude can take important roles while the low level students also can be engaged in by taking the subsidiary role He concluded that group work is encouraged by drama activity Davies & Pearse (2002) also admit that drama can increase the individual practice and develop students‟ autonomy because they will become more engaged in communication and interaction through group work O‟Gara (2008) shares his agreement with the two researchers by stating that drama

is essential for students to work together and interact with others It offers a good opportunity to carry out task-based learning

In short, although researches on drama‟s influence on students‟ ability of working

in team are limited, all authours share same ideas by indicatinting that drama encourages students to develop their creativity, strengthen their confidences, as well as improve the ability to cooperate with others

2.5 Previous Studies in the world and in Vietnam

The early, Heathcote (collected writings, 1984) and Bolton (collected writings, 1984) encouraged teachers to integrate the theatre into L1 classroom Bolton, in particular, championed the use of drama in classes for all subjects, making it "the centre of the curriculum” These ideas soon transferred to ESL practitioners and gained many proponents

As early as 1973, in fact, Hines commented that drama, and especially role play, has long been recognized as a valuable and valid means of mastering a language Pioneers

in the field of ESL/EFL include Via (1976), Maley & Duff (1982), and Smith (1984), who all published books based on their experiences as language teachers who have used drama

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in their classrooms In these books, both theory and practice are performed Via's students have acted in plays during his whole career as an ESL teacher Smith speaks to practicing teachers and develops an analogy between L1 actors and ESL students as well as provides many communicative theatrical activities Maley & Duff also collect myriad activities and offer advice on how to use them These authors are followed by more and more others who also encourage the use of drama in the language classroom Wessels' Drama (1987) is a very practical book that provides rationale for using drama as well as a number of activities She also offers suggestions of how a class might go about staging a play in the target language and describes one such experience that she had with a class Porter Ladousse (1987) published a similarly useful book, hers devoted to role plays, with justification and many examples Some professional books also discuss the theories behind theatre techniques and language learning Half of the volume edited by Byram and Fleming (1998) is devoted to describing how teachers have used drama to promote cultural understanding and awareness among their students In a different vein, Kao & O'Neill (1998) explain the technique and the merits of process drama, an extended role play activity that uses integrated skills to involve the whole class Brauer has edited a volume about the connections among language, writing, and drama Books with practical drama activities for teachers continue to emerge as well Another book by Hess - All the World's

a Stage will offer more suggestions of activities Other general books for teachers also include suggestions for theatrical activities, like Woodward's Fun With Grammar (1996), written to accompany the Azar ESL/EFL grammar books

In recent years, drama also has been encouraged to be used in ELT classes by many researchers namely Wheeler (2001), Wagner (2002), Sun, (2003), Littlewood (2002), Maley and Duff (2005), Harmer (2007), Ulas (2008), Dervishaj (2009), Desiatova (2009), and Gomez (2010) All of them use drama technique in their language classroom and in their scientific products, they admit the benefits that drama beings to students and they also guide readers the way to apply drama in teaching and learning English

Despite of the booming of education drama activities in ELT classes over the world, in Vietnam EDP seems to be quite unpopular since it is highly likely that there are not so many researches on applying Drama Project for EFL classes The researcher could find only one master thesis named “Using a drama project to give students opportunities to

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be communicative” by Vũ Thị Thanh Nhã from College of Social and Humanities- VNU in

2005 In the research paper, she made an experiment to investigate the way that students are encourage to orally communicate The result shows that EDP can motivate students to speak before the public

In summary, EDP has been used as a teaching methodology in ELT classes by many teachers over the world Drama is also admitted to be able to motivate students‟ to speak naturally with accuracy, fluency and good gestures Moreover, EDP also provides students with chances to sharpening their ability of working with other people in teams

Accidently, all participants of the study are females between 18 to 20 years old and they have just finished their first year at TNSFL As the number of second-year students in the French-English class is limited, all of them were invited to the research They were assigned randomly into group A as the control group and Group B as the experimental group with 16 participants in each group Furthermore, in this research, there was a homogeny of gender because all subjects shared the same gender

3.2 Setting of the Study

The study was conducted at TNSFL in the summer holiday 2014 in five weeks from 23rd Jun to 2nd August with nine meetings (Appendix 1)

In the first meeting on Monday 23rd Jun 2014, all students were invited to the room A201 at TNSFL and they were randomly selected into Group A and B After that, Groups A and B were also randomly divided into eight smaller groups numbered from 1 to

4 in Group A and from 5 to 8 in Group B Due to the subdivision, in the following parts, the researcher would like to replace the term “small group” by “team” to avoid confusion with Group A and Group B In other words, Group A consisted of teams 1, 2, 3 and 4 while the teams 5, 6, 7, and 8 belonged to Group B When this step was accomplished, the students in Group A were allowed to go home Group B were informed the Project, after that they were as asked to read stories or novels at home to select the one they were most interested in and to write a draft for the first scene of the play after they had been guided the way to write a drama scene In the meeting, the researcher also informed them the way

to work together Because of the time limitation in the meetings, the researcher did not

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have time to check their writing at class, as a result, after each meeting, the teams had to accomplish the assigned work before the next meeting and they were required to email the researcher their work before the following meeting The researcher checked their scenario and gave the teams comments and guided them to do next steps in the homework checking section which usually lasted for about 30 minutes at the beginning of each meeting In turn, they did not have homework as Group A In other words, students in Group A were required to practice speaking with some IELTS speaking tests as homework In the homework checking section, the students in Group A were called out to perform the homework while Group B were guided to do the next parts of the Project

In the experiment, the book “Direct to IELTS” by Sam Mc Carter was implemented as the textbook for the both groups because of two main reasons Firstly, according to the National Foreign Language Project 2020, students graduating from University should have reached C1, and IELTS seems to be very common to students at TNSFL Secondly, in the second year, students at TNSFL are taught IELTS strategies for listening in listening lessons Hence, teaching them with IELTS speaking does not bring challenges to them, yet does bring them good preparation for C1 target before their graduation

It should be made clear that meetings with Group A and Group B happened separately in the same room and same days but different time The meetings were hold in room A201 at TNSFL on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays; however, the lessons for Group A began at 7:30 am and finished at 9:00 am while those for Group B lasted from 9:30 am to 11:00 am The experiment lasted for three weeks and was divided into two stages The first stage consisted of four meetings in which Groups shared the same contents in each lesson but different homework In the second stage, the four other meetings were held and there were some small differences in contents and homework between the two groups The posttest taken on the 2nd August 2014 marked the end of the experiment

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3.3 Data Collection

3.3.1 Data collection instruments

The researcher used the post-test to measure changes in the students‟ speaking skill Additionally, a self-peer assessment form and sixteen observations were utilized to

investigate their involvement in group work

3.3.1.1 Post-test

Campbell & Stanley (1963, pp.171-246) gives two advantages of pre-test and

post-test First, it provides tight scientific control over threats to internal validity, thus allowing

it to be classified as a "true experimental design." Second, it is a versatile design While it

is often used to compare just two groups (an experimental and a control group), it can easily be extended to accommodate additional comparison groups

In the study, the students had just taken the final test for the first year; and there was no big gap in their scores Additionally, the students were randomly selected into the control group and experimental one All the above reasons resulted in no pre-test in the study There was only post-test implemented in order to measure changes in students‟ speaking ability after the experiment It is believed that the students‟ speaking skill may be affected by many other factors; it is not only affected by one or two factors However, because the study lasted in only 5 weeks, the post-test seemed to be the most suitable in the situation Since the participants were taught IELTS speaking, the researcher borrowed the IELTS speaking tests to evaluate their speaking The students‟ speaking ability was assessed by two visiting teachers at TNSFL who come from the Unites States One of them was the examiner and the other played role as the proctor In the test, each student had at most ten minutes to show their speaking ability In the first part, students answered some questions related to their free times, their hobbies, their studying, their family, festivals, sports, etc In the second part, they were offered one card on which there was one topic and they spent one minute preparing the topic and showed their opinion in two minutes Before finishing their test, in the third part, they had about 3 minutes to state their ideas on some extra questions As regard the topics and cards in the two tests, totally there were eight speaking test questions taken from an IELTS book by Guy (Guy, 2008, pp.118-121) Consequently, to keep the cards in secret, students were not allowed to leave the exam

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room until the test finished In terms of speaking rubric, the IELTS Speaking band descriptors added with non-verbal language in order to evaluate students‟ naturally speaking (Appendix 2)

3.3.1.2 Self-Peer Assessment

It is said to be challenging to assess team working due to the fact that team working

is believed as a soft skill that is difficult to measure directly All students tend to overrate their own performance if the student grades depend on the ratings Indeed, a significant concern in peer evaluation of team performance is that students seem to inflate the achievement of their own team members due to peer pressure, or friendship In addition, students are usually reluctant to participate in peer evaluations because they are concerned that revenge and jealousy will play a role in ratings (Taggar & Brown, 2006) Another concern with self and peer evaluations is psychometric reliability of student ratings Mathews (1994) argues that peer evaluation results are not robust enough to assess the contribution of individuals group work Brannick et al study the psychometric qualities of teamwork measurement metrics (Brannick, 1993, pp.287-308) Their study indicates that the team members were not consistent

Despite the drawbacks of the self-peer assessment mentioned above, self-peer evaluations have several advantages that make them be an indispensable part of the overall assessment of teamwork First, the use of peer evaluations to determine a part of the grade

in a project work reduces social loafing (Willey & Freeman, 2006, Brooks & Ammons,

2003, pp.268–272) Peer evaluations can also be used as a diagnostic tool to identify and remedy dysfunctions in a team (Dyrud, 2001, Smith & Smarkusky, 2005) More importantly, self and peer evaluations provide students with invaluable feedback about their own teamwork skills with respect to what is expected from them in real-life teams Thereby, self and peer evaluations may promote positive changes in students‟ attitudes

towards overall professional skills attainment

The study employed one assessment form with 8 attributes in which students can evaluate themselves and their group members on their involvement to their group work The assessment form which has been used in EDP at TNSFL focused on three categories namely contribution, co-operation and quality of work This form was adopted from two peer evaluation forms by Main (2012) (Appendix 3)

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3.3.1.3 Observation

In order to reduce the drawbacks of the Self-Peer Assessment in the evaluating the students‟ involvement in group working and in order to make the result of the study more persuasive, eight observations were made in the experiment The observation was employed to record the involvement of the participants in their teamwork According to Lofland & Lofland (1994), and Atkinson & Hammersly (2003), classroom observation is

an important tool for researchers in the field of social sciences Throughout the experiment; the researcher was the only observer who collected data about students‟ team working Without other observers, the data collected might tend to be partial (Agar, 1996) However, the main focus of the observation was to collect data on students‟ group working Although Burns points out that “observation allows us to see in a relatively unobtrusive way what it

is that people actually do compared with what they say they do”, the students may not behave naturally if there were other observers (Burns, 1999, pp.81-82) Labov (1972) argues the “observer‟s paradox” which refers to sociolinguistic researchers could collect data about how people behave when they are not systematically observed only through systematic observations In other words, his suggestion implies that people may not behave naturally when they know that they are being observed Because the researcher was the participants‟ teacher, they would not be aware that they were being observed systematically, thereby, the researcher could obtain more genuine data about their involvement in their group

The observations recorded everything students did when they did the tasks both in the homework checking section and during the new lessons The observation form was used eight times in each group from the second meeting to the eighth one In other words, totally, there were sixteen observations in the study (Appendix 4)

3.3.2 Data Collection Procedures

The data of the study was carefully carried out through three main phrases

Phrase 1: Meeting the participants and group dividing: students were invited to the first meeting and they were divided into teams in the two groups

Phrase 2: Applying a five-week experiment: Each week, the researcher met the two groups three one-and- a-half-hour times To Group A, in the eight lessons, the researcher taught them speaking skill in the book “Direct to IELTS” by McCarter (2008) At the end

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of each lesson, some speaking topics which were taken from the books “Cambridge Practice Tests for IELTS 1” and “Cambridge Practice Tests for IELTS 2” were given to them as homework In the next lesson, in the first thirty minutes, some teams were called

to verbally present their homework before the class To Group B, the current researcher also applied the lessons as Group A; however, in the homework checking section, the researcher gave them some feedback on the steps they had finished and guided them to do the next steps of the Project In this phrase, the observations were also carried out secretly

Phrase 3: Holding the post-test and the self-peer assessment: After the experiment,

in order to see the effectiveness of EDP on the participants, the students were required to take the post-test on the 2nd of August, 2014

3.3.3 Data analysis procedure

The students‟ scores getting from the post-test were analyzed quantitatively on the

five categories of Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, Pronunciation and Non-verbal Language

Even thought the data of students‟ involvement in their group work had been collected with a qualitative method by utilizing the self-peer assessment and eight observations, the data then were analyzed basing on the numbers of students‟ responses to the self-peer assessment and the observation analysis All of these data were analyzed into tables or charts with the help of Microsoft Excels

To sum up, research methodology is very important in conducting a research Participants, data collecting procedure, and data analysis procedure are key factors of a successful study Hence, the researcher who would like to make proper and valuable results should be very careful in selecting the research methodology It is also the reason why the study was conducted very carefully with three kinds of data collecting instruments, and a long period of time for collecting the data as well as analyzing the data

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CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The research‟s results answering to the thesis question “How can EDP help English students at TNSFL foster their speaking skill and team working?” are presented in this chapter When the experiment finished, the four teams in Group B wrote four scenarios for four different plays namely “Tam Cam in the modern life”, “Cinderella”, “Tao Quan Comedy” and “Little Red Ridding Hood” They and their fellows in Group A also took the post course test from which their speaking ability was revealed In this part of the study, the results that EDP made on students‟ speaking ability as well as their contribution in their team work are going to be shown

French-4.1 Findings

4.1.1 Influence of English Drama Project to Students’ Speaking Skill

4.1.1.1 Impacts of English Drama Project on Students’ Speaking Fluency and Coherence

Chart 1 shows two trends of EDP‟s effects on students‟ speaking fluency First, it can be easily to see that Group A had two more students who got band 3 than Group B Second, the number of students who were scored band 4 and 5 are same in Group A and B with 5 people and 2 respectively Typically, the fingure of students getting band 6 in Group

A is be much dominated by students in Group B because two students in Group B but no one in Group A got band 6 for Fluency and Cohesion section

Futhermore, when the researcher caculated the mean of scores that students in the both groups got, the research recognized that the mean score for this speaking category in Group B is higher than it in Group A with 3.93 and 3.56 respectively

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From the result obtained from the scores for Fulency and Coherence, it might be concluded that EDP is able to make students more fluent and corrent when they speak

4.1.1.2 Impacts of English Drama Project on Students’ Lexical Resource

The students‟ capacity of using lexical in the two groups is clearly shown in the following chart:

It can be seen in Chart 2 that students getting high scores for Lexical Resource seem to focus most in Group A and the only band 7 was assigned for a student in Group Moreover, the number of students getting low bands including band 3 and band 4 in Group

A is lower than in Group B In contrast, the proportion of students with band 5 in Group A

is higher than in Group B and both the two groups have one student scored with band 6

Additionally, the mean obtained from students‟ Lexical Resource in Group A and Group B shows the dominance for students in Group A compared to Group B with the mean scores of 4.43 and 4.0 respectively

4.1.1.3 Impacts of English Drama Project on students’ Grammar Range and Accuracy

Students‟ Grammar Range and Accuracy are illustrated in the table 1

Table 1: Students’ Scores for Grammar Range and Accuracy

groups because the ratio between them in Groups A and B is 1:4

The mean of students‟ marks in Group B is 0.43 point higher than in Group A It is the mean score that readers realize the benefits that EDP helps students promote their

grammar

4.1.1.4 Impacts of English Drama Project on Students’ Pronunciation

Besides helping students‟ improve their fluency and grammar, EDP also makes their pronunciation much improved

Table 2: Students’ Scores for Pronunciation

6 and band 7, fewer students in Group A than Group B could reach the two bands The ratios of students getting the two bands in the two groups are 4:5 and 0:2 respectively The mean score of Group B is also much higher than group A‟s

To sum up, with all the above proofs, it cannot be denied that EDP can foster students‟ fluency, grammar and pronunciation The means for the grades that students got

in the test for the three categories in Group B are higher than Group A, thus, the fact that the overall marks for students in Group B are higher than Group A cannot be doubted This

is clearly shown in the flowing chart

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4.1.1.5 Impacts of English Drama Project on Students’ Non-verbal Language

Besides the benefits EDP brings to students‟ ability of expressing their ideas verbally, EDP also can help students improve their ability of using non-verbal language so that their expressions are natural and emotional The differences between using non-verbal language in the test of students are shown in the following table

Table 3: Students’ Scores for Non-verbal Language

The study clearly shows that students can sharpen not only their verbal language performed by their fluency, grammar and pronunciation but also their non-verbal language revealed by their body language, their eye contact, their facial expression, etc In other words, students taught with EDP can speak more fluently, exactly, naturally and emotionally

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4.1.2 English Drama Project and Students’ Involvement in Group Working

The individuals‟ contribution to Group working was estimated in three categories

including Contribution, Co-operation and Quality of work which were investigated with

the help of the self-peer assessment form and the sixteen classroom observations

4.1.2.1 Students’ Contribution in their Group Working

The data from the self-peer assessment form shows 100% of the participants believed themselves that they had a very high frequency of involving in their team working All of them thought they “always contributed in their group discussions” Similarly, most of them considered themselves to frequently shared ideas and feedback in the process of the course The table below very clearly shows the result from self-assessment on this attribute

Table 4: Students’ Self Assessment on Teamwork Contribution

Rate No of students in Group A No of students in Group B

Furthermore, it can be seen in the table 4 that the number of students in Group B who themselves thought that they “always” joined their team discussions, contributed ideas and gave constructive feedback, is double than in Group A

In the process of peer assessing, a student was evaluated by the other three team members, as a result, each group had 48 times of assignment for one attribute totally, and it

is the reason why the percentage that students did each attribute was calculated with the formula:

Where:

P: percentage of students assigned for each attribute

N: The total number of students‟ names written in each scale (the Appendix 3) All students in Group A and B admitted that their team members had full

participation in team discussions The charts below indicate students‟ frequency of contributing ideas and sharing feedback in their group discussions

P = N x100%

48

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Even though the results getting from the Peer-assessment on the atribute

“contributed positive ideas for group discussion” is much lower than the results gotten from the Self-assessment, the chart also clearly shows that students in Group B seemed to more often contributed ideas than their fellows in Group A All students in Group B while 93.7% of students in Group A always or usually contributed ideas in their group discussions In addition, the number of students considered as “always” contributed the ideas for the roup discussion in Group A was 20.4% lower than in Group B

The chart 5 shows that students in Group B seemed to dominate students in Group

A 89.5% of students in group B always and usually shared positive ideas and feedback in their group discussions while the number in Group A for the attribute was 66.5% Moreover, the figure of students who always and usually shared ideas and feedback in Group B were also higher than in Group A

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However, the data from the observations shows the contribution that team members

in the two groups made is not as high as the contribution students thought themselves in the self-peer assessment In the following table, proofs are going to be performed

Table 5: Students’ Contribution to their Teamwork from the Observations

Group A Group B

Doing nothing, just looking at the others 3 times 2 times

Table 5 shows that students in Group A contributed to their teamwork less frequently than students in Group B The times that students in Group A did not join in their teamwork were much higher than students in Group B with 15 times and 10 times respectively

Even though students in both groups seemed to over estimate their contribution to the teamwork, all students in two groups got much involvement in their teamwork Additionally, the results getting from the data collecting instruments show that students in Group B sounded

to have more frequent contribution to their teamwork than students in Group A

4.1.2.2 English Drama Project and Students’ Co-operation in Group Work

Amazingly, all students in Group A and group B insisted in the self-peer assessment form that all their team members were willing with their assignment, always supported and helped other members as well as worked well with each other

Truthfully, during the analysis of the class observations, the researcher realized that students were always happy together; they always smiled and chatted with each other after they finished their tasks Additionally, they were usually aware of helping their team members to easily finish the tasks and improve their pronunciation:

Table 6: Students’ Co-operation through Classroom Observations

Group A Group B

Speaking simply and slowly when the others do not understand 3 times 5 times

Paraphrasing questions or ideas when necessary 7 times 3 times

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The table 6 indicates the times that students showed their co-operation are nearly same in the two groups The times that students in the two groups helped to check pronunciation and spoke slowly are nearly equal in the both groups However, while the students in Group A used the technique of paraphrasing their ideas more, students in group

B had a trend of adoring repeating them more

No mater what way students applied to support their team members in the process

of helping keep the tasks on, all of them seemed to make a big co-operation in order to finish the tasks

4.1.2.3 English Drama Project and Students’ Group Work Quality

Students in Group A stated that they finished the tasks punctually and their

performances were always accurate all the time while students in Group B believed that they usually got the tasks finished on time and their works were usually got good

comments from the researcher The quality of work is shown in the observations with the data in the table 7

Table 7: Students’ Quality of Work gotten from the Observations

Group A Group B

Good performance (good fluency, vocabulary,

grammar, pronunciation, and written structures…)

10 times 10 times

Discussing & giving feedback in Vietnamese All the time All the time

Surprisingly, students in the control and experimental groups were aware of making the tasks as prefect as they could Even though students in Group A had two times of task incompletion more than students in Group B, they seemed to have same good performances at class However, all of them shared the same problems by speaking a lot of Vietnamese when sharing and exchanging their ideas and giving feedback In general, students in the both groups tried best to qualifying their tasks

4.1.3 More Findings on the Impacts of English Drama Project

In the rehearsing and performing the plays, many talents of students were revealed

It is necessary to admit that students‟ creativities were well performed in the Project They changed the sad ending of the fairy tale named Tam and Cam into a happy one This is also same to Sun‟s indication that drama gives students chances to create a new plot and characters for the story (Sun, 2003) Furthermore, they did their home-made instruments