A Study on using picture stories in speaking class to motivate eighth-grade pupils at Luong The Vinh Junior Secondary school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************************* HOÀNG LỆ THỦY A STUDY ON USING P

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************************

HOÀNG LỆ THỦY

A STUDY ON USING PICTURE STORIES IN SPEAKING CLASS TO MOTIVATE EIGHTH- GRADE PUPILS AT LUONG THE VINH JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL

Nghiên cứu về việc sử dụng truyện tranh trong tiết học nói nhằm gây hứng thú cho học sinh lớp 8 trường THCS Lương Thế Vinh

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************************

HOÀNG LỆ THỦY

A STUDY ON USING PICTURE STORIES IN SPEAKING CLASS TO MOTIVATE EIGHTH- GRADE PUPILS AT LUONG THE VINH JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL

Nghiên cứu về việc sử dụng truyện tranh trong giờ học nói nhằm gây hứng thú cho học sinh lớp 8 trường THCS Lương Thế Vinh

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

DECLARATION iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv

ABSTRACT v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

LIST OF TABLES, AND CHARTS ……….viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study 2

1.3 Scope of the study 2

1.4 Methods of the study 2

1.5 Organization of the study 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Motivation 4

2.2 Motivate adolescent learners 6

2.3 Picture stories 7

2.4 Why picture stories 8

2.5 Previous studies 10

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 11

3.1 Participants 11

3.1.1 Population 11

3.1.2 Sampling 12

3.2 Instruments 13

3.2.1 Questionnaire for pupils 13

3.2.2 Questionnaire for teachers 14

3.2.3 Piloting 14

3.3 Data collection procedures 14

3.4 Data analysis procedures 15

CHAPTER 4: PRESENTATION OF RESULTS 17

4.1 Students’ attitudes toward the use of picture stories in their speaking lessons 17

4.2 Students’ involvement in the class 21

4.2.1 Students’ confidence in class using picture stories 21

4.2.1 The atmosphere in speaking classes using picture stories 22

4.2.3 Students’ involvement in activities exploited from picture stories 22

4.2.4 Favorite topics 23

4.2.5 Favorite activities in speaking class using picture stories 24

4.3 Students’ difficulties in speaking lessons using picture stories 25

4.4 Teachers’ evaluation on the effectiveness of picture stories in speaking lessons 26

4.5 Difficulties in teaching English using picture stories 31

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 33

5.1 Findings and discussion 33

5.2 Recommendation 34

5.3 Limitation 35

5.4 Conclusion 35

5.5 Suggestion for further studies 35

REFERENCES………37

APPENDICES………

Appendix 1: The questionnaire for pupils I Appendix 2: The questionnaire for teachers II Appendix 3: Pupils’ scoring on the questionnaires III Appendix 4: Teachers’ scoring on the questionnaires IV

LIST OF TABLES, AND CHARTS

I Tables

Table 1: Pupils’ profile 13

Table 2: Pupils’ rank on the activities in accordance to their interest 24

Table 3: Teachers’ rank on the activities according to their students’ interest 29

Table 4: Teachers’ evaluation on the effectiveness of picture stories 30

II Charts Chart 1: Students’ interest in picture stories reading 17

Chart 2: Students’ attitude toward the use of picture stories in speaking lessons 18

Chart 3: Students’ perception of picture stories in English 19

Chart 4: Students’ ideas on learning structures and vocabulary from picture stories 20

Chart 5: Students’ confidence 21

Chart 6: The classroom atmosphere 22

Chart 7: Students’ participation in activities 22

Chart 8: Favorite topics 23

Chart 9: Students’ difficulties in speaking lessons using picture stories 25

Chart 10: Teachers’ information on the frequency of using picture stories 26

Chart 11: Teachers’ purposes of using picture stories 27

Chart 12: Teachers’ remark on students’ attitude toward the use of picture stories 28

Chart 13: Teachers’ ideas on the advantage of the usage of picture stories 30

Chart 14: Teachers’ difficulties in applying picture stories 31

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale of the study

Recently, although the curriculum in Vietnam has been changed a lot, the teaching of English language fail to fulfill its goals Even after years of English learning, the learners do not gain the confidence of using the language in and outside the class Their output in the language is limited to writing run-of-the-mill answers for literature chapters and producing grammatically accurate, but isolated sentences while real communication involves ideas, emotions, feelings, appropriateness and adaptability

Besides, English is becoming a language of global communication To have access to information and interaction with others over the world, the useful tool for most people is English skills That is why improving students‘ speaking ability should be paid more attention, even in the low grades To achieve this goal, many teachers have applied different methods and techniques

However, it is a challenging task for language teachers to establish a successful language classroom which can develop students‘ speaking skill the best Vietnamese students learn English in a non-English speaking environment, so the acquisition of English is not generally considered essential for the enhancement of their life in the community In addition, there is no oral English test in most of exams in primary and secondary schools Consequently, many students have very low motivation of speaking English

Many studies have demonstrated that motivation has important role in the effectiveness of teaching and learning process Learners with high motivation tend to gain more success than unmotivated ones Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the benefits of picture stories in promoting students‘ motivation with the hope

to find good teaching material for teaching speaking English The researcher hope findings from this study can be useful for other teachers and researchers

1.2 Aims of the study

The purpose of this study was to investigate the usage of picture stories as a teaching strategy on pupil‘s motivation In order to achieve the aim of the study, the research questions below will be addressed:

- What are the attitudes of eighth grade pupils at Luong The Vinh Junior Secondary School toward the use of picture stories in their speaking lessons?

- Does pupils‘ involvement increase in the class using picture stories?

- How do teachers evaluate the effectiveness of picture stories in motivating students speaking?

- What are the difficulties of using picture stories to teach speaking skill for the 8thgrade pupils in Luong The Vinh Junior Secondary School?

1.3 Scope of the study

The study limits its scope to speaking skills and to its participants of eighth grade students at Luong The Vinh Junior Secondary School

1.4 Methods of the study

The study used questionnaires to gather data and describe the current situation of using picture stories to motivate the 8th grade pupils in speaking class Survey questionnaire was used in data collection of the study due to its unprecedented efficiency

in terms of researcher time, researcher effort and financial resources according to Jo and Steve (1997, cited by Nunan, 1998) Thanks to a questionnaire, the researcher could collect a huge amount of information in a short period of time and ―if the questionnaire is well – constructed, processing the data can also be fast and relatively straightforward‖ (Gillham, 2000) Moreover, three types of data including ―behavioral‖, ―factual‖ and

―attitudinal‖ which can be easily yielded through using questionnaire can provide the researcher with the information to answer the research questions about the current situation of using communicative task to enhance the speaking competence of the 10th grade students In brief, due to its great effectiveness, the researcher chose survey questionnaire as an effective method of data collecting in this study

1.5 Organization of the study

The thesis is divided into six parts:

Chapter 1 introduces the research problem and rationale of the study It also states the significance, aims, scope, and methods of the study

Chapter 2 not only provides an overview of background of the study, including key concepts and theories relating to the research topic but also discusses previous studies of this field to reveal the research gap which needs filling

Chapter 3 defines the methodology applied in the study including features of the participants, context, research instruments, data collection and data analysis procedure

Chapter 4 presents the results of the research and data analysis which gives comprehensive answers to the research questions It also offers suggestions to involved participants to solve all the diagnosed problems for a higher effectiveness of elicitation

Chapter 5 summarizes significant findings, highlights contributions of the research, puts forward practical suggestions for further future research as well as addresses notable limitations

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides a detailed insight into theoretical background knowledge underlying the issues including definitions and relevant knowledge around key concepts, followed by a review of related studies in the same field

2.1.MOTIVATION

Many studies have revealed that motivation is one of the major factors contributing to one‘s success in learning foreign languages According to Gardner (1985), learners with a positive attitude and high motivation towards the subject are more likely

to succeed in second language learning

Labonde (1982) also claimed that motivation is one of important factors which help to determine the proficiency achieve by different learners and the most successful learners will be those who have both talent and a high level of motivation for learning

In educational psychology, the definition of what it is to be motivated is quite simple: ―to

be motivated is to be moved to do something‖ (Ryan & Deci, 2000, p 54) However,

further breakdowns of the term tend to become rather complicated, especially when considering the variable facets of motivation involved in a task as complex as the socially- and culturally-bound, long-term endeavor of foreign language learning

Gardner (1985), in his landmark account of a socio-educational model of language acquisition, wrote that motivation to learn a foreign language can be described

as a complex of constructs, involving both effort and desire, as well as a favorable attitude toward learning the language at hand This model promoted the notion that self-identify and identification with the foreign language community is important to the language-learning process For example, a pupil may feel he or she does not ―fit in‖ with the target language speakers (a de-motivating factor), or may want to ―fully integrate‖ and become, perhaps, completely passable as a native speaker of the language (a highly motivating factor) Where one is along this continuum is described as one‘s integrative motivation, or how much one wants to integrate with the target language community

According to Gardner, another motivation pupils may posses is instrumental: they may want to learn the foreign language to achieve a practical goal, such as a job promotion or to obtain course credit (Gardner & MacIntyre, 1991)

Another set of definitions stemming from research is intrinsic and extrinsic motivation — intrinsic motivation comes from the joy or pleasure derived through language learning itself, while extrinsic motivation results from the desire to obtain some particular outcome, reminiscent of Gardner‘s notion of instrumental motivation

Dörnyei and Ottó (1998) described how motivation changes over time for any given learner, and described how the flux in motivation may be related to temporal components as small as a task in the language learning classroom or as large as the flow

of a foreign language course over an entire academic year According to this dynamic, process-oriented approach to motivation, in either small- or large-scale time frames, pupils‘ motivation consists of three stages: pre-actional, actional, and post-actional (Dörnyei, 2003):

 Pre-actional Stage

First, motivation needs to be generated According to Dörnyei (2005), the generated motivation helps the pupil select the goal or task to pursue and launches the pupil into action The pupil‘s own initial goals, values and attitudes associated with the learning process, perceived likelihood of success, and the support the pupil gets (both mental and physical) can all influence this stage of motivation

 Actional Stage

Next, Dörnyei (2005) wrote that at the actional stage, the motivation needs to be

―maintained and protected‖ (p 84) (by the quality of the learning experience, by the nature of the classroom environment, by teachers, peers and/or parents, or by the pupil through self-regulation) during the particular action, which may be a classroom-based task or the long-term endeavor of learning the foreign language in the classroom Dörnyei mentioned that this is especially important for classroom settings where pupils may be distracted by mitigating factors such as anxiety, competing interests (established by

teachers, parents, peers, or the school), or even physical conditions (e.g., noise or poor classroom conditions)

 Post-actional Stage:

After the action is completed, at the post-actional stage, the pupil retrospectively evaluates how things went to help determine the type and quality of activities he or she will be motivated to pursue next Dörnyei (2005) noted that some of the main motivational influences on this stage of learning are grades and/or feedback obtained from teacher(s) and/or others and the pupil‘s own sense of what was learned, along with

an introspective measure of his or her self-confidence and self-worth in relation to what was learned and how things went in the classroom

Each of these three stages of motivation can be influenced not only by the learner, but also by the environment external to the learner, including the classroom environment and all that it entails (classroom peers, classroom implementations of state mandates, parents, textbooks, teachers, etc.) Thus, with a processing approach to motivation, we have pedagogical implications associated with learner motivation: pupils can not only employ self-motivating strategies throughout tasks, but teachers too can implement motivational strategies in the classroom to influence the quality and type of motivation that drives foreign language learning

2.2 Motivate adolescent learners

Adolescent learners are from 13 to 18 years old These learners are at the transitional stage of development between childhood and adulthood During this period of time, a person experiences a variety of biological changes and encounters a number of emotional issues He/ She develops abstract thinking abilities, becomes more aware of his/ her sexuality, develops a clearer sense of psychological identity, and increases his/her independence from parents Harmer described characteristics of this age as follows:

1 They seem to be less lively and humorous than adults

2 Identity has to be forged among classmates and friends; peer approval may be considerably more important for the pupil than the attention of the teacher

3 They would be much happier if such problem did not exist

4 They may be disruptive in class

5 They have a great potential creativity and a passionate commitment to things that interest them

(Harmer 2001:38-39)

In the same view, Ur (1996:288) pointed out that children, unlike adults, do not maintain a high interest level if engaged in activities over a long span of time However, they may be likely to spend a great amount of time and effort in doing the activities in which they show a great interest Thus, teachers can raise learning motivation of adolescent learners at a great deal if they can create class activities and lesson materials that interest their learners

In addition, learning goals and classroom atmosphere are also important factors contributing pupils‘ motivation The learning goals should be challenging, but manageable and clear enough for pupils to achieve If the goals are so difficult to reach, learners will soon lose their confidence and get bored Classroom climate should be supportive and non-threatening Learners should be ensured that they can express their opinion without the risk of being ridiculed and losing face

2.3 Picture stories

A picture book, in its broadest definition, is a book in which the illustrations play

a significant role in telling the story Picture books for young children possess the following five features (Sutherland, 1997):

• Present the story line in a brief and straightforward manner

• Contain a limited number of concepts

• Include concepts that children can comprehend

• Provide text that is written in a direct, simple style

• Provide illustrations that complement the text

There are many kinds of pictures books such as wordless picture books, concept books, picture storybooks, illustrated story books, etc However, teachers in Luong The

Vinh Junior Secondary School focus on using comic strips and picture books with plots

to motivate their pupils to speak

2.4 Why picture stories?

For the reason why teachers should use picture stories in the class as their teaching material, Michael stated as follows:

The name “picture books” evokes images of brightly colored, beautifully illustrated books that beg to be read No matter what our age, most of us still enjoy reading them because of their vibrant pictures, rich and evocative language, and poignant and meaningful themes Picture books speak to us in the same way photographs

do They touch our emotions, delight our senses, appeal to our whimsy, and bring back memories of our childhood Picture books invite us to curl up and read them

—Michell D., Children’s Literature (2002, 71)

On the same view, Taufik (2006) also discussed about two main benefits of picture stories in the class:

1 The vocabulary used there can be inferred from both pictures and the context, so the pupils do not waste their time to look up the meaning of difficult words in a dictionary

2 The sentence structures, which are used in picture stories, are simple They enable pupils to understand what the sentence means

Picture stories motivate pupils by its pictures The use of colors, the name of animals, and the identification of the main parts of human body can be studied and

understood fast with the use of cartoon stories Sones (1944) theorized that pictures tell any story more effectively than words According to him, ―The potency of picture story is not a matter of modern theory but of anciently established truth Before man thought in words, he felt in pictures…it is too bad for us ―literary‖ enthusiast, but it‘s the truth nevertheless, pictures tell any story more effectively than words‖

 Visual

Picture stories, being composed of pictorial and other images, are a fundamentally visual medium The interest of pupils in pictures of the stories emphasizes the potential of visual medium In a study comparing comics to text, Sones (1944) found that visual quality of comic (a kind of picture stories) increases learning Sones divided four hundred sixth into two groups, balanced in terms of both school grade and intelligence To the first group he presented comics, to the second only text Afterwards, each group was given a test on the content of the story The result was the first group scored significantly higher than the second group At the end Sones concluded that a strong trend in favor of the picture continuity was indicated by two sets of results ―Sones‘ conclusion foreshadows the trend towards teaching to multiple intelligences among educators today

He writes ―An assumption implied in most school instruction is that all children will read the printed material with equal effectiveness…The absurdity of this practice is patent‖ Visual learners benefit from visual media‖

 Intermediary

Picture stories can serve as an intermediate step to difficult disciplines and concepts Many language arts educators have used picture stories in this manner with tremendous success Koenke (1981) suggests that comic, a type of picture stories, can lead pupils toward the discipline of learning Hutchinson‘s experiment (1949) found out that many teachers discovered comic strips to be particularly useful in special classes or for slow learning pupils in regular classes

Versaci (2001) found out that discussions on comics are generally livelier than those on classic novels Through comics, Versaci encourages his pupils to think critically about the literary worth of books and the formation of the literary canon ―Using comics,

Versaci challenges college literature pupils to consider, evaluate, and question the very concept of a ―literary canon.‖ Because comics are rarely considered literature, Versaci than leads his class in a discussion on literary worth He has found out those discussions

on comics are generally livelier than those on classic novels‖

 Popular

Picture stories are read popularly by children If we ask the pupils, whether they have read picture stories or not, most of them would say, ―yes.‖ It is very popular because picture stories often have simple, but interesting plots and full of colors That is why the children like it By picture stories, pupils can learn about culture Teachers can introduce popular culture into their classroom easily and effectively through picture stories By incorporating popular culture into curriculum teachers can bridge the separation many pupils feel, between their lives in and out of school

3 Previous studies

There are some studies that have investigated on the relevant topics with this study Dang Thuy Chi (2007) in her M.A Thesis Linguistics ―Using pictures to motivate tenth graders to participate in speaking activities at Le Quy Don High School‖ has investigated the effectiveness of pictures on students‘ levels of motivation

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tu (2005) with the study ―A study on using short stories to improve the efficiency of teaching English to the first year students at Viet Nam Maritime University‖ has deeply discussed about the advantages of short stories in teaching English process

Another work about using stories in the class is ― Stories for teaching speaking skill to pupils at Upper Secondary Schools in Hanoi‖ written by Dinh Dai Ngoc (2005) M.A Thesis Linguistics

The above studies are mentioned to the use of pictures and stories as unrelated materials There have not had any studies on the advantages of picture stories to English teaching and learning yet From the researcher‘s notice, many children prefer stories with pictures to unillustrated ones Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate if picture stories have any positive effects on students‘ motivation in the class

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

Chapter 3 presents the methodology including the context of teaching English in Luong The Vinh School, participants, instruments, data collection and analysis procedure

3.1 Participants

3.1.1 Population:

The study was conducted at Luong The Vinh Junior Secondary School, Ha Noi in the school year 2009-2010 In the school year, there were 10 eighth grade classes which were divided into three groups: group A (including four classes: A1, A2, A3, A4) , group

C (with four classes: C1, C2, C3, C4), and group D (with 3 classes: D1, D2, D3) The A classes belong to Natural Science Department, the C classes belong to Social Science Department, and the D classes belong to the Basic Department In each department, classes were numbered There were totally 487 pupils, including 259 girls and 228 boys, ranged between 12- and 14- years of age Most of these pupils had been learning English for 2 years, and their level of English proficiency were pre-intermediate Though in reality, some pupils were above or below that level

As in many other schools in Viet Nam, to get high scores in the Secondary Education Exam is nearly the only goal of the pupils For some reason, there is no oral English test in the Junior Secondary Education Exam

In addition, since there are usually over 45 pupils in each class, the pupils have little chance to practice speaking in class This leads to the result that the speaking skills

of most pupils are comparatively lower than other skills such as writing, reading and grammar

Furthermore, the fear of "losing face" prevents the pupils from speaking English Face is still of great importance to most Vietnamese, especially adolescents On the one hand, it motivates people to work hard to win face; on the other, people tend to conceal their mistakes and weaknesses for fear of losing face For many English learners, they believe if they make mistakes or fail to find suitable words to express themselves, they

will lose face To protect themselves from being laughed at, they are reluctant to speak English So there is the vicious circle: the less they speak, the less they improve their speaking skills, and the more they are afraid of speaking

From the school year 2008-2009, in the plan to improve teaching and learning quality, the English section of Luong The Vinh School has encouraged teachers to use supplementary materials in teaching to enhance pupils‘ learning motivation and English skills Picture stories are one of material types widely used in the class Teachers in the English section has together collected a great quantity of picture stories and modified them to apply in the class

3.1.2 Sampling

In order to guarantee the reliability as well as the validity of the samples, this study chose simple random sampling Thanks to this sampling strategy, each member of the target population has an equal and independent chance of being selected The researcher assigned a number to all ten eight-grade classes one to fourteen and wrote fifty numbers in fifty pieces of paper, put all the papers in a box and pulled them out at random Lastly, pieces of paper with the numbers: 2, 5, 10, 17, 22, 26, 33, 37, 41, and 44 were selected

100 students from 10 classes were chosen as informants of the research The table below describes basic information about the chosen pupils including their gender, their group, and their years of learning English

Table1 Pupils‘ profile

Regarding the teachers, teachers of English of the ten classes were chosen to take part in the survey Three of them have been teaching English for 5 years, six of them have been teaching for 3 years, and one for 2 years All of them are females with age ranging from 25 to 31 years

3.2 The instruments

3.2.1 Questionnaire for pupils

A 10-item questionnaire assessed pupil attitudes and motivation toward using picture stories in speaking class was constructed It consisted of two main sections The initial section requested information about the gender and learning English years of the participants The second section investigated information about pupils‘ involvement in speaking class, pupils‘ motivation toward the use of picture stories in speaking class, and the difficulties pupils may have in speaking lessons with picture stories

Male Female 0-3 years 3-7 years

3.2.2 Questionnaire for teachers:

The questionnaire for teacher consisted of two main parts In the first part, personal information regarding gender, years of teaching English is required In the second part, information about the exposure of using picture stories in teaching speaking, teachers‘ remarks on their pupils‘ feeling toward picture stories used in the classes, difficulties arise when using picture stories in teaching process

3.2.3 Piloting

Prior to conducting the questionnaire a pilot study was undertaken in order to assess the suitability of the questions selected and the Likert scale chosen Ten pupils were chosen to undertake the initial questionnaire, with one pupil being randomly selected from each class involved in the proposed study In the first questionnaire design

a five-point Likert scale was selected, with undecided as a neutral answer It was discovered that some subjects had a tendency to select undecided when not required to make a commitment to either a positive or a negative response For this reason, in some questions, the five-point scale was reduced to a four-point scale to eliminate undecided as

a response answer Some questions even used three-point scale

A teacher of English was also invited to doing the first version of the questionnaire for teachers

Based on the pupils and teacher‘s direct suggestion for the survey improvement, the researcher made some word changes in some statements in order to provide clarity for pupils The questionnaire for students was written in Vietnamese and the questionnaire for teachers was in English for clear understanding

3.3 Data collection procedures

A total of 100 questionnaires were distributed The pupils who participated in the study were informed that the data collected from the questionnaire would be used to

conduct research and would not be viewed by their classroom English teacher This was done in an attempt to secure the most honest and accurate responses from the pupils involved They were also made aware of the fact that their name and pupil number would not be required This information is frequently requested on test style question sheets

Classroom teachers of other subjects (not English) were instructed to give the pupils some initial guidelines regarding how to complete the questionnaire answer sheet This included directions on the four-point scale and the importance of circling one answer only The teachers were also asked to allow the pupils adequate time to complete the questionnaire in order to collect the most accurate information The teachers were given a one-week time period in which to administer the questionnaire This was done in

an attempt to allow teachers to select the most appropriate time to complete the task with their pupils All pupils completed the questionnaire during class time Administration of the questionnaire was carried out in week 7 of semester 2 and took approximately 10 to

15 minutes to complete By administering the questionnaire in the week 7 of semester 2,

it was anticipated the information provided by pupils would be more accurate as they were still in the process of studying in their regular classes After one week, 83 questionnaires were completed and returned The questionnaires not completed were attributed to absences on the day the survey was administered

Regarding questionnaire for teachers, the researcher had a chance to directly discuss with all the teachers at the meeting of the Foreign Language Group and distribute the questionnaires to them Ten questionnaires were delivered to the teachers at the end

of the meeting Fortunately, all the questionnaires were fulfilled and returned after fifteen minutes

3.4 Data analysis procedures

Descriptive statistics method was used to process the data Based on the results of 83 returned questionnaires from students and 10 questionnaires from teachers, the researcher classified collected data into four main categories:

- The motivation of pupils toward using picture stories in teaching speaking skill

- Pupils‘ involvement in the class using picture stories

- The teachers‘ perception of using picture stories in speaking class

- The difficulties of using picture stories to teach speaking skill

The number of students‘ choice for each letter (A, B, etc.) was counted, calculated percentage and then displayed by tables, bar charts, and pie charts in the reader-friendly way Detailed explanation followed the charts and tables to make the analysis more comprehensible

With the purpose of avoiding inconsistency and possible bias, all collected data were analyzed by the researcher alone

CHAPTER 4 PRESENTATION OF THE RESULTS

Chapter 4 presents the results of the research and data analysis which gives comprehensive answers to the research questions It also offers suggestions to involve

participants to solve all the diagnosed problems for a higher effectiveness of elicitation

4.1 Students’ attitudes toward the use of picture stories in their speaking lessons

In order to get information about students‘ opinion on the use of picture stories in their speaking lessons Four questions are addressed

* Question 1: Do you like reading picture stories?

Chart 1: Students' interest in picture stories reading

keep concentrating on picture stories Some of them may like literature, some of them may not But they all have the same interest in stories with illustration Colorful pages with beautiful characters and not very complicated situations are really great passion

of young children Therefore, picture stories can create an intrinsic motivation for children to learn Students will learn for their interest And learning will pose much less pressure than forced learning

* Question 2: How do you find speaking lessons with picture stories?

Chart 2: Students' attitude toward the use of picture stories in

However, it is necessary to note that only about 5% respondents did not like picture stories but the percentage of students who found the use of picture stories in the

lessons boring is a bit higher (7%) The reasons may come from students themselves, or they may come from teachers

* Question 3: Do you understand picture stories in English?

Chart 3: Students' perception of picture stories in English

* Question 4: You learn many structures and vocabulary from picture stories

on the statement They were not sure that they could learn new structures and new words from the stories The rest 13% claimed that they did not learn structures and vocabulary from the stories The implication of the results is that many students concentrate on the content rather than on the structure or the language of the stories It

is the fact that picture stories often have simple plot and easily-guessed content Therefore, students can keep reading the whole story in original English literary text without being stuck by new words and structures This has good effect on students‘ emotion because it makes them feel satisfied, and increases their motivation However, expressions and words in the picture stories are often closely to life, and they are also useful for learners Therefore, teachers should enrich their students‘ language knowledge with picture stories by drawing students‘ attention to new

structures and vocabulary in the stories They may have their students practised structures, and expressions through drama

From the above analyses, we can see that adolescent students have positive attitude to the use of picture stories in speaking class Most of them like reading picture stories and find speaking lessons using this material type interesting Vocabulary used in the stories can be inferred from both pictures and the context, and the sentence structures are simple so the pupils can understand the content easily This reduces students‘ anxiety and motivates them to participate actively in the lessons

4.2 Students’ involvement in the class

4.2.1 Students’ confidence in class using picture stories

Chart 5: Students' confidence