A study on using picture stories in speaking class to motivate eighth grade pupils at luong the vinh junior secondary school

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 SCH

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

MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410

Hanoi, 2010

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, theteaching 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 literaturechapters and producing grammatically accurate, but isolated sentences while realcommunication involves ideas, emotions, feelings, appropriateness and adaptability

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

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

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

to find good teaching material for teaching speaking English The researcher hopefindings 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 ateaching strategy on pupil‘s motivation In order to achieve the aim of the study, theresearch questions below will be addressed:

toward the use of picture stories in their speaking lessons?

speaking?

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

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 andSteve (1997, cited by Nunan, 1998) Thanks to a questionnaire, the researcher couldcollect 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 theresearcher with the information to answer the research questions about the currentsituation of using communicative task to enhance the speaking competence of the 10thgrade students In brief, due to its great effectiveness, the researcher chose surveyquestionnaire 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 statesthe significance, aims, scope, and methods of the study

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides a detailed insight into theoretical background knowledgeunderlying 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 factorscontributing 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 whichhelp to determine the proficiency achieve by different learners and the most successfullearners 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 whenconsidering the variable facets of motivation involved in a task as complex as thesocially- and culturally-bound, long-term endeavor of foreign language learning

Gardner (1985), in his landmark account of a socio-educational model oflanguage 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 favorableattitude toward learning the language at hand This model promoted the notion that self-identify and identification with the foreign language community is important to thelanguage-learning process For example, a pupil may feel he or she does not ―fit in‖ withthe 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 highlymotivating factor) Where one is along this continuum is described as one‘s integrativemotivation, or how much one wants to integrate with the target language community

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

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

Dörnyei and Ottó (1998) described how motivation changes over time for anygiven learner, and described how the flux in motivation may be related to temporalcomponents 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), thegenerated motivation helps the pupil select the goal or task to pursue and launches thepupil into action The pupil‘s own initial goals, values and attitudes associated with thelearning process, perceived likelihood of success, and the support the pupil gets (bothmental 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 thenature of the classroom environment, by teachers, peers and/or parents, or by the pupilthrough self-regulation) during the particular action, which may be a classroom-basedtask or the long-term endeavor of learning the foreign language in the classroom Dörnyeimentioned that this is especially important for classroom settings where pupils may bedistracted 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 retrospectivelyevaluates how things went to help determine the type and quality of activities he or shewill be motivated to pursue next Dörnyei (2005) noted that some of the mainmotivational influences on this stage of learning are grades and/or feedback obtainedfrom 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 whatwas 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 environmentand all that it entails (classroom peers, classroom implementations of state mandates,parents, textbooks, teachers, etc.) Thus, with a processing approach to motivation, wehave pedagogical implications associated with learner motivation: pupils can not onlyemploy self-motivating strategies throughout tasks, but teachers too can implementmotivational strategies in the classroom to influence the quality and type of motivationthat drives foreign language learning

2.2 Motivate adolescent learners

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

considerably more important for the pupil than the attention of the teacher

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

interest them

(Harmer 2001:38-39)

In the same view, Ur (1996:288) pointed out that children, unlike adults, do notmaintain 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 inwhich they show a great interest Thus, teachers can raise learning motivation ofadolescent learners at a great deal if they can create class activities and lesson materialsthat interest their learners

In addition, learning goals and classroom atmosphere are also important factorscontributing pupils‘ motivation The learning goals should be challenging, butmanageable 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 besupportive and non-threatening Learners should be ensured that they can express theiropinion 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 thefollowing five features (Sutherland, 1997):

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 theirteaching 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 picturestories 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.

(Cited by Royanti, 2007)Strengths of picture stories can be summarized in some main points as follows:

 Motivating

Pupils, especially young learners, like to read picture stories If they are givenoptions to study or read picture stories, they will choose to read picture stories So, withthe use of picture stories as a medium in teaching English, the pupils do not realize thatthey are learning English They will be more motivated to learn English

Picture stories motivate pupils by its pictures The use of colors, the name ofanimals, 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 tellany 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 inwords, he felt in pictures…it is too bad for us ―literary‖ enthusiast, but it‘s the truthnevertheless, pictures tell any story more effectively than words‖

 Visual

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

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

 Intermediary

Picture stories can serve as an intermediate step to difficult disciplines andconcepts Many language arts educators have used picture stories in this manner withtremendous success Koenke (1981) suggests that comic, a type of picture stories, canlead pupils toward the discipline of learning Hutchinson‘s experiment (1949) found outthat many teachers discovered comic strips to be particularly useful in special classes orfor 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 theliterary worth of books and the formation of the literary canon ―Using comics,

Versaci challenges college literature pupils to consider, evaluate, and question the veryconcept of a ―literary canon.‖ Because comics are rarely considered literature, Versacithan 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‖

Picture stories are read popularly by children If we ask the pupils, whether theyhave read picture stories or not, most of them would say, ―yes.‖ It is very popularbecause picture stories often have simple, but interesting plots and full of colors That iswhy the children like it By picture stories, pupils can learn about culture Teachers canintroduce popular culture into their classroom easily and effectively through picturestories By incorporating popular culture into curriculum teachers can bridge theseparation 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 thisstudy Dang Thuy Chi (2007) in her M.A Thesis Linguistics ―Using pictures tomotivate 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 toimprove the efficiency of teaching English to the first year students at Viet NamMaritime University‖ has deeply discussed about the advantages of short stories inteaching English process

Another work about using stories in the class is ― Stories for teaching speakingskill 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 unrelatedmaterials There have not had any studies on the advantages of picture stories to Englishteaching and learning yet From the researcher‘s notice, many children prefer stories withpictures to unillustrated ones Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate if picturestories have any positive effects on students‘ motivation in the class

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

Chapter 3 presents the methodology including the context of teaching English inLuong The Vinh School, participants, instruments, data collection and analysisprocedure

3.1 Participants

3.1.1 Population:

The study was conducted at Luong The Vinh Junior Secondary School, Ha Noi inthe school year 2009-2010 In the school year, there were 10 eighth grade classes whichwere 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 Aclasses belong to Natural Science Department, the C classes belong to Social ScienceDepartment, 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 Englishfor 2 years, and their level of English proficiency were pre-intermediate Though inreality, some pupils were above or below that level

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

In addition, since there are usually over 45 pupils in each class, the pupils havelittle 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 andgrammar

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 onehand, it motivates people to work hard to win face; on the other, people tend to concealtheir mistakes and weaknesses for fear of losing face For many English learners, theybelieve 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 speakEnglish So there is the vicious circle: the less they speak, the less they improve theirspeaking skills, and the more they are afraid of speaking.

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

3.1.2 Sampling

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

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

Table1 Pupils‘ profile

Group Gender Years of learning English

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

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 thesecond 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 toassess the suitability of the questions selected and the Likert scale chosen Ten pupilswere chosen to undertake the initial questionnaire, with one pupil being randomlyselected 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 wasdiscovered that some subjects had a tendency to select undecided when not required tomake a commitment to either a positive or a negative response For this reason, in somequestions, 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 thequestionnaire 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 wasdone in an attempt to secure the most honest and accurate responses from the pupilsinvolved They were also made aware of the fact that their name and pupil number wouldnot be required This information is frequently requested on test style question sheets.

Classroom teachers of other subjects (not English) were instructed to give thepupils some initial guidelines regarding how to complete the questionnaire answer sheet.This included directions on the four-point scale and the importance of circling oneanswer only The teachers were also asked to allow the pupils adequate time to completethe questionnaire in order to collect the most accurate information The teachers weregiven 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 withtheir pupils All pupils completed the questionnaire during class time Administration ofthe 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 theywere still in the process of studying in their regular classes After one week, 83questionnaires were completed and returned The questionnaires not completed wereattributed to absences on the day the survey was administered

discuss with all the teachers at the meeting of the Foreign Language Group and distributethe 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 fifteenminutes

3.4 Data analysis procedures

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

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

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

With the purpose of avoiding inconsistency and possible bias, all collected data wereanalyzed 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

10%

5%

a Like very much

b Like a bit 24%

c Neutral

61%

d Dislike

It is not very surprising that almost 62% students liked picture stories very much

and 20% liked this kind of books a bit Nearly 10% students had neutral idea and only

5% did not like picture stories In the daily life, we can note many young students

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

speaking lessons.

Similarly to the first question, over a half of the respondents (55%) found

speaking lessons with picture stories very interesting, 24% found the lessons interesting,

14% did not find the class very interesting, and 7% said they felt bored The results show

good attitudes of students to the use of picture stories in speaking class The respondents

were motivated and they liked the lessons This is a crucial factor to make the class‘s

However, it is necessary to note that only about 5% respondents did not likepicture 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

This question is to investigate students‘ perception of picture stories in English Asthe chart displays, 39% respondents said that they understand English picture stories verymuch 48% just understood the stories a bit And 13% did not understand the stories Thepercentage of students who did not understand picture stories may have caused the highrate of de-motivated students in question 2 Students, often lose their interests andpatience if the task is so difficult To overcome this problem, teachers should help theirstudents to understand the stories and requirements of the lessons With picture stories,students can guess the word meaning from the illustration and the context However, incase the word is so difficult to understand, teachers should provide more explanation totheir students, especially weak students

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

d Don't agree 30%

As can be seen from the chart, 30% of the sample agreed that they could learnmany structures and vocabulary from picture stories However, only 20% respondents

strongly agreed with the assumption A great number of students (37%) had no idea

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 practisedstructures, and expressions through drama.

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

4.2 Students’ involvement in the class

4.2.1 Students’ confidence in class using picture stories

Chart 5: Students' confidence

4.2.2 The atmosphere in speaking classes using picture stories

Chart 6: The classroom atmosphere

4.2.3 Students’ involvement in activities exploited from picture stories

Chart 7: Students' participation in activities

22%