A study on using storytelling to improve english speaking for students at a primary school in hanoi

I, Phạm Thị Hân, hereby certify that the thesis “A study on using storytelling toimprove English speaking ability for students at a primary school in Hanoi” issubmitted for the partial f

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL

STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching MethodologyCode: 8140231.01

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL

STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

I, Phạm Thị Hân, hereby certify that the thesis “A study on using storytelling toimprove English speaking ability for students at a primary school in Hanoi” issubmitted for the partial fulfillment of the Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty ofPost-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, VietnamNational University, Hanoi Although when doing my research, I have consultedvarious books, articles, and webpages for my references, I exacted some ideasrelating to my study from their work I declare that this assignment is my own workand does not involve plagiarism or collusion

Hanoi, 2020

Phạm Thị Hân

First and foremost, I would like to give my cordial thanks to my supervisorProf Dr Hoang Van Van for his enlightening support, invaluable feedback andrecommendations during my fulfillment of this minor thesis

My sincere thanks go to all of the lecturers and the staff of the Faculty of PostGraduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies for theirvaluable lectures on which help me to orient the research

I would like to convey my warmest appreciation and thanks to invaluableassistance to teachers at Ly Nam De Primary School I truly wish to thank all thestudents in grade 3 at Ly Nam De Primary School who have actively participated inthe research

I am deeply grateful to my family for their great encouragement Withouttheir support, I could not have completed this thesis

Young learners have spent more time in learning English at primary schools

in Hanoi recent years As a result, students have more chances to learn English.However, a wide range of young learners face lacking speaking proficiency whichtheir grammar, content, vocabulary, and fluency are limited Moreover, studentshave low motivation and lack confidence in learning speaking There are differenttechniques of teaching speaking skills which are employed to be successful One ofthe concerned techniques is storytelling This research is an investigation into theeffectiveness of teaching speaking to young learners through storytelling Theprimary aim of the study is to determine whether storytelling has an extendedimpact on young learners’ speaking It also studies students’ attitude to thistechnique The data were collected through observation, questionnaire, and tests andthen analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively The results of the data analysisindicate that most of the students achieved considerable progress in their speakingafter using storytelling Students also participated in the lesson actively andexcitedly In addition, storytelling can motivate students to communicate

TABLE OF CONTENT

DECLARATION………

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS………

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES

i ii iii iv vii viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale ……… 1

2 Statement of the problem……… 2

3 Aims and objectives of the study ……… …… 2

4 Research question……… …… 3

5 Scope of the study ……….……… 3

6 Significance of the study ……… ……… 3

7 Organization of the thesis……… 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4 2.1 Speaking………. 4

2.1.1 Definitions of speaking skill……… 4

2.1 2 Techniques to teach speaking skill to young learners………. 4

2.1.3 Assessing speaking skill……… 5

2.1.4 Criteria levels for evaluating speaking skill………. 6

2.2 Storytelling……… 6

2.2.1 Definition of storytelling………. 6

2.2.2 The advantage of storytelling……….…………. 7

2.2.3 Storytelling techniques………. 8

2.2.4 Criteria for selecting storybooks………. 10

2.3 Students’ attitude……… 10

2.3.1 Students’ attitude………

2.3.2 Characteristics of primary students……… 11

2.4 Previous studies in the world and in Vietnam……… 12

2.5 Summary……… 14

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY……… 15

3.1 Context of the study……… 15

3.1.1 Setting of the study……… 15

3.1.2 Participants……… 17

3.1.3 Materials……… 16

3.2 Research design……… 16

3.2.1 Research approach……… 16

3.2.2 Research procedures……… 16

3.3 Data collection instruments……… 23

3.3.1 Questionnaire……… 23

3.3.2 Test………. 24

3.3.3 Observation……… 25

3.4 Data analysis methods……… 25

3.5 Summary……… 25

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 27 4.1 Data analysis……… 27

4.1.1 Analysis of test results……… 27

4.1.2 Analysis of questionnaires……… 32

4.1.3 Analysis of observation……… 37

4.2 Findings and discussion……… 39

4.2.1 To what extent can storytelling technique affect children’s 39 speaking ability? ………

4.2.2 Students’ attitude towards storytelling ……… 40

4.3 Summary……… 40

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION……… 42

5.1 Recapitulation……… 42

5.2 Concluding remarks……… 42

5.3 Limitation of the study……… 43 5.4 Recommendations and suggestions for further study…………. 43

REFERENCES……… 45

APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1: LESSON PLAN……… I

APPENDIX 2A: POST-TREATMENT QUESTIONNAIRE (ENGLISH

VERSION) ……… …… …… …… V

APPENDIX 2B: POST-TREATMENT QUESTIONNAIRE

(VIETNAMESE VERSION) ……… …… VIII

APPENDIX 3A: PRE-TEST OF SPEAKING SKILL……… X

APPENDIX 3B: POST-TEST OF SPEAKING SKILL……… XII

APPENDIX 4: SPEAKING RUBRIC……… XIV

APPENDIX 5: THE FORMULA OF MEAN, STANDARD

DEVIATION AND MEDIAN……….…… XVI

APPENDIX 6: TEACHER’S OBSERVATION……… XXV

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

%: Percentage

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: The course procedures ……… 18

Table 2.1: The students’ content of speaking … ……… 27

Table 2.2: The students’ fluency of speaking ……… 28

Table 2.3: The students’ grammar of speaking ……… 29

Table 2.4: The students’ vocabulary of speaking ……… 29

Table 2.5: Record of students’ test scores……… 30

Table 2.6: Comparison of mean, standard deviation, mode, minimum and maximum between the pre-test and post-test……… 31

Table 3: Students’ attitude toward storytelling……… 32

CHAPTER 1:

INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale for the research

English is considered as an international language which is used wider andwider As a result, English has been taught in almost every school and mostlybecome a compulsory subject in Vietnam At school, teachers teach all the 4 skills

of speaking, reading, listening and but not all students can develop all skills equally.Brown and Lee (2015) state that learning to speak a foreign language is oftenregarded as one of the most difficult for students From the researcher’s observation,students seemed to have difficulties in speaking up during speaking lessons Theyfaced lacking speaking proficiency As a result, their grammar, content, vocabulary,and fluency are limited Therefore, they rarely answered the questions given by theteachers orally or they spoke with pauses and got trouble in finding appropriatewords to express their ideas Besides, students had low motivation in learningspeaking They rarely had opportunities to practice the foreign language in theirdaily life and speaking activities for students were not attracted them That routineactivities in learning can make students bored that decrease their motivation andparticipation in learning Brown and Lee (2015)

Another problem is that students often lack confidence in speaking Theytended to be passive in speaking lessons They were afraid of making mistakes andbeing laughed by their friends and teachers Therefore, they preferred using thenative language or keeping quite when teachers or friends raised the questions.Many researchers revealed that psychological factors such as anxiety or shyness,lack of confidence, motivation of fear of mistakes commonly prevented studentsfrom speaking (Nunan, 1999; Sato, 2003; Thornbury, 2011)

With these problems in mind, teaching English for communication to younglearners is an important topic to study Ulas (2008) recommends that successfulcommunication is speaking nicely, articulately and efficiently, as well as usingeffective voice projection, speaking is linked to success in life, because it occupies

an important position both individually and socially It is true to students in primary

school because speaking performs students’ thought and it is the oral output oflearning Nunan (1991) said that success of language is measured considering theability to carry out a conversation in the target language Therefore, teachers ofEnglish should make more effort to teach children more effectively and helpstudents feel competent and confident by providing them with safe, entertaining,and educational environment (Schindler, 2006; Scott & Ytreberg, 2001) Hence,teachers try to find the methods that can bring the better results and attract students

to the speaking lessons

This lead the author to the choice of the study “A study on using storytelling

to improve English speaking ability for students at a primary school in Hanoi” togain some insights into speaking strategies and find out the good ways to help thestudents improve their speaking skill

2 Statement of the problem

The researcher studied a number of studies investigating the effectiveness ofstorytelling, but most of them focus on developing vocabulary, listening, orpresentation on the teenagers and adults Therefore, the specific problem addressed

in this study was to investigate the effectiveness of storytelling on primary students’speaking skill and their attitudes to this technique

3 Aims of the study

This research aims to investigate the effectiveness of storytelling on speakingskill and their attitudes to this technique in speaking at Ly Nam De Primary School.This aim is specified into the following objectives:

1 To examine the impact of applying storytelling in teaching speaking for the young learners at a primary school in Hanoi

2 To determine the students’ attitudes in learning speaking through storytelling

2 What are the students’ attitudes towards using storytelling in developing speakingskill?

5 Scope of the research

The study was conducted at Ly Nam De Primary School in Hanoi Theresearch concentrates on the young learners of eight years old The participantsinvolved in the research are 14 students at Ly Nam De Primary School This studyinvestigated the effects of storytelling and students’ attitude towards usingstorytelling in learning speaking Therefore, the teaching of other speakingstrategies to other grades would be beyond the scope

6 Significance of the study

In terms of theory, the study is expected to contribute the effective ways todevelop speaking skill In terms of practice, the findings of this study can be used as

a reference for teachers of English in general and teachers at the Ly Nam De school

in particular to improve teaching speaking skills and attract students in learningspeaking

7 Organization of the thesis

The study consists of three main parts: the introduction, the development andthe conclusion

CHAPTER 1: “Introduction” presents rationale, statement of the problem, aims

and objectives of the study, research question, the scope of the study, significance ofthe study, and the design of the study

CHAPTER 2: “Literature” provides a literature review on theoretical issues related to speaking, storytelling, students’ attitude and previous studies CHAPTER 3: “Methodology” describes an overview on context of the study, research design,

instrument used in the study

CHAPTER 4:“Data analysis and discussion” presents details in the methodology,

the data analysis, findings and discussion

CHAPTER 5: “Conclusion” gives a brief review of the whole study and some

limitations of the study and suggestions for further study

Chapter 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Speaking

2.1.1 Definitions of speaking skill

Speaking is an important skill in daily life as emphasized by many educatorsand researchers Bailey and Savage (1994) emphasize that speaking is a basic skillwhich is the output of reading and listening and it is used to communicate everyday Similarly, Hayriye (2006) states that speaking is considered as a vital part oflanguage learning because the ability to communicate plays an important part instudents’ school life and in other fields throughout life

Nunan suggests that speaking is considered as the same an oral interactionwhich are conventional ways of speaking information, expressing the idea, andthought in mind (Nunan, 1991) According to this view, it is clear that speaking isthe activity of giving speeches and talks to give speakers’ opinion Moreover,Chaney’s definition gives the opinion that speaking is the process of building andsharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety ofcontexts (Chaney, 1988) From this point of view, speakers can clearly demonstratefeeling and opinion through body language only in speaking

In summary, most of these show some common characteristics which speakinguses the words and produces the sound to express their ideas, feeling, thoughtthrough ordinary voice Moreover, speaking needs verbal and non-verbal symbols toexpress speakers’ knowledge, opinion in communication As result, speakers need

to combine various skills in speaking

2.1.2 Techniques to teach speaking skill to young learners

Nunan (1991) recommends that learners would be better if they are given themaximum number of chances to practice the target language in meaningfulsituations Moreover, Nunan (2003) has provided some suggestions for teachingspeaking as below:

Firstly, teachers need to prepare the lesson carefully to get the differences in

context between two languages and two cultures He explains that students meetdifficulties in learning foreign language with different contexts because they havefew opportunities to use the target language outside the classroom Therefore, someforeign language learners can neither understand native speakers nor communicatewith them in the real life.

Secondly, it is necessary to develop fluency and accuracy at the beginning andintermediate levels Teachers should provide students with fluency buildingpractice It is also true to realize that making mistakes is a natural part of learning anew language but accuracy is the also the purpose of the process

Thirdly, using group or pair work promotes the speaking lesson Pair work andgroup work activities can increase the amount of time that learners get to speak inthe target language Besides, students have more chances to exchange the speakingtopics, knowledge which is useful in speaking

Next, teachers should plan speaking tasks that involve negotiation for meaning

by asking for clarification, repetition or explanation Teachers get students’ ability,teacher should prepare the speaking tasks which are useful for all levels of students

in the class

Finally, teachers should design classroom activities that involve guidance andpractice in both transactional speaking (communicating to get something done,including the exchange of goods or services) and interactional speaking(communicating with someone for social purposes)

2.1.3 Assessing speaking skill

Assessment refers to collect information and judge learner’s knowledge(Brindley, 2003) A teacher must set clear instructional goals to assess goals whichstudents can meet

A teacher needs to spare time for a students’ response Meanwhile, learnersshould be given a couple of minutes to make the transition into English beforegiving them an English language assessment Moreover, the test needs to have

clear instruction More seriously, students need to be shown that theexaminers assessing them can be trusted (Linse, 2005).

Many forms of speaking test are used to measure students’ ability Johnson(2001) recommends the techniques of testing speaking such as oral interview, role-play, simulation, and imitation Each technique has its own advantages An oralinterview is a traditional technique which an examiner asks the learners’ personalquestions and perhaps also about a passage or picture sequence Heaton (1990)strongly supports that an excellent way of testing speaking is the oral interview.That is the reason why the researcher decides this study includes two parts in thetest which are personal introduction and tell the story basing on picture sequences

2.1.4 Criteria levels for evaluating speaking skill

A wide range of authors set standards for English speaking evaluation Oller(1979) focuses on language use in daily life so he sets five standards for Englishspeaking evaluation Heaton (1990) presents a system with six bands with manycharacteristics including fluency, accuracy, vocabulary, grammar andcommunication He advises using a scale for grading students’ performance onspeaking tests rather than a marking scheme It is better to use a rating scalecontaining short descriptions of each grade Basing on the characteristics ofstorytelling and speaking, this research is based on the rubric adapted fromSaeOng (2010) and Heaton (2009) including content, fluency, grammar andvocabulary to evaluate speaking ability Fluency criteria examines how fluently,smoothly, speed of speech students can speak Content criteria evaluatestudents’ ability to arrange the content of the story and connect content.Grammar criteria evaluates students word- orders and grammar of thesentences The vocabulary criteria examines students appropriate words andmeaning in the stories

2.2 Storytelling

In the past, without the invention of television, computer or internet, mostchildren liked listening to the folklores from grandparents or parents beforesleeping That is one kind of storytelling which is defined by Rubin (1990)storytelling is the “oral interpretation of literature and folklore”, which means thatcomponents of storytelling are the story, the storyteller, space, and listeners Hararideclares that stories with full of imagination as well as experience differed humansfrom animals (Harari, 2014) It is the traditional and natural method for humans toimpart their information from generations to generations.

In the modern context, storytelling is defined by different authors in a variety

of ways Safdarian (2013) defines storytelling as students retell stories in their ownlanguage after listening to the stories by the teacher In another way, storytellingthat involves improvisation in telling story, facial gestures, and body movement is

an oral activity to grab audiences’ attention by using multi-sensory stirring emotion

of an event in a story (Stanley and Dillingham, 2009) Besides, Champion as cited

in Irawati (2003) clarifies that storytelling is an oral activity where language andgestures can be used in a colorful way to create scenes in a sequence

It can be inferred from all above that storytelling is oral activities with creativescenes in sequences which promote children’s imagination, language learning andmotivation

2.2.2 The advantages of storytelling

Many researchers state that using stories brings various advantages includinglanguage learning, imaginational and motivational benefits Ellis and Brewster(2002) emphasize storytelling develops the imagination When children identifycharacters and illustrations, they get personally involved in a story The imaginativeexperience develops their creative skill Storytelling is also a useful tool to linkfantasy and imagination with a child’s real world Hayriye (2006) declares thatstorytelling encourages students to share ideas with plenty of imagination withoutworrying about the right or wrong conclusion

Stories contain natural repetition of key vocabularies and sentences whichsupport children understand the details and remember what happened in the stories.Therefore, the uses of stories can develop language learning in the context (Ellis &Brewster, 2002) Moreover, Ellis and Brewster also emphasize that “stories maybridge the gap between language study and language use and also link classroomlearning with the world outside Some of the activities do not always have a verylanguage element but are nevertheless important in creating a feeling among thepupils that learning English means fun, activity, creativity and enjoyment” (Ellisand Brewster, 1991:1).

Stockdale (1995) proposes that storytelling enhances motivation becauselearners can be completely attracted to stories by the combination of instruction andentertainment Krashen (1981) states that learners with great motivation, self-confidence, a good self-image, and a low level of anxiety are easy to successful insecond language acquisition Based on these benefits, storytelling developsstudents’ speaking skills by providing a means of transmitting images, ideas, andemotions that motivate them to learn the language

2.2.3 Storytelling techniques

Teachers are an important factor in teaching and promoting the learningprocess They have great responsibility to transfer their knowledge and skills to thestudents, to guide learners in developing their mind, and to educate them on how toabsorb, to analyze, and to expand their individual knowledge and skill

First of all, teachers need to prepare themselves before telling stories tostudents Teachers as storytellers should familiarize themselves with the books andillustrations by deciding which illustrations or details they will focus on To helpteachers boost their confidence, they should listen to recording of the storycarefully Teachers should read a story several times until they feel confident, andknow how tell the story well enough (Ellis & Brewster, 2002)

Moreover, to get these targets, it is important to have techniques in teachingspeaking through storytelling Zaro and Salaberri (1995: 5) suggested some of thesetechniques:

i Firstly, teachers should notice that storytelling can provokes curiositybecause it evokes students’ imagination and interest in language skill

ii Secondly, when presenting storytelling, teacher should allow learners to experience with the target language and encourage their cooperation

iii Next, teachers can use mother tongue, use the voice, facial expressions, handmotions to emphasize the story to express if necessary Ellis and Brewster (2002) alsohave the same opinion that teachers create an atmosphere for storytelling that

children can see the teacher’s face and the illustrations Teachers use gesture, mime,facial expression, varied pace and tone to convey meaning and keep students’attention Richard-Amato (2003) adds that stories may be meaningless if toldwithout expression, feeling or physical involvement on the part of the student.Finally, storytelling should be relaxed, funny and informal

Besides, Brewster, Ellis, and Giard (2004) recommend some techniques inusing storytelling in the classroom:

a) If students are not familiar with storytelling, teachers should begin with a short session which has simple requirements

b) Teachers should tell story slowly and clearly in order to give students time

to recognize sounds, words, relate what they hear to what they see in the pictures, tothink, ask questions or give some comments

c) Teachers should make comments about the illustration and point learners to focus their students’ attention

d) Teachers should encourage students to get involve in telling the story by asking them to repeat some key vocabularies items and phases

e) Teachers should use gestures, mimes, facial expressions, voice projectionand pausing variably to convey meaning and encourage students to tell the stories

f) Teachers should ask students questions while telling the story to gain

interaction between learners and that story

g) By repeating the story, teachers create opportunities for students to expose

to language and have chances to work out the meaning and have it remembered(Brewster et al 2004: 21)

In conclusion, teacher will play a vital role as a storyteller with natural andattracting voice Teacher expresses the story in the simple ways with greatfacial expression to get students’ attention

2.2.4 Criteria for selecting storybooks

To teach English speaking through storytelling, criteria for choosingstorybooks need to be highly appropriat According to Changer and Harrison(1992), the following criteria for choosing textbooks are noticed:

Firstly, the level of language such as the vocabulary, structures and functions should

be suitable for students’ ability

Secondly, storybooks should contain features which students can imitate such asrhyme, onomatopoeia, rhythm or intonation to improve their pronunciation

Thirdly, the story can lead students to predict what is coming next in the story.Storybooks should arouse curiosity and make students want to find out more aboutthe target language, culture and language learning

Last but not least, the storybooks should also enable students to respond positively

to the storyline, develop positive attitudes towards the target language, culture andlanguage learning Finally, storybooks should give information concerning life inthe target culture

Based on the above criteria, teachers should not only be aware of students’ languagelevel, repetition and language features, but they also must choose storybooks whichcan motivate and develop students’ memory skills and arouse curiosity

2.3.1 Students’ attitude

Gardner (1985) states that “attitude is an evaluated reaction to some referent orattitude object, inferred on the basis of the individual’s beliefs or opinions about thereferent” In general, if students have positive attitudes, their experiences are likely

to be perceived favorably On the other hand, if they have negative attitudes, theirexperiences are likely to be perceived unfavorably

Based on the above criteria, the researcher comes to the conclusion thatattitudes refers to students’ feeling and shapes their behavior towards languagelearning Attitudes also influence the learners’ success or failure in their learning.With the advantages of stories, this method is hoped to motivate students to thespeaking lesson and inspire them in learning language The stories “Little RedRiding Hood” and “The happy and unhappy family” are suitable for level andcharacteristics of students in this study

2.3.2 Characteristics of primary students

Students have their different characteristics that affect learning Teachersshould be aware of students’ characteristics to find the suitable methods for younglearners

In this study, young learners are defined as students in the primary According

to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, at the age of 6-12, children start todevelop their logical and operational thinking In general, young learners have thecharacteristics of “enthusiasm for learning and curiosity about the world aroundthem” (Harmer, 2007: 82) Therefore, children’s world is full of imagination

Harmer shared the opinion that young learners learn by examples (Harmer, 2007:82-83) Hence, the stories have the precious lesson with the detail or specialbehaviors will help students remember well However, children are easy to getbored, they only pay attention in the short time The study discovers that “it is notsurprising to note that a child’s concentrate span increases as he/she grows older.Children cannot concentrate on one thing for a long period” (Brumfit, Moon andTongue, 1991: 7)

Children also are very sensitive and dislike criticism They look for guidanceand support Therefore, they require individual attention and approval from theirteachers They seem to respond well to praises, and it is very important to praisethem for what they do It is common sense that if children are praised, they aremotivated and feel successful (Scott and Ytreberg, 1990: 3) Children gettingpositive encouragement will be more excited and motivated Therefore, Harmerhighlights that teachers try to understand “how their students think and operate”(Harmer, 2007: 83).

The following list shows general characteristics and language development of ayoung learner according to Scott and Ytreberg (1990)

- They can tell the difference between fact and fiction

- Their basic concepts are formed They have very decided views of the world

- They ask questions all the times They rely on the spoken words as well as thephysical world to convey and understand meaning

- They are able to make some decisions about their own learning

- They have definite views about what they like and do not like doing

- They have a developed sense of fairness about what happens in the classroom andbegin to question the teacher’s decisions

- They are able to work with others and learn from others

In conclusion, children can learn better when they interact with the real things

or learn in situation which motivates them in the good ways They do not likelearning in a directive way, they enjoy active involvement which take themcuriosity Understanding the young learners’ characteristic will help the teachers getthe objectives of the lessons efficiently Based on the above-mentioned theory,using storytelling as a suitable resource for teaching and learning a foreignlanguage

2.4 Previous studies in the world and Vietnam

Mukminatus (2017) used the observation and questionnaire to measure theeffectiveness of storytelling in developing speaking skill This research yeilds the

result that storytelling could improve students’ speaking skill in the HasymimAsy’sari University Students could retell the content of the reading text in themodule, even they were highly motivated to their discussion and showed theirinterest in the topic given.

Ampha (2013) conducted a study for the effectiveness of storytelling-basedinstruction to enhance English listening and speaking skills of the sixth gradestudents This study aimed to measure the effectiveness of the storytelling basedinstruction and examine learners’ attitudes toward this skill The participants were

220 students in the secondary school who experienced five storytelling-basedinstruction in five weeks The research found that storytelling-based instructionsuccessfully enhanced the students’ English speaking and listening ability.Storytelling-based instruction was shown to be effective It also showed thatstudents’ satisfaction of learning English through storytelling-based instruction washighly positive

In summary, using storytelling as a technique in teaching speaking is admitted

to motivate students’ to speak naturally with accuracy, fluency and good gestures.Moreover, storytelling also provides students with chances to be more confident infront of the crowd

Although many researchers approved that storytelling is an effective method toimprove language in the world, storytelling seems to be quite unpopular in Vietnamsince it is highly likely that not many researchers apply storytelling in teachingspeaking The researcher finds only some master thesis named “Using short stories

to improve the efficiency of teaching speaking and listening skills to students at HaiPhong foreign language centre” by Nhan (2010) in the University of Language andInternational Studies In the research , it attempted to find out the effects of shortstories on teaching speaking and listening Besides, it also investigated students’attitude towards using short stories in language teaching As the result, using shortstory in teaching enhance students’ listening and speaking

skills Moreover, it reduces students’ anxiety by creating a friendly and relaxingclassroom atmosphere that helps them get involved in the class activities.

Besides, in the thesis named “Teaching vocabularies to primary children by usingstorytelling method” by Trang (2012) proved the effect of storytelling in teachingvocabularies This study aims to emphasize the effective ways to teach vocabularythrough storytelling Participants were 153 students in the primary schools whoanswer the questions about the usefulness and importance of vocabularies Tomeasure the effectiveness, questionnaires were used once more time As the result,using this technique approved that it is practical, useful and interesting to teachvocabularies

Given the teaching and learning situation, the researchers improve theimportance and the effectiveness of storytelling in teaching language The fact thatthere has been little research in implementing storytelling to improve speaking skill,especially for primary school students Thus, the researcher made the decision toconduct an action research to examine the students’ attitude of storytelling inlearning speaking skills and measure the effect of this method in improvingspeaking skill

2.5 Summary

The chapter has presented the relevant literature, which can form thetheoretical and conceptual framework for the study It is firstly concerned with thestorytelling and speaking, including some definitions, students’ attitude,characteristic of primary students, criteria for selecting storybooks, storytellingtechniques, the advantage of storytelling, criteria levels for evaluating speakingskill, techniques to teach speaking skill to young learners, criteria levels forevaluating speaking skill The final part focused on presenting a review of the mainstorytelling strategy employed in this study All of these serve as a basis for anaction research on using storytelling to improve speaking skill for students in theprimary which is implemented and presented in the next chapter

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Context of the study

3.1.1 Setting of the study

This study is an action research to apply storytelling to teach speaking Inparticular, the purpose of this study is to identify the effect storytelling onimproving students’ speaking skill and students’ attitude toward this technique.The study was conducted at Ly Nam De Primary School in Hanoi The school wasestablished in 2016 and up to now it has 30 classes with 40 teachers of differentsubjects and more than a thousand students The school is located in Mieu NhaVillage, Nam Tu Liem District Many clubs after school which is really useful todevelop students’ life skills Like other normal primary schools in Vietnam, thisschool has five grades from grade 1 to grade 5

The teaching staff consists of 6 teachers of English who are both Vietnameseand foreign language teachers They graduated from different college anduniversity The researcher has worked as an English teacher who teach Math andScience through English in this school and attended the MA course at University ofLanguage and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi Tocomplete the course, the research has approved by the principal’s permission

In this school, apart from the English periods of Ministry of Educating and Training,children have more chances to attend transforming program at school such as BinhMinh and Ismart transforming education Furthermore, many extra-curricularactivities such as English speaking Contest, English festival, Science Swat haveactively developed in the school to motivate students and create an educationalenvironment for both English teachers and students As a result, the

English movements of teaching and learning have become much more cheerful andthe quality has been gradually improved.

3.1.2 Participants

The research concentrates on the young learners of eight years old According

to the pretest, they had basic words so they had difficulties in expressing the fullsentences or whole ideas, their grammar using was also limited They were afraid ofmaking incorrect answers so they were reserved

The participants involved in the research are 14 students at Ly Nam DePrimary School Almost all of them have been learning English for more than twoyears Moreover in the teaching process, the researcher realized that they have goodattitude in learning language but most of the students have little interest andmotivation in learning speaking This fact gives the researcher a stimulation to carryout this research with the hope to change this problem Each lesson lasts 40 minutes.All of the participants would be willing to join the course

3.1.3 Materials

There are two stories used during the research which is “The happy family andunhappy family” and “Little Red Riding Hood” First of all, the language with thecurious details is suitable for children These stories provide children with a lot ofprecious lessons about how to behave with members in the family For these abovereasons, the researcher decided to choose these two stories to teach in experimentalgroups

3.2 Research design

3.2.1 Research approach

This study used action research to search the teaching for improvement.According to Cohen and Manion (2002), the aim of action research was to improvethe current state of affairs in educational context in the research.Therefore, actionresearch fits the purposes of this study which finds out the effect of usingstorytelling in teaching speaking and students’ attitudes to this technique Therefore,the action research is as an approach to this study

3.2.2 Research procedures

14 students took part in the study The action research was conducted using thecycle suggested by Nunan (1992) The research cycle includes seven phasesinitiation/ problem identification; preliminary, investigation; hypothesis;intervention; evaluation, dissemination and follow-up

Step 1: Initiation/Problem identification:

During teaching speaking lessons to young students, the researcher found thatstudents were so reserved to speak that they kept silent when being required torespond Some preferred using Vietnamese to answer the teacher’s questions Somewere not confident enough to perform in front of the crowd Even the speakinglessons are too difficult for the teachers to attract students because the inputs are notcurious and mysterious enough Moreover, they had difficulties in pronunciation.Some students had limited vocabulary which led to impossible conservations.Moreover, they did not know how to solve the problem in the lessons Therefore,students’ speaking proficiency was limited Day by day, students had lowmotivation to learn speaking

Step 2: Preliminary investigation

From teaching experience, to identify the actual speaking ability of the 14chosen younger students at Ly Nam De Primary School, the researcher conducted apre-test The students took the test in which they had to take the basic introductionabout themselves, families and then answer the questions related to the chosentopics The score of the pre-test showed students’ speaking needed to be improved

In order to specify the current situations, the researcher had informal chatswith the students in the break time to discover their problems The studentsthemselves recognized that they never told the whole stories, they were onlyfamiliar with speaking only the words The others said, they knew to tell the story inVietnamese but they did not know how to express in English because of their lack

of vocabularies Some shared that they were not confident enough

because they had little chance to stand in front of the crowd before Other causes

were mentioned namely their lack of motivation and low competences Step 3: Hypothesis

Students’ limited speaking skill could be hypothesized due to their lack ofvocabulary, grammar, motivation and appropriate speaking strategies whichmotivated the researcher to read the literature on developing speaking skill andincreased the motivation for primary students While studying the literature throughteaching methodology books, journal articles, the researcher came across the idea ofusing storytelling strategy in teaching speaking, and hypothesized that the use ofstrategy might help to improve the situation

Seven meetings later, the post-test was implemented to measure students’achievement in speaking as well as the effect of storytelling in teaching speaking.The post- tests kept the same format and criteria as the pre-test, and the examinerwas the same According to Crowl (1996: 114), “the test has been designed so thatthe procedures for administering the test, the materials used in the test, and the way

in which the test is scored are constant” The students’ marks on this test wereapplied to data analysis of the research.The course of learning speaking throughstorytelling was applied in 8 weeks All the course procedures are shown below

Table 1: The course procedures

Week 1 - Teacher explained the purpose of the study to students

- Students were asked to introduce themselves and family, thenthey made up the story based on the picture and told it Then theygot the experience or the lesson in their daily life

The happy and unhappy family (period 1)Week 2 - Introduce the topic “the family” and the story “The happy and

unhappy family”

- Take students curiosity by letting them guess what happened inthe pictures, discuss the topics

- Provide the new words and grammar

- Use story outline including the identifications of main characters,settings, problems of the story, story events, and how the problemwas solved in the story

The happy and unhappy family (period 2)Week 3 - Ask some questions to remind the students of the story

- Check students’ mistakes in the writing story Ask students to work ingroups to solve the problem in the story and the real life

- Explain how to apply storytelling by using tip forms and gave anexample of tips in retelling story Let the students retell the story inpairs Ask students to practice telling story in pairs

- Call some students to rehearse in front of the class Remind students

to use intonation, eye contact, fluency and body language whentelling story.Remind students to prepare to tell the story carefully forthe next meeting

The happy and unhappy family (period 3)Week 4 - Ask students to retell the story in front of the class.

- Ask students to give their friends’ evaluation

- Give students comment Give out the situation in the real life and require students to solve

Little Red Riding Hood (period 1)Week 5 Introduce the topic “the family” and the story “The happy and unhappy

family”

- Take students curiosity by letting them guess what happened in thepictures, discuss the topics

- Use story outline including the identifications of main characters,settings, problems of the story, story events, and how the problem was solved in the story

- Tell the story then let students read the story in groups by play

role Require students to rewrite the short story at home

The Little Red Ridding Hood ( period 2)Week 6 - Ask some questions to remind the students of the story.

- Check students’ mistakes in the writing story

- Ask students to group in groups to solve the problem in the story andthe real life

- Ask students to practice telling story in pairs

- Call some students to rehearse in front of the class Remind studentsusing intonation, eye contact, fluency and body language when tellingstory

- Remind students to prepare to tell the story carefully for the nextmeeting

The Little Red Ridding ( period 3)

Week 7 - Inform the next oral test

- Ask students to retell the story in front of the class

- Ask students to give their friends’ evaluation

- Give students comment

- Give out the situation in the real life and require students to solve

- Students took the oral test

Week 8 - Students filled the questionnaire sheet

In the 1st week, students took the pre-test (see Appendix 3 for the content ofpre-test) The oral test was implemented without any comments after the pre-test.The plan and framework in 8 weeks were informed Besides, the time and rules inthe class were also set

From the 2nd to the 6th week, the teacher applied the storytelling technique inteaching speaking from the first to the sixth lesson to the students The stories

were carried out strictly based on the stages: pre-storytelling, while-storytelling and post-storytelling (see Appendix 1 for a sample lesson plan) Pre-storytelling stage is the introduction and oriented stage The students made predictions which let

students have some expectations about the topic, it is necessary to activate their background knowledge related to the topic through pre-speaking activities Instead

of introducing new words or grammar structures researcher asked students to look atthe title or the given pictures in the story first, then asked them to describe the pictures and led them predict the topic and content of the story Then, students got chances to familiarize themselves with the content of the story and learnt more language proficiency in the story The key vocabularies were introduced by using visual aids, miming, brainstorming or showing the real objects Teachers can start telling the story when participants can identify the new words

In the while-stage, teacher introduced the story in the interesting voice Instead

of asking students to translate the story, the teacher made it more

interesting by different activities such as stopping the sentences then students guessedthe next, children chose different pictures basing on teachers’ narration, usingflashcards of characters To check whether students comprehend the story or not, theteacher carried out some different activities like discussing in pairs or groups,comparing/contrasting what students predicted about the text before listening, oranswering comprehension questions were some useful activities for the stage

In the last stage, students were required to retell the story, read the dialogue.After that, children can take part in role-playing, recording, drawing and modelingactivities These activities also created chances for students to develop criticalthinking, creativity as well as integrative skills with others subjects

In the 8th week, the post-test was given to the students Both tests were observedstrictly to avoid cheating

The researcher observed students to realize students’ attitude towards learning

in the storytelling lesson and the effect of the story technique Besides, students’attitude and effect of learning were also observed carefully in the tests

At the last meeting, the researcher collected students’ responses by askingthem to fill in the questionnaire sheet in 10 minutes

Step 5: Evaluation

In order to clarify to what extent storytelling would affect the students’speaking skill and find out students’ attitude to this strategy, results of the students’tests and questionnaires as well as the teacher’s observation were collected,analyzed and interpreted

3.3 Data collection instruments

This study examined the students’ improvement in speaking by usingstorytelling technique The researcher carefully collected the data using observation,tests, and questionnaire as instruments in order to answer the research questions.The combination of various data collection instruments would provide an overview

of students’ attitude in learning speaking before and after the treatment as well asthe ways to apply this strategy effectively The following part discusses each datacollection instrument used in this study in detail

2.3.1 Questionnaire

In the study, the researcher used questionnaire to gather more uniform andaccurate data According to Harry (2009), questionnaire is a set of systematically

structured questions used by a researcher to get needed information fromrespondents Through questions, the researcher gets information to know thelearners’ opinion on whether the technique is interesting or not By thequestionnaire the researcher would know the students opinion related to thespeaking learning process The questionnaires were given for students in the lastmeeting and they had 10 minutes to answer all questions The result of this testwould be analyzed and discussed.

The questionnaire of this study (see Appendix 2A and Appendix 2B) wasdesigned by the researcher to collect the data It has 10 questions which aredesigned to seek the data to answer both research questions They concerned aboutthe students’ attitude about the impact of storytelling and their self-evaluation oftheir improvement after the treatment The questionnaires were translated intoVietnamese so that the students could understand the questions well enough

3.3.2 Test

Tests are considered as an useful tool in the assessment of the research.According to Overton (2008) test is a method to determine a student’s ability tocomplete certain tasks or demonstrate mastery of a skill or knowledge of content.The test was given to the students to assess their speaking’s ability before thetreatment and their achievement after treatment Speaking test can measurestudents’ proficiency and test scores can be marked objectively Therefore, the testresult can be concise and objective enough for the study In this research, tests aredivided into two categories: pre-test and post-test The aim of the pretest is to findout the students’ ability in speaking skill before treatment The post-test is to findout whether their speaking skill improves or not after treatment

The pre-test and post-test had the same format and level of difficulty whichmade the tests have reliability Part 1 is the general conservation in which studentsare required to answer the questions about personal details and their family Part 2

is more complex, students arranged pictures of stories into the

suitable sequence then told the story basing on that sequence The test is alsodesigned with one opened question which refers to the situation or context thatstudents are going to use in the future.

The post-speaking test tasks were designed to match with the course Thecourse provided two stories relating to the family topic and helped studentsdeveloping speaking through the storytelling Therefore, all testing contents arerelevant to what students have learnt

Speaking tests and speaking rubrics were included in Appendix 3 and 4 In terms ofspeaking rubric, the test follows the test’s assessment of Heaton (1990) and SaeOng(2010) The researcher made use of the software Microsoft Excel to analyze the datawhich were analyzed quantitatively by means of descriptive statistics focusing onthe percentages

However, using test cores to assess students’ language proficiency also haspotential drawbacks that they do not always reflect students’ real ability as somestudents may not perform well in tests due to some psychological factors such asnervousness or anxiety or other reasons such as lack of reliability and validity insome available tests Therefore, other instruments, questionnaire and observationwere employed to gather more information

3.3.3 Observation

In order to reduce the drawbacks of the test and the questionnaires and makesure the result of the study more persuasive, the observation was made in theresearch Observation allows seeing in a relatively unobtrusive way what it is thatnaturally do compared with what they say they do (Burns, 1999: 81)

In this research, observation will be used since the researcher participates inteaching and assessing process This observation is implemented to know thestudents’ participation, records students’ attitude, the tasks during lesson, and theextent of storytelling’s effect on students in each lesson, even it remarks the process

of completing the homework checking section The observation form will be usedeight times from the first meeting to the eighth one

3.4 Data analysis methods

The data was collected from the instruments: pre-test, post-test, questionnairefor students and observation The researcher took advantage of the softwareMicrosoft Excel to calculate the mean, median and standard deviation of students’scores in the two speaking tests Data from the questionnaire responses wasanalyzed quantitatively by means of descriptive statistics focusing on thepercentages By contrast, data from observation in the questionnaire were analyzedqualitatively to identify the main themes and patterns

3.5 Summary

This chapter presents the procedures followed throughout the study Itintroduces a complete description of the methodology of the study in terms of theparticipants, setting of the study, and the research design including researchapproach, research procedures, data collection instruments (tests, a questionnaire forstudents and observation) and data analysis methods The researcher would like tohave valuable results so research methodology will be selected carefully

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

4.1 Data analysis

4.1.1 Analysis of test results

The purpose of the speaking test was to answer the first research question to

what extent storytelling affected students’ speaking ability The pre-test wascomplemented in the first week and the post- test was taken in the eighth week Thescores of the tests in this study were divided into four criteria including content,fluency, grammar, and vocabulary The test results are shown below:

a Content

The table above shows the findings on the content of speaking which cover the

students’ ability in connecting content of the story:

Table 2.1: The students’ content of speaking

pictures and arranged the content incorrectly No one got point 4 and 5 in the test.

pre-After performing the treatment, the post-test result showed the significantchanging 7 students (50%) got point 5 because they were able to arranged thecontent correctly and told the story interestingly and excitedly 5 students (36%)were at the level of point 4 because they arranged the suitable content and told thewhole story interestingly but they also made almost unnoticeable mistakes Studentsgetting 5 points increase from 0% to 50%, and students getting 4 increase from 0%

to 36%.The number of students getting 3 points decreased in comparison with thepre-test In the post-test, there were only 2 students (14%) getting point 3 in the posttest which is less than the pre-test No one got 1 and 2 in the post- test

Hence, this could assume that there is an incredible improvement in content throughlearning storytelling

b Fluency

This table shows the findings on the fluency of speaking which covers the

students’ speaking performance:

Table 2.2: The students’ fluency of speaking

students (57%) got point 4 The rest got point 1, 2,or 3 in the pre-test but the rest

got 3 in the post- test From that result, students made a great progress in fluency in

speaking after learning storytelling

c Grammar

This table shows the findings on using grammar which covers the students’

speaking performance:

Table 2.3: The students’ grammar in speaking

In the pre-test, students’ ability of using grammar was classified from point 1

to 5 but in the post-test, students’ marks were from 3 to 5 It could be assumed that

no student whose result was at 5 points but 7 students (50%) got point 5 Before

treatment, 8 students (57%) got point 4 and the rest got point 1, 2 or 3 After

treatment, 4 students (29%) got point 4 and the rest got point 3

This leads to the conclusion that students’ grammar in speaking is really improved

d Vocabulary

This table shows the findings on using vocabulary which covers the students’

speaking performance:

Table 2.4: The students’ speaking vocabulary

4 7 50% 5 36%

In the pre-test, students got from point 1 to 4, no one got point 5 After treatment,

the points increased from point 3 to 5, no one got point 1 or 2 In the pre-test, there

were 7 students (50%) got point 4 , 3 students (22%) point 3 , and the rest got 1 or

point 2 It could be seen in the table that the number of students who got point 5

were 7 students (50%), point 4 were 5 students (36%) and the rest got 3 points No

one got point 1 or 2 in the post-test It could be concluded that students’ vocabulary

in speaking was better

e Students’ speaking competence

The following is score of students’ speaking achievement in the tests:

Table 2.5: Record of students’ test scores

Students Pre-test scores(/20) Post-test scores(/20)