The influences of oral presentations on vocabulary development in terms of lexical diversity and lexical density a quasi experimental study in a grade 8 class at doan thi diem junior secondary school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER THE INFLUENCES OF ORAL PRESENTATION

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

THE INFLUENCES OF ORAL PRESENTATIONS

ON VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT IN TERMS OF LEXICAL DIVERSITY AND LEXICAL DENSITY:

A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL STUDY IN A GRADE 8

CLASS AT DOAN THI DIEM JUNIOR

b

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮKHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Th.s Lương Quỳnh Trang

Sinh viên: Đặng Minh Anh Khóa: QH2011.F1.E6

HÀ NỘI – 2015

d

ACCEPTANCE

I hereby state that I: Dang Minh Anh, QH 2011.F.1.E6, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Art (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor‟s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan

or reproduction of the paper

i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Lương Quỳnh Trang, and my advisor, Mr Nguyễn Chí Đức, who have given me the inspiration, priceless advice and continuous support so that I can complete this thesis

My special thanks also go to the teacher and all the students at class 8S3, Doan Thi Diem Junior Secondary School for taking part in this study

Last but not least, I am grateful to my friends for sharing their experience of the thesis writing and my family for their support during the time I carried out this research

ii

ABSTRACT

The present study was designed to determine the extent to which EFL students can enhance their level of lexical diversity and density through regular practice of oral presentations in English lessons A quasi-experimental design was used The study population consisted of 16 students in a grade 8 class at Doan Thi Diem Secondary school During the experimental period of 10 weeks in semester two of the school year 2014-2015, the students had to give six oral presentations in groups Firstly, lexical diversity of the first presentation (pre-test) and of the last one (post-test) was measured, using D or Voc-D measure Lexical density of the two tests was also measured by calculating the proportion of content words over the total number of words Then the difference in lexical density and diversity between the pre-test and was examined using a t-test The results have shown that regular practice of oral presentations in English have significantly improved the students‟ vocabulary lexical diversity and lexical density

Key words: Oral Presentation, vocabulary development, lexical density, and lexical diversity

iii

TABLE OF CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMNT ……… i

ABSTRACT ……… ii

TABLE OF CONTENT ……… iii

LIST OF TABLES ……… vi

LIST OF FIGURES ……… vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATION ……… viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Research aims 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Scope of the study 2

1.5 Methods of the study 3

1.6 Significance of the study 3

1.7 Structure of this study report 3

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Key concepts 5

2.1.1 Oral presentation 5

2.1.2 Vocabulary development 11

2.2 Related studies 12

2.3 Research gaps 14

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 16

3.1 Why experimental study is used for this current study? 16

3.2 Why a quasi-experiment without a control group is used for this current study? 16

iv

3.3 A model of quasi-experimental study: The one – group, pretest –

posttest design without a control group 18

3.4 Construction of the study 19

3.4.1 Participant selection 19

3.4.2 Quasi-experiment procedure 20

3.4.3 The study procedure 20

3.4.4 Data collection procedure 25

3.4.5 Data analysis method and procedure 25

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS 29

4.1 Research question 1: Influences of the oral presentation training program on lexical diversity 29

4.2 Research question 2: Influences of the oral presentation training program on lexical density 32

CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION 35

5.1 Push output 35

5.2 Teacher’s instruction and appropriate feedback on new lexical items 36

5.3 Students’ self-selected vocabulary on new lexical items 36

5.4 Motivating learning environment 37

5.5 Summary of discussion 37

CHAPTER VI: CONCLUSION 39

6.1 Conclusion 39

6.2 Pedagogic implications 39

6.3 Limitations and recommendations for further study 40

REFERENCES 42

v

APPENDIX A: SAMPLES OF FIRST PRESENTATION (PRETEST) 49

APPENDIX B: SAMPLES OF LAST PRESENTATION (POSTTEST) 51

vi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.2.1 The setting of different experiment types ……… 19

Table 3.4.3.1 Process of the intervention of regular practice of Oral presentation ………21

Table 3.4.5.1.1 The formulas for D calculation ……… 26

Table 4.1.1 Overall descriptive statistics of lexical diversity in pretest and posttest broken down by TTR and D ……… 29

Table 4.1.2 Statistical results of T-test measuring the influences of oral presentations on lexical diversity in pretest and posttest broken down by TTR and D ……… 32

Table 4.2.1 Overall descriptive statistics of lexical density in pretest and posttest ………33

Table 4.2.2 Statistical results of T-test measuring the influences of oral presentations on lexical diversity in pretest and posttest broken ……… 34

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3.3.1 The one - group, pretest - posttest design diagram ………… 18

Figure 3.3.1 The one - group, pretest - posttest without a control group design diagram ……… 19

Figure 4.1.1 TTR value in pretest and posttest ……… 30

Figure 4.1.2 D value in pretest and posttest ………31

Figure 4.2.1 Lexical density broken down by pretest and posttest ………… 33

viii

2 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL English as a Foreign Language ESL English as a Second Language F2 / FL Foreign Language

L2 / SL Second Language

OPTP Oral Presentation Training Program TTR Type-token ratio

1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 2.1 Rationale of the study

Applying oral presentations nowadays in teaching is not uncommon The use

of oral presentations in teaching, especially in teaching English, has created a new trend in the field of English language teaching methodology, which has drawn a lot

of researchers‟ attention all over the world (Miles, 2010) It is believed that the opportunity to speak in front of the audience is one of the greatest benefits that students are offered when spending time at school (Miles, 2010)

Numerous studies have examined the factors contributing to the success of oral presentations (Cheung, 2008; Taylor, 2012; Wilson and Brooks, 2014), the general benefits of using presentations in EFL classrooms, and the teachers‟ and students perceptions of the effects of this technique on the development of the language skills and language elements (i.e pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary) (Nguyen, 2012; Masmaliyev, 2014) However, very few studies have been carried out to measure the extent to which regular use of oral presentations in the EFL classrooms can enhance students‟ language skills and elements, especially those on the development of students‟ vocabulary while a rich vocabulary is considered one of the “greatest tools we can give students for succeeding, not only

in their education but more generally in life” (Pikulski & Templeton, 2004; p 1) In fact, a thorough search in the literature results in no study carried out to investigate the extent to which oral presentations can influence learners‟ lexical diversity and density in the context of Vietnam This is the first reason that the researcher would like to implement a study on this topic

Doan Thi Diem junior secondary school has been one of the innovative schools in Hanoi, Vietnam, which would usually like to improve its quality of teaching and learning English Realizing the effects of oral presentations in English

on EFL students‟ language development, the school intended to apply this technique

to English lessons The school would like to trial this in one class, and if the results are good, oral presentations will be used regularly in other classes Being informed about this intention, the researcher considered this very good chance for her to carry

2.2 Research aims

This current study attempted to examine the influences of regular oral presentations on the students‟ vocabulary development in terms of lexical diversity and density To achieve this overall aim, lexical diversity and density of the first round of presentations (pre-test) and those of the last round (post-test) were measured Then the t-test was used to determine the extent of the difference in the lexical diversity and density between the first round and those of the last round

2.3 Research questions

The above overall aims are expected to be fulfilled by addressing the following research questions:

Question 1: To what extent can the students enhance their level of lexical

diversity through regular practice of oral presentations?

Question 2: To what extent can the students enhance their level of lexical

density through regular practice of oral presentations?

2.4 Scope of the study

In this study, the researcher does not have the ambition to study all the influences of oral presentations on the students‟ development of language and skills

in general Due to the time constraints and the significance of a rich vocabulary mentioned above, this study only focused on the extent to which the regular use of oral presentations in English lessons can help the students to enhance their vocabulary diversity and density Besides, the target population of this study was only one group as this was an experiment to try out the school‟s intention

3

2.5 Methods of the study

This is a quasi-experimental study with an oral presentation training program

as an intervention This program lasted for 10 weeks with six rounds of group presentation This one group, pre-test and post-test quasi-experiment followed the procedure below:

Step 1: Introduction Introduce the requirements and the application of the

intervention

Step 2: Pre – test: Record the first presentation round as pre-test

Step 3: Intervention: Carry out the intervention – oral presentation training

program in which four more presentations were held

Step 4: Post – test: Record the last presentations round as post-test

Detailed reasons for the use of a quasi-experimental design were then clarified in Chapter 3 - Methodology

2.6 Significance of the study

This study mainly focuses on the influences of using oral presentations on the students‟ vocabulary development in terms of lexical diversity and density Findings of the study are expected to help the teacher of English in this class as well

as the school to see the extent to which regular practice of oral presentations in English lessons can enhance the students‟ lexical diversity and density This may result in the school‟s decision of whether to apply this activity to every class in Doan Thi Diem lower secondary school The study also aims to fill the gap in the literature on the influence of oral presentations on learners‟ lexical diversity and density in the context of Vietnam Other researchers who are interested in doing research in this topic can use this study as a reference to carry out their investigation

2.7 Structure of this study report

This study report consists of five chapters:

Chapter 1 – Introduction presents the rationale for conducting the study a

longing with its aims, research questions, research methods, scope, methods, and significance

4

Chapter 2 - Literature Review conceptualizes the framework of the study

including the key concepts such as the definition of oral presentations, its types and benefits in EFL classrooms, lexical density, and lexical diversity A brief overview

of the related studies and research gaps are also provided

Chapter 3 - Research methodology presents the information related to the

participants, research setting, data collection instruments, and data collection procedure and data analysis

Chapter 4 – Findings presents a comprehensive analysis of the data

Chapter 5 – Discussion gives a detailed discussion on the findings of this

study

Chapter 6 – Conclusion offers the summary of findings, recommendations,

limitations, and suggestions for further study

5

3 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter conceptualizes the framework of the study including the key concepts such as the definition of oral presentation, its types and benefits in EFL classrooms, lexical density, and lexical diversity A brief overview of the related studies and research gaps are also provided

3.1 Key concepts

3.1.1 Oral presentation

3.1.1.1 Definition of oral presentation

In the 7th edition of Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (2005, p 1190),

a presentation is defined as “the act of showing something or of giving something to somebody” or “a meeting at which something, especially a new product or idea, or piece of work is shown to a group of people” It can be stated that an oral presentation is not limited to those given to a large audience; it can be considered as

a means by which people can communicate daily in a workplace, teach in the classroom, give opinions and express oneself in a situation that requires explanation

in clear and precise speeches Studying this field, researchers have found that this kind of activity is associated with expressing ideas According to Kaul (2005, p.2),

“presentations are ideas, concepts or issues that are talked about or shared with a group of people or an audience”

In general, a presentation is a formal talk to one or more people that

“presents” ideas or information in an obvious and logical way An oral presentation

is considered a means to give information, knowledge, and lectures Normally, a presentation consists of four basic elements in terms of the presenter, audience, message and tools (Kaul, 2005)

In this study, the concept of presentation will be narrowed down to a short talk by one person or a group of people introducing and describing a particular subject

6

3.1.1.2 Types of oral presentation

Presentations are classified into many categories

According to Whatley (2003), there are five types of presentation as follows:

(1) Informative presentation, (2) Instructional, (3) Arousing presentation, (4) Persuasive presentation and (5) Decision-making presentation

The first type provides information to the listeners For example, with

informative presentation, the speaker brings the audience up to date on the events,

gives information about the plan, products and procedure, rules and regulations, etc

The next one named Instructional is the one that gives specific direction for the

listeners In an instructional presentation, the listeners are about to come away with

new knowledge or skills Meanwhile, the purpose of the third type Arousing presentation is that people would raise ideas about a certain issue or topic It

arouses the audience‟s emotions and intellect so that they will be receptive to the

speaker‟s viewpoint Fourthly, a Persuasive presentation focuses on convincing

listeners to accept a proposal A convincing persuasive presentation offers a solution to a controversy, dispute or problem Last but not least, the aim of the

presenter in a Decision-making presentation is to appeal the audience to take the

presenter‟s suggested action In a decision-making presentation, ideas, suggestions, and arguments are presented in a logical and persuasive way in order to make the audience carry out the presenter‟s requests A decision-making presentation is supposed to tell the audience the „what‟ and the „how‟

Basing on the learner proficiency level, purposes, classroom context, there are specific kind of presentation that should be applied Due to the classroom condition, students‟ proficiency level and the emphasis on oral output, the Informative presentation is considered as the most suitable to be applied in the context of an EFL classroom in particular

3.1.1.3 Benefits of using oral presentations in EFL classroom settings

In an EFL classroom, oral presentations in English can bring different benefits to the learners

7

3.1.1.3.1 Practicing speaking opportunity

In the EFL classroom, the students are encouraged to speak English naturally and confidently as much as possible Al-Mutawa and Kailani (1989) have stressed that „„learning to speak is a lengthy, complex process and is more effectively achieved by speaking in living natural English‟‟ (as cited in Al-Issa & Al-Qubtan, 2010)

In classrooms where students do not have much chance to speak and practice English, oral presentation is considered an effective communicative activity that has been adopted by the teacher to promote oral proficiency (King, 2002) In addition,

to implement oral presentations, attention is usually paid to the detail of the language that is used in the speech and manners of delivery, which results in the improvement in the fluency and accuracy of the language used by students (MacAnthony & McCrohan, 2009)

3.1.1.3.2 Language skills combination

To the presenters, giving oral presentations in general and in English in particular is not a simple matter of languages learning or following instructions Rather than that, it is a combination of skills with required level of sociolinguistic and cognitive understanding Firstly, students are required to have command of their content material (field knowledge), and be able to organize their ideas in an appropriately logical sequence (text structure) In order to do that, students are supposed not only to practice comprehensive reading but also to improve their writing, which required adequate level of grammar competence Furthermore, students are supposed to practice speaking to be able to deliver their talk in a presentation style appropriately in English (paying attention to eye contact, voice quality, body language and so on) (Hayton, 2005)

To the audiences, the time that the presenter presents is also the time for them to practice language skills such as reading, listening, writing and speaking For instance, when presenters present using visual aids such as posters, PowerPoint slides, they at the same time have to read the notes appearing on the slides, listening

8

to the talk, and taking notes in preparation for asking the presenter questions about the topic

3.1.1.3.3 Improvement of language elements

Oral presentation in English is proved to be beneficial to the development of the learners‟ grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary This activity can help the learners to correctly and intelligibly produce English sounds through consolidating their already acquired spelling rules, build their vocabulary by helping them acquire

a lot of English single words, compound words, collocations, idioms, etc Besides, oral presentation improves students‟ grammar by instructing them how and when to use personal pronouns, the simple past, the present and past progressive forms, future, and to form the English sentence structures (Dekdouk, 2013; Nguyen, 2012)

3.1.1.3.4 Students as a source of knowledge and authentic content

In the context of a traditional classroom, especially in the education systems

of many developing countries, teachers and textbook are the dominant sources of knowledge

However, the fact shows that students are not “empty vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge” (Masmaliyeva, 2014) Students are considered as sources of knowledge because they “have stories to tell, ideas to explain and feeling to describe” (Thornbury & Meddings, 2009) and the teacher is not the only one who has all the answers

Oral presentations offer the chance to replace the dull traditional classroom where most of the time is used practicing mechanically, studying the knowledge in textbooks or doing what the teacher says Since the entire context is out of the textbook and teacher‟ interference, oral presentations bring a chance of producing meaningful oral English or even creating authentic content (Masmaliyeva, 2014)

When students are asked to research a topic and search for particular information or data in English, they are about to use the language meaningfully and purposefully as well as vary their exposure to sources of knowledge via the genuine use of the target language, which has its implications for their language improvement One of the important sources of language acquisition is authentic

to direct the activities (MacAnthony & McCrohan, 2009)

In implementing EFL oral presentations, the students‟ role is maximized and that they are supposed to become active and autonomous learners In oral presentations, students are placed at the center of the learning process by taking responsibility for their learning since they are encouraged to learn through discovery and research on their own The students are the ones who take complete control of their presentations from choosing and narrowing down the topic, collecting and gathering information for the content, organizing ideas, working in groups, choosing manners of delivery, managing the time, preparing visual aids, holding discussion and other related activities that are used in the oral presentations (Meloni & Thompson, 1980)

In addition, oral presentations help facilitate the decision-making process for students, which is particularly important in the context of Vietnam as well as many developing countries and cultures where older people in the family usually make decisions on behalf of the younger members of the family (King, 2002) Moreover, the peer assessment in oral presentations is also considered as an important activity, which helps develops students‟ learning and facilitates autonomy among learners (Otoshi & Heffernen, 2008)

Generally, the use of oral presentations is a way to promote the roles of learners in a learner-centered classroom, which helps students replace “memory and

10

transmission based learning with interactive, dynamic, reflective, and independent learning and critical thinking” (Al-Issa & Al-Qubtan, 2010)

3.1.1.3.6 Students – students interaction

Giving presentations offers students the opportunities of expressing and sharing personal opinions with the audiences, which helps improve their ability in communicating in English as well as their active engagement in learning English

For the presenters, completing a project as giving presentations is a useful way for them to share and exchange the knowledge that they have learnt during the course The presenter, firstly, stands a golden change to express their thoughts and ideas, exchange the knowledge with their teammates, resulting in the teamwork and cooperation Secondly, giving presentations brings them the chance to be on the spotlight presenting their work with the audiences – their teacher and classmates

Meanwhile, the observers are offered the opportunities to gain knowledge of the form and the process of effective presentations by accessing the presenter‟s presentations They are about to improve their own presentations not only by adapting others‟ positive aspects but also by avoiding certain errors or overcome difficulties that their friends have met in their presentations The observers‟ set of questions for presenters is also a useful and interesting way to expand the knowledge on the discussed topic

3.1.1.3.7 Real life soft – skills preparation

Presenting in the EFL classroom prepares students for the world of work that they will enter when they leave school Students are required to present their work

in front of their teacher and classmates, hence improving their courage and confidence This is a very important factor in their future jobs as they may be required to inform or persuade their employers, colleagues and clients effectively to get promotion Giving presentations also develop students‟ ability to use technological aids such as PPT slides to better their work (Al-Issa & Al-Qubtan, 2010)

11

3.1.2 Vocabulary development

Vocabulary development is considered as the lexical development in which the term “vocabulary” is referred from the index entry “lexicon” (Crystal, 1997; Dromi, 1999)

In this study, to measure the vocabulary development, there are two terms that should be taken into consideration, consisting of lexical diversity and lexical density

3.1.2.1 Lexical diversity

According to Johansson (2008), lexical diversity is a measure of how many different words that are used in a text In other words, it is the “proportion of individual words in a text” (Siskova, 2012, p 1) The more varied a vocabulary a text possesses, the higher lexical diversity is For a text to be highly lexically diverse, the speaker has to use many different words with little repetition of the words already used

3.1.2.2 Lexical density

Lexical density is the term most often used for describing the proportion of content words to the total number of words (Johansson, 2008) Siskova (2012) has the same definition, putting that lexical density is “the proportion of lexical words

in the whole text (p 1) By investigating lexical density, the researcher receives a notion of information packaging A text with a high proportion of content words contains more information than the one with a high proportion of function words (Johansson, 2008)

It might be said that while lexical diversity exposes the property of students vocabulary and the variety in lexis used to avoid repetition, lexical density show the students‟ ability in using different kinds of vocabulary to communicate and present

in the most effective way

12

3.2 Related studies

There have existed numerous studies on the positive effects of the teaching method of applying oral presentations training program using different approaches, aiming at different populations or exploring different aspects

Most of these studies were carried out to focus on specific groups of students For instance, the participants might be students who study English for academic purposes, i.e English-major students in university (Mennim, 2003; MacAnthony & McCrohan, 2009; Nguyen, 2012; Masmaliyeva, 2014), non-major English students in university (Nguyen, 2012; Alkash & Al-Dersi, 2013; Wilson & Brooks, 2014), students in high school (Bui, 2009; Nguyen, 2011) or students at different English proficiency levels (Al-Issa & Al-Qubtan, 2010)

Most researchers have focused on how to give successful presentations For instance, Cheung (2008) discussed how to teach effective presentations skills to ESL/EFL students In his opinion, in order to gain a successful presentations, it is significant that all these following strategies should be taught explicitly to the students: (1) involving the audience, i.e asking questions; (2) responding to audience input; (3) using visual materials, and (4) pacing, i.e balancing the amount

of information with the speed and the time limitation Focusing on the use of visual aids, Taylor (2012) and Alkash and Al-Dersi (2013) analyzed and asserted the advantages of using Power Point in presentations as well as giving detailed instruction on making Power Point in EFL classrooms Meanwhile, Wilson and Brooks (2014), instead of PowerPoint-presentations, clarified the use of large posters in presentations, which were supposed to be designed and showcase the students‟ artistic skills and creative styles

Researchers have also analyzed the teachers‟ and students‟ perceptions of the EFL oral presentations‟ influences on the linguistic outcome These researchers focused on analyzing and emphasizing the influences of oral presentations on the students‟ language improvement in the context of an EFL class For instance, Nguyen (2012), in her study, showed that in general students were highly positive

in their beliefs about the benefits and usefulness of doing oral presentations In

13

particular, they did agree that it helped to create an active and less anxious learning environment, which encouraged and motivated students to take part in the lesson Another study by Miles (2010) showed that most of the students viewed presentations as their opportunities to improve their English ability rather than actually learn how to give presentations In his paper, Mile also proposed that teachers should be more aware of possible language purposes of students when taking part in this kind of activity and to choose more appropriate study material as well as assessment criteria accordingly Another study by Dekdouk (2013) revealed that giving oral presentations in English, the learners were able to correctly and intelligibly produce English sounds through consolidating their already acquired spelling rules, build their vocabulary by helping them acquire a lot of English single words, compound words, collocations, idioms, etc Besides, oral presentations improve students‟ grammar by instructing them how and when to use personal pronouns, the simple past, the present and past progressive forms, future, and to form the English sentence structures

In another study, Masmaliyeva (2014) analyzed the students‟ attitude toward the use of oral presentations and reconfirmed the beliefs in the benefits of EFL oral presentations The researcher found that 95% of the students reported having enjoyed the activity and stated that oral presentations enhanced the students‟ confidence in speaking, sense of community, ownership over learning, speech fluency and accuracy Besides, this activity created opportunities for the students to search for and learn new words while preparing for their presentations The data showed that 86% of the students retained new vocabulary better when they were allowed to choose and search for new words on their own

In addition, some researchers have studied the effect of this activity on four English skills in English language classes Schcolnik and Koh (1999) and MacAnthony and McCrohan (2009) stated that presentations created a friendly, non-threatening classroom atmosphere encouraging the use of all four language-skills Firstly, in speaking, the students stood a golden change to practice speaking

14

in front of large number of audience, which helps improve their pronunciation, fluency and accuracy in speaking English Secondly, the students could develop their reading skill by reading a number of academic articles on a topic of their choice, analyzing the articles critically, comparing and contrasting the ideas presented, synthesizing and evaluating as well as selecting highlights to include in their presentations In the process of preparing for their presentations, the students tried to understand the content, organized the information, found ways to transmit the information effectively to the audience, wrote different parts of the presentations, etc Therefore, the researchers then concluded that oral presentations could also improve the learners‟ writing skill Lastly, in listening, in the study conducted by Masmaliyeva (2014) indicated that the majority of the participant students (71%) enjoyed delivering presentations themselves as much as listening to their classmates‟ presentations The remaining 29% of the students indicated that they enjoyed listening to others more than delivering presentations themselves The researcher reached a conclusion that this could develop the learners‟ listening skill

Researchers also explored the effects of oral presentations in English on the learners‟ development of grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary For example, Dekdouk (2013) in his study stated that the learners were able correctly and intelligibly produce English sounds through consolidating their already acquired spelling rules, build their vocabulary by helping them acquire a lot of English single words, compound words, collocations, idioms, etc Besides, oral presentations improve students‟ grammar by instructing them how and when to use personal pronouns, the simple past, the present and past progressive forms, future, and to form the English sentence structures

3.3 Research gaps

The above literature review has showed some noticeable gaps in the research

area on the use of oral presentations, especially in the context of EFL classrooms

Firstly, oral presentations have been introduced and applied for students at different ages, stages and levels of language proficiency (Nguyen, 2012) There are

secondary school or primary school)

Another reason is that in the context of Vietnam, despite the fact that the students nowadays have more and more chances to access English, there are not many investigations into the new teaching method such as the use of oral presentations in general, and the use of oral presentations in lower secondary school

in particular The researcher believes that due to the distinguished features of different learner groups, there will be differences in applying oral presentations in their English class

More importantly, in the past, the majority of the studies analyzed the impacts of oral presentations in terms of the skills required to give good presentations rather than its influences on the linguistic improvement or the effectiveness oral output in terms of language Although recently many researchers have paid attention to this aspect, they mostly have studied the learners‟ language complexity, accuracy and fluency leaving a gap in vocabulary development Specifically, a thorough search through the literature has resulted into no study investigating the influences of oral presentations on the learners‟ lexical density and diversity

In short, this study is hoped to help bridge the above gaps and provide an insight into the enhancement of junior secondary students‟ lexical density and diversity through regular practice of oral presentations in their English class

16

4 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter clarifies the reason for implementing the study with a experimental approach Information about the research participants, research setting, instruments and procedure for data collection and data analysis is also presented

quasi-4.1 Why experimental study is used for this current study?

An experimental study is defined as a type of evaluation, which encourages researchers to determine whether a program or intervention has the intended effect

on a study‟s participants In other words, this kind of study requires a comparison between what happened after the treatment was implemented and what would happen when the treatment had not been implemented

In this current study, the researcher have no intention to examine the benefit

of oral presentations in general but its effects in developing the students‟ vocabulary ability In particular, the researcher‟s aim is to explore to what extent the regular practice of oral presentations enhance the lexical diversity and density of leaners by compare the between results of pretest and posttest

It can be seen that, the resaercher‟ purpose can be satisfied with the obatining

of experimental study

4.2 Why a quasi-experiment without a control group is used for this current study?

There are many types of experimental study These experiments can be done

in the field or in a laboratory What distinguishes the type of experiment is the degree to which the experimenter can assign subjects to conditions

Two most common types of experimental study consist of: True experimental and Quasi- experimental study

Firstly, in a true experiment, subjects are randomly assigned to the treatment conditions In words, true experiments attempt to control all other variables to guarantee the result These experiments can be excellent for showing its capacity to demonstrate cause and effect relationships However, it is noted that random

17

assignment is not always a practical step to take in the real world as in order to confirm cause and effect; the researcher must construct a situation where all other possible causes are eliminated

For instance, a true experiment is often conducted in a laboratory As a result, the finding may be an artificial situation that is removed from the real world, and hence lacks generalizability Generally, it is good for internal validity, but often lacks external validity

In contrast, a quasi-experimental study is commonly done in a field Different from lab-based experiment, a field experiment is more suitable for investigating a wider range of factors affecting the overall acceptability of the designed mobile service Such factors include the system function and effects of actual usage context aspects

Table 3.2.1 The setting of different experiment types

Types True-experimental Quasi-experimental

As mentioned above, this current study aims at exploring the effect of oral presentation training program as well as giving implication for applying this new teaching method in a specific context of EFL junior secondary classrooms Consequently, in this study, the quasi experiment contributes to a rebuilt classroom-based environment in which the experiment is conducted in conditions resembling

to the real context As a result, the findings and implications of this experimental study were supposed to achieve more practical value than the

quasi-laboratory one

All in all, due to both objective and subjective reasons, fulfilling the aim of examining whether the learners‟ vocabulary would be improved through OPTP and how regular practice of oral presentations contributed to the learner‟s vocabulary improvement in terms of lexical diversity and density, the quasi-experiment with

According to Reichardt (2009), the one –group, pretest – posttest design can

be schematically diagramed as described in Figure 1:

Figure 3.3.1 The one - group, pretest - posttest design diagram

In such schematic representations, each “O” represents an observation; the

“X” designates the introductions of a treatment or intervention In other words, the design specifies that an observation called a pretest is assessed before the implementation of treatment or intervention Subsequently, the treatment or intervention is conducted After the implementation of the intervention, second observation, which is called posttest, is ultimately contained Accordingly, one-group, pretest-posttest design requires the researcher to collect data on the participants‟ level of performance before the intervention takes place (pretest), and then collect the same data after the intervention takes place (posttest)

A quasi-experiment with one – group, pretest – posttest design can be conducted in without a control group as descried as below

Different from the one-group, pretest-posttest design with a control group, the one-group, pretest-posttest design without a control group design only looks at one group of individuals who receive the intervention, which is called the treatment group The one-group, pretest-posttest design allows researchers to make inferences

on the effect of the intervention by looking at the difference in the pre-test and test results However, interpreting the pretest and posttest difference should be done

19

with caution since researchers cannot be sure that the differences in the pre-test and

the post-test are causally related to the intervention

A one-group, pretest-posttest design without a control group can be obtained

following the steps described in Figure 3 below:

Figure 3.3.1 The one - group, pretest - posttest without a control group design

diagram

Detailed information of participants, populations and the procedures of this

study will be specifically described in the next part

4.4 Construction of the study

4.4.1 Participant selection

4.4.1.1 Teacher participant

This school year, the teacher participant was appointed to be both the teacher

of English and form teacher of the class She has been working at DTD junior

secondary school for two years She was working on a project to find out the

benefits of the new teaching technique and has totally agreed to take part in the

research to study the influences of the Oral presentation training program in her

teaching process in the second semester in the school year of 2014-2015 The

teacher was also willing to adapt her teaching course according to the requirements

of the study

20

4.4.1.2 Student participants

Other participants of the study were the students from class 8S3 at DTD junior secondary school In the school year of 2014-2015, the class had 18 students including 8 girls and 10 boys At the time of the study, they were in the first term of the third-year in this school The students‟ levels of English proficiency ranged from pre-intermediate to intermediate They were asked to be participants voluntarily Fortunately, most of the students show their excitement for taking part

in this study as they found it a new and interesting activity Lastly, there were 15 students among 18 students taking part in the study as three of them left during the course

4.4.2 Quasi-experiment procedure

As mentioned above, in this current quasi-experimental study, the oral presentation training program was implemented as a “one group, pre-test and post-test design”; however, due to time constraints the study employed the one group, pre-test and post-test design without a control group The steps are as follows:

Step 1: Contact and ask the teacher for the time schedule

Step 2: Hold some meetings before formal presentations in order to introduce the implementation of the study as well as reduce students‟ anxiety during the observations

Step 3: Obtain the pretest

Step 4: Obtain non-official observations for the four subsequent presentations implemented during the oral presentation training program

Step 5: Obtain the posttest

During the two official observations, records and descriptive filed notes were taken and typed immediately once the researcher came back home

4.4.3 The study procedure

Due to the time and facility condition, the quasi – experimental study was designed as a one-group, pretest-post-test study conducted in the duration of ten weeks in the second term of 2014-2015 school year Every week, two periods of revision would be spent for the intervention of Oral presentation training program