The effects of storytelling on the comprehension and oral production of english opaque idioms among efl learners at ikun

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE THE EFFECTS OF STORYTELLING ON THE COMPREHENSION

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

THE EFFECTS OF STORYTELLING ON THE COMPREHENSION AND ORAL PRODUCTION OF

ENGLISH OPAQUE IDIOMS AMONG EFL

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Phó Phương Dung It has been my luck to have a supervisor to allow me considerable freedom to discover most of the things by myself, and at the same time tirelessly help

me whenever I get stuck I am also grateful for her extremely careful proof-reading and comments on my writing Additionally, her patience with a slow researcher like me is really admirable Had it not been for her patience and guidance, I would never have finished my thesis

My heartfelt thanks also go to a colleague of mine, who has wholeheartedly supported

me in the data collection process He also helped me to pilot some of the instruments used in the current study

I also owe sincere thanks to many of my teachers, friends, and students for their encouragement and advice during the process of conducting this study and writing my thesis, which means a lot to me Without their mental support, it would have definitely taken much more time for the thesis to be completed

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

I certify that this thesis entitled “THE EFFECTS OF STORYTELLING ON THE COMPREHENSION AND ORAL PRODUCTION OF ENGLISH OPAQUE IDIOMS AMONG EFL LEARNERS AT IKUN” is my own work

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institution

Ho Chi Minh City, April 2, 2018

Nguyễn Minh Giang

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Nguyễn Minh Giang, being the candidate for the degree of Master

in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of the theses

Ho Chi Minh City, April 2, 2018

Nguyễn Minh Giang

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements i

Statement of originality ii

Retention and use of the thesis iii

Table of contents iv

List of abbreviations viii

List of tables ix

List of figures x

Abstract xi

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the study 1

1.2 Context of the study 3

1.3 Aims of the study 3

1.4 Research questions 3

1.5 Significance of the study 4

1.6 Outline of the thesis 4

chapter 2 Literature review 6

2.1 Storytelling 6

2.1.1 Definition of storytelling 6

2.1.2 Requirements of storytelling 9

2.1.3 Other factors related to storytelling 10

2.1.3.1 Available stories and self-designed stories 10

2.1.3.2 Online storytelling and face-to-face storytelling 11

2.1.3.3 Story reading and storytelling 11

2.1.3.4 Practice of storytelling 12

2.1.4 Use of storytelling to teach other aspects of language, not idioms 13

2.2 Opaque idioms 15

2.2.1 Idioms 15

2.2.1.1 Definition of idioms 15

2.2.1.2 Reasons to use idioms 17

2.2.3 Methods for teaching idioms 20

2.2.3.1 Teaching idioms using non-story methods 21

2.2.3.2 Teaching idioms using stories 23

2.2.4 Contexts in language teaching 25

2.3 Language comprehension and oral language production 27

2.3.1 Language comprehension 27

2.3.2 Oral language production 29

2.4 Issues yet to be solved 30

2.5 Summary 31

Chapter 3 Methodology 32

3.1 Research design 32

3.2 Research site 33

3.3 Pilot studies 34

3.4 Participants 37

3.5 Teaching materials 38

3.5.1 Selection of the idioms 38

3.5.2 Design of teaching materials for both groups 40

3.5.2.1 Design of the teaching materials for the EG 40

3.5.2.2 Design of the teaching material for the CG 41

3.5.3 Teaching of idioms in both groups 42

3.5.3.1 Teaching in the EG 42

3.5.3.2 Teaching in the CG 44

3.6 Research instruments 45

3.6.1 Pretest 45

3.6.2 Posttest 46

3.6.2.1 Comprehension Posttest 46

3.6.2.2 Oral Production Posttest 47

3.6.3 Interview 50

3.7 Data collection procedure 52

3.8 Data analysis procedure 53

3.9 Summary 55

Chapter 4 Results and discussion 56

4.1 Preconditions of Independent-samples T-tests 56

4.2 Pretest 57

4.3 Effects of the storytelling method on the students’ comprehension of the English opaque idioms 59

4.4 Effects of the storytelling method on the students’ oral production of the English opaque idioms 63

4.5 Students’ viewpoints on the storytelling method 69

4.5.1 What the students liked and disliked about the storytelling method 69

4.5.1.1 What the students liked about the stories 69

4.5.1.2 What the students disliked about the stories 70

4.5.1.3 Students’ feelings when studying with the storytelling method 72

4.5.2 Students’ contributions to the enhancement of the storytelling method 76

4.5.2.1 Students’ contributions to the enhancement of comprehension of the opaque idioms 76

4.5.2.2 Students’ contributions to the enhancement of oral production of the opaque idioms 77

4.6 Summary 80

Chapter 5 Conclusion 81

5.1 Summary of the current study 81

5.2 Pedagogical implications 82

5.2.1 Implications for EFL learners 82

5.2.2 Implications for EFL teachers 83

5.2.3 Implications for material writers 85

5.2.4 Implications for syllabus designers 85

5.3 Limitations of the study 86

5.4 Recommendations for future studies 87

References 88

Appendices 93

Appendix 1 Pre-intermediate communication syllabus 94

Appendix 3 Result of the survey 98

Appendix 4 List of 40 English opaque idioms used in the treatment (alphabetically ordered) 99

Appendix 5 Teaching materials 100

Appendix 5A Eight idiom stories told in the EG 101

Appendix 5B Eight idiom lessons taught in the CG 110

Appendix 6 Sample lesson plans 119

Appendix 6A Experimental group − lesson plan (lesson 2 − can you tell me why?) 120

Appendix 6B Control group − lesson plan (lesson 2) 123

Appendix 7 Pretest 125

Appendix 8 Comprehension Posttest and Oral Production Posttest 127

Appendix 8A Comprehension Posttest 128

Appendix 8B Oral Production Posttest 131

Appendix 9 Scoring criteria for the Oral Production Posttest 144

Appendix 10 Interview 146

Appendix 10A English version of the interview 147

Appendix 10B Vietnamese version of the interview 148

Appendix 11 SPSS output of the tests of normality 149

Appendix 12 SPSS output of between-group comparisons 150

Appendix 12A SPSS output of the Pretest results 151

Appendix 12B SPSS output of the Comprehension Posttest Results 152

Appendix 12C SPSS output of the Oral Production Posttest results 153

Appendix 13 Pictorial illustration for the idiom GIVE SOMEONE BEANS 154

S1, S2, S3,…, S11 student 1, student 2, student 3,… ,student 11

SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Result of the survey 39

Table 4.1 Tests of normality for the scores of the two groups 56

Table 4.2 Result of Mann-Whitney U test for the Pretest scores 58

Table 4.3 Descriptive statistics of the Comprehenion Posttest scores 59

Table 4.4 Results of Mann-Whitney U test for the Comprehension Posttest scores 60

Table 4.5 Descriptive statistics of the Oral Production Posttest scores 64

Table 4.6 Results of Mann-Whitney U test for the Oral Production Posttest scores 64

Table 4.7 Frequency of mistakes in each mistake group 66

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 4.1 Test of outliers of Pretest 57

ABSTRACT

This study aimed at investigating the effects of the storytelling method on the comprehension and oral production of the selected 40 English opaque idioms among EFL learners at a language center called IKUN To achieve the aim of the study, the researcher employed a mixed methods research design The sample of the study consisted of 23 EFL learners in two pre-intermediate communication classes at IKUN The students in one group were taught with the traditional method while those in the other group were taught with the storytelling method The results of the study revealed that the employment of the storytelling method noticeably helped the students to understand and recall the meaning and the use of the idioms However, the current method did not remarkably aid them in producing the idioms orally Despite such shortcomings, the method received a great deal of positive feedback from the students since it is not only educational, but also entertaining Some recommendations for the use of the storytelling method will be presented in this thesis

Keywords: storytelling, opaque idioms, comprehension, oral production

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the background of the study, aims of the study, and research questions The significance of the study is also pointed out Clearly described at the end of the chapter is the outline of the thesis

1.1 Background of the study

It goes without saying that English is a requirement of many jobs in Vietnam Therefore, more and more people are enrolled in a variety of English institutions in order to improve their English proficiency and be successful in this language For some learners, that “success” is best proved by acquiring international certificates such as TOEIC, IELTS, or TOEFL with high scores For many other learners, however, the sense of success is simply synonymous with a great ability to understand, speak, and write the English language Either way, idioms are unarguably an indispensable successful factor

There are two main reasons why idioms play an important role in learners’ success The first reason is that idioms can noticeably help an English communicator comprehend their interlocutors easily De Caro (2009) stated that

“English is a language particularly rich in idioms” (p 124) It is, therefore, believed that if an English learner can comprehend and use English idioms well, they will stand a big chance of successfully communicating with a native speaker

In line with De Caro (2009), McCarthy et al (2010) put forth that idioms are what native speakers use in their real life, in both informal contexts and formal ones The second reason is that English idioms help a test-taker have an opportunity to obtain relatively high scores in some exams To be more specific, a candidate in the IELTS exam is supposed to use idiomatic expressions correctly in their answers if they wish to get a band 7 or above in the speaking section (British Council, n.d.)

Unfortunately, not many English learners can use idioms with ease due to the difficulties both in structure and meaning Structurally, idioms are highly fixed expressions as stated in Gairns and Redman (1986) and Thornbury (2002) Semantically, according to Gairns and Redman (1986) and Schmitt (2000), the meaning of idioms cannot be deduced or retrieved In other words, the meanings of idioms are difficult to be guessed only based on the meaning of the words in them However, not all idioms are equally difficult to comprehend and use Elkiliç (2008) and McCarthy et al (2010) proposed the same idea that students learn opaque idioms with much more difficulties than transparent ones For those reasons, a need to help EFL learners to master idioms, especially opaque ones, is extremely necessary

In the field of teaching methods, the use of stories in general and storytelling in particular has been proved to be effective and interesting Many authors including Rashid (2011), Lestari (2011), Keshta (2013), Akhyak and Indramawan (2013), and Abdul-Ameer (2014), concluded that stories can benefit learners in many aspects, namely vocabulary, listening, and speaking The feeling of interest that stories bring to language learners has also been shared by many authors (e.g Davis, 2007; Keshta, 2013; Akhyak & Indramawan, 2013; Wilkin, 2014) that stories and storytelling provide something essential to the soul of learners, evoke their interest by creating vivid pictures in their minds, challenge their imaginations and things, and bring something personal to them

In fact, there have been several studies on the teaching of idioms using a variety of story types However, the majority of those used ready-made stories as the treatments, which may not be able to arouse learners’ interest in and curiosity about the plot if they have heard or read them beforehand Also, most of these studies used stories which were read by either the learners or the teachers, not told

by the teachers According to Gallets (2005), storytelling has more advantages over story reading Last but not least, most studies done by these aforementioned authors are about idioms with unspecified kinds This might not be able to totally prove the effectiveness of the treatment employed because the meanings of

transparent idioms can be predicted without context One question left unanswered

is how storytelling affects EFL learners’ ability to understand and use opaque idioms For this reason, the current study was conducted in order to address this question

1.2 Context of the study

This study was conducted at an English center in Go Vap District called IKUN, where the current researcher was in charge of four communication classes at two levels: basic and pre-intermediate Since learners at the basic level cannot understand whole stories told in English, especially those containing idioms, the researcher chose two pre-intermediate classes as participants of the study There were 23 students in the two chosen classes, ranging from 19 to 28 years old Each pre-intermediate class lasted 10 weeks with three ninety-minute sessions per week and was under the instruction of two teachers (one Vietnamese and one foreigner), each of those teaching the class every other week

1.3 Aims of the study

The aims of the study are (1) to investigate the effects of the storytelling method

on the comprehension of the target English opaque idioms among pre-intermediate students at IKUN, (2) to examine the effects of the storytelling method on the oral production of the target English opaque idioms among pre-intermediate students at IKUN, and (3) to explore the students’ viewpoints on the employment of the storytelling method in teaching English opaque idioms The effects of the instruction were measured immediately after the instruction by the use of Comprehension Posttest and Oral Production Posttest The viewpoints of the learners were collected thanks to the individual interviews conducted one week after the Posttest

1.4 Research questions

The aims of the study can be addressed through the following research questions:

(1) Is there any significant difference between the effects of the storytelling method and the traditional method on the comprehension of English opaque idioms among pre-intermediate EFL students at IKUN?

(2) Is there any significant difference between the effects of the storytelling method and the traditional method on the oral production of English opaque idioms among pre-intermediate EFL students at IKUN?

(3) What are the students’ viewpoints on the application of the storytelling method

to the teaching of English opaque idioms?

Due to its limitation in scope, the term “comprehension” refers to the students’ ability to recall the meanings of the idioms and the use of idioms in contexts, and the term “oral production” refers to their ability to verbally produce the English idioms based on the given Vietnamese meanings, and their capacity to orally use the English idioms in contexts

1.5 Significance of the study

As mentioned earlier, there has been almost no research on the effects of stories in general and storytelling in particular on students’ mastery of English opaque idioms (the most difficult type of idioms) Furthermore, storytelling with self-designed stories is thought to be easy to interest and suit the recipients of the stories (Spaulding, 2011; Davies, 2007) Altogether, this study will propose an entertaining way to teach a challenging linguistic aspect to see if it is useful not only in comprehension but also in oral production, which seems to be ignored by previous researchers Together with the students’ feedback on the design and application of the current method, the adjusted version of the current method will

be a promising premise for future studies related to difficult lexical items

1.6 Outline of the thesis

This thesis consists of five chapters The first chapter is the introduction of the study, discussing the background, context, aims, research questions, and

significance of the study The second chapter is a thorough review of the related literature on five areas, namely storytelling, opaque idioms, methods to teach idioms, the importance of context in language teaching and learning, and language comprehension and oral production The third chapter is the presentation of the research methodology, including a description of the research design, research site, pilot studies, participants, teaching materials, research instruments, and data collection and analysis procedures The most significant section of this thesis is the fourth chapter where the data will be presented, analyzed and explained The last chapter consists of the conclusion, pedagogical implications, limitations of the study, and recommendations for future studies

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews the key terms related to the current study, including storytelling, opaque idioms, language comprehension, and language production Besides, previous studies related to each of those four terms will be analyzed so that the readers can gain some insight into the key terms easily

A part of these issues can be addressed in Gere et al.’s (2002) definition that

“storytelling is the act of using language and gesture in colourful ways to create scenes in a sequence” (p 10) Unlike Spaulding (2011), who did not tell the readers what storytelling looked like, in this definition, Gere et al (2002) clearly presented the means of storytelling, which is the use of language and gesture in colourful ways The author also stated the purpose of storytelling: to create scenes

in a sequence This purpose is much more general than that of the previous definition since the subject of storytelling in this definition can be anything, not just the people that we never knew From the phrase “in a sequence”, we can realize that storytelling cannot be a disorganized speech It should be organized cohesively In this definition, although the authors used the word “language” and the phrase “in colourful ways”, it is still unclear what kind of language he meant Was it body language, sign language, written language, or both spoken and written language? In addition, how to make it “colourful” was not mentioned

In the book “Learning through Storytelling in Higher Education”, McDrury and Alterio (2004) clarified what kinds of language used in storytelling by stating that

“storytelling is a uniquely human experience that enables us to convey, through the language of words, aspects of ourselves and others, and the worlds, real or imagined, that we inhabit” (p 31) In this definition, the author provided the phrase “language of words” as a way to reject some possible thoughts of the language types used in storytelling in the two previous definitions What is more, it

is worth mentioning that the “character” of storytelling in this definition is incredibly huge It can be anyone and anything: from ourselves to other people and the whole world; from real to imagined It is not limited like “the people that we never knew” as in Spaulding’s (2011) definition and not something too general such as “create scenes in a sequence” as in Gere et al.’s (2002) However, similar

to the previous definitions, readers may still wonder whether it is language read out loud or told

So far, it is still unclear who receive storytelling, and their connection with the story teller as well as the stories These two following definitions by Ellis and Brewster (2014) and Harvey (2013) can help answer the questions

Storytelling is telling a story to people who are willing to listen This

can be telling a story from a book by reading it aloud, telling a story

without a book by word of mouth in the age-old oral tradition or

telling an anecdote or even a joke (Ellis & Brewster, 2014, p.25)

This definition can help solve two questions First, who are the audience? According to Ellis and Brewster (2014), the audience are “people who are willing

to listen” (p 25) The three words “willing to listen” indirectly pointed out that storytellers must grab the audience’s attention by telling something they desire to hear, not by teaching them something dull Second, regarding the language of storytelling, Ellis and Brewster (2014) clearly presented two forms of language in storytelling: reading a story from a book and telling a story without a book For this reason, the means of storytelling is more clearly presented in Ellis and Brewster (2014) than in McDrury and Alterio (2004) Also, this definition supplemented the form of storytelling: telling a joke or an anecdote This information may enable the readers to explain how storytelling can make the audience “willing to listen”: by telling them something purely funny

One more definition worth reviewing is that of Harvey (2013), which stated that

“storytelling is a three-way relationship among the teller, the story, and the audience, with each element of the triangle connected” (p 11) Similar to Ellis and Brewster (2014), the role of the audience was clearly presented in this definition She emphasized the indispensable role of the audience by using the phrase “three-way relationship” in which each element of the triangle is closely connected to the other two These connections will have to be considered very carefully when the researcher designs and delivers stories so that they can yield the best result possible

After reviewing several definitions, the current researcher comes up with a temporary definition of storytelling:

Storytelling, a closely interrelated three-way relationship between the teller, the audience, and the story, is an art of using spoken language either read out loud from a text or told from the teller’s memory, and gestures in colourful ways to tell

a tradition story, joke, or an anecdote in the world, real or imagined, to people who are willing to listen

This definition will be adjusted after some other factors related to storytelling are

reviewed

2.1.2 Requirements of storytelling

As regards the issue of what storytelling must have, many authors have required many different things from storytelling Haven and Ducey (2007) and Spaulding (2011) suggested that stories themselves and storytelling must be fun so that it can attract the audience’s attention However, being humorous only is not enough, it also needs to be purposeful, meaning that it conveys some message, not just laughter Spaulding (2011) believed that if it is not funny, yet meaningful, then the listeners will still be satisfied with the stories Besides, stories in storytelling must

be imaginative so that the storytellers can freely create images in the listeners’ minds in order to illustrate the details of the stories (Spaulding, 2011) Also, in the book entitled “Storytelling Techniques in TED”, Karia (2013) said that stories in storytelling must be personal because it can interest the audience better than stories that they already knew

To sum up, storytelling should be humorous, creative, meaningful and personal In the current study, the self-designed stories must be humorous, creative and personal The factor of being meaningful is not a must for those stories because it

is very hard to tell something funny using a short story with around 10 sentences, which would be mentioned in Chapter 3

2.1.3 Other factors related to storytelling

It is necessary that the researcher review some related aspects such as available stories and self-designed stories, online storytelling and face-to-face storytelling, story reading and storytelling, and the practice of storytelling These factors, if carefully reviewed, will help the researcher to generate his complete operational definition of storytelling and explain the ways storytelling is used in this study

2.1.3.1 Available stories and self-designed stories

Davies (2007) discussed some main points about available stories and designed ones According to him, available stories have to be chosen in a careful way in order to suit the age of the audience He illustrated this point by stating that kids do not like stories made for adults and vice versa After a selection of stories,

self-a storyteller ought to self-adjust the stories so thself-at they self-are suitself-able for the self-audience’s level of language proficiency As regards self-designed stories, he explained the reason for using such a kind of story: to fit the audience as well as the storyteller’s styles For this reason, the storyteller will become confident because they master the story better than any other people

Spaulding (2011), in the book entitled “The Art of Storytelling”, used two very vivid pictures, namely “fresh peas” and “frozen peas” as a comparison between self-designed stories and available stories, respectively Accordingly, available stories are like frozen peas, which lost their favor due to many reasons while self-designed stories are seen as fresh peas, which always bring interesting feelings to those who try them Therefore, according to Spaulding (2011), self-designed stories are something fresh that almost every audience wants to enjoy

For this reason, in this study, the stories applied in the experimental group (EG) will be self-designed ones in order to fit the audience’s interests, make them better focus and attentively listen to something they have never heard before

2.1.3.2 Online storytelling and face-to-face storytelling

Spaulding (2011), when discussing face-to-face storytelling and online storytelling, saw face-to-face storytelling as “true storytelling” (p 17) because according to the author, storytelling has to be a three-way connection between the audience, the teller, and the story Among these three pairs of connection, the one between the teller and the audience is very important because of two aspects The first aspect is the sense of community Spaulding (2011) clearly explained that in today’s world, people are getting more and more separated from one another Fortunately, face-to-face storytelling, which makes people sit together, smile, laugh and cry with the storyteller, is one of the good ways to make them become more connected The second aspect is the adjustment of the storyteller’s style In other words, the storyteller has a direct interaction with the audience while online storytellers do not Therefore, they cannot adjust their performance to fit the audience’s understanding

2.1.3.3 Story reading and storytelling

Storytelling has been more highly appreciated than story reading by Gallets (2005) and Haven and Ducey (2007) for some reasons First, storytelling is more successful than story reading in helping students to create pictures in their minds Gallets (2005) and Haven and Ducey (2007) explained that with story reading, the students were handed illustrated pictures when the story was being read, and, therefore, it was hard to produce imaginations in their minds Second, with storytelling, the storyteller can freely add or delete some details in a story as long

as its plot does not change, while in story reading the story reader depends heavily

on the texts Gallets (2005) noted that by changing words of a story, the storyteller can make the story fit the audience better Third, the interaction between the storyteller and the audience is better than that between the story reader and the audience (Haven & Ducey, 2007) To be more specific, when reading a story to their students, the story reader holds a book or any other kinds of materials almost all the time and looks at the materials every now and then, while the storyteller

usually tells from their memory and thus can look at the audience almost all the time Last, the students in the storytelling groups are more attentive than those in the story reading group (Gallets, 2005) Thanks to the benefits of storytelling over story reading, the results of the experimental study conducted by Gallets (2005) revealed that students in the storytelling group remembered the stories better than those in the story reading group

After reviewing the differences between storytelling and story reading, the current researcher decides that it is storytelling, not story reading that will be used in this study with the hope that the teaching method will grab the students’ attention and improve their memory of the stories Accordingly, the researcher of the current study must take some things into consideration when telling stories First, he will not hold any forms of materials when telling the eight stories Second, he will use body language appropriately and emotions in moderation to create the feeling that

he is “telling”, not “reading without paper” Next, although the researcher cannot change the words very freely due to the target idioms taught and the clues for the idioms to be inferred, he can add words in order to explain any details that the students seem not to clearly understand

2.1.3.4 Practice of storytelling

As to whether or not the storyteller should learn the story scripts by heart, Wilkin (2014) put forth that storytelling requires the learning of actions, which was expressed in another way by Harvey (2013) that storytellers move from image to image, not word to word Therefore, the storyteller needs to focus on the actions to complete the stories and it does not matter that they forget some small words sometimes (Wilkin, 2014) Accordingly, the storyteller needs to divide the story into scenes and learn the scene, not every single word, by memorizing the first thing and the last thing of each scene (Haven & Ducey, 2007) Haven and Ducey (2007) also suggested that the storyteller’s body language is very important since it will not only help the audience to better understand the story but also help the storyteller to better visualize the story

The researcher and also the storyteller of the current study will do the mentioned things such as memorizing the stories by scenes, using body language

above-to visualize the sabove-tory, interacting with the audience by using some questions such

as “are you following me?” to check their understanding and provide explanations

or simplifications for any difficult details in the stories in time However, in terms

of preparing the content of the stories to tell, the researcher is supposed to do more than just remembering the scenes There are many things that the researcher needed to strictly remember such as the target idioms, their meanings and the contexts that help them to make inferences about the idioms

After reviewing the above aspects, namely storytelling and story reading, online and face-to-face storytelling, available and self-designed storytelling, the researcher comes up with the operational definition of storytelling for this research:

Storytelling is an art of using spoken words and gestures to convey funny information both real and imagined, not by reading any kinds of materials It is self-designed and performed by a person with a real connection with the audience who are willing to listen, not between a person with the screen or any electronic devices

To get insight into the importance of storytelling in teaching fields, which is one of the focal points of the current study, the researcher would review the effectiveness

of storytelling on linguistic fields other than idioms first, and then he will introduce its effects on idioms later after reviewing the term “idiom” in section 2.2

2.1.4 Use of storytelling to teach other aspects of language, not idioms

There have been several studies researching on the effects of storytelling on students’ vocabulary, listening, and speaking

Abdul-Ameer (2014) examined the effectiveness of digital storytelling on children’s vocabulary learning The participants of this study were 40 eight-year-

old primary school students divided into two groups of 20 students In the EG, the students were equipped with computers with internet connection so that they could watch digital stories on the computers while those in the control group (CG) studied those stories under the instructions of the teacher Abdul-Ameer (2014) concluded that if carefully chosen and constructed, digital storytelling can assist children’s foreign language in an enjoyable way Abdul-Ameer (2014) suggested two main reasons for the effectiveness of digital storytelling The first reason is that the enjoyment of online storytelling helps the children to increase their concentration on the contents of the stories, thus improving their comprehension of what they were told The second reason is that when the students play the stories

by themselves and watch them more than one time, it noticeably helps them to comprehend the vocabulary they learned

Similar to Abdul-Ameer (2014), Rashid (2011) also studied the effects of storytelling on vocabulary learning among twelve-year-old students However, Rashid (2011) just testified the effectiveness of the method among the students who are “less proficient” Therefore, in the findings of the study, he pointed out the importance of stories for students who are less proficient, not students in general According to Rashid (2011), students will become stressed and less interested if the materials are too difficult for them On the contrary, by reading children’s stories, children with low proficiency will become less stressed and increase their motivation and enthusiasm for their study at the same time

Besides vocabulary, storytelling was used to measure students’ listening skills Particularly, Keshta (2013) conducted a study on the effects of storytelling on students’ listening comprehension At the end of the study, Keshta (2013) stated that storytelling evokes the students’ interest since it helps them to create vivid pictures in their minds Storytelling also helps the students understand and remember information well because, in stories, events and concepts are connected

In terms of speaking performance, in a study on the effects of storytelling on the student’s speaking performance, Lestari (2011) concluded that storytelling helps the students to improve their speaking performance Lestari (2011) also

emphasized the importance of storytelling by saying that it can be used for students of all levels thanks to the use of vivid and expressive language At the same time, the author pointed out some disadvantages of using storytelling as a teaching method The first minus is that it is time-consuming The second one is that the materials used for the storytelling method are not great in amount

Similar to Lestari (2011), Akhyak and Indramawan (2013) conducted an action research to testify if storytelling could improve the students’ speaking competence including five elements, namely grammar, vocabulary, content, pronunciation, and fluency As a result, all these five elements were improved among the students The author stated two main reasons for the effectiveness The first one is that by using storytelling, the teacher gives the students something very individualized The second one is that storytelling is much easier for the students to understand than a story read out loud because the storytellers give the students motivation, and good models to tell stories Besides the advantages of storytelling, the author mentioned a major disadvantage, which is without a book, the storyteller has to learn the plot carefully enough to avoid making mistakes in telling a story

To sum up, in the above studies, the stories used were either digital or in books, not self-designed Those available stories were proved to be effective in the students’ various foreign language aspects such as vocabulary, listening skills, speaking competence and performance The reasons for this effectiveness also varied, including helping the students better concentrate on the stories thanks to the vivid and expressive language, bringing something personal to the students, connecting events and concepts, and entertaining the students

words, not a single-word item (e.g Gairns & Redman, 1986; Schmitt, 2000; Thornbury, 2002; McCarthy et al., 2010) However, their definitions presented the term “idiom” differently both in form and meaning To be more specific, idioms were stricter to some authors than to some others

In terms of form, all the authors agreed that the idioms were fixed in form However, some authors believed that idioms were more fixed than what the others supposed Specifically, Thornbury (2002), and Gairns and Redman (1986) wrote that idioms often allowed no variations and were grammatically restricted, respectively According to these authors, the structure of an idiom was so highly fixed that we could not change its form by omitting a part of it or adding a word to

it Unlike these authors, McCarthy et al (2010), although agreeing that idioms were fixed, stated that some idioms are invariable than others It was to say that besides idioms with highly fixed forms, there are idioms less fixed in forms Schmitt (2000) seemed to combine the ideas of the above-mentioned authors by stating that “it is better to think of idioms as having a relatively great degree of fixedness rather than being absolutely frozen” (p 97) From all ideas mentioned above, it can be concluded that an idiom is a phrase whose form is highly fixed, but not frozen

In terms of meaning, there were also two trends of opinions: one is stricter and the other less strict According to Gairns and Redman (1986) and Schmitt (2000), the meaning of idioms could not be deduced or retrieved In other words, the meaning

of idioms cannot be guessed only based on the meaning of the words in them There might be two points needed arguing in Gairns and Redman’ (1986) and Schmitt’s (2000) definitions The first one is that for some idioms, we can totally guess the meaning based on the words such as “what a small world” and “give someone the green light” (Thornbury, 2002) The second point is that in these two definitions, the authors used the terms “meaning” to refer to only the figurative meaning However, it should be clearly pointed out that a chunk of words in an idiom can be used with two meanings (McCarthy et al., 2010), depending on the context, for example:

Sentence 1: He went to the wall and climbed over it into the garden (p 62)

Sentence 2: A lot of small businesses have gone to the wall because of the

economic crisis (p 62)

In sentence 1, the phrase “went to the wall” was used with the meaning

“to move to a long vertical solid structure, made of stone, brick or concrete” Put

it another way, this phrase was used with its literal meaning, not figurative

meaning On the contrary, the phrase “gone to the wall” in sentence 2 was used

with its figurative meaning, which is “fail because of lack of money”

Therefore, the researcher comes up with his operational definition for the term

“idiom” as follows:

An idiom is a string of words with a relatively fixed form, which should be treated

as a single vocabulary item The figurative meaning of an idiom is different from the sum of meanings of its components The levels of difference between the figurative and literal meanings vary from idiom to idiom, and so do the levels of being structurally fixed of idioms

McCarthy et al (2010) raised a very interesting question in the book entitled

“Vocabulary Matrix”: why do English users have to use idioms while they can use another word or chunk of words to express that meaning? In other words, why do people use “kick the bucket” instead of “die”? or why do they use “what a small world” instead of “what a coincidence”?, etc The following section will discuss the reasons

2.2.1.2 Reasons to use idioms

McCarthy et al (2010) raised some reasons for the use of English idioms among English learners First, idioms are what native speakers use in their real life, not only in informal contexts but also in formal ones Therefore, the mastery of English idioms helps an English learner become more native-like The second reason is that idioms are humorous Take the idiom “rain cats and dogs” as an

think of the images of cats and dogs Even for those who use that idiom masterly, they also smile when hearing me speaking this idiom On the contrary, nobody laughs or even smiles when I say “it is raining heavily” The sense of humour, in this case, is mainly attributed to the distance between the literal meaning and the figurative meaning, which may amaze the learners Let us imagine how funny it will be when the students reveal the meaning of the idiom “dog’s breakfast”, which is “a badly done task” The third reason is that idioms are evaluated For example, if we say “what a coincidence!”, we do not provide the listeners any evaluation However, its idiomatic equivalence “what a small world” is evaluated thanks to the word “small”

Academically, using idioms correctly is one of the factors that make someone a fluent speaker of a language (Schmitt, 2000) It is probably one of the reasons why

a candidate in the IELTS exam has to use idiomatic expressions correctly in their answers if they wish to obtain a band 7 or above in the speaking section (British Council, n.d )

Although idioms are a chunk of words whose meanings are different from the meanings of the sum of its individual words, some idioms are easier to understand while some are much more difficult To be more precise, some idioms are easier to

be deduced than some others Let us revisit the examples raised in section 2.2.1.1 about “give someone the green light” and “kick the bucket” As discussed above, the meaning of the former idiom is easier to guess than the meaning of the latter when someone encounters them for the first time This difference has something to

do with transparency, which varies from idiom to idiom

2.2.2 Opaque idioms

According to Gairns and Redman (1986) and McCarthy et al (2010), if the sum of meanings of individual words in an idiom is similar to that idiom’s figurative meaning, that idiom is a transparent one On the other hand, an idiom with a low level of transparency (the sum meanings of its individual words has nothing or too little to do with its figurative meaning) is considered as an opaque one

Accordingly, an example of transparent idioms is “give someone the green light” Clearly, the literal meaning of “hand a light which is green to someone” and the figurative meaning of “give someone permission” are not the same However, English learners who are Vietnamese might not have much difficulty in guessing the meaning of this idiom thanks to the picture of “green light” because unarguably, a green traffic light on a street is related to the message “you can go”

An illustration of opaque idioms is “kick the bucket” Its literal meaning clearly has nothing to do with its figurative meaning, which is “to die” Some possible explanation like “one kicks the bucket, and they die” is very hard to convince the language learners According to McCarthy et al (2010), idioms do not only fall into two categories mentioned above Instead, it varies from transparent to opaque, meaning they should be placed on the scale, moving from transparent to opaque

One thing worth exploring in this issue is that the transparency of idioms is not necessarily stable It is to say that some opaque idioms were once transparent, meaning that their literal meanings used to have something to do with their figurative ones, but the connection between the literal and figurative meanings seems to lose today probably because of the change of the real life McCarthy et al (2010) explained this point by providing and analyzing an idiom:

The idiom “to kick over the traces”, for example, which means in

modern English to act in a way that shows no respect for authority,

came originally from the time when vehicles and farm equipment

were pulled by horses The traces were leather straps used to tie a

horse to a plough or a cart or other vehicle If the horse kicked and

got its feet tangled over the straps, it was out of control (p 68)

From McCarthy et al.’s (2010) analysis, it can be seen that those who do not know about “traces” and “cart” will never understand why “kick over the traces” means

“act in a way that shows no respect for authority” In other words, they will accept

(McCarthy et al., 2010) The researcher of the current study personally thinks that, due to this feature, the opaqueness or transparency of idioms may vary from country to country and person to person Altogether, the operational definition of

opaque idioms in the current study is:

An opaque idiom is an idiom whose figurative meaning is difficult to deduce because it is very different from the literal meaning despite the fact that it has an origin, which may be either known by the idiom users or lost already

Concerning the learners’ understanding of transparent idioms and opaque idioms,

in an experimental study, Elkiliç (2008) assigned 79 students at the intermediate and advanced levels of English to do a translation test in which they are required to translate idioms both transparent and opaque into English and their mother tongue,

in this case, Turkish As a result, students got higher scores for transparent idioms and lower scores for opaque ones His explanation for the result was that students could use their predicting ability to come up with the meanings of transparent idioms while it was hard for them to infer the meanings of opaque ones

The students’ different levels of understanding of idioms due to the different levels

of idiom transparency are also one of the reasons why the researcher of the current study chose opaque idioms, not transparent ones In particular, he wanted to test the effectiveness of the storytelling method The possibility that the experimental subjects get high scores in the tests will be attributed to the effectiveness of the method, not the learners’ ability to guess the meaning of the idioms

Since idioms are essential to language learners, teaching idioms in language classrooms is necessary A variety of teaching methods have been applied to teach idioms

2.2.3 Methods for teaching idioms

The researcher divides the methods for teaching idioms into two groups: methods with the presence of stories, and methods without stories

2.2.3.1 Teaching idioms using non-story methods

In this first group, previous researchers employed pictures, movie clips, portfolios, conceptual metaphors, and idiom origins as treatments

Saffarian et al (2013) and Fotovatnia and Khaki (2012) conducted studies on the effects of pictures in teaching idioms In particular, Saffarian et al (2013) used pictures as a treatment to teach body idioms among 40 students in the EG as opposed to the CG of other 40 students, who were given with only the definitions

of the idioms As a result, the EG outperformed the CG in the retention of the body idioms Fotovatnia and Khaki (2012) also used pictures as a treatment for the EG

to teach 20 idioms both opaque and transparent Similar to Saffarian et al.’s (2013) study, the result of this study was that the EG outperformed the other two groups who studied with definitions and L1 translation

Although these two studies appreciated and proved the success of using pictures to teach idioms, they still had some shortcomings These two studies shared the same shortcoming: not all idioms could lend themselves to pictures (Rohani et al., 2012) Also, in the book entitled “Teaching Vocabulary”, Akar (2010) stated that abstract words are not easily illustrated by pictures One more limitation that these two studies seemed to share is the ways they testified the effectiveness of the methods In the first study, the researcher stopped at the level of comprehension, but not production either in written or oral form In the second study, although there was the presence of a production test, it was in the form of filling the blanks, not writing or speaking English using the idioms

In addition to pictures, movie clips were also employed to teach idioms Tabatabaei and Gahroei (2011) compared the effectiveness of movie clips and antonyms/synonyms in teaching idioms among 100 gifted high school students The findings of this study revealed that the students who were taught with movie clips remembered the idioms better Most of the participants thought that watching

a movie clip could help them to infer the meanings of the unknown idioms from the contexts This method seems interesting because a movie clip is more lively

and vivid than just words in a book However, it heavily depended on the available movies because they had to find movies with the idioms What is more, the study had no production test to examine the effects of the method on the use of idioms

Besides, feedback from the teacher and peers on a student’s papers for a period of time could also be used to help the students with idiom knowledge Tahriri et al (2014) used writing portfolios in the EG This means that each student in the EG, after writing sentences using the idioms taught each day, handed it to the teacher and their classmates to be commented on On the contrary, in the CG, the teacher just rated the writing The results of the study revealed that the EG outperformed the CG in idiom knowledge After carefully looking at the treatments in both groups, it seemed that the researchers had a strong bias towards the EG because, in the EG, the students were given comments by both teachers and classmates while the students in the CG were not Therefore, it turned out to be obvious that the students in the EG become better at idiom knowledge

Unlike the above studies where the learning of idioms was assisted by some kinds

of supports such as pictures, movies, or teacher and peers’ comments, in this study, explanations of idioms’ figurative meanings could also ease the students’ idiom learning Samani and Hashemian (2012) and Pham, T B N (2015) examined the effects of conceptual metaphors on idioms This means that students in the EG learned the meaning of an idiom thanks to another underlying concept, which was provided by the teacher In the CG, students were taught with definitions The result was that the EG were better than the CG at understanding and producing in a simple way, namely filling in the blanks Despite the pluses of the method, one challenging questions left unanswered is: do all idioms have concepts for the students to rely on to infer the meanings?

Similar to conceptual metaphors which help the students understand the meaning

of an idiom through another concept, origins of idioms were used to explain the meaning of idioms Tabatabaei and Hajizadeh (2015) employed the origins of the idioms in their study to enhance the students’ idiom competence The results of this study revealed that the group studying with origins of idioms outperformed

those studying with definitions of idioms The reasons for this were that the origin

of an idiom, not the sum meanings of the words in an idiom, helped to tell the students the connection between the two kinds of meaning of an idiom However, like the others, this study had some shortcomings First, whether or not the method works on the students’ idiom production has not been concerned Second, how can the teacher teach idioms that happen to have no origins or whose origins cannot be found in available materials?

It can be seen that there are a couple of educational issues still unsolved in those above-mentioned studies First, the materials in those studies were not self-designed Therefore, the teachers were still heavily dependent on the available materials if using those methods Second, those studies discussed the effectiveness

of the methods on the comprehension of the idioms, not the real production, especially oral production

2.2.3.2 Teaching idioms using stories

In this second group, the researchers used stories in various kinds such as stories that the students read, those read by the teachers, and those told by the teachers

Asl (2013) conducted an experimental study among three twenty-student groups

In group 1, the students were taught idioms with only definitions while those in group 2 and group 3 were taught with sentences and short stories, respectively As

a result, students in group 3 outperformed those in the other two groups in both immediate and delayed posttests The researcher’s explanation for the effectiveness of short stories over the other two kinds of experiments was that in longer contexts (stories), the students were easier to activate their prior knowledge

to deal with the content, and therefore, they could remember the idioms vividly

Similarly, Tabatabaei and Hajizadeh (2015) conducted a study to compare the effectiveness of the three methods, namely definitions, short stories, and etymology Accordingly, the students were taught idioms using definitions, short stories containing the idioms, and the origins of idioms, respectively For the group

bold and their definitions were provided at the end of each story The results of the study showed that the group of students taught idioms using short stories performed better than the other two Tabatabaei and Hajizadeh (2015) explained that because they were exposed to real stories, they learned something in their real life so they understood the idioms better

After a careful look at the book “Can You Believe It, Book 3” written by Huizenga and Huizenga (2000) that Tabatabaei and Hajizadeh (2015) used to teach in the group that got the highest score, some discoveries of their study were made First, not all phrases taught in the lessons are idioms: some are phrasal verbs such as

“belong to someone” (p 3), “search for someone or something” (p 33), etc and some are just ordinary expressions such as “be pregnant” (p 33), “at present” (p 3), etc Second, most of the idioms in the book are more transparent than opaque

Some general comments should be made for the studies on teaching idioms with stories mentioned above The first comment is that all of the stories used in these studies are not self-designed by the researchers, which might lead to the possible exhaustion of the ready-made teaching materials, and the difficulties to find stories that suit their students’ interest as well as their own styles or purposes The second comment is that all of the stories were read, not told Again, accordingly to Haven and Ducey (2007) and Gallets (2005), storytelling had a lot of advantages over story reading For this reason, it is still unclear whether or not there is a difference

in terms of the effectiveness of the methods as well as the reaction of the students

if storytelling, not story reading, is used The third comment is that all the stories are informative, not humorous at all Therefore, the factors that helped the students

to understand and remember the idioms in those studies had nothing to do with the sense of humor It is worth examining that if the stories contain some sense of humour, then will it help the students anything with the comprehension of the idioms? Last but not least, whether or not stories can help the students improve their oral production of idioms is still a mystery

The effectiveness of some methods above, namely videos, stories of different kinds, mainly depends on “context”, which helps the students understand the meaning and the use of the lexical items better

2.2.4 Contexts in language teaching

Zheng (2012) conducted a survey to see if the teachers and students in the University of Petroleum, Beijing, China were satisfied with the current vocabulary teaching method in their university, namely wordlist and definitions only Although up to 85% of the students were aware of the importance of vocabulary in their learning, up to 81% of the participants did not feel happy with the vocabulary teaching method Forty percent of them found it extremely hard to learn meanings

of vocabulary Similar to the students, the majority of the teachers did not seem to

be very satisfied with the current vocabulary teaching Specifically, 58% of them thought that teaching vocabulary was boring Like the students, 55% of the teachers saw the teaching of vocabulary meanings as the most difficult part Therefore, it can be seen that with the use of wordlist and definitions only to teach vocabulary, most of the students and teachers of the University of Petroleum felt frustrated and bored with their learning and teaching methods; and found it extremely difficult to remember and instruct the word meanings, respectively

In line with Zheng (2012), in the study “Effects of Context on Iranian EFL Learners’ Idioms Retention”, Rohani et al (2012) stated that students were disappointed about learning idioms with a long list and memorization They needed contexts in their learning He also emphasized the importance of contexts

in teaching idioms by confirming that not all idioms are suitable for pictures, so contexts are very important, especially for opaque idioms

A couple of questions raised here are: (1) how important are contexts in language learning?, and (2) are all contexts equally beneficial to the students’ learning?

Many authors supported the idea that contexts are useful for language learners However, not all contexts are equally useful Some are more effective than others

uninformative to informative, which were adopted by Webb (2008) in his study on the effects of contexts on incidental vocabulary learning The result of the study was that those who learned with more informative contexts could gain knowledge

of word meaning He also stated that one of the usages of contexts in teaching and learning was to guess the meaning of unknown words

Guessing meaning from context is a useful skill for learners because it is exactly the same technique that native speakers use to study their L1 It is a strategy helping students to “attack” new words independently (McCarthy et al., 2010) However, inferring is not an easy job It is challenging for some reasons First, as mentioned just above, contexts with different informative levels will help learners decode the meaning of unknown vocabulary items differently Therefore, only contexts with relatively rich informative levels can help students with such a task

In line with that, Schmitt (2000) also concluded that the context must be rich enough in order to provide students with enough clues for them to guess the meaning of new words The second thing that makes the task of inferring meaning difficult is the presence of new lexical items According to Nation (2000), only texts with 95% of familiar words can help the learners guess the meaning with ease, otherwise, they cannot decode the unknown words Similarly, McCarthy (1990) stated that an input with one unfamiliar word per 25 words is easier to guess than one per 10 words

Last but not least, texts about some particular fields that learners are not familiar with also challenge them in guessing the meaning of new words despite the fact that the percentage of known words in these texts fulfills the requirements

Based on the literature review of contexts and meaning inference of unknown vocabulary items in this part, the researcher of the current study takes those things into consideration when designing the eight stories in the experimental group and the 40 examples in the control group Those contexts (both stories in the EG and examples in the CG) must meet the following requirements The first requirement

is that each context must be informative, meaning that it must have a clue for guessing the meaning of the target idioms The second requirement is that the

contexts should be familiar to the students Some suggested topics are “friends”,

“family” and “job”, not “science”, “economy”, or “law”, to name but a few These two requirements would be presented in detail in Chapter 3

There were times the researcher of the current study mentioned the students’ understanding and the use of vocabulary in written and spoken forms The two factors, namely “understanding” and “using” of lexical items are the ultimate goals

of many teaching methods These two aspects would be reviewed below

2.3 Language comprehension and oral language production

2.3.1 Language comprehension

Many dictionaries such as Oxford, Cambridge, etc offer the meaning of comprehension as the understanding of something Therefore, it can be understood that comprehension of a lexical item means the understanding of that item According to Thornbury (2002), understanding a word at a basic level involves knowing the form and meaning of that word In some other books and materials, the authors do not use the term “comprehension”, but other terms, e.g passive vocabulary and receptive vocabulary to refer to the same concept Schmitt (2000) stated that being able to understand a word is known as receptive knowledge and deals with listening and reading In the book entitled “Matrix Vocabulary”, McCarthy et al (2010) put forth that understanding is receptive use Gairns and Redman (1986) stated that the term comprehension is often called passive vocabulary Therefore, some alternative terms for comprehension are receptive use, receptive knowledge, and passive vocabulary Akar (2010) defined passive or receptive vocabulary as the total number of lexical items which a learner can understand correctly

Comprehension of opaque idioms in the current study refers to knowing the form and the meaning, in this case, figurative meaning, of the idioms It also refers to the of students’ ability to understand the use of idioms in contexts, not just in isolation

When talking about comprehension, people often think of two types of input: reading and listening texts Schmitt (2000) believed that reading is easier than listening because, in reading, learners can go over the reading passage several times until they understand the materials and control the speed, while in listening it

is not easy to do such things This idea helps the researcher of the current study come up with some ideas for his storytelling technique That is, when telling stories to the students at the pre-intermediate level, the storyteller will try to tell slowly and clearly enough for them to understand Plus, he will repeat the information one more time, especially the details containing the idioms for the students to guess

In the field of comprehension, there are interesting ideas raised by some authors Meara (2009) said that sometimes learners understood a language when they read and listened, but it did not necessarily mean that they truly comprehended it Instead, they may not act appropriately to the word Two factors affecting comprehension are noise (in listening) and reading speed (in reading), making them not comprehend the word the way a native speaker does According to Fusté-Herrmann (2008), there are at least three factors affecting the comprehension of idioms The first factor is idiom transparency To be more specific, transparent idioms are easier to comprehend than opaque ones The second factor facilitating the learners’ comprehension of idioms is the familiarity of the idioms to the learners Therefore, in the current study, the researcher only selected those idioms that no student had known before The last factor of the three is context, to be more precise, linguistic context According to Akar (2010), to facilitate the students’ understanding of lexical items, teachers should put them into many realistic contexts which help the learners to get the correct meaning of the items Being close to this current study, Fusté-Herrmann (2008) pointed out that context was beneficial to students especially when dealing with opaque idioms where they cannot use the so-called semantic analysis It is also a reason that the researcher of the current study used contexts for opaque idioms