USING OF GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS TO IMPROVE EFL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT’S SPEAKING PERFORMANCE

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
VINH UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN NGỌC QUYÊN

USING OF GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS TO
IMPROVE EFL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT’S
SPEAKING PERFORMANCE
Major: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching
Code: 60.14.01.11

MASTER THESIS OF EDUCATION
SUPERVISOR
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ngơ Đình Phương

NGHE AN 2017


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ngo Dinh Phuong, my supervisor, for his
encouragement and enthusiasm. He was willing to spend his time giving me good
advice and making corrections many times in order for this research paper to be
completed.
I would like to thank the teachers and students at Chau Thanh High School where I
have been teaching and gathering information for my study.
I am also indebt my lecturers, my friends, my classmates, as well as my colleagues for
their available comments and encouragement.
Last, I would like to express my gratitude to my parents and younger sister for their

love, care, tolerance and encourage.


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TABLES OF CONTENT
Pages
ACKNOWLEDEMENTS..............................................................................................
i
TABLES OF CONTENT...............................................................................................
ii.......................................................................................................................................
TABLES AND FIGURES..............................................................................................
iii......................................................................................................................................
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................
v
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION
1. 1. Rationale..................................................................................................................
1
1.2. Aims of the study......................................................................................................
4
1.3. Research questions....................................................................................................
4
1.4. Scope of the study.....................................................................................................
4
1.5. Methods of the study.................................................................................................
4.......................................................................................................................................
1.6. Design of the study...................................................................................................
5
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. The nature of speaking..............................................................................................
7

2.2. Speaking performance...............................................................................................
8
2.2.1. Characteristics of speaking of speaking performance............................................
8


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2.2.2. Factors affecting Speaking Performance................................................................
9
2.2.3. Types of classroom Speaking Performance activities........................................11
2.3. The teaching and learning of speaking...................................................................14
2.3.1. Stages of a speaking lesson................................................................................14
2.3.2. Characteristics of a successful speaking lesson/ activity...................................16
2.4. Graphic Organizers.....................................................................................................
17
2.4.1. Definition of graphic organizers.............................................................................
17
2.4.2. Types of Graphic Organizers..................................................................................
19
2.4.3. Previous researches related on the effect of Graphic Organizers on student’s
performance...................................................................................................................23
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
3.1. Research questions....................................................................................................
27
3.2. Participants...............................................................................................................
27
3.3. Material.....................................................................................................................
28
3.4. Research method and Procedure...............................................................................
30

3.4. 1. Methods................................................................................................................
30
3.4. 2. Procedures.............................................................................................................
30
3.5. Instruments of Data Collection.................................................................................
32


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3.5. 1.Tests.......................................................................................................................
32
3.5.2. Questionnaires.......................................................................................................
33
3.6. Data Collection Procedure........................................................................................
33
3.7. Analytic Procedure....................................................................................................
34.....................................................................................................................................
Chapter 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1. Results......................................................................................................................
35
4.1.1. Students attitudes towards using Graphic Organizers in speaking
lesson...............35
4.1.2. The effects of Graphic Organizers on students’ speaking.......................................
39
4.2. Findings....................................................................................................................
46
4.3. Discussion.................................................................................................................
47
4.4. Applying Graphic Organizers in speaking class........................................................
49

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION
5.1. Summary of the study...............................................................................................
57
5.2. Limitation of the study and suggestions for further study.........................................
58
REFERENCE.................................................................................................................
60
APPENDIX ....................................................................................................................
63


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LISTS OF TABLES
Table 4.1.1. Students’ feeling and attitudes towards learning speaking skill
Table 4.1.2. Students’ feeling and attitudes towards learning speaking skill
with Graphic Organizers
Table 4.2.1. The pre-test result of two groups
Table 4.2.2. Mean and SD in the pre English speaking test
Table 4.2.3. Mean and SD in the post English speaking test
Table 4.2.6. The number of students in pre test and post test results of two groups
Table 4.2.7. The incidental probability (p) in pre test and post test results of
two groups
Table 4.4.3. The compare and contrast matrix of kinds of music
Table 4.4.6. KWL Graphic Organizer of lizards
LISTS OF FIGURES
Figure 4.1.3. Students’ difficulties in learning speaking English
Figure 4.1.4. The benefits of using Graphic Organizers in learning speaking English

Figure 4.1.5. Students’ feeling about the motivation and interest of using
Graphic Organizers
Figure 4.2.4. Scores in experimental group before and after using Graphic Organizers
Figure 4.2.5. Scores in Control Group before and after using Graphic Organizers
Figure 4.4.1. A Venn diagram of comparing the characteristic of whales and guppies
Figure 4.4.2. Web Graphic Organizers of characteristics of dogs
Figure 4.4.4. The net word tree of disadvantages and disadvantages of zoos
Figure 4.4.5. The problem and solution Map of discussing the problem and solutions
that may occur in ocean environment


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ABSTRACT
Speaking plays an important part in teaching and learning English and it is
recognize as the principle objective of language courses. However, how to improve
students’ speaking performance in classroom is not an easy task. In order to improve
the quality of speaking classes, the study just focuses on using Graphic Organizers to
improve EFL 10th grader’s speaking performance. It is, therefore, the need for teachers
to instruct the students Graphic Organizers and apply them into speaking period. The
study has been conducted for the aim of testing the effectiveness of using Graphic
Organizers at Chau Thanh High School. Students are divided into two groups called
Experimental Group and Control Group. The Experimental Group are taught speaking
skill with Graphic Organizers while normal way is still applied in the Control Group.
Both groups have to take the pre test and post test. After that a set of questionnaire
included 8 questions is used to investigate students’ attitudes, perspectives towards
speaking and Graphic Organizers. While the study provides some implications for
teachers and researchers in general, it is not free from limitations. The limitations are
found in the data collection instruments and the number of strategies to be taught.

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Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION
1. 1. Rationale
Speaking is considered one of the most important skills, especially in learning
English as a foreign language. It may be the best way to express the learners’ ability
during learning English process. The integral part of English teaching is to make
students able to communicate well. By speaking, people are able to discuss or raise
their opinions about events happening around the world. People who have ability in
speaking will be better in sending and receiving information or message to another.
Therefore, students are often evaluated their success in English language learning on
how well their improvement on speaking the language.
It seems that the concept of speaking is quite familiar to everyone; however, not
anybody can give an exact definition of speaking. In order to clarify this concept, the
researchers define speaking as a hard skill to be mastered by the learners.
Speaking in a foreign language is very difficult and competence in speaking takes a
long time to develop. Brown and Yule (1983) defined speaking as “a skill by which
people are judged while first impressions are being formed.” That is to say speaking is
an important skill which deserves more attention in both first and second language
because it reflects people's thoughts and personalities. Johnson (1995) argued
“Speaking skill is the ability in using oral language to explore ideas, intentions,
thoughts and feelings to other people as a way to make the message clearly delivered
and well understood by the hearer.”
Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves
producing, receiving and processing information. Its form and meaning are depending
on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their
experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking. It is often
spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving. However, speech is not always unpredictable.
Speaking requires that learners not only know how to produce specific points of
language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary ("linguistic competence"),
but also that they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce language

("sociolinguistic competence") (Nunan,1999:216).


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The learning of language involves acquiring the ability to compose correct
sentences and it involves an understanding of which sentences or parts of sentences are
appropriate for a particular context (Krashen, 1982). We do speaking in order to
communicate with each other. Better communication means better understanding of
others and themselves. Communication is a continuous process of expression,
interpretation, and negotiation. The opportunities for communications are infinite and
include systems of signs and symbols (Baker, 2003). Communication requires a
sender, a receiver and a medium. It can be said that both hearers and speakers do
interactions by giving responds to what they have heard and listened to.
Generally, people who encounter others through this oral communication have a
certain goal that they want to achieve, the goal that underlies people to do the
communication. Spoken language is a primary phenomenon. We speak a great deal
more than we write, that is why language should be taught initially through speech.
Spoken language is essential to any language learning. Learning to speak a foreign
language is a learning that requires knowledge of the language and its application. In
mastering the speaking skill, the teacher must train and equip the learners with a
certain degree of accuracy and fluency in understanding, responding and in expressing
themselves in the language in speech.
In language classroom, it is significant to develop students’ speaking ability.
However, speaking skill is one of essential skills but it is also the most difficult skill to
develop. According to Lukitasari (2003), there are some common problems that the
students at high school face with during learning English speaking. The first problem
is that the environment does not support the students to speak English frequently.
Second, students do not want to talk or say anything because they suffer from a fear of
making mistakes. Third, students have low motivation to learn English, which may be
one of the main difficulties of teaching speaking.

Speaking lesson actually causes many difficulties to both teachers and learners in
Vietnam. In traditional method, grammar and vocabulary were emphasized more than
other skills at Vietnam’s high schools. Students do not pay attention to speaking and
listening skills because these skills were not usually required in national graduation


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exams or university entrance exams. In addition, they have very little chance to
practice speaking in class and the problem is they usually feel unconfident when being
asked to perform their ideas in front of the class. For instance, they occasionally read
sample conversations in the text books and try to remember the structures in a passive
way. They seem to find difficult to express their ideas, discuss and exchange their
thoughts with their friends. Especially when being asked to make a speech or a
presentation, they often feel confused as they do not know how to organize and present
their ideas: which ideas should come first and which one will be followed; which
words should be selected for presenting; how to connect the ideas with others during
presentation. To help the students improve their speaking skills, it is necessary to find
ways to help them overcome their problems.
A graphic organizer is a visual and graphic display that depicts the relationships
between facts, terms, and or ideas within a learning task. (Robinson,1995). It now
widely applied in many fields, including teaching language. It may help students to
take note, learn vocabulary, review the lesson, and logically organizer idea. By
applying Graphic Organizers in teaching speaking, the aim of this paper is to help
students improve their speaking performance. As a tool to support students’ thinking
and learning processes, many research students have shown that Graphic Organizers
help students:
-

Brainstorm ideas

-

Develop, organize, and communicate ideas

-

See connections, patterns and relationship

-

Assess and share prior knowledge

-

Highlight important idea

-

Learn vocabulary

-

Classify or categorize concepts, ideas and information

-

Improve social interaction between students and collaboration among peers.
The above reasons have inspired me to conduct a study on “Using graphic

organizers to improve EFL high school’s speaking performance”. It is hoped that this

study will provide teachers with a deep understanding the role of Graphic Organizers


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in speaking and help students develop their speaking skill which lead to their learning
successfully as well as it will help the English teacher to overcome some problems in
teaching speaking.
1.2. Aims of the study
This study aims to use Graphic Organizers to improve speaking performance for
10th grade students at Chau Thanh High school. The specific objectives of the study
are:
-

to investigate the students’ attitude towards using Graphic Organizers in
speaking lessons.

-

to suggest way to use graphic organizers to encourage the 10 th graders in Chau
Thanh High School in speaking lessons.

-

to examine how 10th graders’ speaking performance may be improved when
applying Graphic Organizers on speaking lesson.

1.3. Research questions
The study is to answer two following research questions:
1. What are the 10th graders’ attitudes towards using graphic organizers in speaking
lesson?

2. How may the use of Graphic Organizers improve the 10 th graders’ speaking
performance?
1.4. Scope of the study
There are many ways to encourage students to learn English, but all these issues
can not be fully covered in this paper. Due to the limit time and length of the minor
thesis, this paper only focuses on exploiting the using of Graphic Organizers as a way
of improving 10th graders’ speaking performance at Chau Thanh High School.
1.5. Methods of the study
The main method is experimental method and questionnaires.
Procedure:
80 students of two classes 10 A5 and 10 A6 at Chau Thanh High School
participated in this results. They were divided into two groups: The control group and


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the experimental group. Before the treatment, both groups had to do a pre-test which
had the format of PET speaking test and it included three parts.
After that, the experimental group would be taught speaking with Graphic
Organizers while the control group adopted traditional methods. Post test which
another PET speaking test was used to investigate how the use of graphic organizers
influences on their speaking performance. The pre-test was used at the start and post
test was used at the end to determine whether students improve their speaking
performance.
The results of both pre-test and post-test were collected for analyzing the
information.
The questionnaires to survey students’ attitudes are delivered after introducing
graphic organizers in speaking performance. They were just delivered for the
Experimental Group.
Data is collected and compared from the pre and post test to show whether
students improve their speaking performance.

1.6. Design of the study
The thesis consists of the following main parts:
Chapter 1: Introduction presents the rationale, the aims and the scope of the
thesis. The research questions, method and the design of the study are also included in
this chapter.
Chapter 2: Literature Review covers the concepts relevant to the study:
theoretical backgrounds of teaching speaking skills, definition and advantages of using
graphic organizers as well as suggested ways to introduce graphic organizers in
speaking lessons.
Chapter 3: In this chapter the methodology of the study is described.
Chapter 4: Finding and discussions presents and discusses findings of the
difficulties in teaching and learning speaking in Chau Thanh High School and some
suggestions to use graphic organizers to solve these problems.
Chapter 5: Conclusion summarizes the findings and addresses the summary of
the study.


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Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter reviews theories related to speaking strategies as well as teaching
speaking in general and applying Graphic Organizers in speaking in particular. All of
these serve as a basis for measuring the effectiveness of using Graphic Organizers to
improve the learners’ speaking performance which is carried out and presented in the
next chapter.
2.1. The nature of speaking
The nature of speaking has been discussed by many researchers.
Little Wood (1981) states that oral communication is two-way processes
between speaker and listener and it involves the productive skill of speaking and the
receptive skill of understanding (or listening with understanding). For him, speaker
and listener participate in oral communication process, and they use a productive skill

which is speaking and receptive skill which is listening.
Nunan (1999) shows that speaking also requires learners not only know how to
produce language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary but also they have to
understand when, why, and in what ways to produce language. It means the learning of
language involves the ability to make correct sentences which are appropriate for a
particular context.
Additionally, Richards and Renandya (2002) states that effective oral
communication requires the ability to use the language appropriately in social
interactions that involves both verbal and nonverbal communication such as gestures,
body language, and expressions are needed in conveying messages directly. Brown
(1994) agrees that -body language; gestures, eye contact, physical distance and other
nonverbal messages play an important role in communication and successful oral
communication involves:
a. the ability to pronounce the words clearly
b. mastery of stress, rhythm, intonation patterns
c. an acceptable degree of fluency
e. skills in taking short and long speaking turns


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f. skills in the management of interaction
g. skills in negotiating meaning
h. conversational listening skills
j. using appropriate conversational way
Generally, spoken language is a primary phenomenon. We speak more than we
write, that is why spoken language should be taught at first. Learning to speak a
foreign language requires knowledge of the language and its application in every
particular situation. Therefore, the teacher should teach learners with a certain degree
of accuracy and fluency in understanding, responding and in expressing ideas in the
spoken language.

2.2. Speaking performance
2.2.1. Characteristics of speaking performance
In speaking performance, both fluency and accuracy are important. Learners
should be developed speaking skill through classroom activities.
Fluency
Fluency is the main characteristic of the speaker performance and it is the
essential goal that teachers aim to achieve in teaching speaking skill. It means people
speak easily, quickly, and few pause in order not to break down the. Brown & Yule
(1983) also states that “the term fluency relates to the production and it is normally
reserved for speech. It is the ability to link units of speech together with facility and
without strain or inappropriate slowness, or undue hesitation.”
Accuracy
The second characteristic of speaking performance is accuracy. Learners often
need to be not only fluent but also accurate in the speaking foreign language. If people
speak English with a high level of accuracy it means they speak correctly with very
few mistakes. So, second language teachers emphasized accuracy in their teaching
process. Learners should pay attention to the correctness and the completeness of
language form when speaking. For instance, they should focus on the grammatical
structure, vocabulary and pronunciation.


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Grammar
Brown & Yule (1983) shows the difference between spoken grammar and
written grammar and they list the following features of spoken grammar:
- Omission: one or more words in clause will be emitted. (E.g. Any luck?
instead of “Did you have any luck?”
- Repetition: spoken language is produced spontaneously, in real time, and we
do not have time to plan what we are going to say. This often results in repetition and
additions.

- Vagueness: It is more likely to be a sign of a skilled speaker. Some examples
of vagueness in spoken English include: ish, kind of/ kinda, …, or something,…and
things like that.
- Discourse markers: it is used in spoken English differently than those in
written English. (E.g. Well…, anyway…, I mean…, You know…)
Vocabulary
To achieve accuracy in terms of vocabulary means to choose the appropriate
word in the appropriate context. Learners often use the same word or expression in
different context which does not mean the same thing. Thus, learners have to be able to
use words and expressions accurately.
Pronunciation
Canale & Swain (1980) stated that “the lowest level of knowledge speaker draw
on is the pronunciation” (p.24). Therefore, to speak the English language accurately,
learners need to be knowledgeable about its phonological rules. For example, they
should be aware about the different sounds and their articulations. Also, they should
know about the stress, intonation, pitch…etc. All these components help them to speak
the language effectively and for better performance.
2.2.2. Factors affecting speaking performance
In order to help students overcome problems in learning speaking, it is
necessary for the teachers to figure out factors that affect their speaking performance.
Students’ speaking performance can be affected by the factors that come from
performance conditions (time pressure, planning, standard of performance and amount


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of support), affective factors (such as motivation, confidence and anxiety), listening
ability and feedback during speaking activities.
Performance conditions
Students perform a speaking task under a variety of conditions. Nation &
Newton (2009) believe that performance conditions can affect speaking performance.

The four types of performance conditions include time pressure, planning, the standard
of performance and the amount of support.
Affective factors
One of the most important influences on language learning success or failure is
probably the affective side of the learner. Krashen (1982) states affective factors
include a variety of affective factors which are influence to success in second language
but most of those studies examined the three categories: motivation, self-confidence
and anxiety.
Listening ability
According to Doff (1998), speaking skills cannot be developed if we do not
develop listening skills. Students must understand what is said to them to have a
successful conversation. Shumin (1997) shares the ideas of Doff (1998) by stating that
when one person speaks, the other responds through attending by means of the
listening process. In fact, every speaker plays the role of both a listener and a speaker.
Therefore, one is certainly unable to respond if he/ she cannot understand what is said.
It means speaking is closely related to listening.
Topical knowledge
Topical knowledge is defined as knowledge structures in long-term memory
(Bachman & Palmer, 1996). In other words, topical knowledge is the speakers’
knowledge of relevant topical information. The information that topical knowledge
provides enables learners to use language with reference to the world in which they
live. Bachman & Palmer (1996) state certain test tasks may be easier for those who
possess the relevant topical knowledge and more difficult for those who do not.
Bachman & Palmer (1996) believe that topical knowledge has effects on speaking
performance.


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Feedback during speaking activities
Most students want and expect their teachers to give them feedback on their

performance. However, all speaking production should not be dealt with in the same
way. Harmer (1991) asserts that the decisions that the teachers make about how to
react to students’ performance will depend on the stages of the lesson, the activities,
the types of mistake made and the particular student who is making that mistake. If the
teachers correct whenever there is a problem, the conversational flow as well as the
purpose of the speaking activity will be destroyed (Harmer, 1991). If the students are
corrected all the time, they can become afraid to speak. They suggest that the teachers
should always correct the students’ mistakes positively and with encouragement.
2.2.3. Types of classroom speaking performance activities
Speaking should be practiced in class through activities. Therefore, teachers
should apply different oral activities in speaking lessons to encourage their students to
speak. Language learners need to practice the language regularly inside the classroom
through performing different activities. The finally aim of communicative activity in
class is to get learners to use the language they are learning to interact in real life.
According to Davies & Pearse (2000), there are many different activities that can be
done in classroom to help the learners to develop their speaking skill. Those below are
some of the common one.
Discussion
The most common activity used in speaking classes is discussion. This activity
gives the students the opportunity to talk and share their interests, opinions, and
experiences. Students often are unwilling to give their opinions in front of the whole
class. So, to avoid such problems, the teacher should divide the class into groups.
When getting into groups, students will easily to exchange ideas or give suggestions.
Teachers should be careful in planning and setting up a discussion activity. First of all,
the topic must be interesting, easy to talk about, and touching their real-life situations.
Celle-Murcia & Olshtain (2000) stated that “students need to be clear about what they
are to discuss, why they are discussing it, and what outcomes is expected”. Second,
well grouping or pairing students is a step for a successful discussion, and finally

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every student should participate in the discussion in order to make all the students
speak and use the target language.
Role-play
It is an enjoyable activity for most of the students particularly those who like to
imitate the others. Role play is an authentic technique because it encourages a large
number of students especially if it is based on real-life situations; moreover, it helps
them to reduce their fears in front of the whole class because usually it should be
performed in pairs or groups. Thus, each student has to perform a role. In addition, role
play activity gives the students the opportunity to practice and develop variety of
socio-cultural speech acts that are appropriate to the situation and to the characters. For
example, when requesting, apologizing, complaining, thanking… etc. This activity can
be performed from prepared scripts, student's imagination or experience. The success
of the role play depends on the choice of the topics and to the teacher's motivation.
Communicative tasks
Those activities are very entertaining for both students and teachers because
they make a sense of humor in the classroom. In addition, they are directed to achieve
some extra linguistic goals. Canale & Swain (1980) showed that communicative
activities are characterized by some features:
- The tasks should be from real-life situations.
- Achieving some outcome by using language in funny way.
- Make the students practice and interact.
- The students use their language without limitations.
Therefore, those are some of the communicative tasks that can be used in
classroom to make the students speak and engage in classroom interaction.
Jigsaw activity
This activity should be done better in groups rather than individually, in such
tasks the teacher arranges four flashcards and tells the learners about the general idea
that these cards uphold. Then, s/he distributes the cards for four subgroups (one per
each). After a moment the teacher asks the members of all the subgroups number one,

for instance, to describe what s/he has seen. Later on, the teacher and subgroup


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number one members decide upon the idea that this card upholds.
Find the differences
Here, the teacher gives each two students two pictures about the same thing
however there are a slight differences about them. So, the students will stand in front
of their classmates and each one describes a piece from his picture than the audience
try to guess where the difference between them is. The teacher role here is to create a
sense of competition between the audiences.
Chain story
This activity is so funny because the teacher tries to create a story with his/her
students. First of all, the teacher must make their students motivated to do such
activity. Then he will begin the story after that he gives turns to the students. Each
student should create a new sentence from his imaginations and by the end they finish
with a new story.
Academic presentations
This type of activity gets the learners present academic presentations with
formal characteristics. It can be presented individually, in pairs or in groups. A
discussion takes place when the students finish their presentation. For instance,
students will be divided into small groups and each group will choose and prepare a
topic before presenting. Each group can select a group leader; he is a person who gives
tasks for each member. After preparing their own topic, they can take turn to present in
front of the class. This activity is useful in developing team spirit and responsibility of
each member.
2.3. The teaching and learning of speaking
2.3.1 Stages of a speaking lesson
A simple speaking activity consists of three main stages: Setting up, Speaking
practice and Feedback. (Richard, 2000)

Setting up
The teacher introduces students the speaking topic. The specific steps are:
- Explaining (The teacher has to breaking instructions into small steps.)


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- Demonstrating (It is especially important in speaking activities, when students
are often working in pairs or groups that they know exactly what to do.)
- Double checking is step to make sure every student knows what to do.
- Practicing the language with the whole class.
- Practicing pronunciation.
- Giving them support with speech bubbles
Speaking practice
This is the main part of the activity. In this stage, students communicate with
each other in pairs or groups. The teacher usually follows these steps:
- Giving clear signals when to start and stop.
- Circulating and listening (Teacher goes around while students are speaking and
listening)
- Not interrupting but carrying a piece of paper and noting down mistakes and
problems.
- Controlling the activity (Teacher makes sure that it’s not too noisy and English
is spoken.)
Feedback
Students may report to the rest of the class on what they have talked about in
their pairs or groups. The teacher gives feedback and deals with any problems. The
teacher may go through with the following steps:
- Bringing the class back together.
- Asking a few students to report back.
- Giving feedback on the language practiced/ correcting mistakes.
 The teacher writes mistakes taken during practice on the board.

 Students try to correct them.
 The teacher explains again if necessary.
 The teacher focuses on pronunciation if necessary.
The stages of speaking lesson are also divided into three different main stages:
pre-speaking, while-speaking and post speaking. There is no exact time for each stage


15
in a skills lesson in general and a speaking lesson in particular; however, the teacher
should notice that most of the time must be for while stage, which gives students
enough time for practicing speaking skill.
Pre-speaking stage (Presentation stage)
The stage prepares students for getting them to think about the topic or situation
before they speak about it. Pre-speaking tasks can be:
-

Discussion or brainstorming (where students collect all their ideas on the

topic)
-

Vocabulary preparation (where the teacher teaches key vocabulary to aid

comprehension)
-

Prediction (where students guess what they may learn about)

A good pre-speaking is also necessary to involve integrating skills, maybe
listening and sometimes reading (for example, an information gap text). This stage

should be kept short, about 10 minutes equivalent the presentation stage of a Grammar
lesson, but giving enough time for students to assimilate to what they are going to
speak. Warm-up activities may be included in this stage. In this stage, the teacher’s
role is to get students think about what they are going to speak before they speak. The
teacher will have to set up the Pre-task and his/her clear instructions are required.
While-speaking stage (Practice stage)
This stage is the time for students to practice speaking. The teacher does not
have to do a lot of things because students will be working on the while tasks
individually or in pairs, in groups. When working on the tasks, they may have some
difficulties because of a lack of language variety; therefore, during this stage, the
teacher may monitor and assist weaker students with their difficulties in completing
while tasks instead. Also, the teacher needs to evaluate how well students have
completed the tasks and whether they are ready to go to the next stage or not.
Activities called communicative ones are truly essential to be applied in this stage for
the purpose of helping students practice speaking skill. They can be a role play, a game
or a discussion. Depending on the lesson and the classroom condition, the teacher will
choose and set up the suitable activities for students.


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Post-speaking stage (Personalization stage)
After students have practiced speaking skill in the while stage, they may do an
extension activity in this stage. This helps students take the information or whatever
they have produced in the previous stage and do something meaningful with it. The
post task is usually “an information transfer” – a production type of exercise where
they respond to what they have just learnt. They respond in the way that relating what
10 they have learnt to their own experience. For instance, if they talk about a world
famous football player in the while stage, they may talk or write about their own
favorite one in this follow-up stage. Writing is a very appropriate integrating skill for

this stage. If students conduct a questionnaire on their friends in the while task, they
may write up the results in a short paragraph, for example.
2.3.2. Characteristics of a successful speaking lesson
According to Richard (2000) some advice for teachers is suggested to create a
good speaking lesson plan:
- Learners talk a lot: Learners should be speaking for most of the lesson or
activity.
This helps to achieve the goal of teaching English for communication.
- Participation is equal: All of the students should be grouped and organized so
that they can participate in the lesson/ activity not just a minority of talkative students.
- Motivation is high: Learners are eager to speak because they are interested in
the topic and they want to contribute to the lesson/ activity.
- Language is appropriate: Learners’ discussion should be relevant, easily
comprehensible to each other, and at an acceptable level of language accuracy.
- Teacher monitoring and modeling: The teacher should be walking around and
monitoring conversations to ensure that the lesson is meeting its objectives and that the
level of the activity is appropriate.
2.4. Graphic Organizers
2.4.1. Definition of graphic organizers


17
A graphic organizer is a visual and graphic display that depicts the relationships
between facts, terms, and or ideas within a learning task. (Hall and Strangeman, 2001).
Miller (1998) describes graphic organizers as diagrams or illustration of written or oral
statements. Graphic organizers are also sometimes referred to as knowledge maps,
concept maps, story maps, cognitive organizers, advance organizers, or concept
diagrams. They include semantic maps, semantic feature analysis, cognitive maps,
story maps, framed outlines, and Venn diagrams (Kim et al., 2004)
Graphic Organizers include words, images or symbolic patterns (conceptual,

hierarchical, cyclical and sequential). They present verbal, visual, and logical learning
styles.
Graphic Organizers have different lay outs but they usually have a similar
purpose. They depict the relationships between facts and figures or key concepts and
ideas within a learning task. According to Robinson (1995), a variety of types of
organizers are chosen for their appropriateness for the content. They are the effective
tool in planning, instruction, and assessment. They can enhance and facilitate students’
understanding and develop their full potential.
Graphic Organizers can be classified either in terms of their design or their
function. Functionally, Graphic Organizers can be grouped into two categories: those
that depict basic information structures (whole-to-part, cause/effect, etc.) and those
that serve specialized needs (project planning, goal setting). For the language
classroom, the most common functions are:
- Describing
- Comparing and contrasting
- Classifying
- Sequencing
- Cause and effect
- Decision making
For example, if the speaking presentation focuses:
 on sequential manner, a list or a timeline is often used.


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Bromley, K. (1999) 50 graphic organizers for reading, writing and more
 a compare/ contrast mode, a 2-column chart or Venn diagram is used.

Bromley, K. (1999) 50 graphic organizers for reading, writing and more
 a central theme, a mind map or a network tree is used.

Bromley, K. (1999) 50 graphic organizers for reading, writing and more
2.4.2. Types of Graphic Organizers
There are a wide variety of designs for depicting the same basic information
structures, but all serving the same basic purpose of visually revealing to learners how
the information is structured. According to Bromley (1999), some common designs
include: