Using audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary students' speaking skills = Sử dụng tư liệu nghe - nhìn để nâng cao kỹ năng nói cho học sinh trung học cơ sở

i

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



BÙI THỊ PHƢƠNG THẢO



USING AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS TO IMPROVE
LOWER SECONDARY STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS

(Sử dụng tƣ liệu nghe-nhìn
để nâng cao kỹ năng Nói cho học sinh Trung Học Cơ Sở)

M.A. Minor Thesis


Field : English teaching methodology
Code : 60 14 10





Hanoi - 2010

ii

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



BÙI THỊ PHƢƠNG THẢO



USING AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS TO IMPROVE
LOWER SECONDARY STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS

(Sử dụng tƣ liệu nghe-nhìn
để nâng cao kỹ năng Nói cho học sinh Trung Học Cơ Sở)



M.A. Minor Thesis


Field : English teaching methodology
Code : 60 14 10
Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Thom Thom, M.A.



Hanoi - 2010

i

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



BÙI THỊ PHƢƠNG THẢO



USING AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS TO IMPROVE
LOWER SECONDARY STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS

(Sử dụng tƣ liệu nghe-nhìn
để nâng cao kỹ năng Nói cho học sinh Trung Học Cơ Sở)

M.A. Minor Thesis


Field : English teaching methodology
Code : 60 14 10





Hanoi - 2010

ii

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



BÙI THỊ PHƢƠNG THẢO



USING AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS TO IMPROVE
LOWER SECONDARY STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS

(Sử dụng tƣ liệu nghe-nhìn
để nâng cao kỹ năng Nói cho học sinh Trung Học Cơ Sở)



M.A. Minor Thesis


Field : English teaching methodology
Code : 60 14 10
Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Thom Thom, M.A.



Hanoi - 2010

v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION
AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABSTRACT
LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS


PART A. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
2. Aims of the study
3. Scope of the study
4. Method of the study
5. Design of the study

PART B. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I. LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Speaking and speaking skills
1.1.1. Speaking
1.1.2. Speaking skills
1.2. Materials
1.3. Audio-visual Materials
1.3.1. Definitions
1.3.2. Classification
1.4. The effect of audio-visual materials on learning English and
learning speaking skills
1.5. Review of previous studies

CHAPTER II. THE STUDY
2.1. Participants
2.2. Instruments
2.2.1. Questionnaire
i
ii
iii
iv
v



P.1
P.2
P.2
P.3
P.4


P.5
P.5
P.5
P.6
P.7
P.7
P.7
P.8

P.12

P.14
P.15
P.15


vi
2.2.2. Pre-test and post-test design
2.2.3. Observation
2.3. The procedure of collecting the data
2.3.1. Pre-test and Post-test
2.3.2. Questionnaire
2.4. The procedure of analyzing the data

CHAPTER III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1. Results
3.2. Further discussion
3.2.1. Students’ awareness of the effects of audio-visual materials through
questionnaire
3.2.2. Students’ performance in pre-test and post-test
3.3. Recommendation

PART C. CONCLUSION
1. Review of the study
2. Application of the study in English language teaching
3. Limitations of the study
4. Recommendation for further study

REFERENCE
APPENDIX

APPENDIX 1 - Survey questionnaire
APPENDIX 2 - The scores of pre-test
APPENDIX 3 - The scores of post-test
APPENDIX 4 - 8 Topics for pre-test and post-test


P.15
P.15
P.16
P.16
P.16
P.17


P.18
P.26
P.26

P.27
P.30


P.32
P.32
P.33
P.34

P.35
I
I

II
IV
VI


iv
LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS
Table 1: Audio-visual materials are helpful for the students’ speaking-practice.
p.18
Table 2: Audio-visual materials help improve the students’ pronunciation.
p.19
Table 3: Audio-visual materials help the students recall and use vocabulary better.
p.19
Table 4: Audio-visual materials help the students reduce grammatical mistakes.
p.20
Table 5: Audio-visual materials help the students’ speaking become more fluent.
p.21
Table 6: The students feel enjoyable with a speaking lesson illustrated by sound and
images.
p.21
Table 7: Audio-visual materials distract the students from practicing speaking skills.
p.22
Table 8: The quality of sound and image is good.
p.23
Table 9: The results of pre-test and post-test are analyzed by SPSS 10.0
p.24
Table 10: The collective figures from the questionnaire
p.26
Chart 1: The final scores of pre-test and post-test
p.26

1
PART A. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
English has become a world language. It is the world‟s most widely spoken language and
the common means of communication between the people of different nations. There is
no doubt that the process of teaching and learning language has recently experienced
great changes by the continuous efforts of teaching forces and the support of new teaching
methodology. Nowadays, only “talk and chalk” is not enough for teaching and learning
process. Skilled crafts-man usually chooses his tools with care in order to accomplish
certain tasks. A teacher of English like a skilled crafts-man needs a teaching medium:
especially when the process of teaching and learning English happens between non-native
teachers and non-native learners. Both will widely get benefits from the application of
good materials. Such materials will make the teacher teaches less and the learner learns
more. They will also enable students to listen, speak, read and write the foreign language
well.
The role of materials in English-teaching process is indispensable, especially the
implementation of audio-visual materials. As a teacher of English at a lower secondary
school, I realize that audio-visual materials are useful for teaching speaking-skill, an
important productive skill in oral mode. A learner cannot master language if there is a lack
of creating communication in that language as Nunan (1991) wrote, "success is measured
in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the (target) language”. In other words,
learning the language is as learning how to speak the language – the fundament to human
communication. Because of the importance of speaking skills, teaching speaking must
reach the aim to make students dominate the process of learning speaking with personal
activeness and creativeness. However, the real speaking periods at my school show the
students‟ hesitance to communicate in English for their shyness or the shortcoming in

pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, etc. The speaking periods cannot stir the students‟
learning inspiration. Both teacher and students feel tired of such boring periods.
Consequently, my students‟ speaking results are not good. Facing such a worrying
situation, I use audio-visual materials in teaching speaking to expect a change. Fortunately,
the speaking periods become more enjoyable with students‟ active and self-confident
participation. In my point of view, Audio-visual materials are lively illustrations and a
diverse source of information supporting the students‟ speaking-practice. Therefore, in this

2
writing I would like to conduct a research on the effect of using audio-visual materials to
improve lower secondary students‟ speaking skills. There are two benefits expected from
this study. Theoretically, it gives out useful references for further research on using audio-
visual materials to develop lower secondary students‟ speaking skills. Practically, the result
of this research will suggest new directions for exploiting the effects of audio-visual
materials to improve the quality of teaching English, especially the quality of teaching
speaking.
The effect of using audio-visual materials on improving lower secondary students‟
speaking skills is investigated in this writing. Although this is only the personal writer‟s
study for limited time on certain participants, not all students of all lower secondary
school, the findings and results still assure the objectivity of research process or at least,
they are also beneficial to the writer‟s applying audio-visual materials in teaching
speaking skills for lower secondary students.
2. Aims of the study
The aims of this study are as follows:
+ Review the implementation of audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary
students‟ speaking skills.
+ investigate the effective ways to exploit audio-visual materials to improve lower
secondary students‟ speaking skills.
To obtain the above aims, three research questions are addressed:
- What are the benefits of using audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary

students‟ speaking skills?
- What are the limitations of using audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary
students‟ speaking skills?
- Is it effective to use audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary students‟
speaking skills?
3. Scope of the Study
Materials are very important with the existence in the form of textbooks, video and audio
tapes, computer software, and visual aids, etc. As the Allwright's point of view, textbooks
are too inflexible to be used direct or Swales (1980) contends that any given course-book
will be incapable of catering for the diversity of needs which exists in most language
classrooms while the effect of audio-visual materials are confirmed by many researchers.

3
In the words of Edgar Dale (1946) “Because audio-visual materials supply concrete basis
for conceptual thinking, they give rise to meaningful concepts enriched by meaningful
association, hence they offer the best antidote for the disease of verbalism.” From my real
experience in teaching, audio-visual materials can reduce some difficulties in teaching
speaking, which cannot be done by other types of materials like textbook. Therefore, in
this writing I would like to explore the effect of audio-visual materials, more specifically
the effect of audio-visual materials in the range of improving speaking skills, not listening,
writing, or reading skill. The actual teaching proves that these basic skills go hand-in-hand
with mutual impacts in the language-learning process and audio-visual materials put their
effects on teaching and learning all these skills. However, due to the limitation of time and
the foremost need of improving speaking skills for students at my school, this thesis only
focuses on the use of audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary students‟ speaking
skills.
4. Method of the Study
To address and explore the research questions, qualitative and quantitative method (Witte,
R. S. & Witte, J.S. (2009) for one questionnaire and a pre-post test are exploited. The
questionnaire consisted of eight items related to the research problems stated above. It is

worth mentioning that the questionnaires contained 8 close-ended questions serving 2
targets to find out the benefits and limitations of audio-visual materials in improving lower
secondary students‟ speaking skills. The pre-post testing including a pre-test and a post test
is carried out at the beginning of pilot teaching process with audio-visual materials and at
the end of the process after 2 months. A comparison between the result of pre-test and
post-test is useful for teacher to control students‟ progress during teaching process.
Questionnaire and pre-post test are conducted to investigate the effect of using audio-visual
materials to improve lower secondary students‟ speaking skills. However, due to the
limitation of time, I cannot conduct the study with all lower secondary students. I just
choose a class with 40 students of grade 8 as one sample. The students of this class are my
selection because they have some-year experiences in learning English to compile a
necessary amount of vocabulary and basic communicative factors. The pre-test and post-
test are conducted in the same way with the same oral topics. The tested students are
divided into groups of five to take 8 different topics for oral test. The different results of

4
pre-test and post-test help teacher control the students‟ progress during the pilot teaching
process.
5. Design of the study
In order to make this research easy to understand, the writer would like to present the
structure of the study.
Part A. Introduction. This part mentions the rationale of the study, the aims of the study,
the scope of the study, the research questions, the method of the study, and the design of
the study.
Part B. Development. This part contains three chapters as follows:
Chapter 1 is Literature Review Introduction that contains underlying theories about
speaking and speaking skills, materials, audio-visual materials, effect of audio-visual
materials on learning English and learning speaking skills, and review of previous studies.
Chapter 2 is The Study that presents participants, instruments, the procedure of collecting
the data, and the procedure of analyzing the data.

Chapter 3 is Results and Discussion
Part C. Conclusion
The reference and appendix are at the ending part of this study.

5
PART B. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I. LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Speaking and speaking skills
1.1.1 Speaking
Speaking is an important part of second language learning and teaching. Despite its
importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued. English language
teachers have continued to teach speaking just as memorization of dialogues. Now a day
the goal of teaching speaking is to improve learner's communication skill. Mulgrave (1987:
34) said: “Speaking is an instrument in expressing messages to the listener directly whether
the listener understands the material or not and whether the speaker or listener is in control
and able to adjust the situation when he is communicating his idea or not”. "Speaking is an
interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and
processing information" Brown (1994) and Burns & Joyce (1997). According to Chaney
(Chaney, 1998: 13) “Speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through the
use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts". Speaking is an activity
involving two or more participants as hearers and speaker who react to what they hear and
make their contribution. Each participant has interactions that he wants to achieve in the
communication. Speaking, as a productive skill, is very complex so it requires the
simultaneous use of a number of different abilities, which often develop at different rates.
1.1.2. Speaking skills
Speaking skills is the ability to communicate in a new language – target language - based
on its grammatical, contextual, social, and cultural rules, while variations are always
difficult for English foreign language learners (Shumin, n.d.). There are many factors
affecting the students‟ learning speaking. We can name some of major factors: voice,
accent, intonation, stress, pronunciation, speed, etc. The students often feel difficult to have

the correct stress and intonation as the native speakers. They also feel it not easy to keep up
with the speed of speech by native speakers. The teacher at class can partly help the
students solve these problems. However, in fact, many teachers also face the same
difficulties. Each language has its own phonetic characteristics, which not many language
learners can imitate. In this case, sound and image from audio-visual materials can help
much when the students can hear the direct pronunciation and see the operation of

6
articulator organs. The students‟ leaning speaking can be fostered by the effective sound
and image from audio-visual materials.
1.2. Materials
In the case of traditional conceptions, teaching materials tend to be considered to be an
instrument to access the target language. They are a means of dealing with grammar,
syntax, phonetics, and cultural matters among others. Apparently, materials only have the
purpose of “presenting” the language in study. They are perceived as instrumental objects
to inform students and help teachers deal with the curricular aspects. For some other
authors such as Tomlinson (1998: 2), a teaching material is regarded as anything that is
used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of a language. Materials could
obviously be cassettes, videos, CD-Rooms, dictionaries, grammar books, readers,
workbooks or photocopied exercises. They could also be newspapers, food packages,
photographs, live talks by invited native speakers, instructions given by a teacher, tasks
written on cards or discussions between learners. In other words, they can be anything that
is used to increase the learners‟ knowledge and/or experience of the language. Materials
attempt to diminish the level of difficulty when accessing the linguistic aspects of the
target language. At this point, materials are vital resources because they stimulate and
develop students‟ linguistic skills.
The characteristics of materials are debated (by Littlejohn and Windeatt, 1989) as follows:
materials have a hidden curriculum that includes attitudes toward knowledge, attitudes
toward teaching and learning, attitudes toward the role and relationship of the teacher and
student, and values and attitudes related to gender, society, etc. The curriculum is a

statement of the goals of learning, the methods of learning, etc. Teachers have to follow the
curriculum and help learners to learn. They may adapt, supplement, and elaborate on those
materials and also monitor the progress and needs of the students and finally evaluate
students. Materials influence the content and the procedures of teaching and learning. The
choice of deductive vs. inductive learning, the role of memorization, the use of creativity
and problem solving, production vs. reception are all influenced by the materials.
Allwright (1990) emphasizes that materials control learning and teaching while O'Neill
(1990) emphasizes that they help learning and teaching.

7
Teaching materials can help teachers and students develop critical thinking, or avoid
misconceptions and ideas about language and its linguistic communities. Materials work as
ideological constructs that promote and maintain certain power relationships among the
individuals immersed in the language learning process. In this sense, McDonough and
Shaw (1993: 56) stated that “most of the teaching we do is to learners in a class with
others, so all materials necessarily have to be a compromise, as teachers‟ interpretations of
material do.”
1.3. Audio-visual Materials
1.3.1. Definition
Audiovisual materials constitute very important resources to aid the learning process and
they are required in all teaching and learning processes.
The Librarians Glossary (1987) defines audio-visual materials as non-book materials like
tapes, slides, films, which are renewed and listened to rather than read as books. These
materials are also referred to as learning aids, media teaching aids, no-print media, non-
book media, instructional materials and audiovisual aids. According to Dike (1993),
audiovisual resources are those materials which do not depend solely upon reading to
convey meaning but present information through the sense of hearing as in audio resources
or through a combination of both senses. The New Encyclopedia Britanna Volume (1995)
also defined audiovisual in education as the use of supplementary teaching aids such as
recordings, transcripts, tapes, motion pictures and video tapes, radio, television and

computers to improve learning. The term audio-visual (AV) may refer to works with a
sound and a visual component. Hence, audio-visual materials are the most powerful
instruments available for influencing high recall in learning. The impact of audiovisual
materials (filmstrip, slides, tapes, films, records etc.) can be shown in many other ways.
1.3.2. Classification of Audio-visual Materials
The audio-visual materials are divided into three categories: visual materials, audio
materials and both audio-visual materials (Abdul Mannan Bagulia, 2005)
Classification:
Audio Materials, Visual Materials and Audio-visual materials
Audio Materials
Visual Materials
Audio-visual materials
Language laboratories
Bulletin boards
Demonstrations

8
radio
chalk boards
films
sound distribution system sets
charts
printed materials with recorded sound
tape and disco recordings
drawings etc.
sound filmstrips

exhibits
study trips

film strips
television

flash cards
videotapes

flannel boards


flip books


Illustrated books


Magnetic boards


Maps


models


Pictures


posters

Photographs


self-instructional


silent films


slides


1.4. The effects of audio-visual materials on learning English and learning speaking
skills
The new era assigns new challenges and duties on the modern teacher. The traditional
methods on teaching English have drastically changed because of the remarkable entry of
technology in the arena of teaching. The modern technology provides many options to
make the teaching more interesting, more effective and more productive in terms of
students‟ improvement. Most educators and teachers regard audio-visual materials as
valuable tools in English Language Teaching. The merits of using audio-visual materials in
teaching are touchable and undeniable.
Video materials for teaching and learning English, especially for teaching and learning
speaking are available with various types at different prices. It often takes people much
time to go to a bookstore then find and select a suitable book after reading through its main

9
content. However, choosing a video tape seems more easily. Because video tapes in
English for rent or for sale at stores are numerous. As Voller, P., & Widdows said, “Video
materials (films) are accessible English language products available to EFL students
(Voller &Widdows, 1993, P 340)

Many learners find it effective to watch a film as a way of learning language. The process
of watching and listening to the language from the film really helps the learners more
familiar with the communication environment of real life. Finocchiaro (1989: 151) stated:
"(Video) can present a communicative transaction in its totality. The learners can
see the people and the situation (the setting where the interaction is occurring). They
can see and hear the attitude of the persons involved (the interlocutors). They can
hear the linguistic registers and the appropriateness of the language within the
situation. They can appreciate cross-cultural relationships by asking themselves if
this piece of business can be conducted in the same way in their country. They will
become aware of other cultural aspects, such as the gestures used and the distance
maintained between the people involved. It is a replica of natural conversation in the
real world"
Learning foreign language requires the chances to meet and communicate with people
speaking that language, but in fact, not many people, especially lower secondary students
have those chances. My students at Hoang Dieu lower secondary school share the same
difficulties, but they still want to improve their listening and speaking skills. They
intelligently buy video tapes or CD with English movies or English songs to practice the
skills at home. The audio-visual materials really help their language study. Benda (1982:
21) claimed the role of audio-visual materials: “is a continuing source of listening material
especially for countries where the opportunities to meet people who speak English may be
rare”. I may add that since good listeners are good speakers, the audio-visual materials will
eventually help students to be good speakers.
According to Stoller (1990: 62), “films and later videos bring authenticity, reality, variety,
and flexibility into the second-language classroom”. To build upon this point, Kritzer
(1976: 29) stated that “television can bring liveliness and immediacy to education that no

10
other medium can provide”. Allan shared the same comment: “Video, on the other hand,
has an immediate impact and the language is supported by visual clues” (Lonergan 1984,
Allan, 1985). This simply means that audio-visual materials reflect real world environment

since they combine seeing and listening together. This satisfies both visual and auditory
senses of the students. The students often feel excited when seeing a film or a video tape.
The sound and pictures from the film bring a lively word beyond the limitation of the
classroom. The process of seeing and listening stir the student‟s vocabulary store. They
want to seek out the suitable words for pictures or something interesting in the film they
saw. In this case, the audio-visual materials bring the students closer to the real world.
Allan (1986 P.48) also had the same comment of the audio-visual materials: “video is a
good means of bringing „a slice of living language‟ into the classroom”. The use of audio-
visual materials also give teacher a good chance to create a virtual world in the classroom
itself. The teacher can go beyond words, beyond the limitation of verbal description by the
power of sound and image. As a result, the learners grasp things easily, without any
confusion or misunderstanding.
Videos and films are excellent instruments to present “the country and its culture” (Allan,
1985, P 19). We all know that learning a language is learning the culture of this language.
Learning speaking is on the same track. The students need to know about the culture and
know how other people live, act and interact based on their beliefs and values. Video-audio
material meets these requirements when it crosses cultural boundaries.
Video materials are useful in motivating students‟ language learning. That is the reason for
teachers‟ usage of pictures as a lead-in. First, Video materials „creates an attractive
enjoyable learning environment.' Tomalin (1991: 48) and as Lonergan says, "By generating
interest and motivation, video can create a climate for successful learning." (1984: 5).
According to Dewing (1992), “video can act as a catalyst for thinking, inspiring (students)
to learn”. Or “provide added incentive to learn and are interesting for the students”
Finocchiaro (1968: P17).
Audio-visual materials also make students “feel their interest quicken when language is
experienced in a lively way”. This combination of moving pictures and sound can present
language more comprehensively than any other teaching medium and more realistically
too" Stempleski & Tomalin (1990: 3). At the same time, audio-visual materials encourage
and support the various learning styles Gunter, Jones & Moss (1991: 10). Because of the

11
seen-heard feature in videos, students with visual learning style and those with auditory
learning style both will be satisfied with the presented material. Even learners, those who
learn through motion and physical action, may find some sort of comfort in the video
material.
Audio-video materials are useful in developing language skills, especially developing
students‟ speaking skills. For example, the improvement in the students‟ pronunciation of
the target language results from the appropriate use of audio-video materials. In the
language laboratory, we often find these kinds of materials used for the purpose of
checking and correcting the pronunciation. The students receive instructions to use right
pronunciation of the words by means of audio-video materials then imitate it. They can
easily understand the pronunciation of consonants, vowels, diphthongs. A sustained
practice with audio-visual materials forms the exact pronunciation for students. This
technique can be far better than the teaching of all sorts of theoretical elements of
phonetics. Indeed, the teaching of phonetics can be enriched with the aid of audio-visual
materials. In addition, audio-video materials also help students to remember and know the
use of vocabulary and grammar better with lively situations through images.
The audio-visual materials can be applied in the class easily; teacher can step in the
process whenever he wishes; he can stop, start and rewind to repeat it for several times
where necessary. To pay special attention to a particular point in the program it is possible
to run in slow motion or at half speed or without sound. Besides, the learner can
concentrate on the language in detail and interpret what they heard, repeat it, predict the
reply and so on. The learner can also concentrate in detail on visual clues to meaning such
as facial expression, dress, gesture, posture and on details of the environment.
These kinds of materials can be used at all the levels of teaching for different subjects and
categories, providing that the teacher knows what kind of material he is supposed to select
and knows how to use it. For example, one can use audio-video materials in pre-primary
or primary schools. He can have variety of options like presenting animal video clips in
front of the students to enable them to know the elementary words and the students will
enjoy in a great deal. In secondary level before the lesson, a particular video relating to that

lesson will be shown in the classroom. This not only improves students‟ understanding of
language but also improves their vocabulary. Some special videos can be brought into

12
classroom to invoke the students‟ interest for the subject. In tertiary level depending upon
the syllabus a teacher can use variety of audio-video materials.
Audio-visual materials help to reduce verbalism. They help giving clear concepts. A good
deal of energy and time of both the teachers and students can be saved on account of the
use of audio-visual materials as most of the concepts and phenomena may be easily
clarified, understood and assimilated through their use. The use of audio-visual materials
also provides a touch of reality to the learning situation. Seeing a film show, students learn
more effectively than learning by reading.
There are big individual differences among learners. Some can be helped through sound,
some can be helped through visual demonstrations, while others learn better by doing. The
use of a variety of audio-visual materials can meet the needs of different types of students.
The use of audio-visual materials stirs the imagination, thinking process and reasoning
power of the students, and calls for creativity, and inventiveness and other higher mental
activities and thus it helps the development of higher faculties among the students.
1.5. Review of previous study
The use of audio-visual materials in teaching language has been mentioned in many
writings. These writings can be about the effects of audio materials in developing listening
skills. Salazar Jorge (Website:
states that audio-visual materials can develop many types of listening activities at
classroom. Audio-visual materials are abundant source of sounds and images, and they
have characteristics of authentic materials” in the study “Interactive Audio Strategies For
Developing Listening Skills. Lindsay Miller (Website:
gives out her similar opinion in “Developing
Listening Skills with Authentic Materials” when showing that audio-visual materials are
helpful for all pre-while-post listening activities. Debra Hoven with his writing “A Model
for Listening and Viewing Comprehension in Multimedia Environments” in the Website:

:8080/dspace/bitstream/2149/1682/1/full.TJ.doc
explores the effects of multimedia to listening comprehension with the writing. From many
writings, we can see that audio-visual materials are of many benefits to develop listening
or listening comprehension. In terms of developing reading skills, it is a reference to read
“the use of authentic materials in the teaching of reading” by Sacha Anthony Berardo

13
(Website: The authentic
materials are highly motivating, giving a sense of achievement, reflecting the changes in
the use of language with a wide variety of text types to encourage further reading-skill.
Robert Leestma (1954) confirmed the effects of audio visual materials in teaching reading
with the book “Audio-visual materials for teaching reading”. In terms of enhancing writing
skills, audio-visual materials are instruments to develop writing style, vocabulary…with
certain essays and studies, for example, “Learning vocabulary through authentic video and
subtitles”. Audio-visual materials are beneficial to teaching basic skills. Many types of
these materials are exploited, for example: internet, multimedia, video… Dr. Dehghani
(Website: makes his own writing on the role
of internet for teaching foreign languages: “Internet as an education aid in teaching foreign
languages” or the writing “the use of video as an audio-visual material in foreign language
teaching classroom” discusses the impacts of video in teaching language. Audio-visual
materials express their role in many aspects of teaching language at many levels from the
primary education to tertiary education. We can read “Using authentic audio-visual
materials in primary school English language classrooms”, “audiovisual resources in
Nsukka primary school”, as references. In Vietnam, there are also studies on certain types
of audio-visual materials, especially the application of multimedia, informative technology
in teaching language, for example: “Multimedia and teacher‟s roles in a language
classroom” by Nguyen Van Long (Website: -
sdh.udn.vn/zipfiles/so3/bai30_15_LVLONG.doc) , “Some informative technology
applications in language teaching” by Nguyen Thi Huynh Loc (Website: -
sdh.udn.vn/zipfiles/so29/23.5.loc-thao.pr1.tram.pdf), “ICT in language education: benefits,

challenges and solutions” by Nguyen Van (Website: -
sdh.udn.vn/zipfiles/so30/20.6.nng.long-nguyenvan.pdf). However, the writing on audio-
visual materials is still in narrow number.
After reading reference books and essays, I would like to develop a study on the
application of audio-visual materials to improve speaking skills for specific subjects: lower
secondary students. At the same time, this study exposes the limitations of these materials
in teaching speaking. The results of this study will be useful for me in the process of
applying audio-visual materials to promote lower secondary students‟ speaking skills.


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CHAPTER II. THE STUDY
The procedure of collecting data performs with using self-administered formatted
questionnaire, pre-test and post-test after 2-month duration of teaching at a selected class.
The study mainly focuses on strong and weak sides of using audio-visual materials to
improve students‟ speaking skills. Then the data is analyzed and summarized.
2.1. Participants
Participants in three phases: conducting survey questionnaire, pre-post test and pilot
teaching procedure are 40 students of class 8B1 at Hoang Dieu lower secondary school.
Those students are of different English ability. Most of them are not good at speaking,
although speaking is one important skill of four ones. My students often feel shy to speak
English and prefer a discussion in mother tongue. The reason probably comes from their
lack of vocabulary or the inflexible arrangement of words into sentences. My students
often feel difficult to express their thought in oral English. Their disorders of words easily
lead to the misunderstanding of the content or the wrong grammatical mistakes. The fear of
making mistakes makes them hesitant to speak. Their response in communication is also
not quick enough. In other word, it is difficult for them to speak English fluently. Besides,
the students‟ different backgrounds also affect the communication. The disparity of
English linguistic ability among 40 students in the class makes more contributions to the
problem. Another difficulty in teaching speaking at my lower secondary school is that the

periodical tests often concentrate on listening, writing and grammatical structures, not
speaking skills. There are no real speaking tests in allocated curriculum. Therefore, many
students do not pay attention to learn and practice speaking skills.

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2.2. Instruments
2.2.1. Questionnaire
Questionnaire with 8 close-ended questions will be completed by the students. The first
part including 6 questions aims to investigate the benefit of audio-visual materials.
Question 1 aims to know the students' overall assessment on the effect of audio-visual
materials in their speaking-practice. Questions: 2, 3, 4, 5 try to find out the impact of
audio-visual materials to the students‟ improvement on vocabulary usage, pronunciation,
grammar, and word expression in speaking. Question 6 is to investigate students‟
inspiration in a speaking class with the illustration of sound and images for speaking topic.
Part 2 including the last 2 questions is to investigate the limitation of audio-visual materials
in speaking lessons.
2.2.2. Pre-test and post-test
Pre-test/post test assessment is a method used at the beginning and at the end of the self-
observation. At first, students take a pre-test in speaking. Each group of 5 students takes a
topic for oral test. The scores of pre-test are collected. Then the teacher works with the
class for 5 pilot periods of teaching speaking, supported by the audio-visual materials.
After these periods, a post-test for students with the same topics takes place. The scores of
the post-test are also collected. Then the teacher analyzes and compares the results between
pre-test and post-test. The differences enable the teacher to monitor students‟ progresses
for pilot teaching duration of about 2 months. Moreover, they are also useful for
determining where the students‟ deficiencies in skills and knowledge exist and where their
skills and knowledge frequently develop most with the support form audio-visual materials
in teaching process.
2.2.3. Observation
The writer as a teacher of English at a lower secondary school prepares the lesson plan in

pilot teaching periods for about 2 months. In these teaching periods, at class 8B1 with 40
students, the teacher uses the audio-visual materials to illustrate the speaking topics, and
the time allocated for each topic in every period is from 10 minutes to 15 minutes. After
pilot teaching process, the students take the post-test in the same way of taking the pre-test.
The real teaching process will help draw different results between beginning and the end of
process. Then, the teacher compares the differences and has useful assessments on the
effects of these materials in improving students‟ speaking skills.

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2.3. The procedure of collecting the data
2.3.1. Pre-test and post-test
The writer uses pre-test and post-test in this study. The test is formed to measure students‟
speaking skills. To give speaking scores, the writer put out 5 criteria, as follows:
- Pronunciation. This is an important element in measuring students‟ speaking skills. The
highest score is 2 and the lowest one is 0.
- The level of vocabulary: This is a criterion to assess students‟ diversity of vocabulary and
their ability of using words. The highest score is 2 and the lowest one is 0.
- Grammatical usage. It is an ability viewed by grammatical usage in the students‟
speaking. If the students are good, the highest score is 2 and if the students are bad in their
grammatical usage, they will be given by the lowest score 0.
- Fluency. It is a criterion of speaking fast and good in pronunciation. The highest score is
2 and the lowest is 0.
- Comprehension. That is about the logical content in students‟ speaking about the topic
and the ability to answer extra questions given by interviewer. The highest score is 2 and
the lowest is 0.
The measurement form consisted of pronunciation, the level of vocabulary, grammatical
usage, fluency and comprehension has been prepared before. The teacher interviews each
student according to the chosen topic. Then, the students‟ achievements of speaking test
are calculated.
2.3.2. Questionnaire

Once I completed the pre-test and post-test, then I start my teaching in 5 pilot teaching
periods as a basis for a survey questionnaire of 8 closed-questions in Likert-scale type
later. The questionnaire is delivered to the 40 surveyed students. There are 8 items in the
questionnaire, which aimed to elicit the overall impacts of using audio-visual materials,
then explore the students‟ perception of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, as well as
students‟ study inspiration and their ability of verbal expression. The questionnaire is
administered in a class of 40 students over 5 periods. Before they answer the questions,
they are briefed about the survey and they were provided with explanations of some of the
key words, such as „audio-visual materials‟, „speaking skills‟ that some of the participants
may not be familiar with. Moreover, they are encouraged to talk about their thought and
feeling. Participants re given 10 minutes to fill out the questionnaire and turn it to the

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questionnaire administrator. The answers to the questionnaire are used as a springboard for
assessing the effect of audio-visual materials in improving the students‟ speaking skills.
2.4. The procedure of analyzing the data
The information of questionnaire is displayed in the form of frequency counts and tables.
The data from each table is analyzed and then an overall collection of analyses is compiled
to become the basis for assessing the benefit and the limitation of audio-visual materials in
improving lower secondary students‟ speaking skills.
The data collected from pre-test and post-test were analyzed with SPSS 10.0 and the
findings were explained in forms of tables. A t-test method is utilized to test the
significance of the difference between the scores of pre-test and post-test.


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CHAPTER III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1. Results
This chapter presents the specific results and the analysis of the data. The results and their
analysis are presented in the order of the research questions to be investigated. The benefits

and the limitation of audio-visual materials in improving lower secondary students‟
speaking skills mentioned in the research question one and two will be discussed through
collective results of questionnaire. The next issue in the last research question, “Is it
effective to use audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary students‟ speaking
skills?”, will be confirmed by the comparative result from pre-post test.
The questionnaire for students (appendix A) consists of eight items, which are related to
the students‟ views on the varied aspects of the use of audio-visual materials in their
speaking classes. The responses of the 40 students to the questionnaire are as follows:
Research question 1
- What are the benefits of using audio-visual materials to improve lower secondary
students‟ speaking skills?
To get information for the research question 1, six questions are surveyed and shown in
form of tables as follows:
Table 1: Audio-visual materials are helpful for the students‟ speaking-practice
Question
Options
No of students
Percentage
Audio-visual materials are helpful
for your speaking-practice.

Strongly disagree
0
0%
Disagree
2
5%
Neutral
3
7.5%

Agree
18
45%
Strongly agree
17
42.5%
As can be seen from table 1, 87.5% of the participants strongly agree or agree that Audio-
visual materials are helpful for their speaking-practice. 7.5% do not know (or neutral), and
5% disagree. This data shows that students‟ speaking skills are generally enhanced in the
speaking classes supported by audio-visual materials.