An empirical study on the benefits of video assisted activities to students oral proficiency = nghiên cứu về lợi ích c

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

DANG THI KIEU GIANG

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE BENEFITS OF VIDEO-ASSISTED
ACTIVITIES TO STUDENTS' ORAL PROFICIENCY

(NGHIEN CLIU VE LOI ICH CUA CAC HOAT DONG CO SU TRO (;IL P CUA
VIDEO VOI VIEC PHAT TRIEN KHA NANG NOI CHO SINII MEN)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAVLME THESIS

Field: English .Methodology
Code: 601410
Course: kl7
Supervisor: LE \ AN CANH, M.A

Hanoi, August 2010


IV
LIST OF TABLE

"hart 1

20

fable 1

21

fable 2

22

fable 3

23

fable 4

25

fables

25


TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale

1
I

1.2. The aims of the study

2

13. Research questions

2

1.4. Scope of the study

2

1.5. Method of the study

3

1.6. Significant of the study

3

1.7. Structure of the study

3

IIIAPIER IWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

5

!.l. Oral Proficiency

5

!.2. IJcmcnts get involved in oral proficiency

5

!.3. Challenges to students in speaking English as a foreign language

6

!.4. I iciping students to cope with challenges in speaking English

8

!.5. Video-assisted acti\itics

10

!.6. Pedagogy value of video-assisted activities in teaching speaking

11

!.7. Benefits of using video in language teaching

11

I.S. Drawbacks of using video in leaching language

14

HAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY

15

. 1. fhe context of the study

15

3.1.2. 1 he English Department

15

3.1.3. Students' background and needs

15

3.1.4. Course book and teaching materials for teaching speaking skill

16

.2. Research Methods

16

3.2.1. Participants

16

3.2.2. Instruments

17

3.2.3. Procedures

19

HAPTER IOl R: DATA COLLECTION AND DISCUSSION

20

. 1. Data collection and analysis

20

4.1.1. Ihc students' comprehension toward the video-clips

20


VI

4.1.2. The extent to which the video-assisted activities enhance the students^ motivation to
practice speaking English

21

4.1.3. The extent to which the students think the video-assisted activities help to develop
their oral proficiency

23

4.1.4. The areas of oral proficiency that are most positively affected by video-assisted
activities

,

25

4.1.5. Some disadvantages of leaming to speak English with the videos
4.2. Discuss of the

findings

27
28

4.2.1. To what extent do video-assisted activities enhance the students' motivation to
practice speaking English?

28

4.2.2 To what extent do the students think the video-assisted activities help to develop their
jral proficiency?

29

4.2.3. Which areas of oral proficiency arc most positively affected by the video- assisted
ictivities?

30

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION

32

V1. Objectives revised

32

v2. Summary of the results

32

>.3. Pedagogical implications

32

5.3.1. Using video-assisted activities to motivate students to practice speaking

33

5.3.2. Using videos-assisted activities in teaching speaking to help students develop their
)ral proficiency especially in terms of intonation and pronunciation

33

5.3.3. Designing appropriate activities with video clips

34

5.3.4. Problem taken into consideration

34

i.4. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies

35

iEI ERENCES

36

U»PK\DI( ES


CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION.
1.1. Rationale.
In globalization trend, the communication in English has been had an increasingly
significant role than ever before. The ability to communicate in real life has become the
main goal of most learners. They invest a considerate amount of time and money in the
hope of using English better in all communicative situations. The desire to speak English
fiucnlly drives students of all areas in Vietnam to make more effort to improve their oral
proficiency. Many students, besides the time of participating in regular course at colleges
or universities, seek further occasions to practice speaking. Some meet and converse face
to face with foreigners to familiarize themselves with native speakers' sounds while others
like self-education with available softwares, or online English teaching programmes to
ameliorate their oral proficiency. These practical deeds offer students much success; help
them be more llexible and confident in using English to contact w ith others.
Despite the impressive progress made by my own students, their speaking ability was still
limited. They seemed to be more reticent and reluctant in presenting something in crowd
audience. This was clearly shown in several English speaking courses as well as the
workshops with the presence of many students coming from different areas. They were
afraid of opening their mouth even to raise questions to the teacher or express their ideas in
participating classroom speaking activities. Their reticence led the atmosphere of my

classroom to be quite unexciting. After having small talk with them. I have realized the
fact that the first-year students had a lot of problems concerning their oral proficiency.
Especially noteworthy was that the students' leaming condition here was really poor.
Many students neither had speaking-assistant devices such as softwares, e-books,
computers...iu)r knew how to exploit the diverse information source trom internet.
As a teacher, I ha\c always been preoccupied with the question of how to both arouse the
students' interest, stimulate ihcm to be ebullient in speaking and help them to develop their
oral proficiency more effectively.
One day, w hilc reading a book tilled "Video in Action" w ith the attractive introduction that
activities with videos are of great advantage to language learners in tcnns of motivation


and communication (Stempleski and Tomalin, 1990), I thought the video might be a
solution. In addition, more information is affirmed: leaming with videos could help
students develop all aspects of oral proficiency such as pronunciation, intonation,
vocabulary, and idiom with use....
It was much hope that activities with videos could meet my students' needs and this
motivated me to conduct an action research on the benefits of video-assisted activities to
students' oral proficiency in an attempt to test the impact of these activities on my
students' spoken language leaming.
1.2. Ihe aims of the study
This action research was conducted to investigate the benefits of video-assisted activities to
students' oral proficiency. The aims of the study are set out as follows:
- The extent to which video-assisted activities motivate the students to practice speaking.
-The extent to which video-assisted activities help the students develop their oral
proficiency.
- The areas of oral proficiency that are most positively affected by video-assisted activities.
1.3. Research questions
To achieve the purposes of the study, the research questions are put forward:
- To w4iat extent do the video-assisted activities enhance the students' motivation to

practice speaking English?
- To what extent do the students think the video-assisted activities help to develop their
oral jiroficicncy?
- Which areas of oral proficiency are most positively affected by the video-assisted
activities?
L4. Scope of the study.
In this action research, I intended to investigate the extent to which the video-assisted
activities motivate and help my students to develop their oral proficiency as well as find
out the areas of oral proficiency that arc most positively affected by these activities. The


action research are conducted within a periods of five months during the second term of
the academic year of 2010. The participants are 79 students of two classes at the same
college junior level.
1.5. Method of the study
Action research has proved to be the best choice for this study since its aim is to improve
the students' oral proficiency in a certain context. The combination of different
instruments: an observation, an informal talk with the student participants, a refiective
journal-keeping, and a questionnaire in this research was intended to collect the data for
the study.
1.6. Signification of the study
This study is expected to provide an insight into the effectiveness of video-assisted
activities on students' oral proficiency. The findings from the study will therefore shed
light on the practicality of video-assisted activities in developing students' oral skills in a
context where exposure to the target spoken language is very limited.
1.7. Structure of the study
The study is presented

in five chapters; namely, introduction, literature review,

methodology, data collection and discussion, and conclusion.
Chapter one. Introduction, introduces the rationale, the aims of the study, research
questions, scope of the study, method of the study, signification of the study and structure
of the study.
Chapter two. Literature Review, aims at reviewing some concepts as well as the theory
involving in oral proficiency, video-assisted activities that w ill be a fimi foundation for the
study.
Chapter three. Methodology, consists of two sections. The first section presents the
context where the action research is pcrfomied. A brief description of Ha Tinh University,
linglish department with teaching condition, the students, the teachers and the course book
arc also outlined. The second section describes the research methodology that the
description of pailicipants, data collection instruments and procedures are gone into details.


Chapter four, Data Collection and Discussion, presents and discusses the findings of the
study.
Chapter five. Conclusion, summarizes the result of the study. Implications and suggestions
for teaching speaking using the video-assisted activities are also presented in this chapter.


CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter reviews the relevant literature on video-assisted language leaming activities.
Since the focus of this study is the impact of video-assisted activities on students' oral
proficiency, a working definition of the term "oral proficiency" is discussed first.
2.1. Oral Proficiency
According to Canale and Swain (1980), communicative competence is composed of (a)
grammatical competence, (b) sociolinguistic competence, (c) discourse competence, and
(d) strategic competence. Grammatical competence means grammatical accuracy, and
sociolinguistic competence refers to the ability to use language appropriately in terms of
cultural norms in various communication settings or contexts. Discourse competence is the

ability to use language coherently and cohesively while strategic competence refers to the
ability to deal with linguistic challenges by using the existing language resources. One
linguistic component which is missing from the above construct regarding oral proficiency
is the phonological competence, i.e., pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm as well as the
lexical competence, or the appropriate range of vocabulary.
Applying the above construct of communicative competence to oral proficiency, I, in this
study, define oral proficiency as being composed of the following:
- ability to use English for oral communication accurately;
- ability to speak intelligible English
- ability to show cultural sensitivity to the interlocutor
- ability to speak English with relatixc confidence and ease.
- ability to get the meaning across w ith whatever linguistic resources available.
- ability to show a relatively sizable vocabulary.
These mdicatoi-s will be used lo measure the mipact of video-assisted activities on
students' oral proficiency in this study.
2.2. Elements get involved in oral proficiency.


With regard to speaking, many researchers have provided several definition and
explanations of this concept. According to Chancy (1998) speaking refers to the process of
building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a
variety of contexts. In Plorez's view (1999) "speaking is an interactive process of
constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information"
(p. 1, cited in Bailey, 2005).
Bailey (1993) divides the oral proficiency into four components; namely, accuracy, fluency,
functions and mitigation. Accuracy refers to the ability select the correct words and
expressions to convey the intended meaning and use the grammatical pattems of English as
well. I'luency is the capacity to speak fiuidly, confidently, and at a rate consistent with the
norms of the relevant native speech community. Fluency happens naturally when proficient
learners have ability to use vocabulary flexibly to speak smoothly especially for topics

which arc easy or familiar (Stain, 1999). Functions (speech acts) in language are nomis or
the appropriate ways to accomplish the goals in speaking such as thanking, requesting,
apologizing, refusing, warning, complimenting, directing, complaining. Mitigation is the
various linguistic means of softening a message through pronunciation of words, phrases,
clauses, or entire utterances that can make spoken utterances more or less polite.
The elements of oral proficiency, which have been reviewed above, fit well the indicators
of oral proficiency listed in 2.1 at the beginning of the thesis.
2.3. Challenges to students in speaking English as a foreign language.
Speaking in a second language or foreign language has oflen been viewed as the most
demanding of the four macro- skills. When attempting to speak, "learners must muster
their thoughts and encode those ideas in the \ocabulary and syntactic of the target
language" (Bailey and Savage, 1993, p.l). Encoding ideas accompanied with affective
influences and linguistic considerations is especially difficult even for native speakers, let
alone language learners (Haymes, 2009). Oral proficiency is closely relates to vocabular>',
phonology, structure, functions and listening comprehension. .\ll these arc integrated into
the whole, constituting the oral proficiency; as a result, these components should not be
considered as parts of the whole. Widdowson (1978) states the acquisition of linguistics
skill docs not seem to izuarantee the consequent acquisition of communicative abilities in a


language alone does not constitute communicative competence in general and oral
proficiency in particular.
Bygate (1987) illustrates the differences between language knowledge and productive
skills. He points out that, as a native speakers, "we do not merely know how to assemble
sentences in the abstract: we have to produce them and adapt them to the circumstances"
(Bygate, 1987, cited in Haymes, 2005, p.5) while the value of linguistics knowledge should
not be underestimated, it would seem that leamers need something more in order to
transfer the interactive speaking skills they posses in LI to L2.
This implies that dccontextualised linguistic knowledge is of little help to students' ability
to use the language in a variety of communicative settings. In other words, oral proficiency

involves more than linguistic know ledge, i.e., grammar and vocabulary
Fluent oral production is often seen as the final piece in the jigsaw. Nunan (1991) also
affirms that "course books, particular those aimed at lower-proficiency learners, consist
largely of manipulative, form focused exercises" (p.5, cited in Haymes, 2009). This may
lead to two problems: firstly, fluency is not developed as leamers arc denied the
opportunity to combine the disparate elements of their existing productive store to
communicate

authentically; secondly, the original

structures

themselves are not

internalized, as they are not used by the learners to create personalized meaning. That
practice alone is not the most expedient means to oral proficiency, many leamers become
de-motivated because they are not given opportunity to use the language communicatively.
Moreover, the balance between fluency and accuracy is complex for students at the
beginning and intci'mcdiate levels of language leaming because while developing the
proficiency, fluency and accuracy often against each other. Bailey (2005.) concludes that:
Before grammar rules hccomc automatic and while learners arc still acquiring
essential vocahulaiy itetns, applying the rules and searching one's memory Jor the
right words can he laborious mental processes, which glow the leartiers' speech
and tnakc thctn dysfluent. Likewise, language learners can sometitnes speak quickly,
without hesitating to apply the rules they have learned, but doing so tnay decrease
their accuracy (p.5).


8

In brief, oral production is a challenging task to second or foreign language leamers
because it requires a variety of different cognitive processes. Following is a discussion of
these challenges with a focus on pedagogical measures to help the students cope with them.
2.4. Helping students to cope with challenges in speaking English.
Helping students of English overcome difficulties in speaking is responsibility for teachers
because "whatever you are doing in the classroom, your ability to motivate the students, to
arouse their interest and involve them in what they are doing, will be crucial" (Bymc, 1991,
P-3)
Many linguistics and researchers offers teachers many solutions to decrease students'
challenges in language speaking. Kayi (2001) suggests that teachers of speaking should
choose and create classroom speaking activities matching students in each concrete
situation. In order to help students of English win ditTiculties in speaking, the author- after
providing several popular ways of speaking such as information gap, brainstorming,
storytelling, interview, picture describing, reporting, story completion..., proposes some
solutions as below.
- Provide maximum opportunity tor students to speak the target language by providing a
rich cnx'ironment that contains collaborati\c works, authentic materials and tasks, and
know ledge- sharing
- Try to involve each student in every speaking activity; for this aim. practice different
ways of student participation.
- Reduce teacher speaking time in class while increasing students speaking time. Step back
and observe students.
- Indicate positive signs when commenting on a students' response.
- Ask eliciting question in order to prompt students to speak more,
- Pro\'ide feedback like "your presentation was ready great...I really appreciated your
efforts in preparing the materials and efficient use of your voice..."
- Do not correct students' pronunciation mistakes very often while they are speaking.
Correction should not distract students from his or her speech.

- Involve speaking activities not only in class but also out of class; contact parents and
other people who can help.
- Circulate around classroom to ensure that students are on the right track and see whether
they need your help while they work in groups or pairs.
- Provide the vocabulary beforehand that students need in speaking activities.
- Diagnose problems faced by students who have difficulty in expressing themselves in the
target language and provide more opportunities to practice the spoken language (p.5).
Agreeing with Kayi's ideas but Zhao (1998) gathers them into concrete terms; namely,
giving a good environment, timely encouragement and appropriate methods. This is detail
of what he suggests.
- Giving a good environment.
Generally, according to Zhao (1998) there are two factors to affect students' speaking
English in class. Firstly, students fail because they do not find suitable words to convey
their ideas. Secondly, students arc afraid of making mistakes when speaking because they
are not sure about their pronunciation or intonation what may make them embarrassed in
frond of classmates. Worry and failure would drive students to keep silent; thus, a safe
environment is necessary to help language leamers confidently open their mouth. Such a
safe leaming environment can be created with various pedagogical inter\entions, some of
which arc discussed below.
- Timely encouragement
Zhao (1998) suggests that after students finish their speaking in class, teachers should
encourage them and let students feel they have made some progress with a sense of their
fulfillment. Teachers behave students in a gentle way and give them praise whenever they
are doing anything close to a good job. Teachers are also sincere and look for opportunities
to find them doing something right. Sometimes, teachers should remind themselves ot
a\oid getting frustrated, angry and impatient. Also, teachers should be nice, sensitive, and
approachable person at all times and never single students out or put them on the spot.
Treating students with kindness, respect and valuing students' opinions benefit students.
Teachers, especially, should not laugh at or say anything that makes them reticent.

10

Moreover, allowing students to be themselves rather than expecting them to conform to
teachers' preconceived ideas about how they should behave. This can be achieved by
teachers' endeavours to build mutual tmst in the classroom as well as their patience and
approachability.
Also teachers should not correct mistakes that students make while they are speaking.
Doing so, students feel to be underestimated and lose their confidence in speaking. Of
course, teachers should point out some apparent errors in their speaking, for example, the
incorrect words in pronunciation or some serious mistakes in grammar when they finish
the speech.
- Appropriate methods.
It is very important for teachers to adapt as many ways as possible to let students practice
English in class. Zhao (1998) believes the success of this teaching strategy is due mainly to
the fact that learners can choose what they want to read, listen to, watch, and talk about in
class. Teachers should try several different activities to do the practice. There are various
ways for teachers creating classroom activities of speaking such as retelling, debating,
talking according to picture, short play, problem solving..., among them, teachers should
find ones giving learners some opportunities to leam in the way best suited to themselves.
All these may be achieved if the teacher tries to employ some video-assisted activities. In
the following sections and pros and cons of these activities will be discussed.
2.5. Video-assisted activities.
Video-assisted activities used in this study are the classroom speaking activities which are
performed after watching some short videos. In this study, the selective videos include two
types: educational videos (made specifically for language leaming) and authentic \idco
materials such as broadcasts, advertising commercials, music videos, dramas and films.
The types of educational videos arc mainly used for teaching pronunciation, intonation or
communication m some concrete situations such as shopping, booking the hotel,
complaining, asking for direction...The other videos focus on providing the students w ith

many opportunities to practice speaking as well as develop their \ocabular\. grammar
structure and natural language use.


11

2.6. Pedagogy value of the video-assisted activities in teaching speaking skiH.
Watson (2005) in guiding the principles for teaching speaking to intermediate leamer
states: personalizing the content of speaking activities is great important because this is the
process of making activities conformable the learners' own circumstances, interests and
goals. Watson suggests language teachers should create activities based on song lyrics,
reading passages, pictures...to stimulate students' leaming. Litterwood (1991) also claims
that teachers need to design further activities so as to provide an opportunity for leamers to
produce language that they have recently leamed. Therefore, using the video-assisted
activities is extremely significant in the context of Ha Tinh students. Of greater concem is
that these speaking activities are based on the authentic video clips that have been
considered to be of great advantage to language leamers. What follows is a discussion of
the benefits and drawbacks of video-assisted activities.
2.7. Benefits of using videos in language teaching.
There arc two kinds of videos: educational videos and authentic \idco materials. Both of
them are valuable teaching aids for language speaking. According to Shcmian (2003),
authentic videos should be used to students in language classroom because there's a large
amount of high quality, easily available, cheap material around these days.
During the past several decades, videos have become quite popular from the form of
language teaching materials. A number of authors have discussed the benefits and
advantage \ ideos based presentation of language has over other fomis of presentation.
According lo Stempleski and Tomalin (1990), benefits of videos to leamers are separated
into two terms: motivation and communication.
Ill terms of motivation: students arc more motivated in their studies when leamine with
video clips. In other words, videos can stimulate students' motivation, maintain their

interest and sustain their attention longer than listening only. Empirical evidence has
shown that using video clips make students to pay much more attention to the lesson than
sound- only environment. For example, Balatova (1994) has pointed out that:
The first signs of distraction in the group of sound- only conditions appeared after
the first tuinutc. and hv the end of four tninutes. distraction spread all over the


12

groups; while video conditions several students became distracted after six minutes,
sotne students lost concentration after ten minutes and around a third kept
watching until the end (Balatova, 1994, p.8, cited in Canning-Wilson, 2000).
Videos seem to have an almost magical ability to grab student's attention (Gainer, 2005).
They are quickly attracted because of two reasons. Firstly, language is experienced in a
lively ways. Secondly, the combination of moving pictures with sound can present
language more comprehensively than any other teaching medium (Stempleski and Tomalin,
1990).
In terms of communication: using videos is of great advantage in communication to
language leamers. Video clips make students more ready to communicate in the target
language (Stempleski and Tomalin, 1990). The ability to present complete communicative
situations with the dynamics, immcdiateness and accessibility of the combination of sound
and vision help viewers and language learners perceive communication more easily
(Loncrgan, 1984).
Watching videos enables students to listen to different varieties of English in terms of
pronunciation, intonation, vocabulary, idiom and usage, and also to obserx^e non-verbal
gestures in relation to particular situations and cultures. Images contextualize in videos or
on it own can help to reinforce the language, provided the leamers can see immediate
meaning in term of vocabulary recognition (Canning-Wilson, 2000). Using videos in
language teaching can enhance students' understanding and retention of information
(Herron, 1984). Leaming from video clips is also a chance for students being exposed to

the non-verbal communication such as facial expression, body language as well as
pi-oiuinciation, stress (Murugavel, 2005).
Thanks to videos, students can improve their spoken English (Sun, 2005). As listening and
speaking arc the two major skills students should acquire, the video materials not only help
lo present the target language more vividly but get students to use English thev have
learned in talking about the videos (Hcmcl, 2005).
Also, Vidcos are an useful access acquainting students with native speaker modes (Pctridcs,
2005). They bring students all kinds of situations, with full contextual back-up that help


13

students more easily familiarize different voices from different people (Canning-Wilson,
2000).
Besides, videos provide students with many occasions to leam about culture. Videos can
give students realistic models to imitate for role-play: can increase awareness of other
cultures by teaching appropriateness and suitability (Arthur, 1999). Videos are a window
on English -language culture (Sherman, 2003), for example , short documentaries can open
up students' eyes to different cultures ways of life; therefore, the aspects of culture are
seemed as good and idea for any people using video material with classes (Shemian, 2003).
Furthermore, language teaching, when added with video allows difTerentiation of teaching
and learning according to the students' abilities, leaming styles and personalities (Bum and
Reed, 1994). Since video as a moving picture book, gives access to things, places, people,
events, and behavior, regardless of the language used, and is worth thousands of picture
dictionaries and magazines, using this tool pemiits teachers widen the classroom range of
activities (Arthur, 1999). Teaching with videos promotes a pleasant environment through
provision of a variety of activities.
Obviously, leamers leam primarily because of what they bring to their classroom
experience in terms of their perceived needs, motivation, past experiences, background
knowledge, interests and creative skills (Combe and Kinney, 1999).

To conclude, as Arthur (1999) claims:
Video can give students realistic models to itnitate for role- play: can increase
awareness of other cultures by teaching appropriateness
strengthen

and suitability: can

audio/visual linguistic perceptions sitnultaneously: can widen the

classrootn repertoire and range of activities: can help utilize the latest technology
to facilitate language learning: can teach direct obserwtion of the paralinguistic
features found in association with the tatget language: can be used to help when
training students in ESP related scenarios and language: can offer a visual
rcitiforccmcnt of the tatget language and can lower anxiety when practicing the
skill of listening (p.7, cited in Canning-Wilson, 2000)
2.8. Drawbacks of using videos in teaching language.


14

Despite great benefits taken to language leamers, video likes any technology, can't avoid
some weaknesses. According to some researchers, students can meet several difficulties if
it is not selected carefully. If visual or videos are poor, simple, complex or irrelevant to
leaming aim and if their illustration is tidy, meaningless, that video-visual aids will not
profit learners (Canning - Wilson, 2000).
Teachers are difficult to find the videos that match student needs because some kinds of
video such as commercial videos are scare and limited (Ketchen, Morris et al, 2005). For
teachers, that ihcy usually meet troubles in using videos in class is selecting appropriate
movies and having time-consuming preparation. For students, they have little occasion to
communicate with classmates, with the teachers. Moreover, some of them even prefer

watching the plot to listening the language (Sun, 2005). In some cases, students will feel
tired of catching with the language if the plot of video is too long and complex (Moobin,
2008).
In short, if students can not comprehend the video to an acceptable level, initial enthusiasm
is lost and the entire endeavor may lead to frustration for both students and teacher (Gainer,
2005).
Conclusion
This chapter reviews the pros and cons of video-assisted activities to promote second or
foreign language teaching in general and speaking skills in particular. One of the major
advantages of video-assisted language activities as discussed in this chapter is they help to
motivate the students and maintain that motivation. Another advantage is they stimulate
students' participation. The next chapter presents the study.


15

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
3.1. The context of the study.
Ha Tinh University was established in May of 2007 from merging three separate educational
institutions: Ha Tinh teacher's training college. Ha Tinh economic college and Ha Tinh
branch of Ha Noi National University. This is a young university whose main task is to train
students with multiple fields and various levels mostly serving for Ha Tinh province and the
areas nearby.
Experiencing three years of unity, Ha Tinh University quickly develops about quality and
quanlily of students and staff of teachers. Every year, the University of Ha Tinh receives
thousand of students into studies; including many inlemational students from Lao, China...
Enhancing the quality of students is the focus of Ha tinh University; therefore, the selection
of new teachers with high qualification is hold strictly. Also, the improvement of specialty
and study for higher level at home or abroad is a compulsory task for all staff of teachers
here. Besides, the well-equipped classrooms with leaching devices such as televisions,

computers, over projects... are available.
3.1.2. The English Department
English department has fifteen teachers: eight teachers are in M.A degree standard, among
them, two people have finished their studies abroad and one is continuing his PhD thesis
in an English speaking country. The others are mainly young teachers who have high
qualificalion and get zealousncss in their teaching.

Each year, English department

receives over 306 new students with two different levels: university level and junior
college level. Student of college level is trained in three years to become teachers of
I:nglish for secondary and primary schools of Ha Tinh province. Therefore, the mark
applied for these subjects is lower than university ones. However, these students are
strictly selected from the national examination entrance and according to regulation of the
local university.
3.1.3. The students' background and needs.
Different trom university students, junior college students are from different districts of


16

Ha Tinh province. Most of them are from mral or remote regions where their families
mainly live on farming; therefore, equipping devices aiding to English studies such as
computers, internet or softwares like students in other places seems impossible. Moreover,
Ha Tinh until now is a young and sleepy country. As condition of economics is still
undeveloped, tourism is not exploited properly yet, the chance for the students to leam or
communicate with native English speakers is scarce. Deficiency of important devices for
self-education and lack of language environment exert great effect on the quality of
learning English especially in term of speaking skill. Therefore, the efforts to develop oral
proficiency for major English students at Ha Tinh University are always appreciated.

3.1.4. Course book and teaching materials for teaching speaking skill.
Like other universities, major English students at Ha Tinh University have four years with
eight semesters of learning speaking for university level and three years with six semesters
for junior college level.
The students at both levels have fifteen weeks for each semester and have two 45 minute
periods for every week. They do not have speaking lessons in the last semester (the 8''^
semester for university students and the b"^ semester for junior college ones).
The main textbooks for teaching speaking skills are four volumes for speaking onl> that
were modified from series of books of Da Nang University. Each volume includes 15
lessons with different themes, arranged from simplicity to complexity. However, these
textbooks only provide the topics as well as concrete situations for discussion, but not deal
with vocabulary, pronounce, or intonation. Therefore, looking for further material and
creating appropriate activities to fill the gap arc extremely necessary.
3.2. Research Methods.
3.2.1. Participants.
This actiiMi research was performed during the second semester on two first-year English
major classes of junior college level: kl6A and kI6B. The total number of participants is 79
students (40 sludcnls of kl6A and 39 students of kl6B), among them. 4 male and 75 female.
However, there arc only 77 students completing the questionnaire (2 students were absent
from class).


17

All participants are freshmen, so they are very young with average age of 18,5. Of 79
students, 40 students know the way of using computer network but do not use them
effectively, and only 4 students have personal computer.
The first students of junior college were chosen for this research because of some reasons.
Firstly, these students have just left high schools where they were mainly focused on doing
written exercises to serve imminent competition; thus, they had a big gap in speaking in

general and in term of vocabulary, pronunciation, intonation... in particular. Secondly, since
they did not have favorable leaming condition to exploit available websites or useful
softwares for practicing speaking skill, these students are expected to participate in fresh
video-assisted activities actively.
3.2.2. Instruments
To collect necessary data and information for the research, four instruments were used; they
are small talk, observation, reflective journals and questionnaire. These instruments were
chosen because of several reasons as discussed bellow.
- Observation,
As an action research, observation is one of the important instruments that provided a
perfect opportunity for the teacher- the researcher also, to have a thorough observ aiion on
the performance of the students. Firstly, from observation the teacher can have initial
judgment about real situation of the students and then view how active students arc when
participating in the classroom speaking activities with videos as well as see the whole of
leaming atmosphere of the classroom. Observation was conducted over a period o^ 15
weeks when the research program was in perfomiance. All the participants' special
attitudes towards learning speaking with videos or without videos were taken note.
- Small talk
Small talk is also a useful way that permits the author to collect initial information about
the students' learning condition, their anxiety and the needs as well.
The teacher had a small talk with all the students for the first periods to find out about the
ways they got used to practice speaking as well as material source they based on to dcv elop

IRUNGTAMtHOUGTiHi';^


18

their oral proficiency. This open talk also supplied the teachers with some information
about the students' anxiety in speaking lessons and their ambition in this speaking course.

- Questionnaire
Questionnaire is chosen for this study because it is extremely versatile and uniquely
capable of gathering a huge amount of information in a short time. "The researcher can
collect a large amount of information in less an hour" (Brown, 2001). Moreover,
questionnaire is easy to construct and simple when using. The answers are usually recorded
in some way so that they become available for reflection and analysis (Wallance, 1998).
The questionnaire was designed into 6 parts with 22 questions. Part one including 10
different statements aims at determining if the video clips given are appropriate to the
students' language proficiency as well as finding out the benefits of the v ideo-assisted
activities to the participants in term of motivation and aspects of oral proficiency such as
words, intonation, pronunciation, the use of natural language....
Part two consisting of 8 statements mainly focus on the improvement of the students after
learning lo speak with the video clips and their preference between the activities with
videos or without videos.
The questions in the part one and part two were designed in both affirmative and negative
form. These varieties were evaluated through arranged items with a 5- point rating scale so
that the students could indicate the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the
statements given.
Two open questions in part three and four were built in order to discover the aspects that
arc the most beneficial and drawbacks the participants met in leaming process with the
videos.
A question of part five aims at checking the rate of speaking skill that the students had after
finishing the speaking course.
The content of the last question m part 6 is lo figure out whether students like leaming to
speak with videos or not.
- Rejlective

Journals

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According to Oiler (1979), questionnaire is often problematic because the respondents
"tend to give answers that are associated with their perceptions of the predispositions of the
researcher" (p. 17, cited in Liu, 2005). Therefore, reflecfive journals were used in the study
to supply additional data about personal and affecfive variables in language leaming. The
participants were asked to write joumals (in English or in Vietnamese if necessary) for ten
successive weeks to reflect and comment on what they benefited and what they disliked
from the lessons using video clips. Their personal remarks on the video- assisted activities
were also encouraged.
3.2.3. Procedures.
The study was conducted during the second term of the academic year of 2010. Ten videoclips from 2 to 7 minutes long with speaking activities were presented in about seventeen to
twenty-five minutes at the end of the lessons from the third week to the thirteenth week
(except the seventh week). Almost of the selective video clips have clear intonation,
pronunciation and various words. Their content and language use are quite simple so that
the students at intermediate level could understand them.
For the first week, the teacher, after making the acquaintance of the students and describing
some information relating to the course, had small talk with the students lo understand
more leaning condition and the students' needs.
From the third week on, when the videos were started operating, the teacher introduced
about the genre as well as the purjiose of videos that the students were going to see. Then,
the tasks for students were provided in which the teachers would guide them w hat they had
to do after watching those video clips. At that moment, the students were asked to write
journals for every week when each video-assisted activity finished. The author randomly
collected 10 joumals for each week.
In the 13"' week, when the speaking activities with videos were complete, the teacher
handed the questionnaire lo the students and asked them to fulfill it in the most sincere way.
Ten reflective joumals of the tenth week were also collected.

20

CHAPTER FOUR: DATA COLLECTION AND DISCUSSION.
In this chapter, results of the study are presented followed by discussion and analysis of
data. The data has been collected from small talk, observation, questionnaire and reflective
journals. The information from the small talk, observation and reflective joumals were
provided in case of necessity when the data from the survey needs more explanation. The
questionnaire, on the other hand, was subjected to content analysis. The results are
statistically presented in the forms of tables and chart.
4.1. Data collection and analysis.
4.1.1. The students' comprehension toward the video clips.
Before finding out the answer for three questions of the study, the author would like to
check the data from item four of part two in which the content aims at figuring out if the
videos given are appropriate to the students' language proficiency or not. This information
is great important because if students- as mentioned in the literature review did not
comprehend the video to an acceptable level, it would take the initial enthusiasm away and
turn their entire endeavor into frustration (Gainer, 2005). The pie below shows this problem
Chart 1.

The students ' comprehension toward the video-clips.

7% 0%

D Strong!)'disagree

23%

• Disagree
D Not sure
O Agree

47%

• Strong!) agree

The pie chart above summarizes the students" responses to the statement uh.ch are
reflective their comprehension on the language use in the video chps. From the chan. it can
be seen that only 7".. of the students endorsed the statement (/ did not understand ^^hal
people spoke on the video clip.s) on rating scale of 4. Luckily, nobody showed their strong
agreement to this. There were 23% of them having no clear opinion m their responses.
These people reflected in joumal-keeping that most of the videos were easy for them to


21

understand but in some videos, the speakers spoke so fast that they could not catch the
meaning of words. However, a large number of the students (70%) negated the idea given,
among them, 23% emphasized their strong objection on this item. This also means most of
the participants understood the language use in the videos. Particular important, all these
implied that the videos supplied are quite appropriate to the students' language level.
4.1.2. The extent to which the video-assisted activities enhance the students'
motivation to practice speaking English.
The extent to which the video-assisted activities motivate students to practice speaking
English was revealed in the statement 10 of the part one and the statements 7, 8 of part two.
The data from these is presented in table 1 below. All numbers refer to the percentage of
the students who chose each response category.
Table 1
Strongly disagree
1(101)

Agree

Strongly agree

4%

13%

5 i %,

33%

1 am m o r e excited in participating in the speaking activities with video clips

0%
3(.S11)

Not sure

1 feel more interested in speaking English even when my English is limited
O'M.

2(711)

Disagree

3%

51%

26%

3%

0%

21%

1 prefer learning to speak English without the video clips

47%

39%

12%

Mentioning students' behavior to the video-assisted activities in speaking, the survey
resulted in quite surprising numbers. As much as 77% of the students endorsed the
statements on items one and two, among them, more than 26% especially emphasized their
keenness on the lessons with videos. Especially interesting was the disco\er\ that 86% of
the participants expressed the opposition to the statement of item three. It also means that
86% of the students as mentioned above want to practice speaking English with the video
clips. All these data indicated that the classroom speaking video-assisted activities had
great attraction to the language leamers.