using movies in teaching speaking listening to enhance motivation of secondyear nonenglish majors in can tho university

CAN THO UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

USING MOVIES IN TEACHING SPEAKINGLISTENING TO ENHANCE MOTIVATION OF
SECOND-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJORS IN CAN
Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

THO UNIVERSITY
B.A Thesis

Supervisor: Nguyễn Hải Quân

Student: Võ Minh Nhã
Code: 7032463
Class: ELT 02
Course: 29

Can Tho, June 2007


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research is accomplished with the enthusiastic help of many people. First and
foremost, I would like to express my whole-hearted appreciation to my supervisor, Mr.
Nguyen Hai Quan for his dedicated assistance and valuable advice during the time of
doing this study. He is also the one who gave me permission to conduct the experiment in
three of his classes.
Secondly, I also would like to send my deep gratitude to Mr. Trinh Quoc Lap and Mr.
Tran Minh Tuan for their useful SPSS class on data processing and analyzing which
aided me efficiently in completing my thesis.
I especially wish to acknowledge the help of my friend Nguyen Kim Thao, student of

Bachelor of English 04, course 29 who devoted precious time and effort to contribute in
my study as peer-observer.
In addition, this thesis cannot be completed without 150 participants of three non-

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
English majored classes, course 31. I am sincerely thankful for what they have done in
my experiment and their honest opinions in interviewing.
Finally, my special thanks would like to go to my family and friends for their support
and encouragement within my research doing time.

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ABSTRACT
This research attempts to examine the effectiveness of using movies in English
classroom to see whether it can help improve motivation and speaking ability of secondyear non-English majored students of Can Tho University through experiment, pre-test
and post-test. 150 second-year non-English majored students of three classes took part in
six-week special designed movie classes, using the cartoon “Shark Tale”, integrated into
the curriculum. These classes were recorded by observations. A pre and a postquestionnaire were delivered before and after the experiment to measure the students’
motivation. After the experiment was conducted, interviews with 10 students from target
groups were performed to assemble students’ opinions about classes with movies. Data
analysis showed the considerable effectiveness of using movie in English classroom on
students’ motivation. In addition, results after the experiment also indicated a noticeable
improvement in students’ speaking-listening ability. However, problems and suggestions

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for this special movie course were also recorded.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
à Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................ii
à Abstract ...................................................................................................................................iii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale ..........................................................................................................................1
2. Research questions...........................................................................................................2
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Motivation _A general view ............................................................................................3
1.1 Definition ...................................................................................................................3
1.2 Motivational Theories................................................................................................4
1.2.1 Behavioral views of Motivation.....................................................................4
1.1.2 Cognitive views of Motivation ......................................................................5
1.1.3 Humanistic views of Motivation....................................................................7
1.3 Categorization ............................................................................................................8
2. Using movies in English classroom as way to enhance motivation ..................................11
2.1 The trend ....................................................................................................................11
2.2 Success of using movies in classroom .......................................................................12
CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
1. The objectives of this study .............................................................................................15
2. Participants.......................................................................................................................15
3. Research instruments .......................................................................................................16
3.1 Pre-test .......................................................................................................................17
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liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
3.2 Experiment_Steps
of teaching

a movie lesson...........................................................17
3.3 Post-test......................................................................................................................18
3.4 Peer-observation and interview..................................................................................18
CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH RESULTS
1. Pre-test Analysis ..............................................................................................................20
1.1 Attitudes toward learning Speaking-Listening English .............................................20
1.2 Intrinsic Motivation versus Extrinsic Motivation ......................................................21
1.3 Classroom Observation..............................................................................................23
2. Post-test Analysis.............................................................................................................24
2.1 Attitudes toward learning Speaking-Listening English .............................................24
2.2 Intrinsic Motivation versus Extrinsic Motivation ......................................................26
2.3 Classroom Observation..............................................................................................28
3. Interviews Analysis..........................................................................................................30
CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION, SUGGESTIONS AND LIMITATIONS
1. Discussion and implications ............................................................................................33
1.1 Research question 1 ...................................................................................................33
1.2 Research question 2 ...................................................................................................36
2. Limitations ......................................................................................................................37
3. Suggestions for further research ......................................................................................37
à Appendices...............................................................................................................................39
à References ...............................................................................................................................50

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Introduction
Rationale
Motivation is considered one of the most essential factors of second language acquisition.
According to Dulay (1982), foreign language learners do not acquire all what is exposed to
them, but select what they find suitable, relevant and interesting. Later, in the Affective Filter

Hypothesis, Krashen (1982) also affirmed the same thing. As a result, learning is usually
most effective and rapid when the leaner is motivated and attentive.
Many language learners fail to reach their full potential in English due to lack of
motivation. This is especially true for non-English majors in the context of Can Tho
University who have not been well- equipped with any English speaking countries’ culture
classes, such as British culture or American culture or semantics, pragmatics…which can be
a great help in successful communicating, or even chances to apply what they have learned
into real situations. Whereas English majors benefit a lot from such special classes and many

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other opportunities to learn English effectively and authentically through modern hi-tech and
teaching approaches such as authentic material, PowerPoint lessons… their non-majored
counterparts have to encounter many difficulties in learning English. In a non-majored class,
due to limited time of 4 periods per week, lessons usually focus more on grammar and
reading and therefore communicative skills are sometimes very limited. Therefore, these two
important skills Speaking and Listening receive inappropriate concern and become barriers
for English learners in future. Furthermore, in such a class with students from many different
level and English is just a subsidiary subject, low motivation in English learning is
understandable.
Recently, studies into the field of motivation as well as suggestions, solutions of learners’
motivation enhancing are numerous. The use of authentic materials, modern technologies…is
exploited successfully to serve this purpose. Similarly, movies as a kind of materials, widely

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used in many countries, have been a powerful tool in English classroom to encourage
students’ exposure to a real target English.
However, in the context of Can Tho University, these researches just mainly focus on
English-majors or high school students. Based on these practical problems, I would like to

conduct a research on using movies in teaching Speaking-Listening to enhance motivation of
second-year non-English majors in Can Tho University to see whether this kind of authentic
material can do any help to improve students’ motivation which is hypothesized very low. In
my study, I especially focus on English speaking skill, which is very vital but limited in nonmajored classes. Increasing students’ speaking time, ability of using new words in speaking
and interest in English learning is what my research wants to achieve through experiment.
Research questions
My research endeavors to answer two questions:
y Does the use of movies help increase motivation of second-year non-English majors in

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Can Tho University?
y Does the use of movies help improve their English Speaking-Listening skills?

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Literature review
Motivation: a general view
The term “motivation” is widely used in our daily life. A student studies hard and tries
for top grades may described to be “highly motivated”, a frequently asked question to a
successful businessman is “What is the motivation of your achievement?”. For a criminal, the
question is “what is the motive for committing crime?”…Such statements imply that
motivation has a major influence on our behavior and even on what happens in our mind. Its
importance is so vital that we now have many things involved with motivation: in business
there is customer or employee motivation study, in education that is learner motivation, in
law we have crime motivation, etc…So, what is motivation? And how does it have such a
strong impact in our live and learning? Can the understanding about its mechanism do any
help to improve our effectiveness in working or learning?

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In this literature review, I would like to provide some basic notions about motivation and
the reasons why enhancing motivation is important in teaching and learning. Furthermore,
examining the use of movies to assist teacher in encouraging students’ motivation in some
outstanding researches will offer a practical viewpoint when applying this in the context of
Can Tho University
Definition
There are numerous definitions about “motivation”. In the most common understanding
as indicated in The American heritage Dictionary of English language (2000), motivation is
the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason
for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior. Moreover, motivation is
also interpreted in many various ways: internal state or condition that activates behavior and
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gives it direction (Kleinginna, 1981), the arousal, direction, and persistence of behavior
(Franken, 1994)…
In the area of second language acquisition, Krashen in his hypotheses in SLA categorized
motivation as a kind of affective filter that constitutes a barrier or a facilitator to learners’
acquisition for the second language learners do not acquire all what is exposed to them but
select what they find suitable, relevant and interesting enough. Dulay et al. (1982) totally
agreed on Krashen’s viewpoint to see motivation as the incentive, the need or the desire to
learn. Similarly, another definition from Bomia et al. (1997) also confirms that motivation is
student’s willingness, need, desire and compulsion to participate in and be successful in the
learning process.
Motivational Theories

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liệuthishọc
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Since
the importance
motivation
obvious, studying
fieldtập
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concern from many scientists and becomes a science in application. Psychologists from all
branches of the discipline study the topic of motivation. Over the years, different theories of
motivation have been proposed based on research on the wide range of topics, including:
hunger and obesity, the effects of reward and punishment, and the needs for power,
achievement, social acceptance, love, and self-esteem... Some theories state that people are
motivated by the need to satisfy physiological needs, whereas others state that people seek to
maintain an optimum level of bodily arousal. Still other theories focus on the ways in which
people respond to external incentives such as money, grades in school, and recognition.
Although no single theory has been universally accepted so far, the effort itself shed light to
humans about the future of this study. The followings are three of outstanding theories that
contribute a fundamental part to the better understanding about this abstract and complex
topic:
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Behavioral views of motivation:
This point of view based on Skinner’s Reward and Punishment theory to emphasize the
role of reinforcement in balancing human’s motivation. According to Skinner, behavior can
be shaped by reinforcement. Students are motivated to complete a task by being promised a
reward of some kind or to avoid a punishment or failure. The reward may take the form of
praise, grade or even the privilege of engaging in certain activities.

Operant conditioning interpretations of learning may also help reveal why some students
react favorably to particular subjects and dislike others. Skinner believes that such
differences can be traced to past experiences. That is reasonable in explaining why a student
enters the required math class with delight while another may feel bored to death. He argued
that the student who loves math has been shaped to respond that way by a series of positive
experiences with math, good grades for example. The math hater, in contrast, may have

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suffered a series of negative experiences.
Another attention in behavioral views supposed by Albert Bandura, a social learning
theorist, is the importance of observation, imitation, and vicarious reinforcement (expecting
to receive the same re-inforcer that we see someone else get for exhibiting a particular
behavior). For example, a student who admires a teacher of some subjects may work hard
partly to please the teacher and partly to try becoming like him/her. A young child who
observes his older brother or sister earning rewards or compliments from studying hard or
being obedient may strive to do the same things with high expectation to get the same results.
A student who notices that a classmate receives praise from the teacher after acting in a
certain way may decide to imitate such behavior to win similar rewards. Therefore, both
vicarious reinforcement and direct reinforcement can raise an individual's sense of selfefficacy and effort for a particular task, which, in turn, leads to higher levels of motivation.
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Cognitive views of motivation:
There are 3 theories in cognitive views of motivation that trace their roots to the
information processing approach to learning. The first one is cognitive dissonance theory,
developed by Leon Festinger (1957), which states that when there is a discrepancy between
two beliefs, two actions, or between a belief and an action, we will respond to solve this
conflict by changing or adjusting our behaviors. It can be inferred that the need for problem
solving does become a kind of motivation. Hence, the implication is that if we create an
appropriate amount of disequilibria, this will in turn lead to the individual changing his or her

behavior which in turn will lead to a change in thought pattern which will in turn leads to
more change in behavior and so on…The second cognitive approach is attribution theory,
founded by Heider (1958) and developed by Weiner (1974). This theory proposed a
probability that each individual’s success or failure can be explained by certain

Trung
tâm Học
ĐHare
Cần
liệu and
họcaretập
nghiên
cứu
“attributions”.
These liệu
attribution
eitherThơ@Tài
internal or external
eithervà
under
control or
uncontrollable, stable or unstable. The chart below shows examples of four attributions:

Internal

External

No Control

Ability

Luck

Control

Effort

Task Difficulty

In teaching/learning environment, it is important and quite possible to assist the learner to
develop a self-attribution in terms of effort (internal, control). If the person has an attribution
of ability (internal, no control) as soon as the individual experiences some difficulties in the
learning process, he or she will decrease appropriate learning behavior (e.g., I'm not good at
this). If the person has an external attribution, luck for example, then nothing the person can
do will help that individual in a learning situation. In this case, there is nothing to be done by

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the individual when learning problems occur. However, in some cases, teacher can contribute
a considerable part to certain attributions, for example task difficulty, which can turn to be
motivator or de-motivator to learners. Thus, adjusting the task difficulty to suit with student’s
level is some kind a way to encourage students’ motivation in learning. This can be explained
by the third cognitive approach, expectancy theory by Vroom (1964), which proposes the
following equation:
Motivation = Perceived Probability of Success (Expectancy) *
Connection of Success and Reward (Instrumentality) *
Value of Obtaining Goal (Valance, Value)
Vroom’s formula states that the three components of Expectancy, Instrumentality, and
Valance or Value must be present in order for motivation to occur for one low value will

result in a low motivation. That is, in order to have a high motivation in certain assignment,

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an individual must strongly believe that she/he can do the task successfully AND she/he sees
clearly what she/he may get for a good result AND she/he highly values the result of success.
In other word, all three variables must be high in order for motivation and the resulting
behavior to be high.
Humanistic views of motivation:
One of the most important theories in the area of motivation was proposed by Abraham
Maslow (1954) which said that that human’s motivation or human behavior is determined by
the satisfying certain needs in their life. Maslow ranked human needs in 6 levels as illustrated
in the

hierarchy

below:

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1) Physiological needs: needs for maintaining one’s live, such as: food, water, oxygen…
2) Safety needs: needs for security, defense or protection from danger
3) Belongingness and love needs: needs for affection to and from people around, need for
acceptance…
4) Esteem needs: needs for achievement, competence, approval…
5) Cognitive and aesthetic needs: needs to know, understand, explore; needs about
symmetry, order, beauty…
6) Self-actualization/ self-transcendence: needs to find self-fulfillment and realize one’s

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potential; to connect to something beyond the ego or to help others find self-fulfillment
and realize their potential
The most outstanding feature in Maslow’s hierarchy of human need is the notion of “prepotency”, which means the higher level of motivation won’t be achieved unless the lower on
is satisfied. For example, if one is occupied with physiological need, hunger or thirst for
instance, he cannot or has any interest on going to the next level, safety need or love need.
Maslow's basic position is that if one is in the top of the hierarchy, self-actualization/
self-transcendence, one becomes wiser (develops wisdom) and automatically knows what to
do in a wide variety of situations. Daniels (2001) suggests that Maslow's ultimate conclusion
that the highest levels of self-actualization are transcendent in their nature may be one of his
most important contributions to the study of human behavior and motivation.

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Categorization
Most of researchers dealing with motivation focus on the distinction between two
important kinds of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Morgan (1983) presented
a useful distinguishing between these two kinds:

Intrinsic
Characteristics

Expressive

Extrinsic

Achievement

Social

Instrumental

Interest for its

Desire to

In order to gain

own sake:

succeed: “I'm

social acceptance, tangible reward or

satisfaction

not going to let either within the

derived directly this beat me”:

class/course etc.

In order to gain a

avoid negative
consequences

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Strengths

from

mastery

(“Pleasing

understanding/

represents

teacher” or being

skill

something

one of the in-

important

crowd, or outside

Commitment

cooperativeness if Can develop into more

Enthusiasm,
commitment

class-oriented

significant
commitment

Weaknesses

May get “carried Potentially

May concentrate Achievement rests on

away”: lose

on the appearance strict criteria of

fickle

sight of wood

of achievement to “relevance”
What the

for trees

the detriment of
learning

Aspirations may be
“deep” learning

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represents to the

met in other ways
Social aspirations

student may not
may change

Anxiety may impede

be the same as
learning
what it
represents to
you

According to Morgan, intrinsic motivation is the doing for one’s own sake while extrinsic
motivation facilitate one to do for other purposes or other people, for example: to please
teachers, parents or get rewards…Students with extrinsic motivation usually do not realize
the real benefits of their studying and thus, they try to achieve the short-term goals, such as:
performance, competition, score… As a result, success in learning an L2 may result in more
or less motivation i.e. the learners may feel de-motivated when getting bad credits or failing

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or when those aspirations change, the learners might find no motivation in learning a second
language. Extrinsically motivated learners, unlike intrinsic counterparts, usually lean toward
competitive rather than cooperative or group work in learning.

Whereas, intrinsic motivation is usually more stable for they learn for their interest.
However, each kind has its own weakness as analyzed by Morgan. Intrinsic motivated
students sometimes spend time focusing on what they are interested in but not the whole
learning process. For example, a student may find it interesting to improve listening or
speaking but not writing and he just ignores writing. That is what Morgan called “loses sight
of wood for trees.”
Carol Bainbridge gave a similar viewpoint about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. She
defined intrinsic motivation as motivation that comes from inside an individual and that

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motivation comes from the pleasure one gets from the task itself or from the sense of
satisfaction in completing or even working on a task. Extrinsic, on the contrast, is the
motivation that comes outside an individual in terms of rewards, competition… Generally,
Carol agrees with Morgan in highly appreciating the importance of encouraging intrinsic
motivation in teaching and learning. However, she has no idea in disclaiming the role of
reward in intrinsic motivation. She means that such external rewards are not enough to keep a
person motivated, doesn’t have a strong influence on that person’s intention or motivation.
For example, an intrinsically motivated student may want to get good grade on a task, but if
the assignment is not interesting to that student, the probability of a good grade is not enough
for the student to put a great effort into what he is doing.
Shared the same idea with Morgan and carol, Malone and Lepper (1987) have defined
intrinsic motivation more simply in terms of what people will do without external
inducements. They proposed a general view about characteristics about the two kinds of

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motivation as below:
Characteristics of Intrinsically versus Extrinsically Motivated Learners (based on
Lepper, 1988).

1. If perceived ability is low, extrinsically motivated students are more likely to quit after
failure.
2. If the task is mundane or algorithmic, the extrinsically motivated student may be superior
to the intrinsically motivated student.
3. If the task is conceptual or requires higher level thinking skills, the intrinsically motivated
student is likely to be superior to the extrinsically motivated student.

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4. The intrinsically motivated student is more likely to apply effective meta-cognitive
strategies and "deeper" study strategies.
5. The intrinsically motivated student is more likely to select problems and sub-goals of
moderate difficulty, whereas the extrinsically motivated student is more likely to select
the easiest problems and sub-goals.
6. The intrinsically motivated student is more likely to take risks and to explore freely.
7. If the task is complex, the intrinsically motivated student is more likely to employ logical
and efficient performance strategies.
8. Students who have previously been extrinsically motivated to engage in a particular
activity are less likely to engage in that activity when external incentives are no longer
available.

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9. Intrinsically motivated students are more likely than extrinsically motivated students to
be able to handle artificial rewards without experiencing negative consequences.
To conclude, the three motivational theories above do offer valuable founded knowledge
about what motivation is and how it is viewed from different aspects. They also explained
what might cause failure in language acquisition of many learners as well as what can help
facilitate the progress through the investigation the external and internal factors. Grounded
on that theoretical framework, this research would like to develop the viewpoint of Gardner

(1985) to see motivation as a sequence of goal, desire, attitudes and effort. According to him,
learners’ motivation is firmly built on positive attitudes toward learning and it has a direct
correlation to the learners’ orientation or set of goals that can be put into 2 categories:
instrumental orientation (extrinsic motivation) and integrative orientation (intrinsic
motivation). In order to measure L2 learners’ motivation, Gardner built up a multi12


component motivation test so called the Attitude/Motivation Test Battery, which is made up
of around 130 items focused on various variables. This Battery, which then was developed in
numerous studies on L2 motivation, revealed that learners with higher positive attitude tend
to learn faster and more effective in acquisition compared with the lower one. Gardener et
al.’s study (1983) supported the claim that proficiency in second language learning was
affected by attitudinal factors. A later study conducted by him (1985) also confirmed the
similar claim and showed the correlation between motivation and situational anxiety and
second language achievement. Therefore, attitude can be considered an essential factor in
determining the motivation of second language learner, which then decides the learner’s
effort and success in learning process.
Using movies in English classroom as way to enhance motivation
The trend

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Film, as a kind of authentic material which defined by Rogers (1988: 467) as 'appropriate'
and 'quality' in terms of goals, objectives, learner’s needs and interest and 'natural' in terms of
real life and meaningful communication or by Harmer (1991) as which are designed for
native speakers; they are real materials; designed not for language students as well as
language teaching purposes, but for the speakers of the language, is used widely in language
classroom recently as way to enhance learner’s motivation.
Since Thomas Edison invented motion pictures in the 1889s, the world has experienced a
great boom in the development of mass media. TV, films, cinema soon became an integral
part of entertainment industry as well as in every household. Edison himself stated that:” the

scope of the motion picture is equally great, in the education line especially, geography,
history, literature…can be taught much more entertainingly, authentically and convincingly

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by film’s aid than is now with possible with present methods…” Since then, film was not
merely a means of entertainment but made powerful invasion into the field of education.
1930s, Payne Fund found that film has the potential to be educational tool because of a
“combination of important qualities inherent in the medium: wide variation in content,
gripping narrative techniques and an appeal to basic human motives and wishes”. His
statement was proved convincingly after the fever of the famous children TV show “Sesame
street”(1969-1973) and “Zoom” (1973) made a big influence on children education. Corbit
concluded that the wise educator does not ignore the popularity of film and instead, learns
how to use it.
Success of using movies in classroom
Success and advantages of authentic materials in language teaching and learning have
been proved in a number of studies, projects, prestigious articles, teachers’ experiences (Ferit

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
Kilickaya, 2004; Christina Smart, 2005; Elizabeth Peterson and Bronwyn Coltrane, 2003) …
The main advantages of using authentic materials are (Philips and Shettlesworth, 1978;
Clarke, 1989; Peacock, 1997, cited in Richards, 2001):
•

They have a positive effect on learner motivation.

•

They provide authentic cultural information.

•

They provide exposure to real language.

•

They relate more closely to learners ' needs.

•

They support a more creative approach to teaching.
Movies have proved the same benefits when used in English classroom. An article by

Professor Larry M.Lynch (Cali, Columbia) has assessed movies as which “are highly
practical for English teaching.” Scientifically, in a comprehensive report, James Marshall -

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an educational technology specialist- illustrated a connection between technology and human
memory. According to him, technology with images, sound and text can create a “rich
environment conducive to the acquisition of knowledge” (Marshall 6). By that way, medium
can function as a link between old and new information that helps students remember deeper
and also more interested. Many teachers have been very successful with this new interesting
approach, especially in teaching speaking and listening which are very difficult to develop in
an artificial environment of classroom. Jiang Hemei (1997) informed that he has used movies
in teaching English for years and the result is optimistic. He advised that the success of this
approach depends on methods and techniques as well as the kind of activities the teacher
offers the class in which he himself plays a key role. Melanie Gilbert (1993) sees it as way to

teach listening and speaking to low-level students of English in her classes in Chinese,
especially in speaking which she found “very formal and not very appropriate in daily
conversations”. This is also what my research wants to achieve. Recently, in a lecture on the

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use of visuals in research, Canning-Wilson (2000) claims that the use of illustrations, visuals,
pictures, perceptions, mental images, figures, impressions, likenesses, cartoons, charts,
graphs, colors, replicas, reproductions, or anything else used to help one see an immediate
meaning in the language may benefit the learner by helping to clarify the message, provided
the visual works in a positive way to enhance or supplement the language point. She reports
that images contextualized in video or on its own can help to reinforce the language,
provided the learner can see immediate meaning in terms of vocabulary recognition in the
first language.
In fact, videos are powerful tool in helping English learners improve their language skills.
Video provides visual stimuli such as the environment, context for learners that can lead to
prediction generating or speculation and a chance to activate background knowledge about
what they have known about the language and the world. It can be argued that language
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found in videos could not help non-native speakers understand the movies and it will bring
no effect that way. However, this can be explained in the way how teacher use certain kinds
of movies for certain level of students. At elementary level, students can be encouraged to
watch a simple movie with less slang or with subtitle. At higher level, more complicated
language will be added in the movies or without subtitles. On the other hand, videos allow
learners to see body rhythm and speech rhythm in second language discourse through the use
of authentic language and speed of speech in various situations. Videos allow contextual
clues to be offered. In addition, video can stimulate and motivate student interest. Overall,
the use of visuals can help learners to predict information, infer ideas and analyze the world
that is brought into the classroom via the use of video instruction. It can offer a solid link

between the materials being learned and its practical application in a practical situation; the
video can act as a stimulus or catalyst to help integrate materials or aspects of the language;
videos can help manipulate language and at the same time be open to a variety of

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
interpretations that may help improve learner’s creativity and imagination.
Research by Herron, Hanley and Cole (1995) on English speaking students learning
French indicates that the support of visual aid in the form of educational videos and movies
did create a significantly improvement in students’ extensive listening comprehension and
aid in the retention of information. A recent large-scale survey by Canning-Wilson (2000)
suggests that students like learning language through the use of videos. One of the results of
her survey shows that learners prefer action/entertainment films to language films or
documentaries in the classroom.
In a large survey study on teachers use of TV and videos conducted by the Corporation
For Public Broadcasting, 92% teachers informed that using TV and video helps teach more
effectively, develops student’s ability and willingness to participate in discussion. Another

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evidence of successful using movies in teaching comes from a case study on “Using English
language movies in teaching English as foreign language experiences” by Yan Liu, which
placed on a specially designed movie course for students of Master of Education in Teaching
English as a foreign language in Beijing Normal University in China. Based on the data, Yan
Liu drew out some outstanding advantages of this approach that are: helps improve students’
English competence through watching, listening, speaking and writing, helps gain selfconfidence in speaking, improves presentation skills and develops an awareness and
understanding of cultures in English- speaking countries.
On the whole, the efficacy of movies in teaching languages, which has been firmly
asserted through a number of projects, teaching experiences that provide by educators,
scientists, and teachers all over the world, has placed a solid foundation for this research to

carry such similar experiment in the context of Can Tho University.

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

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Methodology
The objectives of the study
In recent years, research into the field of motivation is numerous, so are studies about
using movies in English classroom. Many of famous cinematic works including cartoons,
love story films, comedies… have been used for this purpose e.g. “Finding Nemo” (A.
Delaney Walker, 2003), “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” (Melanie Gilbert, 1993), “Moby
Dick” (Valerie Muller, 2000). “Shrek” (Andrew Johnson and Mark Sheehan, 2006)….
However, movies used in those projects were all executed in extra classes, well equipped
with modern technology. For example, in the movie course “Shrek”, students have their own
video watching section and control whenever they want to replay, stop or pause the chunks of
movie to better understand the aural text. Besides, many comprehension activities, such as
activation questions, cloze, reflection questions, forums… (“Shrek”) are accompanied with

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
the movie, which students can do and share with each other directly on computers through a
special designed program. As the result, effectiveness will be considered as the best for both
teaching and learning. Movie is exploited at the highest rate so it can offer a convenient
environment with the help of technology. In my study, I try to investigate whether using
movies in English classroom can bring any effect on student’s motivation as well as listening
and speaking skills in the condition that movie classes are integrated into the curriculum and
without the supportive help of modern technology in the context of Can Tho University.
Participants
My research is accomplished with the involvement of 1 teacher and 150 second-year nonEnglish majored students of three classes of the course 31 at Can Tho University. They are

from many different majors: mechanics, economics, education, engineering, computer

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science etc. … Their age ranked from 19 to 22 years old. They are all of General English 4,
studying Reward textbook (Unit 31 – 39) and generally achieve the elementary level of
English proficiency. This subject best suits for my study for they have at least one year
habituating to the university environment, learning style as well as the teaching method. In
addition, their English proficiency is good enough to take part in my experiment.
Furthermore, they seem to have more available in time and enthusiasm than their counterpart
in third or fourth year who are studying English for specific purposes.
Research instruments
In my research, I choose to carry out an experimental study, piloting a movie course in
three target groups in 6 weeks, using the cartoon “Shark Tale”. The reason I use that cartoon
in this special course is its funniness, simple language and easy-to-understand content.
According to what I knew, most of the class have not watched this cartoon before so it

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
becomes a convenient factor to introduce this to them. Moreover, this film is less popular
than “Shrek” or “Finding Nemo” which fully available on the market, it can partly help
preventing students from foreseeing the movie in Vietnamese subtitle.
A pre-test and a post-test are included to measure and compare the level of students’
motivation before and after the experiment. Student interviews and observation are also
carried out to ensure the reliability of the study.
The reason I choose to carry such kind of research is its effectiveness, practicality and
appropriateness to my topic.
Pre-test

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The pre-test takes the form of a questionnaire, which comprises of 20 modified items,
adopted from motivation survey of Gardner (1985). The questionnaire includes two parts:
The first part is for personal information and the second one is a table of 20 statements about
students’ speaking motivation, focusing on 3 main parts: statement 1-8 surveys attitude
toward Speaking-Listening English learning in which 3 statements (1-3) are about positive
attitude and 5 (4-8) are about negative attitude, statement 9-14 is about intrinsic motivation
and statement 15-20 explores extrinsic motivation. Students are asked to read carefully each
statement and put a cross (X) to indicate how true it is for him/ her (See Appendix 1, p.47).
The scale is of five levels, including Strongly Disagree, Disagree, No idea, Agree and
Strongly Agree.
The questionnaire is translated into simple Vietnamese and explained in details by
teacher so there is no problem for students to fulfill it.

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
This pretest is delivered before the experiment to measure students’ actual state of
motivation.
Experiment- Steps of teaching a movie lesson
The cartoon “Shark Tale” is cut into three chunks; each clip is 20-25 minutes long. Every
two weeks, students spend two periods studying with movies. The experiment started in the
3rd of April, prolonged in 6 weeks and finished in 15th of May. Firstly, teacher introduces to
class what they are going to watch. For example:
_Teacher: What do you know about shark? Can you give me some adjectives to describe it?
_ Students: (give out answers)
_ Teacher: But today, we will watch a cartoon about a very special shark.
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Before watching, teacher provides students with

some key vocabulary that are essential to
understand the film in English or Vietnamese
sometimes. Students are asked to take note these
new words and pay attention to the context where
they appear in the video clip later. Teacher also presents the comprehension check, explains
and asks students to take a few minutes to read through the questions about the film. While
watching, students watch the clip while teacher monitors the class and control the buttons.
Teacher can play backward, forward, pause or stop a scene, explaining the plot to make sure
that all students follow the speed. At this stage, many other activities are also involved, such
as: frame freezing, is which teacher pauses at a particular scene and asks students to describe
the scene or predict what is going next. Here is an example:

Trung
tâm
Học
liệu
Cần
_ Teacher:
What
is the
sharkĐH
going
to doThơ@Tài
with the fish? liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
_ Students: (give out prediction)
After watching, students spend some minutes to complete the comprehension questions
based (See Appendix 5. p 55) on what they get from the cartoon. Teacher then organizes
some activities related to the film just seen to encourage students’ speaking time. Mainly, this
activity is group discussion in which students work together, discussing about what the story
may go in the next part or their feelings about the characters… Sometimes, teacher gives out

topic for students to talk about. For example, in the first clip of the cartoon, possible topics
for discussion are: shark, “fish eat fish” world, the food chain, jobs and social position….
Post-test

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