Sử dụng phương pháp kể chuyện để dạy nói tiếng Anh tại trường THCS Tân Long (Luận văn thạc sĩ)

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

HOANG KIM YEN

USING STORYTELLING IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING
AT TAN LONG LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL
( Sử dụng phương pháp kể chuyện để dạy nói Tiếng Anh tại Trường
THCS Tân Long)

M.A THESIS
Field: English Linguistics
Code: 8220201

THAI NGUYEN – 2019


THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

HOANG KIM YEN

USING STORYTELLING IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING
AT TAN LONG LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL
( Sử dụng phương pháp kể chuyện để dạy nói Tiếng Anh tại Trường
THCS Tân Long)

M.A THESIS
(APPLICATION ORIENTATION)

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 8220201
Supervisor: Dr. Hoang Ngoc Tue

THAI NGUYEN – 2019


ACKNOWLEDGMENT

First of all, I would like to thank all the teachers at Faculty of Foreign
Language – Thai Nguyen University for their enthusiasm in teaching and helping
me gain knowledge and understanding to do this research.
Especially, I acknowledge my endless thanks and gratefulness to my
supervisor Dr. Hoang Ngoc Tue, English Department Head of Hanoi University
of Industry. His kindly support and valuable guidance went through the process
of completion of my thesis. His encouragement and comments had greatly
enriched and improved my work. Without his motivation and instructions, the
thesis would have been impossible to be done effectively.
My special thanks approve to the Principals, Vice-principals and English
Department Head of Tan Long Secondary School for allowing me to conduct the
research in their school. My grateful thanks go to the participating teachers and
their students for agreeing to participate in the sub - lessons and interviews of
my pilot study and main study. Without their much-appreciated cooperation, I
would not be able to collect the data needed for this study.
As last, my deeply thanks come to my parents and my husband for their
unceasing encouragement, endless love that support and motivate me for the
whole of my life.

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DECLARATION

I certify that the monitor thesis entitled “Using storytelling in teaching
English speaking at Tan Long Lower Secondary School” is my own study in
the fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts at Faculty of
Foreign Language, Thai Nguyen University.
Signature:

Hoang Kim Yen

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ABSTRACT

In teaching a language, applying the suitable methods plays an important
role in the success of the lesson. Using stories for educational purposes is an
effective teaching strategy especially for teaching young learners. This study
aimed at investigating the use of storytelling technique in teaching speaking at
Tan Long Lower Secondary school from the teachers' perspectives and the
difficulties they face. The researcher used qualitative design which included
interview and observation. The interview was conducted on the sample of the
study inquiring about teachers’ qualifications (all of them are B.A) and their
experience (1 year and 25 years). The study findings showed that teachers have
vague understanding about the storytelling technique and they sometimes use
this technique in their teaching. In addition, all of them say that this technique
has many benefits to students and it can make students happy and easy to
understand the lessons. Finally, all of the teachers find that this technique is
difficult to use, needs time and places to be applied and causes noise. According
to the study results, the researcher recommends that teachers need further

training on the use of this technique because it is an important and effective
technique to get students memorize the lesson and it also attracts students'
attention, and it improves their prediction skills.

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TABLE OF CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGMENT ……………………………………………………....1
DECLARATION ……………………………………………………………….2
ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………….3

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
1. Background and problems statements …………………………………...….7
2. Objectives of the study …………………………………...……..…………… 9
3. Scope of the study …………………………………………………………… 9
4. Research questions …………………………………………………………. 9
5. Significance of the Study ………………………………………….…….....10
6. Method of the study………………………………………………………….10
7. Organization …………………….…………………………………………. 11
8. Definition of Key Term ……………………………………………………..11

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Role of speaking ……………………………………………………………13
2. Speaking teaching techniques ……...………………………………………14
3. Storytelling technique ……………………...…………………………..…..16

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3.1. The Benefits of Storytelling to Young Learners ………………….17
3.2. Procedures of Teaching Speaking with Storytelling Technique .. 21
4. Difficulties in applying storytelling technique ……………………………. 21
5. Previous Studies …………………………………………………………….23

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
1. Research design ……………………………………………………………. 28
2. Context of the Research …………………………………………………… 29
3. Participants ……………………………………………………………....... 31
4. Research instrument ………………………………………………………. 31
4.1. Interview ………………………………………………………….. 31
4.1.1. Conducting the Interview …………………………..…… 33
4.2. Observation ……………………………..………………………… 33
5. Data collection …………………………………………………………….. 34
6. Data Analysis ………………………………………………………………. 34
6.1. Interview Data Analysis procedure……………………………..… 35
6.2. Observation Data Analysis procedure………………………..….. 36

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
1. Teachers’ understanding and practicing storytelling technique…………39

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2. Storytelling is beneficial …....................…………………………………… 40
3. Teachers’ Challenges of Using Storytelling ……………………………….43

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
1. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………. 46

2. Suggestions ………………………………………………………………….48

REFERENCES ………………………………………………………….…….51
APPENDIX 1………………………………………………………………......54
APPENDIX 2 ………………………………………………………………….57

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents about background of study, statements of problem,
purpose and scope of the study, research questions, significance of the study and
organization.

1. Background and problems statement
The mastery of speaking skills in English is a priority for many second or
foreign language learners and teaching speaking in language classes plays an
important role. In the process of teaching speaking, teachers realize that there are
many difficulties to develop a speaking class. Teachers ask themselves if they
use suitable method to teach speaking or not. According to Biyaem (1997),
teachers face many troubles in English language teaching and learning, for
example, there aren’t enough equipped classrooms and educational technology.
Moreover Punthumasen (2007) found that most of students do not want to learn
English because they find this subject matter boring and teaching methods is not
interesting. In addition, there are not enough interesting textbooks and materials
in English which can encourage them to study.
In EFL teaching, a teacher should create a classroom environment where
students have real-life communication, authentic activities, and meaningful tasks
that promote the use of oral language. Nunan says that teachers should help their

students by establishing strategies to manage all forms of communication to
ensure that all students have fair and equitable opportunities to develop their
interpersonal speaking and listening skills. The teaching will be more interesting
if the teachers can create fun activities by applying some kinds of techniques that
fit the students’ level. These reasons support an idea that the language teachers at

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all levels in Tan Long School should use more interesting activities, technology
or suitable methods to improve their teaching.
One of the possible solutions for early English teaching is to apply
alternative teaching methods, such as language games, songs, role-play,
storytelling etc. Among them, storytelling technique has been widely used in
education and it brings many benefits in teaching language speaking. Many
researchers world-wide (Nunan 1988; Brumfit et al. 1991; Ellis and Brewster
1991; Wood 1998, Brewster et al. 2004; Write 2004 and others) suggest that
storytelling is an appropriate and effective way in enhancing young learners’
skills and interest in English and improving their learning output.
In conclusion, this study is conducted to explore more on how teachers’
view and their awareness of the role of storytelling in teaching English to Young
Learners. Additionally, this study is aimed to examine the teachers’ perspective
toward the use of storytelling to teach young learners in classroom. The
researcher expects that the findings of this study may provide both theoretical
and empirical evidence for teachers in promoting the use of storytelling to teach
young learners in classroom. Moreover, this research is also conducted to solve
the teachers’ problems in teaching speaking through storytelling.
At Tan Long Lower Secondary School, teachers have been using this
method, but it has not brought expected results. The lessons which apply
storytelling technique are not included in the curriculum, so these lessons are

always taught after school. There is always lack of time as well as lack of
classrooms, teaching aids, etc. As a result, students have very few opportunities
to practice speaking in storytelling classroom and their speaking abilities do not
improve much.

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2. Objectives of the study
- To find out whether teachers understand about teaching storytelling technique
process or not.
- To investigate how teachers apply storytelling technique in their speaking
classroom
-

To investigate the difficulties that teachers face when teaching speaking

through storytelling technique

3. Scope of the study
The scope of this study is the use of storytelling in speaking class used by 2
English teachers.
This research is conducted at Tan Long Lower Secondary School, Thai
Nguyen province because this school uses Storytelling as a method to teach
speaking skills to young learners. Therefore, the researcher want to examine the
teachers’ perspective toward the use of storytelling to teach young learners in
classroom and solve the teachers’ problems in teaching speaking through
storytelling

4. Research questions

Based on the objectives stated above, the study aims to answer the
following research questions:
- How do teachers understand and practice storytelling technique?
- What difficulties do they experience?

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5. Significance of the Study
This study attempts to describe the teaching English for sixth grade
students using storytelling in speaking class at Tan Long Lower Secondary
School, Thai Nguyen Province. The findings of the study contributed a number
of strong points to the school principal, English teachers and researchers of the
related fields.
First of all, the school principal together with the education managers was
aware of the teachers’ challenges from the information the researchers provided.
The school principal would give directions to support teachers in conducting the
method.
Secondly, the study was also significant for the teachers. It was expected
that the English teachers could have deeper understanding about the technique
and the effectiveness of using storytelling and they would know what they need
supporting. It means that the result of the study can be used as a feedback by the
teacher to improve their teaching.
Finally, the study could give contribution to other researchers as
references in conducting further researchers.

6. Method of the study
The researcher decided to use quanlitative method because the main
content of this study would be based on the information collected from the
interview and observation. Qualitative method would help the researcher collect

the most precise and pertinent information for the study.
This study followed method steps below: (1) Prepare questions for the
interview with teachers; (2) Collect information from the interview to analyse;
(3) Attend teachers who use storytelling in teaching speaking; (4) Observe
teachers’ activities applied in the classroom.

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7. Organization
This minor thesis is divided into five chapters:
Chapter I with the title “INTRODUCTION”. This part provides
information about the reason for choosing the study, the aims, the scopes,
method and the design of the study.
Chapter II is “LITERATURE REVIEW”, which provides all
information related to the study.
Chapter III discusses “METHODOLOGY”, which studies subjects and
methods of study as well as the analysis of data collected.
Chapter IV is about “FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION”, which results
from the investigation of the factual situation in teaching speaking applying
storytelling technique at Tan Long Lower Secondary School.
Chapter V is “CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS” which gives an
overview on the achievement of the thesis and suggestions to the education
managers, teachers and future researchers.

8. Definition of Key Term
In order to avoid misunderstanding of the idea in this study, the key are
defined as follow:
1. Storytelling is a process in which a person (the teller) using
vocalization, narrative structure, and mental imagery communicates

with the audience who also uses mental imagery and, in turn,
communicates back to the teller primarily via body language and facial
expression. The communication cycle is ongoing, and in the process, a
“story” is created (Roney, 1996). So, storytelling is a teller who telling

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a story which are they can make the story more alive and they can
bring the audience to feel the atmosphere of the story.
2. Technique were the specific activities manifested in the classroom that
were consistent with a method and therefore were in harmony with an
approach as well (Brown, 2007). Technique is a way or steps that
doing by someone to implementation a method.
3. Speaking is the verbal use of language to communicate with other
(Fulcher, in Bambang 2008). Speaking is an activity that always using
in our daily activities to communicate with the other person.
4. Teaching speaking is showing or helping someone to learn how to
speak or communicate orally, giving interaction, guiding in the study
of speaking or how to speak using verbal language (Kimble &
Garmezy, in Bambang 2008). Teaching speaking is an activity to teach
someone, how to speak in a good manner.

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CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, the role of speaking is presented and then follows by
speaking teaching techniques and storytelling technique. Toward the end of the

chapter, the difficulties in applying storytelling are given.

1. Role of speaking
Speaking is considered as the most important skill of the learner and it is
enormous for the learners of any language. Burns and Joyce say that the aim of
most language programs is to integrate both spoken and written languages but
the emphasis is given to speaking. The emphasis that is given to speaking in a
language program bases on the need and goals of the students and the focus of
the course. Richard and Renandya8 state that a large percentage of the world’s
language learners study English in order to develop speaking skills.
We know how important air, food and water are to human life and also
speaking skills is indispensable in communication and it is the crucial tool in
human life. According to Brown (1994: 64), speaking ability is “a skill in
producing oral language”. It is not only utterance but also a tool for people to
communicate with others, to express ideas and to know others’ ideas as well.
According to 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 becomes a process to share information among people in
any field of lives. It can be inferred that speaking is giving ideas, opinions, or
feelings to others by using words or sounds of articulation in order to inform, to
persuade, and to entertain that can be learnt by using some teaching-learning
methodologies.

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Hornby (1995:826) stated that speaking is making use of words in an
ordinary voice, offering words, knowing and being able to use a language
expressing one-self in words, and making speech. Therefore the writer infers that
speaking uses the word and produces the sound to express ourselves either ideas,

feeling, thought and needs orally in an ordinary voice. Furthermore, success in
communication often depends on speaking skill.
Communication takes place, where there is speech. Without speech we
cannot communicate with one another. The importance of speaking skills, hence
is enormous for the learners of any language. Without speech, a language is
reduced to a mere script. The use of language is an activity which takes place
within the confines of our community. We use language in a variety of
situations. People at their work places, i.e. researchers working either in a
medical laboratory or in a language laboratory, are supposed to speak correctly
and effectively in-order to communicate well with one another. Any gap in
commutation results in misunderstandings and problems.
Moreover, Tarigan (1990:3-4) defines that speaking is a language skill
that is developed in child life, which is produced by listening skill, and at that
period speaking skill is learned. So speaking skill has more impact on student
growth. Speaking skill not only improve in pronunciation but also move students
on developing other language skills such as reading, writing and listening.

2. Speaking teaching techniques
Speaking is the way of people to express and communicate ideas to others
orally. According to Gert and Hans in Efrizal (2012: 127), speaking is speech or
utterances produced by the speaker with an intention of being known and then,
the listener processes the sayings in order to know the speaker’s intention.
Irawati (2014: 26) defines speaking as an activity to produce sayings in the form
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of words and sentences orally in order to communicate with others. Meanwhile,
Khorashadyzadeh (2014: 12) states that speaking needs not only the learners’
understanding about the way to produce the linguistic competence such as
grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary but also comprehension about

sociolinguistic competence such as when, why , and how to speak. Bahadorfar
and Omidvar (2015: 9) say that speaking skills can be categorized as good
speaking skill when the listener can understand the words produced by the
speaker.
Additionally, Ur in Akhyak and Indramawan (2013: 20) says that the
successful speaking activity has the some characteristics. Firstly, the language
learners want to talk as much as possible. Secondly, all the participants of
speaking activity get the opportunity to speak. Thirdly, the language learners are
highly motivated and they have interest in the speaking. Finally, the language
produced is at the acceptable level.
Speaking is the uniquely human act or process of sharing and exchanging
information, ideas, and emotions using oral language. The goal of speaking is to
achieve an interactive communication between the speaker and the listener. The
lecturers and the students themselves express their deep expectation that the
students are able to speak English fluently in class and in the society as well.
Teaching speaking is the activity where the teachers lead their students to
improve their ability in expressing emotions, ideas or feelings orally.
Five principles for teaching speaking (Nunan, 2007: 54-56):
1) Be aware of the differences between second language and foreign
language learning contexts;
2) Give students practice with both fluency and accuracy;

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3) Provide opportunities for students to talk by using group work or pair
work and limiting teacher talk;
4) Plan speaking tasks that involve negotiation for meaning; and
5) Design classroom activities that involve guidance and practice in both
transactional and interactional speaking.

To improve the speaking ability of the students, there are many techniques
that can be used such as practicing dialogues, playing games, singing songs,
storytelling, oral reporting, role playing, small group discussions, giving
speeches, news reading, poetry reading and debates. Storytelling is suitable for
young learners to improve the speaking abilities.

3. Storytelling technique
One of the techniques that can be used and applied in classroom activities
is a story-retelling. Wendelin (1991, in Farris10) said that engaging students in
story-retelling activities develop communication skills and encourages shared
learning experiences. As we all know, stories have always played a significant
role in student’s growth. Stories not only help in stimulating student’s
imagination and understanding of the world, but also in developing students
speaking ability (Alex, 1988; Cooper, 1989; Koki, 1998; Zobairi and Gulley,
1989). Retelling stories enhances oral language and sharpen listening. Speaking
ability is improved through attention to articulation and volume. The confidence
in speaking before a group is required in the accepting environment of the
classroom. Students have the chances to practice various intonations and reflect
a range of emotions in their voices. They are faced with the need to select just
the right word to convey a thought. When they listen to their friends telling
stories, they also evaluate and appreciate the expression of others.

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Storytelling is an activity and at the heart of this activity is a story. The
story may be narrated orally, or presented in the written medium (or media),
through a reenactment or series of reenactments (skits, plays, dramatisation), or
recorded on film and stored electronically in a digital form, or through a
combination of oral, narrative, music and performance art forms such as art or

dance. According to King 2007, stories are valuable sources of imagination,
creativity, wisdom and comfort.
The reason to recommended story telling in teaching speaking process is
that stories are motivating and immensely interesting, can best attract listeners
and promote communication. According to Cooter (1991) cited in XuJianing
(2007), “The excitement and drama of storytelling provide a context that holds
students attention”. King 2007 described her personal experiences and using the
collaborative story making process with both young people and adults in various
school systems. The writer stated that collaborative story making established
many opportunities for students to create wonderful stories from stories, using
image making and abstract prompts. She claimed that the iterative process
expands and improves students’ oral and written expression. King invited other
educators to include collaborative story making in their instructional repertoire
to stimulate their own and their students’ reading, writing speaking and listening
skills, and to bring up a supportive learning community.

3.1. The Benefits of Storytelling to Young Learners
A lot of studies have found that storytelling is very useful to young
learners. The benefits of storytelling have been discovered in the previous
research. Some of the experts have found that there are some benefits of using
storytelling in learning process.

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One of the most outstanding benefits is that Storytelling can grab
students’ attention. Isbell et all. (2004), as cited in Miller and Pennycuff (2008)
claimed storytelling as an effective strategy for keeping students’ interest.
Moreover, Storytelling is known as the efficient and motivating approaches to
teaching English to young learners, and there are numerous books and articles on

the subject by different authors (Nunan 1988; Brumfit et al. 1991; Ellis and
Brewster 1991; Wood 1998, Wright 2004 and others).
Secondly, Storytelling can help students a lot in communication.
Sometimes, children feel shy to ask a question, even though their mind is filled
with curiosity. Storytelling helps children in learning the art of asking the right
question. It also tells them how to strike a perfect conversation and makes them
more confident. Regular reading and listening can make them better orators too (
According to Riley and Burrell 2007).
The third advantage of using Storytelling in class is sharpening students’
memory. By using certain smart ideas, teachers can use storytelling to help
increase students’ memory. Once teachers have read out the story, teachers can
ask students to repeat the same after a few days. Alternatively, teachers can ask
students to describe the story up till the present. This is a fun way to increase
students’ memory and encourage concentration. It was similar to Hendrickson
(1992) stated that listening to stories can help students to sharpen their memory
skill. It can be concluded that the meaning of sharpening students’ memory skill
was by helping them to memorize.
The forth benefit is increasing students’ self-confidence. Storytelling is
one of the simplest and quickest ways of establishing a happy relation between
teacher and students in teaching and learning speaking process, it is one of the
most effective methods to make the students more interest in learning speaking
and make the students to speak up bravely. Handayani (2013, p.1) claimed that

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storytelling can encourage students to explore their unique expressiveness and
can heighten a student’s ability to communicate thoughts and feelings, which can
make students confident to speak in front of class.
The fifth benefit of Storytelling also has been declared by other experts,

that is increasing students’ vocabulary. Rokhayani (2010) holds that with
meaningful contexts, natural repetition, engaging characters and interesting
plots, stories can be used to develop children’s language skills, such as listening,
using their imagination and predicting. In addition, young learners are always
eager to listen to stories, naturally want to understand what is happening in the
story and enjoy looking at story books, which increases their motivation to grasp
the meaning of new English words, when they start English lessons (Rokhayani
2010). According to Robins and Ehri (1994), kindergartens’ vocabulary can be
increased by listening to the stories. Peggy, Sharolyn, & Sharon (2004) similarly
stated that other specific areas of language and literacy competency critical to
English language learners' development of language and comprehension skills
include, but are not limited to, the development of increased flexibility of
English-language use; learning words (vocabulary) in context.
It shows that storytelling have benefits for young learners’ vocabulary
development. Young learners’ vocabulary could be increased by listening to the
story because young learners will hear some vocabulary, then memorize and
apply them in the daily life conversation. It will also increase the flexibility of
English-language use by young learners especially in vocabulary. Moreover,
additional benefits of storytelling is it gives an opportunity for students to
expand their vocabulary as they decode the meaning of words, focused on the
context of the story they hear or read (Abdula, 2012). Huang also founded that in
term of vocabulary learning, storytelling serve as a steppingstones to the learning
of syntax as it demonstrates grammatical and syntactic features in meaningful
context.
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Storytelling also has great value for teachers in creating a relaxed and
comfortable atmosphere in the classroom. Storytelling technique can bring many
benefits, such as introducing children to story experiences; providing models of

story patterns, themes and characters to improve their thinking and oral
language; nurturing and encouraging a sense of humor in children, helping
children put their own words in the story as well as in a real conversation in
daily life. Through storytelling techniques, individuals can learn to express
themselves and make sense of the external world. Barzaq (2009) considered that
storytelling technique is a uniquely powerful linguistic and psychological one in
the hands of a language teacher. Stories can give coherence to a sequence of
teaching activities; stories can make a bridge between the students and their
interest, concern and learning needs.
Some other benefits of storytelling also have been mentioned by other
experts. Hendrickson (1992) stated that listening to stories helps students
develop their ability to understand the spoken language, become aware of
cultural values different from their own, sharpen their memory skills, develop
their ability to predict upcoming actions and events, and discriminate different
story genres and storytelling styles. It also provides opportunity to students for
speak the foreign language creatively, to integrate information and knowledge
they learned from other sources, and to become more confidence in their ability
to express themselves spontaneously. Barzaq (2009) found that storytelling that
are imaginative and express a wonderful style an important role in language
development, telling stories to children can motivate them to read more.
Storytelling experiences connected the students to schools by participating as
listeners was an important act of negotiation and diplomacy, after discussion the
researcher concluded that children will be familiar to main element of the story
that enhances their study skills and they can recognize the elements of any
learning text of knowledge, stories introduce students to all aspects of new

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language either rhythm, vocabulary, the grammatical structures or the

meaningful utterance. Stories create authentic worlds in the classroom. They also
increase entertainment and enjoyment in the classroom environment.

3.2. Procedures of Teaching Speaking with Storytelling Technique
Many researchers world- wide (Scott 1985; Brewster, Ellis and Girard
2004; Samantaray 2014; Fikriah 2016) recommended the procedures that can be
followed by teachers in applying storytelling in teaching speaking by their own
way. The researcher synthetized the most common procedures based on the
collected information:
(1) The teacher divides class into some groups, each group includes 5-6
students, the number of group depends on the number of students in the class.
(2) The teacher gives different written stories for groups to choose.
(3) The teacher asks every group take a paper from the white board
(4) The teacher asks them to develop a story in 15 - 20 minutes
(5) The teacher asks them to retell their story based on the group
discussion
(6) The teacher gives award to the group considered as the best group.

4. Difficulties in applying storytelling technique
Despite the numerous benefits of the storytelling method in the classroom,
some teachers experience certain difficulties in applying it.

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The lack of equipment and teaching aids is the first difficulty when using
Storytelling in class. According to Biyaem (1997), teachers face many troubles
in English language teaching and learning, for instance, inadequately equipped
classrooms and educational technology. In addition there are not enough
interesting textbooks and materials in English which can encourage them to

study. As Prapphal (2003) stresses that technology is a good instruction to help
students communicate, although it cannot be a substitute for a good language
teacher.
The second obstacle faced by teachers is the psychology of the learners.
As for the students, they are lack confidence to speak English with their teacher
and classmates because of the effect from their mother tongue, particular in
pronunciation. They also lack of opportunity to use English in their daily lives.
Many students could not use English skills effectively, especially listening and
speaking

(Jaiyai,

Torwong,

Usaha,

Danvirattana,

Luangthongkam

&

Piyadamrongchai, 2005). Moreover Punthumasen (2007) found that most of
students do not want to learn English because they find the subject matter boring
and also teaching methodology in the classroom is not interesting.
The next challenge is lack of ideas. Teachers tend to have the same idea in
every storytelling performance. Setyariny (2011) also points out that stories that
exist in the market are limited and not adequate for teaching, and teachers
therefore have the challenge of having to create their own stories.
In addition, the noise in class or the limited time is also the difficulties

which get teachers ignore the use of this technique. Awad Sulaiman Keshta (
2013) states that storytelling has not been the main teaching method and the
lessons using storytelling are outside the students’ syllabus, that is the obstacles
faced by the teachers in implementing the storytelling method in their teaching.
Therefore, the time to develop the storytelling technique is not available.

22


Setyariny also found that A large number of students is a challenge to the
teacher’s ability to manage the class well. The students seem reluctant to
concentrate and follow the teacher’s instruction and the noise in class is
inevitable.
In our hometown, Thai Nguyen city, when teachers use storytelling
technique as a method in speaking classroom, they also face with some
obstacles. Most of the teachers said that the text book used for teaching English
at school is not helpful. It neglected the important language skills: speaking
skills. There is no speaking test in the curriculum so teachers concentrate mainly
on grammar as the main aspect of learning English and neglected other
classroom activities. In fact, students do not feel comfortable in taking part in
speaking classes because they feel unconfident to express their ideas and be
afraid of making grammar mistakes when speaking. Teachers have real
difficulties when using this technique, sometimes because of the lack of time or
because of the noise inside the class. This may be attributed to the lack of
knowledge and training of this technique. These reasons support an idea that Tan
Long language teachers at all levels should use more interesting activities,
technology, web-based projects, online self-tests, and electronic portfolio to
supplement their teaching.

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