Đang tải... (xem toàn văn)
A study on using Role Play to motivate the 10th form students in speaking lessons at Lao Cai boarding upper secondary school, Lao Cai province –An experiment
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs. Do Thanh Tra, M.A for her valuable guidance, encouragement, correction, helpful suggestions, careful and detailed comments from the preparation to the completion of this study. I am also grateful to all teachers of English and students at Lao Cai boarding upper- secondary school, who supplied useful data for the study. In addition, I wish to acknowledge the assistance and encouragement of my teachers in the Foreign Language Department at Tay Bac University. Last but not least, my thanks are given to my family members, my friends who have always supported me to carry out this thesis. Son La, May, 2013 Tran Phuong An ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using role play to motivate students in speaking lesson. The research was carried out at Lao Cai boarding upper secondary school over 70 tenth grade students divided into two groups. The experimental group was taught in the lessons using role play. The control group was taught in the lessons used traditional method without using role play. Data for the research was collected from observation sheets, questionnaires, and interviews. Finding from these instruments reveals that using role play can increase students ‘motivation in speaking lesson. It is recommended that teachers should use role play to motivate students in learning. LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Figure A: Result from fifteen minutes test 17 Figure B: Result from forty five minutes test 17 Table 1: Timetable of two groups 18 Table 2: Pearson Correlation of observation sheet 1 21 Table 3: Pearson Correlation of observation sheet 2 22 Figure 2: On-task in role play periods 26 Figure 3: On-task behavior during the experiment 26 Figure 4: Overall class motivation in non- role play periods 27 Figure 5: overall class motivation in role-play periods 28 Figure 6: Overall class motivation druing the experiment 28 Table 4: Data collected from pre-task survey questionnaire. 30 Figure 7: Perspectives of four language skills 31 Figure 8: Students’ attitudes towards speaking skill 31 Figure 9: Perspectives of the speaking topics and speaking activities introduced in the textbook 32 Figure 10: Students’ paticipation in speaking lessons 32 Figure 11: Students' preferences of teacher's techniques exploited in speaking classes 33 Table 5: Data collected from post- task survey questionnaire 35 Figure 12: The students’ attitudes towards role play 36 Figure 13: Students’ participation in role play 36 Figure 14: Students’ participation in speaking lessons 37 Figure 15: Benefits of using role play in speaking classes 38 Figure 16: Students’ preference for teachers’ activities 39 Figure 17: The frequency of exploiting role play 40 TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES TABLE OF CONTENT CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Rationale 1 1.2 Hypothesis 2 1.3 Research question 2 1.4 Objectives of the study 2 1.5 Research method 2 1.6 Scope of the study 3 1.7 Overview of the study 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4 2.1 Theoretical background of speaking 4 2.1.1 Definition of speaking 4 2.1.2 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity 5 2.1.3 Definition of teaching speaking 5 2.1.4 Classroom Speaking Activities 6 2.1.4.1 Definition of role play 6 2.1.4.2 Types and Procedures in Using Role Play 7 2.1.4.2.1 Scripted Role Play 8 2.1.4.2.2 Unscripted Role Play 9 2.1.4.3 Significance of Role Play in Teaching Speaking 10 2.2 Theoretical background of motivation 11 2.2.1. Definitions of motivation 11 2.2.2 Types of motivation 12 2.2.2.1. Extrinsic motivation 12 2.2.2.2. Intrinsic motivation 12 2.2.3. The importance of motivation in foreign languages learning 13 2.2.4 Factors affecting learner’s motivation in language learning 13 2.3 Summary 15 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 16 3.1. The setting of the study 16 3.2 Participants 16 3.3. Variable 18 3.4. The materials and learning program 19 3.5 Data collection instrument 20 3.5.1. Observation 20 3.5.2. Questionnaire 22 3.5.2.1. Pre-task survey questionnaire 23 3.5.2.2. Post-task survey questionnaire 23 3.5.3. Interview 23 3.6. Data collection procedure 23 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 25 4.1. Results from observation sheet 1 25 4.1.1 Results from control group 25 4.1.2. Result from experimental group 26 4.1.3. Comparison of student’ on-task behavior between two groups 26 4.2. Results from observation sheet 2 27 4.2.1. Results from control group 27 4.2.2. Results from experimental group 28 4.2.3. Comparison of overall class motivation between two groups 28 4.3. Results from questionnaires 29 4.3.1. Pre – task questionnaire 29 4.3.2. Post – task questionnaire 35 4.4. Results from interview 41 4.5. Major finding 41 4.6. Suggestion 42 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 43 REFERENCES APPENDIXES 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale It cannot be denied that nowadays English has become an international language that takes an important role in the social life of the world. It is considered as a tool of communication has been playing an important part in acquiring cultural, scientific and technical knowledge, for collecting worldwide information and carrying out international exchange and cooperation. Because of its importance, recent years, English has been taught in almost schools in Vietnam. In respond to an appeal from social to improve the quality of education toward regional and international standards, language institutions are marking great efforts to further promote the foreign language process. Since 2006 new English textbooks for students at grade 10, 11, 12 have been officially used in Vietnam. Speaking skill is one of the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) which the new English textbooks require students to master. Learning English is often related to learning how to speak the language. As Ur states of all the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), speaking seems intuitively the most important: people who know a language are referred to as “speaker” of that language, as if speaking included all other kinds of knowing; and many if not most foreign language learners are primarily interested in learning to speak (Ur, 1996). In practice, however, many learners feel frustrated as they find that speaking in a foreign language is a complex matter. It is because speaking involves many factors. The ability to speak fluently presupposes not only knowledge of language features, but also the ability to process information and language “on the spot” (Harmer, 2001). In learning speaking skill, the students often find some problems. The common problem is that their native language causes them difficult to use the foreign language. Other reason is because of motivation lack to practice the second language in daily conversation. They are also too shy and afraid to take part in the conversation. Many factors can cause the problem of the students’ speaking skills namely the students’ interest, the 2 material, and the media among others including the technique in teaching English. Many techniques including role play can be applied because many research findings say that this technique is effective to use in teaching speaking. Role play is very important in teaching speaking because it gives students an opportunity to practice communicating in different social contexts and in different social roles. In addition, it also allows students to be creative and to put themselves in another person’s place for a while. The idea of applying role play techniques in order to motivate students to speak English is not a recent practice; however, in Vietnam this technique has not been fully exploited by teachers in English classes due to some limitations in English Teaching. All the above-mentioned reasons and factors have inspired the writer to conduct a research titled “A study on using Role Play to motivate the 10 th form students in speaking lessons at Lao Cai boarding upper secondary school, Lao Cai province –An experiment.” 1.2 Hypothesis Using role play can increase students’ motivation in learning speaking. 1.3 Research question The study is carried out to answer the question: Can using role play increase students’ motivation in speaking lessons? 1.4 Objectives of the study The main objectives of this study are: - To study theoretical background knowledge related to speaking skill, role play in teaching English, students’ motivation when learning speaking with and without using role play. - To compare how students are interested in learning speaking with and without using role play to find out whether using role play can increase students’ motivation in learning speaking. 1.5 Research method In order to answer the research question, the author has used experimental method in this study. The experiment was carried out with some data collection 3 instruments including: - Classroom observation - Survey questionnaire - Post – class interview 1.6 Scope of the study This study mainly focuses on the effects of using role play to increase the 10 th form students’ motivation in speaking lessons. 1.7 Overview of the study This study comprises five chapters. Chapter 1(Introduction) states the rationale, the research question, the method, the scope and the design of the study. Chapter 2 (Literature review) presents the literature review of the study including theoretical background of speaking, role play and motivation. Chapter 3 (Methodology) describes the research method in this study, consists information of the setting, the participant, data collection instrument and procedure. Chapter 4 (Results and discussion) illustrates and discusses the results taken from the experiment and implication. Chapter 5 (Conclusion) includes the summary, limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies. 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter presents the literature review of the study. It will be devoted to focus on the basic issues of speaking and role play. Besides, the concepts of motivation will be discussed in the light of different approaches. 2.1 Theoretical background of speaking 2.1.1 Definition of speaking Speaking is crucially important for the whole learning process. Lerris (2003) stated that speaking makes you a more fluent language user, speaking is a chance to notice the gaps between what you want to say and what you can say, it is a chance to test hypotheses about language. The terms “speaking” catches much attention of linguistics. Therefore, many definitions have been offered to this term so far. In Oxford Advanced Dictionary (1995), the definition of speaking is to express or communicate opinions, feelings, ideas, etc., by or as talking and it involves the activities in the part of the speaker as psychological, physiological (articulator) and physical (acoustic) stages. According to Brown (1994), Burns and Joyce (1997), speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information. Chaney (1998:119) defined speaking “is the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non- verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts”. Based on Byrne (2001), speaking can be understood as the ability to express oneself opinions. Hedge (2000) said that speaking is oral expression, the use of the sounds in the patterns of rhythm and intonation. While another expert, Huebner (1960:5) believed “Language is essentially speech, and speech is basically communication by sounds”. And according to him, speaking is a skill used by someone in daily life communication whether at school or outside. The skill is acquired by much repetition; it primarily a neuromuscular and not an intellectual process. It consists of competence in sending and receiving messages. 5 From the above definitions, it can be inferred that speaking is expressing 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 and learning methodologies. 2.1.2 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity There are many characteristics of a successful speaking activity which are introduced by Ur (1996:120) as follows: • Learners talk a lot: As much as possible of the period time allotted to the activity is in fact occupied by learner talk. This may seem obvious, but often most time is taken up with the teacher and talk and pauses. • Participation is even: Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority of talkative participants: all get a chance to speak and contributions are fairly evenly distributed. • Motivation is high: Learners are eager to speak because they are interested in the topic and have something new to say about it, or because they want to contribute to achieving a task objective. • Language is of an acceptable level: Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other and of an acceptable level of language accuracy. In practice, however, few classroom activities succeed in satisfying all the criteria mentioned above. Therefore, language teachers should make great efforts to employ a variety of effective techniques to create some of the mentioned-above criteria. 2.1.3 Definition of teaching speaking Speaking is a crucial part of second language learning and teaching. Despite its importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues. However, today's world requires that the goal of teaching speaking should improve students' communicative skills, because, only in that way, students can express [...]... affirmed that the most important factor in second language acquisition success is motivation To sum up, motivation affects the extent of active, personal involvement in second language learning It is one of the main determining factors in success in foreign language 2.2.4 Factors affecting learner’s motivation in language learning There are many factors that affect students motivation such as the teacher... exploited to motivate students in these speaking lessons C Listening This part consists of monologue conversation and dialogue relating to topic of each unit They all aim to help students practice listening comprehension skill, consolidate, and correct mistake and pronunciation D Writing There are many types of tanks including writing letter (formal, informal, invitation… ), describing information from the. .. participant in this study was one English teacher at Lao Cai boarding upper secondary school Mrs Nguyen Lan Huong taught in both groups and the researcher was observer In order to increase the correlation of the observation Mrs Huong was also a co-observer in six speaking lessons she taught 3.3 Variable In this study, experimental lesson plans including role play and lesson plans following textbook are independent... that role play is a technique which involves fantasy or imagination to be someone else or to be ourselves in a specific situation for a while, improvising dialogue and creating a real world in scenario It can help students to encourage thinking and creativity, lets students develop and practice new language and behavioral skills in a relatively non-threatening setting, and can create the motivation and... stated that even the most carefully activities will normally motivate 14 learners only if they are related to their interest, needs and aspiration……., it is a good idea to consult with the learners about topic and activities, and get them to bring class materials they are interested in In conclusion, from about discussion it can be learnt that among the factors affecting student’s motivation, teacher’... boredom and linguistic behavior like verbal communication or interaction among subjects (Nachmias, 1996) Observations were made in six speaking lessons In this study the teacher collaborated with one teacher of English at Lao Cai boarding upper secondary school Data was collected and recorded in observation sheet 1 and observation sheet 2 while the students were working with and without role play activities... in conversation are liberated In addition, it is fun and most learners will agree that enjoyment leads to better learning Several reasons for using role play in teaching speaking quoted from Ladousse (1995) as follows: a A very wide variety of experience can be brought into the classroom and we can train our students in speaking skill in any situations through role play b Role play puts students in. .. 2.2.2.2 Intrinsic motivation On the contrary to extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation occurs when people are internally motivated to do something Ryan &Deci (2000:54) point out that intrinsic motivation is inherent satisfaction rather than for some separable consequences It also stated by Woldkowski (1991) that intrinsic motivation is the natural tendency to seek out, conquer challenges as we purse... questions for each one 3) Call two students to the front: one play the role as Angela and the other one is the post office clerk They should improvise the conversation using the 8 prompts to help them Point out that the conversation should be similar to the one in the textbook, but not exactly the same; the conversation can be shorter than the presentation dialogue It should just cover the main points indicated... section Looking at the role of the teacher as motivator, Byrne (2001:139) confirmed “Whatever you are doing in the classroom, your ability to motivate students, to arouse their interest and involve them in what they are doing, will be crucial” It can be inferred that among factors relating teacher, which can have effect on learner motivations, teacher’ personality and manner; teachers’ knowledge as well