VINH UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES TRAN ANH PHUONG USING MIND MAP TO IMPROVE 10 TH GRADERS’ PRESENTATION SKILL IN SPEAKING CLASS MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION NGHE AN, 2014 2 VINH UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES TRAN ANH PHUONG USING MIND MAP TO IMPROVE 10 TH GRADERS’ PRESENTATION SKILL IN SPEAKING CLASS Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Code: 60.14.01.11 MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION Supervisor: Tran Ba Tien, Ph.D. Nghe An, 2014 4 STATEMENTS OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that this thesis is the result of my own study and that it has not been submitted to any other universities and institution wholly and partially. All statements of my thesis which are not my own are written in quotation and can be shown in the list of references. Nghe An, 2014 Author Tran Anh Phuong v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been completed without the support of many people. First, and foremost I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor Dr. Tran Ba Tien for his assistance, encouragement and guidance. I would like to convey my thanks to all my teachers at the Post Graduate Faculty, Department of Foreign Languages, Vinh University whose fundamental knowledge about langue teaching and learning is of great importance to the achievement of my academic study. Finally, I should like to express the warmest gratitude to my colleagues, friends, students, especially my beloved family. I feel greatly indebted to them for their essential help and encouragement vi ABSTRACT It is the fact that speaking, as well as presenting skill, is an important language skill, however, the teaching and learning English speaking are far from satisfactory. What are the reasons? This study aims to investigate students’ and teachers’ attitudes toward presenting skill as well as their difficulties in learning and teaching the skill in a speaking lesson. The factors that cause those difficulties are also stated. To achieve the aims of the study, survey questionnaires for 135 students were designed and used as the data collection tools. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed to analyze collected results and create a detailed description of the real teaching context. Once the problems have been identified, some suggestions for teacher and students to improve presenting skill by using mind map would be given. It is shown that students have made higher gains in presentation. The result was recognized by post-task questionnaires done by both students and teachers. The improvements are also seen in the class observation collections which were recorded and then tape-scripted. Mind- mapping has been considered an effective tool for both students and teachers in learning and teaching presenting skill. This study investigates how mind map can help to solve the problems with learning and teaching presenting skill as well as teacher’s and learner’s attitudes toward using mind map as a tool learning and teaching English. vii ABBREVIATIONS CA : Communication Apprehension CLT : Communicative Language Teaching EFL : English as Foreign Language ESL : English as Second Language L1 : First Language L2 : Second Language viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Pages STATEMENTS OF AUTHORSHIP v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi ABSTRACT vii ABBREVIATIONS viii TABLE OF CONTENTS ix LIST OF TABLES xii Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. Rationale 1 1.2. Aims of the study 2 1.3. Research questions 2 1.4. Scope of the study 2 1.5. Methods of the study 2 1.6. Design of the Study 3 Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 4 2.1. Previous studies related to the research 4 2.2. Theoretical backgrounds of teaching speaking skills 5 2.2.1. Definition of speaking 5 2.2.2. Characteristics of speaking 6 2.2.3. What makes speaking difficult? 7 2.2.4. Aspects of teaching speaking skills in language class 8 2.2.5. Principles of teaching speaking 9 2.2.6. Types of classroom Speaking performance 10 2.2.7. Three stages in a speaking lesson 11 2.3. Presentation 13 2.3.1. What is presentation? 13 2.3.2. Factors affecting students’ presentation 14 2.4. Mind map 20 2.4.1. What is a mind map? 20 2.4.2. Characteristics of mind map 21 2.4.3. Advantages of mind maps 21 ix 2.4.4. How to draw a mind map 22 2.4.6. Activities in teaching with mind map 23 Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY 25 3.1. The research context 25 3.1.1. The participants 25 3.1.2. Textbook 26 3.2. Research methods 27 3.3. Research instruments 28 3.3.1. Questionnaires 28 3.3.2. Interviews 29 3.3.3. Data collection procedure 29 3.4. Data analysis 30 Chapter 4 FINDINGS AND DISSCUSSION 31 4.1. Pre-task questionnaire for students 31 4.1.1. Students’ attitudes toward presenting skill. 31 4.1.2. Students’ interest in presenting 32 4.1.3. Students’ reluctance in presenting 32 4.1.4. Students’ participation in presenting lessons. 33 4.1.5. Factors making students reluctant to present. 35 4.1.6. Factors deterring students’ presenting. 36 4.2. Pre-task questionnaire for teachers 37 4.2.1. Teachers’ attitude toward presenting skill 37 4.2.2. Factors making teaching presenting difficult 38 4.2.3. Time limitation 39 4.2.4. Students’ unwillingness 40 4.2.5. Factors causing students’ unwillingness when presenting 41 4.2.6. Factors preventing students from presenting 43 4.3. Post-task questionnaire for students 45 4.3.2. Question 2: Do you feel mind map easy to use? 46 4.3.4. Question 4: How can mind map help you to feel more confident when presenting? 48 4.3.5. Question 5: How often do you want to use mind map to present?49 4.4. Post-task questionnaire for teachers 50 4.4.1. Teachers’ interest in using mind map 50 50 4.4.2. Question 2: What can mind map help your students in their presenting? 51 x [...]... teacher’s and students’ difficulties in teaching and learning presenting skill? 2 What are students' and teachers’ attitudes in using mind- map in English speaking class? 3 What are suggestions for using mind- map in English speaking class? 1.4 Scope of the study The research is focuses on using mind- map to help 10th form graders at Nghen High School to present in speaking lessons 1.5 Methods of the study... to teaching and learning presenting skill 2.4 Mind map 2.4.1 What is a mind map? Mind mapping is a way of linking key concepts using images, lines and links A central concept is linked via lines to other concepts which in turn are linked with other associated ideas It is similar as a technique to concept mapping and spider diagrams, the difference being that true mind mapping involves constructing a... How mind map help you to feel more confident when presenting 48 Chart 4.10 How mind map help you to feel more confident when presenting 48 Chart 4.11.How often do you want to use mind map to present 49 xii Table 4.14 Teachers’ interest in using mind map 50 Table 4.15 What mind map helps your students in their presenting? 51 Chart 4.12 What mind map helps your students in their presenting... (2013) did a research on using story telling to develop oral skill for the 8 th graders in speaking lesson Yen (2013) explored the way to use short stories ti improve speaking skill of students at pe-intermediate level In her thesis, using role play to enhance English speaking skills for the 10th graders at Nghi Loc IV high school, Hang (2011) propose suggestions to develop speaking skill for students at... Procedure: - Conducting survey on the students’ learning style, and their problems in presentation in English Speaking Class 2 - Giving questionnaires to investigate students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards mind map as well as teachers’ comments on using mind map to teach presenting in speaking classes 1.6 Design of the Study The thesis consists of the following main parts: Chapter 1: Introduction presents... first of all, need to get to know mind map, its roles, and necessary in their learning and then students themselves know how to design a mind map and use it effectively Tran Dinh Chau (2012, p.23) suggests the following steps to make a mind map Step1: get to know mind map 22 Step2: practice drawing a mind map by completing a given one with missing branches, contents Step 3: Create a mind map (on a sheet... useful tool in teaching English Mind map which may be very helpful to teaching and learning such difficult skill as presenting, but up to now there no investigation on this 2.2 Theoretical backgrounds of teaching speaking skills 2.2.1 Definition of speaking It is clear that speaking is the main and the most popular means of communication of human There are many definitions of speaking: According to Byrne... Chart 4.5.Factors causing students’ unwillingness when presenting 42 Table 4.11 Factors preventing students presenting 43 Chart 4.6 Factors prevent students presenting 43 Chart 4.7 Students’ interest in mind map 45 Chart 4.8 Students’ feeling of easiness to use mind map .46 Table 4.12 What mind map helps student .47 47 Chart 4.9 What mind map helps student... then developed mind mapping software, iMindMap which has been considered as a great way to improve recall and increase the ability to speed read Now, many people use mind mapping to enhance their productivity, think outside of the box, and reduce procrastination 20 An example of mind map made by the author’s students 2.4.2 Characteristics of mind map Four main characteristics of a mind map: - There is... are as follow: - to emphasize the importance of presenting skill in learning English - to suggest ways to use mind- map to stimulate the 10th form students in Nghen High School in presentation tasks in an English speaking class - to provide a tool for teachers of English to prepare English speaking lessons at Nghen High school 1.3 Research questions The study is to answer the following research questions: . difficulties in teaching and learning presenting skill? 2. What are students' and teachers’ attitudes in using mind- map in English speaking class? 3. What are suggestions for using mind- map in English. PHUONG USING MIND MAP TO IMPROVE 10 TH GRADERS’ PRESENTATION SKILL IN SPEAKING CLASS Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Code: 60.14.01.11 MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION Supervisor:. VINH UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES TRAN ANH PHUONG USING MIND MAP TO IMPROVE 10 TH GRADERS’ PRESENTATION SKILL IN SPEAKING CLASS MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION NGHE AN, 2014 2 VINH