HA NOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGES FACULTY LE THI DIEU A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING DEBATE TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILLS OF THE TENTH-GRADE STUDENTS AT DONG ANH HIGH SCHOOL SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ART IN ENGLISH HÀ NỘI, 2017 HA NOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGE FACULTY LE THI DIEU A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING DEBATE TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILLS OF THE TENTH-GRADE STUDENTS AT DONG ANH HIGH SCHOOL SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ART IN ENGLISH SUPERVISOR: MRS NGUYEN THI LE NGUYEN, MA HÀ NỘI, 2017 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would never have been able to finish my research without the guidance of my supervisor, the help from friends, and the support from my family Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor M.A Nguyễn Thị Lê Nguyên for her patience, encouragement, enthusiasm and continuous support on my study Her guidance helped me in all my time of writing the research I could not have imagined having a better supervisor and mentor My sincere thanks go to all of my fellows for their willingness to help me at any time when I was lost or in trouble Last but not least, I take this opportunity to express my deepest thanks to my family for their giant support, encouragement and love i ABSTRACT This study is based on the importance of speaking skill Speaking is important to be learnt because it is the way to communicate with other people in order to deliver opinions and express ideas, but in fact, the students’ ability of speaking English is low This research was aimed to see the effectiveness of debate technique in teaching English speaking The sample was thirty six tenth grade students at Dong Anh High school Eighteen students of 10A3 class were treated as the experimental group and eighteen students coming from 10A2 class were as the control group The writer employed experimental design and used both quantitative and qualitative methods with convenience sampling The research instrument were oral speaking tests( pre-test and post-test),a questionnaire and video-based observation Based on the data collected from test scores the researcher found out there was a significant difference in the main gains between the students’ speaking scores taught by classroom debate and students taught without it The implementation of classroom debate increased the students’ speaking scores In addition, the other purpose of this study was to make an inquiry about students’ perceptions on employing classroom debate to improve speaking skills All students from 10A3 class at Dong Anh High school were assigned to take part in speaking classes in which used debate technique in seven weeks Based on the data collected from survey questionnaire, the researcher found out that the students believed that debates made their speaking class more interesting and effective Moreover, learning speaking through debate boosted their confidence, and helped them overcome the stage of fright to talk more Last but not least, the findings from video recordings indicated that during the speaking lessons applying debate students’ teamwork skill was developed They were more active in the class and showed their enthusiasm and interest to share their own opinions ii STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP Title: A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING DEBATE TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILLS OF TENTH-GRADE STUDENTS AT DONG ANH HIGH SCHOOL I hereby certificate that the work submitted in my research is entirely of my own hand, or, where copied from any other person’s work has been acknowledged in reference and that the report is originally written by me under instructions of my supervisor Date submitted: 24thApril, 2017 Student Supervisor Lê Thị Diệu Mrs Nguyễn Thị Lê Nguyên, M.A iii LIST OF ABBREVIATION HPU2 : Hanoi Pedagogical University EG : Experimental Group CG : Control group i LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPH Tables Table Population 22 Table Sample 23 Table 3: Students’ opinions on using debate in teaching speaking after seven speaking lessons 32 Graphs Graph 1: Speaking scores of the control group before and after being taught by traditional way 30 Graph 2: Speaking scores of the experimental group before and after applying debate 31 Graph 3: Percentage of “Yes” and “No” answers in lessons 34 ii TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i ABSTRACT ii STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP iii LIST OF ABBREVIATION i TABLE OF CONTENT iii PART I: INTRODUCTION I Rationale of the study II Aims of study III Research questions IV Significance of the Study V The scope of study .4 VI Methods of the study VII Population and sample VIII Design of research work PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW I.2 Speaking English .8 I.2.1 Origin of speaking English I.2.2 Teaching speaking English I.3 Debate .13 I.3.1 Understanding debate 13 I.3.2 The benefits of debate 14 I.3.2 The disadvantages of debate .15 I.3.3 Debate to improve speaking skill 16 iii I.3.4 Components and formats of a debate in speaking classes 17 CHAPTER TWO METHODOLOGY II.1 Research design 20 II.2 Research context 22 II.2.1 Population and Sample 22 II.2.1.1 Population 22 II.2.2.2 Sample 22 II.2.2 Research instruments .23 II.2.3 Planning .26 II.2.4 Data collection procedure 28 II.2.5 Data analysis procedure 29 PART III: DISCUSSIONS AND FINDINGS III.1 Finding of pre-test and post-test .30 III.2 Finding of the questionnaire .32 III.3 Finding of video-based observation 33 III.4 Discussions .35 PART IV: CONCLUSION IV.1 Summary of the study 39 IV.2 Limitations 40 IV.3 Suggestions for further study 40 REFERENCES 42 APPENDIX A APPENDIX B iv APPENDIX C v lesson contrast to stable drops just around 7-8% each lesson in the rate of “No” answers which fell to its lowest point of 2,4% at the last period In conclusion, thanks to practicing debate technique in learning and teaching speaking, the amount of “Yes” answers for questions used to evaluate the students’ attitude and interaction as well as how they response increased significantly It meant that applying debate technique in speaking class had great effects on students’ speaking skills, attitudes and behaviors According to the comments of observations, students at first speaking lesson when the teacher introduced debate technique for the first time showed the excitement to join the lesson’s activities However, almost students were still shy or hesitated to speak in front of the class They were also not confident enough when producing speeches The using of blah words was frequent The students could work in groups but it was not effective as expected The observers stated that some students even made noise and didn’t pay attention to their friends who are talking In the second lesson, students began to get used to following the debate format They spoke and acted more in the class All students in class listened carefully when any student presented Their teamwork skills improved lesson by lesson It is unpredicted that from the third lesson students who presented their opinions the topic could speak confidently and fluently Other students showed their eager to speak to against the opposite sides very clearly The whole class not only felt enthusiastic to what the researcher was teaching, but also could exchange their ideas with other group members actively Students even prepared and showed related words and structures which were really helpful and updated to support their team’s ideas That could be considered the positive results of the research when students themselves interesting learning with debate technique III.4 Discussions The primary purpose of this study was to examine whether or not using debate technique in teaching speaking could enhance students’ speaking skills The findings from oral speaking tests, the questionnaire and video recordings had 35 supported the researcher’s prediction and expectation that was debate can help to develop speaking skills of the students and answered the research questions that had been stated The outcomes from oral speaking tests showed a significant improvement in students’ speaking proficiency, especially in four main aspects: vocabulary, fluency, grammar and interaction, which agreed with Nuraeni (2014) who stated in his study that The students’ problem in comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar were solved and the speaking scores were significantly improved or Rubiati from IAIN Waliso Semarang University whose research’s results stated that the implementation of debate in teaching speaking was successful because the students’ mean score was increased and students had a lot of opportunities to practice speaking in speaking class In details, in terms of vocabulary, most students were able to speak with sufficient words which related to the topic Surprisingly, there was one student who could use ones which were really interesting and unusual Few students showed the ability to use the antonym and synonym of words In addition, all students from EG was able to give complete answers fluently and more than a half of them could give long answers with particular interest Although there was just one student pronounced in the correct way and put the stress on words in the right way, the pronunciation errors were less frequent and students’ improvement in this aspect was be seen clearly lesson by lesson In pre-test, many students from EG just could able to speak with sufficient structural accuracy and errors were rare However, after seven weeks practicing debate technique most of them used variety of structures and even difficult ones When taking pre-test, students’ scores for each aspect only arranged from points to points More than expected, in the post-test, their scores went up significantly, no one got points and the average means score stayed between and points Few of them even got the maximum points In the earlier lessons, many students still hesitated to speak and some of them discussed with others but didn’t raise their voice in front of the class Identifying that, the teacher paid more attention to them, even pointed them to present their own ideas 36 sometimes After lessons these students began to be more confident and active One or two students still didn’t show their enthusiasm, which was explained by their personality because in the survey-questionnaire they affirmed that they enjoyed the speaking classes with debate activities Besides, by observing them in real life the researcher found that they were introvert students And they still performed well in oral speaking test The most important finding in this study is how well students interacted when they were speaking, which supported by their score in interaction is highest Within learning English speaking in seven lessons using debate technique, students showed an impressive and positive change in the ability to speak confidently, use eye contacts and gestures well They also could understand teachers and other students’ massages clearly and response faster While their pronunciation was not improved as much as the other aspects This may be because when students were arguing or sharing their ideas, the teacher didn’t correct their spelling mistakes not to interrupt their speeches Learners had basic knowledge and their speaking proficiency was not too bad, they just needed more time to practice explained why their scores in interaction increased most significantly By analyzing the data collected by observation, the researcher discovered that debate technique brought good impacts on the students’ behaviors and created positive learning atmosphere as well Students became more active and showed their interest to learn speak with debate and work in group These results are similar to the results of some previous researches For example, Khoironiya (2012) stated in his research that debate technique could improve the students' involvement in learning teaching process and raise the motivation and interest In his research, Nuraeni (2014) suggested that classroom debate was a new technique to be used in the class so teachers should give the students more explanation about how to run themselves in the debate court to make sure they know what to This supported the findings from the questionnaire in the current study that many students admitted debate was quite new and they needed time to get 37 used with it In addition, Zare and Othman (2015) by providing random sixteen students a number of open-ended questions and conducting semi-structures interviews after they took part in debates for nine sessions throughout one whole semester, presented the students believed that the classroom debate was a constructive learning activity, it helped learners in mastering the course content and oral communication skills These outcomes really fit the questionnaire’s results in this research Reviewing several studies which were directly relevant to the theme of this study and conducted by different researchers in different countries, universities, and schools, administered on different students in different levels from different countries and universities, and adopted different kinds of tools to achieve their aims, the researcher found out that there are similarities and differences between the studies in each domain and between these studies and the current one The following conclusions can be driven: The current study differs from the previous studies as it discussed very deeply four main components of student’s speaking skills of English language and how much they were improved after using debate technique In addition, most researches dedicated that debate could help learners’ critical thinking, which was the thing researcher really want to investigate However, it was out of the question for researcher to examine this because of the limited time and the complexity of defining critical thinking Moreover, determining how well students analyze information and to communicate the knowledge effectively is complicated In the light of the results reviewed throughout this study, the researcher could confirm that debate is an effective teaching technique which caused the significant improvement in students’ speaking skills and learning attitudes By carrying out such a study, the researcher hopes to enrich the empirical studies in this field of teaching/learning speaking skills 38 PART IV CONCLUSION All contents of the research will be summarized in this chapter and then some limitations and some suggestions will be dedicated so that the findings in this study could really bring some benefits for teachers of English, students especially high school students and for future studies IV.1 Summary of the study The conclusion of research obtained that using classroom debate is an effective technique to improve students’ speaking skill The EG showed a noticeable improvement after they learnt classroom debate It can be proved by the research findings that have been explained in data analysis (see chapter III: Discussions and findings) Their average scores in vocabulary, fluency, pronunciation, grammar and especially interaction were increased after being taught speaking by debate technique It meant that, no longer did they feel difficult to find words to express their ideas as well as had no used misused vocabulary Students could pronounce the words correctly or even sounds really interesting In addition, the more they learned speaking by using debate technique, the longer their answers were The teacher could see clearly that the students no longer hesitated to speak and they did not show lapses or halting After practicing classroom debate, students did not feel difficult to follow what was said any more and they could understand almost everything in normal speed They could understand English expression and no more repetition to understand the message Another thing should be mentioned here is that on students’ speech, they could use right tenses as well as varied grammar structures and difficult ones sometimes Based on the findings from observation, we could say that after a period of time learning in the speaking class using debate technique, students felt more confident to share their ideas and enjoyed the class activities They became more active in speaking lessons and could work in 39 group effectively Finally, it can be seen that there was a significant improvement after the students learnt and practiced debate in speaking class IV.2 Limitations Although the study has accomplished the objectives set at the beginning, it cannot avoid some limitations Coming at first is the participants involving in this study Although, debate technique can be used for all high school students, the chosen participants (the sample) are only the ones in class 10A3 and 10A2 Therefore, further studies can extend the number of participant in order to confirm the generalization of the research results The second limitation that is worthwhile to note is due to the shortage of time, researcher can only experiment on the effectiveness of debate which was only applied within seven lessons which unavoidably affected the reliability and validity of the final result Next, the researcher only solves the problem happening in speaking class Further studies can drill and fix the same problem happening in reading, writing or listening Finally, mistakes are unavoidable, all comments and remarks on this research will be highly appreciated IV.3 Suggestions for further studies This research has proved that classroom debate is an effective technique to teach speaking It has been tested by the data gained during the research However, the researcher would like to gives some suggestions as follows: Firstly, English is a foreign language but the needs to be able to speak English right now is very demanded, teacher should be more creative in teaching English Debate technique is highly recommended to teach speaking along with the other ones like: information gap, story completion or describe pictures, etc Since it has been experimentally studied and tested in this research 40 Secondly, debate is a new technique to be used in the speaking classes so teacher should give more explanations to make sure that they understand its format and know what to In the speaking lessons, the teacher should not apply only one format of debate but combine some of them in order not to make students get bored and to create an interesting and lively study atmosphere In addition, it is better for teachers to bring interesting and current topics to be the motion on the classroom debate The last suggestion for the researchers and the teachers is that they should pay more attention to the progress four speaking components (fluency, vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar) and how confident they are while speaking Teachers should also give time for students to evaluate these components with their partners so that students will be able to correct their mistakes and create a trend of studentcentered learning 41 REFERENCES Aron, A., Coups, E.J., & Aron, E.N (2011) Statistics for the behavioral and social sciences: A brief course.(5th ed.) 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Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Zare, P & Othman, M (2013) Students’ Perceptions toward Using Classroom Debate to Develop Critical Thinking and Oral Communication Ability University Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia 44 APPENDIX A Name: Class: Survey-questionnaire for students of class 10A3 at Dong Anh High school This questionnaire is conducted to investigate the effectiveness of the debate activities applied in two speaking lessons through your participation Your opinion would be very useful in helping improving activities to encourage students learning speaking English Do you find more interested in speaking class? A Yes B No C Not really Do you think debate is a challenging activity? A Yes B No C Not really Do you find the activities in the previous classes attracting you? A Yes B No C Not really Do you speak more than usual? A Yes B No C Not really Do you feel more confident to speak in front of the class? A Yes B No C Not really Do you think you want to talk more thanks to those activities? A Yes B No C Not really Do you think that debate should be applied in teaching speaking? A Yes B No Other comments: This is the end of this survey Thank you for your co-operation APPENDIX B A SPEAKING RUBRIC Grammar 5: Excellent Use variety of structures and difficult ones 4: Good Able to speak with sufficient structural accuracy 3: Average Able to speak with sufficient structural accuracy and errors are rare 2: Poor Can handle elementary constructions but still make mistakes Vocabulary 1: Very poor Errors are frequent 5: Excellent Show the ability to use variety of words which may be interesting and unusual and their synonym as well as antonym 4: Good Able to speak the language with sufficient vocabulary related in the topic 3: Average Have speaking sufficient to express themselves simply with some circumlocution Fluency 2: Poor Can only use simple words 1: Very poor Can’t express his/her own ideas 5: Excellent Have ability to give a long answer 4: Good Can discuss particular interests of competence with reasonable ease 3: Average Give complete answers fluently 2: Poor Gives short answers and blah words are frequent 1: Very poor Use too much blah words and give too short or incomplete answers Pronunciation 5: Excellent Pronounce in the correct way and know how to put the stress on words 4: Good Errors in pronunciation are quite rare 3: Average Errors in pronunciation are rare 2: Poor Accent is intelligible though often quite faulty Interaction 1: Very poor Errors in pronunciation are frequent 5: Excellent Have strong voice, use gestures confidently and understands completely what examiner talking about as well as knows how to response 4: Good Confident enough, can use eye contact and responses precisely 3: Average Can understand the conversation and knows how to response 2: Poor Feel difficult to understand the conversation 1: Very poor Don’t understand what examiner is saying APPENDIX C CLASSROOM OBSERVATION SHEET Observers: Teacher: Date: Week: No Answers Questions Yes Did the student show the enthusiasm to follow the lesson? Did the student pay attention when other students were talking? Was the student active during the lesson? Could the student follow and apply the debate format well? Could the student co-operate with others effectively? Was the student excited to speak? No No Could the student express their ideas fluently and confidently? Statements Q1 Name Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 of the students Y N Y N Y N Y N Y N Y N Y N 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Total Other comments: ... researcher to carry out the study titled A study on the effectiveness of using debate technique to improve speaking skills of tenth grade students at Dong Anh High school II Aims of study The main aims... using debate technique in teaching speaking can improve speaking skills of tenth grade students at Dong Anh High school? 2) What are the students perceptions toward debate in speaking lessons?...HA NOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGE FACULTY LE THI DIEU A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING DEBATE TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILLS OF THE TENTH- GRADE STUDENTS AT DONG ANH HIGH