Tài liệu The perception of first year english majors at hanoi pedagogical univerity 2 towards the effectiveness of shadowing technique as a method of improving speaking skills

HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2 FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES NGUYEN THI TRA GIANG THE PERCEPTION OF FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2 TOWARDS THE USE OF THE SHADOWING TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILLS SUPERVISOR: DO THI HUONG, M. A. HANOI, 2019 HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2 FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES NGUYEN THI TRA GIANG THE PERCEPTION OF FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2 TOWARDS THE USE OF THE SHADOWING TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE SPEAKING SKILLS SUPERVISOR DO THI HUONG, M. A. HANOI, 2019 DECLARATION I certify that this minor thesis entitled “The perception of first-year English majors at Hanoi Pedagogical Univerity 2 towards the effectiveness of shadowing technique as a method of improving speaking skills” is the study of my own research and the substance of this research has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution. Hanoi, 2019 Nguyen Thi Tra Giang i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to all those who have given me great assistance in the completion of my research work. In the first place, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisors, M.A. Do Thi Huong, and M.A. Do Thi Thanh Dung, for their continuous support with insightful discussion, helpful comments, and honest criticisms. Without their guidance and help, this thesis would not have been accomplished. Secondly, I am greatly indebted to the Faculty of Foreign Language (FFL), Hanoi Pedagogical University 2 (HPU2), for giving me the honor of writing this research. I also sincerely thank all the lecturers and staffs of the faculty for their valuable lessons and precious help. Moreover, I am thankful to my family and friends from the bottom of my heart. I could not go through the hardship to complete this study without their support and encouragement. Last but not least, my sincere thanks also go to all the participants for their willingness and honest to join in this study, especially ten students in the focused group for taking part in my project. ii ABSTRACT The majority of language learners encounters difficulties when speaking in the target language. For the first-year English majors at HPU2, there still have some common problems regarding speaking practice, such as lack of vocabulary, poor pronunciation, etc. So, it is essential that different speaking techniques should be taken into consideration to enhance students‟ speaking skills. Meanwhile, shadowing is a technique that has been widely used around the world, especially Japan, to practice speaking and listening for many years. Many studies have shown that shadowing helps to raise awareness of the target language sounds as well as developing proficiency in speaking mainly in university students (e.g., Hamada, 2011a, 2012; Kato, 2009; Kuramoto & Matsuura, 2002). However, in the context of Vietnam, it is still a new method that only a few colleges have applied it to train students oral abilities. Especially in the Faculty of Foreign Languages (FFL) at HPU2, majority of students have not known this method to practice speaking. Therefore, it needs investigation. As a result, this study was set out to explore firstyear English majors‟ primary speaking problems, and their perspective of the use of shadowing technique and their difficulties when applying it to practice speaking. The research utilized questionnaires and interviews to collect data on selfevaluation of two groups, one group conducted of 50 students about their speaking mistakes, and the target group consisted of 10 students, who came from the first group, about the effectiveness of shadowing and the difficulties when applying it. As can be seen from the qualitative and quantitative data, the results illustrate that students‟ opinions about the use of shadowing technique in the improvements of speaking abilities are positive. It proves that the use of the shadowing technique can improve students‟ speaking abilities. Some solutions are also provided in this study to help students have appropriate ways when using shadowing to enhance speaking skills. Keywords: shadowing technique, shadowing, first-year English majors, speaking problems. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL: English as a Foreign Language FFL: Faculty of Foreign Languages HPU2: Hanoi Pedagogical University 2 p: page iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Categories to evaluate speaking abilities (Pineda, 2017, p15) .................. 5 Table 2. The procedure of the shadowing technique ............................................... 10 Table 3. Classification of shadowing (cited in Tamai, 2005) .................................. 11 Table 4. Murphey‟s types of shadowing (2001) (as cited in Hamada, 2012) .......... 11 Table 5. The level of negativity of factors causing difficulties when students practice with shadowing technique .......................................................................... 27 Table 6. Students‟ level of frequency encountering shadowing difficulties ............ 31 Table 7. Students‟ self-evaluation of improvement after one-month practicing shadowing................................................................................................................. 32 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1. Students‟ self-evaluation their speaking skills ...................................... 22 Figure 4.2. Students‟ common problems when communicating in English ............ 23 Figure 4.3. Students‟ awareness of the shadowing technique ................................. 25 Figure 4.4. Students‟ attitude towards the effect of the shadowing technique in speaking .................................................................................................................... 26 Figure 4.5. How often students practice the shadowing technique .......................... 29 Figure 4.6. Students‟ willingness to continue practice with shadowing technique . 34 v TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ........................................................................................................ i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.......................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ...........................................................................v TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................1 1.1.Overview ...............................................................................................................1 1.2. Rationale of the study...........................................................................................1 1.3. Aims of the study .................................................................................................2 1.4. The research questions .........................................................................................2 1.5. Scope of the study ................................................................................................2 1.6. Organization of the study .....................................................................................3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................4 2.1. Overview ..............................................................................................................4 2.2. Speaking skills .....................................................................................................4 2.2.1 Definition of speaking ........................................................................................4 2.2.2 Aspects of speaking skills ..................................................................................4 2.2.3 Common problems in learning speaking skills ..................................................6 2.3 Shadowing technique ............................................................................................7 2.3.1 Definition of shadowing technique ....................................................................7 2.3.2 Stages of shadowing task ...................................................................................8 2.3.3 Classification of shadowing .............................................................................10 2.3.4 The importance of shadowing technique in developing speaking skills..........12 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................14 3.1 Overview .............................................................................................................14 3.2 Participants ..........................................................................................................14 3.3. Instruments .........................................................................................................15 3.3.1. Questionnaire ..................................................................................................15 vi 3.3.1.1. The first questionnaire..................................................................................16 3.3.1.2. The second questionnaire .............................................................................16 3.3.2. Interview .........................................................................................................16 3.3.2.1. The first interview ........................................................................................17 3.3.2.2. The second interview ...................................................................................17 3.4. Procedure............................................................................................................18 3.4.1. Questionnaire procedure .................................................................................18 3.4.2. Interview procedure ........................................................................................18 3.4.3. Shadowing procedure ......................................................................................18 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ......................................................21 4.1. Overview ............................................................................................................21 4.2. The speaking problems encountered by the first-year English majors of HPU2 ...................................................................................................................................21 4.2.1. Students self-evaluation their speaking abilities .............................................22 4.2.2. Students‟ common problems when communicating in English ......................23 4.2.3. The awareness of students of the shadowing technique .................................25 4.2.4. Level of the frequency of students practice shadowing technique .................26 4.3. Students‟ perspectives in the effectiveness of the shadowing technique ...........27 4.3.1. Students‟ self-evaluation their improvement after one-month shadowing .....27 4.3.2. Students‟ attitudes towards the effects of shadowing technique in practicing speaking .....................................................................................................................29 4.4. Some difficulties faced by students when practicing shadowing technique ......30 4.4.1. The level of negativity of factors causing difficulties when students practice shadowing technique .................................................................................................31 4.4.2. Students‟ level of frequency encountering shadowing problems when practicing shadowing ................................................................................................32 4.4.3 Students‟ willingness to continue practice with shadowing technique ............34 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS .........................................36 5.1 Overview .............................................................................................................36 5.2. Conclusion..........................................................................................................36 5.3. Limitations of the study .....................................................................................37 vii 5.4. Suggestions for further study .............................................................................37 REFERENCES ..........................................................................................................38 APPENDICES...........................................................................................................42 APPENDIX 1 ............................................................................................................42 APPENDIX 2 ............................................................................................................45 APPENDIX 3 ............................................................................................................48 APPENDIX 4 ............................................................................................................49 viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1.Overview This chapter reviews some overview information about this study. Particularly, the first part is about statements of the problems, why this research was conducted. The second part provides the aims of the study. Then the next part gives information about the scopes as well as some significance of the study. The last part is the outline organization of this research paper. 1.2. The rationale of the study In the world in general and Vietnam in particular, in the past few years, it can not be denied that English is boosting, and much more attention has been paid to educate English (Luu, 2014). Due to its significance, people have taken great sufficient consideration into gaining the language in order to reach the international level. Many institutes, centers, and university‟s departments have been in operation because of English bloom to meet learners‟ needs of mastering four skills, including speaking, the most difficult skill to master English (Zhang, 2000). Also, the firstyear English majors at Hanoi Pedagogical University 2 often fall into confusion while speaking English because of the lack of practice, knowledge, and confidence. However, another serious problem is the lack of self-study methods which are suitable with their level. In order to improve their speaking skills, shadowing technique is in top choices as its effectiveness has been proved in many countries, especially Japan. Recently, the shadowing technique is attracting much attention of English educators and learners. Originally, the shadowing technique was aimed to train simultaneous interpreters; however, its efficiency in developing foreign language learning has been appreciated and started to be used in the classroom or self-study. The effectiveness of shadowing technique in particularly developing oral skills has been investigated and recognized through the field of teaching and learning foreign languages (Lambert, 1992; Murphey, 2001; Kuramoto & Matsuura, 2002; Tamai, 1997, 2002; Lin, 2009; Hamada, 2014, 2016.). For instance, Hamada (2014) examined some claims about shadowing technique, and the result showed that it is one of the most effective techniques for lower-proficiency learners. Hence, it is believed that such a method can help learners to reduce the limit, and bring a different way to teach and learn speaking skills, in the effort to improve it. 1 Even though the shadowing technique is popular around the world, in Vietnam, there has been very little research accompany with this field. In Hanoi Pedagogical University 2, this might be an untouched area, as no study in the same topic can be found. Therefore, this research is hoped to provide a suitable way to self-study for first-year English majors, who experience the difficulties while speaking, and the awareness of them towards the effectiveness of the shadowing technique. 1.3. Aims of the study First and foremost, the study is hoped to help the first-year English majors at Hanoi Pedagogical University 2 find out their suitable ways to learn speaking skills, through introducing them shadowing technique. Also, it introduces how to use it in self-studying, thereby having a deeper observation for how students perceive the shadowing technique and figuring out the difficulties when using it and solutions for better speaking skills. 1.4. The research questions As can be seen from the Introduction chapter, these study purposes are to investigate students‟ common speaking problems when speaking English, their perspective about the use of shadowing, and some difficulties they faced when applying it to practice speaking. To cope with the aims of the study, the author raises some following questions: + What are some common difficulties faced by first-year English majors in an attempt to master speaking skills? + What are the effects of shadowing on students‟ speaking skills (as perceived by students)? + What difficulties are encountered by students when practicing the shadowing technique? 1.5. Scope of the study Because of time limitation, the study can only investigate the perspective of a small number of first-year English majors towards the use of the shadowing technique, and their difficulties when applying it to practice. 2 Despite the shortcoming of the study, its result could be a suggestion for any English learners whose purpose to improve their speaking abilities. Besides, the shadowing technique is not only used for self-studying, but it is also employed in class by teachers as a recommended reference for their English speaking teaching methods. 1.6. Organization of the study The research paper consists of 5 chapters. Chapter 1 includes brief information about the reason for choosing the topic, together with the aims, the scopes as well as the design of the study. Chapter 2 reviews the previous researches about the definition of speaking skills, and its important role in language learning, as well as shadowing technique‟s definitions and how shadowing is appreciated in the field of teaching and learning speaking skills. In chapter 3, the methods and the procedures used in this study to find out the answers to its questions would be presented. Chapter 4 reveals the study‟s findings of students‟ comments toward shadowing technique. Chapter 5 is the conclusion of this research paper, and it also suggests some solutions to the preceding problems discussed in the previous chapter. 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Overview To provide a theoretical background to the study, this chapter reviews some authors‟ viewpoints concerning common mistakes regarding English speaking and the understanding of the shadowing technique. Particularly, the first part is some information about prevalent speaking mistakes. The second part mentions of shadowing technique in terms of definition and classification; therefore, looks at the effectiveness of shadowing in practicing language skills, especially speaking skills. 2.2. Speaking skills 2.2.1 Definition of speaking Among four skills, speaking, together with writing, is classified as a productive skill and described as a process of delivering information and sharing one‟s ideas and emotions in oral communication. Moreover, speaking is said to be one of the first aspects of communication in which special orientation and training is of paramount important (Afshar & Asakereh, 2016). Therefore, plenty of researches have been in-depth studying to figure out its definition along with its nature. According to Solcova (2012, p.17), speaking is defined as “interactive progress in which individuals alternate in their roles as speakers and listeners and employ both verbal and non-verbal means to reach their communicative goals”. Byrne (1976) stated that speaking is as a way speakers express their ideas by arranging the words. In another study, Burns and Joyce (2007) declared that speaking is an act of meaning formation through interaction among people in which information is produced, received, and processed. 2.2.2 Aspects of speaking skills Srivastava (2014) indicated that there are two deciding aspects reflect English learners‟ speaking abilities in the future, accuracy, and fluency, in which the former is the ability of speakers to make correct sentences grammatically and the latter the ability to speak English smoothly without hesitation and pauses. Hence, Shen (2013) also stated that accuracy focuses on exactness, while fluency illustrates the proficiency level in communication. 4 Pineda (2017, p.15) carried out the categories to evaluate students‟ speaking skills which can be applied to teaching speaking. ACCURACY FLUENCY Ability to master a language as a system Ability to use language to communicate PRONUNCIATION MECHANICAL SKILLS Students‟ ability to pronounce The ability to use pauses, sounds and follow intonation and stress punctuation, speed, rhythm and patterns in an acceptable and sentence length comprehensible manner VOCABULARY LANGUAGE USE Students‟ ability to produce words in response to an appropriate stimulus determine whether the learner The ability to talk in coherent, reasoned and “semantically dense” sentences, showing a mastery of the has certain words available to him to use in speaking situations semantic and grammatical resources of the language GRAMMAR JUDGMENT SKILLS Students‟ ability to produce appropriate morphological and syntactical patterns in a given speech situation The ability to have appropriate things to say in a wide range of contexts and for a particular audience. Ability to select, organize, order, create, and develop thoughts. Table 1. Categories to evaluate speaking abilities (Pineda, 2017, p15) Grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation are considered to evaluate the speakers‟ abilities of accuracy. Fluency is assessed by mechanical skills, language use, and judgment skills. Crystal (1987, p421) defined fluency as a “smooth, rapid, effortless use of language”. Fluency is measured in the narrower sense which focuses on automacity and speed of speech construction (Lennon 1990). Regarding accuracy, Brand and Gotz (2011) claimed that when it comes to accuracy measurement, the first thing that should be taken into consideration is the use of lexical and syntactic items, and then the next thing is focusing on deficiency rather than on proficiency. 5 It is undoubtedly stressed that accuracy and fluency have a close relation. So, the notion that accuracy and fluency principally affect successful communication is raised. 2.2.3 Common problems in learning speaking skills Besides the speaking aspects mentioned above, there are bound to speaking problems faced by foreign language learners which are worth-mentioned. Arifin (2007) conducted a study to have a deeper insight into how psychological problems affect the students in the speaking classroom. He pointed out that there are two major problems in speaking, which are low-confidence and anxiety. Notably, the unconfident students are easily influenced by the feeling that they are “stupid”, “worthless” (Afirin, 2007). In relating to anxiety, he also claimed that when a student performed a presentation in front of the class or a group of people, anxiety usually strikes. Sharing the same point of view, Ur (1996) defined commonly-encountered problems among English learners as follows:  Inhibition: fear of making mistakes, afraid of criticism, and shyness.  Nothing to say: learners have problem with finding motives to speak, expressing opinions, and giving comments.  Low or uneven participation: often caused by the tendency of some learners to dominate in the group.  Mother-tongue use: particularly common in fewer disciplines or less motivated classes, learners find it easier to show off their ideas in their native language. In terms of inhibition, as many researches, fear of making mistakes is considered the main factor are bringing negatively feelings affect students‟ speaking abilities. Nakhala (2016) illustrated that shyness is a source of the problem encountered by students during speaking. He explained that when one feels shy, his mind goes blank and forget what to say. According to Brown and Lee (1994, p269), “one of the major obstacles learners have to overcome in learning to speak the anxiety generated over the risks of blurting things out that are wrong, stupid, or incomprehensible”. Secondly, learners feel hard to think of anything to express their ideas because their mind goes blank. Rivers (1968) indicated that when being asked about the topic they know very little or have no idea, students tend to keep silent. 6 Thirdly, participants in speaking class are distributed unfairly. As reported by Ur (1996), this problem was described as the large numbers of students in the speaking group tended to dominate the group. It can be explained that in a group, there are different kinds of students with specific characteristics and levels. Those who are more proactive and talkative will speak more often than quiet students. Nguyen and Tran (2015) had the same opinion when it comes to speaking skills – related problems. They claimed that hardly did any classroom speaking activities seemingly receive even participation from students. Finally, undoubtedly that the overuse of mother-tongue in speaking class hinders students from improving their speaking abilities. Harmer (1991) defined that there are some reasons for such a certain issue. First, if the students have to say something unfamiliar with them, they tend to use their language to more naturally express ideas and thoughts. Secondly, it is comfortable to speak in mother-tongue language. It is also stated in Nguyen and Tran (2015). Moreover, Rababah (2002) also shared the same opinion; he summarized that there are some factors causing difficulties in speaking English, which is related to the learners themselves, the teaching strategies, the curriculum, and the environment. 2.3 Shadowing technique 2.3.1 Definition of shadowing technique According to Manseur (2015, p18), “shadowing can be defined as the imitation of a particular input as it is heard in a short period of time as possible”. He said it is repeating activity of the exact words of an audio track or recorder input of target language. Lambert (1992) argued that shadowing is a task we vocalize immediately the auditory such as word-by-word repetition, parrot-style, in the same language. Tamai‟s research is regarded as one of the leading studies on shadowing technique, and his definition of the shadowing technique was cited in numerous works of researchers. He defined shadowing as a listening exercise in which the English learners mimic speech while listening attentively to the incoming information (Tamai, 2002). He believed that shadowing is cognitive and active activities, where the students can listen while trail the heard speech and try to verbalize it. It was first cited in the study of Nakanishi & Ueda (2011, p4), as “an act or task of listening in which the learners track the target speech and repeat it 7 immediately as exactly as possible without looking at a text”. Hseih & Dong (2013) believed that shadowing technique draws the attention of some scholars in Asia in recent years; in particular, Japanese people viewed shadowing as a helpful exercise to be integrated into the English language program. Teeter (2017) led an investigation about improving inspiration to learn English in Japan with a Self-study Shadowing Application. From his perspective, he pointed out that Shadowing, in the field of second language acquisition, is a technique to repeat auditory material almost at the same time. Jaramillo & Isaza (2016) describe shadowing as a method to train interpreters in Europe, and it is widely applied in Japan to improve English skills nowadays. Seo & Takeuchi (n.d) and Nakanishi & Ueda (2011) shared the same opinion when it comes to the use of shadowing among the simultaneous interpreters. They stated that shadowing was originally regarded as a technique for training concurrent interpreters, but it is adapted in language classrooms by high school students and teachers. They believed that this practice enables learners to develop their mental resources and memorial abilities. As noted by Maseur (2015, p18), shadowing, as the word denoted, “is repeating exact words of an audio track recorded input of target language”. He explained that shadowing as ít name, the shadow does everything one does, and the shadower says everything the speaker says. Northbrook (2013) made a video for sharing his opinion about the shadowing technique. He defined it as training for English fluency. He stated that shadowing is a good way to improve learners‟ pronunciation, accent, intonation, as well as rhythm because when the mouth is moving, the ears are paying attention simultaneously. To recapitulate, the definition of shadowing technique has varied over time. In this study, the researcher agrees with the definition of Manseur (2015) about the shadowing technique as the shadower imitates all of what the speaker said in a short time. However, the general trend is for the meaning of the term to continue to evolve with the development of shadowing studies. 2.3.2 Stages of shadowing task Beside the definition of shadowing, the shadowing process should be taken into consideration. 8 Manseurs (2015, p28) suggested specific steps to practice shadowing as follows: “First and foremost, the shadower should find a recorder material that belongs to the target language. Second, s/he should listen to the input as many times as possible using a pair of headphones or earphones”. The previous stages are called blind shadowing, which is implemented without using a written transcript. He also commented that this is a difficult task and the shadower sometimes resorts to the subtitles or transcripts to practice shadowing. Jaramillo and Isaza (2016) also suggested how to implement speech shadowing in a classroom with the same opinion regarding the first two steps mentioned above. They stated that “the learners should listen as many times as possible to the audio until they are satisfied with their pronunciation” (Jaramillo and Isaza, 2016, p17). Specifically, when implementing shadowing in a classroom, the students are required to select an audio text to analyze the vocabulary. Then, the shadower will listen to the audio again and again to become familiar with the speakers‟ pronunciation. The participants in practicing shadowing can take advantages of being instructed by the speakers. As long as they feel satisfied with their pronunciation during the shadowing process, they are required to record their own voice or shadow in front of the class. Agreeing with others‟ points of view when suggesting shadowing phases, Northbrook (2013) also suggested different steps to practice shadowing properly. In his opinion, the first step is that the students can find the materials for shadowing from TV shows, radio programs, audio books, etc. The materials should be at each learners‟ level because the exercise is not used to improve comprehension but pronunciation and speaking. Then, the shadower can print a text out, speak along with an mp3 several times, and look up new words from the dictionary. He advised that the shadower should copy the speaker so closely, become that speaker in every single little pause, rhythm. Finally, the practitioners get rid of the text and shadow without the text. Concerning the transcript in shadowing, Manseur (2015) argued that the shadower ought not to resort to the transcription because he thought that using transcript during shadowing is an optional step because it will be much more effective if the shadower gets accustomed to the practice without a transcript. “Reading the transcript enables the shadower to recognized the content of the material to be shadowed, and if any difficult words are encountered, the shadower can use a dictionary in order to check the meaning of for better understanding of the input” (Manseur, 2015, p.29). Among those steps mentioned in Manseur‟s study (2015), emulation is regarded as the most crucial step. This step requires the 9 shadower to copy the speaker in all aspects ranging from pace, rhythm to stress, and intonation. Researches, including Tamai and Kadota (as cited in Nguyen, 2016, p.32) also mentioned the procedure of shadowing technique to give the language learner a deeper insight into how to practice it as follows: Step Instructions 1 Listening to the passage 2 Mumbling twice (silently shadow while reading the text) 3 Parallel reading (shadow while reading the text) 4 Silently checking to understand with the text for three minutes 5 Shadowing three times 6 Reviewing the text for three minutes to clarify difficult sounds and meanings. 7 Contents shadowing once (concentrate on both shadowing and the meaning) 8 Listening again Table 2. The procedure of the shadowing technique In conclusion, the shadowing process is required to follow several essential steps to improve the learners' language skills better. As can be seen from table 2, some steps need to be followed; besides, the author changed several steps to fit the level of the participants. 2.3.3 Classification of shadowing A significant number of researchers introduce several types of shadowing. Manseur (2015) classified shadowing types in terms of the studies of psychology and language learning contexts. Kurata (as cited in Manseur, 2015) and Tamai (1997) shared the same opinion when suggesting five types of shadowing including full shadowing, delayed shadowing, phrase shadowing, parallel reading, and speed reading. Specifically, regarding full shadowing, the shadower imitates the entire input word by word after understanding the content (Manseur, 2015). 10