VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES VŨ THỊ THANH TÂM AN ACTION RESEARCH ON USING STORIES AND DRAMA IN
TEACHING ENGLISH TO PRIMARY STUDENTS AT QUAN
TRU PRIMARY SCHOOL

NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG VỀ DẠY TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC SINH TIỂU HỌC QUA
TRUYỆN VÀ KỊCH TẠI TRƯỜNG TIỂU HỌC QUÁN TRỮ M.A. MINOR THESIS

Major: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10.

HANOI - 2012
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES VŨ THỊ THANH TÂM

1.5. Methodology ……………………………………………………………
1.5.1. Action research design…………………………………………
1.5.2. Participants……………………………………………………….
1.5.3. Procedures……………………………………………………….
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ……………………
2.1. Teaching English to primary school children …………………………
2.1.1. Typical characteristics of young learners ……………………………
2.1.2. Models of teaching English to primary-school students………………
2.2. Child development through the use of stories and drama ………………
2.2.1. Cognitive development…………………………………………………
2.2.1.1. Reading………………………………………………………………
2.2.1.2. Writing……………………………………………………………….
2.2.1.3. Speaking and listening……………………………………………….
2.2.1.4. Teaching nonverbal communication…………………………………
2.2.2. Physical development…………………………………………………
2.2.3. Social development…………………………………………………….
2.2.4. Emotional development……………………………………………….
2.3. Typical activities in English lessons using stories and drama…………
2.3.1. Finger puppet show…………………………………………………….
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TEACHING ENGLISH TO PRIMARY STUDENTS…………………….
3.1. Action research questions and design……………………………………
3.2. Planning stage……………………………………………………………
3.2.1. The problem……………………………………………………………
3.2.2. Observing a lesson that illustrated the problem……………………….
3.2.3. Conducting a survey to get information from the students…………….
3.2.4. Consulting with colleagues ……………………………………………
3.2.5. Drawing up a plan of action to solve the problem……………………
3.3. Acting stage………………………………………………………………
3.3.1. Lesson using the story and drama "Little Red Riding Hood"…………
3.3.2. Lesson using the story and drama "Goldilocks and Three Bears"…….
3.4. Observing stage…………………………………………………………
3.5. Evaluation stage………………………………………………………….
3.6. Summary of the main findings…………………………………………
CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION……………………………………………
4.1. Summary of the main findings ………………………………………….
4.2. Implications for teaching speaking and listening through stories and
drama…………………………………………………………………………
4.3. Limitations and suggestions for further research……………………….
4.4. Conclusion………………………………………………………………
REFERENCES
APPENDICES
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Table 2 : Evaluating students‟ listening abilities…………………………
Table 3: The reasons why the teachers do not usually use stories and drama
in their English lessons……………………………………………………
Table 4: The English lessons using story and drama……………………
Table 5: The successful changes made by the teacher……………
Table 6: The Ss‟ changes after taking part in the lessons using stories and
drama……………………………………………………………………….
Table 7: The Ss‟ problems in the lessons using stories and drama………
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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale of the research

- Finding out the attitudes of primary teachers and students towards the use of
stories and drama in English lessons.
- Exploring how the use of stories and drama in teaching English can enhance
primary students‟ English speaking and listening skills.
1.3. Scope of the research
Due to the limitation of time and knowledge, this thesis only focused on
using stories and drama in teaching English to third - grade students at Quan Tru
Primary School in the second term of the school-year of 2011-2012.
1.4. Research questions
1. What are the attitudes of Quan Tru third-grade teachers and students towards
the use of stories and drama in English lessons?
2. How can the use of stories and drama in teaching English enhance Quan Tru third-
grade students‟ English speaking and listening skills?
1.5. Methodology
The methodological approach was action research using various methods for
data collection. The tools for data gathering include two questionnaires, one for
teachers and one for students, class observation and teacher journals.
1.5.1. Action research design
The action research consisted of four main stages: Planning, Acting,
Observing and Evaluation stage.
Stage 1: Planning:
- Identifying problem and causes of the problem: low quality of English teaching -
learning due to unsuitable methods and techniques used by teachers of English at
Quan Tru Primary School. The unsuitable methods and techniques coupled with the
wrong focus on teaching language elements for high test scores lead to students‟
low level of motivation and their underdeveloped English speaking and listening
skills. A video camera was used to record three third-grade English lessons, and

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then an evaluation of the students‟ speaking and listening abilities was made. The

1.5.3. Procedures
- At the beginning of second term of the academic year 2011-2012, three third-
grade English lessons from 3 classes with 80 students were recorded with a video
camera, then an evaluation of the students‟ speaking and listening abilities (80
students) was made. The criteria for evaluating each student‟s speaking and
listening abilities in English lessons include pronunciation, vocabulary, accuracy,
fluency, communication and interaction and listening skills. There are standard
tasks to evaluate student‟s speaking and listening abilities in 3 English classes for
third-graders.
- A consultation with 10 teachers and a student pre-trying-out questionnaire survey
were conducted to find out the causes of students low English speaking and
listening skills as well as their attitudes towards the use of stories and dramas in
teaching English.
- The researcher planned lessons to try out the use of stories and dramas in English
teaching to motivate Quan Tru third-grade students to learn English and to
improve their English speaking and listening skills.
- The researcher tried out the techniques of using stories and drama in English
lessons and making records of what happened in 3 classes with 80 students in her
journals.
- Three volunteer teachers were asked to observe lessons in the three classes after
the trying-out stage that illustrated the changes in Quan Tru third-grade students‟
English speaking and listening skills;
- The results of class observation were used to evaluate the success of the action on
using stories and dramas to teach English to third-graders at Quan Tru Primary
school.
- A post-trying-out questionnaire survey was carried out to get information from
the 80 students on the extent to which the use of stories and drama has helped
improve their English speaking and listening skills. The 5 questions in the

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CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF THE
RESEARCH
2.1. Teaching English to primary-school students
2.1.1. Typical characteristics of young learners
Young learners are physically active. As Pauncz (1980) points out, it is
children‟s nature to fidget, jump, talk, and interrupt. The teacher should provide
activities which allow the child‟s body to be in motion. However, their need to
move is often ignored in the primary classroom because Vietnamese teachers often
consider this a discipline problem. They always expect their students to learn in nice
way which means their students have to keep silent every time during the lesson. If
someone move, talk or interrupt, they are considered not to obey the classroom‟s
rules and will be punished. This happens even in foreign language classes in almost
all primary schools in Vietnam. As argued by Brumfit et al. (1991), young learners
need physical movement and activity as stimulation for their thinking, and the
closer together these can be, the better. Children need to use language for making or
doing things. By doing so, they are able to fix the linguistic input and situations in
the long-term memory and strengthen recall. Thus, it is necessary to take suggestion
for English teachers of young learners – we should fill our lessons with physical
activity, such as having students act out things , play games, or do Total Physical
Response activities”
Children are also social beings and interaction with peers and adults is
crucial to their learning. Contrary to traditional instruction featuring
competitiveness, independent work and passive listening, cooperative learning is a
matter of “sinking or swimming together.” It is “positive interdependence,”
according to Johnson et al.(1994:27), which links students together “in a way that
makes it impossible for anyone to succeed unless the entire group succeeds”.
Therefore, each individual in the group should actively contribute their knowledge
to the assigned task and actually get down to doing something. The concrete
collaborative experiences and active experimentation can then feed into the young



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It is a big and very important question and should be carefully considered by
all teachers and methodologists. Brumfit and Moon (1991:8) point out that there is
not a straightforward answer to this key question. There are two main models of
classroom practice:
the classical EFL practice model on the one hand and the mainstream primary
practice model on the other. The classical EFL practice model is characterized
by a presentation and practice model, developed largely with adults and
focusing on questions of language and communication. On the other hand,
mainstream primary practice “embodies a less structured conception of
language, more appropriate to the educational needs of children, which
focuses on questions of curriculum content and cognitive development.” (Ellis
and Brewster, 1991:8)

2.2. Child development through the use of stories and drama in English lessons
We all know that the National Foreign Language 2020 Project demands
primary students‟ comprehensive development. Ellis and Brewster (1991) also have
given various arguments for the impacts of stories and drama in teaching English to
young learners, highlighting the benefits which accrue in terms of the child‟s
physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development. However, the fact that
many parents and English teachers just focus on the cognitive aspects of their
child's development when teaching them English is clear, and other aspects of the
child‟s development including physical, emotional and social development which
are also vitally important to your child's growth are often overlooked. In this
section, the author is going to take the impact of stories and drama in consideration
on the child‟s comprehensive development.

2.2.1. Cognitive development


are “stronger at reading action, or words-embedded-in-action, than they are at
reading words alone”. Images, both still and moving, play an influential part in
children‟s perception of meaning. Acknowledging the importance of the visual in
children‟s lives and the increasing use of multi-modal texts in today‟s technological
world, drama makes the literary world more accessible for children because it
permits them to turn the abstract written words into concrete images and to
construct meaning from the text based on collective experience. To Neelands
(2004), “drama provides pupils with an immediate and physical means of getting to
grips with texts and textual representation”. Through drama, children enter a
fictional world created by the writer‟s descriptions, taking on roles to be in the
character‟s shoe. This emotional engagement can motivate them to keep on reading
and their participation in drama activities, furthermore, brings life into the written
text, which is no longer dull and featureless print on paper. The teacher can use
many drama activities like hot-seating, thought tracking, interviews, interrogations,
or acting.
2.2.1.2. Writing
Short stories and drama can be a powerful and motivating source for writing in
foreign language classes. Through stories and drama, children link together the
“there and then” in stories and the world of “here and now,” building up their
understanding upon their experience in drama, which “can bring vividness and an
authentic voice” to their writing. The role of drama in children‟s writing
development is made clear in the following figure:
Purposeful
contexts
created
Fictional
roles
engaged with
Fictional
viewpoints

can develop their speaking as well as listening skills.
To develop listening skill using a short story, teachers can do the activities
such as asking the learners to read the story out loud so students have the
opportunity to listen to a native speaker of English or playing the story if a
recording is available.
Drama can also develop primary students‟ speaking and listening skills.
Baldwin and Fleming (2003:18) put it clearly that “children are required by the
drama to use language, which is appropriate to both role and situation, including
different models of speech and registers”. Corden (2000:136) argues that certain

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types of teacher talk can generate “more extensive and educationally productive
responses from children”. He suggests that teachers should initiate through
challenging, directing, inquiring, inviting, stating, suggesting, modelling, and
listening. Aside from that, they should provide feedback by praising, encouraging
exploration, orienting, helping children to reflect, offering hypotheses, providing
information, relating to own experience, relating to the child‟s experience, seeking
clarification, and urging amplification.
For those teachers who have applied drama into their teaching, all these
strategies for encouraging exploratory talk may sound familiar because they are
commonly used skills for sustaining a make-believe world. Drama also draws the
class together “in listening, thinking, and building the event with speculation and
anticipation as they look for clues to the emerging dramatic world in which they
participate” (Liu, 2002:68). Since the fictional world is constructed through mutual
participation, it gives students a sense of ownership toward the activity which
engages them in making verbal contribution to keep the drama going and extend its
scope and depth. In a well-designed dramatic situation constituted with conflicts
and roles, the learners‟ need for communication tends to overcome their fear of
inadequacy of language so that they are able to make the best use of the language
skills they already possess (Somers, 1994:139). The above discussion clearly shows

Another aspect in the child‟s development process which we need to pay
attention to is social development. As children learn to play in larger and larger
groups, they begin to learn about appropriate behaviors within certain contexts.
Learning to interact with peers and authority figures is critical to successful
development as well as enabling children to function well in society.
Social development leads to growth in different areas, both in and out of the home.
 Developing interaction with peers and other people
 Expanding interactive environment
 Family unity, awareness and bonding
 Communication/language enhanced.

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The use of stories and drama can positively affect the child‟s social development
in several ways. Children often work in groups or pairs when dramatizing. Children
have to make decisions as a group, listen to each other, and value each other‟s
suggestions. They have to cooperate to achieve their aims, find ways of setting their
differences, and use the strength of each member of the group. These things will
help the students build up their team-work competency. In the twenty-first century,
it is team-work competence that makes people succeed; therefore, the use of stories
and drama in English lessons is considered a suitable and intelligent way to enhance
the child‟s social development.
2.2.4. Emotional development
While emotional development can be difficult to measure, it provides the
foundation for mental health and well-being. This includes feelings of happiness,
feelings of power over the environment, emotional awareness, emotional strength
and stability. Emotional development also includes spontaneity, humor, feeling
about self and sensitivity to others.
Emotional development can be observed in several areas such as.
 Self esteem/confidence/self motivation
 Positive attitude

Picture books always attract young learners and have made good motivation
to their language learning. Picture book drawing activity helps young learners
represent ideas and develop their creative expressions. For children with lower
levels of English proficiency, drawing made it possible for them to go beyond their
limited vocabulary and they can express themselves in visual ways. Drawing can
bring visual quality to learning and facilitate their comprehension cognitive
development. Wilhelm (1997) points out “the word is a symbol that evokes an icon,
or concrete image. If the word doesn‟t evoke a picture, no meaning has been made”
2.3.4. Group acting

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This group-work activity can assess young learners‟ performance and co-
operation competence. The children have time to act together and they will perform
their working result in the ways they like. This activity help young learners develop
their team-work skills and linguistic skills effectively because they have to observe,
listen and respond logically to conform to other learners‟ performance.
2.3.5. Letter writing
Letter writing is a popular activity in the language classroom as it allows
children to produce short, meaningful written work (Scott & Ytreberg, 1990). The
students are given opportunities to write letters in different roles. This activity can
stimulate children‟s ability to imagine and use the target language to express what‟s
in their minds. This activity can also connect their experiences that they have gained
through stories and drama to their real lives.
2.3.6. Miming
Mime is “the art of conveying ideas without words” (McCaslin: 2005). To
represent ideas or feelings, facial expressions, hand gestures, and body movements
are used silently instead. It is a form of visual representantion. Mime challenges
students to convey meaning in unusual ways without words. It helps them learn
about communication and in particular body language. The children will feel
comfortable about communicating through mime. The value of incorporating non-


2.3.9. Thought-tracking
A group makes a still image and individuals are invited to speak their
thoughts or feelings aloud - just a few words. This can be done by tapping each
person on the shoulder or holding a cardboard 'thought-bubble' above their head.
Alternatively, thought tracking (also called thought tapping) can involve other
members of the class speaking one character's thoughts aloud for them.
In conclusion, the literature reviewed in this chapter on the typical
characteristics of young learners, on the benefits of and typical activities for using
stories and drama in teaching English has based the theoretical framework for the
current study detailed in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER III - THE STUDY
3.1. Research questions and design
The study set out to find answers to the two following questions:
1. What are the attitudes of Quan Tru third-grade students and teachers
towards the use of stories and drama in English lessons?
2. How can the use of stories and drama in teaching English enhance Quan
Tru third-grade students’ English speaking and listening skills?
The methodological approach was action research using mixed methods for data
collection.
The action research consisted of four main stages (Planning, Acting, Observing
and Evaluation) which are detailed below.
3.2. Planning stage
STEP 1: IDENTIFYING THE PROBLEM
3.2.1. The problem
The action research was carried out to solve the following problem: the
third-grade students at Quan Tru Primary School have low level of English
speaking and listening skills, an evidence of the low quality of English teaching -

Parts 4 and 5 : The students have to give basic information about themselves and
can understand and answer questions:
What’s your name?
How old are you?
Have you got any pets?
Is your house big or small?
4. Evaluating the student’s English listening abilities
The criteria of evaluating each student‟s listening abilities in English lessons include:
Part
Main skill focus
Input
Expected response/item type
1
Listening for names and
descriptions
Picture, names and
dialogue
Draw lines to match names to
people in a picture
2
Listening for names,
spellings and other
information
Form or page of
notepad with missing
words and dialogue
Write words or numbers in
gaps
3
Listening for specific