USING CONTENT-RELEVANT VIDEOS TO MOTIVATE STUDENTS
IN SPEAKING LESSONS: AN ACTION RESEARCH AT BO HA HIGH
SCHOOL, BAC GIANG PROVINCE

(SỬ DỤNG CÁC ĐOẠN PHIM TIẾNG ANH THEO NGỮ CẢNH NHẰM THÚC ĐẨY
HỌC SINH TRONG CÁC GIỜ HỌC NÓI: MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG TẠI
TRƯỜNG THPT BỐ HẠ, TỈNH BẮC GIANG) M.A. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

HANOI – 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*

PHẠM ĐỨC CƯỜNG

USING CONTENT-RELEVANT VIDEOS TO MOTIVATE STUDENTS
IN SPEAKING LESSONS: AN ACTION RESEARCH AT BO HA HIGH
SCHOOL, BAC GIANG PROVINCE

(SỬ DỤNG CÁC ĐOẠN PHIM TIẾNG ANH THEO NGỮ CẢNH NHẰM THÚC ĐẨY
HỌC SINH TRONG CÁC GIỜ HỌC NÓI: MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG TẠI
TRƯỜNG THPT BỐ HẠ, TỈNH BẮC GIANG) M.A. Minor Programme Thesis ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Mr. Le Hung
Tien for his valuable guidance, feedback and assistance on my thesis, especially for his
lectures on research methods.
Second, I also wish to thank my teachers at University of Languages and
International Studies, VNU – Hanoi for their interesting lectures, which helped to build
the argument in my study.
Next, my sincere thanks must be given to the helpful librarians at University of


In attempting to better speaking skills for the non-English majored students at
BHHS using content- relevant videos in lessons, this study mainly focuses on three issues:
(1) students‘ attitudes toward the use of relevant videos in their speaking lessons; (2) the
impacts of using videos in speaking learning; (3) suggestions to students and teachers so
that using relevant videos could be effectively applied at BHHS. In order to collect the
data for the thesis, three instruments were used: the questionnaire for the students, the
teacher‘s observation sheet and the students‘ journals. Research findings showed that the
students were actually highly positive in their attitudes towards using CRVs in speaking
lessons. It was revealed that using CRVs in class was beneficial to help BHHS students
improve their performance in speaking lessons. In addition, the students and other
teachers also offered some suggestions for the teacher and author so that learning and
teaching speaking with CRVs would be more successful. Based on the findings, some
implications would be given for both the teacher and the students. The author really hope
that this study useful for motivating both the students and the teachers to teach and lean
English better at BHHS.
2.5. How to evaluate speaking ability of students 12
3. Using content – relevant Videos (CRVs) in the classroom 14
4. Section-conclusion 16
Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………………… 17
1. Action research (AR) 17
1.1. Definitions of AR 17
1.2. Key characteristics of AR 18
1.3. Why AR? 20
1.4. The spiral of AR? 21
2. The current situation of teaching and learning English at BHHS 24
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3. The Speaking topics in “Tieng Anh 10” 26
4. Participants 27
5. Data collection instruments 27
5.1. Student Questionnaire (See Appendix 1) 27
5.2. Classroom Observation (See Appendix 2) 28
5.3. Students’ journals (see Appendix 3) 28
6. Data collection procedure 29
6.1. Preparation 29
6.2. Implementation 29
7. Data analysis 30
Chapter 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION…………………………………………… 35
1. Results from the questionnaire 35
2. Results from observation sheet 36
3. Results from the students’ journals 38
Chapter 4: IMPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS…………………………………… 40
1. For students 40
2. For the teachers 41
PART C: CONCLUSION 43


vii LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS AND FIGURES
Table 1: Key contrasts between spoken and written language………………………… 7
Table 2: Speaking topics of the textbook ―Tieng Anh 10‖ …………………………….27
Table 3: Students‘ responses to possible problems…………………………………… 33
Table 4: Students‘ responses to degree of likes……………………………………… 33

In today‘s global world, the importance of English can not be denied and ignored
since English is the most common language spoken everywhere. With the help of
technology development, English has been playing a major role in many sectors including
medicine, engineering, and education, which, in my opinion, is the most important arena
where English is needed. Particularly, as a developing country, Vietnam needs to make
use of this world-wide spoken language in order to prove its international power. This can
merely be based on the efficiency of education system. Consequently, English should be
practiced in terms of speaking at school; at least it must be compulsory for high school
students to do to keep up with the commanding future.
In Vietnam, The Ministry of Education and Training has paid more attention to
teaching and learning foreign languages, especially English than ever before. It is strongly
stated in the project entitled ―Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the
National Education System, period 2008 – 2020‖, which can be known as ―National
Foreign Languages Project 2020‖. According to this project, most of Vietnamese youths
whoever graduate from vocational schools, colleges and universities will have been
capable of using a foreign language, especially English, confidently in communicating,
studying and working in an environment of integration by the year 2020. (Decision N0
1400/QD – TTg by MOET 2008).
In addition, English language is supposed to be compulsory from the grade 3 to the
grade 12 with four skills to be taught and learnt. In these days, teaching and learning
listening and speaking skills receive more concerns for the communicative target of using
English in the future to be better.
To this aim of the project, speaking considered as a communicative skill deserves
more attention in teaching and learning a foreign language. For the realization of the
2

importance of developing speaking skills for students, the author decided to do a research
on the speaking skill.
For another reason in which the students at Bo Ha High School have not been
interested in the speaking skill [either inside or outside class], together with his good

better their students‘ speaking skill.
These objectives were accomplished by answering the following questions:
1. What are the students’ attitudes towards the using of content-videos in speaking classes?
2. What are the impacts of this action to students’ learning improvement?
3. What are the suggestions to the teachers and the students for using videos in class?
4. Methods of the study
The theoretical background of the study is based on the theories and ideas presented in
many books and linguistics articles published by a number of writers on language
teaching in general and English relevant videos in particular.
This study employs three data collection instruments including questionnaire,
students‘ journals and observation sheet. By conducting a survey in terms of
questionnaires, a vast amount of information can be collected in a limited amount of time.
It is also proved to be cost – effective and time-saving. Next, students‘ journals provide
extensive data for the study. Then, the teacher‘s observation sheet is used to reflect
students‘ improvement in speaking.
5. The design of the study
The study consists of three parts:
Part A, introduction, briefly states the rationales, the aims, the scope and significance,
methods, and design of the study.
Part B, development, appropriately contains four chapters, literature review,
methodology, results and discussion, and implications and suggestions.
Part C, conclusion, concisely restates the summary of the findings, limitations, and the
suggestions for further study. 4



According to Celce-Murcia (1995: 10-24), communicative competence emphasizes
five aspects of competence: discourse competence, linguistic competence, actionable
competence, and socio-cultural competence, strategic competence, in which discourse
competence or the competence ―to do with the selection‖ is considered the core goal.
1.1.2. Classroom activities in CLT
Communicative approach highlights the importance of using different types of
classroom activities where various competences are developed. Also, students‘ talk can be
elicited through activities of different types.
There are many ways to classify classroom activities under this approach. In terms
of competence the activities aim to develop at learners, in CLT, classroom activities are
divided into two main categories: accuracy and fluency activities, as defined by Richards
(2005:13). Fluency is the use of language that occurs when a speaker engages in
meaningful interaction and maintains comprehensible and ongoing communication
despite limitations in his or her communicative competence. On the contrary, accuracy is
the ability to use the language correctly.
With regard to the extent of guiding students to receive for practice, there are three
main types of practice namely mechanical, meaningful, and communicative practice. In
Richards‘ view (2005:15), mechanical practice refers to an activity which students can
successfully carry out without necessarily understanding the language they are using.
Repetition drills and substitution drills can be designed to practice use of particular
grammatical or other items. However, they quickly become boring and cannot be used at
all for developing other language skills. At this point, teachers move to meaningful
practice which refers to an activity where language control is still provided but where
students are required to make meaningful choices when carrying out practice. At this
kind, students are likely to be aware of the meaning of what they are saying. The last kind
of practice where practice in using language within a real communicative context is the
focus, where real information is exchanged and where the language is used is not totally
predictable. At this stage, students have to choose the language they use and the meanings
they will express. These choices are certainly based on the knowledge and skills gained in

talked too much in the class while students did not bother too utter a word. In the light of
CLT, teachers have adopted different innovative roles, one of which is to increase
students‘ talk. It is spotted by Harmer (2001) that in order to act this role effectively,
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modern teachers have to perform many roles at the same time such as controller, assessor,
organizer, prompter, participant, resource, tutor, observer, performer and teaching aid.
From this point of view, it is understood that the teacher must be ultimately well-
controlled throughout the lesson as he or she is required to play many roles at the same
time.
This radical change paves the way for that of students. Since teachers make every
effort to elicit students‘ talk, students in turn should take every opportunity to talk in
class. That students raise their own voice somehow signals their increased activeness in
learning process.
2. Teaching Speaking
2.1. Definition of speaking
According to Bailey (2005), if you have learned a language other than your own,
which of the four skills – listening, speaking, reading, or writing – did you find to be the
hardest? Many people feel that speaking in a new language is harder than reading,
writing, or listening for two reasons. First, unlike reading or writing, speaking happens in
real time: usually the person you are talking to is waiting for you to speak right then.
Second, when you speak, you cannot edit and revise what you wish to say.
In language teaching, the four skills are described in terms of their direction.
Language generated by the learner (in speech or writing) is referred to as productive.
Language directed at the learner (in reading or listening) is called receptive. Another
important idea is the channel, which refers to the medium of the message (aural/ oral or
written). Therefore, speaking is the productive aural/ oral skill. It consists of producing
systematic verbal utterance to convey meaning. Although speaking is totally natural, it in
a language other than our own is anything but simple.
Spoken language and written language differ in many significant ways, here are

grammar rules, reciting dialogues, and learning vocabulary. Unfortunately, actual
conversations did not sound like the textbook dialogues.
During the late twentieth century, language acquisition research made us
reconsider some long-standing beliefs about how people learn to speak. Several studies
led to the conclusion that we had got the basic idea backwards: people don‘t learn the
pieces of the language and then put them together to make conservations. Instead, infants
acquiring their first language and people acquiring second languages learn the pieces by
interacting with other people.
This realization has several interesting implications. If we believe that people
learn languages by interacting, then learners should interact during lessons. As a result, a
method called communicative language teaching arose. Two versions of communicative
language teaching emerged. The weak version says teachers should teach the components
9

of the language but include communication activities. The strong version says since
students learn through interacting, lessons should consist of opportunities to communicate
in the target language. In this method, teachers often downplay accuracy and emphasize
how students communicate when they speak the target language.
However, in order to communicate well in another language, we must make
ourselves understood by the people we are speaking with, and this is not an easy task –
especially at the beginning and intermediate levels. There is some need to be accurate in
speaking the target language. This is tricky because, as we saw in the speaking-writing
contrast, there is limited time for planning and editing speech during conversations.
The following figure depicts the many linguistic elements involved in speaking.
The left column lists four areas of linguistic analysis, but it is the centre column that
concerns us as teachers. It labels the units of spoken language.


stress
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together. Given this background information, we will now consider five principles for
teaching speaking.
2.3. Principles for teaching speaking
According to Bailey (2005), there are five main principles for teaching speaking.
 Be aware of differences between second language and foreign language learning
contexts.
Speaking is learned in two broad contexts: foreign language and second language
situations. The challenges we face as a teacher are determined partly by the target
language context.
A foreign language (FL) context is one where the target language is not the language
of communication in society. Learning speaking skills is very challenging for students in
FL contexts because they have very few opportunities to use the target language outside
classroom.
A second language (SL) context is one where the target language is the language of
communication in the society. Second language learners include refugees, international
students, and immigrants or some who want to achieve notable speaking skills.
 Give students practice with both fluency and accuracy.
Accuracy is the extent to which students‘ speech matches what actually say when
they use the target language. Fluency is the extent to which speakers use the language
quickly and confidently, with few hesitations or unnatural pauses, false starts, word
searches, etc.
 Provide opportunities for students to talk by using group work or pair work, and
limiting teacher talk.
Research has repeatedly demonstrated that teachers do approximately 50 to
80 percent of the talking in classrooms. It is important for us as language teachers to be
aware of how much we are talking in class so we do not take up all the time the students
could be talking.

• Balance of accuracy and fluency activities.
• Modeling for speaking activities.
• Activities are suitable for students of different proficiency levels.
• Students have ample talking time.
• Students participate actively in lessons.
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• Grammar and pronunciation errors are addressed appropriately.
• Activities have take-away value.
• A progression from controlled practice to freer practice
• Opportunities for personalization.
• Students experience success.
2.5. How to evaluate speaking ability of students
According to Susan, a linguist M.A. from the University of Delaware,
Pennsylvania, when students have learned vocabulary, done role plays and strategic
interaction, and practiced speaking to one another or to the teachers, now it is important
for teachers to know how to evaluate their progress. The teachers should give out
objective grades in speaking class, and they can use the following criteria for evaluating
students‘ speaking abilities.
 Create a Rubric
Most teachers will be familiar with the concept of grading with a rubric, a table
with different criteria and a grading scale. The columns in the table will represent
potential skill levels of the students. For each criterion, define what level of the ability a
student at each of the levels would exhibit. Take the average level among the criteria and
we have an objective grade with suggestions for areas in which our students can improve.
 Pronunciation
Pronunciation is a basis quality of language learning. Though most second
language learners will never have the pronunciation of a native speaker, poor
pronunciation can obscure communication and prevent an ESL student from making his
meaning known. When evaluating the pronunciation of our students, listen for clearly

advanced student who is tied to manufactured dialogues may not be able to be expressive
with language and would therefore have low communication skills. Don‘t let a lack of
language skill keep your students from expressing themselves.
 Interaction
Being able to say what you mean with a foreign language is one thing, being able
to interact with others is another. Ask your students questions. Observe how they speak to
one another. Are they able to understand and answer questions? Can they answer you
when you ask them questions? Do they give appropriate responses in a conversation? All
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these are elements of interaction and are necessary for clear and effective communication
in English. A student with effective interaction skills will be able to answer questions and
follow along with a conversation happening around him. Great oratory skills will not get
anyone very far if he or she cannot listen to other people and respond appropriately.
Encourage our students to listen as they speak and have appropriate responses to others in
the conversation.
 Fluency
Fluency may be the easiest quality to judge in our students‘ speaking. How
comfortable are they when they speak? How easily do the words come out? Are there
great pauses and gaps in the student‘s speaking? If there are then your student is
struggling with fluency. Fluency does not improve at the same rate as other language
skills. You can have excellent grammar and still fail to be fluent. You want your students
to be at ease when they speak to you or other English speakers. Fluency is a judgment of
this ease of communication and is an important criterion when evaluating speaking.
Apart from Susan‘s viewpoints on how to evaluate students‘ speaking ability
above, the author will apply The Circular N0 1/2014/TT – BGD, ― Six – Level Foreign
Language Capability Framework for Vietnam‖ (dated 24 May 2014 of the Minister of
Education and Training. (See appendix 4).
3. Using content – relevant Videos (CRVs) in the classroom
Why use videos in the classroom? Videos can illustrate and reinforce ideas, frame

- Conduct another background check or opinion poll and compare it with one
completed prior to viewing a video. This will help teachers to assess the
knowledge or information students have gained from the video.
In addition, using videos for student-centered activities is very useful. A number of
student-centered activities involving videos can be done individually or in small groups.
Here is the idea explored by Sherer and Shea (2011) that ―give students more choice, self-
direction, and engagement in their learning‖ (p.58). For this way, teachers can ask
students to present videos they have searched for that relate to lesson content (chapter,
topic, etc.). They can explain why they choose a particular video and receive feedback
from classmates.

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4. Section-conclusion
The mastery of speaking skills in English is a priority for many second and foreign
language teachers and learners. Teachers and textbooks make use of a variety of
approaches, ranging from direct approaches focusing on specific features of oral
interaction to indirect approaches which create conditions for oral interaction group work,
task work and other strategies (Richards, 1990).
In Vietnam context now, it is a really vital but hard job for teachers of English to
teach students how to speak English well. In general, in this study the author wishes to
master some techniques on how to use a relevant video in a speaking lesson effectively to
motivate student learning.