Đề tài Setting up some theoretical backgrounds, which are relevant to the purpose of the study

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION I.1 Rationale of the study: Increasing the students’ participation in language classroom activities is very crucial to the success in language learning. However, the question of how to increase the young learners’ time-on-task is really complicated. As many researchers and studies on the second language acquisition point out that the process of acquiring a second language grammar is not substantially affected by age, but the process of acquiring pronunciation, proficiency and especially, native accents is acquired better by children. That means young learners have more advantages when they early start to learn a second language. Nevertheless, young learners cannot concentrate for very long on monotonous language learning activities. In language teaching, there is a number of ways to involve the young learners such as games, media…, and the use of all those facilities is obviously helpful for motivating learners. There are various types of facilities. Native speakers can be considered as a facility. However, in Vietnamese schools settings it is not easy to have native speakers for students to engage in the real social interaction and to be more exposed to native accents. Instead, students can watch native speakers on Videos or VCDs or DVDs (in the latter parts of this study, the term VCDs will be used to refer to all three means). Moreover, young learners usually are more visually oriented. Hypothetically, the use of videos in classroom settings could help to prolong young learners’ span of concentration and to motivate them during classroom activities. Yet, the issue seems to have been underexplored. The reality showed that the use of VCDs in schools was a rare and luxurious thing in the past. Nowadays, the use of VCDs and other means is not yet increased in language teaching. That is a reason why this study is designed to fill this gap in the literature. I.2 Aim of the study This study aims at exploring the possibility of using VCDs to increase the young learners’ time-on-task. Specifically, the aims of the study are to explore: Teachers and learners’ perception of the advantages of VCDs over audiocassettes. The extent to which VCDs increase learners’ time-on-task. The pupils’ attitudes toward using VCDs in the classroom. I.3 Scope of the study Definition: VCD stands for Video CD. Developed in the early 90's by JVC, Matsushita, Philips, and Sony, VCDs, although having limited success in the U.S., became popular, mostly in Asia, for the playback of video content. For this study, the author would conduct a research on 10 English teachers and 50 pupils in Hanoi. These 50 pupils are in normal classes of a normal school. They are in the labor area - their parents all come from the working class - so most of them do not have condition to go to extra English courses. However, they have enabled to study English at school since grade 3 and have acquired an average level with about 800 word vocabulary. There are three types of textbooks used for normal primary schools in Vietnam: Let’s Learn (published with the assistance of a Singaporean publishing house); the textbook officially published by the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam, and Let’s Go. Every school has the right to choose what material it likes to teach students. The school under this research has chosen Let’s Go because it is a publication of the Oxford University, and it has both cassettes and VCDs while the two other types of textbooks only have cassettes. The students under the research study Let’s Go 2B. Thus, this research paper only refers to the use of VCDs included with the textbook Let’s Go 2. For the sake of this research, the author selects 4 lessons. The VCDs is included with the textbook and is illustrated with the first and second part of every unit. (Let’s talk and Let’s sing). I.4 Organization of the study This minor thesis includes five chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction, which presents the rationale for choosing the topic, the aims, the scope, method and organization of the study. Chapter 2: Setting up some theoretical backgrounds, which are relevant to the purpose of the study Chapter 3: Methodology, which provides an overview of participants’ background information and method of collecting data. Chapter 4: This part deals with data collection, findings and discussions Chapter 5: Summary of the thesis, limitation and suggestions for further study. CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND II.1 A review of language teaching approaches Teaching language has received much focus for the past few decades. So many approaches and methods such as Audiolingual Method, Total Physical Response, Content-based language teaching, Theme-based language teaching have been advanced, but it must be said that they all follow three different theoretical views of language and the nature of language proficiency: the structural view, the functional view, and the interactional view (Richards and Rogers 1996). The structural view see language as systematically structured segments and language teaching is aimed at helping learners learn these segments. According to this view, language is seen as an object and learners as students. The functional view sees language as a medium for expressing the functional meaning, and language teaching is aimed at helping learners learn language functions such as requests, commands, greetings, thanking, apology, complaints, compliments, invitations, and refusals. Like the structural view, however, it is an attempt for implementation of the structural or synthetic syllabus, which requires learners to resynthesize the discrete pieces of language to use in communicative situations, and so language is still seen as an object and learners still as students. In contrast with the two above views, the interactional view sees language as a tool for the creation and maintenance of interpersonal and social relations between individuals, and learners are viewed as language users. It is an attempt for implementation of the analytic syllabus, which aims to immerse learners in real-life communication. The following section will review three different teaching approaches: the oral-situational approach, the notional-functional approach, and the communicative approach, which are based on the three above language theories, respectively. According to Ellis (2005), the oral-situational approach is based on a behaviorist learning theory, that is, it assumes that language learning is habit formation and over learning. Grammatical structures are carefully selected and sequenced from basic to more complex and then presented inductively. Learners are required to experience much controlled practice with manipulative drill types to memorize certain sentence patterns and to minimize errors, which are seen as bat habits. This description of the oral-situational approach seems similar to the audiolingual approach because both are based on a structural syllabus. However, the former is different from the latter in the sense that it focuses on both meaning ad forms of the linguistic structures. It also emphasizes the importance of creating different situational contexts in the classroom for learners to practice the structures. The latter version of the oral-situational approach concerns with skill-building theory (Anderson 1993, cited in Ellis 2005), which involves the assumption that declarative knowledge or explicit knowledge can be converted into procedural knowledge or implicit knowledge through practice. It is the fact that the latter version is related to PPP model, which is based on the Interface Hypothesis fully developed by Sharwood Smith (1981, cited in Ellis 1994). This hypothesis claims that learners should be taught some language before they can communicate. They then practice using learnt knowledge via different types of drill exercises until the learnt knowledge becomes automatic. The learners, thereby, acquire the learnt language. However, this hypothesis does not take into account the learners’ cognition problems such as cognitive load and cognitive complexity. It is the fact that learners’ general cognitive processing capacity is limited, and they are not ready to acquire the structures being beyond their developmental patterns whatever how much they practice (Ellis 1994). The notional-functional approach is derived from the functional view of language described above. It is built on a theory of communicative competence and on functional models of language. The language functions and language notions are taught to learners at the same time with the assumption that language learning relates to learning formulaic expressions of language as well as learning rules of language. Formulaic expressions can be distinguished by routines and patterns (Krashen and Scarcella 1978, cited in Ellis 1994) when the former refers to utterances learnt as memorized chunks (e.g. I don’t know) and the latter refers to utterances learnt as ready-made expressions (e.g. Can I have a _____?). So the notional-functional approach is useful in that it helps learners develop pragmatic competence and minimize pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic errors. However, like the oral-situational approach, the notional-functional approach is still based on PPP model, that is, it is accuracy rather than fluency oriented. According to Kirkpatrick (1985), communicative language teaching is an idea or a set of principles that owes much to a social view of language and to the concept of communicative competence described by Hymes (1970). The goal of communicative language teaching is to produce people who are communicatively, not merely, linguistically competent. That is to say, the more the language learning in the classroom approaches the real-life communication, the more successful it is. Communicative language teaching pays much attention to giving students the opportunity to practice in genuine communication. Furthermore, the emphasis in teaching language through communication is, therefore, on classroom activities which help learners to acquire the rules (unconsciously) rather than to learn them (consciously). Such activities must require the learners to focus on meaning, rather than on form. Linguistic knowledge such as grammar is learnt in an unconscious ways; that is, students learn it through task-based activities or communicative tasks. The task-based teaching and learning, which is derived from the communicative approach, aims at helping learners learn language through communication. It is built around communicative tasks and so its primary focus is on meaning, that is, focuses on information exchanges. The tasks are built on learners’ real communicative demands and this would help learners with intrinsic motivation because the tasks they are doing in the classroom resemble the real-life communication outside the classroom. And so learners’ language learning is assessed through the outcome of the task performance. Linguistic structures are the secondary focus in the task-based approach. They are embedded in the communicative tasks and taught indirectly. Learners’ attention will focus on forms when their communication is broke down. When so, they have to utilize different strategies such as negotiation of meaning, recasts, clarification requests, and conformation requests to make their communication smooth. And they may learn linguistic forms naturally. Hence, the task-based teaching is useful in that it creates opportunities for learners to use language as a tool rather than as an object to satisfy communicative needs. It focuses on fluency rather than accuracy but, as described above, linguistic forms can be also learnt as a result of learning to communicate. However, it is necessary to distinguish between tasks and exercises. According to Ellis (2005, p. 5) ‘the latter requires a primary focus on form rather than meaning and typically asks learners to manipulate language given to them rather than to attempt to communicate using their own linguistic and non-linguistic resources.’ In Ellis (2003, cited in Ellis 2005), he also makes a distinction between task-based teaching and task-supported teaching. The task-based teaching occurs when the teaching is based exclusively on meaning-focus tasks, and the task-supported teaching occurs when tasks are incorporated into either an oral-situational or a notional-functional syllabus and used to practice pre-selected and presented linguistic forms. II.2 VCD as a language – teaching aid VCDs in the classroom offer exciting possibilities for language teaching and learning. The principles of effective teaching and learning are illustrated with examples from a wide range of material, at all levels of language learning. Radio and television have made important contribution to foreign language learning. The widespread use of video recorders has had two main effects on language - teaching broadcast. The first of these is to free teaching institutions and learners from the constraints of the broadcasting timetable. Video recorders can be used to store programmes for showing at any convenient time. The second change concerns with how television programmes are made. Appreciating the benefits that a video recorder brings into the classroom, more producers of language - teaching materials are designing video tape materials with the classroom exploitation in mind. Four or five minutes of video tape material can easily provide enough stimulating input for one hour’s teaching. The outstanding feature of video films is their ability to present complete communicative situations. The combination of sound and vision is dynamic, immediate, and accessible. This means that communication can be shown in a context, and the many factors in communication can be perceived easily by viewers - and language learners. The speakers in dialogues can be seen and heard; other participants in the situation can be seen. The language learner can readily see the ages of the participants; their sex, perhaps their relationships one to another; their dress, social status, and what they are doing; and perhaps their mood or feeling. Further, paralinguistic information, such as facial expression or hand gestures, is available to accompany aural clues of intonation. Similarly, the setting of the communication is clear: the language learner can see on the screen where the action is taking place. This information may help to clarify whether the situation is very formal, or perhaps informal. Of course, these audio-visual features of video films are found in cinema films and television broadcasts too. But these other media do not offer the same facilities for classroom exploitation of the material and content that video recorders do. A further feature of video recordings – which is shared with other related media – is the use of electronic tricks to create special effects and images. These are usually quite beyond the resources of the language teacher to produce, and provide another valuable source of material for use in language teaching and learning. Video presentations will be intrinsically interesting to language learners. The learner will want to watch, even if comprehension is limited. The material should be motivating; the learner should want to see more, to ask question, to follow up ideas and suggestions. By generating and motivation, the Video films can create a climate for successful learning. In a language – learning context, there is a need for special action: inter-action with the video (Jack Lonergan, 1984). II.3 The use of VCD in language classroom This section will discuss some advantages and disadvantages of the use of VCD in language classrooms. According to Gallacher there are totally five benefits that video can bring about when used in classroom. First, children enjoy language learning with video because video creates an attractive enjoyable learning environment. Second, video is an effective way of studying body language as younger language learners are still learning about the world around them. Third, children can obtain confidence through repetition when they watch a video several times and absorb and imitate what they see and hear. Fourth, video communicates meaning better than other media. We can see that video presents language in context in ways that a cassette can’t; that is, learners can see who’s speaking, where the speakers are, what they are doing, etc. Last, video represents a positive exploitation of technology. This is because young learners always have positive attitude towards television and video, which is considered modern compared to books. However, teachers are also advised to watch out for some shortcomings that video can cause in the classroom. Video can make children become passive when watching it so teachers should provide as many stimulating activities as possible where the children can interact with and learn from the video. Furthermore, children’s parents may get annoyed when hearing their children spend the class watching the video as they can do it at home. Hence, the time to watch the video should be kept to a minimum and the children should have something concrete and related to the video to show to their parents. Beside the pros and cons of the use of video in language classroom, Gallacher also points out four possible roles for video: developing listening skill, providing information, presenting or reinforcing language, and stimulating language production. These roles do not operate separately but can appear within one lesson. For example, learners may watch a video to find out information about a famous person, and this may include work on developing listening skill to enable them to extract the relevant information; it could then be used to develop vocabulary on the topic of lives. Gallacher next goes to show criteria for selecting video. He argues that an authentic video for use in the classroom should be first watchable; that is, the video should be interesting. Next, the video clip should tell a complete story a section of a story. This is important as young learners’ primary motivation for watching is enjoyment. The length of the clip is important, too. It should be between 30 seconds and 10 minutes depending on the learning objectives. What is more, the content of the video clip and children’s level of maturity should be compatible, that is, the content should be suitable with each age group of children. Related materials that accompany with the video should be available, too. In addition, Gallacher claims more that when a video is used for presenting language or comprehension tasks, selecting the video should based on degree of visual support, which means the more visual a video is, the easier it is to understand; clarity of picture and sound; density of language, which refers to the amount of language spoken in a particular time; speech delivery, which includes clarity of speech, speech rate and accents; language content, which consists of linguistic items; and language level, which should be appropriate for the level of the class without the teacher having to explain too much. * Teaching Foreign Languages to Children through Video The teaching of foreign languages at the elementary school level has changed immensely over the past two decades. Growing public awareness of the benefits of early foreign language learning has led to an increase in both foreign language teaching and professional development for language teachers at the elementary school level (Rhodes & Branaman, 1999). In 1996, the release of national standards for foreign language learning had an extremely positive influence on K–12 foreign language teaching. State education agencies developed standards based on the national model, and school districts began to implement these standards at the local level. This positive trend, however, has been jeopardized by a shortage of trained language teachers (Duncan, 2000) and by budgetary constraints. In addition, parents and educators are increasingly concerned about a lack of equity in elementary school language programs, which are viewed by some as special classes for a select group of students. School districts are now looking for ways to provide language classes for all students (Steele & Johnson, 2000). Many administrators who are convinced of the importance of early foreign language education but who don’t have the resources to offer foreign language classes taught by trained language teachers are looking for affordable alternatives. Video programs that do not require the use of a certified foreign language teacher offer a unique possibility. II.4 Time-on-task All the students of the age group 6-14 have not only enrolled but provided education of satisfactory quality. It implies that the curriculum objectives for primary and upper primary classes are achieved during their schooling. However, what students learn in school depends on several factors, many of which are school and teacher related factors. These factors affect not only students’ learning in academic subjects but also personality development and achievement in various co-curricular areas. Much depends on how teachers and students spend their time on various teaching-learning activities in school. Apart from the time spent on active teaching by teachers and how they teach, an important dimension of the teaching-learning that takes place in school, is what student do and how much time they spend on different types of learning and other related and unrelated activities in school. This calls for a ‘time and task’ study of students, which should focus on what they do individually or in a group while they are in school. It is very necessary to claim that the more time students spend on tasks, the more knowledge and more skillful they become. But an important question arisen here is that what the teachers can do to increase students’ time spent on tasks. Brewster and Fager (2000) argue that there are five strategies to increase the amount of time students spend on tasks. First, the teachers must be aware that course materials relate to students’ lives and highlight ways learning can be applied in real-life situations. That is to say, students should be taught what they need and they can use what they have learnt in their daily life. Second, in the classroom activities, students should be allowed to have some degree of control over learning. This means that students can have free choices between different assignments; or they are let to monitor and evaluate their own progress; or adult supervision over students’ group projects should be minimized. Third, the teachers should assign challenging but achievable tasks for all students, including at-risk, remedial, and learning disabled students. This is because students need to feel successful and that they have earned success. Fourth, students’ curiosity should be taken into account when tasks are given to them. This can be best to give students an opportunity to direct inquiry and discover for themselves. Furthermore, it also builds up students’ needs for competence and autonomy. Lastly, the teachers should design projects that allow students to share new knowledge with others. Projects are more engaging when students share what they are learning in reciprocal relationship, as collaborative projects where each student’s knowledge is needed by others in the group to complete an assignment. Spanjers, Burns, and Wagner (2008) discusses this issue in more details when he gives five stages in a procedure to increase students’ time-on-task. Each of five stages includes substages, which are indeed techniques to increase the time students spend on task. These five stages are (1) determine the average time the child can stay on task for each type of activity of interest, and this can be done in the following procedure: (a) have the child perform the task 5 to 20 times, (b) when you have at least 5 recorded times, add them all, (c) divide the total by the number of recorded times; (2) require that the child stays on task for a slightly longer than his or her average, and (a) when the child pays attention for the new longer time, reward him or her with some small reward he or she really likes or (b) each time the child tries hard to meet the criteria or succeeds, give the child a quick break; (3) repeat stages 1 and 2 daily or every-other-day sessions until the child attends for half an hour; (4) if the child increases time on task and performance in training session, but not when you are not there observe the child at school, there may be two cases: (a) if the teacher’s methods are the problem use them during the training session so the child learns to pays attention even in uninspiring circumstances, and (b) if the problem is only the child’s, encourage the child; (5) repeat the procedure with other tasks. Teaching for transfer and integrating language and content won't solve all the time problems that teachers of ELLs encounter. For those teaching in all-English programs, the fact remains that teaching content in English to ELLs takes more time than teaching the same content to native speakers. Bilingual programs ease the time problem by teaching content in the native language, but political pressures and the English testing requirements of No Child Left Behind often push ELLs into all-English instruction before they are ready. We could do a lot to help ease the time crunch by ensuring that students are engaged in productive activities during the entire school day. When I started teaching, my students spent a good part of the day doing unproductive activities or doing nothing, and I found the same thing happening years later when I did an observational study of a second-grade bilingual classroom (Irujo, 1998, pp. 14-20). Almost all teachers can create extra time in their schedules by cutting down on the time spent on clerical tasks such as attendance, announcements, or collecting and passing out papers. Effective classroom management techniques can eliminate excess time spent on disciplining students. Instructional time can be made more efficient through flexible grouping arrangements that change according to tasks and student needs. Student attention can be increased through relevant, motivational tasks that are challenging yet achievable. II. 5 Motivation in language learning II. 5.1 The concept of motivation Gardner (1960) claims that to fully understand a student’s motivation to learn a second language, it is necessary to explain his long-term drive to acquire all aspects of the target language. However, this should be done first with the examination of the student’s first language acquisition. Gardner cites many studies to show that children learn their first language by imitation and the motive they learn the language here is that they want to be identified as a member of the family. Hence, the children tend to take on many behavioral characteristics of the parents and their behaviors are modified by that of the parents. That is to say, the family becomes a reference group, and language learning is consequently one aspect of social learning. This is called ‘identification motive’. This is also applied to the children’s second language acquisition because languages are typically learned in the process of becoming a member of a particular group. The sustaining motivation is usually one of group membership, not of language acquisition alone. And the willingness to become a member of another language group is regarded as integrative orientation. Gardner states more that the desire to integrate with another language group can be motivated in two ways. First, the learner wants to be a member of another group because he perceives that group favorably and possibly as having higher status than his own group. The learner then imitates behavioral characteristics of members of that group so that he will be recognized as a member himself. This called ‘approach’ dimension. Second, the learner does not necessarily perceive the other group as having desirable characteristics. Rather, he chooses the other group as a ‘reference’ group because of personal dissatisfactions with his own cultural community. Consequently, this aim in integration could be independent of any favorable evaluation of the new group. This is called ‘avoidance’ dimension. The integrative motivation should be differentiated with the instrumental motivation. While the former is dependent upon the integrative orientation, the later is the learner’s primary aim in studying the language to be an interest in acquiring sufficient knowledge of the language for its instrumental values in goal attainment. That is, the learner seeking to learn a language for other reasons such as for school credits, job opportunities, etc., will not manifest and maintain as high a degree of motivation over extended periods of language study. II.5.2 Some review of studies of motivation in language learning The effect of motivation to learning a foreign or second language is inevitable. Many language teachers and researchers even view motivation as a key factor in L2 learning and explain their own sense of failure with reference to the students' lack of motivation. Being aware of the importance of the students' motivation, many language researchers have devoted their time to study the relationship between the students' motivation and their achievement in L2 learning. Some of them such as Gardner and Lambert (1972) or Crookes and Smith (1989) (as cited in Ellis 1994) try to investigate the consistent correlation between students' internal motivation and their L2 achievement, that is, they hope to prove a positive relationship that the higher motivation students have, the more successful in L2 learning they are. However, some others such as Oller, Baca and Vigil (1977, cited in Ellis 1994) have demonstrated a converse thing. They report that Mexican women in California are successful in learning English though they have negative attitudes towards the target language community. Many other studies focus on students' external motivation and view it as determinant of students' motivational strength. They claim that when students are provided with some kind of incentives to learn such as a financial reward, they may be motivated and do better in learning. But the major disadvantage of this kind motivation is that students may stop extra effort to learning when the reward is eliminated. Gardner, Day, and MacIntyre (1991) carry out a study which aims to find out the effects of both integrative motivation and anxiety on computerized vocabulary acquisition using a laboratory analog procedure as a microcosm of second language learning. The result of the study shows that integrative motivation facilitates learning of vocabulary items. This means that integrative motivation is associated with higher levels of achievement and a willingness to initiate a respond quickly. Integratively motivated subjects learn the items more quickly and consequently are willing to risk attempting an answer sooner as trials progress. The studies mentioned so far suggest that students with greater motivation could get better learning, but not vice verse. However, some further studies by Strong (1983, 1984) or Savignon (1972) (as cited in Ellis 1994) claim that students' achievement can affect strongly their motivation, that is, students' desire to learn would increase with attainment in their language proficiency. In addition, students' intrinsic interest is also considered to be one of the main elements of motivation. The studies by Crookes and Smith (1989) and McNamara (1973) (as cited in Ellis 1994) point out that students' motivation could be activated if they have a chance to participate actively in learning tasks and it is teachers’ job to motivate students by engaging their interest in classroom activities. And in his own conclusion, Ellis (1994) sums up four types of motivation: integrative motivation or internal motivation, instrumental motivation or external motivation, resultative motivation, and motivation as intrinsic interest. According to him, this is based on the assumptions that the main determinants of motivation are the learners' attitudes to the target language community and their need to learn the L2. Motivation can affect the extent to which individual learners achieve in learning the L2, the kind of learning they employ. II.5.3 Motivation for young learners Why should we worry about motivation? After all shouldn’t it be up to the student to make sure they come to class in the right frame of mind? Can the presence or absence of motivation make any real difference? The Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics defines motivation as follows: Motivation is generally considered to be one of the primary causes of success and failure in second language learning (2002: 344). So it would seem from this definition that motivation is something we teachers need to take seriously if we are concerned about creating the best possible acquisition/learning environment for our students. But what is a good motivator? And how can we ‘rekindle the inner fire’? According to O. Dunn (1984), after a time of studying, young learners “begin to lose interest in learning English and thus motivation is vital” (Developing English with young learners. P83) and among some sources for activities to motivate young learners he suggests using of audio-visual material, especially video. CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY This research is based on the qualitative and quantitative methods with the survey questionnaires, interviews and classroom observation in order to achieve quantified background data, which aims to prove how VCDs increase the pupils’ time-on-task. All the data and information collected present the foundation for my study. III.1 The subjects of the research The subjects for this study consist of 60 participants placed in two groups: The first group includes 50 pupils at Thinh Hao primary school in Hanoi. They were chosen at random from 5 classes of 5th grade. All the pupils follow the same three - year course of English and their textbooks in use are Let’s Go 2. This group of pupils is taught by Vietnamese teachers of English. The second group includes 10 teachers, who were chosen from three primary schools in Hanoi (Dai Tu primary school, Thinh Hao primary school, Thanh Liet primary school). They are in charge of teaching English for 5th grade. Five of them are in their early thirties with 8 years of teaching experience; five others are in their late forties with more than 20 years of teaching experience. III. 2 Data collection III.2.1 Questionnaire We have designed two sets of questionnaire. One is for teachers and the other for primary pupils. In order that the answerer could be free to express their specific thoughts about the items raised in the questionnaire, some questions are designed to be open - ended or to allow interviewees give free answers (these are often the last choice in the suggested group of answer). Questionnaire No. 1, consisting of 11 questions all written in English, was administered to the 10 English teachers. Questionnaire No. 2, including 14 questions, was administered to the 50 primary pupils. All questions were written in Vietnamese in order to make sure that they can be fully understood by the pupils before they give their answers. They were also requested to answer in Vietnamese, so as to fully express their ideas. For easier reference, these questionnaires are included in the appendixes. The questions for the teacher focus on the following points: Situation of using VCDs in teaching Purposes of using VCDs in teaching Pupils’ feeling and attitudes towards VCDs used during the classroom hours The differences between using VCDs and cassettes in teaching How can the use of VCDs motivate the pupils? Teachers’ suggestions The questions for pupils cover some similar points with those for the teacher. Q1 and Q2 is made to get information about the situation of using VCDs. If pupils say “Yes”, they have to answer 10 following questions (Q3-Q12). If they choose “No”, they can ignore Q3 to Q12 and go on to Q13 and 14. The questions for the pupils refer to the following points: Accessing VCDs Advantages of VCDs in learning English Pupils’ feeling and attitudes towards Video, VCD When and for how long are VCDs used in the class Opinions about the use of VCDs in teaching and learning English Note: The interviewees can choose more than one option in the questionnaire III.2.2 Classroom observation We have also applied the classroom observation method in this study to try to prove our research hypothesis that VCDs can help to increase the pupils’ time-on-task. The observation was carried out in 4 classes of 5th grade. Pupils are judged to be on-task, misbehaving, or doing nothing. The observer selects one of these three descriptions of the pupils' behavior and records either a letter T (on-task), a letter B (misbehaving), or a letter N - nothing (not on task, not misbehaving). At the end of the observation session, the data are tallied and a percent time-on-task score is assessed. In order to accurately assess time-on-task, the observer must be able to clearly distinguish between these three behaviors. In certain learning situations, this may be fairly difficult to ascertain. When a pupil is sitting quietly, who can really determine whether or not he is on task? If the pupil is thinking about or processing the subject material, formulating a question or an answer, or simply listening and absorbing, he may be judged to be doing nothing when he is in fact on-task and actively learning. The five-second sampling interval requires the observer to make a snap decision without benefit of careful study. The calculation of time-on-task is made by dividing the number of on-task observations by the total number of observations. Should the "nothing" data points be excluded from the total? This bears careful consideration. The number of these null points, of course, has a bearing on the decision. A data set with very few null points will not be greatly affected either way, but a large number of null points can sway the on-task percentage significantly. If the objective of the evaluation is to determine time spent effectively on learning activities, and the observer confidently assigns the null value to mean "not on task, not misbehaving", then the points should be included. Excluding them will give a falsely high on-task rating. If the observer cannot confidently determine that the pupil is not on task, the points should be excluded. III.2.3 Informal follow-up interview To consolidate the results of survey and classroom observations, the researcher contacted directly with answerers (the teachers and pupils) to ask for further information. Here is the question used for the follow-up interviews: How can you compare advantages of VCDs over cassettes? The questionnaires and class observations are represented in Appendix I, II and III, respectively at the end of the study. CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS IV.1 Data analysis and discussion IV.1.1 Result of teachers’ survey After collecting, summarizing and analyzing the teachers’ answers, the researcher has found many interesting and significant points that are present here below selectively. The first question was used to find out whether the teachers used VCDs or cassettes in their teaching. The result is presented in Table No. 1 and Chart No. 1 below: Table 1. Q1 What is the type of teaching aid you are using in your English class? Question Answers Total (%) What is the type of teaching aid you are using in your English class? Cassettes 50 VCDs 30 Both 20 Others 40 Based on this result, we can find out the amount of teacher, who use and don’t use VCDs in their teaching process. 50% of teacher’s answers indicate that they are using cassette in their English class, 30% are not using cassette but VCDs and 20% of the teachers sometimes using cassette, sometimes using VCD. 40% remaining are using another types of teaching aid for English teaching such as pictures, real objects etc. This result indicates the popularity of cassette in teaching language in general and teaching English in particular. Because of easy using, cheap price and fairly useful in English teaching, cassettes are more popular than VCDs, but you can see lots of limitation than VCDs. The importance of using teaching aids in language teaching in general and English teaching in particular were proved. The reason why some teachers use or do not use VCDs during teaching English will be shown in following questions, tables and charts. * Specific questions for those who say they use cassettes:( from Q 2 to Q5) Table 2. Q2 Please indicate why you do not choose VCDs for your English class? Reasons Total (%) Note Don’t like using VCDs 0 Don’t have equipment for using VCDs 100 Don’t know how to use VCDs 0 Chart 1. Q2 Please indicate why you do not choose VCDs for your English class? As it is shown in the table 2, all the teachers who didn’t use VCDs in their teaching process blamed for the lack of equipment, as the only reason of their failure to use VCDs in the class. Some teachers employ even the traditional education methods where teachers typically lecture to students who take notes and then memorize and recall the material to perform well on examinations. The principal teaching equipment used at class includes the black board and chalk. The curriculum also needs a lot of attention. In a world in which technology is changing rapidly and students are to be able to think creatively, make decisions, and solve problems, it is clear that we have to find out means to deal with above-mentioned situation and improve the teaching-learning process quality. Table 3. Q3 Please indicate roughly how many percents of your pupils actively participate (voluntarily answering teacher’s questions, pair work, team work, role-play, freeze-frame control - prediction, freeze-frame control - description, discussion) in the class activities? Question Code Activities Total(%) Please indicate roughly how many percents of your pupils actively participate in the class activities? A Voluntarily answering teacher’s questions 25 B Pair work 65 C Team work 60 D Role-play 45 E Freeze-frame control - Prediction 0 F Freeze-frame control - Description 0 G Discussion 5 When using cassette to teach the “Let’s Talk”, it seems that the students do not pay enough attention. In the class they may sit quietly to listen to the tape, but when they practice talking, they do not actively work with their partners. Some pairs do not talk (35%), when they work in group, the percentage of the students keep silence or have private talk increase. So there is only 60% of the students work in group and only 25% of the students volunteer to answer the questions of the teachers. Table 4. Q4 How can you describe the classroom environment? Classroom environment Total (%) Very exciting 20 Fairly exciting 60 Boring 20 Only 20% of teacher reported that their classroom environment was very exciting, 60% of them thought that the environment was only fairly good and 20% said it was boring. In fact, when using cassette, students are easy to be neglected or feel sleepy Table 5. Q5 How many percents of your pupils achieve good English marks, i.e. from 8 to 10 points? Question Answers Total (%) How many percents of your pupils achieve good English marks, i.e. from 8 to 10 points? Less than 50% (<50%) 100 From 50% to less than 90% (≥ 50%; ≤90%) 0 More than 90% (>90%) 0 Chart 2. Q5 How many percents of your pupils achieve good English marks, i.e. from 8 to 10 points? ≥ 50% ≤ 90% All data in above tables and charts indicate that using cassettes for teaching English also bring back a good effect on teaching and learning English. But as it can be seen from the chart, there is only less than 50 % of the students achieve good marks (from 8 to10) * Specific questions for those who say they use VCDs:(From Q6 to Q10) Table 6. Q6 Please indicate why you have chosen VCDs for your English class? Question Code Answers Total Please indicate why you have chosen VCDs for your English class? A Make pupils understand easier 100 B Increase pupils’ activities in English class 100 C Make an exciting class 100 This question presents the purpose of using VCDs while teaching. All teachers recognize the benefit of using VCDs in English class which is to bring the best explanation to the pupils. The combination between pictures and sound make pupils understand easier and remember longer. The lively, clear communicative situations make pupils easier to listen, speak, repeat and participate in a single activity. The advantages of using VCDs in English class are also clearly understood as shown in the table and chart above. One of the most appreciated materials applied to language learning and teaching is, of course, video. A recent large-scale survey by Canning-Wilson (2000) reveals that the students like learning language through the use of video, which is often used to mean quite different things in language teaching. For some, it means no more than replaying television programmes on a video recorder for viewing in class or private study. For others, it implies the use of a video camera in class to record and play back to learners their activities and achievements in a foreign language teaching. But our concern here is to present the use of video in language teaching most effectively as a visual aid presenting the target language naturally. It is a fact that most students who have taken English courses formally remain insufficient in the ability to use the language and to understand its use, in normal communication, whether in the spoken or the written mode. The problem arises not from the methodology itself but from the misuse or incomplete use of it. That is to say, teachers still evaluate student performance according to the sentence structure and situational settings. In addition, teachers have to take into consideration their performances in terms of communicative acts. But this not necessarily means that teachers should pay full attention to only communicative acts in the preparation and presentation of language teaching materials. In recent years, the use of video in English classes has grown rapidly as a result of the increasing emphasis on communicative techniques. Being a rich and valuable resource, video is well-liked by both students and teachers (Hemei, 1997:45). Students like it because video presentations are interesting, challenging, and stimulating to watch. Video shows them how people behave in the culture whose language they are learning by bringing into the classroom a wide range of communicative situations. Another important factor for teachers that makes it more interesting and enjoyable is that it helps to promote comprehension. We know that deficiencies in vocabulary can make even a simple task very difficult for our students. Video makes meaning clearer by illustrating relationships in a way that is not possible with words, which proves a well-known saying that a picture is worth thousand words. Two minutes of video can provide an hour of classroom work, or it can be used to introduce a range of activity for five minutes. A ten-minute programme can be useful for more advanced students. Less advanced students may wish something much shorter because their limited command of the language also limits their attention span. It is obvious that non-native speakers of a language rely more heavily on visual clues to support their understanding and there is no doubt that video is an obvious medium for helping learners to interpret the visual clues effectively. According to a research, language teachers like video because it motivates learners, brings the real world into the classroom, contextualizes language naturally and enables learners to experience authentic language in a controlled environment. Moreover, in this issue Arthur (1999) claims that video can give students realistic models to imitate for role-play; can increase awareness of other cultures by teaching appropriateness and suitability. Table 7. Q7 When you use VCDs, do your pupils like it? Code Pupils’ feeling Total (%) A Yes, they like them very much 100 B Yes, but sometimes they get bored with it 0 C No, they don’t like it at all 0 This question investigates the teachers’ observation of the pupils’ feeling towards using VCDs while learning English. The result show that all of the pupils (100%, as perceived by the teachers) like using VCDs very much, which is relevant to the psychological of this age group. No teachers reported on any pupil like using VCDs in general, but sometimes they get bored with it as well as any pupil who did not like using VCDs at all. Pupils like using VCDs while learning English because of a lot of reasons and benefits that VCDs can bring back. As Gallacher (undated) considered, there are totally five benefits that video can bring about when used in classroom. First, children enjoy language learning with video because video creates an attractive enjoyable learning environment. Second, video is an effective way of studying body language as younger language learners are still learning about the world around them. Third, children can obtain confidence through repetition when they watch a video several times and absorb and imitate what they see and hear. Fourth, video communicates meaning better than other media. We can see that video presents language in context in ways that a cassette can’t; that is, learners can see who’s speaking, where the speakers are, what they are doing, etc. Last, video represents a positive exploitation of technology. This is because young learners always have positive attitude towards television and video, which is considered modern compared to books. Table 8. Q8 Please indicate roughly how many percents of your pupils actively participate (voluntarily answering teacher’s questions, pair work, team work, role-play, freeze-frame control - Prediction, freeze-frame control - Description, Discussion) in the class activities? Table 8. Q8 Please indicate roughly how many percents of your pupils actively participate (voluntarily answering teacher’s questions, pair work, team work, role-play, freeze-frame control - Prediction, freeze-frame control - Description, Discussion) in the class activities? Question Code Activities Total(%) Please indicate roughly how many percents of your pupils actively participate in the class activities? A Voluntarily answering teacher’s questions 83 B Pair work 89 C Team work 87 D Role-play 86 E Freeze-frame control - Prediction 78 F Freeze-frame control - Description 75 G Discussion 36 The teachers who answer the questionnaire inform that when they use the VCDs, students take part in the class activities with much enthusiasm. They are eager to answer the questions of the teachers and especially there are more interesting activities when using VCD for students. The percentage of the pair work and team work also increase (89% and 87%). Also, there are more activities applied when using VCD such as freeze-frame control- prediction and freeze-frame control – description and students like these activities very much. The percentage of students participate in those are 78 and 75 % Table 9. Q9 How can you describe the classroom environment? Classroom environment Total (%) Note Very exciting 100 Fairly exciting 0 Boring 0 Following almost teachers’ observation (100%, as reported by the teachers), the classroom environment is very exciting while using VCDs; a fairly exciting one is the opinion of no teachers. There isn’t any answer of boring classroom environment. This can preliminarily prove the preeminence of VCDs with cassettes. Table 10. Q10 How many percents of your pupils achieve good English marks, i.e. from 8 to 10 points? Question Answers Total(%) How many percents of your pupils achieve good English marks, i.e. from 8 to 10 points? Less than 50% (<50%) 45 From 50% to less than 90% (≥ 50%; ≤90%) 55 More than 90% (>90%) 0 Chart 3. Q10 How many percents of your pupils achieve good English marks, i.e. from 8 to 10 points? ≥ 50% ≤ 90% In compare with the percentage of the good marks students achieve when using cassette, the percentage of the good marks (from 8 to 10) is increased. It may be caused by the attention and pleasure of the students with the VCD. IV.1.2 Result of follow-up interviews and discuss with the teacher Interview question: How can you compare advantages of VCDs over cassettes? Basing on the collected data and information, advantages of VCDs over cassettes are compared. Differences between using VCDs and cassettes in English class are recorded from the responses of Q.3 to Q.9. The prominent result was pointed out in the below tables. When using the VCDs in English class, the participation of the pupils in English class’s activities is more than when using cassette; the classroom environment is more exciting. And the most remarkable thing is the amount of pupils, who achieved their good results of examination raised. Table 11. The differences between using VCD and cassette in English class Using VCD in English class Using cassette in English class Percentage of pupils participates in English class’s activities (used the highest data) Classroom Environment The testing result of pupils’ understanding after English class (Percentage of pupils achieve good mark 8 - 10) Percentage of pupils participates in English class’s activities (used the highest data) Classroom Environment The testing result of pupils’ understanding after English class (Percentage of pupils achieve good mark 8 - 10) 90% Exciting 55% 65% Fairly Exciting 26% Chart 4. Total of time (expressed as a percentage), which your pupils participate in all activities related to the lesson of normal English class These data prove that by using VCDs you can significantly increase total of time-on-task, which is useful for pupils in the class and reduce maximum the waste time. Comparing total of time, which were used by pupils to participate in all activities related to lesson between using VCDs and cassette in English class, it can be realized the prominent advantages of VCDs with 90% of pupils who participate in all activities such as role-play, Freeze-frame control – Prediction; Freeze-frame control – Description, Discussion and other activities while the correlative rate of using cassette are 65%. It is also approved by the percentages of total students’ time-on-task are 70% and 40% perspectively. When executing this important comparison, we really made it with careful calculation because this can help us to find out the motivation of pupils’ time-on-task first, furthermore the differences between using VCDs and cassette to increase the pupils’ time-on-task will be affirmed. From this Tables and Charts, we can prove the hypothesis that VCDs can help to increase the children time-on-task, which was mentioned from the aim of this study. The combination between qualitative and quantitative methods through contents of observation such as “Please indicate roughly how many percents of your pupils actively participate (voluntarily answering teacher’s questions, pair work, team work, role-play, freeze-frame control - Prediction, freeze-frame control - Description, Discussion) in the class activities? Have already brought a significant and honest results. What we draw from this test is pupils’ time-on-task can considerably increase while using VCDs in English class. Moreover, this can make pupils understand easier, exciting, and happier and the most important thing is they can achieve the best result in learning English. This is my humble opinion on why VCDs should be integrated into the teaching of English and how we can make the best use of VCDs in teaching. By combining pictures, graphics, animations, flashes, actions and sounds from VCDs with the theoretical contents in the textbook, teachers will be able to present hard-to-understand concepts and ideas to pupils. Furthermore, it is shown here that the multimedia environment provides us with a new and desirable approach to enhance the delivery and interactivity of linguistic course. In recent years, considerable progress has been seen in teaching of the English language. With the installation of multimedia equipment in the classroom, the era of “multimedia teaching” has started. As the VCD-aided language learning has been proved to efficiently enhance teaching effects in English learning, syllabus and textbook design, and student-oriented activities. Following above collected data and information, pupils who are learning in English class with VCDs (both listening and watching) can achieve the higher result than English class with cassettes showed by the testing result of pupils’ understanding after English class: Percentage of pupils achieve good mark 8 – 10 is 55% with VCDs and 26% with cassettes. This result is conformity with the study of Balatova (1994), who suggests that unlike a student, who listened in sound only conditions, the use of video and sound conditions were more consistent in their perception of the story, in the sense that difficult and easy passages formed a pattern. The study notes that scenes where utterances were backed up by an action and/or body language and that were relatively shorter were considered easier to understand by students. Less lively scenes, which involved relatively long stretches of conversation, were labeled as more difficult. These comments illustrate that visual cues are important, since they either facilitated or distracted from understanding. In addition, her research also notes that "It is also interesting to point out that students in the sound-only conditions in the two experiments were less successful in maintaining the interest and concentration in listening". Our researching result is also in accordance with the following diagram, introduced by MA. Nguyen Dang Tru - Institute of education development research – Viet Nam. Speech Pictures Speech & Pictures Speech, Pictures & Action Discover by oneself 30% 10% 60% 20% 80% 70% 90% 80% After 3 hours After 3 days RATIO OF SAVING DATA TO MEMORY THROUGH DIFFERENT FACTORS * Teachers’ suggestions The classroom English language teaching has a fixed place and adequate time and relatively stable attendance of students. These factors facilitate teachers’ organizing interactive learning activities and fully develop teachers’ imagination and creativity in designing class activities. But the resources for both teaching and learning only come from textbooks and related reference books, which are, rather limited resources compared with the vast online information. Moreover, teachers’ dominant role in classroom teaching has greatly restrained students’ active interaction and communication. So classroom English teaching should re-direct its orientation from teacher-centered and textbook-based to learner-centered and multimedia-based. The teachers who are used to the pattern of “a textbook, a piece of chalk, and a teacher” ought to have realized the impact of network and computers on the development of modern education. They ought to learn computer skills and knowledge of network and become competent in computer and then shall integrate them into their teaching. Multi-media teaching aids including VCD, CD, Internet ect. ought to be introduced into classroom English teaching. More time in class ought to give way to students’ interactive oral practice such as discussion, debate, pair work and group work so that students are motivated to talk in English. Using VCD in English teaching is a chance to expose to modern educational concepts, refreshed pupils’ approaches and attitudes towards English teaching and upgraded teachers’ teaching skills in classroom teaching. Learning a foreign language is not a matter of reading some grammar rules and memorizing some vocabulary words-- although those are important activities, not to be ignored. Acquiring a language is learning a skill, not a body of information. It's as much like learning to swim or ride a bike as it is like learning about the Revolutionary War. That is, you must not only understand the ideas and concepts, have information at hand, but you must also make your body accustomed to using that information in physical activity: in this case the physical activity involved is speaking, listening, writing and reading. You need, then, not only to memorize and understand, but also to practice! IV.1.3 Result of pupils’ survey The study has also designed a questionnaire to know about pupils’ reactions and psychological feelings about learning English with VCDs. The primary purpose of this survey is to test the hypothesis that VCDs can help to increase the young learners’ time-on-task. In the first question, the respondents were asked to indicate their approaching with VCDs while learning English. Table 12. Pupil’s opinion survey of VCDs using in learning English No. Question Answer Note Y (%) N (%) 1 Do you know anything about using VCDs in foreign language learning 64% 35% 2 Have you ever learnt English with VCDs in your class 58% 42% Only 64% of the informants accept that they know about using VCDs in foreign language learning, 36% don’t know. 58% of the pupils have learnt English with VCDs and a fairly high percentage of the pupils - 42% - have never learnt English with VCDs. These data show that the use of VCDs in foreign language learning is still not popular in primary schools of Vietnam. Table 13. Pupil’s opinion survey of VCD using in learning English (If the pupils answer “Yes” for two questions in Table 12) No Question Answer Total (%) 3 Where do you watch VCDs for learning English? At home 50 At school 25 At language center 31.25 4 What do VCDs help you? Entertaining 18.75 Learning, listening and speaking 31.25 Both 50 Others 0 5 Why do you watch VCDs in learning English? It is useful for learning English 62.5 It is a compulsory request from the teacher 6.25 It is interesting to see pictures and images, 100 Others 3 No Question Answer Total (%) 6 What do you learn through watching VCDs? Listening and watching help me to develop listening and speaking skills 62.5 I can relax and enjoy funny and live pictures 31.25 Others 6.25 7 Do you like watching VCDs Very much 100 A little 0 Not at all 0 No idea 0 8 What time do you like watching VCDs in your English class? At the beginning of the English class 43.75 At the middle of the English class 34.37 Near the end of the English class 21.87 9 Does your teacher always turn the VCDs on when you are learning English? Always 6.25 Sometimes 25 Rarely 68.75 10 What are the subjects do you like to watch most on VCDs to learn English? Films or short scripts 62.5 Songs 12.5 Others (advertisements...) 25 11 What kind of activities do you participate in after watching VCDs to learn English? Role - play 87.55 Freeze-frame control - Prediction 31.25 Freeze-frame control - Description 15.6 Vision only 46.87 Discussion 15.6 12 What is your opinion about learning English with watching VCDs? Exciting, unwind, cheery 93.75 Very enjoyable 6.25 Enjoyable 0 Little enjoyable 0 Boring 0 The data summarized in Table 14. implies that the number of pupils who watched VCDs for learning English is not very high. Because the students can choose more than one suitable answer for them, so the total percent can be more than 100% in some cases. The data in Q3. may be considered unreasonable at first sight. However, there is an explanation for that: some pupils only watch VCDs for learning English at home or at school or at language center but some others do watch VCDs for learning English at all the three places. Therefore, though the total number of pupils who took part in the survey is 50, the added-up number for 3 options of Q3 is much higher than 50. This summarization indicates the use of VCDs in learning English is lowest at school at 25% and highest at home at 50%. In responding to Q4. 50% of the respondents believed that watching VCDs in learning English helped to entertain themselves as well as it helped to improve listening and speaking; 31.25% of the pupils in the interview when asked what VCDs helped them thought that it was for listening and speaking. And the 18.75% of the of remaining only indicated the VCD’s role as a means of entertainment, Q5. explains the pupils’ feeling and attitude towards using VCDs while learning English. 62.5% of the pupils watch VCDs for learning English better. 3% of the pupils did not share any opinion. It also further proves that motivation to learn English through watching VCDs. Most of the students in grade 5 are aware of the importance of English and using VCD to learn English. However, 100% thought that they watch VCDs primarily for watching nice images and pictures. This may cause by the psychology of the young learners. They are not able to define their aims or motivation with clear reason. Q6. Where 62.5% show inclination to develop listening and speaking skill, only 31.25% of pupils’ opinions show that they like funny and live pictures. 6.25% of the pupils have different answers. Chart 5. (Q7) Do you like watching VCDs ? All the respondents while answering Q7 thought that they liked watching VCDs very much. This answer was quite relevant to the children’s psychology. At this age group, they are usually attracted by live, funny and colorful images and pictures. All of these factors also make pupils understand easier and make teachers explain to pupil clearer with some “hard-to-understand” concepts. Q8 is designed discover the most suitable time to apply VCDs in the class-time. However, the answers imply that timing is not very important for using VCDs. We can use VCDs at any time while teaching English. Q9. indicated how frequently teachers use VCDs while teaching English and how many times per month do pupils can watch VCDs to learn English. From the answer, we can find out that most of teachers (68.75%) rarely use VCDs, a few teachers always use VCDs (6.25%) and 25% of the teachers sometimes use VCDs in teaching English. This shows that a lot of teachers in primary school still do not use the technology because of some reasons. Q10. This question showed the subjects of VCDs that pupils like the most. Films or short scripts are the most interesting to pupils (62.5%). Songs would be the last choice (12.5%), while other subjects were considered rather attractive (25%). Chart 6. (Q11) What kind of activities do you participate in after watching VCDs to learn English? Note: A: Role – play D: Vision only B: Freeze-frame control - Prediction E: Discussion C: Freeze-frame control – Description This is the most important question in the survey. Like Q3, the data in Q11. may be considered unreasonable at first sight. However, there is an explanation for that: some pupils only do a single activity which is used in English class but some others do all of activities. The investigator will collect data on “Tasks” and activities of pupils to assess the time the pupils spend on different types of “tasks” that include both learning and other types of activity in the classroom. In the classroom, the activities include Role - play, Freeze-frame control - Prediction, Freeze-frame control - Description, Vision only, Discussion as well as listening attentively to teacher; listening but not attentively and not comprehending what is being taught; doing writing work in the class, answering written test; interacting with teacher by asking and answering oral questions; memorizing what is taught e.g multiplication tables, reading from the textbook; doing some group work; talking with other pupils, fiddling with some objects; being totally inattentive and oblivious of what is going on in the class. Q12 confirms again that almost students like watching VCDs with 93.75% says that they are very excited to learn English with VCDs. Few of them might watch VCDs for fun only. However, they can learn something unconsciously Table 14. Pupil’s opinion survey of VCD using in learning English (If the pupils answer “No” for question 2 in Table 13) No Question Answer Total 13 Why didn’t you watch VCDs for learning English? There are no VCD players in the class 47.6 The teacher doesn’t have VCDs 38 I don’t like watching VCDs for learning English 0 Others 14.28 14 If the teacher turns the VCDs in your class, would you watch? Yes 100 No 0 No idea 0 When asked to identify the reasons for not watching VCDs while learning English,47.6% of the pupils think there is no equipment in the class; 38% of them answered this question is teachers do not have VCD, cassette and 14.28% have other answers. All the respondents think that they are ready to watch VCD for learning English (If any). This proves the advantages of the VCD to the young learners. IV.1.4 Class observation In this study, the researcher carried out to observe 4 classes with 2 Units taught by two teachers. One of them used cassettes during teaching English, the other used VCDs. This is the basis to compare the increasing of pupils’ time-on-task between using cassettes and VCDs while earning English. The result showed that total of time when pupils participate in class activities with VCDs is Table 16. Comparison the increasing pupils’ time-on-task between using VCDs and cassettes in English class Using VCDs in English class Using cassettes in English class Total of time, when pupils participate in voluntarily answering teacher’s question Total of time, when pupils participate in pair work, team work, role-play, freeze-frame control - Prediction, freeze-frame control - Description, Discussion) Total of time, when pupils participate in other activities related to the lesson Total of time, when pupils participate in voluntarily answering teacher’s question Total of time, when pupils participate in pair work, team work, role-play, freeze-frame control - Prediction, freeze-frame control - Description, Discussion) Total of time, when pupils participate in other activities related to the lesson 11% 55% 11% 0.5% 51% 0.6% From the above table, total time-on-task of students when the teachers using VCD is 77% and only 52.1% when cassette is used. It supports some principles are increasing “time-on-task”. creating materials and processes that attract students to spend more time in their studies,  reducing wasted time (e.g., commuting time, standing in lines, waiting for books), and helping communicate to students how much time and energy you and your institution expect them to invest in their work. In what ways has technology been used in your courses or at your institution that, directly or directly, results in students spending more time and energy in their studies? It has been demonstrated that using VCDs can increase time spent on activities. Two elements of time spent, as described by Levin & Nolan (1996), are time allocated to teaching a subject, and the students' time spent actively engaged in learning. The concept of "time-on-task" has been derived as a measure of the latter variable. So when observing the class, the writer has to take note carefully and count the time on task of students in every class. The result shows that after students watch VCDs, they feel more elated and want to imitate. The percentage of volunteers also increases so the teacher has to spend more time for them to play role or discuss while in the class with cassette the students are quieter, so the teacher should waste time to encourage or explain again. As can be seen from the table only 0.5% of time spent on voluntarily answering teacher’s question against 11% of that when using VCDs. And the percentages of total of time, when pupils participate in pair work, team work, role-play, freeze-frame control-prediction, freeze-frame control- description, Discussion with VCDs and cassette in turn are only 55% and 51%. However, the total of students’ time on-task when using VCDs is 77%, 24,9% higher than that of using cassette. The writer’s observation supports the answers of the teachers in the questionnaire that their students work more actively and spend more time when they use VCDs at class. CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION V.1 Summary of the study While the profession agrees that a qualified language teacher is the most important factor in foreign language instruction, instructional videos do show promise as an alternative or supplement to traditional approaches to foreign languages teaching. Advances have already been made in the use of video to address some of the goals set by the national standards, in particular those of cultures, connections, and communities. Moreover, recent federally funded projects (Rosenbusch, Garcớa Villada, & Padgitt, 2003; Tollefson, 2003) have shown great promise in the use of video to overcome some of the obstacles to foreign language instruction in traditionally underserved areas. A great advantage of video is that it provides authentic language input. It is obvious that the practical implications of video in the classroom in any classroom environment can be easy and useful. To pay special attention to a particular point in the programme it is possible to run in slow motion or at half speed or without sound. Besides, the learner can concentrate on the language in detail and interpret what has been said, repeat it, predict the reply and so on. The learner can also concentrate in detail on visual clues to meaning such as facial expression, dress, gesture, posture and on details of the environment. Even without hearing the language spoken clues to meaning can be picked up from the vision alone. Using visual clues to meaning in order to enhance learning is an important part of video methodology. From the data analysis, this thesis would focus on the following issues: The popularity of VCDs in the classroom VCDs are not widely used in the classroom. This is because teachers do not have access to the equipment in their school. Most of schools are provided with cassette-players rather than VCDs devices. This explains why audiocassettes dominate in most classroom lessons. The purpose of using VCDs Although VCDs are not widely used, when teachers have accessed to them, they all said that they used them for three main purposes: Helping pupil to understand the lesson better Increasing pupils involvement in classroom activities (i.e, increasing their time-on-task) Making the lesson more exciting to the pupils The advantages of VCDs over audiocassettes The survey showed that teachers believed VCDs were more advantageous than audiocassettes at least in two ways. First, VCDs helped pupils to participate more actively in classroom activities. According to my own observation, 77% of the class-time was spent on activities. This was against 52.1% when audiocassettes were used. Second, VCDs helped pupils to understand the lesson better than audiocassettes (55% vs 32%). In general, with VCDs pupils time-on-task was around 70% of the class-time against 45% of the class-time in case of audiocassettes used. Languages are not fixed but constantly changing, so is the media; television, radio and newspaper which are an extraordinarily rich source of language in use. In order to expose foreign language learners to the target language the use of technology need to be exploited in the classroom as much as possible.  For that reason a great tendency towards the use of technology and its integration into the curriculum developed by the foreign language teachers has gained a great importance. Particularly the use of video has received increasing attention in recent studies on technology integration into teacher education curricula (ệzkan, 2002:1) V.2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study Some limitations are inevitable in most research. Due to limited time and knowledge, this study only conducts a survey with a few teachers and students and only four observations. The sample size of this study is particularly small. A small sample size has a greater probability that the observation just happened to be particularly good or particularly bad. Due to data correlation (same hand): As mentioned before, some of the data are correlated. The finger data correlations have been overcame of by using the average value. Thus, it would be better to include more observations of lessons and other methods in a further research to distinguish the advantages of VCDs so that encouragement of using VCDs is getting better in teaching English for young learners in near future. References 1. Brewster, C and Fager, J.( 2000). Increasing student engagement and motivation: From time-on-task to homework. 2. Brophy, J. E. (1988). Educating teachers about managing classrooms and students. Teaching and Teacher Education, 4, 1- 3. 3. Cook, V. 3rd Edition, (2001).  Second Language Learning and Language Teaching. London : Hodder Headline 4. Crookes, G and Schmidt, R.  (1991).  Motivation:  ‘Reopening the research agenda’.  Language Learning 41/4: 469 – 512. 5. Dornyei, Z.  (2001).  Teaching and Researching Motivation.  Harlow: Longman. 6. Ellis, R. (1994). The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University     Press. 7. Ellis, R. 92005.0 Instructed Second Language Acquisition: A Literature Review. Wellington : Research Division, Ministry of Education. 8. Gallacher, L. (undated). Video and Young Learners. British CouncilJourna. 9. Gardner, R. C. (1960). Motivational variables in second language acquisition. Unpublished Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, McGill University . 10. Gardner, R. C., Day J. B., and MacIntyre P. D.(1991). Integrative motivation, induced anxiety, and language learning in a controlled environment. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 14, 197-214. 11. Good, T. and Brophy, J.  (1994).  Looking in Classrooms.  New York :  Harper Collins. 12. Katchen, J. E. (2004). Analog to Digital: Technology Shift with Classroom Implications. Paper presented at the first CELC Symposium for English language teachers, “Paradigm shifts in language teaching and learning: teacher roles and learner responsibilities”. Singapore. 13. Katchen, J. E. (2004). Teaching Presentation Skills Using Video as Role Model. Proceedings of the MOE Conference on “Developing the Basics of Holistic General Education”. Ming Hsin University of Science and Technology. 14. Kirpatrick,T. A. (1985). The role of Communicative Language Teaching in Secondary Schools – with Special Reference to Teaching in Singapore, in Bikram K. Das (ed.), Communicative Language Teaching: Selected papers from the RELC seminar on “Communicative Language teaching”. Singapore , 23 – 27 April 1984. Singapore: Singapore University Press, pp. 171 – 194. 15. Levin, J. and Nolan, J. F. (1996). Principles of Classroom Management, 2nd edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 16. Lightbown, P. Spada, N.  (1999).  How Languages are Learned.  Oxford:  OUP. 17. Moon, J.  (2000).  Children Learning English.  Oxford:  Macmillan Publishers 18. Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T .S. (1996). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 19. Richards, J.  Schmidt, R.  3rd edition,( 2002). Longman dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics.  Harlow:  Pearson Education Limited. 20. Schmitt, R. (Ed). (2002).  An Introduction To Applied Linguistics.  London:  Hodder Headline 21. Schumann, J.H. (1997).  The Nuerobiology of Affect in Language.  Oxford:  Blackwell Willis, J.  1996.  A Framework for Task Based Learning.  Harlow: Longman 22. Spanjers, D. M., Burns, M. K., and Wagner, A. R. (2008). Systematic Direct Observation of Time on Task as a Measure of Student Engagement. Assessment for Effective Intervention, 33: 2, 120-126.