Applying video production in teaching speaking skill of unit10: endangered species English 12

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HOANG HOA 4 HIGH SCHOOL
EXPERIENTIAL INITIATIVE
APPLYING VIDEO PRODUCTION IN TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL OF UNIT10: ENDANGERED SPECIES 
 ENGLISH 12 
 Author: Nguyen Thi Phuong
 Position: Teacher
 Subject: English
THANH HOA, YEAR OF 2018
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ORDER
CONTENTS
PAGE
A
INTRODUCTION
2
I
RATIONALE
2
II
AIMS OF THE STUDY
3
III
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
3
IV
METHODS OF THE STUDY
3
B
CONTENTS OF THE STUDY 
4
I
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
4
II
PRACTICAL BACKGROUND
4
III
IMPLEMENTATION AND SOLUTIONS
5
1
 TECHNIQUES IN TEACHING SPEAKING SKILLS 
5
2
WHAT IS VIDEO PRODUCTION?
9
3
APPLYING VIDEO PRODUCTION IN TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL OF UNIT 10: INDANGERED SPECIES – ENGLISH 12
10
4
RESULTS AFTER APPLYING THE STUDY IN TEACHING
19
C
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
20
I
CONCLUSION
20
II
SUGGESTIONS
20
REFERENCES
21
APPENDIX
22
EXPERIENTIAL INITIATIVE LIST
23
A. INTRODUCTION
I. RATIONALE 
Nowadays it is not daring to say that the ability to speak at least one foreign language is a necessity. “Language is arguably the defining characteristic of the human species and knowledge of language in general, as well as ability to use one’s first and, at least one other language, should be one of the defining characteristics of the educated individual” (Nunan, 1999). The world has become smaller. It is said it has turned into the size of the so-called “global village”. We are living in the time of immense technological inventions where communication among people has expanded way beyond their local speech communities (Ellis, 1997). Today receiving education, language education not excepting, is not an issue connected exclusively with schools; the time requires everyone to learn throughout their lifetimes. Therefore learning a second language has become a means of keeping up with the pace of the rapidly changing world.
 Nowadays a foreign/second language forms a permanent part of all types of curriculum, from primary schools to universities, not mentioning an employment where a person, in most cases, can hardly survive without this ability. The demands of the contemporary society together with the position of English as an international language (McKay) may present a reason for learning this language in particular. 
Objectively, the increasing demand for learning a foreign language, especially English in Vietnam is an evident tendency in the global integration along with Vietnam’s policy of innovation and industrialization and modernization cause. Most of the learners of English agree that the ability to express themselves freely in communication is of great importance for their future career, especially in modern societies where contacting with foreigners often occurs. However, there still exist many difficulties in learning and teaching English in Vietnam in general and at Hoang Hoa 4 high school in particular. Many Vietnamese learners can write and read English quite well but they cannot speak it correctly and fluently in real-life communication. Surely, there are many reasons for this reality. After teaching English in Hoang Hoa 4 high school for 13 years, I have recognized some big obstacles which prevent English teachers and learners in Vietnam from achieving their aims. These obstacles are: large and heterogeneous classes, students’ low level of English language proficiency, students’ low motivation and some others. Unfortunately, this is not only the situation in my school but also the case for many other schools in Thanh Hoa as well as schools in Vietnam. This has given me the desire to conduct “APPLYING VIDEO PRODUCTION IN TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL OF UNIT10: ENDANGERED SPECIES - ENGLISH 12”.
II. AIMS OF THE STUDY
The study is carried out to: 
- improve 12th- form students’ awareness of speaking English.
- suggest some ways to stimulate students and help them find it useful when speaking English.
- to investigate how effective the methods of teaching speaking are, and how successful the students are in speaking English, and also to find out the role of the teachers in teaching speaking.
-The participants in the sample group of this study were intermediate level undergraduate preparatory program students at the school of Hoang Hoa 4 at
Hoang Hoa district, Thanh Hoa province.
III. SCOPE OF THE STUDY	
 The subjects chosen for this study are 155 students in 12th- form at Hoang Hoa 4 high school. My school is in the countryside, almost families are farmers. Therefore, students’ speaking English mainly depends on teachers and textbooks. I myself take responsibility for the job and create several simply ways to increase students’ awareness of speaking English. 
IV. METHODS OF THE STUDY 
 To achieve the objectives of the study, several methods are used, but I use mainly quantitative and qualitative methods. 
 The data serving the research analysis and discussions are collected by means of a survey questionnaire for students and observation. 
B. CONTENTS OF THE STUDY
I. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
 English as a language has great reach and influence; it is taught all over the world. English may not be the most spoken language in the world, but it is the official language in a large number of countries. It is estimated that the number of people in the world that use in English to communicate on a regular basis is 2 billion. Learning English can also help students to meet new people. They can practice their English with someone who is also learning.
 English is the language of science, of aviation, computers, diplomacy, and tourism. Speaking English increases students’ chances of getting a good job in a multinational company within their home country or of finding work abroad.
II. PRACTICAL BACKGROUND
 The study was conducted at Hoang Hoa 4 high school, a rural school of Thanh Hoa province. 
 The school has 32 classes, each class consists of from 37 to 46 students. Most of the students come from the villages in the district where English learning and teaching does not get much attention. The only sources from which students can get knowledge are the textbooks and their teachers. With three periods per week, this is unable for teachers to meet students’ demand. At home, they are short of dictionaries, reference books, cassette tapes, speakers. Additionally, their parents do not know anything about English. As a result, they find it difficult to speak English and they become lazy.
 The total number of English teachers at Hoang Hoa 4 high school is 7, all of whom are female aged from 32 to 42. They were trained from training courses in English language teaching at different universities in Vietnam. All of them are young teachers who are friendly, active, knowledgeable and full of inspiration for teaching.
 The main English textbooks used in teaching English at this school are English textbooks 10, 11, 12, Education Publishing House ( Basic stream). From my personal observation as a classroom teacher and a head teacher, students seem to be bored with doing the same activities. They do not have motivation to speak English.
 The data analysis conducted by means of frequency, mean and percentage revealed that the students are unsuccessful in speaking English although they are highly eager for having this skill. High anxiety level is an important factor in this failure. The findings of oral interview demonstrated that the students only feel themselves not irritated while working with classmates or playing games.
 The techniques and the methods used in teaching speaking in English assist learning this skill positively but it is confirmed that this is not enough.
 The attitudes, manners and behaviour of the language teachers who teach speaking English to the language learners are appreciated by the students; however, this does not change the reality that they are unsuccessful in speaking English.
- I have been teaching English for 15 years and during this time period I have observed that many of the students have difficulty in speaking English although they are always grammatically successful. Therefore the question came to my mind. Why? Why are the students successful in grammar but not in speaking?
Then I wanted to have my experiential initiative on this topic:
 “APPLYING VIDEO PRODUCTION IN TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL OF UNIT10: ENDANGERED SPECIES - ENGLISH 12”
III. IMPLEMENTATION AND SOLUTIONS
1. Techniques in teaching speaking skills
1.1 Why Teach Speaking Skills?
In today's teaching climate, it's easy to forget the importance of oral language, or speaking and listening skills. With all the focus on reading and writing, sometimes teachers neglect this more basic aspect of language! Yet students need to learn speaking skills and have opportunities to practice making their voices heard in a safe and constructive environment. Speaking skills are important because:
Skilled speakers can effectively present their own points of view.
Skilled speakers are often better readers and writers.
Skilled speakers are more confident participants in a variety of contexts - both in and out of school.
Skilled speakers are able to advocate for themselves and get their academic and emotional needs met.
1.2 Which Skills Matter?
One of the reasons teachers might feel hesitant about teaching speaking skills is that it can feel overwhelming. Oral language is complex, and in order to teach it properly, we need to reconstruct it into separate skills. The following skills are important to consider when working on speech with students:
Mechanical Skills
Students need to learn how to project, or speak at the right volume for their audience to hear them. They need to learn how to use intonation to express mood and how to pronounce words properly. They must also learn how to pace their spoken language so that they are neither too fast nor too slow to be understood.
Organizational Skills
Just as students must learn to organize their writing, they must learn how to organize, or structure in a meaningful way, their oral language. This means talking in logical sequence, stating thoughts in an order that makes sense, and making sure the spoken word is relevant to the topic of conversation.
Expressive Skills
One of the most important aspects of speaking is expression, or the ability to effectively communicate ideas and feelings. Students must learn how to say what is on their mind or make oral arguments that get their points across.
Pragmatic Skills
Finally, students who are learning speaking skills must gain experience with pragmatics, or the aspect of language that has to do with social norms and the rules of conversations. Students need practice taking turns in conversation, making eye contact while speaking, and responding appropriately during dialogues.
1. 3 Activities to promote Speaking
Discussions
After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various reasons. The students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups. Before the discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher. In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose, so that students do not spend their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things. For example, students can become involved in agree/disagree discussions. In this type of discussions, the teacher can form groups of students, preferably 4 or 5 in each group, and provide controversial sentences like “people learn best when they read vs. people learn best when they travel”. Then each group works on their topic for a given time period, and presents their opinions to the class. It is essential that the speaking should be equally divided among group members. At the end, the class decides on the winning group who defended the idea in the best way. This activity fosters critical thinking and quick decision making, and students learn how to express and justify themselves in polite ways while disagreeing with the others. For efficient group discussions, it is always better not to form large groups, because quiet students may avoid contributing in large groups. The group members can be either assigned by the teacher or the students may determine it by themselves, but groups should be rearranged in every discussion activity so that students can work with various people and learn to be open to different ideas. Lastly, in class or group discussions, whatever the aim is, the students should always be encouraged to ask questions, paraphrase ideas, express support, check for clarification, and so on.
Role Play
One other way of getting students to speak is role-playing. Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles. In role-play activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and what they think or feel. Thus, the teacher can tell the student that "You are David, you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and" (Harmer,1984)
Simulations
Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations different than role plays is that they are more elaborate. In simulations, students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment. For instance, if a student is acting as a singer, she brings a microphone to sing and so on. Role plays and simulations have many advantages. First, since they are entertaining, they motivate the students. Second, as Harmer (1984) suggests, they increase the self-confidence of hesitant students, because in role play and simulation activities, they will have a different role and do not have to speak for themselves, which means they do not have to take the same responsibility.
Information Gap
In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs. One student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or collecting information.  Also, each partner plays an important role because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the information the others need. These activities are effective because everybody has the opportunity to talk extensively in the target language.
Brainstorming
On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time. Depending on the context, either individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners generate ideas quickly and freely. The good characteristics of brainstorming is that the students are not criticized for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas.
Interviews
Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people. It is a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own interview questions. Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance to practice their speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them becoming socialized. After interviews, each student can present his or her study to the class. Moreover, students can interview each other and "introduce" his or her partner to the class.
Story Completion
This is a very enjoyable, whole-class, free-speaking activity for which students sit in a circle. For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few sentences he or she stops narrating. Then, each student starts to narrate from the point where the previous one stopped. Each student is supposed to add from four to ten sentences. Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so on.
Reporting
Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting news. Students can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class.
Playing Cards
In this game, students should form groups of four. Each suit will represent a topic. For instance:
Diamonds: Earning money
Hearts: Love and relationships
Spades: An unforgettable memory
Clubs: Best teacher
Each student in a group will choose a card. Then, each student will write 4-5 questions about that topic to ask the other people in the group. For example:
If the topic "Diamonds: Earning Money" is selected, here are some possible questions:
Is money important in your life? Why?
What is the easiest way of earning money?
What do you think about lottery? Etc.
However, the teacher should state at the very beginning of the activity that students are not allowed to prepare yes-no questions, because by saying yes or no students get little practice in spoken language production.  Rather, students ask open-ended questions to each other so that they reply in complete sentences.
Picture Narrating
This activity is based on several sequential pictures. Students are asked to tell the story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying attention to the criteria provided by the teacher as a rubric. Rubrics can include the vocabulary or structures they need to use while narrating.
Picture Describing
Another way to make use of pictures in a speaking activity is to give students just one picture and having them describe what it is in the picture. For this activity students can form groups and each group is given a different picture. Students discuss the picture with their groups, then a spokesperson for each group describes the picture to the whole class. This activity fosters the creativity and imagination of the learners as well as their public speaking skills.
Find the Difference
For this activity students can work in pairs and each couple is given two different pictures, for example, picture of boys playing football and another picture of girls playing tennis. Students in pairs discuss the similarities and/or differences in the pictures.
The interactive and downloadable material asks teachers or students to think through the decisions that go towards making a speaking activity successful – groupings, instructions, language input etc. No ‘right’ answers are given but rather teachers are encouraged to think ‘it depends’ - the ‘right’ way to set up an activity depends on the nature of the activity.
2. What is video production? 
Video production is the process of producing video content. It is the equivalent of filmmaking, but with images recorded digitally instead of on film stock.
There are three stages of video production: pre-production, production, and post-production. Pre-production involves all of the planning aspects of the video production process before filming begins. This includes scriptwriting, scheduling, logistics, and other administrative duties. Production is the phase of video production which captures the video content (moving images / videography) and involves filming the subject(s) of the video. Post-production is the action of selectively combining those video clips through video editing into a finished product that tells a story or communicates a message in either a live event setting (live production), or after an event has occurred (post-production).
Video production can be used at sporting, school, stage, wedding, church, and similar events to provide recordings of the events (Video production at Curlie).
Benefits of video production in teaching at school
Videos are easier to be accepted by students
Immerse students in the prodcution
Stimulate activities
Video brings more information
Engage learners
Integrate the outside world into classroom
More than words can tell
Videos are more flexible
Easier to understand
Video creates an experience
3. Applying video production in teaching speaking skill of unit 10: Endangered species – English 12
“Applying video production in teaching speaking skill of unit 1