improving students' english speaking skill through

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IMPROVING STUDENTS’ ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL

THROUGH CONTENT-BASED INSTRUCTION

(A Classroom Action Research in the Second Grade Students of Business English Department of CsV&TC, China in the Academic Year of 2010/2011)

By

LI HUI

S890809216

Thesis

Submitted to Fulfill One of the Requirements for Getting

Graduate Degree in English Education

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

GRADUATE SCHOOL

SEBELAS MARET UNIVERSITY

SURAKARTA

2011


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APPROVAL

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL THROUGH

CONTENT –BASED INTRUCTION

(A Classroom Action Research in the Second Grade Students of Business English

Department of CsV&TC, China in the Academic Year of 2010/2011)

By

LI HUI

S890809216

This thesis has been approved by the Consultants of English Education Department of Graduate School of Sebelas Maret University Surakarta, on 25th February, 2011.

Consultant I Consultant II Dr. Ngadiso, M.Pd Drs. Gunarso Susilohadi, M.Ed

NIP. 19621231 198803 1 009 NIP. 195403151 198503 1 002

Approved by The Head of English Education Department

Graduate School Sebelas Maret University

Dr. Ngadiso, M.Pd

NIP. 19621231 198803 1 009


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LEGITIMATION FROM THE BOARD OF EXAMINERS

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL THROUGH

CONTENT –BASED INTRUCTION

(A Classroom Action Research in the Second Grade Students of Business English

Department of CsV&TC, China in the Academic Year of 2010/2011)

By

LI HUI

S890809216

This thesis has been examined by the board of thesis examiners of English Education Department of Graduate School of Sebelas Maret University Surakarta, on 31st March 2011.

Board of Examiners

Chairman : Prof. Dr. Joko Nurkamto, M.Pd

Secretary : Dr. Abdul Asib, M.Pd

Examiner I : Dr. Ngadiso, M.Pd

Examiner II : Drs. Gunarso Susilohadi, M.Ed

Signature

………………………..

…………………………

…………………………

………………………….

Surakarta,…………………..2011 The Director of Graduate Program of

Sebelas Maret University

Prof. Drs. Suranto, M.Sc., Ph. D

NIP. 19570820 198503 100 4

The Head of English Education

Department of Graduate School of

Sebelas Maret University

Dr. Ngadiso, M. Pd

NIP. 19621231 198803 100 9


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PRONOUCEMENT

This is to certify that I, Li Hui, alias Vivienne Lee who writes this thesis entitled

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL TRHOUGH CONTENT-BASED

INSTRUCTION (A Classroom Action Research for Students of Business English

Department of CsV&TC, China in the Academic Year of 2010/2011).

It is my original work, not plagiarized or made by others. Anything related to

other’s works are written in the quotation, and the sources are listed on the Bibliography.

If this pronouncement proves not true, I will accept any consequences or

academic punishment, including withdrawing or cancelling my academic degree.

Sincerely Yours!

Surakarta, 21st February 2011

Li Hui


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MOTTO

“Do as you would be done by others.”

or “Don't do unto others what you don't

want others do unto you."

己所不欲勿施於人

By Confucius


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DEDICATION

This thesis is dedicated to: ü My Dear Parents who gave birth to me, brought me up, and educated me.

ü My God Father who always supports and encourages me to take the graduate school. ü My Friends who helped me a lot.

Li Hui, 21st February, 2010


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The writer realized that the accomplishment of this thesis would not run well

without any help from the others. Therefore, here she wishes to give her sincerest

gratitude and appreciation to the following people who helped her a lot:

1. Prof. Drs. Suranto, M. Sc. Ph. D as the Director of Graduate School of Sebelas Maret

University who has given his permission to write this thesis.

2. Dr. Ngadiso, M. Pd as the Head of English Education Department of Graduate School,

and also as the first consultant who has given his guidance theoretically, practically,

and patiently in conducting the research.

3. Drs. Gunarso Susilohadi, M. Ed, as the second consultant who has given his guidance

theoretically, practically, and patiently in conducting the research.

4. All the lectures of English Education of Graduate School of Sebelas Maret University

Surakarta, for their lectures, guidance, suggestions, and criticism.

5. Yin Wenhui, the Head of Business English Department of CsV&TC, China who has

given his permission to study and to conduct this research in the college.

6. The collaborator, Zeng Yun, who always helped the writer to conduct this research in

the class.

The writer realizes that this thesis is still far from being perfect. Hence, any

criticisms or suggestions from the readers and users are welcome to the writer in order to

make improvement. In the same time, the writer hopes that this thesis can be useful for

other writers, teachers, and students.

Surakarta, February 21st, 2011


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ABSTRACT Li Hui. S 890809216: Improving Students’ Speaking Skill through Content-based Instruction (A Classroom Action Research at Third Semester Students of Class 0902 of the Business English Department of Changsha Vocational & Technical College, China). Thesis, Surakarta: English Education Department, Graduate School, Sebelas Maret University, 2011. The research is aimed at (1) finding whether and to what extent content-based instruction improved the students’ speaking skill; and (2) describing the teaching and learning situation when content-based instruction was applied in the speaking class. This study applied action research technique to conduct the research to improve students’ speaking ability through Content-based Instruction (CBI). Hopkins mentions that action research is a research which combines as substantive act with a research procedure; it is an action disciplined by enquiry, a personal attempt at understanding while engaged in process of improvement and reform. This research consisted of two cycles, with four meetings in each cycle; while each cycle consists planning, action, observation, and reflection. The research was conducted at CsV&TC, China; the subjects of the research were the students of second grade in the academic year of 2010-2011. In this research, there were two types of data: quantitative data and qualitative data. The quantitative data were collected through test, namely pre-test and post-test. The qualitative data were collected through observation, questionnaire, and interview to the students. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics; find out the mean of the scores in the test and the significant improvement of the scores using t-test of non-independent variable. The qualitative data were analyzed using Constant-Comparative Method suggested by Glaser and Strauss consisting of the following steps: (1) comparing incidents applicable to each category; (2) integrating categories and their properties; (3) delimiting the theory; and (4) writing the theory.

The research findings indicated that CBI was effective in two aspects: (1) in

improving students’ speaking ability: students’ speaking level increased; students could answer the teacher’s questions; students could fluently communicate with their friends by using correct grammatical forms and appropriate vocabulary with good pronunciation; the use of mother tongue was reduced; (2) in improving class situation: the atmosphere in the whole class became alive; students enjoyed the speaking activities; there were many chances for students to practice their speaking skill; students had great motivation to learn speaking; speaking became easy and fun to the students.

The results of this study showed that CBI was effective and beneficial to improve the students’ speaking competency and the classroom situation. Key words: Content-based Instruction, Speaking Skill


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TABLE OF CONTENT

COVER PAGE………………………………………………………………… ....... i

APPROVAL PAGE…………………………………………………………… ....... ii

LEGITIMATION PAGE………………………………………………………. ...... iii

PRONUCEMENT……………………………………………………………… ...... iv

MOTTO………………………………………………………………………… ..... v

BEDICATION…………………………………………………………………. ...... vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT……………………………………………………... ...... vii

ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………… ....... viii

TABLE OF CONTENT………………………………………………………… ..... ix

LIST OF ABBREVIATION…………………………………………………… ...... xi

LIST OF APPENDICES………………………………………………………. ....... xii

LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………. .... xiii

LIST OF FIGURE AND GRAPH………………………………………………. .... xiv

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION……………………………………………… ... 1

A. The Background of the Research…………………………… .. 1

B. The Formulation of the Problem…………………………… ... 6

C. The Objective of the Study………………………………… ... 7

D. The Benefits of the Study………………………………….. ... 7

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE……………………. ...... 8

A. Speaking………………………………………………….. ...... 8

1. The Nature of Speaking……………………………… ...... 8

2. Speaking in Second Language………………………. ....... 10

3. Teaching Speaking…………………………………… ...... 12

4. Testing Speaking……………………………………… ..... 18

B. Content-Based Instruction………………………………… .... 22

1. The Nature of Content-Based Instruction……………. ...... 22

2. Theoretical Support…………………………………… ..... 23

3. The Advantage of Content-Based Instruction………… ..... 26

4. Content/Material Selection……………………………. .... 27


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5. The Implementation of Content-Based Instruction…… ..... 29

C. Rationale…………………………………………………… ... 32

D. Hypothesis…………………………………………………. .... 33

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY…………………………….. ....... 34

A. The Setting of the Research………………………………. ..... 34

B. The Subject of the Research………………………………...... 34

C. The Method of the Research……………………………… ..... 35

D. The Procedure of the Research…………………………… ..... 37

E. Techniques of Collecting the Data………………………. ....... 39

F. Technique of Analyzing the Data………………………… ..... 40

CHAPTER IV RESULT OF THE STUDY…………………………………… ..... 42

A. Introduction………………………………………………. ...... 42

1. The Condition before the Research………………………. 43

2. Students’ Ability in Speaking ………………………. ....... 44

3. Classroom Situation………………………. ....................... 46

4. Student’ perception about speaking …………………….... 46

B. Research Implementation…………………………………. ..... 50

1. Cycle 1………………………………………………… .... 51

2. Cycle 2………………………………………………… .... 75

C. Findings and Discussion…………………………………… ... 96

1. The Findings …………………………………………. ..... 96

2. Discussion ……………………………………………. ..... 103

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION, AND SUGGESTION…… ....... 107

A. Conclusion………………………………………………… .... 107

B. Implication………………………………………………… .... 109

C. Suggestion…………………………………………………. .... 110

BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………… ..... 112

APPENDIXES…………………………………………………………………. ...... 116


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LIST OF ABBRIVIATION

CBI = Content-Based Instruction

CBCs = Content-Based Classrooms

CsV&TC = Changsha Vocational & Technical College

BEDS = Business English Department Students

T = Teacher

S = Student

Ss = Students


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LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix Page

1. The List of Interview Questions in Pre-research Stage ………………………… .116

2. Blue Print of the Pre-test ……………………………………………………….. .117

3. Learning Implementation Plan of Cycle 1 ……………………………………… .119

4. Learning Implementation Plan of Cycle 2 ……………………………………… 124

5. The Result of Pre-test from the First Rater …………………………………….. .129

6. The Result of Pre-test from the Second Rater ………………………………….. .130

7. The Computation of the Final Score of Pre-test ………………………………… .131

8. The Result of Post-test Cycle 1 from the First Rater …………………………… .132

9. The Result of Post-test Cycle 1 from the Second Rater………………………… .133

10. The Computation of Students Score in Cycle 1 ………………………………… .134

11. The Result of Post-test Cycle 2 from the First Rater……………………………. .135

12. The Result of Post-test Cycle 2 from the Second Rater………………………… .136

13. The Computation of Students Score in Cycle 2 ……………………………….. 137

14. The Computation of the Field Note of Cycle 1 ……………………………….. 138

15. The Computation of the Field Note of Cycle 2 ……………………………….. 141

16. Questions for Interview after the Implementation of Cycle 1 ………………… 145

17. Questionnaire form Given after the Implementation of CBI …………………. 146

18. Samples of Students’ Questionnaire Products ………………………………… 147

19. The Questionnaire Result Conducted after the Implementation of CBI………. 149

20. The Sample form of Classroom Observation Sheet ………………………….... 151

21. Students’ Worksheet for Cycle 1 Meeting 1 …………………………………… 152



24. Students’ Worksheet for Cycle 2 Meeting 1 ……………………………… ....... 164

25. Students’ Worksheet for Cycle 2 Meeting 2 ………………………………. ...... 168

26. Students’ Worksheet for Cycle 2 Meeting 3 ………………………………. ...... 172

27. Pictures of Teaching and Learning Process ………………………………. ....... 176

28. Certification Letter from the College………………….. ..................................... 179


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LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 The Research Schedule ……………………………………………….. ... 34

Table 4.1 Process of the Research ………………………………………………. ... 42

Table 4.2 Result of Pre-research ………………………………………………… ... 43

Table 4.3 Feature of Students’ Speech ………………………………………….. .... 44

Table 4.4 Result of Interview ……………………………………………………. ... 47

Table 4.5 Speaking Difficulty …………………………………………………… ... 48

Table 4.6 Overall Implementation of the Research ……………………………… .. 50

Table 4.7 The Implementation of Cycle 1 ……………………………………….. .. 51

Table 4.8 The Implementation of Cycle 2 ………………………………………. ... 75

Table 4.9 The Comparison of Students’ Speaking Score in Each Cycle ………… .. 93

Table 4.10 The Comparison of Percentage of Students Passing Grade in Each Cycle 94

Table 4.11 Summary of the Research Findings …………………………………… 96

Table 4.12 Students’ Responses towards the Implementation of CBI ……………. . 102


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LIST OF FIGURES AND GRAPHS

Figure 3.1: Action Research Protocol ……………………………………………… 37

Graph 4.1 The Scores of Student’s Speaking Competence ………………………… 98

Graph 4.2 Improvement of the Students’ Speaking Competence ………………….. 99

Graph 4.3 Improvement of Students’ participation ………………………………… 101

CHAPTER I


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INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Research

Following the reform and opening-up policy, China is progressing toward a global

modernized economic society. English as an international language plays a more and

more important role in many parts of our life. It is being used in international business,

politics, education, agriculture, science, technology, etc. Therefore, English has been

made as the most popular foreign language learned by many students in the world.

In China, English is not only regarded as a second language, which is widely used

in both formal and informal occasions, but also considered to be the initial foreign

language that is being learned compulsorily since middle school till university level for

many years (Actually, in recent years, the English course has been started since primary

school). Therefore, English as a major course must be learned and mastered by every

student.

Since the beginning of nineteen-nineties, The Vocational & Technical Colleges

in China developed at very rapid speed. The objective of this kind of college is to provide

practical talents in the field of production, technology, service, management, etc. There is

no exception for the Changsha Vocational & Technical College (CsV&TC).The goal of

this college is to help the students to master the particular skills for their specific working

fields. According to an investigation among all the students in the Business English

Department of CsV&TC, nearly 70-80% students will choose International Business as

their future career. However, The International business is a trade conducted in different

countries. It involves using the English as a communication tool to deal business with

people from different countries, while communication places great emphasis on the

speaking capacity. People who can read, listen and write, but cannot speak will not be

considered as a professional business man in the international business field.

Because of this, one of the goals of the Business English Department of

(CsV&TC) is to improve the students’ speaking skill and get them to be ready in their

future job position. Thus, both the working skill and the speaking ability in the

curriculum of the Business English Department of CsH&VTC (Changsha Higher

Vocational & Technical College) are highly stressing. The main target and final goal of


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the students in the speaking class of Business English Department, therefore, is to have

the oral communication capability. That is the students should be able to communicate

with people on the daily commercial aspect accurately, fluently and appropriately.

According to Johnson (1998: 3), fluency refers to the absence of pauses and

other indices of word-finding (or grammatical) difficulty. It is the natural language use or

“the maximally effective operation of the language system so far acquired by the

students” in situation where the learner’s focus is on the effective communication of

meaning. Accuracy means to the similarity to native speaker’s grammar in the case of L2,

or to prescriptive grammar in the case of L1. Accuracy embraces both formal correctness

and appropriateness. It is deals with the production of structurally correct instances of L2.

The concept of appropriateness is that language use is inevitably influenced by the

context in which it is being used. All choices about aspects of language use, such as

vocabulary and syntax, do not in really involved reference to the exact requirements of a

fixed and unvarying ‘standard English’, so much as locate what is being written or said in

terms of the varying degrees of formality that English language so uniquely allows, and

within the richly varied register of the language (Jon and John, 2000: 107).

All in all, the students of the Business English Department should master the

basic and specific speaking skill which is related to their daily life and future career. The

students should have the capacity to blurt out the basic and specific English focus on the

communication of meaning with the production of the structurally correct instances of L2

in terms of varying the degrees of formality that the English language allows.

However, there has a bitter case between the objective and the present situation

in the speaking class of Business English Department of CsV&TC (Changsha Vocational

& Technical College). The speaking ability of the speaking class of BEDS (Business

English Department Students) is still low, unsatisfying, and far from the expectations.

This can be seen especially in the class of 0902. Students in this class have low learning

motivation and interest; they don’t pay much attention to the class; they cannot answer

the teacher’s questions orally; they feel shy, nervous, and lack of confidence when asked

by the teacher to answer questions or to conduct a presentation; in addition, they cannot

fluently express their ideas by using appropriate vocabulary and correct grammatical

forms; the students only can speak the first two or three sentences, and then totally get


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stuck and speak their mother tongue during the presentation; moreover, they often feel

hesitate to pronounce the words, and most of them mispronounce the words. The

students’ low speaking ability must be dealing with the teaching and learning process.

From the observation and interview with the teachers and students in the class of 0902,

the causes of the problem can be mainly concluded as the follows:

Firstly, the text books chosen as teaching materials in the speaking class were

long sentence-based stories without providing any communicative or meaningful

activities to prompt the students’ speaking ability. Meanwhile, the content in the text

books was going far away from the practical English (in the students’ opinion), which

made the students feel it was useless or no meaning to attend the speaking class.

Moreover, in the speaking class, the students were asked by the teacher to answer

questions after reading the text loudly or silently, which made them feel very bored and

thus reduce their interest in the speaking class.

Secondly, the speaking class was teacher-centered. It was the teacher who did

most of her talk. The teacher often conveyed the content or knowledge of the text book to

the students without letting the students make their own practice. Only these students

whose minds were wandering around were asked by the teacher to answer the questions

passively. Yet it was not confidently and fluently answered.

Thirdly, the students were reluctant to speak in the speaking class. They often

complained that they didn’t know how to say it (something related to the topic) in

English as they were lack of relevant vocabularies related to that topic. They were also

afraid of being humiliated by their classmates or teacher as they couldn’t produce correct

pronunciation and speak the English fluently.

Fourthly, because of the environment condition and also because the English

language has different grammar structures from Chinese, it was not easy for the students

to speak it as fluently as their native language. That’s to say, it took a long time for the

students to express or explain their ideas or thoughts. Thus, some short-tempered students

spoke their native language in the speaking class, instead of the English.

According to the objective and the conditions mentioned above, it is very urgent

and necessary for the teacher of speaking class to make every effort to change some of

these situations into positive ones. In line with this, the researcher found the


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Content-Based Instruction (CBI) as an appropriate and effective approach that is

especially suitable for the students in the Business English Department of Vocational &

Technique College. CBI is designed to provide second-language learners instruction in

content and language. Content refers to the information or subject matter that we learn or

communicate through language rather than the language used to convey it (Richard,

2006: 28). In other words, content is interpreted as the use of subject matter as a vehicle

for second or foreign language teaching/learning.

Content-Based Instruction (CBI) is a significant approach in second language

acquisition (Brinton, Snow and Wesche, 1989 in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content-based_instruction). One central principle that

supports the theory of second language acquisition is that “people learn a second

language more successfully when they use the language as a means of acquiring

information, rather than as an end in itself” (Richards and Rogers, 2005: 207). Met (in

http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ass/article) also states that natural language

acquisition occurs in context, which is never learned and divorced from meaning, and

CBI provides a context for meaningful communication to occur.

CBI supports language learning in the following seven reasons:

First, with CBI, students are exposed to a considerable amount of language while

learning content. In content-based classrooms (CBCs), teachers and students explore

interesting content while students are engaged in appropriate language activities,

reflecting the learning the students carry out in other content-area classes, the resultant

language learning activities, therefore, are not artificial or meaningless exercise.

Second, students are taught useful language that is embedded within relevant

discourse contexts rather than as isolated language fragments. In CBCs, students have

many opportunities to attend to language, to use language, and to negotiate content

through language in natural discourse context. Thus, CBI allows for explicit language

instruction, integrated with content instruction, in a relevant and purposeful context.

Third, students in CBI classes have increased opportunities to use the content

knowledge and expertise that they bring to class. The use of coherently developed

content resources allows students to call on their own prior knowledge to learn additional

language and content material.


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Fourth, CBI generates increased motivation among students; in CBCs, students are

exposed to useful and authentic materials, and also get involved in the demanding

activities which can lead to intrinsic motivation. Motivation and interest usually arise

partly from the recognition that learning is occurring and that it is worth the effort, and

partly from the appropriate matching of increasing student knowledge of a topic with

increasing task (or learning) challenges.

Fifth, CBI supports such learning approaches as cooperative learning,

apprenticeship learning, experiential learning, and project-based learning. It also lends

itself well to strategy instruction and practice, as theme units naturally require and

recycle important strategies across varying content and learning tasks.

Sixth, CBI allows greater flexibility and adaptability to be built into the curricular

activity sequence. Because additional subtopics and issues can be incorporated into the

course, teachers have many opportunities to adjust the class to complement the interests

and needs of the students.

Seventh, CBI lends itself to student-centered classroom activities; in content-based

classrooms, students have opportunities to exercise choices and preferences in terms of

specific content and learning activities.

Therefore, with CBI, both the teacher and the students can achieve their goals in

the teaching and learning process. In CBI, the content plays the central role, and language

is used to communicate meaning. The language teaching focuses on how information and

meaning from meaningful content are utilized in discourse or texts, not in single

sentences. The importance of attending mainly to meaning and not to language form, and

the consideration is for the needs of the learner. Furthermore, in the CBCs, the students

learn through doing and are actively engaged in the learning process. They do not depend

on the teacher to direct all learning or to be the source of all information, they can learn

through peer input and interactions. They will assume active, social roles in the

classroom, and involve interactive learning, negotiation, information gathering, and the

co-construction of meaning. In addition, the authentic and meaningful contents will

motivate the students to make greater connections between topics, elaborations with

learning material, and can recall information better.


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Based on the analysis above, it is believed that the content-based instruction is an

effective approach to overcome the problem of improving the student’s speaking skill.

B. Formulation of the Problems

Based on the background above, the problems of this study are as the following:

1. Can and to what extent the Content-based Instruction improve the students’

speaking ability of Business English Department of CsT&VC?

2. How is the teaching and learning situation when Content-based Instruction is

applied in the speaking class?

C. The Objective of the Study

Based on the analysis of the causes of the problem, the objectives of this research is

to know:

1. whether and to what extent Content-based Instruction improves the students’

speaking skill of Business English Department of CsT&VC.

2. the teaching and learning situation when Content-based Instruction is applied in

the speaking class.

D. The Benefits of the Study

1. For the Business English Department of CsV&TC

This research can both expand and enrich the English language teaching

instruction for the Business English department, consequently to improve the

teaching quality in this College.

2. For the English teacher or lectures

The approach conducted in this research can be used as another choice of

teaching approach in the speaking class. Besides, it will also be found to be the

best way for teachers to conduct the specific knowledge to their students.

3. For the students

The result of this research can improve the student’s speaking skill with the view

that learning is fun. Furthermore, it will help the students to master the specific

working skills which are related to their future career.

4. For other researchers


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This research can function as additional references or sources to carry out or

conduct further research about language learning and teaching.

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

A. Speaking

1. The Nature of Speaking

Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing

and receiving and processing information (Florez and Cunningham cite form Brown,

1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997 in http://www.ericdigests.org/2000-3/adult.htm). Its form and

meaning depend on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves,

their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking. It

is often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving.

Rizvi (2006: 92) also states that speaking is an interactive communicative process that

involves speakers and listeners. In communicative process, speakers need to learn to adapt

their talk to the listeners; use a range of ways to express themselves; use talk to clarify

their ideas and sustain their talk to develop thinking and reasoning.

Speaking is not the oral production of written language, but involves learners in

the mastery of a wide range of sub-skills, which, added together, constitute an overall

competence in the spoken language (McDonough and Shaw, 2003: 133).

Bukart (1998 in http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/speaking/spindex.htm) state that

language learners need to recognize that speaking involves three areas of knowledge:

- Mechanics (pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary):

It is the ability to use the right words in the right order with the correct

pronunciation.

- Functions (transaction and interaction):


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It is about the knowledge of knowing when clarity of message is essential

(transaction/information exchange) and when precise understanding is not

required (interaction/relationship building)

- Social and cultural rules and norms (turn-taking, rate of speech, length of pauses

between speakers, relative roles of participants):

It refers to the understanding of how to take into account who is speaking to

whom, in what circumstances, about what, and for what reasons.

In our lives, we use talk in different ways for different purpose and audiences. As a skill that

enables us to produce utterances, when genuinely communicative, speaking is desire-and

purpose-driven, in other words we genuinely want to communicate something to achieve a

particular end. This may involve expressing ideas and opinions, expressing a wish or a desire to

do something, negotiating and/or solving a particular problem, or establishing and maintaining

social relationships and friendships.

Burnett and Myes (2004: 24) put forward the following spoken language that may be used in

many different ways:

Explaining suggesting discussing reporting

Instructing speculating arguing narrating

Summarizing negotiating clarifying directing

Persuading planning informing presenting

Questioning disagreeing analyzing hypothesizing

Evaluating describing expressing feelings reasoning

Speaking English can be particularly difficult because, unlike reading or writing, speaking

happens in “real time,” it requires the simultaneous use of a number of abilities which often

develop at different rates. Generally, there are at least five components of speaking skill

concerned with it such as following (Widiastuti cited from Syakur 1987: 3, in

http://etd.eprints.ums.ac.id/332/ ):

a. Comprehension

Oral communication certainly requires a subject to respond, to speech as well as to

initiate it.

b. Grammar

It is needed for students to arrange a correct sentence in conversation. It is in line

with explanation suggested by Heaton (1978: 5) that the student’s ability to manipulate

structure and to distinguish appropriate grammatical form in appropriate ones. The utility


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of grammar is also to learn the correct way to gain expertise in a language in oral and

written form.

c. Vocabulary

One cannot effectively communicate or express their ideas both in oral and written

form if they do not have sufficient vocabulary. So, vocabulary means the appropriate

diction which is used in communication.

d. Pronunciation

Pronunciation is the way the students produce clearer language when they speak. It

deals with the phonological process that refers to the component of a grammar made up

of the elements and principles that determine how sounds vary and pattern in a language.

e. Fluency

Fluency can be defined as the ability to speak fluently and accurately. Fluency in

speaking is the aim of many language learners. Signs of fluency include a reasonably fast

speed of speaking and only a small number of pauses and “ums” or “ers”. These signs

indicate that the speaker does not have to spend a lot of time searching for the language

items needed to express the message (Brown. 1997: 4).

2. Speaking in Second Language

Many language learners learning a second language regard speaking ability as the

measure of knowing that language. These learners define fluency and accuracy as the ability to

converse with others, much more than the ability to read, write, or comprehend oral language.

They regard speaking as the most important skill they can acquire, and they assess their progress

in terms of their accomplishments in spoken communication. The speaking ability in a second

language can more or less be divided into two categories: accuracy and fluency (Cotter Hue in

http://hubpages.com).

a. Accuracy focuses on the correct use of grammar, vocabulary, and other skills. In most

lessons, the teacher builds accuracy in the early stages through controlled or semi-controlled

activities. Students practice a pattern, and use the language in context. Drills, scripted

dialogues, and short questions which promote the language are all common examples in any

level of lesson.

b. Fluency is the ability to speak smoothly and clearly. With advanced students, it also refers to

the ability to participate rather than react to a conversation. Activities which focus on fluency

often appear towards the end of the lesson, when more open ended (yet focused) activities

appear.


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According to Florez (1999, in http://www.cal.org/caela/scb/IV) a good speaker of a

second language usually acts as the following:

- producing the sounds, stress patterns, rhythmic structures, and intonations of the

language;

- using grammar/structures accurately;

- assessing characteristics of the target audience, including shared knowledge or shared

points of reference, status and power relations of participants, interest levels, or

differences in perspectives;

- selecting vocabulary that is understandable and appropriate for the audience, the topic

being discussed, and the setting in which the speech act occurs;

- applying strategies to enhance comprehensibility, such as emphasizing key words,

rephrasing, or checking for listener comprehension;

- using gestures or body language; and

- paying attention to the success of the interaction and adjusting components of speech

such as vocabulary, rate of speech, and complexity of grammar structures to maximize

listener comprehension and involvement (Brown, 1994).

Based on the descriptions above, it can be concluded that speaking is an interactive

communication process that involves speakers and listeners. It is often conducted in

different ways, in different circumstances, and for different purpose, involving not only

the knowledge of mechanics, but also concerned with the function, and social and

cultural rules to the competence that the learners are able to speak with people fluently,

and accurately use the right words (vocabulary); put them in the correct order (grammar);

sound like a native speaker (pronunciation); even produce the right meaning

(comprehension).

3. Teaching Speaking

a. The goal in teaching speaking

Speaking is a crucial part of second language learning and teaching. Despite its

importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English

language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or

memorization of dialogues. However, today's world requires that the goal of teaching

speaking should improve students' communicative skills, because, only in that way,

students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules

appropriate in each communicative circumstance.


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Nunan (in Kayi, 2006, in http://iteslj.org/Techniques) states that teaching speaking

is to teach the students to:

1) Produce the English speech sounds and sound patterns

2) Use word and sentence stress, intonation patterns and the rhythm of the second

language.

3) Select appropriate words and sentences according to the proper social setting,

audience, situation and subject matter.

4) Organize their thoughts in a meaningful and logical sequence.

5) Use language as a means of expressing values and judgments.

6) Use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, which is called

as fluency.

Baker and Westrup (2003: 5) also put forward the following reasons to practice

speaking during a lesson:

1) Speaking activities can reinforce the learning of new vocabulary, grammar or

functional language;

2) Speaking activities give students the chance to use the new language they are

learning

3) Speaking activities give more advanced students the chance to experiment with the

language they already know in different situations and on different topics.

All this helps students to learn English better and succeed.

In line with the statements above, the goal in teaching speaking skill, therefore, is

communicative efficiency. That is, learners should be able to make themselves

understood, using their current proficiency to the fullest. They should try to avoid

confusion in the message due to faulty pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, and to

observe the social and cultural rules that apply in each communication situation.

b. Guidance for Teachers in Teaching Speaking

There is some guidance for English language teachers while teaching speaking

(Kayi, 2006, in http://iteslj.org/Techniques):

1) Provide maximum opportunity to students to speak the target language by providing

a rich environment that contains collaborative work, authentic materials and tasks,


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and shared knowledge.

2) Try to involve each student in every speaking activity; for this aim, practice different

ways of student participation.

3) Reduce teacher speaking time in class while increasing student speaking time. Step

back and observe students.

4) Indicate positive signs when commenting on a student's response.

5) Ask eliciting questions such as "What do you mean? How did you reach that

conclusion?" in order to prompt students to speak more.

6) Provide written feedback like "Your presentation was really great. It was a good job.

I really appreciated your efforts in preparing the materials and efficient use of your

voice…"

7) Do not correct students' pronunciation mistakes very often while they are speaking.

Correction should not distract student from his or her speech.

8) Involve speaking activities not only in class but also out of class; contact parents and

other people who can help.

9) Circulate around classroom to ensure that students are on the right track and see

whether they need your help while they work in groups or pairs.

10) Provide the vocabulary beforehand that students need in speaking activities.

11) Diagnose problems faced by students who have difficulty in expressing themselves

in the target language and provide more opportunities to practice the spoken

language.

In teaching speaking, Ur (1996: 121-122) also gives some different advices to

the English teacher:

1) Use group work

This increases the sheer amount of learner talk going on in a limited period of time

and also lowers the inhibition of learners who are unwilling to speaking in the full front

of the class

2) Base the activity on easy language

The level of language needed for a discussion should be lower than that used in

intensive language learning activities in the same class: it should be easily recalled and

produced by the participants, so that they can speak fluently.


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3) Make a careful choice of topic and task to stimulate interest

Teachers should consider the students’ need and provide the right topic and task

based on the students’ interest to motivate the students to talk more. The more they talk,

the more they will achieve.

4) Give some instruction or training in discussion skills

Specific and clear rules should be given to the students during the classroom

activities, so that they can perform the task smoothly later.

5) Keep students speaking in the target language

Teachers can appoint some students in the speaking class as monitors to remind the

other students to use the target language.

c. Activities for teaching Speaking

There are many activities to promote speaking. According to Kayi (2006, in

http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kayi-TeachingSpeaking.html), there are thirteen activities

to promote speaking, which are:

1) Discussion

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.

2) Role Play

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…" (cite from

Harmer, 1984)

3) 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


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to the class to create a realistic environment. For instance, if a student is acting as a

computer seller, she brings computer and demonstrate it and so on.

4) 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.

5) Brain Storming

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 characteristic of brainstorming is that the students are not

criticized for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas.

6) Storytelling

Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody

beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates. Story telling

fosters creative thinking. It also helps students express ideas in the format of beginning,

development, and ending, including the characters and setting a story has to have.

7) 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. 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.

8) Story Completion

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.

9) Reporting


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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.

10) Playing Cards

In this game, students should form groups of four. Each suit will represent a topic.

For instance: diamonds represent earning money, hearts represent love and

relationships, spades represent an unforgettable memory, and card represent 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?” or “What is the easiest way of earning money?” or

“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.

11) 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.

12) Picture Describing

For this activity students can form groups and each group is given a different

picture. Students discuss the picture with their groups, and 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.

13) Find the Differences

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


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playing tennis. Students in pairs discuss the similarities and/or differences in the

pictures.

d. The Characteristics of Successful Speaking Activity

Ur (1991:121) lists four characteristics of successful speaking activities as follows:

1) The learners talk a lot

As much as possible of the period of time allotted to the activity is occupied by the

learner talk.

2) Participation is even

In the speaking class, the classroom activity is not dominated by a minority of

talkative students, all learners have equal chances to talk or speak in English.

Contributions are evenly distributed.

3) Motivation is high

Learners are eager to speak: (a) because they are interested in the topic. They have

something new to say about it; and (b) because they want to contribute to achieve a

task objective.

4) Language is of acceptable level

Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to

each other, and of an acceptable level of language accuracy.

4. Testing Speaking

A test is a procedure for measuring ability, knowledge or performance (Nagarja,

1996: 207). The speaking test is used to test students’ speaking proficiency. When we

give a speaking test to the students, normally, we want to know the followings:

- How accurately and appropriately the learner use the language (grammar and

vocabulary)

- How well the learners develop the conversation and organize their ideas

- How fluently they speak

- How comprehensible their pronunciation is


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- How positively they contributed to the conversation

(http://www.bulats.org/Bulats/The-Speaking-test.html).

According to Kitao and Kenji (1996: 2) a speaking test can be a source of

beneficial backwash. If speaking is tested, it can encourage the teaching of speaking in

classes. There are many techniques which can be used to test the speaking ability.

Thornbury (2005: 125-126) mentioned the most commonly used test types as follows:

a. Interviews

In conducting the interviews, students are called out one by one for their interview.

Interview is relatively easy to set up, but the rather formal nature of interview is hardly

conducive to testing more informal, conversational speaking styles. It is also difficult to

eliminate the effects of the interviewers questioning style.

b. Live monologues

The candidates prepare and present a short talk on a pre-selected topic. This

eliminates the interviewer effect and provides evidence of the candidates’ ability to

handle an extended turn, which is not always possible in interviews. Other students can

take the role as audiences; a question-and-answer stage can be involved. This can provide

some evidence of the speaker’s ability to speak interactively and spontaneously.

c. Recorded monologues

Recorded monologues are less stressful than a more public performance and, for

informal testing; it is also more practicable in a way that live monologues are not.

Learners can take turns to record themselves talking about a favorite sport or pastime.

The assessment of the recorded tests can be done after the event, and results can be

‘triangulated’.

d. Role-plays

Students will be used to doing at least simple role plays in class, so the same

format can be used for testing. The other ‘role’ can be played either by the tester or

another student. The situation in the role-play should be better grounded in everyday

reality. However, in the role-play test, the influence of the interlocutor is hard to

control.

e. Collaborative tasks and discussions


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These are similar to role-play except that the learners are not required to assume

a role but simply to be themselves. In this performance, the learners’ interactive skills

can be observed in circumstances that close approximate real-life language use.

Moreover, Kitao and Kenji (1996: 4) also suggest that testing speaking can use

visual material. Pictures, maps, diagrams, and other types of visual material can be used

to test speaking without requiring the students to comprehend written or spoken material.

Through careful selection of the material, the tester can control the vocabulary and, to

some extent, the grammatical structures required. In the test of using visual materials,

usually, the students are given a series of pictures which tell a story, and are required to

put together a coherent narrative. A variation on this is to give the pictures in random

order of the narrative to a group of students.

On a speaking test, getting the students to say something appropriate is only half

the job. Scoring the test is equally challenging (Madsen, 1984: 166). However,

Thomburry (2005: 127) suggests two main ways: either giving it a single score on the

basis of an overall impression (called holistic scoring) or giving a separate score for

different aspects of the task (analytic scoring). The holistic-scoring has the advantage of

being quicker, and is probably adequate for informal testing of progress. It needs more

than one scorer, and any significant differences in scoring should be discussed and a joint

score negotiated.

Analytic-scoring takes longer, but compels testers to take a variety of factors into

account and, if these factors are well chosen, is probably both fairer and more reliable.

However, in the process of scoring, the scorer may be distracted by all the categories and

lose sight of the overall picture.

In describing the criteria levels of scoring, Hughes (2003: 110) said that the

descriptions may be holistic or analytic and it was said that it is possible to use one

method as a check on the other.

Madsen (1983: 167-168) state that the advantage of holistic grading is probably

obvious. It concentrates on communication while not overlooking the components of

speech. It is used to evaluate a various aspects simultaneously such as pronunciation,

grammar, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension. According to Madsen (1983: 170), this

rating scale can be adapted for the use of the teachers, and the teachers can prepare their


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own scale. Moreover, teachers with clearly identified evaluation criteria will want to rate

their students on a holistic scale. Based on the theories above, the scoring rubric applied

in this research is as follows:

Scoring Rubric

No. 1 Score Indicator

fluency

17-20 Speech as fluently as that of a native speaker 13-16 Speed of speech seems to be slightly affected by language

problems 9-12 Speech and fluency are strongly affected by language

problems 5-8 often hesitant and forced silence by language limitation 1-4 Speech is so halting and fragmentally that makes

communication impossible No. 2 Score Indicator

Vocabulary

17-20 Almost no inadequacy or inaccuracy 13-16 Few times inadequate or inaccurate 9-12 Sometimes inadequate or inaccurate 5-8 Inaccurate or in adequate that affect the understanding 1-4 Inadequate for communication

No. 3 score Indicator

Grammar

17-20 No grammatical inaccuracy 13-16 Few grammatical inaccuracy 9-12 Grammatical inaccuracy does not impede the understanding 5-8 Grammatical inaccuracy does not seriously impede

understanding 1-4 Grammatical inaccuracy makes understanding almost

impossible No. 4 score Indicator

Pronunciation

17-20 Accurate pronunciation 13-16 Few inaccurate pronunciation 9-12 Inaccuracy of pronunciation does not impede understanding 5-8 Inaccuracy of pronunciation does not seriously impede

understanding 1-4 Inaccuracy of pronunciation makes understanding almost

impossible No. 5 score Indicator

Comprehension

17-20 Understands everything in normal educated conversation 13-16 Understands quite well the normal educated speech/ dialogue,

but sometimes need repetition or rephrasing 9-12 Understands simplified speech/dialogue but need repetition

and rephrasing 5-8 Understands only slow, very simple speech, require repetition

and rephrasing 1-4 Understands too little for the simplest type conversation


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B. Content-Based Instruction

1. The Nature of Content-based Instruction

Content-Based Instruction (CBI) is a significant approach in second language

acquisition (Brinton, Snow, & Wesche, 1989 in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content-based_instruction). According to Richard and Roger

(2001: 204), CBI refers to an approach to second language teaching in which teaching is

organized around the content or information that students will acquire, rather than around

a linguistic or other type of syllabus.

Furthermore, Krahnke (1987: 65) defines CBI as the teaching of content or

information in the language being learned with little or no direct or explicit effort to

teaching the language itself separately from the content being taught.

Moreover, Brinton, Snow, and Wesche (1989: 2) offered the definition of CBI as

“the integration of particular content with language-teaching aims”. The activities in CBI

class are centered around the content being taught and students are expected to learn the

content by using the target language.

Stewart (2008: 12) states that the proponents of content-based instruction argue

that language is most effectively learned in the context of relevant and meaningful

content.

According to Richard (2006: 28), content refers to the information or subject

matter that we learn or communicate through language rather than the language used to

convey it. In addition, Da Silva in Hale (2008: 3) identifies content as a crucial part of

language learning and the separation of language from content as both arbitrary and

artificial. Historically, the word content has changed its meaning in language teaching.

Content used to refer to the methods of grammar-translation, audio-lingual methodology

and vocabulary or sound patterns in dialog form. Recently, content is interpreted as the

use of subject matter as a vehicle for second or foreign language teaching/learning

(http://en.wikipedia.org).

CBI is developed under the framework of communicative language teaching

(CLT), it is grounded on the following two central principles (Richard and Roger, 2001:

207):


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a. People learn a second language more successfully when they use the language as a

means of acquiring information, rather than as an end in itself.

b. CBI better reflects learners’ needs for learning a second language.

Vyas and Patel (2009: 120) state that CBI is important to produce students who

comprehend English without translating into their native language, choosing meaningful

content is essential. Through communication-based instruction focused on content,

students are able to pick up not only the communicative skills that are necessary for

effective language, but also learning new subject matter.

Based on the definitions and descriptions above, it can be concluded that CBI is

an approach to second language teaching in which teaching is organized around the

content or information, and students learn the second language with little or no direct or

explicate effort as the content or information is interpreted as the use of meaningful

authentic materials (including text, pictures, newspapers, etc.,) as the vehicle to motivate

the students to get involved in the language teaching and learning process.

2. Theoretical Support

According to Richard (2006: 28) the contemporary views of language learning is

seen as resulting from processes such as following, and the best way to do so is by using

content as the driving force of classroom activities and to link all the different dimensions

of communicative competence, including grammatical competence, with content.

a. Interaction between the learner and users of the language.

b. Collaborative creation of meaning

c. Creating meaningful and purposeful interaction through language

d. Negotiation of meaning as the learner and his or her interlocutor arrive at

understanding

e. Learning through attending to the feedback learners get when they use the language

f. Paying attention to the language one hears (the input) and try to incorporate new

forms into one’s developing communicative competence

g. Trying out and experimenting with different ways of saying things.

Eskey (1997: 133) states that the rationale for employing CBI is that “people do

not learn language and then use it; (rather) people learn language by using them.” He


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argues that content is “not merely something to practice language with: rather, language

is something to explore content with”.

Furthermore, Richard (2006: 25) states that CBI is based on the following

assumptions about language learning:

a) People learn a language more successfully when they use the language as a means of

acquiring information, rather than as an end in itself.

b) CBI better reflects learners’ needs for learning a second language.

According to Krashe (in Huifang, 2006 in

http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Shang-CBI.html), in content-based instruction, students can

acquire the content area of the subject matter with comprehensible input, and

simultaneously increase their language skills. To achieve the goal of language skills

improvement, Huifang states that the focus of the teaching is on the authentic and

meaningful input, not on the grammatical form.

Keeping students motivated and interested are two important factors underlying

content-based instruction. When the students are interested with the content/materials,

they will be motivated to learn the second language successfully. There are many theories

supporting this:

O’ Dowd in Hale (2008: 4) reported that students in content course exhibited greater

interest than usual in the courses and engaged in the classes with enthusiasm. Johnson

and Higgins in Hale’ work (2008: 4) also found that students performed at a higher level

when they believed the content they were learning was relevant to their present and/or

future needs.

CBI material is believed to motivate students to acquire not only a target language

but also content. Brinton (in Vyas and Patel, 2009: 130) mentions: “The use of

information content which is perceived as relevant by learner is assumed by many to

increase motivation in the language course and, thus, to promote effective learning.”

Moreover, according to Stoller (in Vyas and Patel, 2009: 130): “There is a

relationship between student motivation and student interest—common outcomes of

content-based class and student ability to process challenging materials, recall

information, and elaborate.”


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CBI has a strong correlation with student motivation which is a vital element in

English education. Motivation allows students to pursue learning English, not to be afraid

of making errors and to use it as a means of communication with a number of people.

Motivation makes students understand the actual purpose of saying English. In other

words motivated students realize that English is not just or a way to pass an entrance

examination.

Pamenter in Hale (2008: 3) also links affective aspects to content-based learning

such as enjoyment, confidence and increased motivation. In terms of content, she

exposed her students to a wide range of topics, including international business, foreign

travel, and the environment. She found that the focus on content rather than language

helped her students began to form opinions about society and express their opinions

confidently. Research has showed that content-based course increased student motivation

for studying English and raised students’ confidence when using English.

3. The Advantages of Content-based Instruction

CBI is believed to have many advantages. These advantages are listed as follows;

a. It can make learning a language more interesting and motivating. Students can use

the language to fulfill a real purpose, which can make students both more

independent and confident.

b. Students can also develop a much wider knowledge of the world through CBI which

can feed back into improving and supporting their general educational needs.

c. CBI is very popular among EAP (English for Academic Purposes) teachers as it

helps students to develop valuable study skills such as note taking, summarizing and

extracting key information from texts.

d. Taking information from different sources, re-evaluating and restructuring that

information can help students to develop very valuable thinking skills that can then

be transferred to other subjects.

e. The inclusion of a group work element within the framework given above can also

help students to develop their collaborative skills, which can have great social value

(Peachey, 2003. In http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles).


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Moreover, Chamot and O’Malley (1994: 26) said that there are at least four

reasons for incorporating content into the English as a Second Language (ESL) class as

follows:

a. Content provides students with an opportunity to develop important knowledge in

different subject areas.

b. Students are able to practice the language functions and skills needed to understand,

discuss, read about, and write about the concepts developed.

c. Students exhibit greater motivation when they are learning content than when they

are learning language only.

d. Content provides a context for teaching students learning strategies

(http://revista.inie.ucr.ac.cr/articulos/2-2005/archivos/oral.pdf).

4. Content/Material Selection

According to Krashen (1982) the principal feature of CBI is that content is the point

of departure or organizing principle of the course. To this end, content plays the central

role. In content selection, Vyas and Patel (2009: 131-132) cited many suggestions for

content selection in CBI as follows:

Met asserts, “Careful planning for language development can be useful in ensuring

that students gain language competence that will be useful in settings beyond the school

itself.” It is necessary that students can employ what they learn in real life. Snow

(2001) suggests:

“In order to develop communicative competence, learners must have extended opportunities to use the second/ foreign language productivity. Thus, in addition to receiving comprehensible input, they must produce comprehensible output; in other words, explicit attention must be paid to the productive language skills of speaking and writing.”

According to Heo (2006) “the students must go through a real-world process

instead of using independent, creative, or unrealistic thoughts”. Brinton asserts: “First

and most important, the materials chosen should be a range of language functions and

structures available, and these should map neatly onto the language syllabus.”


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Valuable and realistic lessons foster students’ language development. For students

to effectively communicate with others, materials used in class need to train them to

become successful communicators.

Furthermore, materials need to motivate students to pursue the target language, as

Vyas and Patel cited from Brinton (2009: 131-132):

“Every attempt should be made to select materials which reflect

the needs and interests of the students and to choose content areas in which the language teacher has some interest or expertise.”

According to Met:

“Materials also should be enhancing language learning by providing motivating topics to communicate about, and enhancing language learning by providing meaningful, purposeful language practice opportunities drawn from a variety of topics”.

Varying the choice of topics and themes is essential in order to engage students in

learning the content through English; appealing topics and themes encourage them to

actively participate in class. Active participation in class, moreover, enhances students’

relationships with one another, creating a positive influence on classroom atmosphere.

There are several key points required in material-making, Short (1991) state:

“In order to make English language input as comprehensible as possible, the teachers should present information through diverse media: realia, graphs, demonstrations, pre-reading, and pre-wring strategies. The focus of the instruction should be motivated by the content to be learned which will help identify the language skills required to learn that content and the reasoning abilities needed to manipulate it”.

Hernandez mentions, “It is essential to familiarize English language learners with

clear content vocabulary related to the unit of study.” He also suggests:

“Students should be guided to see that these thinking processes are common in everyday life situation; lessons can then be adapted to demonstrate how critical thinking used in their personal lives can be transferred to academic thought”.


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The instructors need to carefully choose the way they present the planned content

in their materials. It is particularly important to structure activities in an appropriate

order. In addition, visual aids are instrumental in supplementing students’ understanding.

Vocabulary-building is strongly believed to be one of the key elements in English

education. Thus, materials must include relevant vocabulary exercises at the right time.

Most importantly, materials need to be built with the goal of fostering critical thinking,

and forcing students to utilize a combination of prior knowledge and skills.

5. The Implementation of Content-based Instruction

Stryker and Leaver (in Herrero, 2005: 4-5) state that in order to successfully

implement a CBI curriculum, the following characteristics must be presented

(http://revista.inie.ucr.ac.cr/articulos/2-2005/archivos/oral.pdf ):

a. Subject Matter Core

In CBI, content is the point of departure or organizing principle of the course – a

feature that grows out of the common underlying assumption that successful language

learning occurs when students are presented with target language materials in a

meaningful, contextualized form with the primary focus on acquiring information.

b. The use of authentic language and texts

The learning activities in CBI should focus on understanding and conveying

meaningful messages and accomplishing realistic tasks using authentic language. The

content can be fun, academic, local, or school-based. It may include texts, videotapes,

audio recordings, mini-lectures, field trips, community resources, student knowledge,

web resources and visual aids (posters, maps, bulletin boards) selected mostly from those

produced for native speakers of the language (Stoller 2004, Stryker and Leaver (1997: 8).

c. Appropriate to the needs of specific students

In CBI, the content and learning activities correspond to the linguistic, cognitive,

and affective needs of the students and are appropriate to their professional needs and

personal interests. Since students have different learning styles, teachers should provide a

variety of task types, develop a wide range of learning strategies, and use different

grouping techniques to make the materials accessible to all the students in the classroom.

Students should also be given participation in choosing topics and activities to better

meet their needs and interests. “Student-generated themes and activities create an


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atmosphere in which the students take responsibility for their own learning and the

teacher becomes more of a ‘manager of student learning’” (Maly, 1993: 41 in Stryker and

Leaver, 1997: 11)

Moreover, Richard and Rodger (2001: 219) said:

“Since Content-Based Instruction refers to an approach rather than a method, no specific techniques or activities are associated with it. At the level of procedure, teaching materials and activities are selected according to the extent to which they match the type of program it is.”

Richard and Rodger (2001: 28) suggest that CBI is the extension of Communicative

Language Teaching (CLT), theoretically, the techniques or activities used in CLT can

also be applied in the CBI as they share the same goals that are to develop learners’

communicative competence.

According to Richard and Rodger (2001: 13-19), there are many different types of

activity used in CLT:

a. Activities focusing on fluency

1) Reflect natural use of language

2) Focus on achieving communication

3) Require meaningful use of language

4) Require the use of communication strategies

5) Produce language that may not be predictable

6) Seek to link language use to context

b. Activities focusing on accuracy

1) Reflect classroom use of language

2) Focus on the formation of correct examples of language

3) Practice language out of context

4) Practice small samples of language

5) Do not require meaningful communication

6) Choice of language is controlled

c. Information-gap activities

This refers to the fact that in real communication people normally communicate in

order to get information they do not possess. This is known as an information-gap. More


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authentic communication is likely to occur in the classroom if students go beyond

practice of language forms for their own sake and use their linguistic and communicative

resources in order to obtain information.

d. Jig-saw activities

These are also based on the information-gap principle. Typically the class is

divided into groups and each group has part of the information needed to complete an

activity. The class must fit the pieces together to complete the whole. In so doing they

must use their language resources to communicate meaningfully and so take part in

meaningful communication practice.

e. Other activity types in CLT

Many other activity types have been used in CLT, among which are the following:

1) Task-completion activities: puzzles, games, map-reading and other kinds of

classroom tasks in which the focus was on using one’s language resources to

complete a task.

2) Information gathering activities: student conducted surveys, interviews and searches

in which students were required to use their linguistic resources to collect

information.

3) Opinion-sharing activities: activities where students compare values, opinions,

beliefs.

4) Information-transfer activities: these require learners to take information that is

presented in one form, and represent it in a different form.

5) Reasoning gap-activities: these involve deriving some new information from given

information through the process of inference, practical reasoning etc.

6) Role-plays: activities in which students are assigned roles and improvise a scene or

exchange based on given information or clues.

C. Rationale

The review of related theories functions as the base to make rationale. Rationale

represents the relationship between variables stated in the review of related theories.


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Among the four skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), speaking is often

regarded by people as the most important skill. People, who can listen, read and write, but

cannot speak will not be thought as mastering the English language. This case especially

occurred during the working filed.

However, the researcher observed and recognized that the speaking ability of

students in class 0902 in the Business English Department of CsV&TC, China was still

low and unsatisfying. The students’ difficulties in speaking are caused by: the lack of

related vocabularies, low ability in constructing sentences and utterances, poor and

unsatisfying understanding about transactional and interpersonal expressions in English,

and low motivation in participating in speaking activity caused by the shyness and

embarrassment in making mistakes.

The situation was getting worse by the teacher’s wrongly chosen teaching material

and unsuitable teaching method which made the students felt very bored and lost interest

in the speaking class. In the class, the teacher often conducted the speaking activity by

asking the students to read or translate the story or novel that the students didn’t like and

had already read in their dormitory. Moreover, the teacher didn’t explore students’

potential for speaking as she didn’t provide many chances to the students to speak. The

class was teacher-centered, it was the teacher who talked a lot and dominated the class.

As the problems mentioned above, approach or method need to be used to improve

the situation urgently. Content-based Instruction is considered and recommended as a

useful and practical approach to improve the students’ speaking skill based on the

following rationale:

To begin with, Content-based Instruction provides a natural context for using the

target language in the classroom; it provides the students to acquire the language while

using the context of any subject matter so that students learn the language by using it

within the specific context. In other words, the students will not only learn the particular

context of a subject matter by using the English, but also learn the particular language

terms and skills through the specific context. As we know that different contents in

different texts can be used for different purposes. Communicative content-based texts

will be used to train students’ communicative or speaking skills. In this study, the writer

will use communicative content-based teaching materials to improve the student’s


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speaking skill. Through the Content-based Instruction, the students will be provided with

many useful and practical vocabularies and sentence patterns related to their future

career.

Furthermore, Since CBI is an approach, rather than a method, different technique

or activities can be applied in the class to meet and suite the students’ needs; in the CBI

class, students will have a lot of chances to speak English and to interact with each other

in conducting different tasks or activities. By frequently practicing, the students will have

the ability to speak fluently and confidently.

Moreover, the Content-based Instruction will encourage the students to actively

engage in the teaching and learning process as the contents fall under their interests and

the topics of the content occurred mostly in the real-world are familiar to them. That will

make them talk much and frequently.

D. Hypothesis

Based on the analysis of the problem, the description of the related theories, and

the rationale above, the formulated hypothesis is that Content-based Instruction can

improve the students’ speaking ability of Business English Department of CsT&VC.

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. The Setting of the Research

This research will be conducted at Changsha Vocational & Technical College, in

Hunan province, China. This college is a state-run and full-time higher vocational

college. There are three campuses with total together six faculties in this college, namely:

mechanical engineering, automotive engineering, art of fireworks, IT, humanities and

public management, while the major of Business English belongs to the humanities and


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public management faculty. The numbers of students in this college are nearly 7,000 with

different majors in different faculties.

This research is carried out in the campus in Changsha city from July 2010 to

January 2011. Here is the detail research schedule:

Table 3.1 of the Research Schedule

No. Activity TIME: Year 2010 -2011

July Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

1 Pre-survey * * 2 Proposal * * * 3 Reviewing literature * * * 4 Developing

instrument * * *

5 Collecting and analyzing the data

* * *

6 Writing the report * * * 7 Collecting the reports * *

B. The Subject of the Research

This research will be applied to the second grade students in Class 0902 in

Business English Department of CsV&TC in the academic year of 2010-2011.There are

thirty-eight students in this class; thirty-six female students, and two male students. The

reason for choosing this class as the subject, it is because that the students’ speaking

ability in this class is still low and unsatisfying. Based on the statements from the

interview with both the teacher and students, the students generally had similar problems

on the speaking class. According to the teacher, these students had lack of vigor,

interest and motivation in the speaking class. They were always keeping silent in the

class, and felt reluctant to speak. Moreover, they also couldn’t answer the teacher’s

questions. Most of them were short of relevant vocabularies, and felt hesitate to

pronounce the words. They couldn’t fluently communicate with their classmates.

From the students’ point of view, they stated that they felt very bored about the

speaking class because they didn’t want to read the novel again since they had read it in

the dormitory already, and they wanted to learn something practical, something useful for


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their future career. Furthermore, they said that they couldn’t express their thoughts or

ideas with suitable expressions because of lack of vocabulary and because of the different

grammar structure. Moreover, they said that they were not brave enough to speak

English, they were afraid of making mistakes, so sometimes; they spoke Chinese, instead

of English in the speaking class.

C. The Method of the Research

In this study, the researcher will apply the action research to conduct this study.

According to Ebbutt (in Hopkins, 1985: 45 ), action research is about the systematic

study of attempts to improve educational practice by groups of participants by means of

their own practical actions and by means of their own reflection upon the effects of those

actions.

Watts (1985: 118) also states that action research is a process in which participants

examine their own educational practice systematically and carefully, using the techniques

of research. It is based on the following assumptions:

1) Teachers and principals work best on problems they have identified for themselves

2) Teachers and principals become more effective when encouraged to examine and

assess their own work and then consider ways of working differently.

3) Teachers and principals help each other by working collaboratively.

4) Working with colleagues helps teachers and principals in their professional

development.

In the book of A Teacher’s Guide to Classroom Research, Hopkins (1985: 44)

notes that action research combines as substantive act with a research procedure; it is an

action disciplined by enquiry, a personal attempt at understanding while engaged in

process of improvement and reform. He also cited several definitions of action research

from others in his book:

1) Rapoport (in Hopkins, 1985: 44) said that action research aims to contribute both to

the practical concerns of people in an immediate problematic situation and to the

goals of social science by joint collaboration within a mutually acceptable ethical

framework.

2) Kemmis (in Hopkins, 1985: 44) writes: action research is a form of self-reflective


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enquiry undertaken by participants in social (including educational) situations in

order to improve the rationality and justice of (a) their own social or educational

practices, (b) their understanding of these practices, and (c) the situations in which

the practices are carried out.

3) Elliott (1991: 69) notes that Action-research might be defined as ‘the study of a

social situation with a view to improve the quality of action within it’. it aims to feed

practical judgment of action situations, and the validity of the’ theories’ or

hypotheses it generates depends not so much on ‘ scientific’ tests of truth, as on their

usefulness in helping people to act more intelligently and skillfully. In

action-research ‘theories’ are not validated independently and then applied to

practice. They are validated through practice.

From all the definitions above, we know that action research is a worthwhile

pursuit for educators for a number of reasons. Foremost among these is simply the desire

to know more. Good teachers are, after all, themselves students, and often look for ways

to expand upon their existing knowledge.

D. The Procedure of the Research

According to Elliott (in Hopkins, 1993), the essentials of action research design are

considered as per the following characteristic cycle:

1. Initially an exploratory stance is adopted, where an understanding of a problem is

developed and plans are made for some forms of interventional strategy (The

Reconnaissance & General Plan).

2. Then the intervention is carried out (The Action in Action Research).

3. During and around the time of the intervention, pertinent observations are collected

in various forms (Monitoring the implementation by Observation).

4. The new interventional strategies are carried out, and the cyclic process repeats,

continuing until a sufficient understanding of (or implement able solution for) the

problem is achieved (Reflection and Revision).


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A representation of an AR protocol by Kemmis is provided in the following figure:

Figure 3.1: Action Research Protocol from Kemmis (cited in Hopkins, 1985: 48)

The above figure clearly displays the iterative nature of action research along with

the major steps of planning, action, observation, and reflection. In this study, the

researcher will use the same steps in order to get the data objectively.

1. Planning

In this stage, the researcher will plan: (a) the pretest in order to know the

students’ previous or original ability of their speaking; (b) the interview to both the

teacher and students to know the previous teaching and learning process. That is to know

what kinds of method, approach, techniques, and procedures that the teacher used during

the teaching process and the students’ opinion about the teacher’s teaching strategies; (c)

the specific lesson plan and teaching materials based on the problems identified; (d) the

posttest to compare with the pretest in order to know if there is any improvement in the

students’ speaking by learning under the Content-base Instruction; and(e) the


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questionnaire after the implementation of the Content-based Instruction in order to get

their opinion about the learning and teaching process.

2. Acting

In this step, the researcher will carry out the entire detail action programs as

planned above in the speaking class. The teaching activities or Content-based Instruction

will be conducted step by step based on the lesson plans.

3. Observing

During the implementation of Content-based Instruction, the students’ learning

process and their involvement or engagement, their responses, and their attitude of the

learning progress in the speaking class will be observed and recorded by both of the

researcher and the collaborator through direct observation.

4. Reflecting

After carrying out the teaching and learning activities under the Content-based

Instruction, the researcher in this stage evaluates the result to see the effectiveness of the

action program. By conducting the reflection, the researcher will find whether it is

necessary to conduct another cycle.

E. Techniques of Collecting the Data

Ferrance (2000: 11) states that the collection of data is an important step in

deciding what action needs to be taken. Multiple sources of data are used to better

understand the scope of happenings in the classroom or school. There are many

vehicles for collection of data listed by Eileen as follows:

interviews portfolios diaries field notes audio tapes photos memos questionnaires focus groups anecdotal records checklists journals individual files logs of meetings videotapes case studies surveys self-assessment

records – tests, report cards, attendance samples of student work, projects, performances

In this research, the writer will collect the data from:

1. Interview


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Interview is an activity conducted by asking questions face to face. During this

research, the interview will be taken with both the teacher and students. By interviewing

them, the writer will know the students speaking ability and their interest or motivation in

the speaking class and the results of the teacher’s teaching method or technique.

2. Questionnaire

Questionnaire is an investigation by asking some questions in the written form. In

this research, the students will be asked to cross some statements in the questionnaire

after the implementation of the Content-based Instruction in order to get their opinion

about the learning and teaching process.

3. Observation

Observation is an activity of watching and recording action and behavior of the

research participants in the class. In this research, the researcher was helped by her

collaborator to observe the teacher’s teaching process and the students’ learning activities

and the learning progress in the speaking class. The data gained in the observation will be

in the form of narrative text from the field note.

4. Test

In China, the students’ ability is often score-oriented. Thus, in this research, the

pretest and posttests will be given to the students to know the condition of the students’

speaking ability before and after the implementation of the Content-based Instruction.

The objective of the tests is to know if there is any significant improvement on the

students’ speaking ability or not through Content-based Instruction.

F. Technique of Analyzing the Data

After conducting the classroom action research, the researcher then needs to

analyze the results. The results are based on two kinds of data.

One kind of the data is quantitative data or numerical data. They come from the

students’ speaking scores. The speaking scores generated from the pretest and posttest in

this research will be analyzed by comparing the means of each test to find out the general

improvement of all the students’ achievement in speaking. Furthermore, the scores as one

of the symbols of the improvement will be analyzed with the t-test of non-independent


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variable to find out the significance of the improvement from cycle to cycle. The formula

to find the mean and the formula of the t-test of non-independent variable are as follows:

The formula to find out the Mean:

x® = ∑涅奴

Where: X伸 = mean score

∑X = the total score

N = number of students

The formula for t-test

( )

( )1

2

-

-

=

å å

nnn

DD

Dt

Another type is the qualitative data, also called non-numerical data. This kind of

data in this research is got from the interview, the questionnaire, and the field note. They

will be analyzed by using Constant Comparative Method recommended by Hopkins

(1985: 148)

Here are four steps in this method cited from Glaser and Strauss (1976: 105) by

Hopkins (1985: 149)

1. Comparing incidents applicable to each category

In this stage, the researcher will code every incident collected from the

observation and questionnaire into some categories.

2. Integrating categories and their properties

Arrived at this stage, the researcher will compare the findings from the

previous step and integrate them based on their categories and properties.

3. Delimiting the theory


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The researcher will construct the theory based on the findings of the previous

steps.

4. Writing the theory

Based on the steps as mentioned above, the theories will be created.

CHAPTER IV RESULT OF THE STUDY

A. Introduction The aims of the research are (1) to find out whether and to what extent

Content-based Instruction improves the students’ speaking skill; and (2) to indentify the

teaching and learning situation when CBI is applied in the speaking class. In this chapter,

the writer explains what has happened and has been got during and after the

implementation of CBI in the class of 0902 of the business English department in

CsV&TC.

This chapter is divided into two sections. The first section is about the process of

the research which includes the condition before the research, the implementation of the

research and the final reflection, while the second section relates the findings and

discussion. The summary of the research is provided in the following table.

Table 4.1 Process of the Research

Pre-research: Gaining base- line data Observing the teaching and learning process Interviewing the students and the teacher Conducting the pre-test Research Implementation

Cycle 1 (Meeting: M1, M2, M3)

Task Activity (students worked in individual, in pair or in groups)

M1: Introducing Introducing the office description: describing the office


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products M2:Introducing company M3:Receiving factory visitors

products Introducing company Receiving a guest who is

visiting a factory

items based on the flash cards Presentation: introducing a

company Role-Play: taking the role of the

secretary in the given picture

Cycle 2 (Meeting: M1, M2, M3)

Task Activity (students worked individually, in pair, or in groups)

M1: Telephoning M2: Booking Room in a Hotel M3:Ordering in a restaurant

Making & taking a phone call, taking & leaving message

Booking a room in a hotel

Ordering food in a

restaurant

Role-play: taking the role of a staff in a company to make and receive a phone call and to take and leave a message

Role- play: taking the role of a visitor who wants room

Role-play: taking the role of a customer who eats at a restaurant

In more detail, table 4.1 is described as the following.

The process section is divided into four parts, namely, the condition before the

research; the implementation of the research consisting of Cycle 1, Cycle 2; the final

reflection; and the research findings.

1. The Condition before the Research

The condition before the research is identified in pre-research stage. The

pre-research is held to gain based-line data of the research. The result of pre-research

activity can be seen in Table 4.2.

Table 4.2 Result of Pre-research

Issues Indicators

Students’ ability in speaking

Low achievement in speaking, the mean score was 59.5 They could not answer the teacher’s questions. They could not speak fluently; they always get stuck. The students could not express their ideas using

appropriate vocabularies and correct grammatical form. They lacked of relevant vocabularies related to the topics. They often mispronounced the words. Mother tongue use in the speaking class was quite


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common. Classroom situation The atmosphere in the classroom was not alive.

There was low participation of the students. Students got low involvement in the topics or tasks. Students didn’t pay much attention to what the teacher was

saying. Students didn’t have many chances to practice the

components of the speaking skill. The teacher dominated the class. The teacher didn’t use various or new activities or

techniques to get the attention of the students. In more details, the condition before the research was described in the following

sections:

2. Student’s Ability in Speaking

In order to identify the students’ speaking ability, the pre-test had been made

and it was conducted in the form of interview. The topics chosen for the pre-test were

what they had been taught before the implementation of the research. The result of the

pre-test showed that the students had low speaking ability. The low speaking ability

could be seen from the low achievement of the speaking test. The mean of the speaking

scores in the pre-test was low; it was only 59.5.

The low speaking ability could also be identified from the following indicators.

Firstly, the students could not answer the teacher’s questions; when the teacher asked

them to answer questions; most of them just kept silent and said “sorry” to the teacher,

instead of answering the question. Secondly, the students could not fluently express their

ideas or thoughts by using appropriate vocabularies and grammatical forms. There were

so many such students who could only speak the first two sentences, and then totally got

stuck as they lacked of relevant vocabularies of the topics and could not properly use the

sentence patterns and put it in a correct grammatical order. Thirdly, the students often

mispronounced the words, and they also felt hesitate to utter those words as they could

not sure whether the pronunciations of those words were right or wrong. The feature of

students’ speech could be seen in Table 4.3.

Table 4.3 Feature of Students’ Speech

Number


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of Students

Percentage

Level Speaking features

1

3%

Above average

The speech could be fully understood Having sufficient vocabulary with correct pronunciation Using the right grammatical forms when speaking Not using mother tongue in speaking Speaking fluently, without hesitant and forced silence Feel confident and brave enough to speak, not shy

20

52%

Average

The speech could be generally understood Knowing some vocabularies with good pronunciation, but sometimes, got stuck and felt hesitate to pronounce the words Making few grammar mistakes Sometimes using mother tongue in speaking A little bit shy

17

45%

Under average

The speech could not be understand Limited on the vocabulary and having poor pronunciation Making many mistakes in the grammatical form Very often hesitated and forced silence by language limitation Sometimes using mother tongue Lacking of confidence, felt shy, not brave to speak

From the result of the pre-test, the researcher could categorize the students’

speaking ability into three levels: above average, average, and under average. Only one

student had the above average ability; twenty students had the average ability and

seventeen percent students had the under average ability. The only one student in above

average ability could produce fully understandable speech, with sufficient vocabulary and

correct pronunciation in the right grammatical form. She could speak fluently, without

hesitant and forced silence by the language. She was not shy; she felt confident and brave

enough to speak. She did not use mother tongue while speaking.

Meanwhile, there were twenty students who had the average speaking ability.

Their speech could be understood. They could produce good pronunciation; they knew


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some vocabularies for the topic, but with some mistakes in the grammatical form. They

felt a little bit shy, and sometimes got stuck and felt hesitate while speaking.

The rest of the students, about seventeen students were in the under average

ability. The speech of these students was a little bit difficult to be understood. They had

limited vocabulary and had poor pronunciation. They also made many mistakes in the

grammatical form. Moreover, they lacked of confidence; they felt shy, and not brave to

speak; sometimes, they used mother tongue.

3. Classroom Situation

Before conducting the research, the teaching and learning process was not

interesting and alive. The description of the teaching and learning process was as follows:

In teaching the speaking to the students of business English department, the teacher still

applied the conventional and monotonous techniques for teaching, and also chose some

different short stories or even some long novels as the teaching materials, which made the

students didn’t want to attend the class as they thought it was useless to attend the class.

In the class, usually, the teacher started the lesson by asking the students to read some

short stories or paragraphs in the long novels. After that, the teacher asked the students to

answer her questions; to present what was talking about in the story and novel; and

sometimes, to play a role-play activity.

The result of the observation showed that the classroom situation was not alive,

the speaking class, most of the time, was silent, because the students were neither willing

to participate nor speak. When the teacher asked them to answer questions after they had

finished reading the content, the students usually looked at their friends and were

unwilling to stand up to answer the teacher’s questions. The situation was getting worse

and worse by the teacher’s domination and the way she taught in the speaking class. The

teacher always liked to ask the students to read the content that the students were going to

learn and never changed the way or activities in the class. The students seldom got

chances to learn or practice the word expressions or vocabularies and its pronunciations,

also including the grammar. The situation above showed that the teacher was not

innovative in teaching speaking.

4. Students’ Learning Perception about Speaking


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Except conducting the pre-test, the researcher also conducted in-depth interview

with the students. The purpose of the interview was exploring the students’ perception

about speaking. The result of the interview could be seen in Table 4.4.

Table 4.4 Result of Interview

No. Questions Students

Response Yes No

1 Do you think that the English is important nowadays? 91% 9% 2 Do you like learning English? 96% 4% 3 Are you able to speak English? 12% 88% 4 Is it difficult to learn English? 87% 13% 5 Do you like doing different activities in the speaking

class? 100% 0%

6 Do you like the topics of the speaking class? 5% 95%

The result of the interview about the importance of English showed that there were

two groups of students. The first groups, about ninety one percent of the students thought

that English was very important nowadays. One of the student sated that learning

English was very important, especially important for their future jobs. If they were

looking for a job, understanding English was considered as having a plus ability for

getting a job, which could also provide them a good position and got a higher salary in

the company. Another student said that in many big companies, they might have many

appointments or meetings with the foreigners; they could have a lot of opportunities to

establish and deal business with them. It couldn't be denied that English was very

important if they want to make a good living in the future.

On the contrary, the second group of students, about four percent of the total

number stated that they did not like learning English. One student said that she had been

studying English for many years, but up till now, she still could not speak English well,

and she thought it was very difficult to learn the English. While the other students

claimed that they didn’t like learning English because they felt bored and they didn’t like

the way the teacher taught them and they also didn’t want to read the story or novel again


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since they had finished the reading in their dormitory. They felt it was useless to attend

the speaking class.

Dealing with the questions about the ability of speaking, only twelve percent of

the students claimed that they were able to speak; they didn’t think speaking was

difficult. While the rest of the students, about eighty eight percent stated that they were

not able to speak English; they said that they could not communicate with their friends,

and they always got stuck when communicated with their friends. The speaking was

considered to be difficult for them.

The rest of the questions were about the topics and speaking activities conducted

in the classroom. When asked whether they liked the topics or not, ninety-five percent of

students said that they didn’t like the topics, and they thought it was not practical and

useful; they wanted to learn something practical and related to their future jobs. The other

five percent students liked the topics; they held the view that they would like to learn

everything as long as it deals with English. When asked whether they liked doing

different activities in the speaking class, all of the students replied with one accord voice

that they liked doing different activities in the speaking class. One of the students said

that she liked playing, she didn’t like spiritless class.

Apart from the interview, the researcher asked the students to identify their

speaking difficulties. She asked them to choose the most critical and crucial difficulty of

their speaking. The result of the identification could be seen in Table 4.5

Table 4.5 Speaking Difficulty

No Speaking Difficulty Percentage 1. Vocabulary 48% 2. Psychological barriers: feel shy, afraid of make mistakes,

lack of self confidence 32%

3. Pronunciation 28% 4. Fluency 21%

5. Comprehension 14% 6. Grammar 9%

The data were revealed in the following statement. There were forty-eight percent

students who found difficulty in vocabulary and thirty-two percent of students who had

difficulty dealing with the pronunciation. One of the students told the researcher that she


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always got stuck and stopped at the middle of her statement due to lack of the relevant

vocabularies, and didn’t know how to say some words in English. Moreover, she also felt

very hesitate to pronounce some seems familiar words. So, sometimes, she mixed both

languages to complete her statement. Other students also mentioned that they didn’t

practice the pronunciation in the class and they didn’t know how to pronounce the words

correctly. They said that the teacher of the speaking class never led them to read the

words or taught them how to pronounce the new words, not to mention to let them make

practice. Besides the difficulty in vocabulary and pronunciation, there were thirty two

percent students who had psychological barriers; they were shy; afraid of making

mistake, and lacked of self-confidence. A student stated that when the teacher asked her

to answer questions, she felt very nervous and afraid to say something wrong that made

other students laughed and looked at her. In addition, there were twenty-one percent

students who could not speak fluently; they complained that they could not fluently

communicate with their friends; they could only speak two or three sentences at the

beginning, after that, they would totally got stuck and couldn’t continue the conversation

with their friends. Another opinion about the cause of speaking difficulty came from the

student ML. She claimed that her speaking problems was dealing with the

comprehension; when she talked to her partner, she could not really understood what her

partner said, and her partner always asked her to repeat what she said during the

discussion. There were also a few students who had difficulty in the grammar. The

researcher had been told that when the students were speaking, they had made the

grammar mistakes unconsciously.

After finding out the facts about the teaching and learning process, the student’s

speaking level, and their problems in speaking, the researcher is convinced that the

problem of low ability in speaking can be solved by applying Content-based Instruction

(CBI) in the speaking class. CBI is an approach; it can apply different communicative

activities or techniques to develop students’ speaking fluency, vocabulary mastering,

promote interaction in the classroom and increase the students’ motivation based on the

carefully selected content or topics which meet both the school’s requirements and

students’ needs. Based on the pre-research, the researcher made a plan for implementing

CBI in the teaching and learning speaking skill.


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B. Research Implementation

Having identified student’s problem in speaking, CBI was chosen to be the

solution of the problem. The implementation of teaching speaking by using CBI through

Action Research consisted of two cycles.

The result of the first cycle became the consideration of the planning of the

second cycle. Each cycle consisted of four meetings. Three meetings were for

presenting the material and one meeting for conducting the speaking test. Every meeting

lasted for ninety minutes. The overall research implementation could be seen in Table

4.6.

Table 4.6 Overall Implementation of the Research

Problem Students had low speaking ability Solution Teaching speaking through CBI Students The second Grade No of Cycle two Cycle 1: M1: introducing products, M2: introducing company, M3: Receiving factory visitor(s) Planning

Explaining the objective and the planned schedule for cycle 1. Giving a task in each meeting, and each meeting consists of pre-task, task, and task optimization, Using pictures, flash cards, and short passage for the class

Action

M1-M3: discussing and explaining the topics, giving different activities or tasks based on the topics. Students performed and recalled what they had learned at the previous stages M4: post test

Observation

Ss: Improved in vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, fluency and accuracy, but a few Ss still less achieved in fluency and pronunciation. Ss Could answer the teacher’s questions and felt braver to speak and actively performed with their classmates. T: well prepared the worksheet, but lack of modeling and explanation of the context. Didn’t give much time to the students to make practice CS: alive, relax and enjoyable, but a little bit noisy, group works and pair works were more effective

Reflection

(+) Ss’ motivation and participation were raised. Ss mastery in words and expressions were high; Ss could answer the teacher’s questions; and could communicate with their friends with little grammar mistake. They talked a lot in the class. (-) The T lacked of modeling and practice of the words pronunciation. Some Ss less achieved in fluency as they needed to take a look of the worksheet to find the related words and expressions


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during their performance. Cycle 2: M1: telephoning, M2: booking rooms in a hotel, M3: Ordering in a restaurant Planning Revised plan is to help the students to achieve good pronunciation

and fluency. Action

M1-M3: discussing and explaining the topics; giving modeling and different activities to help the students to master the words and expressions, to achieve good pronunciation; giving different activities or tasks based on the topics; conducting performance review. M4: post test

Observation

Ss: much improved in words pronunciation and could fluently conduct the interactive dialog with their partner; became more self-confident T: explained the context very clearly; more passionate Cs: more alive, fun and relax atmosphere increased

Reflection

(+) improvement in speaking ability, the students could fluently communicate with their friends with good pronunciation; the frequency of looking at the notebook reduced; effective pair works, more enjoyable atmosphere, relaxed classroom situation founded

(-) there were still two or three students who needed to take a look or read their notebooks when conducting their performance.

The implementation of the research in its cycles was described on the following

section.

1. Cycle 1

Table 4.7 The implementation of Cycle 1

plan

nin

g

Topics: M1. Introducing products, M2. Introducing company, M3. Receiving factory visitor, M4. Post-test - Giving a task in each meeting - Each meeting consists of pre-task, task, and task optimization - Using pictures, flash cards, and short passage

Act

ion

First meeting – Third meeting (discussion meeting) - discussing about the words and sentence patterns - practice dialogue - doing different activities about the topics - optimizing the language use Fourth meeting (post test) - conducting a post-test about the topics discussed


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O

bser

vatio

n

The Students - The learning motivation was improved in the class - Students actively took speaking turns; braver and actively engaged in the

speaking activities, - The students improved in the words and grammatical forms. - They could answer the teacher’s questions - They could fluently perform the speaking task, but sometimes, some

students forgot the new words, they needed to take a look at the worksheet to refresh their mind, and also mispronounced some words.

- A small part of students felt a little bit shy in individual activities The Teacher - Well prepared with the worksheet - Didn’t give enough modeling and practice to the students about the

vocabularies and words pronunciation - Didn't give sufficient explanation and discussion about the topic - Lacked of monitoring of the rest students while the other students took

activities - Spoke too fast Classroom situation - Alive, enthusiastic - Enjoyable for various types of activities - Pair and group works were more effective - Noisy

Ref

lect

ion

Strengths - Using CBI could improve students’ speaking competence such as,

vocabularies, grammar, comprehension - CBI could increase students’ participation in the speaking class by the

practical and interesting content. - CBI could accommodate various types of activities which are motivating

the students to participate in the speaking tasks - CBI could adjust individual, pair, and group works according to the

content. - Pair and group works in CBI could eliminate student’s psychological

barriers and increase students’ self-confidence. Weakness - Some students still mispronounced some words. - Some students still less achieved on fluency as they forgot some new

words their just learned; they still needed to stop and take a look at their worksheet

- The teacher lacked of modeling about the words and expressions. - The teacher lacked of discussion about the content - The teacher gave less control to the rest students who were not in the

speaking activity. The process of Cycle 1 is described in the following section.


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a. Planning

Planning was the first step in doing a classroom action research. Some important

things were planned in order to run the research well.

1) Time allotment

The time allotment in each meeting was 90 minutes. There were four meetings in

cycle one including the posttest. The detail schedule was as follows:

(1) Sunday, November 14, 2010 : The first meeting

(2) Wednesday, November 24, 2010 : The second meeting

(3) Wednesday, December 1, 2010 : The third meeting

(4) Wednesday, December 8, 2010 : The Fourth meeting

2) Teaching Materials

The teaching materials were selected and prepared based on the students’ needs

and interest and also meet the requirements of the college in advance. According to the

major teaching plan constructed by the Dean Office of Business English Department, the

teaching materials should focus on training the students’ potential communication ability,

the materials selected should be standard, practical, and flexible; standard means that the

teaching material cannot either be too difficult or too easy, it should match the students

level; practical means the content knowledge conveyed by the teacher in the class should

be used by the students both in the classroom and in the outside world or the real world;

while flexible means the material or content shouldn’t be monotonous or invariable, it

should be flexible and can be adjusted by the teacher to meet the students needs and

interest.

Moreover, before the treatment, the researcher conducted the interview with the

students to get their information about their needs, interest and the problem in speaking.

The students were also given chances to discuss, to talk about, and to choose what kind

of content they were interested in and wanted to learn. The result shows that the students

are willing to learn something useful, practical, and related to their future jobs. Hence,

based on the result above, the topics selected for each meeting in Cycle 1 are as

following, and at the beginning of each meeting, the teacher will ask the students if they

want to discuss the topic or not:

Meeting 1: Introducing products


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Meeting 2: Introducing Company

Meeting 3: Receiving factory visitor(s)

3) Teaching Medias

The available teaching Media, such as the computer and LCD in the classroom

were used. In addition, the researcher also prepared pictures and flash cards to teach the

students. The teaching media functions the role to help the students not only understand

the meaning of the text better, but also to let the students know how it would be used. A

more attractive content or text will appeal to the students and motivate them to speak, to

perform. An attractive looking content or context is more likely to grab the students’

attention rather than a page full of type.

4) Lesson plan

In the first cycle, the researcher planned four meetings; three meetings for

classroom discussion, and one meeting for conducting the post-test. Each discussion

meeting had a topic and consisted of three phases namely pre-task, task, and task

optimization, while each phase consisted of many different activities based on the topics.

As mentioned previously, the students often mispronounce the words, they lack of

relevant vocabularies, and they also make grammar mistakes. These are because the

students seldom get chances to practice each component of the speaking. In order to help

the students to master each component of the speaking skill, and also to prepare them to

be well performed in the task phase, the pre-task phase was used to build the

vocabularies, grammatical forms, and also to achieve the students’ pronunciation. In the

pre-task phase, the researcher would try to use many different kinds of activities to build

the students’ vocabularies and expressions related to the topic, and to discuss the

grammatical form with them in order to well prepare them for conducting the activities in

the task phase. In the task phase, the students were asked to conduct different activities,

and to practice what they have learned in the pre-task. During the task, the students were

hoped to speak a lot individually, in pair or in group. After the task phrase, it was

followed with the task optimization; in this phase, the researcher would optimize the task

by underlining or reviewing the sentence patterns and vocabularies or expressions dealing

with the language that the students just had learned, and asked the students to talk or

practice the topic from different necessary aspects logically if there still had time left.


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b. Implementing the Action

1) First Meeting

a) Opening the class

It was a warm Sunday afternoon (usually there were no meetings on Sunday, but

that day they had meeting in order to substitute the meeting on next Wednesday as the

students would hold Sport Meet on next Wednesday). The bell rang at 14: 10, and the

researcher entered the classroom with her collaborator, Miss Zeng, an English teacher of

this college. The researcher greeted the students “Good afternoon everybody!” and the

students replied “Good afternoon teacher.” eagerly. Then, researcher checked the

students’ attendance list. There were nine students who were absent that day. The total

numbers of the students in this class were thirty-eight students; thirty-six female students

and two male students.

b) Main activity

(1) Pre-task

The researcher started the class by asking the students some leading questions. She

asked the students what kinds of aspects did they care about when they buying some

items, such as stationary in the store or supermarket and how the people in the store

introduced the items to them. The students listed vocabularies on many aspects while the

researcher was writing them down on the blackboard. After the leading questions, the

researcher introduced the topic that they were going to learn in that meeting. The

researcher distributed the work sheets to the students and started the activity. She asked

the students to read the new words after her in activity one first and then she asked them

to look at the pictures on the worksheet or the screen to match the pictures with its right

words. Most of the students did a good job; they could match the pictures with its right

words and could easily identify which were office equipments and which were office

stationeries. However, there were also some students who couldn’t match the shredder,

sellotape stapler, stamp, and notepad with their right pictures as these words were new to

them, one of the students also asked how to use the clipboard. The researcher explained

to them respectively.


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After that, the researcher continued to Activity 2. At the beginning, she asked the

students to read the new words after her again, and then she asked the students to speak

out the new words according to the flash cards that she was showing to them. The

students blurted out the words very quickly; once the researcher showed them the flash

cards, they strived to be the first and feared to lag behind. However, there were some

students who mispronounced the words during the activity. The researcher corrected the

words by speaking it again, and the students read after her. After making sure the

students didn’t have any problem with the pronunciation, they moved to Activity 3.

In Activity 3, the students were asked to read the words after the researcher, and

then, fill a table by putting the vocabularies into their correct categories. Before filling

the table, the researcher discussed the vocabularies in the list with the students; she found

that some students were not familiar with the words about quality, and most of them were

not familiar with the vocabularies about the shape; she explained the meaning of the

vocabularies related to the quality. To help them recognize and get the meaning of the

words about different shapes; she drew many different shapes on the blackboard, and

wrote down the meaning. In order to make sure the students could master the words

about shape in short time, the researcher deleted the words and kept the shapes only on

the blackboard; she pointed the shapes on the blackboard and asked the students to speak

out their relative words. At the beginning, the students reacted very slow, but after few

times, they could easily identify the shapes; they felt excited and blurted out the words

very quickly when the researcher moved from one shape to another. Seeing the students

could easily identify each category and fill the table, the researcher went to Activity 4.

In this activity, firstly, the researcher explained that when they introduce products,

they needed to tell people the basic feature about the products such as their material,

colour, size or specification, place of production, price and quality, so in this activity,

they should pay attention to these aspects as these aspects were very basic and necessary

for introducing products. After the explanation, the students were asked to work in pairs

to discuss and create the basic information about the different products in the flash cards

according to the given example. After they finished creating the basic information about

the products, they were also asked to work in pairs to ask and answer questions with each

other. During the activity, the collaborator and researcher walked around the class to


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monitor the students’ activity. All the students were focused on the activity, only one

student who was playing her hand phone, when the researcher was getting closer to her;

she then put the hand phone away. In order to check the students’ understanding, the

researcher asked the questions as listed on the worksheet to a student. At the beginning,

the student didn’t want to answer the questions; she felt a little bit shy and looked at other

students. The researcher encouraged her by saying that “don’t be shy, it doesn’t matter if

you say something wrong. We all are still learning, let’s learn together; just try you best

ok?” She also gave an example of how to answer such kinds of questions. After that, the

girl started to answer the questions:

Teacher: Would you like to show me the folder? (There was a folder next

to her table, which belongs to the collaborator.) Student: Ok, here it is. Teacher: Wow, Superb! What is it made of? Student: It is made of good papers and these papers are made of good

wood. The (outside) cover is made of plastic. En….It is very smooth and hard, you can put your hand here, smooth right? (Touch)

Teacher: What color is it? Student: This one is white, but we still have other colors, such as green,

red and so on. Teacher: Where is it produced? Student: It is produced in Guangzhou. Teacher: What size is it? Student: It is 50x2x45 centimeters Teacher: Do you have the folder in size A4 and A5. Student: Oh, yes, yes, we have. Teacher: What about the shape? Student: It is rectangle. Teacher: How much does it cost? Student: It is Twenty yuan for one book, but if you need more, we can

give you discount. “You see, you could do it and you did it well.” the researcher said to this

student.

The researcher also asked the rest students if they had any questions about the words

and sentence patterns that they learned above, but there was no problem, therefore, she

continued to the task phase.

(2) Task / Performance


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In the task phase, the students worked in pairs; after the students found their

partners, the researcher explained the way of conducting the task. There were two tasks

in this phase. The first task was a description task. In this task, the students were asked to

write down the description of a product and then took roles to practice the dialogue. The

second task was a role-play activity. All students were involved in this activity; one of

the students took the role of seller, and the rest students took the role of buyer.

They started with the first task. In this task, each member of the pairs needed to

write down the detail description of a product such as photocopier, and then compared

their own writings with their partner to optimize a better description of the product. After

this, the pairs were asked to take the role to read the dialogue on the worksheet including

the description that they just created. The students were also asked to underline the words

for describing about quality in the dialogue. During the task, the collaborator and the

researcher monitored their activity from one pair to another. This time, there were no

students talking other things or playing hand phones. The collaborator told the researcher

that was so surprising. Ten minutes later, the researcher asked if they had finished their

task or not, but they told her not yet, so the researcher gave them another five minutes

more to do their tasks. After the students had finished their writing, she checked the result

by asking them to present their writing.

The researcher told the students that she would like to ask some students to present

their works. She asked a pair next to the platform to present the dialogue and their pair

work writing. Once the students had finished her presentation, another pair was asked to

present their pair work. The researcher almost was going to call another pair; she asked if

there were any volunteers and if there were any students who wanted come to present in

the front of the class. Surprisingly, one student said that “teacher don’t call, we would

like to present ours.” The researcher was so surprised, and she told the rest students that

they should be like her, to be a volunteer and to be braver. She asked the rest students to

give applause to this student. As the time was limited, the researcher stopped the

students’ presentation at the fifth pairs. She told the other five pairs of the rest students

that they could practice the dialogue listed in the worksheet in the front of the class. The

students practiced the dialogue one pair by one pair. She noticed that there were some

common mistakes that the students had made; these mistakes were about pronunciation


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and the grammar. Some students mispronounced the words. She listed the mispronounced

words on the blackboard and asked the students to read it after her. She also corrected

some grammar mistakes such as the tense, is (was), etc., and prepositional phrase; made

in and made of and etc.

After conducting the first task, they came to the second task in ACTIVITY 6. The

second task was a role-play activity based on the real condition that usually occurred in

the working filed. In this activity, one student worked as the seller and the rest students

worked as the buyers. The seller needed to introduce her product to the buyers in many

different aspects as possible. If the seller could make a good introduction of the products,

the buyers would consider that they might buy the office products, otherwise, vice versa.

However, they needed to list the reasons why they wanted or didn’t want to buy that

product.

Personally, the researcher thought that male was braver than female, so in order

to make a good start, she asked a male student to start this activity. Fortunately, the

student came to the front of the class immediately once the researcher called him. The

student took a flash card from the researcher and started introduce the product, while the

other students listened carefully and made notes. The students tried hard to describe his

product. After he finished the presentation, he asked the buyers (the rest students) if they

wanted to buy his product or not, if they said no, they must explain why they didn’t want

buy it. This activity was fun, exciting, and meaningful. At the beginning of the

presentation activity, some students couldn’t speaking fluently; they stopped and had to

take a glance at the worksheet to find the related words to describe the products, they also

needed to find what was the next point to present. However, it was great to see that the

following presentations were getting better one by one as their learned and got experience

from the previous presentation. However, as the time was limited and the researcher

needed to continue the last phase, she had to stop the following presentation that would

be presented by the left students. The left students felt disappointed as they hadn’t

introduced their products.

(3) Task Optimization

This phase was conducted at 15: 40, the last ten minutes before the class was

over. In this phase, the researcher gave comments and suggestions to the students about


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all their performance. She gave a quick review for the words and sentences about

describing the quality that the students underlined in the dialogue as listed on the

worksheet. She also made a review of how to answer the common questions usually for

asking products and how to introduce the products logically or orderly.

c) Closing the class

As the bell was ringing, the researcher said thanks to the students for their

attention and good performance. Before she left, she said goodbye and asked the students

not to forget to study at home.

2) Second Meeting


The researcher started the class by greeting the students “Good afternoon

everybody!”, and the students responded “Good afternoon teacher” in an enthusiastic

way. After that she checked the students’ attendance list; there were four students absent

that day. As there were nine students absent in last meeting, and also because the interval

between the first meeting and this meeting was a little bit longer than usual, so, the

researcher thought it was necessary to make a review of what they had learned in last

meeting. She asked the student whether they still remembered what they had learned in

last meeting. The students replied “yes, introducing products” loudly. She also asked

them “how to introduce products?” the students kept silent. She changed the way of

asking them “what are the basic aspects we need to mention when we introduce the

products?” The students mentioned the material, the color, the specification…….. The

researcher said to the students: “great, you still remember, but remembering is not

enough, you also need to practice it, please practice with your friends after class ok?”

The students replied “yes, ok” and they made faces and laughed at each other. The

researcher told the students that last time they had learned about introducing products,

that day, they would discuss about introducing company. This opening took five minutes.

b) Main activity

(1) Pre-task

The researcher distributed the worksheet to the students and asked them to read the

short passage carefully to fill the table under the short passage in ACTIVITY 1. This

activity was to build the necessary vocabularies and sentences patterns needed for


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describing a company. Before the activity, the researcher discussed the short passage one

sentence by one sentence, and told the students that when introducing a company, some

necessary aspects needed to be addressed; the basic aspects were including the

background of the company, the location of the company, the products and the employees

etc.

After discussing the short passage, the researcher gave the students five minutes to

read the short passage again and asked them to pay attention to the basic aspects as she

mentioned early. After they finished reading the short passage, the researcher asked them

if they understood the short passage or not; were there any difficulties for this short

passage. Only two or three students sitting together said that the short passage was a little

difficult, and the rest students said that the short passage was not difficult and they

understood it, but there were some vocabularies in the short passage they didn’t know

and the researcher should write down the phonetic symbol. The researcher asked the

students which words they didn’t know, they told her that they didn’t know the meaning

of the words, such as, peripherals, dedicated, maintenance. She explained the meaning

and wrote down the phonetic symbols of these words to the students respectively. She

also asked the students to read these words after her. After that, she asked the students to

fill the table in ACTIVITY 1.

In Activity 1, students were asked to fill a table; students were required to find

the related vocabularies or phrases from the short passage and put it in its relevant

categories. Doing this activity, the researcher asked two students to come to the stage to

fill the table by writing them down on the blackboard. After they finished, she checked

their answers, they did it well, but one of the students wrote the name of the place as

mentioned in the short passage in the location category instead of writing down the

phrases, which described the location in the location category. The researcher explained

that they needed to write the phrases or sentences that described the different aspects of

the company. She also asked the rest students about their answers. Were they all correct?

They told her that their answers were almost the same as the students who wrote on the

black board. In order to help the students to master the words and phrases in the table, the

researcher moved to ACTIVITY 2. The students were asked to discuss with their partner

and answer questions. After five minutes, she asked a student to stand up to answer the


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questions about the short passage in ACTIVITY 2. The student could answer well, but

felt hesitate to pronounce the words of maintenance and peripherals. The researcher

asked her and the rest students to read these two words after her. The students answered

the questions as follows:

- It is a Computer Technology company. - It is (was) established in 1998. - It is located near one of the largest electronic markets in China. - There are twenty professionals there. - There are more than 300 excellent employees. - Their product is mini laptop computers.

- It is special. It is made of good quality material. -They are dedicated to the research, development and maintenance of

the netbooks and computer peripherals.

After the students finished, the researcher asked the rest students if they had any

problem so far; but there were no problems so far. So, they moved to the task phase.


In this stage, the students were asked to work in groups to make a presentation of

introducing companies. The researcher explained the way of conducting this activity to

the students. She divided the students into six groups; each group consisted of six

students. As there were four students absent that day, one group consisted of four

students. In conducting this activity, the members of each group had to discuss and create

a short passage of introducing a company based on the points listed on the worksheet

with each other and then the group presented it in the front of the class; each member of

the group had to present a point. Before the students went to perform the activity, the

researcher explained the words and sentence patterns listed on the worksheet that the

students might use in the following activity. She asked the students to read these words

and sentence patterns after her. She also asked them to make drills for these words and

sentence patterns. After the students had no problem with that, she told the students that

they could start to discuss and create an introduction of a company with their group

members.

During their discussion phase, the collaborator and the researcher walked around

the classroom to monitor the students’ activity. There was a student asking the

researcher: “teacher, what kind of company do we need to create?” The researcher told


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her that “any kind of company, for example, you can present a garment company, a toy

company. You can use your imagination to create the name of the company, the number

of employees and etc. You can take the short passage on the worksheet as an example.”

She asked the rest students if they understood what she was talking about and if they

knew the procedure of conducting this activity, they told her that they understood.

After few minutes, the researcher asked the first group to come to the platform to

introduce their “company.” In order to make the rest students not do any other things, she

told them that they had to listen carefully and make notes, because she might ask them to

present what the other groups presented about as stated in ACTIVITY 4. During the

presentation of the first group, there was a student who didn’t know how to say “学士学

位（bachelor degree）” in English, however, her group member next to her told her this

word. The performance of this group was generally good; most members of this group

spoke well, but due to many members and they didn’t organize the turn order well, they

lost who was the next person to present after the previous student. After they finished

their performance, the researcher gave them comments, and she told the rest groups to

pay attention to the organization of their group work; they should make a clear mind on

who was the next member of the previous member to continue the presentation. The rest

groups were asked to present one by one. They performed well; they didn’t have many

mistakes, only sometimes, some students mispronounced the words and got a little bit

stuck during the presentation. As there were only twelve minutes left, the researcher

stopped the Activity 4. She asked the students to practice it after class. They moved to the

task optimization phase.

(3) Task Optimization

In this phase, the researcher gave comments and suggestions to the students about

all their performance. She also made a review of the words or phrase and sentence

patterns that were usually used in introducing a company. Moreover, she stressed some

aspects that were necessary for introducing a company.


As the bell was ringing, the researcher asked the students if they had any problem

in this meeting they could ask her, but there were no problems. One of the students told

her that “no, teacher.” in a funny tone. The class was ended in laugh.


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3) Third Meeting


It was a nice and warm afternoon. The collaborator and the researcher entered the

classroom. They greeted the students and the researcher checked the students’ attendance

list. There were two students absent. After asking the student’s condition, the researcher

started the lesson.

b) Main activity

(1) Pre-task

Before the researcher introduced the topic that the students were going to learn that

day, she gave some warm up questions by asking: “Have you ever received visitors when

you were at home?” The students replied: “yes!” The researcher gave a further question:

“then, what did you do when you receiving that visitor?” “ (泡茶, they said in Chinese

(make tea)), asked him to sit down” they replied eagerly and loudly. The researcher said:

“yes, make tea and ask him to sit down, well, do you know how to receive visitors in a

company?” The students shaked their heads and kept silent. The researcher asked them

that if they would like to learn how to receive visitors in a workplace in that meeting.

They smiled and said ok.

The researcher distributed the worksheet to the students. They started with

ACTIVITY 1, the words and sentence patterns that the students might use in the

following activities. First, the researcher explained the words and sentence patterns to the

students. Next, she asked the students to read the words and sentence patterns after her.

After this, she gave the students few minutes to practice with their friend and asked them

to use it to make sentences. She walked around the class and monitored the students; at

first, the students read the words and expressions loudly, later, they stopped reading and

started to make sentences with their friends. They were very concentrated on the task.

Few minutes later, the researcher asked some students to read the sentences that they

made. She also asked all the students to read the words and expressions together. There

were no big mistakes, only the stress of the words. Hence, the researcher led the students

read the words and expressions again, and moved to the ACTIVITY 2.


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In this activity, firstly, the researcher explained and discussed the dialogues with

the students. After the students had got a concept of the dialogue, they were asked to

work in pairs to discuss and to take roles to practice the long dialogue and then answer

her questions. The collaborator and the researcher monitored the students’ activity. There

were no students chatting or doing other things. Ten minutes had past; the students were

still practicing the dialogue. They seemed like practicing dialogue very much. The

researcher stopped them and asked them to answer her questions based on the dialogue.

They could understand the researcher’s questions and could answer the questions easily.

The problem was that they had to look at their worksheet when they answered the

questions and they also gave the answers almost the same as in the dialogue. The

researcher told them that they should keep the key information on their notebook and it

should be better if they could answer the questions using their own words; but they told

her that the answers were a little bit long, they could not remember it.

(2) Task / performance

In the task phase, the researcher gave a picture to the students and asked them to

do the task in activity 3. In this activity, the students were asked to work in pairs to create

a dialogue between the vistor and the secretary based on the picture the researcher just

gave them. The sectretary was supposed to receive the visitor and to show him around

her factory. When they were creating the dialouge, they should cover some points as

stated in the worksheet in activity 3; they could take the activity 2 as an example. This

activity took fourty-five minutes. Ten minutes were used by the students to discuss and

create a dialouge with her or his partner, and the left time was used to perform the

dialouge they created. After the students finished creating the dialouges, the researcher

asked them to perform their dialouges in the front of the class one pair by one pair. They

were eagerly taking the turns and most of the students performed the role-play well.

However, there were some students who could not speak fluently as they didn’t know

how to say some words in English. there were also a small part of students who could not

leave their papers during the performance; they still needed to take a look at it, but not

frequently. Seeing that, the researcher still felt a little bit happy as the students were

improving and there were no students doing other things in the class and all of them


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concentrated on the task; the atmosphere in the whole classroom was easy and alive. One

of the pair performed their dialouge as follows:

The Vistor : Dong dong dong…………(a student stood outside the

classroom and knocked the door) The Secretary : Come in, Please! (the vistor came in ) May I help you? The Vistor : Oh, yes, My name is J.Handy. I would like to meet Mr. Henry. The Secretary : Oh, nice to meet you Mr. Handy. I am Betty Plant, the secretary

of Mr. Henry. (Shake hands) Please sit down and have a cup of coffee. I am going to call Mr. Henry that you are here. Oh, I am sorry; Mr. Henry is still on the way. Would I have the pleasure to show you around our factory?

The Visitor : Sure, lead on please. The Secretary : First, please let me introduce our factory to you. Our factory

was established in 1996. It is located on Yue Lu district. The transportation there is very convenient and the 风景(scenery) there is very beautiful. You will see it later.

The Secretary : Welcome to our factory. Let me show you the display hall. The Visitor : Wow. So many computers The Secretary : Yes, we have many kinds of computer as you see. They are

made of good quality materials. Our products are in good demand; they were sold to many countries, like Middle East, Korea and so on.

The Visitor : May I ask where you get the raw material? The Secretary : We get our raw material from Japanese. (Japan) The Visitor : How is the production capacity? The Secretary : Our annual output is 8,500,000 pieces. Our factory has good

and advance machines and we have five production lines. Our staffs are hard-working and have rich experience.

The Visitor : oh, very good. Thank you. The Secretary : You are welcome!

As the time was limited, the researcher stopped the students’ performance and asked

them to practice after class.

(3) Task-Optimizing

In the last ten minutes, the researcher gave comments and suggestions to the

students about all their performance. Besides, she also made a review of the words and

sentence patterns, including some key words in the dialogue for introducing the factory.



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As the bell was ringing, the researcher asked the students’ progress and their

feeling about the content. Most students said that it was practical and useful, they

mastered many vocabularies. However, there were a few students who felt that the

content in that meeting was a little bit difficult. The researcher told them to review and

study at home and asked them to attend the class and not to be late for next meeting as

there will be a test. She ended the class at 16:00.

4) Fourth Meeting


At 14:10, the bell was ringing; the researcher entered the classroom and greeted the

students. After checking the attendance, she told the students that that day they would

conduct a post test.

b) Conducting the test

The researcher explained the way of conducting the test. The test consisted of

three instruments. The first instrument was about introducing a product according to the

picture. There were four pictures with four products; students could choose one of the

products to introduce. The second instrument was about introducing a company; the

students could introduce any kind of company, but had to cover some necessary points,

while the third instrument was that the students took the role of a secretary of a company

to receive a guest who wanted to visit the factory. The students were asked to take one

instrument only and the instrument was given randomly by the researcher, and the

students were asked to take the test randomly. In this way, all the students could be

ready to take their turns.

The students were called one by one to come to the front of the class to present

their topic. The collaborator and the researcher gave the score to each student. The test

ran well. There was no problem with their performance.


Having finished the test, the researcher gave general review about the students’

performance; most of the students did the speaking test well. In addition, she also

encouraged the students to be relaxed in taking test next time and be more self-confident

in speaking.


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c. Observation

The observation was aimed at observing the effects of the action conducted in the

class. It was conducted during the teaching and learning process by the collaborator and

the researcher. The focuses of the observation were the students, the teacher, and the

teaching and learning process when the approach of Content-based Instruction was

applied in the class. The result of the observation was described as follows:

In the first meeting, the teacher well prepared the worksheet with various

activities in the lesson. When the teacher distributed the worksheet to the students, the

students felt curious as their former teacher often asked them to read a story. The students

seemed much liked the topic and felt interested in the content. When the teacher asked

the students to do different vocabulary activities in the pre-task phase, the students felt

happy, and eagerly followed her instruction. During the activity, most of the students

were actively engaged in the pair and groups works, and a few students felt shy in

individual works; a student was asked by the teacher to answer questions, the students

felt shy, after encouraged by the teacher, she answered the teacher’s question, and

answered well. Nevertheless, as there were many students in the class, the teacher

couldn’t monitor every student; there was a student found playing hand phone during the

class.

In line with the students’ speaking ability, there were many new words in that

lesson; even though the teacher led the students read the words dealing with the topic

once or twice at the beginning, some students still mispronounced the words and felt

hesitate to pronounce the words during the activity. Furthermore, there were a small part

of students who made some simple grammar mistakes. In addition, during the

presentation activity, some students couldn’t speak fluently; they had to stop and take a

look at the worksheet to find the relevant vocabularies and also need to check what the

next point to be presented was. Generally speaking, the students’ performances were

good, they spoke better than before; this could be seen especially on the performance of

the later part of the students, there were no many mistakes found on the grammar, their

pronunciation was better than before. They also could speak more fluently as they got the

experience from the previous students and also be told not to rely on the worksheet.


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In the second meeting, the atmosphere of the class was alive, and also a little bit

chaos. In this lesson, the teacher asked the students to conduct a large group activity; the

students felt excited and much enjoyed in the activity. In the group work, the students

helped each other by reminding their group members’ speaking turns and also told their

members the relevant vocabularies when they needed.

Unlike the first meeting, in the second meeting, the teacher prepared the

vocabularies with phonetic symbol, it was hoped that the students could make a better

pronunciation. However, before the activity the teacher didn’t give detail explanation

about the procedure of conducting the task or activity as there were some students asking

something about how to do the task, and some students of a group were confused who

was the next member to present in the activity.

As for the students’ performance in the activity, most of the students performed

well; they didn’t make many mistakes, only a few students, sometimes, mispronounced

the words and got a little bit stick by saying “en…” and took a look at their papers.

In the third meeting, the collaborator and the researcher found that the students

were more active and more concentrated on their study. There were no students chatting

other things or playing hand phones. In addition, the students were found like practicing

dialogue and role-play activities; they early took the turn to practice the role play, and

they practiced the dialogue with their partner loudly.

For their speaking abilities, their speaking ability was getting better; most of the

students could speak well. They could accurately and fluently practice the dialogue.

However, there were also a small part of students who mispronounced the words and the

word stress. Moreover, there still were some students who had taken a look at their

papers during the performance as they thought the content in this meeting was a little bit

difficult to them.

All in all, based on the observation, it could be concluded that the students had

high participation in the speaking class; most of the students were willing to take their

turns when the teacher asked them to speak or perform during the speaking activity;

however, there were few students who lacked confidence and felt a little bit shy when

they were asked to speak individually, but this was reduced in the pair and group work.

In the pair and group work, the students felt fun and exciting; they spoke in a more relax


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way. This was especially indicated when they were asked to work in pairs to play a role

play activity. They seemed like playing role-play activity.

Moreover, the students’ speaking ability was also improved during the first cycle.

When the students were asked to talk something about the topics, they could talk a lot

and most of the students could speak well and could make full use of the words,

expressions, and sentence patterns discussed at the meeting. However, there was also a

small part of students who forgot the words and sentence patters during their

performance, and had to take a look at their paper. This didn’t happen very frequently

and it didn’t really affect much about their language. There were also a few students who

felt a little bit hesitant to pronounce some words and mispronounced the words. Besides,

there were also some students who made the simple grammatical mistakes for asking and

answering questions. However, in general, the students’ speech was understandable; it

could be classified into the acceptable level.

From the observation, we know that the teacher, the researcher, had prepared the

teaching material well; the teacher provided very detail worksheet with many different

tasks or activities to motivate and guide the students to learn the language. The teacher

could encourage the students’ participation by asking the students to perform

individually, in pairs, and in groups according to various different types of activities as

stated in the worksheet. In addition, the topics and the content selected both meet the

school’s requirements, and the students’ needs and interests; although few students said

that the content was a little bit difficult, in general these students were still satisfied with

it and would accept it.

However, it could be noted that there were some points which were not good

with the teacher; firstly, the teacher didn’t give enough explanation and modeling to the

students for the word expressions and word pronunciations; secondly, the teacher didn’t

give much time to the students for practicing the new words and sentence patterns.

Thirdly, as there were many students in the class, the collaborator noted that the teacher

lacked of monitoring for the students who were sitting while the other students were

asked to perform at the front of class. Moreover, the teacher also spoke very fast in

giving explanation about the lessons; some students had difficulty to catch with her.


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The teaching and learning process was successful. The atmosphere in the

classroom was alive. The students were eagerly following and conducting the speaking

tasks and activities assigned by the teacher. Pair and group works were better than

individual works as the students didn’t feel shy and not afraid of making mistakes as they

felt they were not performing alone, they would be helped and corrected by their group

members.

d. Interview after the implementation of Cycle 1

After the implementation of cycle 1, the researcher conducted an interview with the

students to get their viewpoint about teaching by CBI. When she asked the students if

CBI was improving their speaking skill or not, almost all of the students said that it was

effective and their speaking skill was improved; they had something to say; they could

talk a lot; because CBI helped them to learn many useful vocabularies and sentence

patterns. Moreover, when they were asked to talk about the content, although there were

a few students said that the content was a little bit difficult, most of them said that the

content was not difficult, it was useful and practical; they would like to learn it as it was

good for their future jobs. The researcher also asked the students if they felt braver to

speak English in the next meeting. They told her that they felt braver to speak English

than before; because there were many pair and group activities in CBI, they were not

speaking English alone; they spoke English with their friends in the activity in the class.

The activities were fun and exciting that made them want to say. Besides, most of the

activities were speaking activities; when they always spoke in the activities, they felt

their speaking ability was improving, and they didn’t feel shy to speak English.

When the researcher asked the students what were the strengths and the

weaknesses of CBI. The students said that the strengths were that firstly, the content was

very good; it was useful and practical for their future jobs; they would like to learn it.

Secondly, there were many different speaking activities applied in CBI, so that they could

have fun while learning the language. Furthermore, they had something to say about the

topic and also had many chances to practice their oral English; unlike before, in CBI,

they learned logical thinking, they had learned how to talk about the topic. When the

researcher asked the students what were the negative aspects they found in the four


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meetings, some of the students replied that so far they found the teacher moved a little bit

fast from one activity to another and the teacher didn’t give sufficient explanation about

the text. They also said that in the speaking activity, especially the group activities, when

they work with their partner or group members, sometimes, their partner got stuck and

slowed down; that made them felt embarrassed.

e. Reflection

This phase was aimed to analyze and evaluate the final result of the action

conducted in the first cycle. Based on the interview and the observation in the first cycle,

the collaborator and the researcher reflected that there were some positive and negative

aspects of the implementation of CBI in cycle 1.

1) The positive aspects were as follows:

a) The students’ speaking ability was improved. They made great progress on each

aspect of the speaking skill, the passing grade of each aspect was 13, and the passing

grade for the whole aspects was 65, most of the students’ mean score of the grammar,

vocabulary, and comprehension were above the passing grade. Being taught useful

vocabularies and word expressions dealing with the topics, the students could speak a

lot with proper words and better pronunciation. Most of them could accurately and

fluently communicate with their friends based the given topics, and the mother tongue

use was reduced. Moreover, as the students learned many sentence patterns, the

students could understand the teacher’s questions and answer the teacher’s questions

with proper grammatical forms.

b) The students’ participation in the speaking activities was increased. They were more

active than before. They felt eager to join the activities as they liked the content, and

thought it was practical and useful to their future jobs. The students spoke a lot

during the teaching and learning process; most of the students early took the turns

and tried very hard to make their activity or performance better.

c) Pair and Group works were beneficial for eliminating psychological barriers in

speaking. Students felt more confident and didn’t feel shy in pair and group works.

2) However, there were also some negative aspects which were observed and identified

as follows:


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a) The improvement for the students’ speaking skill was not so high, even though, there

was improvement in the students’ grade for each indicator; it was still far from what

was expected. Some students were still less achieved in the fluency and felt weak in

the words pronunciation. Some of the student’s mean score on fluency and

pronunciation were below the passing grade. Moreover, the passing grade to the

whole aspects was 65, and it was hoped that sixty-five percents students could pass

the passing grade. The students score can be seen in Appendix 8.

b) Based on the observation and the interview with the students, the teacher was told

that she was less in monitoring of these students who were not performing while

other students were performing. In addition, the teacher was told that she didn’t give

sufficient modeling and drilling practice to the students, and she lacked discussion

and explanation about the content, such as the short passage and the dialogue in the

worksheet.

5) Suggestions

Based on the reflection stated above, it could be seen that CBI brought many

positive aspects. However, there were also many weaknesses found during the teaching

and learning process and they should be solved to get a better result. In view of this, the

researcher considered that it was a necessary to revise the action plan for the next cycle to

1) improve students’ pronunciation, 2) improve students’ fluency.

2. Cycle 2

Table 4.8 The Implementation of Cycle 2

plan

ning

Topics: M1.Telephoning, M2. Booking Rooms in a Hotel, M3. Ordering in a Restaurant, M4. Post-test

Revised plan is to solve the students’ problem in pronunciation and the mastery of words to achieve the fluency.

Each meeting consists of pre-task and performance


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Act

ion

First meeting – Third meeting (discussion meeting) - Giving discussion about the words and sentence patterns - Giving modeling about the words and sentence patterns. - Students made drills and practiced the pronunciation of words and

sentence patterns in different activities. - Students were asked to conduct individual, pair, and group performance.

Fourth meeting (post test) - Having speaking test about the topics discussed

obs

erva

tion

The Students - Showed improvement in the pronunciation. - Well mastered the words and sentence patterns with the related topics. - Most of the students didn’t take a look or read their notebook during

their performance. - Could fluently and accurately conduct the activities with their friends. - Students’ self-confidence was increased; they were no longer afraid of

making mistakes The teacher - Prepared the teaching material - Gave modeling and much time to the students to make practice - Explained the context more clearly - Gave interesting activity in teaching English - More passionate

The Classroom situation - More alive - Fun and enjoyable atmosphere

Ref

lect

ion

Strength - CBI could improve students’ speaking ability. The teacher could choose

the interesting and practical content to meet the students’ needs. - The activities in speaking class could be adjusted to improve the students’

different speaking aspects; by giving much modeling and different activities to the students, the students could produce good pronunciation.

- The fluency and accuracy in the speaking could be achieved by giving more portions to the words and grammatical forms.

- Different activities and students working in groups increased the student participation in the speaking class.

Weakness - There were still two or three students who depended on the worksheet

when conducting the activities. - It was not easy to choose the topics to meet all of the students’ interest.

The process of Cycle 2 is described in the following section.

a. Revised Planning


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1) Time allotment

The time allotment in each meeting was 90 minutes. There were still four

meetings in cycle two including the posttest. The detail schedule is as follows:

(1) Wednesday, December 15, 2010 : The first meeting

(2) Wednesday, December 22, 2010 : The second meeting

(3) Wednesday, December 29, 2010 : The third meeting

(4) Wednesday, January 5, 2011 : The Fourth meeting

2) Teaching Materials

The topics selected for Cycle 2 are based on both the requirements of the school

and the needs and interest of the students, after discussing with the collaborative teacher,

in the second cycle, the researcher adjusted the content and tasks to eliminate the

students’ weaknesses found in Cycle 1. There will be various activities based on the

content to improve the students’ speaking ability, and it is also hoped that the students

would feel more interested and wouldn’t have difficulty about it. The topics for each

meeting are as follows:

Meeting 1: Telephoning

Meeting 2: Booking rooms in hotel

Meeting 3: Ordering in the restaurant

3) Teaching Medias

The available teaching media, such as computer, LCD in the classroom were used.

4) Lesson plan

Based on the result of the reflection of Cycle one, the collaborator and the

researcher discussed and revised the plan for Cycle two as it was stated above that in the

first cycle, there were some students who were less achieved in pronunciation and

fluency. These students mispronounced the words and sometimes felt hesitate to

pronounce the new words and expressions, and there were also some students who

couldn’t speak fluently and had to take a look at their worksheet during the speaking

activity. As analyzed previously, the teacher didn’t give enough modeling and didn’t give

much time or many activities to the students to practice.


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In order to achieve a better result, hence, the plan for cycle one was revised and

showed as follows: there were still four meetings, three meetings were used for

classroom discussion, and one meeting was used for conducting the post-test. In order to

effectively use the time, the discussion meeting was divided into two phases only, namely

pre-task and performance. In the pre-task activity, the teacher will give enough modeling

to the students and give them more time to make drills or to make practice for the words

pronunciation. Moreover, various classroom activities will be applied to help the students

to achieve their pronunciation and fluency; meanwhile, before the performance activity,

the teacher will give sufficient discussion about the content so that the students could

have a logical thinking and could show their maximum ability in their speaking

performance. While in the task phase, the students were asked to work in pair and groups

to practice and perform what they have learned in the pre-task phase. The teacher will

also give sufficient review and comments for their performance.

b. Implementing the Action

1) First Meeting


It was a heavy snowing afternoon. The weather was very cold, but the students

felt excited as it was the first time of snowing in this year. As the bell was ringing, the

researcher greeted the students checked the students’ attendance list, there were three

students absent and three students came few minutes later after she started her teaching.

b) Main activity

(1) Pre-task

Before introducing the topic to the students, the researcher asked some leading

questions about the topic that they were going to learn in that meeting. She asked the

students if they ever made and received a telephone call in English and what the first

words to say when they were make and receive a phone call. Some students replied her

that wei, hello, who are you? I’m….; this is……………etc. The researcher explained that

when making or receiving a phone call in English, they could not use wei as wei was a

Chinese, and they could not use who are you for asking who is calling, instead, they

should ask who is calling or who is speaking. The researcher told the students that they


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would learn such expressions, after that she introduced to the students that that day they

were going to learn telephoning.

The researcher distributed the worksheet to the students and asked them to read

the words and expressions after her. After several times, she told the students that she

would like them to play a competitive game; that was, the researcher saying Chinese of

the words and expressions while the students translated it into English orally without

looking at the worksheet. She divided the students into three large groups, and told them

that the group which could firstly blurt out the words and expression with many students

in their group was the winner group, and the losing group would be punished to turn off

the LCD and computer after she finished the meeting. Before the activity, the researcher

gave a few minutes to the students to make drills and memorize the words and

expressions. After that, she said some expressions about making and receiving phone

calls, leaving and taking messages, and some other vocabularies about telephoning as

listed on the worksheet in Chinese. The students translated it into English orally and they

could correctly blurt out the words and expressions quickly; they seemed remembered

and mastered the words and expressions. In order to make sure everyone of them fully

understand and remember the words and expressions, she asked some students from

different groups to translate her Chinese words and expression individually, all of them

could speak well and could easily master and remember the meaning of the words and

expressions, but some of them spoke very fast and didn’t completely pronounced the

words. The researcher told the students that they should speak slowly and pronounce the

words clearly and also should fully pronounce every alphabet of the word. Seeing the

students didn’t have problem in ACTIVITY 1, she moved to ACTIVITY 2.

In ACTIVITY 2, the students were asked to practice a short telephoning

dialogue with their partners and then answer the researcher’s questions. Five minutes

later, the researcher asked a student to answer her questions based on the dialogue. Here

following was the dialogue conducted by the researcher and the student:

Teacher: Who is calling? Student: Mr. Kale. Teacher: Can Mr. Kale talk to Ms. Allysa? Student: No. Teacher: Why cannot Mr. Kale talk to Ms. Allysa?


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Student: Because she is not in. Teacher: What do you think about the secretary? Is she professional? Student: yes. Teacher: Are you sure? The student kept silent, another student beside her replied: “no, because the

secretary asked Mr. Kale is that all.” The researcher asked the rest students what were

their answers. They said no loudly. The researcher said to the students that they were

right. She explained the short dialogue and told the students that as a secretary it was

better didn’t ask that and it was not polite to ask that kind of questions. After that, she

also asked the students if they had any problem of this short dialogue. They told her that

they didn’t have any problem with this dialogue, so the researcher moved to ACTIVITY

3 and ACTIVITY 4.

In ACTIVITY 3, the researcher discussed and explained these two dialogues as

listed on the worksheet with the students. After that the students were asked to practice

the dialogues and to find out the sentence patterns that were used for making and

receiving a phone call as they learned in activity one. During their activity, the researcher

and the collaborator walked around the class to monitor the students’ activity; there were

no students chatting or playing hand phones. They practiced the dialogues with their

partner very loudly. There was no difficulty for them to find out and underline the word

expressions.

In ACTIVITY 4, the students were asked to fill some blank spaces in a short

dialogue of taking message. After few minutes, the researcher asked the students if they

finished or not. They told her that they had finished. In order to check the students’

understanding, the researcher asked a student to read the dialogue with her answer.

However, the student chose the wrong answer for blank 3. After the student finished

reading the dialogue, the researcher asked the rest student whether the student’s answers

were correct or wrong. The students told her that the answer of blank 3 was wrong, it

should be d. tell him everything is all right. The researcher said yes, and explained the

short dialogue of how to take a message to the students. After making sure the students

understood the short dialogue, she continued to the performance phase.



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In the performance phase, the students were asked to take a role-play

information-gap activity. Before the activity, the researcher explained the way of

conducting the performance and also distributed two different cards with detail schedule

information to the students. The students were asked to work in pairs to create and

practice dialogues based on the schedule card that the researcher gave to them; one

student was supposed to phone and make an appointment with Mr. Bake, but Mr. Baker

is not in the office and his secretary answers the phone. Each student of a pair had a diary

card of their role and they could not take a look at their partner’s diary card. During the

activity, the researcher walked around the classroom to monitor the students’ activity.

The students were practicing the dialogue with their partner very loudly and passionately.

After ten minutes, she asked the students if they finished or not. They told her not yet;

hence, she gave them another five minutes. When the students stopped practicing, she

asked if there were any volunteers who want come to the stage to make a performance of

their dialogues. A female and a male student came to the stage to start their performance.

She asked the rest students to give them applause as they were the first pair and they were

very brave. Meanwhile, she told the rest students that they should take them as an

example and they should learn the spirit from them. In the following, there were other

five pairs performing the role-play activity. In this meeting, the students were forbidden

to bring worksheet in the activity, but they were allowed to take the diary card with the

key information for the activity. During the activity, there were two students in different

pairs who felt a little bit nervous at the beginning; they spoke with low voice; but after

encouraged them to take a breath in a few seconds, they could perform the role-play

activity. In this activity, most of the students conducted a good performance; they could

correctly pronounce the words and expression as discussed previously. They also could

fluently and smoothly perform the role-play activity, but however, they spoke slower

than before as they spoke while looking at the diary card. As the time was limited, the

researcher stopped the rest students told them if they had any problem of this meeting,

but there were no problems with them.

b) Closing the class

Seeing the students didn’t have much problem with this lesson, the researcher

was going to close the class. Before closing the class, she asked the students how they


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felt about this lesson; they told her that it was good and they liked it; they were

systematically taught how to make and receive a phone call and how to take and leave

message. The researcher said it was great and closed the class by saying goodbye to the

students.

2) The Second Meeting

c) Opening the class

It was a warm and sunny afternoon. The researcher went to the classroom very

early that day. When the bell rung, she greeted the students and checked the students’

attendance list. There were only two students absent that day as they told the researcher

before the class that they needed to bring back their post parcel. That day’s topic was

booking rooms in the hotel.

d) Main activity

(1) Pre-task

Before going to present the topic, the researcher gave some leading questions to the

students by asking them if they ever lived in a hotel or if they ever booked a room in the

hotel, and how they booked that room in the hotel, however, there were no students ever

booked rooms in a hotel; then, the researcher asked them if they want to learn how to

book a room in the hotel or not, they told her yes. The researcher started the topic by

delivering the worksheet to the students and asking them to read the words and sentence

patterns after her. After several rounds, the researcher asked some students to read the

words and sentence patterns one by one in order to check their pronunciation. Happily,

all of them could read the words and expressions with correct pronunciations. In order to

help the students fully remember and master the words and sentence patterns, she gave

them few minutes to practice and memorize the words and sentence patterns, and then

asked them to conduct a competitive activity as stated in ACTIVITY 2.

In the activity two, students were asked to translate the Chinese words and

sentence patterns spoken by the researcher into English based on ACTIVITY 1 without


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looking at the worksheet. During the activity, when the researcher mentioned these

Chinese words and sentence patterns, all of the students blurted out the right words and

sentence patterns into English loudly; they felt excited and were striving to be the first

one to say the related words and sentence patterns. Seeing the students didn’t have any

problems about the words and sentence patterns, she moved to the ACTIVITY 3 and

ACTIVITY 4.

In activity three, first, the researcher discussed the short dialogue as listed on the

worksheet, and explained to the students about how to book a room in the hotel directly;

she explained:

Usually we can book a room in the hotel both online or book the room in the hotel

directly. For how to book a room in the hotel directly; the first thing is to locate the main lobby and front desk. Usually the front desk is near the front entrance of the hotel or there will be signs directing you to it.

The second is to follow the directions if you have a reservation or not. - If you don't have a reservation, you can ask if they have any rooms available. If they

are full or booked, you'll need to find another hotel. - If you do, you'll usually need some identification to verify your name.

Some hotels require you to pay for the room before you get your key, and most hotels will require cash deposit if you do not have a debit or credit card. Cash or credit/debit card is acceptable in most places; some will have a check option, depending on the hotel.

After you get the hotel key from the reservation desk, and ask for directions on how to get to your room. If you are given an electronic key and you are not sure how to use it, ask for directions. Before you leave your room, the front desk may tell you the time for breakfast for next morning, and also the time for checking out.

After the discussion and explanation of how to book a room in the hotel directly,

the researcher asked the students to practice the dialogue with their partner, and then fill

in a table that mentions some necessary points for booking a room as listed in

ACTIVITY 3. The students could fill the table easily. After that they continued the

ACTIVITY 4. In this activity, the students were asked to fill in some blanks in a short

dialogue with will, would, could. In the previous meeting, some students always said will

instead of would as there actually should be would. The researcher asked the students

what was the meaning or usage of the word “would”, the students told her that it was the

past tense of the word “will”. The researcher said “yes”, and asked “any usage else?”

The students kept silent. She explained to them that the word “would” not only mean the

past tense of will, but also showed the politeness. People who worked in the service field


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always like to say would instead of will. After the explanation, She asked the students if

they understood or not. They told her yes. So, she asked them to complete the blanks.

The student could correctly complete the blanks in the short dialogue of ACTIVITY 4.

Seeing the students didn’t have any problem of the words and sentence patterns,

she went the task phase.

(2) Task

There were two activities in the task phase, and these two activities were role-play

activities. In ACTIVITY 5, the students were asked to work in pairs; they were asked to

create a dialogue and then conduct the dialogue based on the given information card with

their partner in front of the class. In this activity, one student acted as a guest who was

going to book a room in the hotel, and her or his partner would act as the receiver who

was working in the front desk. In ACTIVITY 6, the students were still asked to take a

role-play activity, but this time, they needed to change their roles with each other based

on their roles in activity 5; that was, the student who acted as the receiver should change

the role to be the guest. During the activity, the students seemed liked and got used to the

way of teaching, they didn’t feel shy or nervous; they came to the platform immediately

once the researcher called their names. Moreover, their speaking ability was getting

better than the previous meetings. In this performance, except two students slipped

tongues because they spoke too fast, all of them could say the words with correct

pronunciations and could properly use the sentence patterns that were learned in the

pre-task, Furthermore, compared with the previous meeting, the frequency for taking a

look at the information card in this meeting was reduced. Most of them didn’t need to

take a look at the information card as they have remembered the key information in mind,

and some of them just created their own information. Here below was a dialogue created

and conducted by a pair of students:

Student A: Good evening! May I help you, Madam? Student B: I’d like a room please. Student A: Certainly. Student B: How much is one? Student A: We have a variety of rooms from standard rooms to

deluxe rooms, which one would you like to have? Student B: I’d like a standard room, please. Student A: It’s $ 120 per day.


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Student B: Does it include breakfast? Student A: Yes, it does. The restaurant is located on the third floor. Student A: May I have your name, please? Student B: Sarah. Student A: Could you please spell it? Student B: Yes. S-A-R-A-H. Student A: How many people are there in your party? Student B: Just me. Student A: How many nights would you like to stay? Student B: I will stay here two days. Student A: Two nights $ 240. How would you like to pay? Student B: Cash. Student A: Ok, but we need to receive $ 300 as deposit, and it will be refunded when

you check out. You may check out the 12: 00 at noon. Student B: Ok, no problem! Student A: Thank you! Could you please sign your name here? Ok, this

is your key, and your room number is 805, in the eighth floor. Would you like a wake-up call?

Student B: Yes, I’d like a morning call for 6:30 Student A: Enjoy your staying in Shangri-la Hotel.

These two activities total together lasted for more than forty minutes.

e) Closing the class

After conducting the task phase, there were only few minutes left. The

researcher gave comments to the students’ performance and took a quick review of that

lesson. As the bell rang, she ended the class and said goodbye to the students.

3) The third meeting


It was a cloudy afternoon, and the weather was a little bit cold that day. The

researcher entered the classroom, and the collaborator came in after her. She greeted the

students and asked their conditions. Before she was going to introduce the topic, she

asked the students some warm up questions. She asked what their favourite soups, dishes

and the beverages were. They answered “tomato and egg soup, (紫菜)laver and egg

soup, kelp soup, Gongbao diced chicken, boiled fish, sweet and sour fish,（麻辣牛肉）

sautéed beef with cayenne pepper etc. I like milk; I like orange juice, chrysanthemum

tea.” The students spoke very loudly, and said some words in Chinese as they didn’t

know how to say it in English. The researcher corrected it by saying it again. She also


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explained to them how to translate the name of the Chinese dishes. She said: “actually,

there is a rule for translating the dishes; when you translate some dishes; you can

translate the way of how the dishes were cooked or cut in the past tense and then add the

material of the dishes. For example, the Gongbao diced chicken as some students

mentioned, Gongbao is a name of a place in the ancient times, diced is the way of how

the chicken cut, and the chicken of course is the material.” She asked the students if they

understood or not. They told her yes. She also asked them if they liked western food or

had they ever eaten in a Western food restaurant. Some students replied her that they

have eaten in a western food restaurant and they like the western food, while some other

students told her that they haven’t eaten in a restaurant and they didn’t eat Western food.

She asked them if they want to know what the western dishes were and how to take an

order in a restaurant. The students felt happy and replied yes enthusiastically. After that,

she told the students that that day they were going to talk about ordering in the

restaurant.

b) Main activity

(1) Pre-task

The researcher distributed the worksheet to the students, and asked the students to

complete the chart with words from the list in ACTIVITY 1. Before the activity, she

explained and discussed the words with the students, and asked them read the words after

her few times. After they fully understood the words, she gave them five minutes to

discuss and complete the chart with their partner. After five minutes, she asked some

student to read their answers. They could correctly read the words with good

pronunciation. Seeing that, she moved to ACTIVITY 2. There were the sentence patterns

for ordering dishes. She discussed the sentence patterns and asked the students to read the

sentence patterns after her. After several times, she asked the students to look the

dialogue in ACTIVITY 3. She asked them to practice the dialogue with their partner. She

also asked the students to pay attention to the sentence patters for taking and making

orders in the restaurant and the way how to take and make orders in the restaurant as later

they needed to fill the blanks in ACTIVITY 4 and performed a role-play activity in

ACTIVITY 5 without looking at the worksheet. The students followed her instruction

and practiced the dialogue with their partner loudly and seriously; when the researcher


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walked around the classroom, she heard many students practicing the dialogue with their

partners using the correct tongue just like the native speaker. After few minutes, she

stopped the students, and asked them to fill the blanks in the dialogue in ACTIVITY 4.

As she had explained and discussed previously, they could easily fill the blanks with

correct word forms in this dialogue. Before the researcher moved to the task phase, she

asked the students if they had any problems in the previous activities, but they didn’t

have, so she moved to the task phase.

(2) Task / performance

In ACTIVITY 5, students were asked to conduct a role-play activity of taking and

making orders in a coffeehouse. In this activity, students worked with their partner to

create and conduct the dialogue in front of the class based on the given information. That

was, one student worked as a customer ordering dishes in the restaurant based on the

given information or he or she could create his or her own dishes, while another student

worked as the waiter or waitress to take his or her orders. The researcher also told the

students that they could use the dialogue in activity three as an example, and they could

use the menu in activity 1 or they could create their own. Before the students conducted

the activity, the researcher discussed and led the students to read the additional

vocabularies that the students might use in the activity 5 as listed on the worksheet. After

that she asked the students to conduct the role-play activity; she gave eight minutes to the

students to prepare and practice the dialogue with their partner. After they finished, she

asked one pair come to the front of the class to perform the role-play, and in order to

make every students fully concentrate in the class, she told the rest students that they

should listen carefully as she would like to ask them to give comments and suggestions

for their classmate’ performance. She also told them that it would be better if they didn’t

need to rely on the notebook as in the real world we could not bring a notebook and write

the dialogue in it. The students could perform the activity without looking at their

notebooks, and they performed well. The dialogue was as follows:

Student A: Welcome to our restaurant. Have you made a reservation, madam? Student B: No, we haven’t made a reservation. Student A: How many people are there in your party? Student B: only two. Could we have the table near the window? Student A: Sure! Please!


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Student A: What would you like to eat? May I take your order? Student B: Yes. I’d like a tomato and cucumber salad and garlic bread please. Student A: All right. And what kind of dressing would you like? We have

vinaigrette of Italian, and French. Student B: Italian, please. Student A: OK! Well, what would you like to have for the main course? Student B: Yes. I’ll have spaghetti and meatball. Student A: And would you like anything to drink? Student B: Yes, I’d like a glass of iced tea with lemon, please. Student A: Anything else? Student B: That will be all. Thanks. Student A: Ok, please wait a moment. Student B: May I have the check, please? Student A: Yes, here it is. $280, after discount. What would you like to pay?

Cash or credit card? Student B: Cash, please.

After this pair conducted their performance, the rest students gave their

comments and suggestion. They said that the performance of this pair was generally

good, they could understand this pair’s dialogue, there were no many grammar mistakes

found in their dialogue and they could speak fluently. When the researcher asked what

the negative aspects of their speaking were. They replied that these two students

sometimes liked to say “en…” during the performance. The researcher told the rest

students that they were right, and they should avoid saying “en...er…” something like

that, they should learn the positive aspects from these two students’ performance. She

also told these two students that their performance was good and they should avoid say

“en.” during the performance. The rest students performed one pair by one pair and they

performed better and better. They also could change the menu by themselves. After the

students’ comments and suggestions, the researcher also gave her comments and

suggestion for each pair and the rest students, so that they could perform much better.

This activity lasted almost forty minutes. As the time was limited, she had to stop the

activity. The rest students who didn’t perform the activity seemed a little bit

disappointed. she told them that they still had chance to conduct a role play activity as in

last meeting there would be a role-play speaking test.



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The researcher ended the class by saying goodbye and Happy New Year to the

students. Before closing the class, she asked the students to review what they had learned

in all the three meetings at home and also told them not to be late as there would be a

speaking test in next meeting.

4) Fourth meeting


That day’s program was having a speaking test. The researcher entered the

classroom with her collaborator. After greeting the students and asking their condition,

she started the activity.

b) Conducting the test

It was a role-play test. She explained the way of conducting the test to the

students. The test consisted of three instruments. The first instrument was about

telephoning; Students were asked to take and make a phone call, and to take and leave a

message with their partner based on the given information. The second instrument was

about booking rooms in the hotel; two students took roles as a customer and a receptionist

respectively to perform the activity of booking a room in a hotel, while the third

instrument was that one students took the role of a customer to make an order in the

restaurant and another student worked as the waiter or waitress take the order. The

students were asked to take one instrument only and the instrument and the roles were

given randomly by the researcher, and the students were asked to take the test randomly.

In this way, all the students could be ready to take their turns.

The students were called pair by pair to come to the front of the class to present

their topics. The researcher and the collaborator gave the score to each student. The test

ran well. There was no problem with their performance.


Having finished the test, the researcher gave general review about the whole

activities that they had done during the research. She hoped that they could maintain their

participation in the speaking class.

c. Observation


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The observation was conducted during the cycle by the researcher and her

collaborator. The focuses of attention were the teacher, the students’ performance, and

the classroom situation in the teaching and learning process. The detail result is reported

as following:

In the first meeting, the teacher gave leading questions to arise the students’

interest about the topic. Because the students were weak in the pronunciation in the first

cycle; in this cycle, the teacher led the students to read the words and sentence patterns,

and asked the students to play some competitive games to practice the vocabularies and

sentence patterns. In the task phase, the teacher gave much time to the students to

perform the role-play activities based on a given information card.

During the activity, the students felt eager to conduct their performance in front of

the class. There was a pair of volunteer students who requested to conduct the role-play

activity in front of class without being asked to do so. The other students came to the

platform immediately, once the teacher called their names.

For their performance, most of the students conducted a good performance; they

could correctly pronounce the words and expressions as discussed and practiced

previously. They also could fluently and smoothly perform the role-play activity;

however, some of the students spoke slower than before as they spoke while looking at

the diary card.

In the second meeting, the teacher still asked the students to make drills about the

words and sentence patterns as she found it was workable for the students to master the

sentence patterns and the words and their pronunciations. The teacher also gave very

detail explanation about the topics, while the students were looking at the teacher and

listening very carefully.

In the task phase, students were asked to conduct the role-play activity. The

students seem liked and got used to the way of teaching, they didn’t felt shy or nervous

during their performance. Moreover, their speaking ability was getting better than the

previous meetings. This time, except two students who slipped tongues because they

spoke too fast, all of them could properly use the words and sentence patterns with

correct pronunciations. Furthermore, compared with the previous meeting, the frequency

for taking a look at the information card in this meeting was reduced. Most of the


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students didn’t need to take a look at the information card as they have remembered the

key information in mind, and some of them just created their own information.

In the third meeting, the teacher reminded the students that it would be better if

they didn’t need to take a look of their paper while conducting their performance. Most

of the students followed the teacher’s suggestion and didn’t bring their notebooks, and

they conducted their performance well. Moreover, the students were asked to give their

own comments and suggestions to their friends’ performance. By doing this, the students

could get experience from their friends, and could improve themselves. Their

performance was getting better and better from pair to pair, and the mispronunciation of

the words was reduced. Meanwhile, in the second cycle the teacher had improved the

preparation of the content or topics selection. The students found the content was not

difficult, and they liked it; they also showed great interest in the topics. In the second

cycle, the teacher gave detail discussion about the topics and gave much time to the

students to practice what they had learned. The teacher also used some activities to get all

the students involved in the task performance.

The whole classroom situation was alive. The students showed high participation

in the speaking activities and they actively took their speaking turns. There were many

students wanted to share their performance with their classmates as they could get

improvement of their performance.

Besides the active and good performance in the class, the students achievements

also indicated in the high scores of their performance test; in the fourth meeting, the

students were asked pair by pair to conduct a role-play based on the given topic in front

the researcher and the collaborator, while the researcher and the collaborator marked their

scores. During the speaking test, the students showed great improvement in their

speaking ability. They could produce the language with little mistakes in vocabularies,

sentence patterns, and pronunciations. They showed their highest ability in the task

performance. They could smoothly and fluently conduct the activities with their friends

based on the given information. They didn’t feel shy or afraid of making mistake, and

most of them didn’t need to take a look at the notebook while conducting the activities.

Moreover, the mother tongue use was also found to be reduced in the class. The students

made a great progress on their speaking ability, as shows in the following table, the


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students’ score was improved from cycle to cycle: the average score of fluency at the

pre-test is 11.8, the post-test 1 is 12.1, and at the post test 2 is 13.4,; vocabulary pre-test is

11.6, post-test 1 is 12.5, and post-test 2 is 13.3; grammar pre-test is 12.2, post-test 1 is

13.1, and post-test 2 is 13.4; pronunciation pre-test is 12.3, post-test 1 is 12.3, and

post-test 2 is 13.4; and comprehension pre-test is 11.8, post-test 1 is 13.1, and the

post-test 2 is 13.6. The average score of speaking ability was improved. The average of

the pre-test is 59.6, post-test 1 is 63.2, and the post-test 2 is 67.

Table 4.9 The Comparison of the Students’ Speaking Score in the Pre-test,

Post-test 1 in the Cycle 1, and Post-test 2 in Cycle 2.

Test Fluen. Vocabu. Gram. Pron. Comprehen. Total Pre-test 11.8 11.6 12.2 12.3 11.8 59.6 Post-test 1 12.1 12.5 13.1 12.3 13.1 63.2 Post-test 2 13.4 13.3 13.4 13.4 13.6 67

Besides the speaking ability in each speaking aspect, the following table also

provided the data about students who passed the passing grade. The result of the students

speaking grade was also significant improved.

Table 4.10 The Comparison of the Percentage of Students Who Passed the

Passing Grade in Each Cycle

LEVEL PRE-TEST CYCLE 1 CYCLE 2 Student

No. percentage Student

No. percenta

ge Student

No. percenta

ge Under Averag

e

17 45% 10 26% 0 0%

Average

20 52% 23 61% 26 68%

Above Averag

e

1 3% 5 13% 12 32%

Passing Grade

65

11 28% 16 42% 26 68%

Note: Under Average : Students’ speaking score in the scale of 50-59 Average : Students’ speaking score in the scale of 60-69

Above Average : Students’ speaking score in the scale of 70-79


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From the table above, it can be seen that there were improvement in the students’

grade for speaking class. The passing grade was 65, and it was hoped that 25 students or

65% students could pass from the passing grade. Actually, it was 68% students who

passed the passing grade in the second cycle and no students were below the average

score. The goal of the research was achieved.

d. Reflecting

This was the final stage in cycle two which was also the final cycle of the study.

This stage was aimed to evaluate the final result of the action conducted in the second

cycle accompanied with the analyses of its strengths and weaknesses. Based on the

observation result and the students’ score in the second cycle, the collaborator and the

researcher reflected some important aspects during the implementation of CBI in cycle 2.

The aspects are as follows:

1) The strength:

a) CBI can improve students’ speaking ability.

CBI is an approach rather than a method, it is very flexible. First of all, CBI can

apply different activities and also can adjust it to meet the students’ needs and interests.

In the class, the teacher can adopt different activities to improve students’ different

speaking aspects. By providing interesting and practical activities, the students could

master the vocabularies and grammatical forms related to the topics easily. As you can

see in the second cycle, the teacher applied some different tasks to help the students to

achieve the students’ fluency; during the performance, the support and guidance from the

teacher and their partners were always available. In the group works, the members of the

same group also reminded their friends what’s was the next points and how to say it.

b) CBI changes the classroom situation into more alive.

The classroom situation was improved and became more alive than before. The

students’ participation in the speaking activities was increased. They were active and

afraid of leg behind in conducting the task. Besides, because the topics were very close to

their daily life and their future jobs, they felt great motivation to join the activities. In

addition, before the action research, the teacher dominated the class and the speaking


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class was a reading type of activity, but now it was replaced by the speaking activities

and the students dominated the speaking class. Moreover, the teacher was getting more

experienced and more innovative in teaching speaking; she tried to explore every effort to

make the class more interesting.

2) The weakness

Generally, during the teaching and learning process of cycle 2, the collaborator

and the researcher did not find some significant weaknesses or obstacles. Most students

could speak well, and their speaking ability was effectively improved; only two or three

students were still found to bring their notebooks and sometimes need to take a look at

their notebooks during the speaking activities.

C. The Findings and Discussions

1. The Findings

The above description of the research has provided the overall view of the research

findings of improving students’ speaking ability by using Content-based Instruction.

After analyzing the data of this study, the researcher found several significant findings to

answer the problems of the research, which are (1) Can and to what extent Content-based

Instruction improve student’s speaking ability; and (2) How is the classroom situation

when Content-based instruction is applied in speaking class. Except focusing on

answering the problems of the research as stated in Chapter 1, this section also provides

other findings during the implementation of action research in this study. The findings

are summarized on Table 4.12. The discussion of the research findings is presented in the

following section.

Table 4.11 Summary of the Research Findings

Research Findings Before the Action Research After the Action

Research 1. Improvement in

Students’ speaking ability

Mean score of cycle 1:


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a. Achievement

b. Ability to express ideas

c. The ability to

answer questions

d. Mother tongue use

e. The improvement of Ss’ speaking competence

2. Improvement in classroom situation

a. Participation in speaking class

b. Domination in class

c. Speaking practice

d. Form of activities

e. Atmosphere

f. The teacher

3. Other findings: about the content or topics selection

Mean score of Pre-test: 59.6 Ss could not express ideas; lack of vocabularies, many grammar mistakes, mispronounced some words. used mother tough in speaking Ss could not answer the teacher’s questions. Ss often used mother tongue in the class

a)3% above average; b) 52% average; c) 45% under average

Low and passive; Ss

unwilling to take turns to speak, didn’t pay attention to the lesson

Ss were passive, teacher

dominated the activities. Small chances Reading form Not alive, dull and

boring Not innovative, didn’t

recognize students’ problem and students’ needs, not explore students’ potentials

Ss didn’t like the content

or topics

63.2 Mean score of cycle 2: 67 Ss could express ideas using appropriate vocabularies and correct grammatical forms with correct pronunciation Ss could answer teacher’s questions The use of mother

tongue was reduced

a) 32% above average; b) 68% average; c) 0% under average High, actively took the turns to speak, gave attention to the lesson Ss were active, Ss dominated the activities. Bigger chances with pair and group work Spoken form Live, happy and joyful Innovative, created worksheet and picture, flash cards; recognized the students’ problem and need, explored students’ potential in speaking Ss thought the content or topics meet their needs,


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they were satisfied with it.

a) Improvement of students’ speaking ability

The findings of the study showed that the use of CBI in speaking class could

improve students’ speaking ability. The improvement of the students’ speaking ability

could be recognized from the improvement of speaking achievement, such as (1) the

mean score of the final cycle; (2) the ability to express ideas by using appropriate

vocabularies and correct grammatical forms; (3) the ability to answer the teacher’s

questions; (4) the ability to communicate with their classmates, and (5) mother tongue

use was reduced.

Before the study, the researcher found that the students had low speaking ability.

The improvement of speaking ability could be seen from the improvement of students’

achievement from cycle to cycle. The improvement of the students speaking achievement

is illustrated on Graph 4.1 the graph showed that the speaking achievement was increased

dramatically from cycle to cycle. The mean score in pre-test is 59.6, the mean score in

Cycle 1 is 63.2, and the mean score of Cycle 2 is 67.

The improvement of scores from cycle to cycle is significant. The result of t-test

of non-independent variable of Cycle 1 is 16.01, and Cycle 2 is 14.08. All the data

showed that the improvement of speaking achievement from cycle to cycle was

significant. Based on the result of t-test for non-independent between pre-test and

post-test 1, t1 (16.01) is higher than tt (38, 0.05) (2.048), or t1 ñ tt. Thus, it can be concluded

that there is a significant difference between the results of pre-test and post-test of cycle

1. Furthermore, the researcher analyzed the scores of pre-test and post-test 2. The

calculation results showed that t2 is 14.08. It means that there is a significant

improvement because t2 (14.08) is higher than tt (38, 0.05) (2.048), or t2 ñ tt..

Graph 4.1 The Scores of Student’s Speaking Competence


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Besides referring to the speaking achievement, the improvement of students’

speaking competence can be recognized from the ability of expressing their ideas. Before

the action research, the students couldn’t express their ideas as they lacked of relevant

words and expressions about the topics, and very often they mispronounced the words;

but after the implementation of CBI, the students mastered many useful vocabularies and

sentence patterns, and they practiced a lot about the words pronunciation. They could

express their ideas and talk to their friends by using appropriate vocabularies and

grammatical form with correct pronunciation.

Another finding of the research showed that before the research, the teacher

asked the students questions, but the students often gave improper answers to the

teacher’s questions. They often felt hesitate and doubtful to answer the teacher’s

questions, more often, they asked the teacher to say it again and sometimes, they just kept

silent. This was caused either by the students who didn’t understand the questions or they

did not know how to answer the questions; however, after the implementation of CBI, the

students could easily and fluently answer the teacher’s questions.

Moreover, the reduction of mother tongue use was found during the

implementation of CBI. Before the research, the use of mother tongue in the class was

very quite common; this could be seen especially when they were asked to discuss about

the content with their partner. In addition, when the teacher asked some students to stand

up to answer questions, they speak Chinese instead of English. During the

implementation of CBI, the use of mother tongue was gradually reduced and even

disappeared in the last cycle.

54

56

58

60

62

64

66

68

Students' score

Pre-test

Post-test of Cycle 1

Post-test of Cycle 2


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Another point of the improvement lays in the students’ speaking competence. The

level of the speaking competence can be seen from cycle to cycle. Here below is the level

of students’ improvement of the speaking competence.

Graph 4.2 Improvement of the Students’ Speaking Competence

The level of the speaking competence in Graph 4.2 showed the student’s speaking

competence conducted in the test. From the graph, it can be noted that the students’

speaking competence was improved from cycle to cycle. The number of students with the

level of under average and average decreased from cycle to cycle, and it was followed by

the increasing number of students who were in the above average level.

b) Improvement of Classroom Situation

During the research, the collaborator was asked to help the researcher to observe

the teaching and learning process, and also to write down the field-notes based on the

observation with the researcher.

Based on the daily observation and findings, the researcher and the collaborator

found that the CBI improved the students’ participation. During the research, the students

attended the class regularly, and most of them came to the class on time, even though, the

weather was cold. Concerning their participation in the activities, most of the students

participated actively; this could be seen especially in the meetings of cycle 2. Students

showed high participation in the speaking class. They were eager and happy to conduct

the activities with high spirit. They were very confident and not afraid of making

mistakes or be humiliated by others as the class was far away of humiliating the students

and tolerating the students with various level of ability. The teacher encouraged and

appreciated all the students’ effort in speaking, although their speech was not perfect in

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Pre-test Post-test ofCycle 1

Post-test ofCycle 2

Under average

Average

Abover average


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the form. Unlike before, in the class, the teacher applied various interesting speaking

activities, and these activities were mostly conducted in pairs and in groups. Besides,

most of the activities were student-centered, that made the speaking class full of

enjoyment, the pair and group work was conducted with students’ laugh. It showed the

students were eager to learn speaking in a relax situation. The teaching and learning

process showed that there was a change of classroom situation before and after CBI was

implemented in speaking class. The teaching and learning process using CBI was more

alive, and the atmosphere in the class was fun and enjoyable.

The students’ participation in the speaking class was improved from cycle to

cycle as showed in Graph 4.3. Students’ participation in each cycle was categorized into

three groups, namely passive, sufficient, and active. The categorization was based on the

willingness to answer the teacher’s questions, to take the speaking turns, to interact with

their partner, to conduct the performance, and their attitude towards classroom activity.

Graph 4.3 shows that the number of active students was increased from cycle to cycle,

while the number of sufficient and passive students was decreased.

Graph 4.3 Improvement of Students’ participation

Other finding in this research was dealing with the researcher or the teacher.

She improved in many aspects. Firstly, she improved in the content or topic selection; the

topics selected by the teacher both meet the school’s requirements and the students’

needs. Secondly, the teacher improved in designing and developing the teaching

materials, such as in preparing the worksheets which were suitable for the teaching

purpose. Thirdly, the teacher is getting more familiar with the students. She identified the

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Cycle 1 Cycle 2

Active

Sufficient

Passive


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student’s potentials and problems in speaking. Therefore, she could find the suitable way

of teaching speaking to the students.

c) Other Findings

At the end of cycle two, the researcher gave questionnaire to the students to see

their reaction or response towards the meetings conducted by using CBI. The result of

questionnaire of cycle 2 indicated that the implementation of CBI in the speaking class

was fun and practical. The students stated that they enjoyed the activities and felt

motivated to practice the topics with their friends in the class. The detail result of

questionnaire could be seen in the table below:

Table 4.12 Students’ Responses towards the Implementation of CBI

N

o.

Statements Students’ responses

Yes No 1 Your speaking skill is improved. 97

% 3%

2 You agree with learning speaking through CBI.

100%

0%

3 You like the content/topics in the meetings. 92%

8%

4 You feel braver to speak than before. 95%

5%

5 You want continue applying CBI in the future. 100%

0%

As the table above shows that ninety-even students thought that their speaking

skill was improved. Before the implementation of CBI, they could not speak fluently, but

now they could speak fluently, and didn’t make many grammar mistakes. Some students

also said that they had improved their speaking skill, especially in pronunciation; because

in the class, the teacher led them read the words and also corrected their pronunciation.

There were also some students who said that they had improved their speaking as they had

many chances in the class, and they practiced a lot in the class. They agreed with learning


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speaking through CBI. The reasons were because with CBI, they could do many kinds of

activities, and they felt fun and relaxed in the class. They could learn while playing as

there were many kinds of activities in the class, and they felt motivated to learn. Only one

student or three percent students said that she didn’t improve her speaking skill because

she didn’t change her learning habit.

Concerning with the content or topics, ninety-two percent students said that they

liked the topics as the topics selected were more pertinence and they were useful and

practical. Only three students or eight percent students mentioned that the content was a

little bit boring.

Dealing with the statement of whether they feel braver to speak than before or not.

Ninety-five percent students agreed that they felt braver to speak than before. They said

that before the implementation of CBI, they didn’t have many chances to speak, but with

CBI they had many chances to practice as each meeting had many activities, which means

they had many chances to speak in front of the class. As they spoke and practiced many

times, they didn’t feel shy; instead, they felt braver to speak. Moreover, they felt braver,

because they could speak and conduct the performance with their friends together, and the

teacher was very patient, and always encouraged them to speak. However, there were also

five percent or two students who stated that they were not brave to speak as they thought

their speaking still need to be improved.

After the implementation of CBI, all the students said that they would like to

continue applying CBI in the future as they could learn something practical and useful;

they could enjoy the activities while learning. By applying CBI in the class, learning

became easy and fun to them; therefore, they want continue to apply CBI in the future.

2. Discussion

The research which is applying action research to optimize Content-based

Instruction in improving students’ speaking ability brought satisfying results both in

terms of the improvement of the students’ speaking ability and the classroom situation.

The findings then can be theorized into two major points as follows: (1) CBI can improve

students’ speaking ability; and (2) CBI can improve the classroom situation.


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a) Content-Based Instruction can improve students’ speaking ability

Based on the observation in both Cycle 1 and Cycle 2, it was found that each

indicator of speaking was improved. There were improvements on: (a) students’

pronunciation, most of the students could say something in a good stress and intonation,

they could pronounce the words well; (b) Students’ vocabulary, students learned many

useful and practical vocabularies related to each topic in the class; most of the students

could apply the words correctly in conducting different activities or games; (c) students’

grammar. Most of the students could arrange and use the proper words order, could

change the verb forms into their different tense according to different situation. It was

beneficial for students to learn and practice the grammar with the each other in the

communicative discourse. As cited by Hale from Ellis’ work (2008: 27) that grammar

should be integrated with communication if enhancing communicative competence is the

goal of the second language teaching. Moreover, Murcia (2002) claims that the function

of any form or structure should be understood at the discourse level within the context;

(d) students’ comprehension, most of the students could answer the teacher’s and their

friends’ questions, and could work with their classmates in the communicative activities,

and (e) Fluency, as the students had been taught many topic related words and

expressions, and also had practiced the pronunciation in different activities in the pre-task

phase. Most of students could fluently conduct or complete their tasks assigned by the

teacher in the task phase. They always got some experience from the previous students

who performed at the beginning.

By proving the useful and practical content, and applying the interesting activities

or games to the students, the students’ speaking ability was significantly improved as

each of the speaking indicator showed in the previous part. As the content or topics fell

under the students’ interest, the students had great motivation to learn the language.

Providing the practical and useful content and interesting activities means providing

opportunities for effective interaction. Robinson and Ellis (2008, http://www.cal.org)

state that effective interaction gives students multiple opportunities for the goal-directed

negotiation of meaning. This is required for effective support of integrated content and

language learning for two reasons. First, as they interact and create meaning, students

map new content knowledge onto prior content knowledge. They do this through spoken


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discourse. Second, students notice the language used, they retrieve needed language from

memory, and they generate new configurations of language through spoken discourse

with each other and with their teacher.

Moreover, CBI can apply different interesting activities to help the students to

learn and practice their speaking skill. According to Grandall and Shaw (1992 and 1997,

http://en.wikipedia.org),

The arrangements in the activities allow students to share responsibility and work together to complete tasks. Small group work, team learning, jigsaw reading, and peer editing are among the many techniques CBI calls on, to provide students with ample opportunities to interact, share ideas, test hypotheses, and construct knowledge together in a low-risk forum.

b) CBI can improve the classroom situation.

It was found that the students’ learning motivation was increased and the whole

classroom situation was changed after the implementation of CBI; the speaking class was

not silent anymore. It was full of activities and games, and the students enjoyed the

activities and games very much. The class became students-centered; it was the students

who did most of the talks. In Hale’s work (2008: 28), Parmenter sees CBI as contributing

to affective aspects, such as enjoyment, increased motivation and decreased anxiety about

making mistakes, in addition to introducing intellectual, social and cultural aspects.

Vyas and Patel (2009: 131) said that

Varying the choice of topics and themes is essential in order to engage students in learning the content through English; appealing topics and themes encourage them actively participate in class. Active participation in class enhances students’ relationships with one another, creating a positive influence on classroom atmosphere.

Grabe and Stoller (1997, http://en.wikipedia.org) also said that

Keeping students motivated and interested are two important factors underlying Content-based Instruction. Motivation and interest are crucial in supporting student success with challenging, informative activities that support success and which help the student learn complex skills.


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Besides, Krapp, Hidi, and Renninger (1992: 18, http://en.wikipedia.org) state that

situational interest triggered by environmental factors, may evoke or contribute to the

development of long-lasting individual interests. Because CBI is student centered, one of

its goals is to keep students interested and motivated by generating stimulating content

instruction and materials. Littlewood (1981, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki) states that

Because CBI falls under the more general rubric of communicative language teaching (CLT), the CBI classroom is learner rather than teacher centered. In such classrooms, students learn through doing and are actively engaged in the learning process. They do not depend on the teacher to direct all learning or to be the source of all information. Central to CBI is the belief that learning occurs not only through exposure to the teacher's input, but also through peer input and interactions. Accordingly, students assume active, social roles in the classroom that involve interactive learning, negotiation, information gathering and the co-construction of meaning (Lee and VanPatten, 1995).

Based on the above discussion, it can be noticed that CBI is an effective approach to improve students speaking skill.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND SUGGESTIONS

This chapter is devoted to conclude the results of the study. The results of the

study could answer the formulated problems as stated previously. This research was done

in two cycles, and the results were obtained from the pre-research observation and

interview, the pre-test, the post-test of Cycle 1 and Cycle 2, the post-research

questionnaire and the interview to the students after the implementation of the CBI. This


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chapter consisted of three parts: conclusion, implications, and suggestions. The detailed

presentation of this chapter was as follows:

A. Conclusions

This research was conducted to solve the problems faced by the students of

class 0902 of the Business English Department of CsV&TC in improving their speaking

skill. After analyzing the data gained from the pre-test, the researcher found that the

students speaking ability was low and unsatisfying. The mean score of the pre-test was

59.6, and seventeen or forty-five percent students were under the average level.

Moreover, the motivation of students in the class was low. Based on the observation and

the interview with both the teacher and the students, the researcher found that the

students didn’t like the content or topics discussed in the class. They would like to learn

something useful and practical for their future jobs. Meanwhile, the teacher still used the

traditional teaching approach or techniques to teach the students, which made the

students lost their interest in the speaking class. In addition, the students showed low

motivation in participating in the speaking task. They didn’t participate actively. During

the speaking class, most of the students were keeping silent and only some braver

students just used the mother tongue to answer the teacher’s questions.

However, the implementation of the CBI was suggested by the researcher to solve

the problems mentioned above. After the treatment was given, there were many positive

results. The detailed description can be seen in the following parts:

Firstly, the implementation of CBI was successful in improving the students’

speaking skill. By selecting the useful and practical contents, the students had great

motivation to learn the speaking as the topics fallen under their interest and also met their

needs. In addition, by applying different speaking activities, the students felt fun and

happy. They actively involved in the speaking activities and practiced their language with

their classmates in the class. Their speaking skill improved; they could use their just

learned vocabularies and selected the appropriate words and expressions to discuss the

topics with their friends in good pronunciation; they also could answer the teacher’s

questions and comprehend the topics of the conversation and fluently communicate with

their classmates in correct grammatical forms. Those indicators of speaking can be


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achieved by the CBI, and it could be seen from the analysis of the post-test of Cycle 1

and Cycle 2. The result of the students’ mean score was increased from 59 to 67, and

there were no students found to be under average level in Cycle 2.

Moreover, the changes also appeared in other aspects. Besides improving the

students’ speaking skill, the classroom situation had been also changed. As the qualitative

data in the field-notes collected from the teaching and learning process showed that there

was improvement in students’ reaction towards the speaking class. Before, the students

felt dull and bored in the class, and the whole class was teacher-centered; it was the

teacher, who did most of her talk, but now, the situation was changed; the classroom

situation became more alive. The students’ motivation to speak English was higher than

before. As there were many pair and group activities or games in the class, the students

felt eager to join the activities. During the group activities, the weak students tried to

contribute their ideas to the group as they could, and the students who had good speaking

ability tried to help the weak students to complete their group performance. The

classroom atmosphere was conducive, and it became student-centered; the students were

the performers while the teacher was the facilitator. The teacher monitored and helped

the students when they needed. In the class, the students felt relax and joyful during the

teaching and learning process.

CBI had more strengths than weaknesses. CBI increased students’ participation in

the speaking class by the practical and interesting content. CBI is very flexible, it could

accommodate various types of activities which were motivating the students to

participate in the speaking task, and it could adjust the students work in individual, in pair

and in groups according to the content. Pair and group works were found to eliminate

students’ psychological barriers and increase students’ self-confidence. Moreover, in the

class, students were not only learning from their teacher but also from their friends. In the

group work, each member of the group worked very hard to complete their group work

and didn’t want to lag behind. They helped their group members and competed with other

group members.

B. Implications


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In the teaching and learning process, especially in teaching speaking, it is

necessary to implement an appropriate approach. The approach used by the English

teacher is based on the purpose of the related course, the feature of the students, the

characteristics of the class, and the reason of the language learning. The findings and

results of the study imply that CBI is one of the effective approaches which can be

applied in teaching speaking. The detailed implications of the CBI implemented are as

follows:

1) CBI can motivate students to speak English and improve their self-confidence in

answering the teacher’s questions or expressing their ideas in different speaking

activities. As the content selected falls under the scope of the students’ interest, they

have great motivation to learn and to practice the language with their friends.

2) CBI can create conducive atmosphere in the classroom. As there are many different

activities or techniques which can be applied in CBI, in the class, the students could

work in pairs and in groups. The whole classroom is full of joy, and the students feel

relaxed in the classroom.

3) CBI provides many speaking opportunities to the students to practice their English.

In order to finish their group works, every student in each group has to make

contribution to complete their group task.

4) CBI improves the students’ participation in the class. There were many pair or group

tasks which need the students to join to complete. As in a role-play activity, each

student has a role; without the participation, the activity cannot be achieved.

5) CBI makes the class as a student-centered class. Students can learn by themselves or

can learn from each other, the role of the teacher in the class is a monitor and

facilitator. The teacher helps students when the students face difficulties in

conducting their activities.

6) CBI can help the students to build a good relationship among each other. In the

speaking activities, students need to work in pairs or in groups to complete the tasks

or activities. By finishing the task, the students need to interact with each other and

to help each other to complete the task.

C. Suggestions


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This research indicates that the implementation of CBI in teaching speaking

showed many positive effects in the students’ progress. Based on the result of the study,

there are some suggestions put forward to the English teachers, the students, and other

researchers.

1. The teacher

The teacher should try to select the content or different topics based on the

school’s requirements and also should meet the students’ needs. Practical and interesting

content can motivate students to actively engage in the speaking activities. Besides, the

teacher should pay attention to that the content or topics given to the students should not

be very difficult; otherwise, the students may lose interest and get frustrated in the

speaking activity. Instead, the content should be a little bit above the average level, so

that the students feel it is challenging and would love to do it.

Furthermore, the teacher should remember that it is not good to conduct

momentous or individual activities in the speaking class; instead, it is good if the teacher

can apply different activities or pair and group task to help the students to improve their

speaking skill. Teacher should not measure the students’ competence from their ability in

finishing the task or performance; instead, the teacher should focus on the students’ skill

in using the language to communicate with their friends or other people.

Moreover, the teacher should help and facilitate to learn the language. When the

students need help in the language, the teacher should give immediately facilitation and

help. The teacher using pair works lets the student help each other in a good way to

facilitate the students’ language learning.

2. The students

The students of English Department of CsVTC should change their attitude

towards learning speaking skill. They should be more confident and braver to speak

English rather than be afraid of making mistakes or be humiliated by their friends. They

should know that mistakes are parts of learning process. Without making mistakes we

cannot find our progress. Students should practice English everyday in the daily life. As

practice makes perfect, by practicing every day, their speaking skill will be improved day

by day.


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Moreover, they should not focus too much on the grammatical accuracy which

could prevent them from practicing English and make them afraid of making mistakes;

instead, they should focus more on their vocabulary mastery and fluency. They should

realize that mastering sufficient vocabularies is important in supporting their speaking

skill. Without sufficient vocabulary mastery, they could not speak fluently.

3. To other researchers

CBI is one of interesting and joyful approach that can be applied in the classroom to

improve the students’ speaking skill. Although the researcher has tried to do the best in

implementing the CBI approach to improve the students’ speaking skill, the result of this

study is not very perfect; therefore, the researcher hopes that the other researchers could

help to eliminate the weaknesses which were found in this study.

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