What teaching strategies can i implement in order to improve students' speaking skills regarding interactions in classes, activities and evaluations in my 5th grade B at Colegio San Pedro de Quilicura?

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(1)Running head: STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS. Faculty of Education English Department. ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT “What teaching strategies can I implement in order to improve students’ speaking skills regarding interactions in classes, activities and evaluations in my 5th Grade B at ‘Colegio San Pedro de Quilicura’?”. By Daniela Soto Figueroa. This Action Research project was done to obtain the university degree of English Teacher Tutor: Carlos Verdugo Research Seminar Lecturer: Pablo Silva December, 2016.

(2) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Table of contents. Abstract ................................................................................................................................. 5 Abstracto ............................................................................................................................... 6 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... 7 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 9 Context................................................................................................................................. 11 Problem ............................................................................................................................. 14 Gantt chart......................................................................................................................... 16 Rationale .............................................................................................................................. 17 Literature review ................................................................................................................ 19 Research Methodology ....................................................................................................... 25 Data Collection .................................................................................................................... 28 Data Analysis ...................................................................................................................... 31 Reflections ........................................................................................................................... 45 Implications ...................................................................................................................... 47 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 49 Limitations ........................................................................................................................ 50 References............................................................................................................................ 52 Appendix A.......................................................................................................................... 54 Interview to the host Teacher: .......................................................................................... 54 Figure 1 ......................................................................................................................... 54 Figure 2 ......................................................................................................................... 54 Appendix B .......................................................................................................................... 55 Likert scale, Figure 1 ........................................................................................................ 55 Figure 2 ............................................................................................................................. 55 2.

(3) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Figure 3 ............................................................................................................................. 56 Appendix C.......................................................................................................................... 57 Exit Cards ......................................................................................................................... 57 Figure 1 ......................................................................................................................... 57 Figure 2: Students 1 sample. Before and after the intervention ................................... 57 Figure 3: Students 2 Sample before and after. ............................................................. 58 Figure 4 : Student 3 Sample:Before and After the intervetions .................................... 58 Appendix D.......................................................................................................................... 59 Journal entries ................................................................................................................... 59 Figure 1 ......................................................................................................................... 59 Figure 2 ......................................................................................................................... 59 Figure 3 ......................................................................................................................... 59 Figure 4 ......................................................................................................................... 60 Appendix E .......................................................................................................................... 61 Agenda .............................................................................................................................. 61 Figure 1 ......................................................................................................................... 61 Figure 2 ......................................................................................................................... 61 Figure 3 ......................................................................................................................... 61 Figure 4 ......................................................................................................................... 61 Appendix F .......................................................................................................................... 62 Figure 1 ............................................................................................................................. 62 Figure 2 ............................................................................................................................. 62 Figure 3 ............................................................................................................................. 63 Figure 4 ............................................................................................................................. 63 Figure 5 ............................................................................................................................. 64. 3.

(4) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Appendix G ......................................................................................................................... 65 Figure 1: Rating scale ....................................................................................................... 65 Couple 1 sample. Figure 2 ................................................................................................ 66 Couple 2 sample, Figure 3 ................................................................................................ 66 Couple 3 sample, Figure 4 ................................................................................................ 67. 4.

(5) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Abstract. The following Action Research helps the researcher find some strategies in order to improve 5th grade students’ speaking skills regarding specific purposes. During the process of execution of this Action Research, topics such as group-work, concrete material, discussion, and different types of comprehension will be tackled in order demonstrate that, students can improve their speaking skills when the teacher have the necessary tools to guide them in the process of learning, and consequently help them to achieve a better speaking performance and succeed in specific class interactions, assessments, among others. At the end of this project, the researcher found that students improved their speaking from the level they had before the interventions. The activities were effective and helped students to be aware of their process and the things they can do with other classmates, as supporters or partners. Key words: Speaking skill, group-work, communicative learning teaching, teaching strategies, assessment.. 5.

(6) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Abstracto La siguiente investigación acción ayuda al investigador a encontrar algunas estrategias para mejorar las habilidades del habla de los estudiantes de 5º grado con respecto a propósitos específicos. Durante el proceso de ejecución de esta Investigación Acción, se abordarán temas como el trabajo en grupo, material concreto, discusión y diferentes tipos de comprensión para demostrar que los estudiantes pueden mejorar sus habilidades del habla cuando el maestro tiene las herramientas necesarias para guiar en el proceso de aprendizaje y, en consecuencia, les ayudan a lograr un mejor desempeño oral y tener éxito en interacciones de clase específicas, evaluaciones, entre otros. Al final de este proyecto, el investigador encontró que los estudiantes mejoraron su discurso desde el nivel que tenían antes de las intervenciones. Las actividades fueron eficaces y ayudaron a los estudiantes a ser conscientes de su proceso y las cosas que pueden hacer con otros compañeros de clase, como un apoyo o pareja de trabajo. Palabras claves: Producción oral, trabajo en grupo, Enseñanza Comunicativa del Lenguaje, estrategias de enseñanza, proceso de evaluación.. 6.

(7) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Acknowledgements In this particular occasion, I would like to express my deepest thanks to all those who were supporting and encourage me to follow my instincts all this time. To my friends, I profoundly appreciate your patience and tolerance in the worst moments of this process, you helped me since the beginning of this career until this final process; your knowledge and experience gave me the clues to understand what really means to be a teacher. Especial thanks to my boyfriend, who had to deal with all my stress reactions, and who has been my composure and inspiration through all these years. Your love and encouragement helped me finish this project. Thank you for believing in my capabilities. I also would like to honorably mention my family; firstly my little sister, who had made me laugh even when I just wanted to collapse, you are of those people who do not care about anything but seen your love ones happy. To my older sister and my nephew, who always had a word of encouragement, and a hug full of love that made me feel accompanied. I also would like to give a huge “thank you” to my parents, because even though you have never been through this kind of situation, you always gave me the space to work and never demanded anything from me, thank you for being such wonderful parents and give me everything I needed and more, thank you for your love and comprehension. To my Tutor and Seminar Lecturer, Carlos Verdugo and Pablo Silva, who always had the availability to check and deliver guidance in this difficult process, thank you very much.. 7.

(8) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS At last, but not least, there are my 10th grade A and B who were always eager to know about my project and helped me to clarify lots of things about it. I hope you continue being such wonderful students and persons. Thank you for being so kind and give me the best welcome greeting ever.. 8.

(9) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Introduction. Nowadays, English is one of the most useful ability you can possess. In terms of productivity, English is necessary in every aspect of people’s lives, either they have to negotiate with foreign investors, communicate with new people, maybe unwind your personality in other country, or simply traveling around the world. Taking into account how important is English in today people’s life, it is considered important for students to develop the four skills to gain better possibilities in their futures as professionals. That is to say, that English is a challenge for students as well as it is for teachers, because you, as teacher, are in charge of helping those students to have better opportunities, and consequently, a better future. An Action Research is always necessary for a teacher in every stage of their teaching practice. As a teacher, you have to face plenty puzzling situations that can encourage a demotivation process or losing the focus of your teaching. In this opportunity, we will use a method called “Action Research” to help the researcher of this project to observe a context, find a problem in her own practice, propose solutions, apply them and reflect about the result it has during an exhaustive an not always effective, action plan. With this Action Research, we will go for a solution and validation of a change of paradigm and focus in order to encourage students to improve their speaking skills regarding specific purposes, such as activities, interactions with their classmates, or the accomplishment of a final assessment.. 9.

(10) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS It is important to conduct this Action Research in order to improve the researcher’s teaching practice and enrich her knowledge about speaking skills and the different strategies that can help the development of this skill.. 10.

(11) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Context The following Action Research has been developed in a 5th grade at Colegio San Pedro de Quilicura. This school is a co-educational and subsidized institution which has classes that go from Pre-K to 12th grade. In this institution, it is possible to observe multicultural classrooms due to the fact that there are plenty students from different nationalities, such as Haitians, Peruvians and Colombians. Also, there are many courses that are composed by at least 5 - 10 students who failed previous courses before, some of them 3 or 4 years older than the median of the course. Even though this school does not have enough technological resources for all teachers and they usually have to plan lessons based on worksheets or whiteboard activities, the English department has its own classroom which is equipped with all technological resources – projector, computer and audio – which allows English teachers to plan multifocal classes in order to teach students using different strategies. Nonetheless, this classroom is used just by one of the three teachers of this institution. The course used for this Action Research is the 5th grade B composed of 39 students, two of them Haitians, a Peruvian girl and five students who failed previous courses before. They have 3 pedagogical hours of English per week, as it is usual from 4th to 8th grade in this school.. 11.

(12) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Due to the fact that this school is mainly focused on discipline; this course is usually considered quite disruptive and a difficult grade to work with, because they are too noisy and disrespectful with most of the teachers. At this school, from 5th to 8th grade, students are taught using “Sistema Orbital” which was created by one of the teachers of this institution. This system was created based on the idea of learning English by being immersed in the language and forced to speak only English. Based on this idea, this teacher implemented evaluations where students have to role-play real situations, such as introducing themselves, meeting people, shopping for food, and so on. The 5th grade used for this Action Research did not have English in 4th grade, thus, students are not used to listening to English nor used to speak the language. Even though this is the common situation among these students, there are two exceptions: 2 Haitian children who understand English in an intermediate level, one of them - the boy - barely understands Spanish, but the girl is usually used as a helper or clarifier for her classmates in the English class because she has been in Chile for 3 years and speaks Spanish as well as her native language, so she is capable to help her classmates to understand the contents in a better way. Since I have been observing students’ performance, I could notice that most students in this grade are in a level of English where they cannot express themselves but can understand isolated words. Based on a Likert scale that I conducted in order to know how students felt about English (See Appendix A, figure 1), I realized that most of the students considered that they did not speak English in class nor they understand the language. Basically, they like English as long as they do not have to speak the language.. 12.

(13) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS They usually participate in the English class, but by using their mother tongue; when the teacher asks them to speak in English; they refuse by saying that they do not know how to say anything.. 13.

(14) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Problem During all first semester of 2016, the 5th grade B used for this Action Research has been dealing with English in a proper way, “Sistema Orbital” works very well at the school, but, at the time of using the language communicatively, this system fails. Basically, students perform quite well at the evaluations implemented by the teacher, but at the time of using English in activities or interactions, students argue that they do not understand English and do not know what to do, even when the vocabulary they have to use is the same from previous evaluations that contained the vocabulary from the unit. The problem I could identify is that my lessons are not assuring students’ learning and speaking skills development; they truly do not understand what they are saying in oral evaluations, but they learn what they have to say only by memory, and when they are asked to speak, listen or read something similar including the vocabulary they should know, they argue that they do not understand if it does not follow the same structure of the evaluations mentioned before. Based on my previous observations, the methodology that I have been using in this class is not guarantying the speaking development of my students. The teaching method used for this class is not promoting the students’ speaking capability development to use the language to interact with their classmates or to complete speaking activities if it is not a pre-created dialogue they have to follow. Nonetheless, students are capable of organizing and saying isolated words if they are asked to do so during classes or activities, which means that there is not a problem in terms of vocabulary but in terms of using the language. 14.

(15) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS communicatively, in other words, students can understand isolated words and they know the meaning of every word when you ask them to translate a sentence or connect the words with their meanings, but cannot use them in a sentence to communicate something. The following question emerged when I realized that the problem was in the focus I had on my classes. I trusted on my students’ speaking skills based on what I saw in their evaluations, but then I noticed that these skills were not well developed and that my classes were not effective in terms of my students’ learning. Thus, I needed to implement different strategies to improve students’ speaking skills in order to help them communicate, understand the language and accomplish their speaking activities in classes, group interactions and assessments. I also consider important to help students improve their speaking skill in order to be able to deal with future speaking assessments regarding the “Sistema Orbital” with which they have been taught English during few passed years. According to what I said before, my question for this Action Research is the following: – What strategies can I implement in order to improve students’ speaking skills regarding interactions in classes, activities and assessments in my 5th Grade B at “Colegio San Pedro de Quilicura”. 15.

(16) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Gantt chart. Month Week Activities Observations Interventions Literature Review Interviews & Likert scale Data collection Data Analysis Conclusions & Implications Project Final Version. August 1 2 3. 4. Septiembre 1 2 3 4. Octubre 1 2 3. 4. Noviembre 1 2 3. 16. 4.

(17) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Rationale The focus of this Action Research was chosen since I could notice what was happening regarding my 5th grade students’ speaking skills, and their incapability to communicate their ideas with their classmates. Based on the reflection upon my own practice, I could notice that their disadvantages were, in a way, caused by my own inexperience and a wrong class’ focus. I took their speaking skills for granted when I assessed these students for the first time, and my following activities were planned based on the assumption I had about their proficiency level. I consider essential to help my students improve their speaking skills for them to be able to communicate effectively in their following tasks and assessments. As every other language, English is taught to communicate. Therefore, I want my 5th grade students to feel capable of using English without memorizing what they have to say. Previous assessments prove that most of them are able to use the vocabulary from previous units, but in a conversation they cannot use it without a pre-created dialogue. At the end of this research, I would like to find 5th grade students capable of presenting themselves or buy something in English without following a dialogue or “comic strip”. They need to be able to communicate in order to succeed in their future tasks. Moreover, in terms of my own practice, I expect to enrich my knowledge in terms of strategies to improve students’ speaking skills; besides, I aim at being able to apply these strategies effectively and help my upcoming students as a certified teacher.. 17.

(18) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Considering the actual situation of the 5th grade B and their future speaking assessment, this research would hopefully help them to develop tools to face these future evaluations properly prepared, and be able to understand what they are asked to say, and in that way, use what their knowledge to successfully accomplish the objectives of the assessment. The findings of this Action Research will also equip other teachers in this school to teach speaking skills using different strategies, in order to engage all students in the learning process. What I previously mentioned, not only concert to English teachers, but all language teachers, who want his or her students to be capable to express what she/he has been teaching them, and more important, to understand what they are producing.. 18.

(19) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Literature review With the purpose of understanding, validating this action research and gathering information of possible applicable strategies to improve my practice in terms of teaching speaking, the following literature will be reviewed. Key concepts: Cognitive development Speaking skills Communicative Language Teaching Teaching speaking strategies First of all, in order to recognize the cognitive process of my students and being able to identify the adequate activities according to their capabilities depending on their age, I will tackle Piaget’s theory about cognitive development. According to Piaget (1936), ten-year-old children are in the concrete operational stage, which means that they need concrete experiences to understand new information. Moreover, they are also less capable of creating abstract situations or locate themselves into others’ point of view than older students. Taking what Piaget (1936) states into account, the 5th grade students who are part of this Action Research are able to understand concrete situations and chunks of a real life situation, which must be connected to their environment and following a previously stated parameter. Based on Piaget, students are able to understand different situations based on. 19.

(20) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS their context, they cannot understand abstract situations nor they can understand deductive thinking. This theory would help to create a more complete Action Plan taking into account the cognitive development my students have and their abilities in order to have a clear class focus and accurate activities. Considering the imperative need of improving teaching practice in terms of effectively teaching speaking in order to help students develop their speaking skills, Brown’s Teaching by Principles was consulted. As it is known, students cannot fully achieve the speaking competence in a short period of time; thus, it is necessary to evaluate the focus of the interventions to be developed. According to Brown (1994), there are two main aspects inside the speaking competence that are accurate for this Action research; these are Accuracy (correct articulation, grammar, phonology) and Fluency (use of the language, communication). Brown states that “fluency is the initial goal to achieve the speaking skill” (1994, p. 267). nonetheless, he refers to accuracy in the following way “… in message oriented teaching, language usage has a supporting role” (Brown, 1994), what means that, you do not need to focus only on accuracy, but it cannot be took apart from the speaking learning process, in order to add coherence and understanding to the students’ speech. On the other hand, taking into account what was said by Brown in the previous paragraph, fluency is the starting point to develop speaking competence. Related to this, Richards (2009) identifies three interactional functions of speaking: talk as interaction; talk as transaction; talk as performance. Having the objective of this Action Research as. 20.

(21) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS developing speaking skills in order to improve students’ interactions in class, evaluations and activities; I would base on Richards’ Talk as interaction, “Talk as interaction refers to what we normally mean by “conversation” and describes interaction that serves a primarily social function. When people meet, they exchange greetings, engage in small talk, recount recent experiences.” (Richards, J. C. 2009). According to what is said in this quote, Talk as interaction refers to commonly used language in social interaction, such as greetings, basic structures to get information from people or simply share experiences with others in small conversation. This concept would be used in this Action Research in order to accomplish the objective the same, which is improve 5th grade speaking performance in different class’s situations. Based on what is expected from this Action Research, the aim of the 5th grade students’ speaking interaction is to communicate simple ideas and express short opinions about specific problems among them; therefore, Richards’ Talk as interaction concept helps to understand what interactional function conveys in this context and the students’ speaking skill development purpose. A teaching approach to increase the communication in the classroom is the Communicative Language Teaching “We are trying to get our learners to develop linguistic fluency, not just the accuracy (…). We are equipping our students with tools for generating unrehearsed language performance “out there” when they leave the womb of our classroom.” (Brown, H. D. 1994). According to Brown, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) helps language teachers to focus on the communicative factor of the language they are teaching. It also allows students to be an active part of the class by participating and speaking as much as the teacher, or even more.. 21.

(22) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS The CLT approach encourages group work activities and the students’ development based on their classmates and the negotiation of meaning. “Group activities maximize the amount of oral interaction among students. Students are also less likely to be inhibited when working with their peers. The teacher round the class without being obtrusive, giving guidance and help when needed only.” (Cheng, 1980 p.65) The previous quotation refers to the benefits that working in groups and focusing on communication have in students’ development and confidence in the classroom and when they have to use the language. In the following literature, Ur (1996) provides a detailed guide mostly referring to speaking, motivation, and to the importance of the students to be immersed in the target language and have access to the vocabulary they need to use for the lesson. She also states that, the teacher needs to be aware of the proficiency level or his/her students in order to plan the topic for every lesson, and to take into account students’ interests to promote discussion and willingness to participate. Related to this Action Research’s purpose – promoting participation and students’ understanding of English –, Ur poses “Make your students’ goals clear and achievable, so they don’t feel like they are faced with an impossible task. In order to develop confidence, teach your students useful expressions they can fall back on when looking for words” (2015). Ur promotes the students’ constant exposure to the new language, which provides some strategies to enhance the speaking skills development, such as flashcards, posters with pre-determined chunks of classroom language, and so on. In terms of strategies to improve 5th grade students’ speaking interactions, Scrivener (2011) provides plenty of examples that can be integrated in the classroom in order to develop speaking skills. “Encourage your students to record the classroom vocabulary in. 22.

(23) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS ways the can recall it easily, (...) ask students to use the vocabulary you stated for the class (…) promote short topics with short activities for them[students] to generate simple and common used structure of speech…” (Scrivener, J. 2011) In order to enhance the use of English in the 5th grade classroom, the following strategies provided by Scrivener will be used. Group work is said to be one of the most useful strategies to enhance the use of English in the classroom and give students the opportunity to talk to someone who is in their same proficiency level, so students do not feel intimidated and coaxed to speak the target language. Flashcards are also going to be used by students in order to recall the commonly used vocabulary in the classroom. Discussions and expressing opinion will be also used since the 5th grade final assessment will be a role play where students have to ask their classmate – which will be chosen randomly – about their personal interests and opinions about other people. Based on Scrivener (2011), listening and reading comprehension activities are also useful to improve speaking skills depending on the topic of the listening or reading; it cannot be based on answering multiple choice questions nor can be fill-in-the-blanks activity, it has to be communicative and short with the aim of a productive post activity. Guessing is also recommended by Scrivener (2011) not only on pre-activities, but when it is needed to negotiate the meaning of coming keywords on a reading text, or listening comprehension audio. It can also be used as an activity where students need to communicate in order to guess something.. 23.

(24) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Gaming is the most recommended strategy to use in order to promote speaking in the classroom, no matter the topic; it is always engaging from start or finish with a game based on students’ previous learning. Scrivener also recommends taking into account the diverse kinds of learners that can be found in a classroom, where he suggests using different methods to teach speaking and promote the learning and production of what you have taught your students. For example, use different strategies into one lesson in order to enhance the students’ content understanding. Assessing Speaking was also considered as an important part of this Action Research, because during all this process students will be assessed whether using formative or summative evaluations. According to Luoma (2004), 5th grade students are situated in the Macro stage of speaking due to the fact that they are capable of understanding concrete (simple and not abstract) and real (related to students’ experiences) situations, but they are not capable of producing speech out of nothing nor they are capable to understand or talk about abstract situations. The previously mentioned literature will help this Action Research in terms of understanding and validating what will be applied afterwards. These authors will help the researcher to create a logical and concrete action plan regarding speaking skills, providing a guidance to follow in order to accomplish the expectations and to answer the research question.. 24.

(25) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Research Methodology In order to collect data from the interventions and gathering evidence in order to realize whether the goal of this Action Research is accomplished or not, the following research methods will be used to establish concrete results regarding students’ speaking skills development. Firstly, in order to avoid assumptions about students speaking skills and what they truly believe regarding their speaking skills and performance in classes, the teacher will conduct a Likert scale in order to clarify students’ perceptions about their own performance and how often they spoke English in classes (See Appendix A, figure 1). Secondly, an interview to the head teacher will be conducted at the beginning and at the end of the interventions in order to record his thoughts about the class before and after the application of this project. (See Appendix B, figure 1) In third place, students will be asked to fill in an exit card at the end of the five interventions in order to monitor their progress and perceptions of their speaking performance during the class, regarding what they said and how they felt about it (See Appendix C, figure 1). Students will be asked to answer the exit card before their break; this will be asked in order to get the entire lot of students’ exit cards and not miss any. The following method that will be used in this Action Research is a Personal Journal, where the Action Researcher carries a register of what happens in the classroom, her thoughts and reflections about the development of the lesson, and how students react to the changes in the methodology of the class.. 25.

(26) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS An agenda will also be used as a method to gather objective information regarding the class development, whether the action plans and the objectives of every class are accomplished, how many students were present, etc. Finally, a Rubric will be considered among the research methods due to the evidence that can be gathered from it regarding the Research Question, the focus on the assessment and how students perform at the end of this process. The sample (See Appendix B, figure 2) will be used at the end of this process, where students will have to present 2 of the previous presentations (presenting themselves and meeting new people) but this time adding the item of gathering information about personal interest, likes and opinions about random topics to their classmates. The actions plan will be developed following the structure below: . The five interventions will include a recalling class vocabulary in order to refresh students’ previous knowledge. This will help students to get in the mood of English and also be capable of answering in English what they are asked to say. The recalling will include flashcards, and some discussions about what students learnt from previous classes.. . All interventions will also include a comprehension activity, whether it is reading, listening or video comprehension, which will promote a topic that will be held during the whole lesson with a communicative post activity. This comprehension activity will be supported by images or concept-modeling depending on the comprehension tool used in the lesson.. 26.

(27) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS . All objectives will be communicatively, even though vocabulary or grammar is involved in the lesson. What I mentioned before will help to observe whether the speaking is used for the activity or not.. . At the end of every lesson, students will fill in an exit card in order to know their practice during the class regarding their speaking performance.. . One class will be used to create flashcards about commonly used classroom language in order to follow Ur and Scriveners’ ideas about having a method in which students can record and recall vocabulary they use during the lesson.. . Group Work will be the strategy in which students will share ideas and will discuss about the topic of every class. This method will be guided by the teacher by giving roles to every student in the group – such as captain, English keeper and speaker – in order to ensure the use of English and the following report of the discussion.. . An Interview to the host teacher and Likert scales to students will be given at the beginning and at the end of the intervention process in order to get the impressions of the students’ learning process, and also the changes that these interventions may generate.. . Finally, regarding the research question, one of the purposes of this Action Research was to improve my practice as a teacher to make my students’ learning effective and that they could demonstrate that in their final evaluation. Consequently, the rubric for this final assessment will be applied as a research method to collect data about the results of this Action Research.. 27.

(28) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Data Collection For this Action Research, the 5th grade that was chosen is integrated by 38 students, 17 boys and 21 girls, who are all participants of the process of interventions. As the first method to collect data, an interview was performed with the host teacher of this 5th grade (See appendix B, figure 1), in which he had to answer 3 open questions about his perspective regarding these 5th grade students’ participation in classes and specifically their speaking competence. This interview took place on October 4th before the 5th grade class in the English Classroom. Furthermore, the Likert scale was given to the 5th grade students on October 4th in order to get their perception about their own English competence and their participation in class. The teacher asked two students to spread the scale and explained what they will answer, solving any doubt that could emerge. Students answered the Likert scale (See in Appendix A, Figure 1) in 5 minutes and then they delivered them to the teacher. Table 1, (Figure 1): Indica qué tan de acuerdo estás con las siguientes aseveraciones: Aseveraciones Completamente Mucho. Tal vez. Poco. Nada. Predominant answer. Me considero bueno en inglés.. 1. 2. 2. 8. 25. Nada: 25 students. Cuando hay que hablar en inglés no tengo problema.. 0. 1. 1. 5. 31. Nada: 31 students. 28.

(29) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Siempre participo en la clase.. 5. 4. 20. 7. 2. Tal vez: 20 students. In order to follow the process and the consequences that this Action research process has on the participants, students will be asked to answer an exit card at the end of every intervention before living the class for the break. Students received this exit card with two simple questions regarding their performance in that particular class and their perception of the change of methodology. These exit cards were received on October 13th, October 18th, October 27th, November 3rd and November 8th. (See Appendix C, figure 1 and 2) Reflecting on your own practice is an important part of being a teacher, since I started this process, a journal entry was written for every intervention in order to have a register of my feelings, thoughts and reflections regarding all what composed my class, and also asking rhetorical questions about the problems that came up during the lesson, how to deal with them, and find some solutions to apply in the next intervention. (See Appendix D) In order to get more objective data, I used an agenda to carry a register of how many students were in the classroom, what activities were develop, how many students were participating, among many others. (See Appendix E) On October 18th, students built Chunks of language depending on their own knowledge. Students had to choose one topic and make a poster including all the vocabulary they thought they would need further on. (See Appendix F, figure 1, 2, 3 &4). 29.

(30) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Finally, as a final assessment of the course, a role-play was performed by students during the final period of time in the school. This role-play is key evidence to know if this project has a successful result or not, thus, a rating scale was created in order to get evidence of the improvement of speaking performance in the 5th grade students. The rating scale was created based on the expected performance they should have at the end of this process, and also the objective of this Action Research which was implement teaching strategies to improve students speaking skills. Based on what was stated before, this rating scale included one point where students had to answer questions about the information they asked and the information they received from their classmates. This would evidence if students understood what they asked or answer during the role play. (See appendix G, Figure 1) At the moment of assess students, many of them volunteered to present and performed accurately according to the expected level and contents seen in classes, eventually, with some exceptions. Regarding data, three couples will be used as examples of the development of this assessment session (See Appendix G, Figure 2, 3 & 4). This will be analyzed in the following session, according to the procedures of an Action Research.. 30.

(31) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Data Analysis In order to understand what has been collected from the Intervention on the 5th grade B, the Data Analysis will be conducted. For an Action Researcher, it is imperative to analyze the data that was collected, due to the fact that it is the only option to notice what is not simply visible. In first place, the Likert scale (See Appendix A figure 1) shows that, before the interventions, students considered their practice with the lower score; they did not feel capable of producing anything that was not Spanish. Table n°1, (Figure 1) Indica qué tan de acuerdo estás con las siguientes aseveraciones: Aseveraciones Completamente Mucho. Tal vez. Poco. Nada. Predominant answer. Me considero bueno en inglés.. 1. 2. 2. 8. 25. Nada: 25 students. Hablo Inglés en clases sin problema. 0. 1. 1. 5. 31. Nada: 31 students. Siempre participo en la clase.. 5. 4. 20. 7. 2. Tal vez: 20 students. This Likert scale shows the students’ perceptions of their own practice during the classes. Even though most of them consider themselves as bad at English, there is not proportional to participation; in other words, students want participate of the class’ activities even when they do not understand, what means that there is a willingness to. 31.

(32) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS participate but they do not know how to communicate. This can be inferred from point 3, where you can see that 20 students answered that they maybe participate in classes even when they do not understand the contents or the language used. Regarding the interview to the host teacher (See Appendix 1, figure 1), he thinks that students are not learning because they do not take advantage of the English class. Personally, I consider that students are always able to learn if the strategies are accurate for their learning development; it can be possible that students did not take advantage of the English class because they did not know how to express themselves, which unveils a necessity to explore different ways of teaching, and to enrich my practice in order to facilitate the students’ learning and personal perception about their own speaking skills. As it was previously said, five interventions were conducted in the 5th grade B, each of them with the purpose of developing speaking skills for specific purposes. In the first intervention students were asked to get into groups for the post activity, which was not common for them because they usually work in pairs or individually. According to the agenda (See appendix E, figure 1) “The group work organization took more time that it was stated in the planning; students screamed looking for partners.” This means that the group-work activity was not well designed, because students were not used to work in pairs and produced them anxiety to find a partner to complete the activity. This could be avoided by using some color sticks or different color paper to organize the groups. “[…] students organized the groups by defining roles – captain, English keeper and speaker – students developed the activity speaking more than they do in activities where they have to answer by themselves”. This provides clear evidence of the positive effect that. 32.

(33) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS group work has in speaking activities. Students probably felt more confident when they talked to their pairs than to the teacher. On October the 18th, students worked on creating posters with the vocabulary they would need to use in the following activities and assessments. As you can see in the pictures (See Appendix F, figure 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) no poster is similar to another. Based on the personal journal (See appendix D, figure 2): Students had to choose a category from the whiteboard and define what vocabulary belonged to that category and create a poster based on that,(…), students seemed lost at the beginning but he more they discussed the vocabulary, the more they seem to clarify. (…) At the end students pasted their posters on the walls and explained their chosen vocabulary for the category to the teacher; students enjoyed the activity, maybe because they had freedom to do whatever they want. I was surprised because they speak less Spanish than the previous intervention. According to the previous quote from the Personal Journal, students seem to be less reluctant to speak English when they do it structure-free and with classmates. It can also be inferred that students are conscious about the vocabulary from the unit and they can use it when they feel confident and safe. My third and fourth interventions were conducted focusing on gaming. Students are more likely to work faster and engaged if they know that the last activity is gaming. Based on my Agenda (See Appendix E, figure 3), students worked with a short video about someone describing their best friends. In order use adjectives indirectly, the. 33.

(34) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS teacher first asked students to work in groups (this time a color paper was used to organize the groups) to recognize the characteristics of the protagonist’s best friends. Finally, as a game, students had to stay in the groups from the previous activity and the teacher gave them two papers with classmates’ names to each student of the group. They had to hold one in front of their forehead and try to guess “who they are” depending on what they classmates say. According to what was said previously, I can say that students were unconsciously able to speak what they have been seeing in classes. Their willingness to speak has been increasing; even some students that usually do not participate in classes are talking to their classmates and raising their hands to share their answers to the class. The fourth was similar to the third intervention (See appendix F, figure 4), but this one had an individual activity where all students had to write a chart given by the teacher to play “Find Someone who…” students had to go for the classroom asking questions in order to fill in the chart. Even though students have some problems in terms of pronunciation, they still want to participate in the activities receiving their classmates and teacher’s feedback at the end. They moved for the classroom looking for someone who had the interest they were asked to find. According to my Journal (See Appendix D, Figure 4) “Students spoke just some Spanish and when they spoke it, their classmates around started screaming “Miss! Spanish here!” because they know that Spanish was not allowed”. This means that, students were getting used to speaking English in activities and they could monitor themselves during these, which is very useful for other subjects and upcoming assessments.. 34.

(35) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Regarding the last intervention, students were asked to create a dialogue to role play a meeting in a park with unknown people (See Appendix E and F, Figure 5). Even though it seems to be quite similar to what they were used to, this role-play dialogue was created by students based on their personal preferences and they used the content they felt confident about, what helps engage students to get out from their comfort zone and create something by themselves and role-play it in front of the class. Regarding the data in the agenda, students were able to create their dialogues using all the information they have been seeing in classes, which means that they were able to use the content however they wanted, what can be interpreted as the successful acquisition of the vocabulary and also the understanding of what they were doing in classes. The previous paragraph refers to the possibility to have students performing something they understand, instead of presenting a memorized dialogue created by the teacher. Regarding the exit cards, the first and the last one will be compared because they are the most significant evidence and can provide a clear example about the students learning process results. First of all, there is Sample Student number 1, who is the closest example of the group of students reluctant to English and that do not like to participate in any class activity. (See Appendix C, Figure 2) Figure 2: Students 1’s sample. Before and after the intervention. 35.

(36) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS. This sample can be interpreted as the student who did not have speaking skills to participate actively of every activity, what probed that the methodology was wrong and needed to be added to students’ needs. If you read the second image from the same sample you can see a great change in her attitude towards English and how she feels better in terms of her own learning process. Figure 3: Students 2 Sample before and after.. If we focus on the second sample, apparently this student follows the activities but not in a proper way, so she did not develop her skills in the same way as their classmates. You can observe both images and realize that she did not seem to have improved in terms. 36.

(37) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS of speaking. This can be happening because this student learns in a different way from her classmates. So, my teaching improved but I could not change one of my students’ performances.. 37.

(38) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Figure 4 : Student 3 Sample:Before and After the intervetions. When you observe Sample number 3, you can notice an incredible improvement from this student, because at the beginning he expressed that he talks very little in the classroom, but after the interventions, this student shared that his participation improved as well as his performance and willingness to be part of the course.. Finally, a Likert list was developed in order compare the results regarding the implications of the interventions on students’ perception of their own practice and speaking skills. Indica qué tan de acuerdo estás con las siguientes aseveraciones:. Aseveraciones. Completamente. Mucho. Tal vez. Poco Nada. Predominant answer. Me considero bueno en inglés.. 1. 20. 6. 8. 3. Mucho: 20 students. Hablo inglés en clases sin problema. 8. 15. 10. 3. 2. Mucho: 15 students. Siempre participo en la clase.. 23. 8. 2. 2. 3. Completamente 23 students. 38.

(39) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS. In this Chart, we can see the improvement of students’ perceptions about their own practices, which can consequently end in evidence about students’ speaking skills state and how this affects their learning process. In contrast with the first Likert scale given to students, their development in terms of speaking in classes is significant, students perceive that change, and this helps to improve their motivation to the classes’ activities; even there are students who answered “completamente”, which means that they strongly agree with the statement number 3. Finally, as a final section of this process, the last assessment of the year took place in November 22nd (see Appendix G, Figure 2, 3 & 4). According to the Agenda (see Appendix E, Figure 4) the objective of the assessment was “Students are able to present a role-play and answer 3 questions regarding the information they give to their classmates”. The results of this evaluation were better than I expected, just 5 kids over 39 had marks between 3.0 and 4.5; 23 had marks between 4.5 and 6.0 and 11 students had marks between 6.0 and 7.0. If we calculate the standard deviation the 62% of the students are near the median of the assessment results which means that this assessment was valid and it could be used for reporting. Going deeper into the interpretation of the assessment, I chose three samples that give the reader a good clue of what is the state of students speaking skills and how kids faced this assessment process.. 39.

(40) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS First of all, I would like to show one of the couple that accomplished the objective of the assessment: Couple 1 sample. Figure 2. As you can see in this sample, these students accomplished all the points in the rubric and the objective, and if you compare this sample with the purpose of this Action Research process, these students are the perfect example of the effectiveness of the process. At the begging of this process, students were not able to present successfully nor they were capable to answer questions regarding what they said, but now they can defend themselves because they understand what they are saying and feel more comfortable to work with their classmates due to the fact that they worked in groups during the whole semester.. 40.

(41) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS In the comments I refer to the students’ capability to use the information they had in the dialogue to add some new information and make the assessment funnier for them and for their classmates. This reflects an outstanding preparation and use of English. I can also infer that these students enjoyed the assessment and probably feel motivated to do something similar in the future. In terms of speaking, their pronunciation was very good with little mistakes with the /θ/ sound, which was clarified in the feedback and I will pay special attention to their pronunciation in future activities to know if they took the feedback into consideration. Couple 2 sample, Figure 3.. 41.

(42) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS The second sample is from two students who were in the middle of the scale, who did not perform the best they could but they did not perform poorly. These students were very good in terms of speaking, but they did not prepared the presentation and this affected quite hard they grade. They showed very good pronunciation with mistakes with the “ʃ” sound which was mentioned in the feedback. According to what I was looking for with this Action Research, this couple accomplished what I expected, they were able to speak in front of the class and answer 2 out of 3 questions that I made. They probably fail the last questions because they clearly did not prepared very well their presentation, but even when they were not able to answer the final questions, they could accomplish the objective and present the dialogue, and they supported on the chunks in the posters pasted on the walls; they also showed understanding of what they were saying, which was the purpose of this assessment. Couple 3 sample, Figure 4:. 42.

(43) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS. Finally, the third sample is from two students who urgently need to improve their performance and responsibility: According to what I can see in this sample, I could infer that these students did not prepare the presentation, they were hesitating, they forgot almost their whole dialogue; whatever they said demonstrated a lack of practice and skills. This presentation called my attention because, even when these students were considered disturbing and disrespectful by most of the teachers, they liked to participate in the activities and answer some teacher questions. It is quite surprising that even when they participated a lot in classes, they were not able to face the assessment successfully. I also notice that their speaking skills’ improvement is not reflected on what they did in the role-play assessment, which can result in frustration and neglecting regarding the use of English. I can infer that they need more attention and motivation not only in the English classes but their own performance as a speaker.. 43.

(44) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS From this sample I can interpret that, probably, students were not engaged enough with the assessment or they did not feel confident about their English to speak in front of the class, but motivation is a different topic to deal with. These students are a clear example of the different types of learning you have in a classroom. Their lack of speaking skills could be produced due to the fact that they are more complex learners in comparison to the rest of the class. Also, these students needed further explanation or other ways to reach understanding of the content to be able to accomplish any speaking activity or assessment.. 44.

(45) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Reflections Since the beginning of this Action Research process, the focus was on the improvement of my teaching strategies to help students develop speaking skills in class. To be honest, I was not confident about the result I would obtain from this project, because I made quite great amount of mistakes before starting it and I was afraid that my students were so reluctant and demotivated to speak that my project would finish as a failure. Even though some students did not improve their speaking skill as much as their classmates, I can identify some positive aspects to highlight from their learning process in this project, such as, increasing the participation in class, willingness to participate in class’s activities, among others. According to my personal point of view, improving our teaching practice is always a necessity among teachers, and this project helped me to understand how important is to have the tools to improve our teaching practice. For example, firstly, I thought that students were used to some methods and I kept using them, but they were not effective, and my students were losing their motivation and started to be reluctant to participate and speaking English. The strategies that I found to enhance the oral production and speaking skills’ development were different from the ones they were used to face, but they responded quite well to the new methodology. Group work and giving students roles engaged them the most because it helped them to understand the important role they have in the class and what they can build with. 45.

(46) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS others. Showing them videos and images about vocabulary and common interactions, guided them to learn the contents they see in classes, and use them whenever they need them. The creation of posters with chunks of language and vocabulary enhance the recalling of previous class’s information and also the use of English in classes because students were asked to use the words in their posters. Probably, students are not be able to produce complex sentences with the aim of communicate, but they can recognize the words they learnt during this Action Research process, how to use them and what they mean; students can create sentences and dialogues based on the content of the classes and they are capable of discuss and give basic arguments, what was improbable last semester. Nowadays, students recognize their capabilities in terms of speaking, their contribution to the group-work activities, and how they feel at being an important part of something; they are also capable of facing appropriately future oral tasks and evaluations. Group-work was an essential part of this project because it triggered the students’ confidence development and helped to improve speaking skills regarding informal interaction with classmate, where students could feel no pressure to speak perfectly because they were not assessed. Additionally, as a teacher, I feel more prepare from what I felt the first semester. Due to the fact that this project enhances the research concerning one specific topic, now, it is easier to encourage myself to understand and find some solutions for possible problems that could emerge while I am working as a teacher.. 46.

(47) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS This process was exciting and enlightening, it is outstanding to see how students improve from what they were in their first semester. It is also touching to feel capable of finding some new strategies to encourage speaking skills. At last, but no least, the community of the schools felt engaged with the implications of this process, which conveyed all school participants, specially the language teachers. They were witness of the whole process and some of the teachers expressed that students were even more disciplined at the end of this project. Implications. When I decided to be in charge of this Action Research project, I never thought what it would turn to be. First of all, the ones who received mayor benefits of this Action Research was one of the protagonists of it, the 5th grade B. These students had the possibility to achieve more than just English and speaking skills; they were able to organize and learn how to work with others to create something in common. Furthermore, they could notice the change in their performance when they spoke English in front of the class, what concludes on improvements in terms of confidence and to avoid anxiety. As I mentioned in the reflection, my teaching practice was influenced, in a good way, by this research. I could notice how my classroom management improved due to the different strategies that I applied for the objective of this Action Research, and also because I started feeling more in control of what was happening in the classroom and the path my classes were taking. The anxiety with which I entered to the previous classes went disappearing class by class.. 47.

(48) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Moreover, I could realize how important is to criticize your own teaching practice, due to the fact that, most of the time, we tend to blame the context – school participants, parents, other teachers, among others – to justify a problem that can be provoked by our inexperience or lack of tools in terms of teaching practice. Finally, this Action Research had its implications on the school community, especially focused on language teachers, who were surprised about how students have changed among these months, not only on their speaking performance and grades, but in their willingness to participate in classes – particularly those who were not used to participate – and to work in groups.. 48.

(49) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Conclusions According to what was posed through this entire Action Research project, the speaking skill is one of the most important parts of English and was the principal focus of the process. Everything that was done during this research affected students’ performance, in English as well as in other aspects of their lives. What I can conclude from this research project, and the result that emerged from it, it that students are very complex and different at the same time, they needed to be taught in different ways to guarantee learning, and show them that English is easy and very achievable. Flashcard, videos and posters construction were very useful in terms of effective learning and posterior production of what they learnt, students were able to speak more English and improve their performance class by class. Regarding speaking performance, I am completely aware that my students were not capable to become expert English speakers in just three months, but they are in a starting point where they feel capable to achieve the speaking competence and they try to participate in classes in order to practice what they already know. At the end of this process, I realized that my practice improved as well as my confidence in the classroom. Having the tools to teach students to develop their speaking skills triggered a sequence of positive consequences, where the principal was to be witness of my students starting to speak more English in class, activities and also to ask some things in English to the teacher, when English was not required.. 49.

(50) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS During all the interventions, I could see students’ speaking skills improvement; step by step they commenced to change their attitude towards English, and consequently their participation and performance. At the last interventions, students were capable to understand better what was said in videos and listening comprehension activities, even though the video comprehension activities were their favorite. Limitations At the begging of this process, I felt quite overwhelmed by students’ frustration and reluctance to participate in the English class, so my energy and motivation were quite low and these feeling were reflected on many of my planning and material for activities. The first of the five interventions applied in the 5th grade was the most difficult and chaotic among all of them; I was not used to work with group work during all the class, nor students were used to work in groups, thus, the organization and development of the activity was a mess, and students did not comprehend the majority of the contents of that day’s class, this was caused by the inexperience and lack of knowledge that I had about group work. That day, I expected that students could be organized randomly, but they started to look for their partners and people they like, they changed their groups and took me the triple of time to organize group work than I have planned. Finally, the last limitation that I had was the time and school extracurricular activities, especially for 12 graders. My speaking assessment was delayed because of lots of activities that came out one, or the same day that I was ready to assess 5th graders. There was a huge problem in terms of communication among teachers and me.. 50.

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(52) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS References . Brown, H. D. (1994). Teaching by principles. An interactive approach to language pedagogy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.. . Cheng, W. (1980). Communicative Language Teaching: Theory and Practice. CUHK Education Journal.. . Luoma, S. (2004). Assessing speaking. Cambridge University Press.. . Piaget, J. (1936). Origins of intelligence in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.. . Richards, J. C. (2009). Teaching listening and speaking: From theory to practice. Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre.. . Scrivener, J. (2011). Learning teaching: The essential guide to English language teaching. Oxford: Macmillan Education.. . Ur, P. (1996). A course in language teaching: Practice and theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.. . Ur, P. (2015): How to get them to talk (when they don't want to) - Cambridge Conversations. (2015). Retrieved September 28th, 2016, from http://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2015/01/penny-ur-get-talk-dontwant/. 52.

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(54) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS. Appendix A. Interview to the host Teacher: Figure 1 Interview October 4th: 1. ¿Qué nivel crees que el 5to básico tiene en torno al inglés? R: Considero que los niños tienen buen nivel pero que necesitan más práctica. 2. ¿Puedes identificar algún problema que se deba mejorar? R: yo creo que el manejo de clase, los chicos parecen no entender muy bien lo que se dice y eso está provocando una atmosfera de inseguridad. 3. ¿Crees que los niños tiene habilidades discursivas en relación al inglés que usan en clases? R: Hay algunos chicos que hablan pero son casi los mínimos, no entiendo por qué no hablan cuando tienen la oportunidad. Creo que podrían mejorar si es que toman enserio la clase de inglés. Figure 2 Interview November 3rd: 1. ¿Qué nivel crees que el 5to básico tiene en torno al inglés? R: Creo que han mejorado bastante, ya no se les tiene que traducir las instrucciones, ni nada por el estilo. No sé si tengan un nivel avanzado pero me atrevería a decir que de no entender nada de lo que dicen, ahora pueden responder cosas que comprenden. 2. ¿Puedes identificar algún problema que se deba mejorar? R: Creo que aún se debe mejorar la disciplina en el aula, pero las actividades han ayudado a que aquellos que no estaban acostumbrados a participar lo hagan forzadamente porque las actividades los obligan. 3. ¿Crees que los niños tiene habilidades discursivas en relación al inglés que usan en clases? R: No sé si tan así como habilidades, pero creo que han mejorado mucho en sus ganas de querer hablar en frente de la sala, hay algunos que no escriben mucho pero que siempre levantan la mano para poder decir algo para toda la clase.. 54.

(55) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS. Appendix B. Likert scale, Figure 1 Indica qué tan de acuerdo estás con las siguientes aseveraciones: Completamente. Aseveraciones. Mucho. Tal vez. Poco. Nada. Me considero bueno en inglés. Cuando hay que hablar en inglés no tengo problema. Siempre participo en la clase.. Figure 2 Indica qué tan de acuerdo estás con las siguientes aseveraciones: Aseveraciones Completamente Mucho. Tal vez. Poco. Nada. Predominant answer. Me considero bueno en inglés.. 1. 2. 2. 8. 25. Nada: 25 students. Cuando hay que hablar en inglés no tengo problema.. 0. 1. 1. 5. 31. Nada: 31 students. Siempre participo en la clase.. 5. 4. 20. 7. 2. Tal vez: 20 students. 55.

(56) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS. Figure 3 Indica qué tan de acuerdo estás con las siguientes aseveraciones: Inant answerAseveracione s. Completamente. Mucho. Tal vez. Poco Nada. Predominant answer. Me considero bueno en inglés.. 1. 20. 6. 8. 3. Mucho: 20 students. Cuando hay que hablar en inglés no tengo problema.. 8. 15. 10. 3. 2. Mucho: 15 students. Siempre participo en la clase.. 23. 8. 2. 2. 3. Completamente 23 students. 56.

(57) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS. Appendix C Exit Cards Figure 1 Exit Card Nombre: ¿Hablaste Inglés en la Clase? ¿Cómo te sentiste en la clase? ¿Cuánto? ¿Por qué? ¿Por qué?. Figure 2: Students 1 sample. Before and after the intervention. 57.

(58) STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 5TH GRADE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS Figure 3: Students 2 Sample before and after.. Figure 4 : Student 3 Sample:Before and After the intervetions. 58.