SKKN Applying experiential activities in some topics to improve the presentation skill of the 12th grade students at 1-5 Upper Secondary School

ps in the classroom:
3.3. Topic: Future Jobs
Making surveys: Find out the intention of occupation of the members in the group.
*Used in:
Speaking lesson or post- stage
*Objectives:
- Students can use the target language to communicate with their friends and people relating to the topic in order to get necessary information.
- They may discover more about people surround them. Since then, they have make sense and sympathize with everyone.
*Procedures:
- Teacher tells the requirements to the class and makes sure that every student make sense of what to do.
- Learners get a worksheet and the question used in the survey. During implementing the duty, each member takes notes the necessary from the others.
Then students report their result in front of the class. And they can get feedback from the teacher and the class.
The question used during the research is that: “What job do you want to do in the future?”
THE WORKSHEET ABOIT STUDENTS’ JOB INTENTION
Group	
Jobs s
-------- Name
Pilot
Waiter
Policeman
Doctor
Tour guide
Computer programmer


























































































3.4 Topic: Life in the future
Drawing pictures: Imagine the world in the last year of the 21st century
* Used in:
Speaking period and optional lesson
*Objectives:
- Learners can express the thoughts, their feelings about the life in the future through the pictures.
- They also show their own competence of painting.
- This activities stimulates the cooperation among members in a team or a group and they can discuss with each other what words or structure to use in the pictures. Since then, the representatives have constructed the presentation in the class.
*Procedures:
Teacher has students work in groups and draw pictures about “the world in the last year of the 21st century”.
- Students discuss together to imagine and draw the world like their discussion how the world look like in the future. Participants can use the language they have studied in reading passage or their background.
- The time for these activities is 25-30 minutes.
- Each group selects one representative to make a presentation about the content of the picture they drew. ( if the time is not enough for all groups, the left ones will present next periods).
Below are some images about the 12th graders’ activities and their performance
3.5 Topic: Nature in danger
Project work presentation: Making a short video to present measures to protect wildlife animals.
*Used in:
Speaking lesson and optional lesson
*Objectives:
- Students can utilize the useful language that involving in nature and the suggested information of the lesson topic and structures they have learnt fluently.
- They are encouraged to do further study in order to raise the awareness of protecting the environment.
- Learners can express their IT ability as well as presentation skill in English.
*Procedures:
- Teacher has students work in group and make short videos about measures to protect wildlife animals. This can be done in the post- stage of speaking lesson.
- If it is not enough time, students can make their videos at home.
- Students’ videos can be displayed in the optional lesson
- Teacher and the class assess each group’s performance.
Below are some images extracted from one group’s video of class 12A7:
3.6 Topic: Water Sports
Story telling through watching video: Make a brief introduction the information about water polo.
*Used in:
Post- reading.
*Objectives:
- Students will able to remember vocabulary in reading text and apply the useful language in the talk.
- They can have further knowledge about a water sport in the Olympic Games.
*Procedures:
- After getting the target language in reading text, teacher shows a video about a game of water polo and get students to recall the information of this sport. The video can last 3-4 minutes.
- Then each student prepares a talk based on the images and then present in front of the class.
Below are some images of students’ performance:
V. The results of the research
Having applied these experiential activities in the Speaking classes and Poststage of some other lessons, I can find that these activities really bring to my lectures much effectiveness and attract students’ attention to my lessons. This make students eager to prepare the lessons at home and ready to perform their duties. Their usage of the target language appear to be fluent and similar to language in living situations. Most of the learners overcome the barriers of psychology when speaking in the audience. Students become more confident in presenting one issue in the class as they are prepared language with their partners and these activities illustrate the real living and encourage them to use language that relating the topics.
After some lessons applied the experiential activities, I made a survey to find my students’ attitude towards the presentation in English in front of the class. The questionaire used for table 1 is utilized again. The result of the survey shows that students have more positive attitude towards the presentation. Most of the students are not shame when speaking English due to reducing the nerve about making mistakes in grammar, or vocabulary in the process of speaking. The participants use English more when discussing with their partners are provided enough information and vocabulary about the topics before performing.
Table 2: Students' attitudes towards the presentation in English in front of the class after the research:
Attitude
Rate (%)
Being shame when speaking English because they are afraid of making mistakes in grammar, or vocabulary in the process of speaking
32
Being afraid of the teacher and the classmates’ attitude
25
Using Vietnamese when being assigned to work in pairs, groups
57
Not having enough information on assigned topics
21
Shortage of vocabulary, grammar to solve questions related to assigned topics
37
VI. Survey on the necessity and the feasibility
1. Aim of the survey
Through the survey, I confirm the necessity and the feasibility of the experiential activities applied in teaching English for the 12th graders in order to improve their presentation skill. From the result, I can adjust the solutions so that they are suitable with practical teaching in my school.
2. Content and methods of the survey
2.1 The content
The survey pays attention to two aspects of the research:
+ The necessity of the solutions proposed in the research is for the teachers and students during the process of teaching and learning.
+ These solutions are feasible for enhancing the 12th graders’ presentation skill.
2.2 The methods
Doing the survey based on a questionnaire finds out about the necessity and the feasibility of the solutions in applying experiential activities on the purpose of improving presentation skill of the 12th graders. There is a scale from 1 to 4 in proportion to four criteria consisting of:
+ unnecessity (1 point), less necessity (2 points), necessity(3 points) and urgent necessity( 4 points).
+ unfeasibility(1 point), less feasibility(2 points), feasibility(3 points) and really feasibility(4 points).
From the results obtained, I proceed an analysis and process the data on the statistical table that includes number of participants assessing(N0) and points for each scale of a solution(Ps) and, then calculate the total score (£) and the average figure (X) of the solutions that have been conducted in the survey. Then they are ranked in order to comment, evaluate and come to conclusion
3. Scope of the survey
I have carried out the survey with 119 students of the classes 12A1, 12A6, 12A7 and 7 English teachers at 1-5 High School. That the subjects of study is students is divided into 2 major groups: the gifted and good students called group 1 and the average and weak students called group 2.
Table 3: The subjects of survey


Numbers
1
Teachers
07
2
Gifted and good students
67
3
Average and weak students
52

∑
126
4. Results of the survey about the necessity and the feasibility of the
research.
4.1. The necessity of the solutions
Table 4: Results of the survey about the necessity of the solutions

Solutions
Figures
∑
X
Rank
Very necessary
Necessary
Less necessary
Unnecessary
N0
Ps
N0
Ps
N0
Ps
N0
Ps
1
Specific role play
32
128
67
201
17
34
12
12
375
2.98
1
2
Project work presentation
26
104
61
183
24
48
15
15
350
2.78
5
3
Story telling through organizing reading or watching activities
27
108
67
201
25
50
7
7
366
2.90
4
4
Organizing a survey activity
33
132
63
189
20
40
10
10
371
2.94
2
5
Drawing pictures
31
124
64
192
21
42
10
10
368
2.92
3

Overall average
149
596
322
966
107
214
54
54
1830
2.89


The results of the survey are shown in table 4. It shows that the surveyed subjects assess the necessity of 5 experiential activities to improve the presentation skill of the 12th graders at a high scale with overall average of 2.89. Although the subjects have different methods to evaluate the proposed solutions, most of them consider that all 5 measures are necessary. Of these, the activity “ Special role play” is rated the highest rank with X = 2.98, meanwhile the measure “ Project work presentation” is rated as least necessary with X = 2.78. The rests have average scores respectively from X = 2.90 to X = 2.94. The necessity of the proposed measures are relatively equal, the distance of score range among the solutions is not too far (the difference between X max and X min is 0.20). Basing on the parameter from the table, it can be that the solutions of the research are necessary.
4.2. The feasibility of the solutions
Table 5: Results of the survey about the necessity of the solutions

Solutions
Figures
∑
X
Rank
Very feasible
Feasible
Less feasible
Unfeasible
N0
Ps
N0
Ps
N0
Ps
N0
Ps
1
Specific role play
37
148
69
207
13
26
7
7
388
3.1
1
2
Project work presentation
29
116
66
198
22
44
9
9
367
2.91
5
3
Story telling through organizing reading or watching activities
31
124
67
201
23
46
5
5
376
2,98
4
4
Organizing a survey activity
34
136
67
201
18
36
7
7
380
3.01
3
5
Drawing pictures
34
136
68
204
20
40
4
4
384
3.04
2

Overall average
165
660
337
1011
96
192
32
32
1895
3.00


The results of the survey about the feasibility of applying experiential activities to improve presentation skill of the 12th graders are shown in table 5. It shows that the surveyed subjects assess the feasibility of 5 experiential activities rather evenly with overall average of 3.00. The distance of score range among the solutions is not too far (the difference between X max and X min is 0.19), which give the evidence of relative unity in evaluating from the surveyed subject. However, among the proposed measures, parameters have slight differences. The activity “ Special role play” has the highest degree of feasibility with X = 3.10, meanwhile the measure “ Project work presentation” is rated as least feasible with X = 2.91. The rests have average scores respectively from X = 2.98 to X = 3.04. According to the parameter from the above table, the subject groups consider that the feasibility of the topic is rather high.
PART C: CONCLUSION
1. Experience from the research
In conclusion, students' activeness in learning English has become one of the most concerned issues of methodologists and linguistics. Especially, in recent years, there have been many changes in learning and teaching method with the purpose of enhancing students' activeness, creativity and communication ability in the real life situation in English language. Learner- centered approach and communicative approach are more and more emphasized and appreciated. Experiential learning gives an effect, especially for improvement speaking skills of the students and able to show the application of experiential learning it self gives a positive thing from the learning process until the result of learning same as David A. Kolb’s definition.
From the sample speaking lesson, we can see experiential education is “a development of the task-based approach” (Kenney & Savage 1997) [3] in a communicative class. However, tasks alone cannot guarantee the realization of a communicative classroom. Only those experiences related to a theme of the communicative tasks are valuable. The advantages offered by such tasks, however, depend on the behavior of the teacher. Therefore, the teacher has to have specific skills to manage a learner-centered task-based experiential class. For many teachers, experiential learning and teaching is a new area and moving into it from a transmission model requires a great deal of assistance from other teachers who are themselves heavily engaged in “learning-by-doing” classroom action research in their own classrooms. Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to make further research and collect systematic data on experiential learning in communicative classes.
2. Proposals
Suggestions from the researcher, students skill not only refer to changes in value alone, but how these existing skills can develop or changes so that new skills or better skill emerge from before, of course this is obtained from the results of all the hard work of all teachers, students, parents and school. So that in the future these students become the people who have living skills.
*For teachers:
Teachers play an important role in implementation many methods to teach their students. Whatever the method is the failure or success is determined by the teachers. The strategy of teaching and learning is very significant to gain better output. And strategy or learning model is necessary to get good learning outcomes. Hopefully, teachers will apply the interesting learning model in teaching and learning process.
*Students:
From this research, students must be better to utilize their experience into an insight to be able to combine with experiential learning, so as create learning process that fun and more varied.
* Other researchers:
Experiential learning has a very broad scope in teaching and learning process, certainly not only in terms of speaking skill, other research can use or apply in different skills, because experiential learning itself is able to be applied anywhere.
PART D: REFERENCES
1. Tiếng Anh 12 . Nhà xuất bản giáo dục.
2. Thiết kế bài giảng Tiếng anh 12. Chu Quang Bình.
3. Sách Giáo viên Tiếng anh 12. Nhà xuất bản giáo dục
4. Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall.
5. Bound, D., Cohen, R., & Walker, D. (Eds.). (1993). Using Experience for Learning, Bristol, PA: Open University Press.
6. Nunan, D.(2001). Second Language Teaching and Learning. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press & Heinle&heilele/ Thomson Learning Asia.
7. Google.com
APPENDIX QUESTIONAIRE
Investigating Students' attitudes towards the presentation in English in front of the class
Are you shame when speaking English in front of the class?