Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Suhaida Omar
Centre for Language Studies and Generic Development, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, 16300 Bachok, Kelantan, Malaysia
E-mail: suhaida.o@umk.edu.my
The research is financed by the Short Term Grant Scheme (SGJP) under Universiti Malaysia Kelantan.
Abstract
This paper describes the pilot study in implementing a public speaking module for a primary school level. The module
development was structured according to ASSURE Model with the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) as the
basis used in designing the module activities. One group of Year 4 students from an Islamic integrated school was
selected and the research method employed was the quasi-experimental research with pre and post-tests as well as
interviews with the English teachers on the students’ performance and self-confidence. Students were also interviewed
to identify their self confidence level before and after the implementation of the public speaking module. This research
project is hoped to increase students’ oral proficiency along with increasing self-confidence in public speaking at a
young age, and to propose the implementation of this module as reference in primary education.
Keywords: public speaking, primary school, oral proficiency, self-confidence, CLT
1. Introduction
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been adapted in the English language teaching methods in schools
throughout Malaysia and the main focus of this method is written and oral production. Written production is fairly
supported with sufficient resources of reading materials in school; however, oral production is a challenge where
listening input is significantly dependent on guidance from the English teachers. In this stance, English teachers who
have difficulties in providing listening and speaking input for oral production require additional support where
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instructional materials is concerned. In the case of Islamic integrated schools, they are still behind in empowering oral
proficiency among students due to certain factors such as an integrated curriculum still in its developing stages
(Maimun, 2015) and with less-trained English teachers (Ahmad Zabidi, 2005). Therefore, these schools are in need of
organised instructional materials to fully guide its English teachers to deliver proper listening and speaking input to
enhance students’ oral production skills.
The aim of this research is to integrate the CLT principles in designing a public speaking module called ‘Speak-O-
Rama’ to improve oral competency and self-confidence of students in a private Islamic integrated school. There are
three pertinent research objectives, which are:
1) to develop a new module to enhance students’ oral competency,
2) to assess students’ proficiency in oral English through public speaking activities, and
3) to assess students’ confidence in participating in public speaking activities
SPEAK-O-RAMA
PUBLIC SPEAKING MODULE
Communicative competence
development through Confidence building through
implementation of language Task-Based Instruction
function & lexical content
The “Analyse Learners” stage focuses on the recognition of learners’ characteristics and learning style preferences. The
second stage of “State Objectives” requires the teacher to determine the learning objectives and outcomes. “Select
Methods, Media and Materials” entails appropriate selection teaching approaches, media and materials. In the “Utilise
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Media and Material” stage, instructors must plan and implement the consumption of media to the students effectively.
“Require Learner Participation” means that instructors should keep the students actively engaged during the process and
finally the “Evaluate and Revise” stage refers to the instructor’s assessment of teaching and lesson achievements
(Heinich et. al, 2002). Specifically, Table 1 below describes how the ASSURE Model was utilised in this study.
Pre-tests and post-tests were conducted in the form of an individual oral presentation to assess English language
proficiency. There were interviews with the English teachers on the students’ performance and the usefulness of the
materials. Students were also interviewed to identify their self confidence awareness before and after the exposure to
the public speaking modules and activities. Results attained from the pre and post tests were recorded and analysed.
2.2 Research Procedure
The study examined the implementation of the Speak-O-Rama module over a term of 4 weeks which allowed the
students to complete the four main topics under Speak-O-Rama. They went through the module along with their
respective school classmates in the classroom; however, special attention was given to the 6 respondents of the study.
This module was conducted once a week for 1 hour in the English lessons during the students’ school time. Each
session was handled by one English language teacher. Before the initial session, a pre-test in the form of an oral
presentation was administered individually in discrete to gauge the oral competency of the student. After the 4th week
Speak-O-Rama module, students gave an oral presentation in front of their class (post-test) to gauge their oral
competency.
Interviews and presentations of participants were analysed for qualitative data. The four stages are as shown below:
Table 3. Stages of the Speak-o-Rama Module
Week/ Session Objective Stage Outcome
Topic
1 Pre-test Oral presentation
My Family Drilling Students should be able to identify 5 Be able to speak 2
(20 min.) adjectives related to description of people. sentences in front of the
Speaking Students should be able to construct at least 5 class
(20 min.) simple sentences about family.
In contrast, this study used learner-centred approach where the module was designed to incorporate active involvement
from the whole students in the classroom. The activities in the module were established in a comfortable and low-threat
learning environment; students become less anxious and more relaxed. Hence, more students voluntarily participated in
the activities and their oral proficiency improved significantly. Based on the findings, it was found that students’ level
of proficiency increased week by week parallel with the length of text they delivered during the public speaking
activities. This was observed in terms of language components such as vocabulary and the pronunciation they acquired
and also the ability to use the vocabulary they learned from the module in appropriate context through guided exercises.
This study found that students were able to perform all guided language tasks given consistently.
On the one hand this research aimed to identify whether or not the module was able to help increase the students’ level
of oral proficiency of the English language, and the finding has indicated that they showed some improvement
gradually from the first to the last sessions. On the other hand, the use of this module has managed to increase the
number of volunteers among the students which indicated that they have gained some self-confidence along the way.
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