User:Litzy84/review

My Second Article Review
Lizeth Enriqueta Palafox Limones Aguascalientes, Ags. Saturday October 7th 2011

Review of Mohd Hilmi Hamzah & Lu Yee Ting, "Teaching speaking skills through group work activities"

How can teachers make ESL students (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia) speak in English by using oral group work activities? The problem of communication in English class is common in ESL students, because of the students' level or because of the fear of being the butt of everyone's joke. One of the purposes is to know and to apply the effectiveness of using different teaching techniques in speaking skill, for example; using group work in teaching speaking, teachers would notice or realize the problems that students face while speaking a second language (English).The students have different problems while speaking in English, one of them is the lack of vocabulary; the students do not know much vocabulary, so they do not try to speak in English during the classes, and the students’ insecurity while applying a second language (English).

To keep their fears away the researchers explained three different objectives; Hamzah, M. and Yee, L. (2005) “(a)To examine the issues of students’ speaking in an ESL classroom. (b). To identify the students’ perspectives with regards to their involvement in oral group activities. (c). To determine the potential implication of group work activities on the students’ individual performance in speaking assessment.” When the objectives are achieved they will help to the others researchers to realize the students’ strengths. The researchers show that students work better and they learn better of their mistakes than the correct ones. , Hamzah, M. and Yee, L. (2005) “To distinguish their strengths will increase learning, planning and discussion skills and eventually improve their speaking capabilities”. This refers how the students learn better, and how we can apply their knowledge by being involved as participants and decision- makers in speaking activities.

The researchers will develop natural ways in speaking activities by reading some studies and investigating. To get this natural ways using the different activities make students to speak in English, the result was as the researchers expected, they realized that learners speak better in small groups, by expressing their personal experience. Hamzah, M. and Yee, L. (2005) “Using oral group work was more student-centred and effective in getting every student to be involved in the tasks” (p.5).The students spoke very fluent and clear, the researchers gave different ways of teaching speaking. The explanations of the study and the results were very clear, and the research was complete. That will help to the other researchers to give clear ideas about what others researchers have and can do to encourage students speak in English.

The methodology that the article has is integrated in some study cases, in order to get better results and perhaps to give more complete conclusions. Speaking is a very hard skill to teach, but If the teacher or researcher looks for some different strategies, they could find them and they will help them in their teaching or researching. Some researchers can take many advantages if they are looking for speaking activities to get better results with their students. It is very useful If the researchers and teachers want to improve their strategies or techniques for their students.

References

Hilmi, M. and Yee, L. (2009) “Teaching speaking skills through group work activities.” Retrieved from  http://eprints.utm.my/10255/2/Lu_Yee_Ting.pdf

My First Article Review
Lizeth Enriqueta Palafox Limones Aguascalientes, Ags, Tuesday 13th September, 2011 Academic Writing

Review of Nur Dwi “Improving the Students’ speaking through story Joke Technique” Dwi, N. (2010) “Improving the Students’ speaking through story Joke Technique” (A classroom action research at eighth grade of Junior High School)

'''This thesis (action research) refers to the English language, as the most important language worldwide. It says that people have to know why English language is necessary'''. For instance, it refers to four main aspects; communication, jobs, field in the profession, science and technology. English language has become the most important language around the world, people from different countries have to learn it as a second language, and most of the Universities in Mexico have asked students to learn English as a second language. When it is implied the necessity of the language, the thesis refers to a certain problem while learning English. Speaking is one of the weakest skills for learners in 8th grade of junior high School.

How does the researcher improve the students’ speaking skill through the story joke at Junior high School? When learners have some problems in speaking teachers try to d something meaningful in their teaching, or make something different and innovating to encourage their students to speak in English. Most of the times when students are in Junior high school is very difficult to encourage them to speak in English. That’s why this thesis reflects how a story joke can limit that afraid of speaking.

Students enjoy when someone is saying a joke, they speak, they laugh at each other when someone makes a mistake while saying a joke, and students feel more comfortable and confident with their classmates. Moreover this makes more linked the relationship among students and teachers. A story Joke is Nur, D. (2010) "A Joke is a short story or ironic depiction of a situation ommunicated with the intent of being humorous" This technique could help the students at eighth grade of junior High School to speak in English during the classes. The article has information could help resercher to revise their action reserch, in order to improve it or just to check it as a guide during the activity.

While applying the research finding and analyzing, the observation which has noticed was that the students have a lot problem in intonation and pronunciation. So the researchers apply other strategy and they notice other factors that occurred and limited the students’ learning. For instance, the cycle number 1, the students had to talk about the topic " Do you know?" by woring in pairs, the researcher was observing the class and he realized that students had many problems in pronunciation. Cycle number 2 the stduents worked in pairs, they read together a dialog, and then they translated it, the reseracher was their guide during the activity, the researcher noticed that they students were more interested in the activity and they improved their pronunciation. And the last Cycle 3 students were more motivated to speak by reading some short story jokes.

To conclude this thesis helps to other researchers to improve their objectives through some activities similar to this action research or to try to apply different techniques in order to get the same or different objectives. When a cycle was applied the researcher was improving his objectives, but some of them were not achieved as he had expected. One of them is that students still have lack of confidence among them and their teacher. By reading this conclusion, some teachers figure out how their conclusions in their action researches will be, If they were improved or they were just appropiated for that moment. This article gives a clear idea of some researchers' studies how it can wor or how it can not. The aricle is a very clear example of how and action research could be better.

'''Check the criteria for this assignment; that is, you were to write a four paragraph article review. Make the changes and I'll review.'''

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