Improving Oral Proficiency
AN ACTION RESEARCH REPORT
IMPROVING STUDENTS’ ORAL PROFICIENCY THROUGH ASSOCIATED WORD LIST AND MIND MAPPING
INTRODUCTION
Background
Speaking is a communication skill that enables a person to verbalise thoughts and ideas. It is one of the four skills that our students should be able to acquire after years of learning English in primary and secondary schools. In some schools, speaking would not be a problem as it has become their medium of communication. For other schools such as the school that I am teaching, getting the students to open up their mouth or to speak is a great challenge. They would either pour out the memorised text copied from reference books or give a one-word or a two-words answer or responses during class discussion or in their oral presentation.
After the students have learned English for almost 10 years, I strongly believe my students have acquired some vocabulary or words to speak but they just do not know how to get started. The words and phrases that they have are not sort out or organised. Thus they were unable to make use of them to speak or in their oral presentation. I also believe arranging the words and phrases in a mind map would make them see order or flow.
The Teaching Context
My sample consisted of two form four Matahari of low proficiency (LP) students in a school that is categorised by the Ministry of Education as a rural school even though it is located 7 kilometres away from the Melaka town centre. It was established in 1990 and has 46 classrooms. It has a pupils’ population of 1570; 1426 are Malay, 82 Indian, 61 Chinese and 1 of other race. They are mainly from middle- to lower-income families. The students’ parents are mostly factory workers, lorry drivers and small scale businessmen.
Most of the LP students in my schools, especially the ones in 4 Matahari said that speaking was really difficult. They almost never use English in class or in their daily
IMPROVING STUDENTS’ ORAL PROFICIENCY THROUGH ASSOCIATED WORD LIST AND MIND MAPPING
INTRODUCTION
Background
Speaking is a communication skill that enables a person to verbalise thoughts and ideas. It is one of the four skills that our students should be able to acquire after years of learning English in primary and secondary schools. In some schools, speaking would not be a problem as it has become their medium of communication. For other schools such as the school that I am teaching, getting the students to open up their mouth or to speak is a great challenge. They would either pour out the memorised text copied from reference books or give a one-word or a two-words answer or responses during class discussion or in their oral presentation.
After the students have learned English for almost 10 years, I strongly believe my students have acquired some vocabulary or words to speak but they just do not know how to get started. The words and phrases that they have are not sort out or organised. Thus they were unable to make use of them to speak or in their oral presentation. I also believe arranging the words and phrases in a mind map would make them see order or flow.
The Teaching Context
My sample consisted of two form four Matahari of low proficiency (LP) students in a school that is categorised by the Ministry of Education as a rural school even though it is located 7 kilometres away from the Melaka town centre. It was established in 1990 and has 46 classrooms. It has a pupils’ population of 1570; 1426 are Malay, 82 Indian, 61 Chinese and 1 of other race. They are mainly from middle- to lower-income families. The students’ parents are mostly factory workers, lorry drivers and small scale businessmen.
Most of the LP students in my schools, especially the ones in 4 Matahari said that speaking was really difficult. They almost never use English in class or in their daily