Developing communication ability with ER and Multimedia Assisted Resources (Disney story books and animation)

Abstract

Introduction As speaking ability plays an important role in communication, many EFL/ESL teachers set speaking activities such as a group discussions, and employ various teaching methods such CLT (Communicative language teaching) or TBLT (Task-based language teaching). This effort, however, does not always mean successful speaking classes in Korean educational environment, remaining students silent. Without a clear goal and comfortable atmosphere, students can become speechless. Activities aimed at promoting learners’ fluency need to be relevant to learners’ knowledge, experience, and motivation (Scrivener 1994 p149). If teachers build intrinsic motivation for oral production, speaking classes would be more successful. Intrinsic motivation, which refers to learning with self-driven effort and interest in tasks, relates directly to learners’ positive attitudes toward learning (Ur 1996). Therefore, it is vital to provide learners with interesting content. The purpose of this portfolio is to provide interesting content with a series of Disney story books as a boosting source for communication in Korean EFL classrooms. This book will encourage students to build a good reading habit and motivate them to actively engage in the tasks communicating each other and developing all the four language skills (speaking, writing, reading, and listening). The target audiences are learners aged 13 in afternoon school program in Korean primary schools. According to ACTFL, their proficiency level would be intermediate. Thus, in terms of reading and writing, they are able to understand simple message and control basic sentence structures and verb forms. For speaking and listening, they can successfully deal with uncomplicated communicative tasks in straightforward social situations. Most of them have been studied English for over five years in communicative language learning situations with native speakers or bilingual teachers at their schools and private institutes. Method To create intrinsic motivation, according to Ur, it is important to provide interesting and attractive information with the language. Thus, this textbook will employ ER with Communicative language teaching (CLT) to offer interesting content for drawing learners’ active participation in language learning classrooms. A majority of teachers still stick to intensive reading concerning of insufficient comprehension though, many researchers shows the positive effects of ER on second language learning such as Kreshan who defined ER as ‘free reading’ (1997). They showed that students read long texts for pleasure autonomously, building a good lifelong reading habit. In addition, according to Day and Bamford, some extensive reading activities contribute to developing oral fluency (Day and Bamford recited by Baker 2008). Teachers, although, can ask students to research on what they like to read, giving them something interesting to speak, this book will use a series of Disney story books which is familiar for most of students. In addition, the animation movies as a supportive resource to get students more engaged in the content will be used. Since the most important feature of ER is constant exposure to meaningful language and get students including less motivated readers hooked on reading, Disney animations and songs in them as multimedia resources would be a good way to draw learners’ interest, possibly generating immediate engagement (Rost 2002 p 151). If teachers use songs in language teaching, it can bring enjoyment into the classroom, weakening affective filters (Khamels, M 2006), though the authentic language input should fit to students’ proficiency level ahead. Expected outcome This textbook will contribute to motivating students to be engaged in communication classes with interesting and familiar content (A series of Disney stories), providing them chances to have their own ideas on what they read to share with their peers. In other words, it may bust their willingness to participate in activities in language classes. It will be possible to develop learners’ all four skills using this textbook equipped with the video clips and songs captured from the animations especially listening skills. This multimedia assisted resource could contribute to effective listening because they are well aware of what they are going to listen to, more naturally comprehending more information. Through studying with this textbook, students will autonomously read books not only for in-class activities but for their pleasure outside classrooms. In accordance with using ER and multimedia related resources for developing intrinsic motivation, classroom management also could promotes oral production during speaking activities such as giving prizes for students’ achievement and assigning roles for each student during role plays or group discussions, promoting their active participation. Conclusion In Korean educational environment, reading activities give a priority to amount of information gained from the text focusing on grammar and vocabulary though, it is important to see the significant effect of ER on language learning. Although, it does not always result in mastery of English for all or generate measurable language gains, it is needless to say that extensive reading surely guarantees at least enjoyable language learning experience (Renandya 2007). Developing intrinsic motivation with well-designed activities and interesting content could encourage students to speak out during speaking classes, leaving the classroom atmosphere joyful. This way contributes to students’ attempts to speak out, breaking the silence.