Effects of Picture Narration on Oral Fluency
Effects of Picture Narration on Oral Fluency
In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirement for the Degree
Master of Education in Reading Language & Literature
EDELBERTO S. GALLANO
Page
TITLE PAGE i
APPROVAL SHEET ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
ABSTRACT v
INTRODUCTION 1
Statement of the Problem 2
Hypothesis 3
Theoretical Framework 3
Conceptual Framework 6
Significance of the Study 6
Scope and Limitation 7
Definition of Terms 8
Review of Related Literature
Picture Narration 9
Oral Fluency 10
METHODS
Research Design 12
Participants of the Study 12
Research Instrument 12
Data Gathering Procedure 13
Data Analysis 14
Ethical Consideration 16
TABLE OF CONTENTS CONTINUED
Recommendations 18
REFERENCES 21
APPENDICES
This study sought to determine the effects of picture narration to the oral
fluency of Grade 11 students taking up Accountancy and Business
Management track of Cabacungan National High School Senior High
Department during the School Year 2018 - 2019. Respondents of this study
were the thirty (30) Grade 11 ABM students who were officially enrolled
during the said school year. The study employed the descriptive method
which was categorized as pretest – post-test design. Gathering of data was
done by administering a pretest and post -test by means of delivering an
opinion on a given topic. The researcher asked the help of an inter -rater to
score the answer of the students using a researcher -made rubric. Processing
of data was done with the use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences
(SPSS) software. The data were analyzed according to the research problems
presented in the statement of the problem. The mean was employed to
determine the effects of picture narration to the oral fluency among Grade 11
students; paired t-test was utilized in finding whether or not significant
difference subsists in the level of oral fluency before and after the
intervention using picture narration. The level of oral fluency obtained in
pretest was beginning with mean values in all areas of 2.25. After the post
test, the level of oral fluency obtained was still beginning, however the mean
values in all areas increased with 3.48. Comparing the result of pretest and
post-test, it revealed that there was a significant difference in the oral
fluency level of Grade 11 ABM students.
INTRODUCTION
In an era where English language is being globalized, people are often judged
by the way they speak the language. Therefore, poor speakers are tagged as
incompetent and uneducated. Hence, these speakers experience social isolation among
the natives or the good speakers of English, face employment difficulties and find very
limited opportunities for higher studies. People should not only know the language
well, but must know how to use it communicatively also, in order to interact with the
English speakers. Singh (2005) says that for gaining basic command of the language, a
teacher must: favor such teaching program that meets the L2 learners’ specific needs:
use such teaching activities which the learners think are useful for them; follow such
approach in teaching that has flexibility. (p. 18) Further, the author states that if
responsibilities not only between a teacher and students, but also among students.
communication must be the means of learning” (as cited in Singh, 2005, p. 26). It is
considered that if students get the opportunity to develop fluency in the English speech
while they are pursuing their academics, it would really be a very beneficial effort for
extensive and intensive levels. Based on Brown’s teaching principles, extensive and
intensive forms of instruction may lead to monologues and rhymes respectively,
where learners go over certain forms of the language. Furthermore, he states that
describing pictures can be an ideal activity to begin the class because learners focus
on content. In addition, they are likely to learn new topical or content vocabulary and
grammar through teacher scaffolding during this activity (as cited in Lavalle, et.al,
2017, p. 4).
Oral fluency is a very important academic skill that every students should
develop especially for Senior High School students. Their oral fluency will be a gauge
of their academic
the use of picture narration and its effects to the development of oral fluency of Grade
School. Moreover, the researcher will also identify methods of picture narration to
This study aimed to determine the effects of picture narration to the oral fluency
1. What is the level of oral fluency of Grade 11 ABM students before the
a. pausing;
b. phrasing;
c. stress;
d. intonation; and
e. rate?
2. What is the level of oral fluency of Grade 11 ABM students after the intervention
in terms of:
a. pausing;
b. phrasing;
c. stress;
d. intonation; and
e. rate?
4. What learning plan could be proposed based on the findings of the study?
Hypothesis
Theoretical Framework
Paivio (1990), images and words had different cognitive presentations; therefore, the
brain used separate memory systems for different types of information. He stated that,
verbal memory is rotated to language system, while image memory includes graphics
and tastes. Paivio indicated that, verbal information is acquired from sensory memory
to visual processors. The question here was to what extent has the secondary subject
teachers improved on improvising visual learning aids for the achievement of quality
education? This study helped to enlighten on this issue. Paivio’s dual-coding theory
was appropriate when referring to the retrieval of information from memory systems,
this theory claimed that memory is set up as a network with different paths, verbal and
image that lead to the same information. Paivio concluded that, the more path ways
Visuals have been an important component of the language classes over the
years. To be exact, the use of visuals aids for presenting, training, and teaching
languages has been around since the 1920s – 1930s, consisting mainly of film strips,
pictures, slides and pass-around objects. They have been considered a useful tool for
teachers in almost every trend of second language teaching. Such was an impact of
visual materials that several universities have even created catalogue of visual aids
that traced the history of using visual literacy and visual education. In continuation,
we were providing a brief overview on the use of visual aids throughout the history of
the language teaching. Probably, the Direct Approach was the first one to give
importance to the use of visuals in the language classroom. This teaching method,
which became popular at the 20s - 30s of the last century, enhanced the use of the
avoid the mother tongue. The use of tape recordings and picture slides gained special
importance in the 1950s - 1960s with the rise of the Audio-lingual method in the
USA. Based on Skinner´s behaviorist theory, it claimed to provide students´ with best
models to imitate native speakers. Also in the 1960’s, French Scholars developed the
Audio-visual method. This method considered that audiovisual technology is a great
manipulation and action in order to imitate the way 1L is acquired. Teacher’s words
The emphasis of fluency has kept on changing with the emergence of different
teaching methods over the years. A brief study of various teaching methods that has
focused, as students are asked to show a “high standards in translation” (Richards and
Rogers, 1986, p.4). During this era, speaking and listening are given due importance.
Accuracy in pronunciation and grammar is much emphasized and the use of mother
tongue is avoided.
learning and aims at effective communication. This method is flexible in its approach
helps the learners is accepted. In this method, teaching language at developing fluency
where the dependent variable was the Oral Fluency skills; pausing, phrasing, stress,
intonation, and rate. The independent variables were Grade 11 ABM students of
Cabacungan National High School and the Picture Narration as the intervention. The
researcher had to come up with an Action Plan to help improve the oral fluency skills
of students.
Pre-Interven Post -
tion Level in Intervention
Oral Fluency Level in Oral
Fluency
a. Pausing
Intervention a. Pausing
Grade 11 b. Phrasing
ABM b. Phrasing Action
c. Stress Picture Plan
Students
Narration c. Stress
d. Intonatio
n d. Intonation
e. Rate e. Rate
language is oral fluency. While some students find it easy to read words and sentences
but some find it challenging to speak from one’s own words, deriving meaning,
stringing words together to create sentences, and ultimately, creating a narrative. This
to determine some factors that hinder students in developing their oral fluency and
speaking.
them achieve their goals of high literacy goals. Also, when the students in the school
have high oral fluency performance, it will reflect on the school’s academic
Teachers. This study will benefit teachers by making them aware of the
factors that affect the oral fluency development of their students. In addition, this
study will help them design classroom activities that could help enhance the oral
Students. This study will help students develop their oral fluency through
picture narration.
studies that are meaningful and could contribute to the improvement of using picture
This study was primarily focused on the effects of picture narration to oral
National High School during the school year 2018-2019. Furthermore, it identified
Definition of Terms
varies the voice in tone, pitch and volume to reflect the meaning of the
read with accuracy, speed, and appropriate expression (Rasplica, C. Cummings D.,
2013). Operationally, oral fluency is a measure of how well and how easily someone
Pausing. Conceptually and operationally, refers to the way the speaker’s voice
is guided by punctuation (for example, short breath; full stop with voice going down
tool to enhance the oral fluency of an individual. This helps students to organize ideas
delivers a statement—not too fast and not too slow. The speaker moves along steadily
with few slow-downs, stops or pauses to solve words. If the speaker has only a few
short pauses for word solving and picks up the pace again, look at the overall rate.
This chapter reviewed theories that support this research. It consists of concept
of speaking, aspects of speaking skills, teaching speaking, the use of picture series in
teaching speaking, retelling story, retelling story using picture series in teaching
Picture Narration
According to Karsono (2014), “the use of pictures could enhance the students'
speaking ability. Mostly, the students could improve their fluency, content,
after seeing their friends' performance. Dealing with teaching speaking by using
pictures, the students’ participation made improvement because it can reduce the
students' boredom and problem in speaking. They were not shy anymore because they
speak to the big group. They were enthusiastic and encouraged to learn English
the benefits of the visual medium, and incorporating graphic elements into our largely
only more effortless to recognize and process than words, but also easier to recall.
When words enter long-term memory they do so with a single code. Pictures, on the
other hand, contain two codes: one visual and the other verbal, each stored in different
places in the brain (Paivio). The dual-coding nature of images allows for two
independent ways of accessing visual memories, increasing the odds of remembering
at least one of them. But not all images are created equal. Research has shown that we
Meyer). And just as we recall pictures better than concrete words, we also remember
concrete words better than abstract ones (Reed 48). If we really want others to
remember something, we should use words and pictures together. Because we store
visual and verbal memories separately, we have the best recall when we are able to
Oral Fluency
regarded as a natural outcome of language teaching and learning. One of the major
feature characterizing the level of speaking skills which manifests itself in the
learner's ability to speak freely, without unnecessary pausing and with the prosody of
speech, syntax and vocabulary range comparable with those characteristic of the
and the effort needed to deploy and synchronize the cognitive resources needed to
initiate and sustain speech production is reflected in the degree of smoothness and
rapidity of a learner’s oral performance. Different potential temporal markers of
fluency have been put forward to differentiate between more and less fluent speakers
and speech samples. It has been argued that a fully comprehensive fluency
measurement battery should incorporate the following aspects of speech: time filled
with speech vs silence, the speed of speaking, dysfluencies and repair phenomena and
(Koponen & Riggenbach, 2000; Skehan 2003, p. 8). However, there has been little
fluency. Depending on the definition, methodology and the goals of a study, a wide
The literature and related studies presented dealt about issues concerning on
how pictures and visual media affect the speaking performance of students. It was
stated that students may increase their level of interest in speaking when were
Research Design
This study used a descriptive research design which was based on the
This method was called a one group pretest-posttest design. It only included one
group of subjects (no experimental group and no control group), and subjects were
randomly design. In this research, the writer used two kinds of test; a pretest and a
posttest. It could be assumed that this research method was pre-experimental method
The purpose of this study revealed and described the use of picture narration
The participants of the study were the thirty (30) Grade 11 – ABM students of
number of the students enrolled were limited only to thirty (30), the researcher
conduct of the study will be the inter-rater who will help the researcher in quantifying
the level of the oral fluency of the students before and after the conduct of the
intervention.
Research Instrument
To gather the data needed in this study, the researcher used a rubric to measure
the oral fluency of the students. The rubric was validated by three highly competent
jurors. They were tenured and respected faculty members of Cabacungan National
High School. Whom one is the English Coordinator, the other one is the Oral
Communication instructor of the Senior High School Department and the last one is a
Instrument number one (1) is a set of thirty (30) questions for pretest and
instrument number (2) is another set of thirty (30) questions for post-test. This was
events or situations that served as motivational activity before the actual class
discussions start.
After the validity and reliability tests had been conducted, the participants
were introduced to the treatment for one month. During pretest and posttest activities,
the researcher was assisted by a teacher who also taught English at CNHS as his
inter-rater. A inter-rater played an important role in action research that was necessary
for the researcher to use his services to observe the teaching and learning process,
students' responses, teachers' method, and anything that happened in the classroom.
it, then they gave their own opinion/answer where they were rated by the teacher
along with the inter-rater. After knowing the pre-intervention level of the oral fluency
the intervention program. Ten (10) students per day had the chance to be shown a
picture, analyze the picture, and narrate a scenario. This was conducted for one
month.
After four (4) weeks, each participant had five (5) times exposure to the
program. They were then subjected to the same drill in pretest where the researcher
The researcher then measured whether there was a significant difference in the
level of the students’ oral fluency when pre-intervention and post-intervention data
are assessed. The result helped the researcher into analyzing the effectiveness of the
Data Analysis
To interpret and analyze the data gathered from the study, the following
For problems one (1) and two (2), an oral fluency rubric was used. The rubric
had to determine the level of oral fluency of students in terms of pausing, phrasing,
13.01 - 15 Advanced
10.01 - 13 Proficient
4.01 - 7 Developing
0-4 Beginning
described as follows:
himself/herself fluently and spontaneously; can use the English language flexibly and
effectively for different purposes; can produce clear, well-structured ideas showing
Proficient. An advanced student means that he/she can understand the main
ideas of a complex question on both concrete and abstract topics; can interact with a
degree of fluency and spontaneity; can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of
understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly
encountered; can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or
personal interest; can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes and ambitions,
and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.
immediate relevance (e. g. basic personal and family information, shopping, local
Beginning. An advanced student means that he/she can understand and use
such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows, and things he/she has; can interact in
The three measures of central tendencies (Mean, Median, and Mode) were
utilized as point of reference for the pre-intervention oral fluency of the students.
Same statistical tool was also used to measure the post-intervention oral fluency of the
students. After post-intervention were data were collected, it was correlated to the
two variables.
To measure for significant differences, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used
Ethical consideration
around conducting research, schools go to great lengths to protect the dignity and
taken into account to ensure that the study was conducted in an appropriate manner
in the research. The participants therefore willingly participated in the study after they
were approached by the researcher (Leedy, 2000; Neuman, 2000) and the research
purpose and process were explained to them. While it was common practice to request
written consent, Silverman (2009) states that highly formalized ways of securing
formally conduct the study. Furthermore, a parents’ consent was also given.
The purpose of the study was explained to the participants, thus information
This chapter is aimed to find out whether any difference between the use of
Cabacungan National High School. This chapter presents the result of research
findings which is intended to answer the problem of the study and research
discussion. This chapter is divided into three tables: the level of oral fluency before
the intervention, the level of oral fluency after the intervention and the significant
difference in the oral fluency level before and after the intervention. For this case, the
Table 1 shows that the level of oral fluency before the intervention was
beginning when taken as a whole (M = 2.25, SD = 1.66). Among the areas of oral
fluency the pausing (M = 0.70, SD = 0.43) has the higher mean value, followed by
0.34) and intonation (M = 0.30, SD = 0.31), however the level of oral fluency before
The data were collected from the students’ pretest score. The result of the
pretest provides information about oral fluency. The areas on the scoring which were
used in this test were pausing, phrasing, stress, intonation and rate.
Based on the data presented in Table 1, it can be seen that the level of
proficiency in all areas of oral fluency were beginning. It showed that the students’
oral fluency was low. Therefore, the researcher used picture narration as the treatment
Though it was shown that among the areas, pausing has the higher mean
value. However, stress and intonation had the lowest mean value. This was due to
limited exposure of students to native English speakers as well as lack of casual
same innate processes that are used to acquire their first language from the first days
of exposure to the new language in spite of their age. They reach developmental
stages to those in first language acquisition, making some of the same types of errors
without knowing precisely what each word means, and relying on sources of input
humans who speak that language-to provide modified speech that they can at least
Table 1
Table 2 presents that the level of oral fluency after the intervention was beginning
when taken as a whole (M = 3.48, SD = 1.82). Still, the level of oral fluency of the
participants of all areas was beginning after the intervention. However, the mean
values of all areas increases, where the area of phrasing (M = 1.08, SD = 0.46) has the
Though the level of proficiency still beginning, the score of the posttest
compared with the pretest showed that the students’ scores increase significantly after
they got the treatments. The significant increase of the students’ score also showed
This was to conform on the result of the study of Madiun that stated, “it can be
improving not only the students’ participation in the teaching learning process but
also the speaking ability of the students in terms of retelling a story or in this case,
students’ score and their interest in learning English. The use of media (picture series)
really assisted both the teacher and the students. They facilitated students’ learning
activity that made the activity more interesting. The success was indicated by the
achievement of the criteria of success which deal with the students’ involvement in
Table 2
Utilizing the paired t-test, table 3 illustrates that there was significant difference
in the level of oral fluency of grade 11 ABM students before and after the intervention
The data presented in table 3 showed that there was a significant difference in the
level of oral fluency of Grade 11 ABM students after using the picture narration as
intervention.
In regard to the use of media (picture series), they really helped both the teacher
and the students. They facilitated students’ learning activity that made the activity
more interesting. It can be seen that the students enjoyed some activities and they
Table 3
Significant difference in the oral fluency level of Grade 11 ABM students before and
after the intervention using picture narration
Pretest Post test df t-ratio p-value
2.25 3.48
Oral Fluency 29 9.280** 0.000
(1.66) (1.82)
Note: p < 0.05**, there was significant difference
CONCLUSION
This section presents the conclusion drawn from the results of this study. A
Appendix A.
This research confirmed that Picture Narration is one of the techniques or tools
that can be applied for enhancing oral fluency. The technique can help the students
increase and empower their oral fluency in every day conversation. There was
significant difference in the level of oral fluency of grade 11 ABM students before
and after the intervention using picture narration. It was proven by the paired t-test
results after the intervention. Therefore, the Picture Narration is an effective tool for
Besides, the students who were taught by using Picture Narration had better
performance in their oral fluency areas, pausing, phrasing, stress, intonation, and rate.
Based on the average scores for each oral fluency areal the Grade 11 ABM students
got significantly higher average scores on the post-test, especially in phrasing. So, it
can be concluded that the five oral fluency areas were better taught by using Picture
Narration.
Recommendations
The findings of this study had some implications for the teaching-learning oral
fluency to the Grade 11 ABM students of Cabacungan National High School. It was
clear from the results that the Grade 11 ABM students’ oral fluency was improved.
Therefore, the study has the following recommendations with regard to the
development of oral fluency to the English teachers, the school principal, and the
future researchers. English teachers are recommended to utilize the technique in the
story-retelling technique can be applied to teach some genres such as recount and
narrative, because it is a natural way to learn a new language where people always tell
especially speaking, and conducts the events such as story retelling using picture
learning English. The school principal can supply the materials to make some media
that can be used in teaching-learning activities like the materials for making picture
narration. To the future researchers, particularly those who are interested in applying
action research or other designs on the use of this technique in the teaching of other
language skills, for instance listening and writing and also other types of genre.
REFERENCES
Bashir, Marriam, et.al (2011). Factors Affecting Students’ Speaking Skills, British
Book, Marja Leena, et.al (2015). Photo - Narrative Processes with Children &
Guz, Ewa (2015). Establishing The Fluency Gap Between Native and Non -
University of Lublin.
Kurniawan, Eri, et.al (2018). The Effect of Narrative Structure and English
Lavalle, et.al (2017). The Study of the Use of Picture Description in Enhancing
Indonesia.
Rossiter, Marian, et.al (2010). Oral Fluency: The Neglected Component in the
Appendix A
Action Plan
Appendix B
Rubrics/ Research Instrument
Appendix C
Good and Scates Validation Form
Appendix D
Letter to the Principal
Appendix E
Letter to the Class Adviser
Appendix F
Pretest - Post test Intervention Questions
Appendix G
Picture Narration Material
Appendix H
Photo-Document
Appendix I
Curriculum Vitae