Title

Attitudes towards learning English through short stories in Hong Kong: a case study

Author(s)

Chan, Lai-yee;

Citation

Issue Date

2011

URL

http://hdl.handle.net/10722/133214

Rights

The author retains all proprietary rights, (such as patent rights) and the right to use in future works.

Attitudes towards Learning English through Short Stories in Hong Kong: A Case Study

Submitted by Chan Lai Yee B.A. (Hons) CityU; PDED. CUHK; M.S.Sc. UniSA.

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics at The University of Hong Kong March 2011

Abstract of dissertation entitled Attitudes towards Learning English through Short Stories in Hong Kong: A Case Study
Language arts have become more and more popular in Hong Kong, especially after the introduction of the School-Based Assessment component in the HKCEE in 2007 and the New Senior Secondary curriculum in 2009. It is hoped that students have a chance to be exposed to a variety of authentic materials through language arts electives. This study aims to explore the attitudes of Hong Kong senior secondary students towards the elective Learning English through Short Stories. In addition, this study attempts to find out things students learn from the elective and their favourite activities that build up their enjoyment in the lessons. The sample of the study consists of 39 F.4 students, 11 boys and 28 girls, from a CMI secondary school in Hong Kong. The instruments used are a pre-teaching program questionnaire, a post-teaching program questionnaire, students journals and three group interviews in order to achieve the aims of the study. The results in this study reveal that students are inclined to show positive attitudes towards the elective in which they can enjoy their English lessons. They also reveal that students believe they improve their English in different aspects such as vocabulary, grammar, the four language skills, communication skills, collaboration skills and learners autonomy. However, there are still worries about the preparation for the public examination as part of the total class time is devoted to the elective.

Submitted by Chan Lai Yee B.A. (Hons) CityU; PDED. CUHK; M.S.Sc. UniSA. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics at The University of Hong Kong March 2011

Declaration I declare that the dissertation represents my own work, except where due acknowledgement is made, and that it has not been previously included in a thesis, dissertation or report submitted to this University or to any other institution for a degree, diploma or other qualifications.

_________________________________ Chan Lai Yee March 2011

Acknowledgements Special thanks and deep appreciation to Dr. Lillian Wong, my dissertation supervisor, who greatly inspired me and guided me undertaking this dissertation. I am also grateful to Dr. Max Hui Bon Hoa for his invaluable comments in the roundtables. Finally, my gratitude is also extended to my students who had taken part in the study and Mr. Chan Chi Keung, my English panel chair, for his help in the process of data collection and analysis.

Chan Lai Yee March 2011

Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction.p.1 1.1 Background to the study..p.1 1.1.1 The Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE)....p.1 1.1.2 The School-Based Assessment..p.3 1.1.3 The situation of the school investigatedp.4 1.2 Purpose of the research.p.5 1.3 Organization of the study p.7 Chapter 2: Literature Review.p.9 2.1 Definitions of language arts.p.9 2.2 Definition of attitudes..p.13 2.3 Reasons for learning English through short stories.p.16 2.4 Past studies on students attitudes towards language arts in Hong Kongp.19 Chapter 3: Methodologyp.25 3.1 Research questions......p.25 3.2 Research design...p.25 3.3 Participants......p.28 3.4 Data collection....p.28 3.4.1 Pre-teaching program questionnaire.p.29 3.4.2 Post-teaching program questionnaire...p.32 3.4.3 Journal writing..p.33 3.4.3.1 The first journal after the first five lessonsp.34 3.4.3.2 The second journal after the last lesson.p.35 3.4.4 Three group interviews p.35 3.5 Data analysis..p.38 3.6 The teaching program..p.39 Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion..p.42 4.1 Enjoyment of language arts lessons....p.42 4.1.1 Listening to songs or music .....p.45 4.1.2 Drawing pictures..p.46 4.1.3 Watching films.....p.48 4.1.4 Group work..p.49

4.1.5 A variety of activities..p.51 4.1.6 Level of difficultyp.53 4.1.7 Things students dislike doing..p.55 4.2 Usefulness of language arts...p.57 4.2.1 Vocabulary...p.58 4.2.2 The four language skills...p.60 4.2.3 Preparation for examination or HKDSE.p.62 4.2.4 Imagination and creativity..p.63 4.3 Further findings..p.64 4.3.1 Brighter students versus weaker studentsp.64 4.3.2 Interest of studentsp.66 Chapter 5: Conclusion..p.68 5.1 Summary of major findingsp.68 5.2 Pedagogical implicationsp.71 5.3 Limitations of the study..p.74 5.3.1 Small sample size.p.75 5.3.2 Problems in collecting data..p.75 5.4 Suggestions for further studiesp.76 5.5 Last words...p.79

Chapter One: Introduction

This chapter gives a general view of the development of language arts in the English curriculum in secondary schools in Hong Kong and the introduction of the language arts electives in the New Senior Secondary curriculum, followed by the purpose of this study.

1.1 Background to the study 1.1.1 The Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE)
Starting from the academic year 2009-2010, eight electives are included in the English subject in the New Senior Secondary (NSS) curriculum in Hong Kong. They are Learning English through Drama, Poems and Songs, Popular Culture, Short Stories, Debating, Sports Communication, Workplace Communication and Social Issues. The first four of them are language arts electives while the latter four are non-language arts. Senior secondary students are required to take three of the electives, including one elective from language arts and one from non-language arts. The electives are included in the writing paper (Paper 2) of the public examination called Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education

Examination. According to the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (2009), 15% of the total marks of the English subject will go to Part B of the writing paper which is related to the eight electives. Candidates need to do an open-ended writing about one of the eight electives. Therefore, it seems that language arts have become more and more important in a Hong Kong English language classroom. What students learn about language arts may affect their results in the English subject of the public examination.

Secondly, as mentioned in the Curriculum and Assessment Guide (2007: 10), teachers are advised to spend nearly 25% of the total lesson time (about 100 hours) on teaching the electives. It is hoped that students really perform better in the English subject if they learn English through language arts. Since students need to spend more time on language arts, it will be hard for them if they do not enjoy the lesson. The study tried to find out whether senior form students enjoy their English lessons with language arts. Since it is newly implemented, it was hoped to find out the attitudes of students towards learning English through language arts. With the introduction of language arts in the curriculum of the English subject, it may be crucial for students to develop positive values and

attitudes in the area of language arts (ibid: 1).

1.1.2

The School-Based Assessment

According to the SBA Handbook (2009), the school-based assessment was first introduced in the 2007 CE English Language Examination. It seeks to provide a more comprehensive appraisal of learners achievement by assessing those learning objectives which could not be assessed in public examinations before the introduction of this component whilst at the same time enhancing the capacity for student self-evaluation and life-long learning. The SBA, like the rest of the New Senior Secondary Curriculum in the new public examination HKDSE, adopts a standards-referenced reporting system which seeks to recognize and report on the full range of educational achievement in Hong Kong schools (p.8). Besides this, 5% of the subject total will go to Part B of the School-based Assessment and this part is also related to one of the eight electives mentioned earlier.

The SBA component consists of two parts. Part A is a reading or viewing program in which students read or view four texts compassing print, non-print, fiction and non-fiction materials over the course of three years. Students need to

keep a log book of comments or personal reflections, and then take part in a discussion with classmates or make an individual presentation on the books, videos or films that they have read or viewed, and respond to questions from their teacher, which will be derived from the students written notes or personal responses or comments in their logbook (p.8). With reference to the recommended list suggested by the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority for the SBA assessment, story books belong to the text type print-fiction.

1.1.3 The situation of the school investigated

As the school investigated in this study has chosen Learning English through Short Stories among the four Language Arts electives, this study may bring some insights into how students perceive the elective Learning English through Short Stories to the English teachers of the school on how to make improvements in the future. Furthermore, in the first term of this academic year 2009-2010, the researcher was the only teacher responsible for designing materials for the module Learning English through Short Stories. Since this year was the first year for her school to implement the elective, everything in the elective was new to the

students and teachers in the school. Through this study, the researcher could get some feedback from the students of the school in order to modify the whole teaching package for the next academic year.

1.2 Purpose of the research

There has been different research on students attitudes towards learning English through language arts. Chan (2006), Choi (2006), Chan (2007), Ho (2007), Kwok (2007), Lee (2007), Tang (2008), Cheung (2009) and Poon (2009) have done their studies on different language arts genres such as poetry, short stories, films and drama. The participants of these studies were junior form students. They found that most junior form students enjoyed learning language arts in their English lessons as they did not face the pressure from public examination in Hong Kong. Li (2003), Ng (2004) and Ho (2005) have done their research on senior form students but they did not focus on short stories. The language arts genres they investigated included films, songs, short stories, poetry and TV documentary. most senior form students thought language arts were a waste of time and not useful for them.

Among all of these researchers, only Choi (2006), Cheung (2009) and Poon (2009) tried to focus on students attitudes towards stories, including short stories and novels. However, as it was mentioned earlier, they did their research on junior form students only. Would there be the same or similar results if the focus was put on short stories only instead of involving other language arts at the same time? Furthermore, with the actual implementation of the New Senior Secondary curriculum in which language arts components are included, would the senior form students investigated have the same attitudes as those in the past research? Would they think that language arts lessons wasted their time when it is a must to study language arts in their English lessons since 2009? It seems inevitable for Hong Kong students to learn something related to language arts regarding the local education system. Thus, this study aims to find out the attitudes of senior form students who are the first batch of students to sit the public examination called HKDSE in 2012 towards learning English through short stories in the first year when the implementation of the NSS curriculum has started.

According to DeHaven (1988: 505), evaluation is very important to effective teaching and learning in a language arts program. Through appropriate evaluation,

strengths and weaknesses of the program can be identified objectively. Through this study, the results may help evaluate the teaching program designed for the target school and help make improvements in the curriculum design in future. It is also hoped that the students of the school investigated can learn from the program designed for them and enjoy their learning in their language arts lessons. The research questions of the study are (1) how do senior form students perceive learning English through short stories? (2) what do they think they have learnt from their short story lessons? (3) what kinds of activities do they enjoy most in their short story lessons?

1.3 Organization of the study

In this chapter, the background and the purpose of the study have been mentioned. The next chapter is about the definitions of some key terms in this study, reasons for using short stories in an English classroom and past studies done on similar topic in Hong Kong. Chapter 3 describes the research design and the methodology employed in this research. Chapter 4 analyzes and discusses the data collected from different instruments like questionnaires, journals and group interviews. Finally, the last chapter, Chapter 5, gives the summary of the major

findings, pedagogical implications, limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies.

Chapter Two: Literature Review

This chapter starts with the definitions of key terms language arts and attitude followed by the discussion of the reasons for learning language arts through short stories and the findings in the past studies related to language arts in Hong Kong.

2.1 Definitions of language arts

According to Bromley (1998: 3), the meaning of language arts comes from the definition of languageLanguage arts includes all the various ways that learners make and share meaning, and an effective language arts program is one that expands the communication potential of all learners. It agrees with what Tiedt, Tiedt & Sisney (2001: 6) say, language arts include reading, writing, speaking and listening. They involve the four language skills. However, language arts are not confined to these four language skills only. They also include viewing and visually representing (Farris, 2005: 8; Henn-Reinke & Chesner, 2007: 22). In fact, language arts involve communication process in which different ways of expression and reception can be found. Learners may write their ideas on pieces of paper or on their electronic devices like computers, mobile phones, and so on. For viewing and visually representing, learners need to interpret or present visual

images in order to make communication clear and messages sent through them.

As Maley (2007) asserts, Traditionally, Literature (with a large L) has tended to be thought of as the best writing produced in a given language or society, and this collection of approved works has constituted the literary canon deemed by authority to be fit to study (p.180-181). For example, people need to study the work of famous writers like Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Their best or most beautiful pieces of work are under Literature with a large L.

However, as Maley (2007: 181) points out, these classical texts are usually overburdened with linguistic, historical and cultural baggage. After years of debate about literature to be used in language classroom, Literature with a large L has expanded to include other representational texts that open up, call upon, stimulate and use areas of the mind, from imagination to emotion, from pleasure to pain (Carter and McRae, 1996: 172). These texts which require the reader to re-create in his or her own terms the imaginative world of the text (ibid: 182) are under the literature with a small l as claimed by Carter (1996: 7).

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All the language arts electives in the New Senior Secondary curriculum may be referred to as literature with a small l encompassing all types of texts which may be anything from a road sign to an example of modern architecture communicating a message without words (McRae, 1991: 2). It (literature with a small l) includes advertisements, jokes, puns, newspaper headlines, examples of verbal play: all these are texts which use language in ways which could be said to be literary or have elements of literariness inherent in them (Carter, 1999: 7).

When compared with Literature with a large L, literature with a small l is easily approachable and easily available for students. Even though a text may take on a multitude of meanings, the primary purpose is to communicate verbally or non-verbally and convey meanings. When teaching literature, whether with a small l or large L, the teachers ultimate aim is, presumably, to develop in the students the ability to read and understand the meanings embedded in the language and contexts of a wide number of text types, and to encourage in them an interest in reading English which will motivate them to choose and read texts independently, with understanding and enjoyment (Carter & McRae, 1996: 141-142). Students may get both knowledge and enjoyment in reading story

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books.

Teaching literature is different from teaching English through literature. The main difference is the objective. If teaching language is the objective, it is usually found that literary texts are used as just one among many other kinds of texts (Maley, 2007: 181). On the other hand, if the object is to teach literature, literary texts alone are the object of study, and they are studied for their literary qualities (ibid: 181). Therefore, when English is taught through short stories, English is the focus in a teaching program and short stories are the texts chosen in which samples of language patterns, grammar, vocabulary, and so on, can be found and explained to learners.

Through literature, it is hoped that learners may develop their cultural awareness, language proficiency, critical abilities and personal growth when learning English (The Curriculum Development Council and the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment, 2007: 2; Maley, 2007: 182). Viewers of texts may know more about the culture of a country through language arts. It is similar to what Bromley (1998: 93) says, Literature show children how others live and

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have lived, developing within them a better understanding of themselves and others. From different stories, learners may understand and appreciate the cultures and ideologies that are different from their own time and space. They may perceive different traditions of thoughts, feeling and literary from the stories. Furthermore, they may have their own personal enjoyment and emotional gain when reading a text.

In this study, language arts refer to literature with a small l which can be approachable and available to students without any difficulties. Using them, students are allowed to make use of their imagination and creativity and express their feelings towards them freely.

2.2 Definition of attitudes

According to Oxford Advanced Learners English-Chinese Dictionary (2008), attitude means the way that people think and feel about somebody or something or the way that people behave towards somebody or something shows how they think and feel. In fact, attitude is an abstract concept and a common term used by social psychologists. Attitudes consist of affective, cognitive and

13

behavioral responses (Pratkanis, Breckler & Greenwald, 1989; Bohner & Wnke, 2002). That means peoples attitudes involve their feelings, thoughts and behaviour. It seems that all these elements are interrelated. As Harren (2004) claims that a positive attitude may help people succeed while a negative one may lead people to failure (p.ix). In this study, it is hoped to explore how students feel and think towards learning English through short stories as their attitudes may lead to success or failure in learning in the elective.

According to Bohner & Wnke (2002: 13), attitudes may influence peoples behaviour on three different levels: individual, interpersonal and societal. On the individual level, as mentioned above, a persons attitude may affect his or her own behaviour. If people are in favour of something, they tend to approach it easily. On the other hand, they may do something against it if they have negative attitude towards it. On the interpersonal level, people of similar attitude tend to get together easily and they may also affect each other. Therefore, peoples attitude may affect that of their peers. On the societal level, attitudes of different groups of people may lead to harmony or conflict in society. If people having positive attitudes get together, they may help build the positive atmosphere and

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vice versa. Therefore, if most of the students have positive attitudes in their language arts class, this may create a positive learning atmosphere in the classroom.

Since it is not simple to measure attitudes and there is no direct way of measuring it, we have to infer peoples attitudes by their words and actions (Henerson, Morris & Fitz-Gibbon, 1987). If the attitudes of a group of people are measured accurately, it may help predict their future behaviour because the concept of attitude may be a tool to see what people think and do consistently. However, attitudes may not last forever and people may change their attitudes from time to time. People studying attitudes should be aware of this. Attitude may be affected by complex factors like feelings, thoughts and beliefs of people. As Henerson, Morris & Fitz-Gibbon suggest, there are four approaches for evaluating attitudes: self-report, report of others, sociometric procedures and records (1987: 22). As an attitude does not stand still forever, it is difficult for keeping consistency (Henerson, Morris &Fitz-Gibbon, 1987: 11). Therefore, people who study attitudes may need to keep measuring attitudes from time to time to see if changes in attitudes happen.

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2.3 Reasons for learning English through short stories

Wheeler (2001:35) claims that stories may be any piece of writing relates events which are fictional. With reference to Fisher (2006: 2), In every language, and in every culture, stories are the fundamental way of organizing human experience and understanding the world. The use of stories has long been recognized as a valuable means of developing literacy with children. As Bromley (1998: 93) suggests, Good literature possess unique language that truly delights the senses and develops the knowledge of children who read it ... Through stories, children may know how other people around the world live and have lived. It may help develop a better understanding of themselves and the world around them. This may enrich their life experience. This is why some stories are always passed from the old generation to the young generation (Wheeler, 2001:36).

Furthermore, students may experience the drama and excitement of stories and can see many issues, dilemmas, and struggles through stories (White, 1993: 1). Stories have their valuable profound pedigree. Good stories may create a possible world as an object of intellectual enquiry. With their polysemic nature, the possible layers of meaning and interpretation they contain, stories can be made

16

challenging. As Fisher (2006) also advocates, the fantasy element of stories allows children to reflect more clearly on real experiences through powerful imaginary experience. A story is created to be enjoyed, but if it is a good story it challenges us to interpret and understand it (p.2). Every reader is unique and has his or her own interpretation of a story or its underlying meanings. Thus, stories have their values and are worth learning. Students may make use of their imagination and interpretation when they read from line to line of a story.

Basically, as suggested by Sage (1987: 43), there are at least three benefits in using short stories in ESL (English as a second language) curriculum. First of all, they are short. This makes students reading task and teachers coverage easier. Secondly, short stories are universal. It is because readers all over the world have experienced stories and can relate to them. Thirdly, short stories contribute to the development of cognitive analytical abilities. Students may enrich their experience and interpret life through reading books.

It was found that people with high levels of communication apprehension have a marked tendency to avoid public speaking, whereas people with low levels

17

of communication apprehension demonstrate the opposite tendency (Liu & Jackson, 2008: 71). When students are anxious, they are usually silent in class, especially in their speaking activities. In some cases, they may skip classes or postpone their homework. If students are anxious, especially those who learn English as a foreign language (EFL) or English as a Second Language, may choose to remain silent and are unwilling or less willing than other students to take part in speech communication in class. Since they are silent and unwilling to speak the language in class, they become more anxious.

As Liu and Jackson suggest (2008: 82), It may be useful for EFL teachers to help increase students self-perceived competence in English to improve their learning of the language. With the implementation of the NSS electives and the SBA component, students will be encouraged to take part in classroom activities and given more chances to speak in front of their classmates through their discussion with their partners or their own individual presentation. Besides this, stories also have the power to motivate unenthusiastic and unmotivated students to engage in an unfamiliar discipline and to learn to take their own responsibility for learn as storytelling is a means of engaging people (Miley, 2009: 358).

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Short stories are a kind of authentic text students may find easily in their daily life. They are often adopted for appropriate language use (Mok, 2001:4). There is the importance of using authentic texts in language learning and language use (Little, 1997: 225). They may be natural and easily approachable to learners. They should not be alien to students. In fact, authentic texts are ordinary texts not produced specifically for language teaching purposes but they can provide meaningful exposure to language as it is used typically (Tomlinson, 2001: 68). Teachers or curriculum designers should think about how to make good use of these texts in education. Furthermore, stories usually contain information about the real world, so students can benefit from exposure to different stories which may help them link their learning to the real world outside their classroom (Marsh, et al, 2003: 519).

2.4 Past studies on students attitudes towards language arts in Hong Kong
Several studies about language arts have been done on junior and senior secondary students in Hong Kong. It was found that all the responses were positive and most of the students were interested in language arts. They thought

19

the activities were enjoyable (Ng, 2004; Choi, 2006; Cheung, 2009; Poon, 2009). The studies done by Choi (2006), Cheung (2009) and Poon (2009) focused on junior form students towards short stories and the Ng (2004) did her research on senior form students towards language arts including poetry, films and stories.

As for the F.3 students in the study done by Choi (2006), they commented language arts lessons could build up a relaxing learning atmosphere in their English lessons. The F.2 students in the research done by Cheung (2009) enjoyed the language arts lessons and valued the rich context created by the literary text. The F.1 students in Poons (2009) study described language arts activities as enjoyable and both the low and high achievers found the language arts lessons useful. Ng (2004) found that the F.4 students in her study commented that the language arts activities were enjoyable but were not as useful as grammar exercises.

A study was done on 33 F.3 students who came from a CMI Band 3 co-educational school about their perception of using language arts activities in teaching short stories. Choi (2006) reported that students enjoyed the short story

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lessons but were worried about examination and their progress. This was shown from her data collected through questionnaires, journals and four individual interviews. She found that high achievers thought it was not an efficient way to learn English through short stories while the low achievers put interest as their priority in their learning.

The participants in Ngs (2004) study were three F.4 English teachers from a CMI school. She did interviews, class observation and questionnaires in order to get the ideas of what students perceived language arts from the point of views of their teachers. One teacher she investigated tried to use poems in her English lessons while the other two tried films and stories (both long and short ones) respectively. Most of the F.4 students expressed that TV, videos and films were the most enjoyable among all the language arts they learnt. She also found that most students thought language arts were enjoyable, however, not as useful as grammar exercises and examination practices.

In Cheungs (2009) study, 38 female students from a F.2 class were investigated in order to find out the effectiveness of integrating language arts into

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a language classroom. Research instruments like journals, video-taped observation and group interviews were employed. She proved that stories could help vocabulary building and extend students linguistic knowledge. Besides these, the language arts lessons could also help students develop their cognitive, meta-cognitive, social and affective strategies in their learning process. However, what teachers expected might be different from what students perceived.

Poon (2009) did a study on a F.1 class in a CMI co-educational secondary school. The number of participants was 42, including 21 boys and 21 girls. She focused on story books and collected data through journals, questionnaires and interviews. She found that both high achievers and low achievers found the language arts activities enjoyable and useful as they did not have the pressure from public examination. She also pointed out that their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills improved and they could make use of generic skills such as critical thinking, communication and collaborative skills in the language arts lessons.

Even though most of the students in the past studies mentioned above found

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language arts interesting and enjoyable, junior and senior form students tended to have different views about its usefulness. Most senior form students thought that language arts lessons were not as useful as their conventional English lessons and grammar exercises (Li, 2003; Ng 2004). Most of them were worried about their progress and thought that it was a waste of time studying language arts which were not involved in their examination. This might be because of the pressure senior form students got from the public examination they were going to take.

It seemed that most studies were done on junior form students about different language arts genres such as poetry, stories, films and dramas. Few studies were done on senior form students focusing on short stories only. Therefore, this study tried to explore the perceptions of a class of F.4 students who were the first batch to sit the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination in 2012. Furthermore, among all the studies mentioned above, it was found that most researchers used questionnaires, journals and interviews to collect data for their studies.

Generally speaking, it is believed that short stories may benefit students in

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their language learning. The part that follows gives details of the whole research design and the procedure taken in data collection and analysis.

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Chapter Three: Methodology

This chapter gives details of the setting of the research, design, participants of this study and the instruments employed to answer the research questions mentioned at the following part of this chapter.

3.1 Research questions

This study aims to find the attitudes of senior form students towards language arts focusing on whether short stories are useful to them. The research questions of the study are as follows: i. How do senior form students perceive learning English through short stories? ii. iii. What do they think they have learnt from their short story lessons? What kinds of activities do they enjoy most in their short story lessons?

3.2 Research design

This study was primary research as the data collected came from primary source such as responses from questionnaires, journals and group interviews (Brown, 1998: 2). Besides this, it was also action research as it was conducted by

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the classroom practitioner (the researcher) investigating some aspects of her own teaching practice. One of her aims of doing the research was to make changes and improvement in teaching and learning in the classroom where the study was conducted (Nunan & Bailey, 2009, 17). The researcher of this study was responsible for designing materials and tasks for the elective Learning English through Short Stories for the New Senior Secondary curriculum in the school investigated. It was hoped that amendment could be made to the teaching package with reference to the results from this study in order to help students in the school investigated to learn from the elective Learning English through Short Stories in future.

In order to find out the attitudes of students towards English short stories, the research was done in a CMI co-educational secondary school. It was a Band 2 government-aided school. A 10-day teaching program on short stories was carried out within 10 consecutive school days in May 2010. Before the program started, all the participants took the pre-teaching program questionnaire on their perception of short stories before the teaching program. During the teaching program, they had to finish two journals (one after the first five lessons and the

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other one after the last lesson). After the teaching program, nine students were invited for group interviews. There were three different students for each group interview which was follow-up interview for more details about the information obtained from the post-teaching program questionnaire. The interviewees came from three different levels, including the brightest, average and the weakest. Therefore, there were an interview of the brightest group, one of the average group and one of the weakest group.

Since different research instruments were used, triangulation was involved. This helped bring many points of view from multiple perspectives to the analysis of data collected (Nunan & Bailey, 2009: 163). According to Bailey (2001: 118), there are four different types of triangulation. They are data, theory, researcher and methods triangulation. This study involved methods triangulation as multiple methods such as questionnaires, journals and interviews were used to collect data. This could enhance credibility with multiple points of view and different data sets.

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3.3 Participants
In the school investigated, there were five classes in F.4 and students were classified according to their English proficiency. The class chosen was the best among the five classes this academic year (2009-2010). First of all, the participants of this study were the only F.4 class whom the researcher taught. It was for convenient sampling as it was easy for her who did not teach any F.5 or F.6 students to collect data. Secondly, being the top class in the form, they were confident in using English to answer questions in the questionnaires, journals and interviews. Therefore, it was hoped that all the students in this class, even the weakest students, might have no problem in using English. The students came from 4A. There were 39 students, including 11 boys and 28 girls. Their ages range from 15 to 16. The school is a Band-two CMI co-educational secondary school. All the F.4 students in this school had to finish reading some story books for the School-based Assessment by the end of the second term in July 2010.

3.4 Data collection

In this study, three different data collection instruments were used to collect data: questionnaires to all the participants before and after the teaching program

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designed for the study, journals written by all the participants in the middle of and after the teaching program and group interviews with some of the participants in June 2010. The data collected from the questionnaires would be both quantitative and qualitative while the data from the journals and group interviews would be qualitative. The data would then be analyzed according to the types of opinions and categories. In the process of data collection, introspection was involved. As Nunan & Bailey (2009: 285) explain, introspection is the process of observing and reporting on ones own thoughts, feelings, motives, reasoning processes, and mental states. In this study, journals and interviews were used to find out what the students thought about language arts.

3.4.1

Pre-teaching program questionnaire (Appendix I)

A pre-teaching program questionnaire was given to all the F.4A students in their English lessons at the beginning of May 2010 in order to collect their general views of and attitudes towards short stories before the teaching program. Furthermore, the data from the pre-teaching questionnaire would be used to compare with the data from the

29

post-teaching questionnaire so as to see if there were any changes in the views and attitudes of students towards short stories after the teaching program. The pre-teaching program questionnaire was written in English with Chinese translation orally by another teacher, Mr. Chan, who was responsible for distributing and collecting questionnaires from 4A students. This procedure was to make sure that all the students understood all the statements and questions. The purpose of involving the third party was to ensure that students could answer all the questions freely. Without the presence of their English teacher who was also the researcher of the study, students might not feel pressure in answering questions.

This questionnaire was designed to gather students ideas towards short stories when they had not got any input related to short stories before the teaching program. Thus, the questionnaire was simpler than the post-teaching program questionnaire. It took students about 15 minutes to finish all the items. The results from the questionnaires would be viewed after the second term examination of the school when all the results in the examination were computerized for the school reports. The data from the

30

pre-teaching program questionnaire would be used for designing specific questions (see Appendix V) for the group interview after the teaching program.

There were two parts in the pre-teaching program questionnaire (see Appendix I). For the first part, students needed to respond to 14 statements about their reading habits and their expectation on short story lessons with five different rating scales, namely Likert scales, ranging from strongly agree (5), agree (4), neutral (3), disagree (2) to strongly disagree (1). In this part, they did not need to write any English words but to tick appropriate boxes as their answers only. With the closed items, students can respond to the questionnaire very easily and quickly (Nunan & Bailey, 2009: 131). For the second part, there were six different open-ended questions towards different language arts. This part allowed students to express freely about the reasons for their choices. Their answers would be used to compare short stories with other language arts electives.

As

Henerson,

Morris

and

Fitz-Gibbon

(1987)

state,

using

31

questionnaires may have different advantages. First of all, they may be given to many people at the same time, so it may save time (ibid: 29). As a group of people can be given the same questionnaire in the same situation at the same time, it may assure uniformity. Furthermore, it may increase the chances of getting honest responses as it permits anonymity. People may feel free to answer questions and express their beliefs or feelings. With attitude rating scales, questionnaires can be analyzed and interpreted easily.

3.4.2

Post-teaching program questionnaire (Appendix II)

After the whole teaching program, another questionnaire was distributed to the students in order to collect their views and ideas about learning English through short stories. The procedure was the same as that in finishing the pre-teaching program questionnaire. Students were given the questionnaire to finish and collect in their English lessons. It could make sure that all the questionnaires distributed would be collected successfully even though students were allowed to leave their questionnaire blank. As mentioned in the previous part, the results from the

32

post-teaching program questionnaire might be used to see if there were changes in students attitudes after the language arts program.

There were two parts in the post-teaching program questionnaire (see Appendix II). The first part was similar to the first part of the pre-teaching program questionnaire. Students were given statements with five different rating scales to choose. In this part, there were four different sections including class activities, coursework, assessment and learning. The questionnaire would focus on what students had done during the teaching program. The second part consisted of 11 open-ended questions for detailed answers to support the first part of this questionnaire. The post-teaching program questionnaire aimed at getting their views and ideas about short stories after their learning experience.

3.4.3 Journal writing (Appendix III) Students were asked to write a journal after the first five lessons and another one after the last lesson of the teaching program. Guided questions were given. For instance, they were asked to write about things they had learnt in the lesson,

33

interesting or difficult things they found in the lesson and what they wanted to learn in future. It was hoped that more details about their attitudes would be obtained from their journal writing. In their journals, they might freely express their ideas, thoughts and feelings towards the short story lessons as their reflection.

To make comparison among the brightest, average and weakest students easily, both the first journal and the second journal collected from the students would be categorized into three different patches with reference to the students results in the English subject in the first term examination (see Appendix IV). The same method was employed when inviting students for the group interviews. Detailed explanation was included in the next part about the group interviews.

3.4.3.1 The first journal after the first five lessons In this journal, students were asked to answer four questions related to what they learnt in the short story lessons, the interesting things or difficult things they found in the lesson, what they expected to do or learn in future and their feelings about their short lessons they had attended. For the last question, they did not need

34

to write but draw a picture to represent their feelings.

3.4.3.2 The second journal after the last lesson There were three parts in this journal. The first part was about their feelings towards the short story lessons and the second part was about their feelings towards learning English through short stories. The last part was their overall comments on learning English through short stories. Since students would become impatient when they were asked to write a lot of words in class, they were asked to write down some adjectives or phrases as their answers.

3.4.4 Three group interviews

After the analysis of all the questionnaires, nine students from the class were invited to group interviews near the end of June 2010 when their second term examination results were released and computerized. That could make sure that the students did not feel pressured as their responses would not affect their examination results.

Students were selected according to their results in the English subjects in

35

the first term (Appendix IV). Students were categorized into three groups, including the brightest, average and weakest, according to their total marks for the English subject in the first term examination. The maximum mark was 200. The lowest mark was 102 while the highest mark was 159. Three students, including one boy and two girls, from each group were invited for the group interviews. Totally, three group interviews were organized and 9 students were invited. The brightest student whose mark was 159 and the weakest student whose mark was 102 were not invited to attend any group interviews as it might be obvious for the interviewees how the students were chosen. The interviewees were chosen according to their English ability in order to find if there were any differences among the high achievers, average students and the low achievers.

Furthermore, in order to have a spread of different ability students, the students of positions 2, 3 and 4 were chosen from the brightest group while the students of positions 36, 37 and 38 were chosen from the weakest group. Regarding the average group, the students of positions 19, 20 and 21 were invited. The interviews were conducted in Cantonese. In this way,

36

students might feel at ease to express themselves freely in their mother tongue and with the students of similar ability having the group interview together. Each group interview lasted about 20 minutes to 30 minutes and was held after school in the English corner where there were sofas and cushions to make all the interviewees feel comfortable. They were audio-taped, transcribed and translated into English. The aim of the group interviews was to get more supporting details about the findings from both the pre-teaching program questionnaire and the post-teaching program questionnaire.

Since interviews are face-to-face meetings, the interviewer may be free to pursue interesting responses if he or she thinks it is useful (Henerson, Morris & Fitz-Gibbon, 1987: 25). He or she may make judgments on whether the respondents have enough knowledge and understanding to answer certain questions. This may allow flexibility in getting information he or she needs. It may be better than using questionnaire in collecting data because people usually express themselves more easily in speaking than in writing. It is, however, more time-consuming than using questionnaires as

37

interviews may collect ideas from only a small group of people at one time.

3.5 Data analysis

The research instruments employed in this study involved different methods of analysis. For the pre-teaching and post-teaching questionnaires, the results were tallied and presented in terms of numbers and percentages. About the journals, meanings were condensed and categorized to enhance data presentation and comparison. For the data from the three group interviews, responses were transcribed into English. The responses from different groups of students were compared to see if they have different or similar views towards short stories.

In order to maintain objectivity in the process of data analysis, an English teacher who did not teach the class was invited. He (Mr. Chan) was also the teacher who helped set and distribute the pre-teaching and the post-teaching program questionnaires to the students. With his help, it could help assure the validity of the instruments. With his presence to replace their

38

English teacher, it could make sure that students were not forced to answer questions unwillingly and there answers came from their own ideas. The results of the first part of both the pre-teaching and the post-teaching program questionnaires were tallied and converted into percentage. Then, they were tabulated for easy reference and comparison.

3.6 The teaching program

The summary of the 10-day short story program is shown in the table below (Table 1). There were 10 55-minute lessons. The program focused on ten features of a story. They were atmosphere, theme, genre, opening, setting, characters, climax, resolution, plot of story and ending. In the program, all students needed to read the same book named Madame Doubtfire. There were enough copies of books provided by the school for the whole 4A class. Students needed to read the story book bit by bit, do different kinds of class activities and finish some worksheets throughout the ten days.

39

Table 1: The scheme of work for the 10-day short story program from 10th May 2010 to 24th May 2010 Lesson 1 2 3 4 5 Steps Play the song Tears in Heaven (by Eric Clapton and Will Jennings) which shows love from a father Analyze the atmosphere created in the song Play a piece of music from the film Madame Doubtfire and ask students to comment on the music Tell students to create atmosphere of a story without music Show the cover of the book Madame Doubtfire Ask students to describe the main character on the cover Tell them to guess the theme and genre of the story Ask students to read Chapter 1 of the book and have a discussion on the setting and opening of the story Tell them to underline the words that were used to describe the setting Ask students to read Chapters 2 3. Tell them to talk about the character they like or dislike Let them have a discussion on how to be a good father or mother Ask students to read Chapters 4 5. Tell them to find out the climax of the story and how problems are solved Ask students to read Chapters 6 7. Give them a worksheet of blank film frames and ask them to draw pictures about the plot of the story Ask students to predict the ending of the story Let them finish the last two chapters of the book Instruct them to change the ending of the story Choose some students from the class to play the roles of different characters of the story Ask students to prepare questions to interview the characters
40

Features atmosphere

theme genre

opening setting

characters

climax resolution plot of story

ending

characters

9 10 -

Tell them to write an advice letter to the main character, Daniel Let students choose a scene from the story and have a role play on it Ask students to write their own story with the features they have learnt Tell them to design the cover / poster of their own story book plot of story

The whole teaching program finished at the end of May 2010 and all the data were collected before the end of Jun 2010. After collecting and analyzing all the data, the results were explained and discussed in the next chapter.

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Chapter Four: Findings and Discussion

Through the instruments in this study, namely the pre-teaching questionnaires, the post-teaching questionnaires, students journals and the three group interviews, data were collected in order to answer the research questions: 1) How do senior form students perceive learning English through short stories? 2) What do they think they have learnt from their short story lessons? 3) What kinds of activities do they enjoy most in their short story lessons? The data were analyzed and are discussed in this chapter with regard to students perception towards Learning English through Short Stories. To answer the above research questions, students enjoyment in the short story lessons would be discussed first in terms of that they liked or enjoyed doing in the language arts lessons and the usefulness would be explained in terms of what students thought they could learn or gain in the process of learning through the language art.

4.1 Enjoyment of the language arts lessons

Generally speaking, the responses from the students were positive and most of them thought the language arts lessons were enjoyable. Some of them preferred these kinds of lessons rather than the conventional English lessons. It was similar to the findings in the past studies in Hong Kong such as Li (2003), Ng (2004), Ho (2005),

42

Chan (2006), Choi (2006), Chan (2007), Kwok (2007), Tang (2008), Cheung (2009) and Poon (2009). These researchers found that both junior forms and senior form students enjoyed the language arts lessons.

First of all, according to the results from the pre-teaching program questionnaire, more than half of the students (20 out of 39) thought that they would enjoy learning English through short stories. The mean score towards the statement was 3.4 whereas the maximum score was 5. When looking at the post-teaching program questionnaire, similar result could be found. The mean score towards the statement I enjoyed the English short stories lessons was 3.3.

Table 2: Students enjoyment of learning English through language arts

Statements from the two different questionnaires Strongly Agree (5) No. of Students (%) Agree (4) No. of Students (%) Pre-teaching Program Questionnaire 12. I will enjoy learning English through short stories. 13. I enjoyed the English short story lessons. 2 5.1% 1 2.6% 18 46.2% 18 47.4% 14 35.9% 16 42.1% 5 12.8% 2 5.3% 0 0% 1 2.6% Neutral (3) No. of Students (%) Disagree (2) No. of Students (%) Strongly Disagree (1) No. of Students (%) Mean Score

3.4

Post-teaching Program Questionnaire

3.3

Apart from the questionnaires, similar results were found in students second

43

journals. When students were asked to use adjectives to describe their feelings, most of them wrote down positive words like delighted, full of fun, good, happy, excellent, positive, great, bravo, fantastic, very good, etc (for details, see Appendix XIII).

Furthermore, evidence could also be found from the group interviews including the brightest group, average group and the weakest group. When students were asked whether they enjoyed their short story lessons or not, the following quotations were found (for details, see Appendix VI):

Yes, I enjoyed them very muchThere were different elements involved. (A3 from the brightest group) Yes, because there were various types of class activities. The lessons were different from our traditional English lessons. (B2 from the average group) Yes, I enjoyed it very much. (C1 from the weakest group)

From the post-teaching program questionnaire, students responses towards the statement I was interested in most of the class activities were quite positive. 22 students out of 39 agreed with it and the mean score was 3.5. Then, what kinds of

44

activities did they enjoy most throughout the whole program? In order to find out the factors that made up of students enjoyment, what they liked or enjoyed doing would be further elaborated in the following with reference to the data collected from the different instruments used in this study.

4.1.1 Listening to songs or music

The responses from students first journal (for details, see Appendix XII) showed that most of them enjoyed listening to the song Tears in Heaven (see Appendix VIIIa) in which some basic features of stories were found. The teacher used this song as the introduction to the key features of stories, including characters, setting, atmosphere and ending. This, in fact, aroused students interest in the short story lesson. The following were the quotations from some of their journals: Responses from the brighter group: I think listeningtothesong can make the lesson more interesting. I think listening to songs is a great idea Responses from the average group: I can listen to the song Tears in Heaven. I think it is goodI think it is meaningful

45

What I found interesting in the lessons is that I can listen to a nice song Responses from the weaker group: I am interested in the lesson of listen ing to the song Tears in Heaven. I enjoy listening to the music. And our classmates make fun. I think listening to the song is fun and interesting.

Apart from the journals, the interviewees in the group interviews also expressed similar ideas when they were asked about the most enjoyable activities in the program: I think listening to songs was the most enjoyable and it was good for practicing our listening skills. (A3 from the brightest group) Listening to a song, it was interesting. (C2 from the weakest group) It seemed that most of the students, whether the brighter or the weaker, enjoyed listening to the song in their short story lessons.

4.1.2 Drawing pictures

Besides listening to songs, drawing pictures was also popular among students. Some positive responses from students journals could prove it:

46

Responses from the brighter group: Things I found interesting in the lessons are to draw a character well and act as the characters from the book. I love singing song and drawing picture, so I have fun through these two parts. Responses from the average group: The interesting thing was that I had drawn a funny picture of a character. I want to draw more pictures and listen to more songs in future. Responses from the weaker group: I think the most interesting thing is drawing pictures because it is a special thing. Drawing a picture of a character is entertaining. Further support from the group interviews: Drawing pictures was the most enjoyable. We might work with our classmates in groups. (B3 from the average group) Designing a poster (was the most enjoyable). (C3 from the weaker group)

As it was found by Poon (2009: 46), students attention could be drawn by

47

attractive and fascinating pictures. And it was also claimed by Mok (2001: 6) that learners imaginative and creative skills could be promoted through language arts.

4.1.3 Watching films

In the program, a small part of the film Madame Doubtfire was played in one of the short story lessons as it was the same title of the book students needed to finish in the teaching program. It was hoped that the film might help them understand the story plot better and arouse their interest in reading the book. It turned out that most students enjoyed watching that small part of the film and they wanted to watch more films in future. Firstly, from the students journals: I want to watch the movies of the short stories in future because I think watching movies will be more interesting than reading books. (The brighter group) We can watch some films about some stories. (The average group) I want to watch films in future because films are more fun. (The weaker group)

This was similar to what Cheung (2009: 55) found in her study as her students in

48

her research highly recommended films as the most interesting text type. As suggested by Cheung, the literary elements that can be found in films can eventually be applicable to the printed text after students have developed a certain degree of analytical skill. Therefore, teachers may make use of films in order to introduce certain literary elements to students before they were asked to read a book.

4.1.4 Group work

With reference to the results from the post-teaching program questionnaire, 25 students out of 39 agreed with the statement I enjoyed group work in class. The mean score 3.7 was one of the highest scores in the area related to class activities. Table 3: Students enjoyment of group work in the short stories lessons
Statement in the post-teaching program questionnaires about class activities Strongly Agree (5) No. of Students (%) 5 13.2% Agree (4) No. of Students (%) 20 52.6% Neutral (3) No. of Students (%) 12 31.6% Disagree (2) No. of Students (%) 1 2.6% Strongly Disagree (1) No. of Students (%) 0 0% Mean Score

3. I enjoyed group work in class.

3.7

Besides the questionnaire, similar results could also be found in students group interviews: I think it (role playing) was interesting and fun. It could help us build our confidence and enhance the cooperation among all the group members. (B1
49

from the average group) It was because we worked in groups and had our discussion. (C3 from the weakest group)

It seemed that some students did treasure much about group work. For example, the average and the weaker students thought that working with others might help them build up their confidence. They lacked confidence to work independently. They thought that team work was important and could help them solve the problem of being shy. Therefore, according to Student A1 from the brightest group, some of them preferred to have the role play within their own group instead of in front of the whole class.

In fact, through group work, students communication and collaboration skills could be enhanced. A student from the brighter group wrote down I learnt how to communicate with others well in her second journal. It seemed that she believed she could do it. Another boy from the average group wrote I learnt expressing my feeling through drawing and discussion. Student B2 from the average group also commented that they could interact with their classmates through the activities in class. Through

50

language arts activities, students can explore the meanings of the literary texts, express their opinions, discuss solutions to problems and so on (Mok, 2001: 6). As Carter and McRae also (1996) proposed, students active involvement was crucial in the process of learning. And group work, pair work can be used to involve practice with and support from peers (Mok, 2001: 7).

According to Obeidat (2005: 4), students who have higher willingness to communicate in a foreign language tend to communicate more in the classroom and to ask questions or talk to teachers more frequently outside class in that language. If students are willing to use English in their classrooms, they may participate in class activities easily. Moreover, Sage (1987:6) points out that literature models a wide range of communicative strategies.

4.1.5 A variety of activities

Another factor that contributed to the enjoyment of the students was the variety of activities they could take part in the whole teaching program. In the post-teaching questionnaire, 22 students out of 39 agreed with the statement I was interested in most of the class activities whereas only 2 students disagreed with it. The mean score

51

for the statement was 3.5. Their response to another statement I always took part in the activities actively was quite positive. 17 students agreed with it while only 2 students disagreed with it. The mean score was 3.3

Further evidence could be found in students second journal as students mentioned different types of activities they enjoyed in the whole teaching program, for instance, listening to a song, drawing picture of a character, designing a poster, watching a part of a film, etc.

Moreover, from the group interview with the brightest group, Student A3 said that she enjoyed the English activities in the short story lessons as there were different elements (activities) involved. She gave examples of different activities such as drawing pictures and designing a poster. When another boy B2 from the average group explained why he enjoyed the short story lessons, he said it was because there were various types of class activities throughout the program. They found that the variety of the activities could not be found in their traditional English lessons which focused on mechanical drilling and grammar practice only. As Student A1 from the brightest group said, she wanted to spend more time on short story

52

lessons but less time on traditional English lessons. It was similar to what Student C2 from the weakest group suggested they should spend less time on traditional English lessons.

As a matter of fact, the variety of activities in the short story lessons might build relaxing learning atmosphere in a language classroom. It could be shown from students responses to a statement in the post-teaching questionnaire. 18 students out of 38 (one student did not respond to the statement) agreed with the statement The activities helped create good learning atmosphere whereas only 5 students disagreed with it. The mean score for the statement was 3.3.

4.1.6 Level of difficulty

Suitability of materials chosen and tasks designed was a crucial factor in the process of learning. If the materials or tasks were too difficult for students, they would find them too challenging and did not have the confidence and ability to finish them. On the contrary, if a task was too easy for them, they would lose their interest in it. Therefore, the task should be right up to their level, not too easy or too difficult. In this study, students thought that most of the activities were easy to understand and 27

53

out of 38 students agreed with it whereas nobody disagreed with it. The mean score for the statement The activities were easy to understand was only 3.7. It was one of the two highest scores in the area related to class activities.

Similar findings were found in the group interviews when students were asked about the level of difficulty of different tasks. Student A3 from the brightest group said the tasks were easy as the instructions given by the teacher were easy to follow. Another student, A1, also from the brightest group said that most of the words in the story book were easy. It made her easy to understand the features of a story. Student B2 from the average group thought that the story book chosen by the teacher was of the right level for them to read.

As cited by Miley (2009: 359), interesting or challenging activities may create opportunities for students to have fun and enhance their learning experience (Powell & Andresen, 1985). Nevertheless, as Vardell et al (2006: 736) point out, stories full of flashbacks or colloquial expressions can be challenging for beginning English learners to understand. Consequently, students could not get any challenge if the tasks were too easy for them or they would lose their interest if they were too

54

difficult. As it was proposed by Poon (2009: 68), students would find all text types appealing and activities creative if the reading materials chosen and activities designed were suitable for them. Therefore, teachers should design materials and activities according to the interest and ability of their students.

As a matter of fact, students usually assume that the materials chosen and the tasks designed for them should be at least relevant to their language-learning competence (McRae, 1991: 46). If a task requires lots of effort beyond their ability, they may lose their interest very soon. It will be the same case in reading a story book. Difficulty might be a problem for students to get to the end of the story (ibid: 53). On the other hand, as Poon (2009) claims, the suitability of reading materials chosen and activities designed (p.68) might affect students learning, so it was very important in the process of learning.

4.1.7 Things students disliked doing

According to the post-teaching questionnaire, students did not enjoy writing journals and doing worksheets which included writing tasks. About writing journals, 8 students said they enjoyed them but 10 students disagreed. The mean score for it was

55

2.9. The result tended to be negative. For doing worksheets, the mean score was 2.8. Among all the students, only 8 students agreed that they enjoyed doing worksheets whereas 14 students disagreed. This result was also negative.

Apart from this, a student complained that writing a short story, which was their last task in the teaching program, was very difficult. Similar complaint could be found in the responses from the group interviews. For example, Student A3 from the brightest group complained that writing journals was the most boring activity because he did not like writing. Another boy, C1, from the weakest group also complained that he did not like writing and he also thought it was boring.

From the results above, it could be concluded that many students hated writing very much and they did not enjoy doing writing tasks. That implied that they had negative feeling towards it. In fact, it could be further proved in their questionnaires. In both the pre-teaching and post-teaching questionnaires, there was a part with open-ended questions. It was found that most students did not write much in answers for the questions. Some students left the lines blank and some just repeated some words from the questions as their answers. It might be because some students hated

56

writing as it was found in this study. This was similar to the findings in the study of Chan et al (2002: 10) who found that there was a strong dislike of the mandatory use of the language learning diaries among the tertiary students. Those students thought that journal writing was tedious and time-consuming.

4.2 Usefulness of language arts

The overall comments from the data collected through the different instruments were positive and most of the students believed that they could learn English through short stories. First of all, from the pre-teaching program questionnaire, 66.6% of the students believed that they could learn English through short stories before the teaching program. The mean score for the statement was 3.7, which was the second highest score in the results of the questionnaire. After the teaching program, there were 57.9% of the students who believed that they could learn English through short stories. This was shown in the post-teaching questionnaire and the mean score for this statement was 3.4. That meant there were still more than half of the students had positive attitude towards the language arts lessons.

In fact, it is a common attitude among most Hong Kong people who are always

57

eager to get as much information as possible within a short period of time (Ho, 2005, p.43). It was also similar to what Choi (2006: 57) commented, students usually thought that the more they could learn in their English lessons, the more useful they were. As a result, in order to find out how effective students thought the short story lessons were, it would be better to look at the concrete items students mentioned that they could learn in these lessons. In the following part, details would be explained on what specific items students thought they could learn from the short story lessons.

4.2.1 Vocabulary
Whenever it was before or after the teaching program, more than half of the students believed that they could learn vocabulary from short stories. Before the program, 29 students out of 39 (64.4%) believed that they could learn vocabulary from short stories and it was still true for 25 students out of 38 (65.8%). It seemed that more than half of the students believed that vocabulary was one of the things they could learn from the story books. It was similar to what some researchers had found in the past in Hong Kong such as Ho (2005: 42) and Poon (2009: 45).

Students gave similar responses in their journals and also the group interviews.

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In the students journals, one student from the brighter group wrote: I learnt vocabulary in short stories. This is useful for me to learn. Another student from the average group said, I learnt much about vocabulary. A student from the weaker group also commented, I can learn more adjective and adverb. Besides these, the interviews also proved similar results: Yes, we could learn a lot of vocabulary from a story book. Besides, we could also learn grammar from it, for example, phrasal verbs and conditionals. (Student B1 from the average group) We could learn vocabulary from story books. As we had to look up the dictionary for the words we did not know, we could learn from it. (Student C2 from the weakest group)

From the above quotations, it was found that students believed they could not only learn vocabulary, but also grammar items. It was different from the findings of the past research such as Li (2003), Ng (2004) and Ho (2005) in which senior form students thought that they could not learn grammar from language arts.

Students may come across many words when reading a story book. Teachers need

59

to design worksheets or tasks with reference to students interest and ability to enhance their learning of vocabulary. If students just flip through story books without anything done with vocabulary, they may learn nothing in this regard. Moreover, stories may also help explain meanings of vocabulary, especially abstract concept such as honesty and loyalty (Kahn, 2008:14). As McRae (1991: 43) says, Discrete items of language (vocabulary, syntax, or whatever) will only rarely actually be learned during extensive reading, unless they are noted down in a students reading diary or handled in a workbook or class exercise.

4.2.2 The four language skills

Among the four language skills, most students believed that they could improve their reading skills through short stories. Before the program, 20 students out of 39 agreed with it and the mean score was 3.4. There were still 20 students agreed with it after the teaching program. The following table (Table 4) made comparison on students attitudes among the four language skills before and after the program:

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Table 4: Comparison among the four language skills before and after the program Statements about the four Pre-teaching questionnaire No. of students Mean language skills
showing response positive score The short story lessons may help me improve my reading skills. The short story lessons may help me improve my writing skills. The short story lessons may help me improve my speaking skills. The short story lessons may help me improve my listening skills. Post-teaching questionnaire No. of showing response students positive Mean score

20 15 11 6

3.4 3.3 3.2 2.9

20 19 13 16

3.5 3.2 3.2 3.3

From the above table, it was found that there was significant increase (from 6 to 16) in the number of students who showed positive responses towards the statement about improvement in their listening skills. Since students needed to listen to a song and had discussion in which they could practice their listening skills, their attitudes changed from quite negative before the teaching program into positive after the program.

From the responses in students journals and also the group interviews, similar results could be obtained. For example, a student from the brighter group wrote in her journal, I learnt how to scan a passage to find out some information about the setting and characters feeling and its a useful skill for me to learn. Another student from
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the average group wrote, Now I can read faster. This comment was quite positive. One from the same group also wrote, I can listen to the song Tears in Heaven. I think it is good and I can learn listening skill in this. Besides this, some interviewees in all the group interviews commented that they could improve their language skills after the teaching program, especially the reading skills.

4.2.3 Preparation for examination or HKDSE

In the past studies done on senior students (Li, 2003; Ng, 2004; Ho, 2005), most students were worried about the preparation for public examination as time was taken for language arts. However, the results related to the public examination HKDSE in this study were different. Undeniably, students were a bit worried about the examination. It could be proved in the pre-teaching questionnaire in which students tended to be negative towards the statement A short story lesson may prepare me well for the HKDSE and the mean score was 2.8. Only 17 students agreed with it while 8 students were neutral and 9 students disagreed. After the teaching program, only 3 students disagreed that the lessons could prepare them well for the HKDSE and the mean score increased from 2.8 in the pre-teaching questionnaire to 3.1.

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Furthermore, none of the students mentioned things related to the public examination HKDSE except one student from the average group. When asked about what she wanted to learn about short stories in future, she expressed that she wanted to learn new words in order to face the HKDSE. It did not seem that she was negative towards short stories about preparation for the public examination. It was a similar case to the group interviews. Nobody expressed their worries about the examination.

This might be due to the involvement of language arts in the writing paper and also the SBA component of the public examination as mentioned in Chapter One of this paper. From the post-teaching questionnaire, students tended to be positive towards the statements related to formal assessment and the mean scores ranged from 3.1 to 3.3. This showed that the involvement of language arts in the public examination might help change students attitude towards its usefulness from negative in the past before its involvement to positive.

4.2.4 Imagination and creativity

Some students believed that they could make use of their imagination and creativity through different activities in the teaching program. In fact, this was

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advocated by the CDC (2007: 87). From the students journal, a student expressed that readers could imagine what the stories were talking about through the cover of a story book. Another student, A3, from the brightest group in the group interview commented that the activities like drawing pictures and designing a poster could help them improve their creativity. He also said that he preferred some creative activities in the English class. This was similar to the study done by Poon (2009) who found that students could improve their skills like critical thinking, creativity and imagination.

4.3 Further findings 4.3.1 Brighter students versus weaker students

In some past studies, the researchers (Li, 2003; Ho, 2005; Choi, 2006; Poon, 2009) tried to compare the attitudes between the high achievers and the low achievers. Choi (2006) and Poon (2009) tried to compare the two groups of students in junior forms. Poon found that both high and low achievers found the language arts activities interesting and useful as they did not have the pressure from the public examination. On the other hand, Choi, who did her study on a class of F.3 students, concluded that high achievers did not find language arts an efficient way to learn English as they were worried about the preparation for the internal examination inside their school.

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However, low achievers put interest as their priority rather than usefulness and they lacked motivation to learn and were inhabited by their low ability (Choi, 2006: 55).

Li (2003) and Ho (2005) did their research on F.6 and F.4 students respectively. Li found that language arts activities could motivate boys and low achievers but not the high achievers who were worried about the public examination (2003: 55). In Hos study, she found that both high and low achievers preferred conventional English lessons with grammar practice as the focus (2005: 65).

In this study, the attitudes of the high achievers and the low achievers were different from the previous study mentioned. Both the two groups were not much worried about the preparation for the public examination. Responses from the two groups showed that most of them generally found language arts lessons interesting and useful even though they were of different abilities. Furthermore, both groups had similar views towards language arts activities. For example, both the brightest and the weakest students found that listening to songs, drawing pictures and watching films were interesting to them. The two groups believed that they could learn vocabulary and improve their language skills, especially their reading skills through the language

65

arts activities in class.

4.3.2 Interest of students

It was found that different students might have different taste and interest. Finding out their interest may help boost their intrinsic motivation (Choi, 2006: 51). According to the results of the study, some students had opinions about the choice of book and song the teacher made for them. In the post-teaching questionnaire, only 16 students (less than 50%) agreed that they liked the book chosen by their teacher. The mean score for the statement was 3.2. This was similar to what an interviewee, A1, from the brightest group suggested about the choice of story book. She said that some students might not like the book Mrs Doubtfire chosen by the teacher and they might want to make the choice on their own. It was similar to what Choi (ibid: 63) found in her study. The student in this study, A1, suggested that the teacher might tell students the kind of books they needed to read and students might choose the book title they liked in order to enjoy reading the story book more.

Moreover, about the song chosen, one student from the brighter group complained in the journal that the song was a bit boring and another student from the

66

same group suggested that songs might be chosen by the students themselves. One student from the average group complained that the music was too old for them while another student from the same group hoped to listen to modern English songs such as the song sung by Lady GaGa. This was similar to what students thought about the story book as mentioned in the previous paragraph.

It seemed that it was not possible for the teacher to entertain all the students of different interest at the same time. However, as Mok (2001: 36) suggested, if the book appeals to you, it will almost certainly appeal to your students. Therefore, teachers might try to choose something they think is interesting or let students choose from a variety of books chosen by their teacher. If they had no interest in the texts or materials for their students, how could they persuade their students to become interested in them? Nonetheless, it is true as there may be generation gap

between teachers and students. Teachers may impose or inflict their own tastes on their students without noticing this (McRae, 1991: 37). As McRae (1991) asserts, careful text selection is fundamental to the successful use of materials (ibid: 49). It is suggested that teachers should strike a balance between their own interest and students interest in choosing appropriate materials and designing curriculum.

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Chapter Five: Conclusion

This chapter sums up the major findings of this study, discusses the pedagogical implications, limitations of the study and gives suggestions for further studies in future.

5.1 Summary of Major Findings

The main purpose of this study was to explore the perception of senior form students towards the elective Learning English through Short Stories. The findings helped to solve the research questions: 1) How do senior form students perceive learning English through short stories? 2) What do they think they can learn from their short story lessons? 3) What kinds of activities do they enjoy most in their short story lessons?

Firstly, with reference to the results obtained, most of the F.4 students in this study enjoyed the short story lessons. Their overall attitude was quite positive. Through a variety of activities in class, students could feel the good learning atmosphere built inside their classroom. They could see that short story lessons could be interesting, enjoyable, creative and fun. This kind of language arts lessons was

68

quite different from their traditional English lessons which they commented as boring.

Among all the activities in class, including song appreciation, drawing the character I like, poster design, role play, presentation, group discussion and journal writing, the most popular ones were listening to a song and drawing pictures. On the other hand, most of the students hated writing tasks such as journal writing. It implied that most students enjoyed different kinds of activities which could make use of their senses.

Apart from class activities, choice of materials and their level of difficulty were also important. In this study, it was found that different students might have different taste and preference towards the choice of book for their short story lessons. It could be difficult for a teacher to choose one story book for all the students of different ability and interest. It would be better if the students could make their own choice or negotiate it with their teachers about the materials to be used in the course. As cited by Mok (2001: 4), experiential learning should be learner-centered and allow negotiated curricula because of learners diversity (Nunan, 1999). Besides, students might not have any sense of achievement in the learning process if the materials or tasks were

69

too difficult for them. On the other hand, they would not have any initiative in learning if the materials or tasks were too easy and simple for them. Therefore, teachers should be very careful about this when making their decision.

About language learning, most students believed that they could learn a lot of vocabulary through short stories. Besides, short story lessons could also help them improve their language skills, especially the reading skills. Furthermore, students could improve their communication skills and collaboration skills when they needed to work with their classmates in the group activities like group discussion.

However, with respect to preparation for the public examination HKDSE, some students were still worried about their results in future even though not all of them were. It was quite understandable as some of the class time was devoted to the short story lessons. As Chan et al (2002: 2) commented on the characteristics of Hong Kong students, Hong Kong Chinese students are syllabus dependent, passive and lacking initiative. It was also true to the students recruited in this study since the learning objective of most of them tended to be exam-oriented.

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5.2 Pedagogical Implications

In the past, students viewed language arts lessons as for fun or leisure only (Chan, 2007: 45; Ho, 2005: 42). Generally speaking, they did not give them high value as they thought language learning was serious and was not fun. As Kennedy & Falvey found out in Hong Kong (1999: 8), enjoyment is not a word many children would associate with their learning experiences. However, it should not be the case nowadays.

As mentioned in the previous part, interest of students and level of difficulty of tasks may affect their enjoyment and attitude toward the English lesson. Teachers should find out the ability and interest of their students before they start any lessons. All of the information will be useful to help them make appropriate choices in the designing materials, tasks and the curriculum for their target students. In fact, teachers are also human beings as their students and they may be affected by their own interest. They should consider the interest of their students rather than their own interest. They should try to be objective and avoid being affected by their own preferences. It may help maximize the effectiveness of their teaching.

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Most students think that only chalk and talk in class is boring and dull. They tend to enjoy a variety of activities in class. However, most students enjoy doing new things, so they may find repeated activities less interesting (Choi, 2006: 41). In this study, students tended to find the short story lessons interesting as they did not try them before in their conventional English lessons. If the teacher keeps doing similar activities in class, her students may lose their interest one day. As a result, teachers should be innovative most of the time to make students feel fresh in the English lessons.

As it was also found in this study, teachers may try to make use of the five senses of their students in designing activities in class. In this way, students may practice their reading skills using their eyes, listening skills using their ears, speaking skills using their mouth and writing skills using their hands. Some teachers may worry about the amount of time they should spend on designing materials and activities for their students. As a matter of fact, teachers do not need to spend a lot of time on designing materials for their class with the advanced technology nowadays. For example, it is easy and common to find CD sold with story books. Besides, teachers may find on-line materials related to some story books without any difficulty. In

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respect to the visual and audio aids, there may be incentive to the senses of students.

Regarding the four language skills, students can practice any of them and make improvement in any language arts lessons depending on the focus of the lessons and the types of activities. Reading, writing, speaking and listening skills can all be involved and practiced in a single lesson if there is a need to do so. For example, in the first lesson of the teaching program, students were asked to listen to a song (listening) and fill in blanks of the lyric given (writing). Before they listened to the song, they needed to read the lyric they were given (reading). Later, they had to talk with their classmates about the features of a story they could find in the song (speaking). As a matter of fact, how to make a good balance among the four skills may be up to the decision of teachers regarding the ability of their students.

In respect to journal writing, it seems to be not popular among students. However, as Boud (2001: 9) claims, journal writing can be used to enhance what students do and how they do it in their learning as it can deepen the quality of their learning in the form of critical thinking or developing a questioning attitude and enable them to understand their own learning. Since journal writing may bring benefits to students,

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teachers may think carefully about how to make the task interesting and fun to students in order to make them keep such record of learning for their own sake. For example, they may put some guiding questions in the journals to help students write them in a beneficial way.

Last but not least, it was found that students attitudes changed after the teaching program, for instance, their attitude towards the public examination HKDSE. With the experience they had in the teaching program, they got more confidence and became less worried about their results. It can inspire teachers that they can also change students negative attitude into positive with the input they give their students. It may depend on what they design for their students so as to satisfy their wants.

5.3 Limitations of the Study

This study was conducted in a F.4 class in a CMI secondary school in Hong Kong. It was hoped that it could give insights to students so as to choose appropriate materials and set tasks for their students. However, the scale was quite small with limited manpower, resources and other constraints.

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5.3.1 Small sample size

There were only 39 students in the F.4 class with one student who was always absent in the second term of the school year. The sample size was very small and the data collected might not represent the situation in other schools in Hong Kong. Therefore, the results in this study could not help to make any generalizations about all the students in Hong Kong. The study was not comprehensive enough to draw any concrete conclusion for all the schools as the whole study was conducted in one class of a school within a short period of time by only one researcher.

5.3.2 Problems in collecting data

In both the pre-teaching and post-teaching program questionnaires, there was a part with open-ended questions. It was found that most students did not write much as the answers for the questions even though they could express themselves freely when answering these questions. Some students left the lines blank and some just repeat some words from the questions as their answers. It might be because some students hated writing as it was found in this study. Although some students wrote something for the open-ended questions, it could not be understood as some students did not express themselves properly.

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It was also embarrassing to find that nearly half of the students in this study were neutral towards most of the statements in both the pre-teaching and the post-teaching questionnaires. It was difficult to tell whether they were for or against the statements in the questionnaires when they chose neutral as the answers. This was actually in line with what Edwards (2006: 96) points out: Chinese learners tend to be passive rote learners (also see Ho, 2005:40). They are not willing to voice their opinion actively. They usually keep the teacher at an appropriate distance (ibid: 99). As a result, 4 options instead of 5 options should be provided and this should exclude the option neutral in order to force them to choose either agree or disagree with the statements in the questionnaires. The results may be obvious with only four scales, including strongly agree, agree, disagree and strongly disagree.

5.4 Suggestions for Further Studies

In this study, only one single class of F.4 students of a secondary school in Hong Kong was investigated. If time allows, it would be better to invite more students and more schools to take part in a similar study. If a longitudinal study is conducted for a year, it may help to find out how different students of different English proficiency, learning background and experience perceive learning English through short stories in

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Hong Kong.

Besides, all the materials were designed for a target class for the purpose of this study. If the same package of materials in the teaching program is used in another class of the same school, will there be the same or similar results? Will different groups of students with different ability and interest show similar attitudes towards the elective Learning English through Short Stories? There is still room for further research in this regard.

Regarding the writing tasks in this study, all the male interviewees said they did not enjoy the journal writing as they hate writing and it was boring to them. It may be interesting to find out ways to make writing tasks enjoyable to students. Knowing how to make good use of journals may help students gain from them in their learning. According to Cotterall (2000, cited in Kwok, 2007: 76), journals may help students learn how to take responsibility of their own learning and enhanced their autonomy in learning. Furthermore, whether girls like or hate writing journals was still unknown as it was not disclosed. Was it only a coincidence to find that all the boys in the group interviews hated writing journals?

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Furthermore, the focus of this study was put on only one language arts genre, short stories. It did not cover other genres such as poems and drama. It may be interesting to see if similar views from students would be obtained if the study could cover more language arts genres.

Apart from the points mentioned above, it seems that students may feel easy and free to express themselves in their mother tongue. In answering the questionnaires, students may give more details and write more if they are allowed to write in Chinese instead of English which seems to be aliens to some students of lower English proficiency.

Concerning the closed items in both the pre-teaching questionnaire and the post-teaching questionnaire, students were given five different rating scales to choose. It was difficult to tell whether they were for or against the statements in the questionnaires when they chose neutral as the answers. Therefore, it is suggested to provide four rating scales including strongly agree, agree, disagree and strongly disagree. The results may be obvious with only these four scales given.

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5.5 Last Words

Since this study was an action research, the results might help the researcher to design the syllabus, materials and activities for the English subject in her school next academic year in respect to the implementation of language arts. It is hoped that both teaching and learning can be made effective and improvement in the ways of teaching can be found with the results in this study. Besides this, it is believed that language arts may help improve students English but it depends on how teachers use or design the materials or activities for their students. That means the role of teachers is still very important in introducing and implementing the language arts components in the New Senior Secondary curriculum. Bunkers (2006: 105) claims, literature has the power to connect us and to transform our patterns and reshape our lives. It seems that language arts may play an important role in our lives. However, whether we can benefit from it depends on what to use and how we use it. It is hoped that, with the effort of all the teachers, most students may benefit from language arts in their English lessons. (15,003 words)

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Learning English through Short Stories Pre-teaching program Questionnaire Part A Please tick the appropriate box for each statement.
Strongly agree Agree Neutral

Appendix I
Sex: M / F
Disagree Strongly disagree

1. I am interested in reading English story books. 2. I read English story books in my leisure time. 3. I can learn a lot of vocabulary from story books. 4. A short story lesson may help improve my reading skills. 5. A short story lesson may help improve my listening skills. 6. A short story lesson may help improve my writing skills. 7. A short story lesson may help improve my speaking skills. 8. I may learn more about different cultures through story books. 9. A short story lesson may prepare me well for the HKDSE. 10. A short story lesson could help me write a good story. 11. I think I can learn English through short stories. 12. I will enjoy learning English through language arts. 13. It is worth spending class time on short stories. 14. I hope to have similar lessons on language arts next year. Part B Please circle one option as your answer for each of the following sentence. 1. Among the four language arts electives, I think the easiest one to understand is A. Short Stories B. Poems and Songs C. Drama D. Popular Culture because____________________________________________________________ 2. Among the four language arts electives, I think the most difficult to understand is A. Short Stories B. Poems and Songs C. Drama D. Popular Culture because____________________________________________________________ 3. Among the four language arts electives, I think the most interesting is

A. Short Stories B. Poems and Songs C. Drama D. Popular Culture because____________________________________________________________ 4. Among the four language arts electives, I think the least interesting is A. Short Stories B. Poems and Songs C. Drama D. Popular Culture because____________________________________________________________ 5. What I expect to learn from short stories will be __________________________________________________________________ 6. The reasons why I think short stories may or may not help me in the HKDSE are __________________________________________________________________ - End -

Learning English through Short Stories Post-teaching Program Questionnaire Part A Please tick the appropriate box for each statement. Class Activities Strongly
agree

Appendix II
Sex: M / F

Agree

Neutral

Disagree

Strongly disagree

1. I was interested in the class activities. 2. I always took part in the activities actively. 3. I enjoyed group work in class. 4. I enjoyed doing individual presentation in class. 5. I was given enough time to finish all the class work. 6. I could have more chance to expose to English in class. 7. I had confidence in using English in class. Coursework 1. I enjoyed writing journals. 2. I could reflect my learning through journals. 3. I was given enough time to read the story book. 4. I liked the book chosen by the teacher. 5. The amount of work was reasonable. Assessment 1. I understood the assessment requirements. 2. The course materials could help me prepare well before the formal assessment. Learning 1. I could learn a lot of vocabulary from the story book. 2. I had no difficulty in understanding most of the words in the story book. 3. The lessons helped me improve my reading skills. 4. The lessons helped me improve my speaking skills. 5. The lessons helped me improve my listening skills. 6. The lessons helped me improve my writing skills. 7. I could learn more about different cultures through the story book. 8. I like reading the English story book. 9. I read English story books in my
Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

leisure time. 10. The lessons could prepare me well for the HKDSE. 11. The lessons could help me write a good story. 12. I could learn English through short stories. 13. I enjoyed the English lessons. 14. It was worth spending class time on short stories. 15. I hope to have similar lessons on language arts next year.

Part B 1. Among the ten features (atmosphere, theme, genre, opening, setting, characters, climax, resolution, plot of story and ending) I learnt in the lessons, I think ____________________________ was the easiest to understand because ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ 2. Among the ten features (atmosphere, theme, genre, opening, setting, characters, climax, resolution, plot of story and ending) I learnt in the lessons, I think _____________________________ was the most difficult understand because____________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________. 3. The most interesting class activity (e.g. listening to a song, group discussion, individual presentation, role play, journal writing, picture drawing, characters interview, cover / poster design) was ___________________________________. 4. The least interesting class activity (e.g. listening to a song, group discussion, individual presentation, role play, journal writing, picture drawing, characters interview, cover / poster design)was ___________________________________. 5. When I found some difficult words in the story books, I would ____________________________________________________________________. 6. The most difficult part of the program was ____________________________________________________________________. 7. Suggestion for making improvement for the program: ____________________________________________________________________. _____________________________________________________________________ - End -

Appendix III

F.D.B.W.A. SzetoHo Secondary School F.4 English (2nd Term 2009-2010) Learning English through Short Stories Journal Student Name: ________________________ ( Class: _________ ) Date: _____________________ My Reflections

What I learnt about short stories: _______________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ Things I found difficult /interesting in the lessons: _________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ What I want to do or learn about short stories in future: __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ What would you like to draw here to represent your own feelings?

Position Marks Sex

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

159 M Student 1 144 F 142 F F 140 F 139 F 136 F 135 F 134 F

Student 2 (A1) Student 3 (A2)

Appendix IV

141 M Student 4 (A3)

Student 5 Student 6 Student 7 Student 8 Student 9 Student 10

133 M Student 11 132 M Student 12 131 M Student 13 F F 127 F F 125 F 123 F 121 F 119 F 117 F 115 F F 113 F F 111 F 109 F 108 F 107 F
Student 14

130 M Student 15
Student 16

128 M Student 17
Student 18

126 M Student 19 (B2)

Student 20 (B1) Student 21 (B3) Student 22 Student 23 Student 24 Student 25 Student 26 Student 27

114 M Student 28
Student 29 Student 30 Student 31 Student 32 Student 33 Student 34

106 M Student 35 M Student 36 (C1)

37 38 39

104 F F 102 F

Student 37 (C2) Student 38 (C3) Student 39

Appendix V
Questions for Interviews Questions for the group interview with students 1. Did you enjoy the English lessons on short stories? 2. Which part was the most enjoyable? Why? 3. Was it difficult for you to catch up with the others? 4. Was it difficult for you to understand all the features of short stories? 5. Which one was the most difficult? Why? 6. Which one was the easiest? Why? 7. Was there enough time for you to learn all the things in class? 8. If you had a problem in learning, what would you do? 9. Do you think you could learn English through short stories?

* Remarks: Questions will be changed as they will be asked according to the results from the questionnaire to students (see Appendix I)

- End -

Appendix VI Transcript of Interview 1 (The Brightest Group) I: Interviewer A1: Student 2 A2: Student 3 A3: Student 4 I: Thank you very much for joining the interview. First of all, I want to ask you if you enjoyed the English lessons on short stories. You do not need to worry as I just want to get information for improving our teaching program. I think some students might not like the book chosen by the teacher. They may want to choose a story book to read on their own. If books are chosen by the teacher, it can make sure that all the students should have read the genres of books they need to read. Do you agree? Yes, I agree. Maybe the teacher can tell students the kind of books they need to read. Then, they may choose the book title they like. It may help them enjoy reading English story books more. Its a good suggestion. Apart from books, what do you think about the activities? Did you enjoy the English activities in class? Yes, I enjoyed them very much. Why did you enjoy them? There were different elements involved. Can you tell me more or give me some examples? For example, we were asked to draw pictures and design a poster. This could help improve our creativity. How do you feel towards our short story lessons when compared with our traditional English lessons? Theyre less boring as there were different types of activities. Which part was the most enjoyable? Why? Designing a poster. Poster. I think role playing was also enjoyable but some students were shy when performing in front of the class. How about role playing within your group? You just play the roles in front of your group mates instead of the whole class. Some students may not be enthusiastic enough if they are not asked to perform in front of the blackboard. Some may not be honest and they may do nothing in their seats. I think listening to songs was the most enjoyable and it was good for practicing

A1: I: A1:

I: A3: I: A3: I: A3: I: A3: I: A1: A2: I: A1:

A3:

I: A3: I: A3:

I: A1:

I: A2:

I: A3: I: A1: I: A1: I: A2: A3: I: A3: I:

our listening skills. Was it difficult to catch up with the others? No. Why was it easy to catch up with the others? The instructions given by the teacher were easy to follow. And we were asked to read the story book bit by bit and chapter by chapter each time. If we were told to finish the whole book on our own at one time, it might be difficult for us. Among all the features you have learnt, which one was the most difficult? I think most of them are not difficult. Since most of the words in the story book were easy, it was easy for us to understand most of the features in the book. If I found a difficult word, I would look up the dictionary. If I understood the meaning of the word, I would understand the story. Then, which feature was the easiest to understand? I think setting was the easiest. It was easy to find out things like the place where the story happened or the time when it happened. They could be found directly from the book. Which activity was the most boring in class? Writing journals because I dont like writing. Was there enough time for you to learn all the things in class? Was there too much time or too little time? We did not have enough time as I prefer to have more short story lessons but spend less time on traditional English lessons. What should be added to our teaching program? We may have some visits or outing which is related to the story. Do you think you could learn English through short stories? Yes, I think we could learn English through short stories, especially our reading skills. I think we could practice the four language skills through the class activities and worksheets we needed to do. Do you expect to have similar lessons on language arts in F.5? Yes, I prefer to have some creative activities in class. Okay, thats all for the interview. Thank you very much. - End -

Transcript of Interview 2 (The Average Group) I: Interviewer B1: Student 20 B2: Student 19 B3: Student 21 I: B2: Thank you very much for coming for the interview about our short story lessons. Did you enjoy the English lessons on short stories? Yes, because there were various types of class activities. The lessons were different from our traditional English lessons. Through the activities, we might interact with our classmates. Yes, youre right. I like the term interaction. Which part was the most enjoyable? Drawing pictures was the most enjoyable. We might work with our classmates in groups. Why do think it was good to work in groups? As Samuel said, we might have interaction with our classmates in our discussion. How about you? Which part do you think was the most enjoyable? Role playing. We might get the feeling of the character if we acted it out. Playing the role in front of the whole class, did you feel shy? I think it was interesting and fun. It could help us build up our confidence and enhance the cooperation among all the group members. Youre right. Team work is also important in a class. How about you? Do you agree with them? I also think that role playing was the most enjoyable activity as we just read a part of a dialogue directly from the book. We did not need to make up the dialogue on our own. Yes, following the dialogue, you did not need to spend time on making up the lines on your own. Yes, we might focus on our performance, for example, our facial expression. Was it difficult to catch up with the class? No, it was okay. If we were told to read the whole book at a time, it might be difficult for us to allocate time on it. Was the book easy to read? Was it the right level for you? The book was okay. I think different story books may be of different levels. Which feature was the most difficult for you? Themes. Sometimes there were more than one theme in a story and different people may have different interpretation about the themes they find in the story.

I: B3: I: B3: I: B1: I: B1: I: B2:

I: B2: I: B3: I: B2: I: B2:

I: Which one was the easiest? B3: I think most of the concepts were easy to understand. B1: But I think climax was the easiest if the words the writer used to express the idea were easy. For example, we might find verbs or adjectives related to the theme. It would be easy for readers to understand the climax of the story. B2: To me, setting was the easiest feature to understand. We usually find the setting of a story on the first page or only the first half of the first page. I: How about the time? Was there enough time for you to learn all the things in class? B2: Yes, there was. I: If you had a problem in learning, what would you do? B3: We might ask our classmates or the teacher. I: Do you think you could learn English through short stories? B1: Yes, we could learn a lot of vocabulary from a story book. Besides, we could also learn grammar from it, for example, phrasal verbs and conditionals. I: Among the four language skills, which skill could be practiced more in our short story lessons? B2: Reading skill. I: This is the end of our interview. Thank you very much. - End -

Transcript of Interview 3 (The Weakest Group) I: Interviewer C1: Student 36 C2: Student 37 C3: Student 38 I: Thank you all of you for the interview. Did you enjoy the English lessons on short stories? C1: Yes, I enjoyed it very much. I: How do you describe your feelings towards our short story lessons? C2: Excited! I: Excited. C3: Interested. I: Thank you very much. Which part was the most enjoyable? C2: Listening to a song. It was interesting. I: Yes, it could not be found in our traditional English lessons. How about the two of you? C3: Designing a poster. I: Why? C3: It was because we worked in groups and had our discussion. C1: Yes, it was exciting. I: Why was it exciting? C1: Drawing pictures usually makes me excited. C3: The activity was creative. I: About the whole program, was it difficult for you to catch up with the others? C2: I think everything was okay. I: It was not difficult for you? C2: Yes. I: Which feature was the most difficult for you to understand? C1: Atmosphere. When we read books, we couldnt see the facial expression of the characters. We could not find the atmosphere directly. I: Actually, we can guess the atmosphere through the setting of a story. But as you mentioned, atmosphere is usually expressed indirectly. How about you? C2: The same as him. I: Which feature was the easiest? C1: Characters C2: Yes, characters. I: Why?

C2: We might know the personality and sex of a character from the book easily. C3: And also from the dialogue. I: Yes, for example, if a character usually scolds the others, his or her personality may be negative. Do you think there was enough time for you to learn all the things in class? C1: No, not enough time. C2: We spent too much time on traditional English lessons. I: If you had a problem in learning, what would you do? C3: I would ask my classmates. C2: Or we might ask you, our teacher. I: Okay, the last question. Do you think you could learn English through short stories? C2: Yes. C3: Its okay. C1: Its okay. I: Why? C2: We could learn vocabulary from story books. As we had to look up the dictionary for the words we did not know, we could learn from it. I: Among the four language skills, which skill was practiced most of the time? C2: We could learn how to write the setting when we read the description of the setting in the book. I: Yes, how about the four language skills? C1: Reading skills. I: You mean in class? C1: Yes. I: How about the other three skills? C1: I think we could practice our speaking skills as we had discussion in class. I: How about writing? C1: I dont like writing. It is boring. I: Okay. Thats all for the interview. Thank you very much.

- End -

Appendix VII a F.D.B.W.A. Szeto Ho Secondary School F.4 English (2nd Term 09-10) Atmosphere of a story - Worksheet 1 Tears In Heaven by Eric Clapton and Will Jennings *( Would you know ____________________ If I saw you in heaven? Would it be the same If I saw you in heaven? I must _____________________ And carry on, 'Cause I know I don't _____________________ Here in heaven. )* Would you ________________________ If I saw you in heaven? Would you help me _____________________ If I saw you in heaven? I'll find my way Through night and day, 'Cause I know _____________________ Here in heaven. Time can _______________ you down, Time can _______________ your knees. Time can _______________ your heart, Have you begging please, begging please. ______________ the door, There's ______________ I'm sure, And I know there'll be __________________ Tears in heaven. * Repeat

Appendix VII b F.D.B.W.A. Szeto Ho Secondary School F.4 English (2nd Term 09-10) Atmosphere of a story Worksheet 2 Read the following excerpt from a story. It was tea-time on a Tuesday. The three children were on the stairs, going up to their fathers apartment. Nobody wanted to carry the envelope. Lydia, who was the tallest, pushed it inside Christophers shirt. Christopher pulled it out and said, Here, Natty, give this to Dad. Natalie shook her head angrily and put her hands behind her back, so Christopher dropped it down the front of her dress. When Daniel Hilliard opened the door to welcome them, he could see tears in Natalies eyes. What is it you do to your sister? he asked the other two. Shes going to cry again. Lydia looked away. Christopher turned red. Sorry, they said. Daniel carried Natalie, his youngest daughter, into the kitchen and sat her on the table. Then he noticed the letter inside her dress and took it out. Ah! he said. Another letter from the Stone Woman! And how is she, your mother? She thought she was getting a cold last week, said Lydia, but then she got better. Thats pity, said Daniel. I mean, Im glad. Nobody spoke. Christopher was sitting next to his pet quail in its box, singing to it softly. The bird looked like a little grey ball. It jumped up and down, making excited noises. Daddy, Mummy sends you her love, said Natalie sweetly. Love from the Stone Woman? I dont believe it, answered Daniel. Natalie looked sad and hid her face. Poor Natty, its hard for you, isnt it? said Daniel and gave her a kiss. Questions: 1. How did you feel when you read the above excerpt? __________________________________________________________________ 2. Which words helped you sense the atmosphere of the story? __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ - End -

Appendix VII c F.D.B.W.A. Szeto Ho Secondary School F.4 English 2009-2010 Madame Doubtfire Characters Name: __________________________ ( ) Class: _________ Draw the character you like most on this paper and write a description about him / her.

Description of the character _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________

F.D.B.W.A. Szeto Ho Secondary School F.4 English (2nd Term 09-10) Madame Doubtfire (Worksheet 4) Name:_______________________ ( )

Appendix VII d

Class: _______

Speech Description In the story book Madame Doubtfire, you may find different speech descriptions which may help you know how the speakers feel when they are talking about something. Through the descriptions, readers may know more about a character. Try to find out more speech descriptions and finish the following table. Page No. 1 6 Line No. 24 11 Speaker Natalie Lydia Description said Natalie sweetly said Lydia hopelessly

Vocabulary Write down the difficult words you have found in the story book. Look up the dictionary and finish the following table. Word Page No. Line No.
Part of Speech

Meaning

Viewpoint

Discussion Work in groups of four and talk about the good things about both parents, Daniel and Miranda. After your discussion, find one representative from your group to tell your classmates your points of view. - End-

Appendix VII e F.D.B.W.A. Szeto Ho Secondary School F.4 English (2nd 09-10) Learning English through Short Stories (Worksheet 5) Features of Stories: Plot of a story Name:___________________ ( ) Class: _______ Date: ________________

Discussion You and the other five members of your group are members of the School Drama Club. You want to enter a story writing competition and prepare a love story. Make use of the following mind-map and have a discussion about what your story should include. You have 2 minutes for your preparation and 8 minutes for your discussion.

When did the story happen?

Where did the characters meet?

Who were the main characters? What were their names?

Love Story What happened at the beginning of the story?

Did any special event(s) happen in this love story?

What was the ending? Was it a happy or unhappy ending?

After the discussion, find a representative from your group to tell the whole class about the love story your group created. Each group is given 5 minutes for the story.

F.4 English: Learning English through short stories (Plot of a story)

Appendix VII f

Highlights of Madame Doubtfire:

Draw pictures about the most important events happened in the story.

Appendix VII g F.D.B.W.A. Szeto Ho Secondary School F.4 English (2nd Term 09-10) Conflict / Climax (Worksheet 5) Name: _______________________( ) Class: ____________ Discussion The following is dialogue among the characters in the book Madame Doubtfire. After reading their conversation, try to finish the following questions.

What are you doing here? Where is Mrs. Doubtfire? YOUre Mrs. Doubtfire Doubtfre!!! Hmmm

You were Mrs. Doubtfire all the time! How dare you are!

Thats enough, Miranda. It was you who didnt like the children spending their time with me. You usually brought them hours late! Yes, I was late. But, do you know how busy I am? Questions: 1. What do you think about the relationship between the two characters? 2. What has happened to Daniel? 3. What is the relationship between Daniel and his children? 4. What will they plan to do? Form a group of four and talk about the above questions. You have 5 minutes to think about for the questions on your own and have 6 minutes for your group discussion. After your discussion, summarize the most important points in front of your classmates.

Appendix VIII a

Appendix VIII b

Appendix VIII c

Appendix VIII d

Appendix VIII e

Appendix IX a

Appendix IX b

Appendix IX c

Appendix IX d

Appendix IX e

F.D.B.W.A. Szeto Ho Secondary School Appendix X Learning English through Short Stories 2009-2010 Results from Pre-teaching Questionnaire Part A Sex: M / F Please tick the appropriate box for each statement.
Strongly Agree No. of Students (%) Agree No. of Students (%) Neutral No. of Students (%) Disagree No. of Students (%) Strongly Disagree No. of Students (%)

1. I am interested in reading English story books. 2. I read English story books in my leisure time. 3. I can learn a lot of vocabulary from story books. 4. A short story lesson may help improve my reading skills. 5. A short story lesson may help improve my listening skills. 6. A short story lesson may help improve my writing skills. 7. A short story lesson may help improve my speaking skills. 8. I may learn more about different cultures through story books. 9. A short story lesson may prepare me well for the HKDSE. 10. A short story lesson could help me write a good story. 11. I think I can learn English through short stories. 12. I will enjoy learning English through short stories. 13. It is worth spending class time on short stories. 14. I want to have similar lessons on short stories next year.

2 5.1% 1 2.6% 6 15.4% 3 7.7% 1 2.6% 1 2.6% 3 7.7% 2 5.1% 1 2.6% 1 2.6% 2 5.1% 2 5.1% 3 7.7% 6 15.4%

15 38.5% 12 30.8% 23 59.0% 17 43.6% 5 12.8% 14 35.9% 8 20.5% 15 38.5% 16 41.0% 9 23.1% 24 61.5% 18 46.2% 9 23.1% 10 25.6%

16 41.0% 14 35.9% 6 15.4% 12 30.8% 24 61.5% 18 46.2% 21 53.8% 16 41.0% 13 33.3% 21 53.8% 11 28.2% 14 35.9% 22 56.4% 18 46.2%

6 15.4% 11 28.2% 4 10.3% 7 17.9% 8 20.5% 6 15.4% 6 15.4% 6 15.4% 8 20.5% 6 15.4% 2 5.1% 5 12.8% 5 12.8% 3 7.7%

0 0% 1 2.6% 0 0% 0 0% 1 2.6% 0 0% 1 2.6% 0 0% 1 2.6% 2 5.1% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 2 5.1%

F.D.B.W.A. Szeto Ho Secondary School Learning English through Short Stories 2009-2010 Results from Post-teaching Program Questionnaire Part A Please tick the appropriate box for each statement. Class Activities (e.g. listening to a song, Strongly Agree group discussion, individual presentation, (No. of role play, journal writing, picture drawing, students) characters interview, cover / poster design)
%

Sex: M / F
Agree (No. of Students) % Neutral (No. of Students) % Disagree (No. of Students) % Strongly Disagree (No. of Students) %

1. I was interested in most of the class activities. 2. I always took part in the activities actively. 3. I enjoyed group work in class. 4. I enjoyed doing individual presentation in class. 5. I was given enough time to finish all the class work. 6. I could have more chance to expose to English in class. 7. I had confidence in using English in class. 8. Most of the activities were easy to understand. 9. The activities helped create good learning atmosphere. Coursework

3 7.9% 1 2.6% 5 13.2% 2 5.3% 2 5.3% 4 10.8% 4 10.8% 1 2.7% 3 8.1%

Strongly Agree (No. of students) %

19 50.0% 16 42.1% 20 52.6% 7 18.4% 18 47.4% 10 27.0% 11 29.7% 26 70.3% 15 40.5%

Agree (No. of Students) %

14 36.8% 19 50.0% 12 31.6% 23 60.5% 13 34.2% 20 54.1% 15 40.5% 10 27.0% 14 37.8%

Neutral (No. of Students) %

1 2.6% 2 5.3% 1 2.6% 6 15.8% 3 7.9% 2 5.4% 6 16.2% 0 0% 3 8.1%

Disagree (No. of Students) %

1 2.6% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 2 5.3% 1 2.7% 1 2.7% 0 0% 2 5.4%

Strongly Disagree (No. of Students) %

1. I enjoyed writing journals. 2. I could reflect my learning through journals. 3. I was given enough time to read the story book. 4. I liked the book chosen by the teacher. 5..I enjoyed doing the worksheets. 6. I was given enough time to finish the worksheets. 7. The amount of work was reasonable

2 5.3% 0 0% 0 0% 1 2.6% 3 7.9% 0 0% 1 2.6%

Strongly Agree (No. of students)

6 15.8% 10 26.3% 13 34.2% 15 39.5% 5 13.2% 17 44.7% 10 26.3%

Agree (No. of Students)

20 52.6% 22 57.9% 14 36.8% 15 39.5% 16 42.1% 12 31.6% 23 60.5%

Neutral (No. of Students)

9 23.7% 5 13.2% 10 26.3% 7 18.4% 11 28.9% 6 15.8% 4 10.5%

Disagree (No. of Students)

1 2.6% 1 2.6% 1 2.6% 0 0% 3 7.9% 3 7.9% 0 0%

Strongly Disagree (No. of Students)

Assessment

3 % % % % %

1. I understood the assessment requirements in the HKDSE. 2. The course materials could help me prepare well before the formal assessment. 3. Group discussion was easy. 4. Individual presentation was easy.

2 5.3% 1 2.6% 3 7.9% 2 5.3%

Strongly Agree (No. of students) %

12 31.6% 15 39.5% 12 31.6% 10 26.3%

Agree (No. of Students) %

21 55.3% 21 55.3% 16 42.1% 21 55.3%

Neutral (No. of Students) %

3 7.9% 1 2.6% 4 10.5% 4 10.5%

Disagree (No. of Students) %

0 0% 0 0% 3 7.9% 1 2.6%
Strongly Disagree (No. of Students) %

Learning

1. I could learn a lot of vocabulary from the story book. 2. I had no difficulty in understanding most of the words in the story book. 3. The lessons helped me improve my reading skills. 4. The lessons helped me improve my speaking skills. 5. The lessons helped me improve my listening skills. 6. The lessons helped me improve my writing skills. 7. I could learn more about different cultures through the story book. 8. I like reading English story books. 9. I read English story books in my leisure time. 10. The lessons could prepare me well for the HKDSE. 11. The lessons could help me write good stories. 12. I could learn English through short stories. 13. I enjoyed the English short story lessons. 14. It was worth spending class time on short stories. 15. I hope to have similar lessons on short stories next year. 16. I hope to have similar lessons on other language arts electives next year. 17. The lessons encourage me to read more English story books. 18. I prefer short story lesson to traditional English lesson. Part B

6 15.8% 1 2.6% 3 7.9% 1 2.6% 1 2.6% 1 2.6% 1 2.6% 2 5.3% 1 2.6% 0 0% 2 5.3% 0 0% 1 2.6% 3 7.9% 3 7.9% 4 10.5% 2 5.3% 3 7.9%

19 50.0% 11 28.9% 17 44.7% 12 31.6% 15 39.5% 18 47.4% 13 34.2% 11 28.9% 11 28.9% 13 34.2% 8 21.1% 22 57.9% 18 47.4% 15 39.5% 15 39.5% 16 42.1% 19 50.0% 15 39.5%

11 28.9% 21 55.3% 17 44.7% 20 52.6% 18 47.4% 12 31.6% 20 52.6% 21 55.3% 18 47.4% 22 57.9% 17 44.7% 14 36.8% 16 42.1% 17 44.7% 12 31.6% 15 39.5% 14 36.8% 15 39.5%

1 2.6% 5 13.2% 1 2.6% 5 13.2% 4 10.5% 6 15.8% 3 7.9% 2 5.3% 7 18.4% 1 2.6% 10 26.3% 1 2.6% 2 5.3% 2 5.3% 5 13.2% 1 2.6% 2 5.3% 3 7.9%

1 2.6% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 1 2.6% 1 2.6% 2 5.3% 1 2.6% 2 5.3% 1 2.6% 1 2.6% 1 2.6% 1 2.6% 3 7.9% 2 5.3% 1 2.6% 2 5.3%

1. Among the following features, I think the easiest to understand is: atmosphere opening setting theme genre character 50%(19) climax resolution plot of story ending because___________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ 2. Among the following features, I think the most difficult to understand is: atmosphere opening setting theme 28.9% (11) genre character climax 21.1% (8) resolution plot of story ending because___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ 3. Among the following class activities, I think the most interesting is: song appreciation 52.6% (20)group discussion drawing the character I like poster design 26.3% (10) role play presentation journal writing because___________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ 4. Among the following class activities, I think the least interesting is: song appreciation group discussion drawing the character I like poster design role play presentation 18.4% (7) journal writing 52.6% (20) because___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ 9. Among the following types of story, the most interesting is: romance 31.6%(12)adventure fables science fiction fairy tale detective horror story / ghost story 26.3% (10) others:__________________________________________________________ because___________________________________________________________________ 10. Among the following types of story, the least interesting is: romance adventure fables science fiction 28.9% (11) fairy tale detective horror story / ghost story 23.7% (9) others:__________________________________________________________ because___________________________________________________________________ 11. Suggestion for making improvement for the program: ____________________________________________________________________ - End -

Responses from the first journal The brighter group

1. What I learnt about short stories:

Appendix XI

I realize how to understand the setting, theme and atmosphere in the stories. I learnt how to communicate with others well. Short stories provide a lot of simple sentences. Readers can imagine what the stories are talking about through the cover. Vocabulary I also learnt some adjectives from short stories. I learnt how to know the atmosphere and the setting in the song. I learnt how to write a story, learnt new words and how to appreciate every story. I learnt how to scan a passage to find out some information about the setting and characters feeling and its a useful skill for me to learn. (Reading skills) I learnt vocabulary in short stories. This is useful for me to learn. I have learnt how to write a story and what a story needs e.g. setting and character. 2. Things I found difficult / interesting in the lessons: I cant realize what the theme of the story is and I think the lessons are boring. An old English song could be nice to appreciate. Things I found interesting in the lessons are to draw a character well and act as the characters from the books. Difficult thing is speak in English with classmates. I found the most interesting part of the lessons is drawing a picture of a character. I found that it was hard to use English to talk with my classmates in complete sentences and thats why I sometimes will use Chinese to explain my ideas. I think listen to song can make the lesson more interesting. It is interesting for me to listen to the music during the lesson. I love singing song and drawing picture, so I have fun through these two parts. The interesting thing is that I dont need to read the book. 3. What I want to do or learn about short stories in future: I want to learn more about the atmosphere because I think the lessons didnt concentrate on this part. I think listening to songs is a great idea, but I think the song is a bit boring. There should be rock songs, rap or some other.

ii

I want to learn more about structure and grammar. Songs that we choose and some funny games. (Negotiation of materials D.Nunan) Watch films or listen to music. I want to watch the movies of the short stories in future because I think watching movies will be more interesting than reading books. I want to watch films and listen to songs because it will be more fun. I would like to watch movies during the lesson, and not just discussion. I want to watch film in the lesson. I want to watch movies to learn about short stories in the future during the lesson. I dont like reading books. I want to listen to music but not old songs. I want to learn more grammar through the short stories.

iii

Responses from the first journal The average group

1. What I learnt about short stories: I learnt how to evaluate the mood of the songs and story books. I learnt expressing my feeling through drawing and discussion. We have learnt genres of story books. We have also learnt how to analyze the atmosphere and characters personalities. I learnt vocabulary in short stories. I think it is useful. I can improve my reading skills and writing skills, too. I learnt how to find out the setting. That can help me understand the story. I learnt more about reading books such as setting, atmosphere and genre. Now I can read faster. (Reading skill) I learnt much about vocabulary. I learnt how to find out the atmosphere, setting, characters and genre of stories. These can help me understand the storyline. I learnt about how to find the setting and something about the characters in the story. 2. Things I found difficult / interesting in the lessons: Writing a short story is very difficult because it calls for proficient English. I feel bored during learning the elective. I can listen to the song Tears in Heaven. I think it is good and I can learn listening skill in this. I think it is meaningful. We listen to music. I love it! That song was pretty good. I found it is difficult to have the discussion in the class and it is also difficult to fill in the lyrics of the song, but it is interesting to listen to the music. It is difficult to listen to the song. It is a little bit difficult to draw a picture of the characters who I liked. The thing I found interesting in the lessons was listening to the song Tears in Heaven. The interesting thing was that I had drawn a funny picture of a character. It is interesting to learn English through short stories, songs or poems. I found interesting in the lessons is that I can listen to a nice song and draw a picture. These can make the lesson more interesting. I think listening to the song Tears in Heaven is the most interesting and I like drawing the picture, too. 3. What I want to do or learn about short stories in future: Listening more songs and watching films. I want to learn new words in order to face our HKDSE.

iv

Due to boredom, I hope that we can listen to more modern English songs such as the songs sung by Lady GaGa. I want to listen to more music and watch more movies. The music is too old. We can watch some films about some stories. I want to watch films and listen to more music. Maybe we can have more drawing in the lessons. In future, I want to listen to more English songs and analyze more English poems. I think theses may improve my English writing and reading. I want to learn more new vocabulary and grammar. I want to listen to more songs and watch more videos. And I think group discussion is wasting time. I want to watch more films and listen to more pop music. I want to play some games with the whole class when we learn about short stories in future. I want to draw more pictures and listen to more songs in future. I want to watch the film of stories and listen to some music to learn stories. I want to watch some movies and listen to more different songs.

Responses from the first journal The weaker group

4. What I learnt about short stories: The story about atmosphere, setting and characters I learnt more vocabulary and more about peoples feelings. I can learn more adjective and adverb. I learnt atmosphere, setting, characters and genre. I can learn more about difficult words. I can learn some best sentences in story books. Some sentences are about our life, family or friends that can help me to think. I learnt some vocabulary and how to know characters personality. I learnt how to analyze the story. I can appreciate the story. 5. Things I found difficult / interesting in the lessons: The book is fun. The story book cannot speak. No sound. More talking can improve my English skill. The interesting thing is to draw a picture of a character and sing a song. I am interested in the lessons of listen to the song Tears in Heaven. I enjoy listening to music. And our classmates make fun. I found interesting is watching film. I find interesting in the lessons are singing songs and drawing some pictures. I think reading the story is so boring but listen to the song is so good for me to learn. And song can improve my listening skills. I cant know the atmosphere of the story. I think the most difficult thing is discussion because I dont like talking with others. I think the most interesting thing is drawing pictures because it is a special thing. I found watching film and listening to songs interesting. I found drawing a picture difficult. I think listening to the song is fun and interesting. Discussion is a little boring. Drawing a picture of a character is entertaining. In the lessons, we can listen to a song. I feel relaxed and comfortable. The discussion is difficult and boring. I am interested in listening to a song and drawing a picture. They are fun. The PowerPoint shows the pictures. I can understand the story easily.

vi

If we listen to the music, we will relax in the lesson and learn more knowledge. I can listen to music. It is very fun to me. But I dont like discussion because it is boring to me. 6. What I want to do or learn about short stories in future: More discussion and listen to more song. More activities. I can use dictionary to read short story because many words I dont know. Singing songs which are some meaningful songs. I want to listen to more English song and learn how to enjoy reading English stories and some difficult words. I want to watch more movies or listen to more songs in the future. If we can watch movies or discuss more films that I think our classmates will be more interested in. I want to play some games because games can be entertaining to relax. I want to listen to more songs in future and watch more English films. I want to watch films in future because films are more fun. I want to sing songs in the lessons in future but I dont want to read a story in the lessons because it is boring. I want to watch more movies or listen to more songs in the future. I want to learn more vocabulary or grammar in future. I hope we can listen to more songs in future. I want to see more different films and stories in future. I want to see movies. It is interesting. I want to listen to the song and watch the film. It is so fun! I like it! I want to listen to more songs in the lessons.

Responses from the second journal The brighter group Appendix XII
Feelings (positive) delightful funny interesting unique fantastic impressive fabulous glad exciting attractive happy good easy fun useful neutral Feelings (negative) boring not interesting not fun too long (3 students) Overall comment towards Learning English through Short Stories: - fun and educational - learn more vocabulary - full of fun - boring - not bad - easier - more interesting - some books are boring - too little time - learn the writing skills - wonderful - useful - the story plot attract me a lot! - I hope we will have short story lessons next year! - I want more art work, less reading and writing - Quite good as I can draw pictures.

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Responses from the second journal The average group

Feelings (positive) useful entertaining enjoyable happy good interesting full of fun remarkable positive great excellent funny amazing new bravo surprising delighted creative interactive effective nice Feelings (negative) a little bit boring a bit difficult (3 students) Overall comment towards Learning English through Short Stories: look great I think writing a story is boring! Its the best way to learn English. I love it. It is better than a textbook It is better than learning English in English lesson. improve speaking learn more vocabulary It make me want to watch more books improve my English learn some writing skills better than traditional English lessons

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Responses from the second journal The weaker group

Feelings (positive) happy interesting not boring exciting funny attractive easy meaningful entertaining excellent amazing good fantastic fabulous very good active special free delighted Feelings (negative) boring (only 1 student) Overall comment towards Learning English through Short Stories: I like it I love it and hope F.5 will have the short story lessons. I think it is good for me to learn English. I can learn some vocabulary in short story. It is very fun that I can talk or play with my classmates. not only use textbook I can learn more vocabulary easy to learn English English lessons are more attractive I think design the poster is funny much easy to learn new vocabulary easy to remember some activities exciting May have short story lessons next year , ! (Less boring than the conventional lessons! I could learn a lot!) , !(Excellent! Interesting!)