3.5 Data Collection Methods
3.5.8 Trustworthiness
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researcher will start to identify the possible patterns within the transcripts, and thus the initial codes emerge. Next, as more and more codes appeared, the researcher re-examined and compared the codes constantly with other parts of transcripts. If new codes failed to possess some of the properties as the old ones, some modifications were made such as creating a subcode, or redefining the original codes and so forth.
Finally, if all of the transcripts were scrutinized completely with no more possible codes coming out, these codes were synthesized all together and be presented in a narrative from different participants’ voices.
These stages were not done successively but rather recursively. In qualitative research, the process of data analysis begins as soon as the project starts and continues until the final submission of the report (Hood, 2009). Therefore, the researcher went back and forth for these stages in an iterative means to generate insights from the data.
3.5.8 Trustworthiness
To guard the trustworthiness of the present study, three practices would be employed based on Lincoln and Guba (1985). First of all, the data gathered from multiple channels, including interviews, observations, and other related artifacts to triangulate the participants’ experience with speech contests, and their challenges and personal growth while taking part in a speech contest. Through the process of
triangulation, the possibility of credible interpretation increased since it was confirmed by more than one method. Second, one peer debriefer, who has had previous experiences in carrying out qualitative studies, was invited to provide constructive suggestions to the study such as the interview protocol, and coding schemes. Through the lens of the peer, it is hoped that biases or assumptions could be clarified, and some uncertainties during the completion of thesis would be reduced.
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Finally, the last technique is member checking. After the interviews and observations, I provided the participants with a full text of their stories in order to clear up any misinterpretations and to invite them to see whether they would provide additional information. With the help of triangulation, peer debriefing and member checking, it is hoped that the trustworthiness of the present research would be enhanced.
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CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS Introduction
In this chapter, I would start from the story of Jean to illustrate her difficulties when preparing for the speech contest and the growth she gained from the
participation. After the illustrations of Jean would be followed by the story of Vincent, whose story is composed of two cycles of competitions, both intra-school and
inter-school contest. Finally, his story will be ended with his personal growth from participating the speech contests.
Story of Jean
Part One—Jean’s difficulties Prior Negative Experiences
Jean participated in one speech contest during her primary days. The speech format then was prepared speech, and she did much preparation for the contest. Also, her homeroom teacher brought the entire class to the stadium to watch her speech.
However, once she stepped onto the stage, she was so nervous that she couldn’t help but shiver onstage. After delivering the beginning of her speech, she just couldn’t remember what to say. Although these contents had been practiced over and over again, they just fell into fragments she didn’t know how to pick them up. Therefore, all she could do was stand on the stage and be silent. She felt ashamed then because every single person in the stadium saw her being helpless on the spot, of course, including each of her classmates. From her third grade, delivering speech in public has become her nightmare. Therefore, the negative past experience is one of the difficulties for Jean when preparing for the speech contest. However, now she has become a 10th grader, though intimated by the past experience, Jean thought she has
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been mature enough to face the challenge once again, so she decided to participate in the contest, instead of shunning away from it.
Competition with Superior Peers
In addition to the past negative experience, speaking in front of peers from advanced English class seemed to be an enormous pressure to Jean, since Ashley arranged Jean and her classmate to practice together with peers from advanced class after the first practice. The following excerpts are some evidence of her mental stress.
Excerpt One
R: Hum, so how did you feel when you finished the speech?
J: it’s so embarrassing!
R: Why do you think it’s embarrassing (to speak in front of peers from advanced class)?
J: Because…cuz…it’s like…like…like a professional English speaker watches a kid in the kindergartner speaking English. It’s so horrible! (the first interview with Jean)
As previously introduced, students from the English advanced class have been selected through certain criterion; thus, generally, students from advanced class have better proficiency than those from regular classes. However, the proficiency in Jean’s mind between advanced class and regular class is even much wider than that of their actual language performances. From excerpt one, Jean viewed peers from advanced class as “professional English speakers” and compared her language proficiency to
“a child in the kindergartner”. This exaggerated expression may not illustrate the actual gap between them but indicate the mental gap that Jean imagined, and more importantly, it became a potential hindrance for her during the competition. Excerpt two below may be another good demonstration of her fright.
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R: Do you remember the feeling when the first time you saw them (peers from advanced class)?
J: It was so terrifying. I even asked my classmate: “They are not going to compete with us in the same area, right?” “Of course, they do.” answered my classmate. Then, I was to…totally shocked, and I thought “Gosh! Oh, no!”
R: Like a bolt from the blue?
J: Yes. And when I knew, on the day of contest, once the contestant finished his speech, he would appearance is earlier, then everything will be fine. But, unfortunately, my order is right after Benjamin (pseudonym, one superior peer from advanced class), the right next one. He must have already given such a great speech, and I…I am so…(the first interview with Jean)
This imagined mental gap convinced her that she could never win over them so she, in the first place, wished that they wouldn’t be arranged in the same area on the day of the contest (which means advanced peers are divided into another group);
however, as she knew she had to compete with them altogether, and that came as a shock to her. Next, if she had to compete with them, she hoped that at least her order of appearance could be as early as possible, because she didn’t want her speech to be heard by any of those advanced peers. Yet, Benjamin’s order was earlier than she, which terrified Jean because her speech would be directly compared with Benjamin’s and Benjamin would even pay attention to her less competent speech. Still, the contest hadn’t begun, but she already assumed that these peers from advanced class would have delivered such a wonderful speech that her speech couldn’t be compared with.
Obviously, competing with advanced peers caused an enormous stress to her and became one of obstacles for her preparation.
Language Anxiety Affected Her Speech
Apart from competing with advanced peers, the task of delivering a speech confidently also disturbed her in many ways. Jean admitted that in the entire course of
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the competition, her anxiety onstage was the biggest problem for her to overcome.
Because of her anxiety, her performances were considerably affected.
To demonstrate how anxiety impacted her speech, firstly, I would like to start from Jean’s first practice, and see how she delivered her first speech and what difficulties she met. In the first practice, only Jean and her classmate were present in order to lessen their anxiety and to enable them to adapt themselves to the impromptu speech. In this practice, the following picture (see, Figure 1) was used as the material for Jean to improvise the story, and her first time speech has been transcribed as the follow.
Picture 1 the 1st Practice
Jean’s First Practice
Good afternoon, I'm No. 2. My name is Mandy. Today I'm going to tell you a story about …which I dreamed yes… yester…last night. Um..The story is about a village filled with a lot of animals but all the animals stay in their home. No one came out because there was a monster called Gruffalo who wanted to attack the village. One day, another old goat came to the village, and one turned up one turn up (the picture in her hands fell to the ground and she picked up immediately with an anxious look)
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the… the… the… village ..and but so he went into a..a.. home, but after he opened the door, he saw another goat hiding in the edge and and kept shouting, "No, don't kill me. No, Gruffalo, please don't."
He suddenly felt too so bad that another animal can, he can let another animal feel so scared, and so he wanted..decided to be a good person, he.. a good goat. He gathered all the villagers and and had made a plan to attack the Gruffalo. That day he he stand in the middle of the village. The Gruffalo is so happy that he can finally get an animal to eat for dinner. Um, After, after all, the villagers saw that they were so angry and and they went to attack, the the Gruffalo still ate the old goat but ,but bur he ran away right after that. The villagers saw the old goat getting sick, he were they were so sad and… and…
and… talked to the old goat. The old goat said he wanted to be a nice goat after… after if he can be still alive, but he still died. Um..The villagers were so happy that the old goat helped them, and so they set a grave… grave in the middle of the village to to to remember him forever, and they live happily.
Thank you. (2m31s)
The above transcript of Jean’s first practice showed that although she tried her best to deliver her speech, there was some room for her to improve. In the following texts, Ashley’s feedback was regarded as the evidence of the room she needed improvement and served as the proof of the difficulties she was faced with.
First, Ashley suggested that the opening of the speech be more specific, which means that Jeans might have problems using proper collocations in her language.
Jean’s opening was “Let me tell you a story which I dreamed last night.” However, based on Ashley’s feedback, if Jean really wanted to share the dream she had last night, she should put it as “Let me tell you a horrible dream I had yesterday” or “Let me tell you a dream of mine yesterday” since nobody really dreamed a story.
Therefore, Jean was requested to adjust the beginning of the story to be more specific:
“like my grandmother or one of my old friend, Jack; even an old book I found in my home.” By doing so, audience could feel the story Jean delivered was real instead of being improvised six minutes ago. Using the fixed opening is also recommended, according to Ashley, since that enabled Jean to have some more extra time making up the story rather than worrying about which words to be used in the opening.
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Second, Jean’s stance and gestures were suggested to be more natural. When Jean got nervous, she would swing her body from the left to the right constantly. The swinging movements emphasized her uneasiness onstage. Hence, Jean was advised not to stand still (but not too stiff like a zombie) and put down her arms beside the body and move them naturally as her talked. The way she moved onstage should be approximate to her daily modes of communication, such as chitchats with friends.
With the help of natural stances and gestures, her speech would be more convincing for the audience.
Third, without having enough confidence in herself, Jean couldn’t keep her eye contact with the judges, especially when she tried to organize the pieces of her stories and figure out how to put them into reasonable sequences. Therefore, Jean was reminded not to look down at the floor since once her head is down, her voice went down along with it. Her voice should be thrown to the back of the room, so the position of head must be upward. Also, to look around the surroundings and to look right into judges’ eyes are helpful for her since they are the ones whom she spoke to.
Yet, if she dared not to look into their eyes, she can look at their noses, and the judges would be convinced that she was looking at them.
Fourth, Jean mimicked the voice of another character during the story plot, which is a strategy highly recommended by Ashley. Still, Jean’s voice expression was still not vivid enough to fully attract audience’s attention with her plain tone flattening the original story. Her monotones may be related to her habit of mumbling in her mouth and that can blur her pronunciation and intonation in her delivery, and thus can increase the difficulties for listeners to comprehend her speech. Therefore, Jean was suggested to open her mouth wider to avoid these problems in her speech. Besides, Jean can be more immersed in the story she made, so when the story reached to the
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climax, her expression could fluctuate more with it as the story developed.
To sum up, from the above suggestions from Ashley, only the first
shortcoming is out of lack of practices, and the other three aspects of feedback may be more or less related to her nervousness. Jean was not that confident as other peers, so her uneasiness had impacts on her stances, her eye contacts with the judges and also her voice expressions.
Still, how did Jean thought of her own speech? Did she possess the same viewpoints as Ashley’s? To understand how Jean evaluated her speech, I further asked what her biggest challenge was in terms of speaking onstage, as shown in Excerpt Three.
Excerpt Three
R: What was your biggest problem then?
J: Well, it’s nervousness, such as facing judges in the contest, facing superior peers and the teacher in the practices, even peers from junior high, or anyone listening to me.
(the first interview with Jean)
From the excerpt three, aside from Ashley’s feedback, Jean herself also admitted it was the nervousness that influenced considerably on her overall performances; thus, she couldn’t have eye contact with the judges, couldn’t have proper gestures to help her speech, and dared not to exaggerate her voices when the climax of story reached.
There was another cause for her to be anxious onstage is her stammering especially when she needed to plot the story in her mind. Take her first practice impromptu speech for example. She had stammered for 12 times in total. In fact, stammering is common phenomenon in a speech; however, if too much stammering occurs within one speech, that may hinder audience’s comprehension. In the excerpt four, I would further explain the reason why Jean stammered in her speeches.
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Excerpt Four
R: Why do you stammer? …
J: Nervousness, and I’m also afraid that I will forget the following stories. So I would like to speak it out as soon as possible, because I’m really afraid that I will forget.
…
J: because sometimes when I spoke the story out; in the meanwhile, I was thinking what I was going to say, but if I couldn’t pick it up, my speech will fall into fragments.
(the first interview with Jean)
Based on Ashley’s feedback, telling a story, in fact, involves multi-tasks including an appealing opening, proper stance and gesture, eye contact, and
appropriate voice expression. Aside from those elements, not to forget the story she just composed is another difficulty she was confronted with. In other words, her stammering occurred when she organized her story line in her mind. Jean was afraid that she could forget what she was going to say, so she could not help but speed up her speaking. Thus, when the two tasks, organizing the story and putting it into
comprehensible units, could not be worked out smoothly simultaneously, her stammering occurred repeatedly, and her anxiety ascended as well. Finally, she was overwhelmed by her anxiety once again.
In the next excerpt and speech transcript, I would show her 4th practice, the last practice before the intra-school contest. Also, in this practice, she invited both junior and senior high students to practice together. The transcript of the practice will be followed by the interview about her description of forgetting lines on the stage.
Jean’s Fourth Practice
Hello, my name is Jean. I'm No. 3. Today I'm going to tell you a story about two dogs that I named Tom and Bob. One day, after living inside of the house, they found a big suitcase in front of their dog house. They saw so many toys and a big fluffy blanket inside it. They they were so wanted to took them in the suitcase so badly, so so they they fight with each other and have a barking until their owner
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came out of the house. "What are you doing? You shouldn't fight," said the owner, " (3secs)I won't give any I won't give you two any food until until you apologize to each other, OK?" After saying that, the owner went back home and took another big blanket and put it inside of the dog house. The two dogs were, the two dogs……After they saw that, they…the two dogs, they they looked at each other and and apologized.(2 secs)Um… (3secs) "You can You can take that blanket," said Bob, "I I am fine with the the old dog house."(2 sec, looked up to the ceiling) "Really?" said Tim. "Really?" said Tim. (2 secs, held her fists tightly and swung)Um(3 secs, held her fists tightly and swung) He he was so glad that they didn't want to fight with anyone.(stepped her legs right and left) "Thank you, … Thank you, Tim....
you are my best friend," said Tim, and they hugged each other. Thank you.
(1m 51s)
Excerpt Five
R: You said you had had the experience of standing on the stage but forgetting your following story lines?
J: Then I, I thought I… the story was different from what I thought, because I had skipped a part, skipped a part.
R: what was the story you’re supposed to say?
J: I thought, it’s about dogs…um..no, no, no, not cats and dogs. That picture was two dogs. They are in front of a luggage box with a blanket inside. Then, I said they finished their breakfast. After having breakfast at home, they saw a luggage in front of their dog house. And they felt, they felt very nice, and found a big and fluffy blanket with so many doggie bones. Then they were happy about that. And they wanted to live in because it’s comfortable to sleep in the blanket. Then they were having a fight over that. Then, their owner came out angrily to tell them to shut up and said
J: I thought, it’s about dogs…um..no, no, no, not cats and dogs. That picture was two dogs. They are in front of a luggage box with a blanket inside. Then, I said they finished their breakfast. After having breakfast at home, they saw a luggage in front of their dog house. And they felt, they felt very nice, and found a big and fluffy blanket with so many doggie bones. Then they were happy about that. And they wanted to live in because it’s comfortable to sleep in the blanket. Then they were having a fight over that. Then, their owner came out angrily to tell them to shut up and said