探索演講比賽的挑戰與收穫─以一所台灣的高中為例 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士班英語教學組碩士論文. 指導教授：黃怡萍教授 Advisor：Yi-Ping Huang. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學 sit. y. Nat. 探索演講比賽的挑戰與收穫─以一所台灣的高中為例. io. er. Exploring the Challenges and Personal Growth from Speech Contests: A Case of a Senior High School in Taiwan. n. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. 研究生：黃毓培撰 Name: Yu-Pei Huang 中華民國 106 年 1 月 January, 2017. v.

(2) Exploring the Challenges and Personal Growth from Speech Contests: A Case of a Senior High School in Taiwan. A Master Thesis Presented to Department of English, National Chenchi University. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. by Yu-pei Huang January, 2017.

(3) To Prof. Yi-ping Huang 獻給我的恩師黃怡萍教授. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(4) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS When I am writing the acknowledgement, it means it is almost the end of my thesis, and this is the dream that I dared not to have for the past three years. I was luckily enough to be a formal teacher in a public high school three years ago, but I didn’t realize how painful it would be to finish the thesis while having a full-time job at day time. I still remember vividly how I compelled myself to go to library every night even though I barely had energy to do anything. Still, I made it at last, with the encouragements and supports from many of you.. 政治大 appreciation to my thesis advisor, Prof. Yi-ping Huang, who has been considerably 立 First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and greatest. tolerant of my chronicle procrastination and paying continuous patience throughout. ‧ 國. 學. the research of this work. Without Prof. Huang’s insightful guidance and persistent. ‧. assistance, this study would hardly have been completed. I am also greatly indebted to. sit. y. Nat. the committee members, Prof. Chin-chi Chao, Prof. Tsai-hung Chen and Prof.. io. er. Chieh-yue Yeh, whose encouraging words and constructive feedback enabled me to better refine my thesis. Among these professors, I would like to thank Prof. Chieh-yue. al. n. v i n Yeh in particular for drafting theCoriginal outlines of the h e n g c h i Uresearch and helping me find the suitable participants for this thesis.. Next, I would like to show my indebtedness to all of the participants of this study. First, I am grateful for my teacher participant Ashley, for being willing to take part in my research and help me invite other student participants even though she had such a busy schedule in school. In addition, my heartfelt appreciation goes to my student participants, Jean and Vincent, who were willing to endure the embarrassment of being observed by a stranger like me and spend much time reporting your reflections and sharing your learning experiences with me. Besides, I would like to extend my i.

(5) thanks to Benjamin, although I did not include your data into my final thesis; however, I still appreciate your participation to my research. Furthermore, the very person I have to express with warmest appreciation is my boyfriend, Zong-ru Lee. In this long-lasting battle, he is the person who has never lost his faith in me and has always believed that I have the capacity to complete the entire course of writing this research. Without his unconditional supports for me, I would never have the strength to finish such a daunting task. Lastly, I would like to dedicate the thesis to my family, it is their unflagging love and care that make my pursuit of master degree possible.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. ii. i n U. v.

(6) TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................... i Table of Contents ......................................................................................................iii Chinese Abstract .......................................................................................................... v English Abstract .......................................................................................................... vi Chapter One: Introduction ......................................................................................... 1 1.0 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background and Rationale of the Study .............................................................. 1 1.2 The Purpose of the Study ..................................................................................... 4 1.3 Research Questions .............................................................................................. 4 Chapter Two: Literature Review ................................................................................ 5 2.0 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 5 2.1Challenges Students Faced and Related Coping strategies................................... 5 2.2 Personal Growth Students Reaped ..................................................................... 10 2.3 Research Gap ..................................................................................................... 11. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Chapter Three: Methodology.................................................................................... 12 3.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 12 3.1 Research Design................................................................................................. 12 3.2 Context ............................................................................................................... 13 3.3 Participant .......................................................................................................... 14 3. 3.1 The Teacher Participant............................................................................ 14 3.3.2 The Student Participants ........................................................................... 15 3.4 Instruction .......................................................................................................... 16 3.4.1 Ashley’s Instruction .................................................................................. 16 3.4.2 The Selections of Contestants ................................................................... 16 3.4.3Training Process For the Intra-school Contest ........................................... 17 3.4.4 Training Process For the Taipei City English Speech Contest ................. 20 3.5 Data Collection Methods ................................................................................... 21 3.5.1Semi-structured interviews ........................................................................ 21 3.5.2 Teacher interviews .................................................................................... 22 3.5.3 Student interviews..................................................................................... 23 3.5.4 Observations ............................................................................................. 23 3.5.5 Artifacts ..................................................................................................... 24 3.5.6 Procedures of Data Collection .................................................................. 24 3.5.7 Data Analysis ............................................................................................ 25 3.5.8 Trustworthiness ......................................................................................... 26. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Chapter Four: Results ............................................................................................... 28 Story of Jean ............................................................................................................ 28 iii.

(7) Part One—Jean’s difficulties ............................................................................. 28 Part Two—Supports from teachers .................................................................... 38 Part Three—The Performance and Self-Evaluation of the Day of Intra-school Contest ........................................................................................... 39 Part Four—Growth Gained from this Experience ............................................. 43 The story of Vincent................................................................................................. 46 The First Phase of the Contest—The Intra-school Contest ..................................... 46 Part One— Vincent’s Challenge (from Relaxing to Anxious Attitude ) .......... 47 Part Two—The performance and Self-Evaluation on the day of intra-school contest .............................................................................................. 57 Part Three—Vincent’s Support .......................................................................... 61 Part Four—Personal Growth from intra-school contest .................................... 63 Part Five—Self Expectation of Taipei City English Speech Contest ................ 63 The Second Phase of the Contest—The Taipei City English Speech Contest ......... 63 Part One—Vincent’s Challenges ....................................................................... 64 Part Two—Vincent’s Support ............................................................................ 77 Part Three—One the day of the Contest ............................................................ 79 Part Four—Improvising a New style Speech on the Spot ................................. 81 Part Five—The Self-reflection upon the Contest............................................... 84. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. Chapter Five: Discussion ........................................................................................... 86 5.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 86 5.1 Research Question One ...................................................................................... 86 5.2 Answer and Discussion of the Research Question One ..................................... 86 5.3 Research Question Two ..................................................................................... 95 5.4 Answer and Discussion of the Research Question Two ..................................... 95 5.5 Pedagogical Suggestions .................................................................................... 96 5.6 Limitations of the Study..................................................................................... 97. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Reference .................................................................................................................... 99 Appendix A: Consent Form in English .................................................................. 101 Appendix B: Consent Form in Chinese ................................................................. 102 Appendix C: Interview Protocol for Teacher Participant....................................... 103 Appendix D: Questionnaire for Student Participant .............................................. 105 Appendix E: Interview Protocol for Student Participant ....................................... 107 Table 3.1 The Schedule for Training of Intra-school Contest .................................. 18 Table 3.2 The Respective Training Syllabus for Jean and Vincent .......................... 19 Table 3.3 The Time Schedule for School Activities ................................................ 21 Table 5.1 Challenges that the Participants Encountered ........................................ 87 Table 5.2 Coping Strategies that the Participants Employed ................................... 88 iv.

(8) 國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士班碩士論文提要. 論文名稱：探索演講比賽的挑戰與收穫─以一所台灣的高中為例指導教授：黃怡萍博士研究生：黃毓培論文提要內容：本研究旨從台灣高中生的觀點探討準備英語演講的過程中所遇到的挑戰與. 治政大同語言程度的台灣高一學生。分析資料由多重管道蒐集，包含與學生的半結構式立其相關對策以及個人成長收穫。本研究採取質性個案研究，研究對象為兩位有不. 訪談，練習時的觀察記錄以及其他相關文件，最後經由對比原始資料得出研究結. ‧ 國. 學. 果。. ‧. 研究結果顯示，兩位研究對象所面臨的挑戰可分成四大類，分別為單句內. y. Nat. 的問題、跨句間的問題、口語表達與演說焦慮，其中又以口語表達與演說焦慮為. er. io. sit. 兩大首要挑戰。以語言焦慮而言，焦慮的確對口說有負面影響，然而，它也能對於學習者的表現有正面的影響，如能促使學習者更認真面對比賽。此外，焦慮程. al. n. v i n 度也與語言熟練度有關，擁有較高語言程度的學習者傾向擁有較低程度的焦慮。 Ch engchi U 以口語表達的挑戰而言，兩位學習者所面臨的挑戰皆是與非語言方面的困難，例. 如站姿、手勢、聲音與面部表情等。此外，學生的個人收穫分別如下所列：(一) 開拓眼界的經驗；(二) 成就感；(三) 其他同儕的認同感；(四)自我實現。研究者根據這些發現，提出相關教學建議及未來研究方向，以期對未來有興趣參與英語演講的師生更多建設性的研究貢獻。. v.

(9) ABSTRACT This study aims to examine what challenges would be confronted, how those challenges were dealt with and what personal growth reaped during the process of preparing for an English speech contest from the perspectives of high school students in Taiwan. A qualitative research method was employed in this case study. Two first-year high school students with different proficiency levels were invited to be the participants of this study. Data were collected through multiple sources, including. 政治大 related artifacts. Data were analyzed by constant comparative method. 立. semi-structured interviews with students, observations of each practice, and other. The results showed that the challenges the two participants faced could be. ‧ 國. 學. divided into four categories, including the intra-sentence level challenges,. ‧. inter-sentence level challenges, oral delivery and anxiety. Among these challenges, the. sit. y. Nat. top two challenges they faced were anxiety and oral delivery. In terms of language. io. er. anxiety, anxiety did have debilitating effects on speaking; however, it can also have some facilitating influence on learner’s performance such as compelling the. al. n. v i n C hseriously. Also, theUdegrees of anxiety have to do participant to face the contest more engchi with language proficiency. Learners with higher proficiency tended to have lower. degree of anxiety. As for the challenges in oral delivery, what the two participants faced is associated with other non-linguistic aspects of speaking, such as posture, gesture, and voice and facial expression. In addition, the personal growth gained from such experience can be listed as below: (a) horizons-broadening experience, (b) a sense of achievement, (c) a sense of recognition from his peers, and (d) a sense of self-actualization. Based on the findings, pedagogical suggestions and direction for future research are provided. It is hoped more insights could be offered to both vi.

(10) instructors and students who are interested in taking part in English speech contests.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. vii. i n U. v.

(11) CHPATER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.0 Introduction The introduction section provides an overview of the present study, including background of the study, the purpose of conducting the study, and two research questions.. 1.1 Background and Rationale of the Study. 政治大 Taiwan (Krashen, 2003). Due to the effect of internationalization and globalization, 立 Nowadays, there has been an increasing popularity in English learning in. English has been widely recognized as a global language for international. ‧ 國. 學. communication (Chen & Hsieh, 2011). Also, it has been viewed as a valued resource. ‧. that enables learners to have the upward mobility and gain access to a higher. sit. y. Nat. socio-economic group via employment. Thus, having a good command of English is. io. er. not only a symbolic and economic capital but also an unstated qualification for a person’s success (Pan & Block, 2011).. al. n. v i n C hcapacity for international In particular, to have a better communication, oral engchi U. proficiency in English is an essential prerequisite for seeking employment in job. marketing in the twenty-first century (Hadley & Reiken, 2001). The importance of English speaking is also based on linguistic theories. For example, in first language acquisition, children develop their language proficiency through the exchange of conversation with adults and them (Halliday, 1975). Likewise, second language learners will be assisted by interaction with expert speakers. By doing so, they can pay attention to their speeches and produce the language to be more approximate to their more competent interlocutors (Hatch, 1978). Both first and second acquisitions 1.

(12) are involved with the mode of input-feedback-output. They will be firstly exposed to the target language and adapt their language afterwards through the negotiations for meaning from the capable speaker. Thus, they can articulate the comprehensible output with others (Goh & Burns, 2012). With the help of pushed output (Swain, 2000), language learners would strengthen their awareness of meeting linguistic feature of a language, and achieving a higher standard of speaking such as accuracy, coherence and appropriateness of an oral discourse. In short, the significance of speaking is not only based on learners’ pragmatic needs for their future but also its. 政治大 However, the importance of speaking is basically derived from the interactions 立. advantages for boosting learners’ overall language proficiency.. in daily message exchanges. The speaking addressed in this study refers to the. ‧ 國. 學. “decontextualized oral-language use” (p23.) (Goh & Burns, 2012) This speaking. ‧. ability indicates the capacity to deliver the information explicitly and coherently to the. sit. y. Nat. listeners beyond the instant context of interaction. Such speaking skills require more. io. er. sophisticated and precise language to make information understood to the listeners than daily message exchanges since the listeners share limited background knowledge. al. n. v i n C hoften take place in U with the speaker. Similar activities school curriculums including engchi presentations, storytelling and so forth. These speaking tasks can not only better. learners’ fluency but also improve their phonological and grammatical accuracy. Owing to the importance and advantages of public speaking, many educational administrative organizations and even private institutes host lots of speaking-related competitions to arouse students’ interest in speaking English and to increase language proficiency. For example, National Sat Yat-Sen University and American Institute in Taiwan have collaborated to organize an annual oral-speaking competition for both university students and senior high students since 2014. The university students are 2.

(13) required to deliver their presentation with the aid of PowerPoint, and the senior high students are asked to provide a prepared speech within a given topic. Also, the Rotary Club has hosted the English speech contest for university students annually for sixty years. The contest asks contestants to present a 5-minute prepared speech in the first round and a 3-minute impromptu speech in the second and final round. Moreover, the Language Training& Testing Center (LTTC) hosted an English speech contest in 2011 for both university students and senior high students. From these examples, it is clear that the English speech contest has prevailed in Taiwan over years.. 政治大 been conducted to explore the speech contests from the perspectives of the challenges 立 Despite the popularity of speech contests in Taiwan, only a few studies have. participants confronted and personal growth they gained (Huang, 2007;Hsieh,. ‧ 國. 學. 2006;Lin, 2011;Lo, 2011). According to the existing research, the difficulties students. ‧. confronted could be categorized as the linguistic problems and the affective problems.. sit. y. Nat. The former ranged from the correct vocabulary and sentence patterns to the coherent. io. er. organization and ideas proposals. The latter referred to the different level of anxieties during the delivery onstage. These data mostly employed quantitative or mixed. al. n. v i n methods which failed to provideC more detailed information h e n g c h i U about the instant. responses the students reacted to the difficulties and the detailed pictures of their struggles in each practice they engaged in. Secondly, only scant studies have taken the senior high school student as the emphasis for further examination. Most of the studies adopted university students as their participants (Bradley, 2009; Fang, 2005; Hsieh, 2006; Huang & Lu, 2007), who have more flexible schedules, compared with high school students who only have lunch breaks and the time after-school to accept. individual trainings for speech contests. Although some studies did focus on junior and elementary students (Lin, 2011; Lo, 2011), senior high student have better 3.

(14) proficiency and high maturity may have different reactions to difficulties and hence they deserve further research.. 1.2 The Purpose of the Study Given the vacancy of explorations on senior high students’ experiences of participating in speech contests by using a qualitative study approach, this study focuses on the English speech contests that have been hosted annually by a local high school (further details in Chapter Three) and the Department of Education in Taipei. 政治大 problems in the process of preparation for the speech contests and also what the 立. City. It aims to understand how the students faced difficulties, if any, and solved their. personal growth they would reap after the participation. By doing so, the current study. ‧ 國. 學. can provide insights to the practical assistances for in-service teachers and future. Nat. sit. y. ‧. students who need to prepare for the English speech contest.. io. er. 1.3 Research Questions. Based on prior statements, the present study intends to investigate the following. n. al. two research questions:. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 1. What challenges did the two high school students face during the process of preparation for the speech contests? How did they cope with the challenges? 2. What personal growth did the students gain from such experience? It is hoped that this study may depict a holistic and detailed picture of how these two participants faced and solved their problems on the journey of preparing for the speech contest. By knowing their descriptions and reflections, more insights could be offered to both instructors and students who are interested in taking part in English speech contests. 4.

(15) CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW. 2.0 Introduction This chapter presents the relevant literature concerning the present study in the following sections: (a) challenges students faced, (b) personal growth students reaped, and (c) identifying the research gap. 政治大 This section will focus on studies that illustrate the challenges that students 立. 2.1 Challenges Students Faced and Related Coping strategies. faced (Hsieh, 2006; Huang & Lu, 2007; Lin, 2011; Lo, 2011). During the preparation. ‧ 國. 學. for a speech contest, the difficulties that students have faced can be classified as these. ‧. four aspects: (a) intra-sentence level (Hsieh, 2006; Huang & Lu, 2007), (b). sit. y. Nat. inter-sentence discourse (Hsieh, 2006; Lo, 2011), (c) oral delivery (Hsieh, 2006;. io. er. Huang & Lu, 2007), and (d) language anxiety (Hsu, 2012; Lin, 2011; Liu, 2006; Ohata, 2005; Öztürk & Gürbüz, 2014; Suleimenova, 2013). After the introduction of. al. n. v i n C hwith some coping strategies each challenge, it will be followed that were either engchi U provided from the teachers or employed by the more competent contestants.. First, for challenges within the intra-sentence level, the correct usage of vocabulary and the grammar is the most common concern for students (Huang & Lu, 2007). Regarding vocabulary, many college students found it difficult to transfer their ideas into comprehensible English forms since the limited range of vocabulary kept them from fully expressing themselves; also, due to the lack of grammatical knowledge, even if they had looked up the unknown words in the dictionary, they still did not know how to put these words into comprehensible sentences in English. 5.

(16) To deal with challenges of vocabulary and grammatical errors, Hsieh (2006) directly asked college students to memorize the words in context since it took the majority of time for them to discuss and brainstorm over the topics for the speech contest. In addition, college students were also required to do heavy reading including issue-oriented books, English magazines and newspapers, and make sentences with the newly-learned words. However, grammatical errors were not ranked as the top problem to be dealt with because participants had to assemble and organize what to say and how to deliver it, and those tasks had already occupied so much of their. 政治大 concerning the challenges in grammar, the teacher only corrected the grammatical 立 minds that they barely had time to take care of grammar and structure. Therefore,. mistakes that hindered listeners’ comprehension.. ‧ 國. 學. Second, for many university contestants, it was an overwhelming task to. ‧. construct a well-organized structure of a speech which includes an attention-grabbing. sit. y. Nat. introduction followed by supportive evidence, and ended with concise conclusion if. io. er. they want to articulate their notions persuasively (Hsieh, 2006; Lo, 2011). Because of different discourse structures between Chinese and English, it troubled many. al. n. v i n contestants to arrange sentencesC into convincing modes h e n g c h i Uof language following the. norms of coherence and cohesions. Moreover, lacking the capacity of critical thinking overwhelmed many students in college as well since under the atmosphere of authoritative educational backgrounds, students would mostly follow teachers’ instructions, instead of insisting on their own opinions differing from teachers’. Therefore, their obedience may lead to passivity and inaction when it comes to brainstorming the content (Hsieh, 2006). To cope with the inter-sentence level challenges, Hsieh (2006) proposed several methods to help her college students. First, to raise her students’ awareness of English 6.

(17) discourse, the first method was to show students examples of well-organized speeches, which could guide them to arrange their ideas in an appropriate English manner. In addition to the help from teachers’ instruction, the more competent contestants also displayed better knowledge concerning discourse strategies. In Fang’s (2005) study, he found that the most common strategy for the successful contestants was asking a rhetorical question which can trigger audience’s interest in the beginning and address the importance of the speech at the same time. Besides, unlike their counterparts, the successful contestants paid more attention to incorporate and used more varieties of. 政治大. steps in the introduction and conclusion to make their speeches more convincing and tactful.. 立. The second method suggested by Hsieh (2006) was two-six-two time allocation,. ‧ 國. 學. which means two minutes to calm down and analyze the theme of the topic, six. ‧. minutes to write an outline and the last two minutes to review and memorize the. y. sit. io. er. speeches.. Nat. outline. These outlines could be served as the “map” for participants to deliver their. As for the challenges of lacking the ability of critical thinking, Hsieh (2006). al. n. v i n C h (such as who,Uwhen, where, what, which and stated that asking 5Ws and 1Hquestions engchi how) could facilitate the college students devise supporting descriptions to better develop their individual perspectives and therefore produce better persuasive speeches . Thirdly, pronunciation, intonation and fluency dissatisfy many college students during the preparations (Hsieh, 2006; Huang & Lu, 2007). A fluent delivery cannot be complete without accurate pronunciation and adequate intonation and can only be done through large amounts of input and practices. However, insufficient time for preparation would result in scant practices, which may cause frustrations for 7.

(18) contestants. To improve learner’s pronunciation and intonation, the imitation method was recommended by three English majors who won nation-wide speaking contests (Ding, 2007). Imitation compelled them to listen to how the native speakers spoke in the tapes and thus improved their pronunciation and intonation. Furthermore, they later on have formed the habit of attending to language in details through the practice of text memorization and imitation. To compensate for fluency, less successful contestants in university used fillers. 政治大 apprehensions and be viewed as strategies for contestants to gain extra time to retrieve 立 and repairs the most during their speech. The great use of fillers may be out of. their ideas and verbalize them. Thus , it is suggested that the formulaic expressions. ‧ 國. 學. alone cannot engage the audience to their speech (Fang, 2005).. ‧. Fourth, speaking in English has been perceived as an anxiety-provoking booster. sit. y. Nat. for many college students in the process of language learning (Öztürk & Gürbüz,. io. er. 2014), and thus many studies have investigated language anxiety. In general, research has shown that language anxiety has both negative (Hsu, 2012 ;Suleimenova,. al. n. v i n 2013 ;Öztürk, 2014 ;Liu, 2006 )C and positive effects (Suleimenova, 2013) on learners’ hengchi U speaking performance.. Most research has shown the deliberating effect of language anxiety. Among all of the speaking activities, it is speaking in front of a group of audience in a formal setting that makes students anxious the most since not being able to prepare for the speaking is a significant cause for students’ speaking anxiety (Liu, 2006; Öztürk & Gürbüz, 2014; Suleimenova, 2013). Their anxiety may be derived from the perfectionist attitude, the fear of making mistakes, and the negative reactions of other peers (Öztürk & Gürbüz, 2014). Many learners hope to deliver such a perfect speech 8.

(19) that they can barely tolerate the mistakes they made. Once they encounter some difficulties during delivering the speech, such as limited vocabulary and incorrect pronunciation, they would become more anxious. Their anxiety may be attributed to their fear to be looked down upon or laughed at by their peers (Hsu, 2012; Liu, 2006; Öztürk & Gürbüz, 2014; Suleimenova, 2013). Lower proficiency in English and limited English vocabulary affect the smooth delivery (Hsu, 2012; Öztürk & Gürbüz, 2014; Suleimenova, 2013) because students are not equipped with the necessary structures and word knowledge. Regarding their. 政治大 the positive reactions from the audience such as smiling or nodding. 立. counterparts, learners with higher proficiency tend to be more confident because of. Among different types of students, the female students and those with lower. ‧ 國. 學. proficiency tend to have a higher degree of anxiety. For example, in Hsu’s (2012). ‧. study, it exhibited that female students tended to have more preparation time. sit. y. Nat. beforehand and experienced a higher degree of anxiety than male students presumably. io. er. because female students may be more eager to gain good grades and be more afraid of making mistakes in public than male students. Also, female students’ anxiety. al. n. v i n C h when they faced increased more than male counterparts’ unfamiliar audience. engchi U Also, the timing of anxiety strikes at different phases of the speech. In. Suleimenova’s (2013) study, it suggested that anxiety happened at the pre-verbal stage, since students had to compose ideas and consider what to deliver, and thus anxiety interfered with their speech performance. However, Lin’s (2011) study showed her students’ anxiety fluctuated within different stages of the competition. That is, their anxiety soared at the anticipation stage, climaxed at the confrontation stage, and finally descended at the release stage. The peak of anxiety may stem from the speech task itself which was regarded as a strong stimulus for most speakers. 9.

(20) Since speaking anxiety affects learners’ performance, it is suggested that the construction of a non-threatening environment and a peer supportive atmosphere can facilitate cooperative learning among learners and therefore reduce the risk of having negative evaluation of their proficiency (Hsu, 2012; Suleimenova, 2013). The above research paid attention to the debilitating effect of speaking anxiety; however, anxiety could have a facilitating effect on students’ oral performance. According to Ohata’s (2005) research, their participants stated that a moderate amount of anxiety makes students more alert and careful while speaking. Positive attitudes. 政治大 competitions or joined Toaster master club before (Hsu, 2012). 立. could also be held for the students who have represented the school for speech. ‧ 國. 學. 2.2 Personal Growth Students Reaped. ‧. Although the students may confront many problems while preparing for the. sit. y. Nat. contests, they did attain some benefits from the contests. These benefits can be sorted. io. er. as three main parts: (a) improved language(Fang, 2005; Hsieh, 2006; Huang & Lu, 2007), (b) attitudinal change (Bradley, 2009; Huang & Lu, 2007), and (c) confidence. al. n. v i n C hFirst, after attendingUthe contest, many college enhancement(Huang & Lu, 2007). engchi. learners acknowledged that their size of vocabulary expanded and the accuracy of that surged after the instruction, though not winning any places (Hsieh, 2006). Also, through the training of drafting, college learners knew how to express their ideas clearly with the aid of organizational strategies (Fang, 2005). Second, after the completion of speech task, college learners become confident in delivering public speech and be more willing to enjoy some other speaking related activities (Bradley, 2009). Additionally, due to the launch of the contest, the bitters and sweets of the coaching experience became a shared topic among college peers. The common daily 10.

(21) discussion erected the atmosphere of positive learning, and further motivated college learners to be more engaged in preparations (Huang & Lu, 2007). 2.3 Research Gap As reviewed in this chapter, several studies have been conducted on learners’ difficulties during the deliveries of a speech and their related coping strategies. Among these studies, the majority of them took mixed method as their main instruments, recruited college students as their participants, and the number of participants ranged from above ten to hundreds of them (Hsieh, 2006; Hsu, 2012;. 政治大 many challenges that the participants faced have been addressed, mainly proficiency 立 Huang & Lu, 2007; Liu, 2006). Collected from such large number of participants,. and anxiety issues. However, the employment of quantitative or mix methods may fail. ‧ 國. 學. to have a rather comprehensive understanding of how an individual react to his or her. ‧. challenges and have a comparatively thorough description of their leap after their. sit. y. Nat. struggles. Also, senior high students also deserve further investigation due to their. io. er. different educational system and language proficiency, and thus they may face different difficulties when it comes to preparing for the speech contest. Therefore,. al. n. v i n C hto closely record U only two participants were recruited their difficulties during the engchi. preparation for the speech contests by observations and individual interviews (more introduction in Chapter Three).. 11.

(22) CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY 3.0 Introduction This section consists of the five parts describing the research methods adopted in the current study. To address the research questions properly, the research design is firstly elaborated. Then, the subsequent sections introduce the context and the participants of the study. Thirdly, the research illustrates how the data were collected via different sources. Fourthly, the researcher would explain how the data were. 政治大. analyzed. Last, the chapter concludes with ways to increase the trustworthiness of the study.. 立. ‧ 國. 學. 3.1 Research Design. ‧. This study is designed to examine what challenges and personal growth would. sit. y. Nat. be confronted and reaped during the process of preparing for an English speech. io. er. contest from the perspectives of high school students in Taiwan. The method of qualitative case study was employed in this study for the following reasons. First, the. al. n. v i n C ishto understand howUpeople interpret their core value of the qualitative study engchi. experiences and what meaning they attribute to their experiences (Merriam, 2009). Therefore, a qualitative study is served as a platform that enables the researcher to give participants voices over what they will have experienced during the preparation of the speech contests and how they perceive those experiences. Second, according to Yin (2013), case study is “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth within its real-life context”(p.16). In this study, the contemporary phenomenon refers to the English speech contest held in a local Taiwanese senior high school. 12.

(23) 3.2 Context Generally speaking, the speech contests in the present study had two phases and thus were situated in two contexts. It initially started in the form of intra-school competition, which aimed to select the most outstanding students in speaking to be the representatives for the school. After the intra-school contest, the final champion of it would be later assigned to participate in the Taipei City Speech Contest to compete with the representatives from other schools in Taipei City. The intra-school speech contest was held on 21st September 2015, and the. 政治大 storytelling a comic strip or a picture. The time limits for delivery are confined to two 立 contestants were assessed in the form of impromptu speech, which is done through. minutes. The proper time duration for delivery is one minute and a half at least to two. ‧ 國. 學. minute and a half at most. By the form of impromptu speech, according to Ashley (the. ‧. teacher participant), the most prominent students can be singled out since the. sit. y. Nat. story-telling ability requires both good language proficiency and a good plot. io. er. developmental skill, which are crucial elements for gaining better places in the following interschool competitions.. al. n. v i n C h in this study,UI would take the Taipei City As for the interschool competition, engchi. English Speech Contest as the research context in the second phase, since it was the contest that Vincent (one of the student participants) participated as the representative of his school. Taipei City English Speech Contest was held in December, 5th in 2015, and both prepared speech and impromptu speech were required for each contestant to complete. The criterion of prepared speech is 40% content, 40% delivery (including fluency and accuracy) and 20% demeanor. The time limit is lasted up to 4 minutes. The impromptu speech also used pictures as stimulus for contestants, who are allowed to use an English dictionary during the preparation. In the end of the contest, the 13.

(24) judges would choose one member for the first place, three members for the second place, and six members for the third place. To extract abundant data from the participants, the location where student participants from and received training was selected as the research site, which is one secondary school situated in Taipei, Taiwan and has combined departments of junior and senior high with 30 classes. The average academic performance in this school is around intermediate to intermediate high. Over 20 percent of students scored over 700 in the test of TOEIC. Moreover, according to Ashley (the teacher participant),. 政治大. generally speaking, students’ speaking capacity is getting better and better in recent years.. 立. ‧ 國. 學. 3.3 Participant. ‧. 3. 3.1 The Teacher Participant. sit. y. Nat. The teacher participant of the present study, Ashley (pseudonym), is an English. io. er. teacher who has published several English-related book series. She was invited to the study since she has been instructing students to prepare for the speech contests for. al. n. v i n C h that had been coached around thirteen years. Many students by her ranked high in engchi U. contests, including top six in the national speech contest in 2013 and the fourth place in the speech contest held in Taipei City last year, to name just a few. In addition, she has been the judges for several speech contests; therefore, she can also understand how to evaluate students’ performance based on the criteria of judges’. In the fall semester of 2015, Ashley became the homeroom teacher for an English advanced class in the department of senior high, in which students have been selected with extra thresholds. First, in terms of Comprehensive Assessment Program. 14.

(25) for Junior High School Students, students have to acquire at least 3A++, 4A+, or 5A1, or they shall be disqualified for further tests for not meeting the requirements. In the next phase of test, students have to take both English reading and listening tests and only the top 40 students can be admitted to this advanced class. Also, she also had other three classes, including one class of tenth graders, and two more classes of eighth graders. In total, Ashley would have four classes to teach in the next semester. Although this study did not investigate the speech contest particularly from the teacher’s perspective, she could be another source for the researcher to triangulate the. 政治大 classes to instruct simultaneously, I would further explain how she arranged the 立. student participants’ challenges and improvements. Additionally, since she had many. trainings for her students (See Chapter 4, Ashley’s Introduction).. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. 3.3.2 The Student Participants. sit. y. Nat. As mentioned in the introduction of Ashley, she had four classes in total in the. io. er. semester; that is, she had nine students to train in total. In this study, I only recruited Jean and Vincent as my participants, due to the following reasons. First, the focus of. al. n. v i n C hhigh students, so theUstudents from junior high the research was laid on the senior engchi. school were excluded. Also, they were chosen on account of their willingness to share and elaborate on their own reflections upon the English speech contest. Additionally, the two student participants stand for learners with different proficiency levels, which can be distinguished from the different classes they studied (one is from the regular class, and the other is from the advanced class) and different groups they registered in the speech contest. Although the assigned task is the same, Jean and Vincent may. 1. According to the regulation of Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students,. A ranges from 88.29 to 93.33, A+ ranges from 94.14 to 95.24, and A++ ranges from 96.2 to 100. 15.

(26) confront similar and different challenges and gain growth during the participation. Hence, these two students were recruited in this study. Jean was born in the US and brought to Taiwan when she was four years old. Her language proficiency is above-average, based on her previous TOEIC score, 580. She was the first grader in the senior high school and studied in a regular class. She had no overseas experience after the age of nine, so she went to the Group A in the intra-school contest. Her proficiency was above-intermediate but easily felt uneasy when speaking English.. 政治大 junior high, and hence for him, English is a common language to communicate with 立 Vincent had studied in Shanghai American School from elementary school to. others. Due to his years of overseas experience, he is categorized into group B which. ‧ 國. 學. belongs to those who have stayed in English-speaking countries or American schools. ‧. for more than two years after the age of nine. Also, his TOEIC scored above 975 and. sit. y. Nat. his high-intermediate level in GEPT passed, both of which serve as his evidence for. io. n. al. er. his excellent language proficiency.. 3.4 Instruction. Ch. 3.4.1 Ashley’s Instruction. engchi. i n U. v. In the part of introducing Ashley’s instruction, I would firstly clarify how they were chosen as the contestants of the intra-school speech contest, and next I would briefly illustrate the general procedure of Ashley’s training in terms of the preparation for intra-school contest. Finally, I would explain how Ashley arranged trainings for Vincent for Taipei City English Speech Contest.. 3.4.2 The Selections of Contestants 16.

(27) This section presents how Ashley selected the contestants from her classes. In the first place, Ashley would like to invite whoever was willing to participate in the contest; however, nobody was voluntary to do so in every class she taught, so Ashley separated the class into different groups for students to act out the play from one of the lessons in the textbook. Based on the verbal performances, she chose the ones with good pronunciation and intonation. Ashley had two classes of the10th grader. One is the regular class, and the other is the advanced class. For the regular class, due to the disparity of proficiency level,. 政治大. Jean’s performance easily stood out from the others and was chosen to be the participant of the speech contest.. 立. On the other hand, in terms of the advanced class, owing to the general better. ‧ 國. 學. expertise in English, Ashley even had to request the possible candidates to her office. ‧. to have another round of selection. To decide whose capacity was better within the. sit. y. Nat. shortest time, she directly gave them the same task in the contest –– to improvise a. io. er. story based on one picture alone. Finally, Vincent’s general performance made him the final contender for the contest.. al. n. v i n C inhEnglish, I still remembered As for Vincent’s excellence the first time how engchi U. Ashley described Vincent. She said that she has a student from Shanghai speaking incredibly-good English, and his word choice was so amazingly accurate that the narrative of his story was fairly vivid. In brief, it was his vibrant and native-like speaking style that made him pop out from other peers in advanced class.. 3.4.3Training Process for the Intra-school Contest To have students better prepare for the intra-school contest, Ashley’s general training process was to give students ten minutes or so, ask them to come back to the 17.

(28) office after that, and deliver the speech in front of her and other peers. Then, she would provide the individual feedback after each student finished his/her speech. In the end, she would give general feedback to summarize the overall performance on that day. To better understand their training condition, I would like to start from how Ashley arranged the training syllabus for Jean and Vincent. The earliest inter-school contest (National Speech Contest) was held in November, so the final winner of the school would have to start his or her training from as early as October. Although. 政治大 school administration had to schedule enough preparation time for anyone who may 立. neither of the participants in this study participated the National Speech Contest, the. later take part in it. Thus, for better preparation for the next phase of contest, the. ‧ 國. 學. school administration decided to hold the intra-school speech contest on Sep. 21th,. ‧. 2015, although the semester started as early as Aug. 31th, 2015. In other words,. sit. y. Nat. Ashley had to choose the representatives to participate the intra-school contest on the. io. Table3.1). er. first week of the semester and had only two weeks left to train her students. (See. al. n. v i n CTraining Table 3.1 The Schedule for of Intra-school Contest U heng i h c. The Exact week of September. Date. Related Training Syllabus. The first week of September. 8/31-09/04. The first week of the semester. The second week of September. 09/07-09/11. The training sessions. The third week of September. 09/14-09/14. The training sessions. The fourth week of September. 09/21, Mon. The final day of intra-school contest. Jean and Vincent had four practices in total with each lasting for 30 minutes for. 18.

(29) the intra-school contest, due to the limitation of Ashley’s busy schedule2. Ashley arranged two siestas for junior high, one for Jean and her classmate, and the other one for Vincent and his classmates on the second week of September. For the next week, she arranged two lunch breaks for junior high alone, and the other three practices including both junior and senior high students. The reason why Ashley included both junior and senior high students at the last two practices is to provoke different stimulus for both sides. Senior students can be the models for junior students to learn from and the performances of some junior students can be good enough to pose some. 政治大 and Vincent had 4 practices before the contest (see Table 3.2). 立. pressure on senior high students to further polish their own speeches. In general, Jean. Objectives. Jean and her classmate. a. To better adaptation to the form of. ‧. Students receiving training. (2 members in total). impromptu speech. sit. y. Nat. 9/10. 學. Date. ‧ 國. Table 3.2 The Respective Training Syllabus for Jean and Vincent. b. To ease their Anxiety. er. io. Vincent and his classmates. n. a. To better adaptation to the form of a iv (3 members l Cin total) n h e n g c h i U impromptu speech. 9/11. b. To ease their Anxiety Both junior and senior high. To rouse different spurs for both junior. students 9/16, 9/17, 9/18. and senior students. (9 members in total) (5 seniors and 4 juniors). 2. Ashley had four classes to train in total (including two classes in the10th grade, and the other. two in the 8th grade), and she only had two weeks to prepare prior to the intraschool contest; in other words, she only had 9 siestas for her to train students from 4 classes, excluding her workshop on Monday of the second week of September. 19.

(30) 3.4.4 Training Process For the Taipei City English Speech Contest As for the preparation for the Taipei City English Speech contest, Vincent received three times of trainings before the midterm and two times of trainings right after that. The detailed schedule arrangements will be explained as below. Due to various activities and events held in school (See Table 3.3), the time left for extra trainings shrank, especially the contestants had to finalize and submit their speech draft three weeks prior to the Taipei City’s contest (once the script is submitted, it’s not allowed to modify, based on the contest regulation). After the submission, it. 政治大 before the contest, Vincent had to prepare for his mid-term exam. In other words, he 立 seemed that contestants have three more weeks to prepare; however, just one week. had to spare his time wiser since he had to perform the two significant tasks. ‧ 國. 學. simultaneously, which not only increases the difficulty of preparation but also. ‧. decreases the time for extra practices. Additionally, based on the grading rubrics on. sit. y. Nat. the handbooks from the organizer, aside from 40% points for content, delivery. io. er. accounts for another 40 % and demeanor also comprise of 20% grades. Therefore, Ashley laid more emphasis on the tone and expression of each sentence to help. al. n. v i n CToh examine each sentence Vincent further polish his speech. carefully, the instructions engchi U were performed individually for three times at first (on the week before the Taipei speech contest). After the mid-term, Ashley trained intensively both Vincent and Benjamin (another contestant) for better refinement of their deliveries.. 20.

(31) Table 3.3 The time schedule for school activities Date. Related Events. Mon/Sep/21/2015. The Intra-School Speech Contest. Wed/Oct/14/2015,. The First Mid- Exam. Thu/Oct/15/2015. Thu/Oct/29/2015, Fri/Oct/30/2015. Training Camp term. Sat/Nov/7/2015. School Anniversary Celebration. 政治Prepared 大 Speech Script. Wed/Nov/11/2015. 立. Submission. The Second Mid-term Exam. Sat/Dec/5/2015. Taipei City English Speech. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Tue/Dec/1/2015, Wed/Dec/2/2015. Contest. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. 3.5 Data Collection Methods. i n U. v. Data was collected via the following methods: (a) individual semi-structured. Ch. engchi. interviews with participants, (b) observations of the coaching process, (c) other related documents. The employment of multiple data collection instruments could be served as a strategy to triangulate the research site and provide a “credibility” (p. 301) and “conformability”(p. 318) during data analysis (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Each method of data collection would be discussed in the following sections.. 3.5.1Semi-structured interviews Semi-structured interviews were adopted in the present study because they can elicit in-depth descriptions from participants of their experience in taking part in 21.

(32) the speech contests. They require interview protocols beforehand which provide guidance and directions during the process of the interviews; also, they offer the maximum freedom for participants to elaborate on questions with full developments (Dörnyei, 2007). The interview protocols were designed based on Carspecken’s (1996) guidelines, consisting of topic domains served as the focus of the inquiry, lead-off questions to open up a certain topic domain, and follow-up questions to ask for further related details. Also, all the interviews were performed in Chinese, the native language for both the participants and the researcher, for decreasing possible. 政治大 with student participants three times in total, which will be further explained in the 立. misunderstandings. I conducted an interview with the instructor and had interviews. following section.. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. 3.5.2 Teacher interviews. sit. y. Nat. Although the research purpose did not particularly focus on the teacher’s. io. er. perspective, I conducted formal and informal conversations with the instructor, Ashley. The formal one was done once in August, 2015 to establish the rapport with her and to. al. n. v i n C hprevious pedagogical understand the speech contest, her experiences, and the general engchi U procedures of coaching for speech contests. The topic domains for the interview. included the principles for contestant selections, instructional procedures, allocations for training sessions, and students’ challenges and growth from an instructor’s perspective. (See Appendix C, for the teacher interview protocols). Besides, informal conversations with Ashley were also employed in this study to acquire extra information about student participants or re-recognize the problems that students faced. These interviews were done in the breaks before or after the trainings. The questions I asked in including the overall performance of the student’s 22.

(33) performance, the reasons of giving one certain piece of advice, or any other related questions.. 3.5.3 Student interviews The function of the student interviews is to give Jean and Vincent a voice over their viewpoints about the speech contests, including the difficulties they met and the personal growth they reaped from the speech contest. I had one interview with Jean after intra school contest and two with Vincent (one after the intraschool contest, and. 政治大 These post-contest interviews were conducted to better understand the entire process 立 the other after the Taipei City Speech Contest). Each interview lasted for 1.5 hours.. of speech contests and possible changes of the participations.. ‧ 國. 學. In general, the researcher attempted to establish rapport and asked the. ‧. participants to fill out a short survey about previous learning experiences before the. sit. y. Nat. interviews. In the interviews, the researcher would invite students to articulate their. al. n. 3.5.4 Observations. io. (See Appendix E).. er. reflections upon the instructions for speech contests, growth and internal struggles. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. The current study aims to investigate what challenges students face and how they respond to those difficulties during the preparations of speech contests; thus, the observations of the instruction allow the researcher to examine which parts of delivery disturbed them the most. Besides, other descriptive contextual information can be gained with the help of observations (Dörnyei, 2007; Nunan & Bailey, 2009). To answer the research questions properly, the stress of the observation was the instructional procedures for speech contests, including students’ delivery, teacher’s 23.

(34) feedback, students’ responses or adjustments, and other students’ reactions. The researcher conducted the observation with each participant five times with different length of instructional time during the intraschool contest and four times to know Vincent’s training process of preparing for the Taipei City Speech Contest. In general, observations were conducted in a non-participatory and unstructured manner. That is, the researcher stood quietly anywhere the coaching took place (usually the office room) and was not involved in any instructional interaction. Also, the researcher video-taped the general process of instructions and kept field notes to. 政治大 fluctuations of the participants. These field notes were used as materials for later 立 document details that could not be recorded, such as peer reactions and anxiety. interviews after the observations.. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. 3.5.5 Artifacts. sit. y. Nat. In addition to interviews and observations, artifacts including the. io. er. application forms, prepared pictures for practices or any other materials used in the process of preparation for speech contests were all collected. These artifacts did not. al. n. v i n C h of speech contest, just serve as tools for general knowledge but also prompts for the engchi U participants to recall what they had done and why they chose to do so.. 3.5.6 Procedures of Data Collection The data collections involved the following three stages: pre-contest, during the preparation, and post-contest. In the first stage, the researcher met Ashley in August, 2015 before the new semester began to understand the schedule of the intra-school and interschool speech contest and how she generally arranged the instructional procedures for students. Also, a one-hour interview was conducted then to understand 24.

(35) her past experience for providing appropriate supports for the speech contests. As for student participants, once the contestants for intra-school contest were chosen, I asked their permissions to be the participant of the study and arranged for the interview later on. In the second stage, the preparation for intra-school contest started on 8th Sep. and lasted to18th Sep 2015, in which I video-taped the instructional processes with some field notes. During the observations, I also jotted down some parts that may be related to the research and planned to explore these issues with the help of interviews. 政治大 Vincent’s thoughts or feelings at that time. 立. after the observations to have a more comprehensive understanding of Jean and. Later, on the day of the intra-school speech contest on 21st Sep., I recorded two. ‧ 國. 學. participants’ performance as a possible stimulus for the purpose of further reflections.. ‧. After the intra-school contest, I would conduct a post-contest interview with Jean and. sit. y. Nat. Vincent individually to understand their challenges and personal growth as the third. io. er. stage of data collection. As for interschool contest, I would perform the similar round of data collection as intra-school contest. I observed the instructional process and later. al. n. v i n C hthe challenge he faced interviewed Vincent to investigate and the personal growth he engchi U gained in preparing for the Taipei City Speech Contest.. 3.5.7 Data Analysis Every interview was audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim for further analysis. Then, the transcripts were analyzed through the constant comparative method (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) to understand percipients’ internal growth and challenges while participating a speech contest. The researcher started from a thorough line-by-line reading of the full transcripts. After several times of reading, the 25.

(36) 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.. 政治大 research, the process of data analysis begins as soon as the project starts and continues 立 These stages were not done successively but rather recursively. In qualitative. until the final submission of the report (Hood, 2009). Therefore, the researcher went. ‧ 國. 學. back and forth for these stages in an iterative means to generate insights from the data.. ‧ sit. y. Nat. 3.5.8 Trustworthiness. io. er. 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. al. n. v i n C h observations,Uand other related artifacts to multiple channels, including interviews, engchi. 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. 26.

(37) 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.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 27. i n U. v.

(38) 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.. Part One—Jean’s difficulties. 學. ‧ 國. 立. 政治大 Story of Jean. Prior Negative Experiences. ‧. Jean participated in one speech contest during her primary days. The speech. sit. y. Nat. format then was prepared speech, and she did much preparation for the contest. Also,. io. er. 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. al. n. v i n C hthe beginning of her but shiver onstage. After delivering speech, she just couldn’t engchi U 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 28.

(39) 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. 立. 政治大. R: Hum, so how did you feel when you finished the speech?. ‧ 國. 學. 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). sit. y. Nat. io. er. As previously introduced, students from the English advanced class have been selected through certain criterion; thus, generally, students from advanced class have. al. n. v i n C regular better proficiency than those from However, the proficiency in Jean’s U h e nclasses. i h gc 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.. 29.

(40) Excerpt Two 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. 政治大. she, in the first place, wished that they wouldn’t be arranged in the same area on the. 立. day of the contest (which means advanced peers are divided into another group);. ‧ 國. 學. 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. y. Nat. io. sit. heard by any of those advanced peers. Yet, Benjamin’s order was earlier than she,. n. al. er. which terrified Jean because her speech would be directly compared with Benjamin’s. i n U. v. and Benjamin would even pay attention to her less competent speech. Still, the contest. Ch. engchi. 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 30.

(41) 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.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 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) 31.

(42) 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). 政治大 The above transcript of Jean’s first practice showed that although she tried her 立. best to deliver her speech, there was some room for her to improve. In the following. ‧ 國. 學. 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.. sit. y. Nat. First, Ashley suggested that the opening of the speech be more specific, which. io. er. 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,. al. n. v i n C hreally wanted to share based on Ashley’s feedback, if Jean the dream she had last engchi U. 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. 32.

(43) 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.. 政治大 eye contact with the judges, especially when she tried to organize the pieces of her 立. Third, without having enough confidence in herself, Jean couldn’t keep her. stories and figure out how to put them into reasonable sequences. Therefore, Jean was. ‧ 國. 學. 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. sit. y. Nat. position of head must be upward. Also, to look around the surroundings and to look. io. er. 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. n. al. Ch. would be convinced that she was looking at them.. engchi. i n U. v. 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 33.