Full Research Proposal

7/15/2019 Full Research Proposal

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FACULTY OF EDUCATION

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY (EDU 702)

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

TITLE:

USING VISUAL AIDS IN TEACHING LITERATURE IN ESL

CLASSROOM

PREPARED BY:

NUR’AIN FADLINA BINTI MOHAMMAD ZAWAWI

2012183143

PREPARED FOR:

DR. TEOH SIAN HOON



CONTENT

SECTION PAGE

CHAPTER 1

1. INTRODUCTION

2. STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

3. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

5. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

6. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

CHAPTER 2

1. THE DISCUSSION ON THE SUB TOPICS

RELEVANT TO THE STUDY

2. THE DISCUSSION ON THE PREVIOUS RESEARCH

CHAPTER 3

1. THE RESEARCH DESIGN

2. THE METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION

3. THE METHOD(S) OF DATAPROCESSING/

ANALYSIS

REFERENCE

THE APPENDIX



CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Literature is one of the important components in learning English as a second

language (ESL) classroom. To be excellent in English language, one must learn to

master the literature of the language too. Literature has always been viewed as difficult

by the learners and teachers sometimes find it difficult to be taught too. This is due to

the fact that learning literature in ESL class always poses many language and cultural

obstacles (Melor Md Yunus, Salehi, H., John, D. n.d).

There are several reasons why literature has become so difficult to be taught and

learned. These reasons can be viewed from both the learners’ and teachers’

perspectives. The literature component itself can also be the reason of this problem as

the components are sometimes too complicated to comprehend. As some of the

components are literary works from different era , the language used in the works is a

little bit different from what we used now. This will cause the learners to be unfamiliar

with the language that they read and find it difficult to understand. Even some of the

teachers will take their time to understand the difficult text especially dramas and poetry.

Difficulty in understanding the text itself might lead the learners to be

demotivated and not interested in learning it (Melor et al, n.d). This is why some of them

refuse to participate in the literature class. When the learners are not interested in

learning literature in the first place, it will make it hard for the teacher to teach too. It will

require a lot of work and energy of the teacher in making sure the lesson is delivered

accordingly. Teachers need to grasp the learners’ interest, motivated them and deliver

the lesson effectively.

Approaches in teaching literature are also important in effort to overcome the

difficulty. Not using the right approach in teaching is also one of the reason why

teaching and learning in literature classroom was not conducted smoothly. Teachers

need to know what kind of approach suits the learners best as teaching literature might

require a different approach than teaching the English language itself.



1.1 STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

Several studies have been conducted on using visual aids in teaching literature

such as using film (Muller, 2006), using visual aids to motivate students (Md Yunus, M.,

Salehi, H., John, D. 2006), using visual aids in teaching drama (Al-azzawii, 2006), using

visual aids in teaching English (Gupta,n.d). all of this studies highlighted that it is

important to seek the help of visual aids in teaching and learning process of literature in

ESL classroom.

Today’s literature classroom are taught with the help of the textbook and the text

only. According to Melor, Hadi and John (2006), this is one of the reasons why students

feel demotivated in learning literature. They find the text complicated to comprehend

and without any help from the teacher, they are driven to not like the learning process

itself.

According to Al-azzawii (2006), visual aids is needed in order for the students to

be familiar with the text, hence, help them in understanding the text better. He also

stated that students might understand the idea differently if it’s not explained to them

clearly.

Gupta (n.d) also mentioned that using visual aids can helps the teacher a lot in

conducting the lesson. He also said that visual aids can help trigger the students’imagination and let it expand with no limitation. After all, that is what learning literature is

all about, imagine.

Most of these studies only stated why and how the visual aids are used in the

classroom. There is no study that has proven that this method will actually help the

students in ESL literature classroom. Therefore, the present study will focus on seeing

this method to actually work in today’s classroom.



1.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this research are:

1) To examine the students’ perception about using visual aids in learning

literature in ESL classroom.

2) To examine the teachers’ perception about using visual aids in teaching

literature in ESL classroom.

3) To evaluate whether visual aids will help improve the students’

understanding of the literature text.

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In order to achieve all these objectives, this study will attempt to answer the

following questions:

1) How do the students react in using visual aids in learning literature in ESL

classroom?

2) How do the teachers feel about using visual aids in teaching literature in

ESL classroom?

3) How does visual aids help in understand the literature text better?



1.4 LIMITATIONS OF STUDY

This research will focus on the students in the pre-university level who are taking

Literature in ESL as one of their subject in the curriculum. These students vary from the

age of 17-19 years old and studying in pre-degree program.

The content of this study will be about using visual aids in teaching literature in

the classroom.

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH

This research will prove how much usage visual aids in teaching literature in ESL

classroom will actually help the students understands the literary text. This will also

helps the teachers to frame their teaching lesson in literature using visual aids.

Other than that, it will help arouse the motivation in the students to learn literature

and understand it better than before.

In future, teachers can use visual aids as the major tools in teaching literature.

The curriculum of teaching literature can be based on using visual aids in every

literature lesson.



LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this chapter is to establish the foundation for the specific objectives of

this study. It reviews previous studies of using visual aids in teaching literature in ESL

classroom pertaining to why we should use visual aids in teaching literature and how we can

use the visual aids in the classroom. In the last part of this chapter, it elaborates about the

conceptual framework which serves as a background against the objectives can be tested.

2.1 WHY WE SHOULD USE VISUAL AIDS IN TEACHING LITERATURE?

2.1.1 Complicated Literary Works

Literature works can be complicated and hard to understand as most of the texts are

written during the past and used a different kind of English language from what we used today.

The content in the text will also bring difficulties to the learners as most of what the authors tried

to convey are not written in simple words (Al-azzawii, 2006). Learners really need to read

between the lines and try to comprehend as they read the text. This kind of reading can only

push a learner to a certain point. Some might be able to go on and some might just give up.

The ability to understand the text depends on the learners’ level of proficiency. To

comprehend the text just by reading it will be very challenging for low proficiency students and

also some intermediate students. These are the kind of students who would feel demotivated

halfway through the learning process as they find it difficult to understand the text just by

reading (Melor, Hadi & John, 2006). Their interest in reading something that is too complicated

for the level will make their lose interest in learning about it.



According to Melor, Hadi and John (2006), using visual aids in teaching literature in ESL

classroom can really help the low level proficiency learners. They are able to grasp better

understanding from the visual aids as reading the text alone might be hard on them. With the

companion of visual aids, they will be able to see what the author are trying to explain or the

message that is being conveyed in every action.

For high level proficiency students, they might be able to understand the text just by

reading it but with the help of visual aids, they will have more fun learning about the text as they

can compare what they understand to the real perspectives or the director’s (of the movie)

adaptation of the text. They can have questions and discuss about their opinion of the text or

what they have imagined in their head.

In conclusion, using visual aids in teaching literature class can help learners from

different level of proficiencies to understand the complicated literary text. It can also bridge the

gap of time of when the text is written to today’s world.

2.1.2 Different Learning Styles

Using visual aids in teaching literature will not only benefit the visual-spatial learners, but

also auditory learners and other learning styles too. Maybe the verbal and logical learners will

have no problems without visual aids in learning but there’s only a few of this kind of learners in

every classroom. Most class especially in primary school, consist of learners of visual, auditory

and physical learning styles.

To cater to all learning styles that exist in one classroom, teachers can combine the

visual aids with other methods too. For example, conduct a discussion after watching a movie or

a video to give opportunities for the students to voice out their opinions and ask questions.

Other than that, teacher can also use pictures to explain the sequence of actions in short story

or drama and have the students to act out a few of the scene based on the pictures you have



showed them. By doing this, it will cater to the needs of visual, auditory and physical learners

and at the same time arouse their interest in learning about the literature text.

2.1.3 Fun in Literature Classroom

Literature has always been viewed as boring by most ESL learners. Difficulties in

understanding the lesson always make the students hate to go to literature class and feel

demotivated during the learning process. Teachers need to make the literature class as fun as

English language class itself. By using visual aids in teaching literature will somehow add more

fun in learning it. It will ease the burden they students feel in learning such a heavy component.

The right visual aids used in teaching an appropriate text can help grab the students’ attention

and interest in learning. Students might feel immersed in the learning process as they are able

to follow the flow of the lesson and able to understand.

Colorful pictures, filmstrips, videos, movies are definitely more fun than literature

textbooks or a plain text on a piece of white paper. For primary students, the moment you

showed them a picture of an event or any props made of cardboards, you will definitely caught

their attention. Their curiosity will arouse and they will give you their undivided attention just to

know what you are going to show. Primary students also get easily excited over colorful things.

For example, if you want to teach them short story, you can’t expect them to read the text and

understand as their attention span can sometimes be very short. To digest a lot of words at one

time might be hard. So, it is better to explain the plots using sequence of pictures or short

videos. You can also relate the events in the text to their real life ( Al-azzawii, 2006).



2.2 HOW TO USE THE VISUAL AIDS IN TEACHING LITERATURE?

2.2.1 Simulation of Actions

Students these days are more attracted to things they can see. Visualizations and

sounds effect played important roles in their everyday life. With the technology of gadgets and

smart phones, most of the young people spend their life on it and that has become one of the

main interests in life. And they are able to understand things better as they visualize it.

For example, in teaching drama or short story, it is better for teachers to use movies,

video or pictures to explain the action in the text. By watching this simulation in motion picture,

learners are able to see what the author actually meant in the text. By reading the text, how the

learners visualize what they read might be limited to their previous knowledge only. In one

classroom, not all learners share the same kind of learning styles. Some might be able to

visualize or make simulation as they comprehend the text and some might prefer hands on

experience rather than just read from the text. So this is where visual aids and motion pictures

will help a lot to make sure that the whole class will have a good understanding of the text that

they are going to study.

2.2.2 Using Movies and Video Clips

The most popular visual aids that a teacher can use in literature class are movies. As

many literary texts have been adapted into movies, it is easier to find the source today. Literary

pieces like Shakespeare’s have been adapted to a lot of version, for example; Romeo & Juliet.

Teachers can pick which one that suits the students best. To teach complicated text like

Shakespeare’s works, movies are the best aid to be used in the lesson.

Movies helped the students to see clearly how the text is translated into actions. They

can see how the setting is actually brought to life and they will be able to relate it to their life (Al-



azzawii, 2006). The elements provided in a literary text can be seen vividly in movies. Then only

we can understand the purpose of each element in the text. When the students first read the

text, they will let their imagination run and perceive the text according to understanding. Then

when they see the movie, they will have better imagination compared to just referring on the text

itself.

Teacher can also ask the students to read the text first, and then discuss what they

understand, give them opportunity to ask questions and to voice out their opinions. At this stage,

teacher will be bombarded with a lot of questions or misunderstanding or even complaints about

the text. Then only the teacher showed the movie or video fragments and ask them again after

that whether their curiosity or question have been answered from what they have watched. You

can also ask them to find the differences between the printed text and the movie version (Muller,

2006). This will encourage the participation in the classroom.

Lighting, background music and camera angles can also bring different message to the

adaptation. This might seem like minor things in a movie but it actually brings a point in literary

perspectives. For example, dim lights or dark room might bring a message that something

horrifying or surprising about to happen. Bright lights and sunshine tells that the mood is happy

and there is nothing to worry about (Muller, 2006). This will help the students to understand the

characters and their characteristics and their moods during each event. Camera angles will

capture the audience’s attention to focus one character at certain moments indicating that what

the character is about to do or say is important. Little things in movie production can lead to

better understanding in literature part.

To show the whole movie in one lesson is quite impossible. Teachers won’t have

enough time to conduct a lesson around it. Using this kind of visual aids is time consuming. So

maybe the teacher can show only short clips from the movies in one lesson. Pick the most

difficult part in the text and find the movie fragment of that event. This will give time for the

teacher and students to do other activities based on the movie clips (Muller, 2006). It is better



than showing the movie in one lesson then conduct the discussion in the next lesson as

students might forget or not focus on what they have watched.

Teachers need to be careful in explaining the text based on the movie or movie clips and

make sure the students are able to understand the main points. Learning literature through

movies might lead the students to see or understand the text based on the director’s

perspective and his adaptation of the text (Muller, 2006). This might limit their imagination and

impression of the text. Teachers play an important role to make sure the students do not limit

their view.

2.2.3 Using Pictures and Diagrams

Other than movies and video clips, teacher can also use pictures as the visual aids in

teaching literature. Teacher can show the pictures or cartoon drawings of the characters in the

text. Teacher can conduct activities like describing the characteristics of the characters, act out

the characters behaviors and others. Teacher can also show the picture of the setting in a short

story (Al-azzawii, 2006). This will help the students to see or imagine the events that happened

in each setting. For example, in the short story The Fruitcake Special, teacher might show the

class the picture of the factory where Anna works and ask the students to explain one of the

events that happened in the factory. They will remember and understand better as they explain

the event.

In teaching drama, teacher can show the floor plan of the play and how the setting of

props and characters should take place. This will provide a clearer version for the students to

understand the drama. Other than floor plan, teacher can also show pictures of the sequence of

events in the drama. This is more like a storyboard of the drama (Al-azzawii, 2006). After

showing them that, teacher can ask them to act out the sequence of scenes in role playing. This

will help in making sure every student participate in the lesson.



Apart from pictures, teacher can also use diagrams like flowchart, tables, mind maps to

show the flow of the text. Diagrams can also be used to categorize the elements in the text.

Teacher can paste the table of content of mind map on the white board and ask the students to

fill in the missing pieces or the blanks. Diagram like flowchart can also be used to explain the

plot in a short story. Teacher can ask the students to explain verbally for each stage of plot

based on the chart or ask them to paste flashcards that contain the events of each stage. This

will help them to remember the story well and understand the reason behind every event.

Students really learn better from things that they can see rather than things that they need to

read and understand. It is important to use visual aids in teaching literature.



2.3 BENEFITS OF USING VISUAL AIDS IN ESL CLASSROOM

The first benefit of using visual aids in teaching literature is it will help to provide a better

context of the literary text. Students are able to understand better by seeing things that they are

going to learn rather than reading it solely based on the text. Visual aids will also raised

students’ interests and motivate them to learn literature and pushed away the perception of

literature as a burden (Melor et al, n.d).

Using visual aids can also enhance the students’ participation in class and cooperation

with their peers as they will be more excited and curious in learning. Thus, it will trigger a lot of

discussion and debates about the text. This will also stimulate their critical thinking skills and

push them to think out of the box and let their imagination run freely without any limitation (Melor

et al, n.d). This will avoid them to stick to traditional learning of literature which only used the

text alone as a reference.

Other than that, using visual aids can help the teacher to cater to the needs of different

learning styles in one classroom. As students in one class might prefer different styles of

learning, teacher can do a lot using visual aids to help them understand the lesson better.

Teacher should find a way to know that using visual aids does not only cater to visual spatial

and auditory learners only, but it also can suits the other styles too.

There are a lot of benefits in using visual aids in teaching literature and it depends on

how the teachers improvise it in different classroom and in what area does it help a lot.



2.4 CONCLUSION

This chapter focused on the two parts of using visual aids in teaching literature in ESL

classroom. These two parts are reviewed based on the previous studies about the importance

of visual aids in teaching literature. This chapter reviewed on why teachers and learners should

use visual aids in classroom and how to utilize the visual aids in teaching and learning literature.

The chapter also viewed the perspectives in learning literature in today’s classroom.

Other than that, it also cover some issues related to learning literature in ESL classroom.

METHODOLOGY



3.0 INTRODUCTION

In order to answer my research questions, I replicated a research design used in

the previous studies. I have no experience in doing an educational research so it is a

little difficult for me to design my own research design and methods of data analysis. So

it is best for me to replicate the research design from the previous studies regarding the

same area of interest.

This chapter will elaborate more on the methodology used in conducting this

research. The methodology includes the research design, the methods of data

collections and the methods of data analysis. These three elements will be elaborated in

different parts of this chapter.

As a first time researcher, the methods used to collect the data and to analyze

them might be less efficient from the view of experienced researchers. The methods

used to collect the data suggested in this chapter might not be the best out of the

instruments available for educational researches, but the current researcher has

decided that the methods chosen are the best for the population sample.

3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN



In order to conduct this research, I used mix method approach in which I

simultaneously collected both qualitative and qualitative data using a questionnaire and

face-to-face interview. Both of the methods are employed to find out the teachers’ and

students’ perception about using visual aids in teaching and learning literature in ESL

classroom.

For the first step, I used a questionnaire for the students’ to answer. The

questionnaire is set to find out about the relation of students’ learning preferences to

their perception of using visual aids in literature classroom. The questions are set to

indicate the students’ learning styles and preferences in the earlier part and their

perception about the usage of visual aids in literature class in the latter part.

For the second step, I conducted a face-to-face interview for both the teachers

and the students. The interview is to find out about their perceptions of using visual aids

in literature classroom. The findings from the interview will be analysed to see the

relation of students’ perception about the usage of visual aids and their learning

preferences.

The findings from the interviews will be analysed to fulfill one of the objective of

this study which is the students’ reaction to the usage of visual aids in teaching literature

and the teachers’ perception of using the visual aids in their teaching.

3.2 INSTRUMENTATION



As this research will include both qualitative and quantitative data, I will use two

types of instrumentation in collecting the data. The instruments that I have chosen for

this research are questionnaire and face-to-face interview.

For the purpose of gathering the quantitative data, questionnaire will be used as

the instrument. The questionnaire used will contain questions about the students’

perspective of the usage of visual aids in literature classroom. According to

BusinessDictionary.com, questionnaire is “a list of research or survey questions asked

to respondents and designed to extract specific information”. In this study, the purpose

is to collect appropriate data regarding the students’ perspective of using visual aids in

literature classroom. Other than that, the questionnaire is used to find out about the

students’ general preferences, interests and learning styles.

In gathering quantitative data, face-to-face interview is conducted for both the

students and teachers. The purpose of the interview is to gather the information about

the teachers’ feeling in using visual aids in literature classroom and the students’

reaction in using the visual aids in literature classroom. This interview will also

conducted to find out about the perspectives, views and motivation of the students and

teachers in using visual aids in learning literature. The interview is semi structured and

is conducted approximately for 15-20 minutes for each participant. I tried to keep the

interview within the appropriate length of time.

3.3 POPULATION AND SAMPLING



The respondents for the questionnaire are students from six different schools in

Kuantan, Pahang. Each school will send out around 30 students so altogether there are

180 students to answer the questionnaire. The number of sample is able to generalize

the population and also appropriate for an educational research as the number of

sample suggested should be 100 and above. The target population is all the secondary

students in Malaysia and the accessible population is the 180 students and 20 teachers

of secondary schools in Kuantan, Pahang.

For qualitative data, the participants for the interview will be selected using

purposive data. The participants will be selected from the 180 students and 20 teachers

of secondary school in Kuantan, Pahang. The sampling method is the most suitable as I

need to choose the best participants out of all the students who answer the

questionnaire. As for the teachers, I’m intended to interview all 20 teachers from the six

different schools. This is because there are a lot of information needs to be extracted

from the teachers’ experience in teaching literature.

For the purpose of choosing the participants for the interview, the sampling will

be done by analyzing the data from the questionnaires. The main criteria in choosing

the participants are the participants must consist of students with different learning

styles and preferences. A few of the samples that suit this criterion will be chosen for

the interview.

3.4 DATA COLLECTION



The main tool in gathering the data is the questionnaire and the interview itself.

All the information pertaining to the objectives of this study is derived from the

questionnaire and interview findings. Each question in the questionnaire and the

questions of the interview are structured to cater to prove the objectives and answer to

the research questions.

The questionnaire is structured using questions that are easy to be answered

thus easier to be analysed. The questions are the same in the survey and the items in

each question can be easily analysed for the variables. The questionnaires will be

distributed to the six secondary schools in Kuantan that have been chosen as the

accessible population. Each school will send out 30 students to answer the

questionnaire. The questionnaire will be collected later after a certain period of time

which is approximately around seven days.

After the questionnaire are gathered and analysed, I will selectively choose the

participants from the 30 students of each school. The questionnaire needs to be

analysed first as I need to choose students with variety of learning styles to suit the

purpose of the interview.

Then only the interview will be conducted. The information gathered from the

interview will answer the first and second research questions which regards to the

perspectives of using visual aids in teaching and learning literature of both the teachers

and students.

3.5 DATA ANALYSIS



In analyzing quantitative data, it will involve numerical and score. For this

purpose, I will analyse the data collected from the questionnaire and sort out the data

according to the information needed in order to answer my research questions and

objectives. The data collected will be divided into categories according to the questions

in the questionnaires. The findings will be presented in a form of table in Excel

spreadsheet and on SPSS. After the data have been analysed and interpret according

to the objectives of this study, I will discuss about the limitations and strength of the data

collected.

In analyzing the data collected from the interview, I will replay the recording of

each interview in order not to miss any important information. I will listen to each

recording over and over again. Other than that, I will also interpret and conclude the

data gathered from the interview and relate it to answer my research questions. I will

also write my reflections of every participant I interviewed. During the interview, I will

also ask the participants whether the meaning of what they are trying to convey match

the meaning I made from my interpretation.

To ensure that the information from the interview are discussed thoroughly, I will

discuss my findings with other researcher too in order to gather more information and

opinions regarding this study. In analyzing the data, I will also integrated the data

critically and relate each participant’s answers with their background, motivation and

personal preferences.

EXAMPLE OF QUESTIONS IN THE QUESTIONNAIRE



Please take a few minutes to answer the following questions. You may leave

blank certain questions. But the survey is going to be kept COMPLETELY

anonymous.

1. What is your gender?

i) Male

ii) Female

2. How often do you access the internet? # of hours a week)________________

3. What is your age? _______________

4. How would you describe your learning style?

i) Visual learner.

ii) Active learner.

iii) Learn best in a lecture format.

iv) Auditory.

5. How helpful are visual aids in learning?

i) I cannot learn without it.

ii) It helps me somewhat.

iii) I do not care.

iv) They bother me and take away from learning.

6. How helpful are hands-on activities?

i) I cannot learn without it.



ii) It helps me somewhat.

iii) I do not care

iv) They bother me and take away from learning.

7. How would you like lectures to be presented to you?

i) Written on a chalk board/white board.

ii) With pre-made slides on a slide projector.

iii) Written with a pen on the slides on overhead projector.

iv) With computer generated projected images.

v) A combination of these. Please specify.________________________

vi) It does not matter to me

8. Computer labs, in conjunction with lectures are ...?

i) Useful.

ii) A waste of time.

9. Does conversation and humor have a place in the class room?

i) Yes, I cannot learn without it.

ii) It helps.

iii) It is not important.

iv) I learn better without humor.

REFERENCES



MM Md Yunus, Salehi & John. (n.d). Using Visual Aids as a Motivational Tool in

Enhancing Students’ Interest in Reading Literary Texts. Faculty of Education, University

Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Sen Gupta, S.P. (n.d). Teaching English Language and Literature. Department of

English, North Bengal University.

Berk, R. A. (2009). Multimedia teaching with video clips: TV, Movies, Youtube, and

mtvU in the college classroom. International Journal of technology in Teaching and

Learning .

Al-azzawii, I. T. (2006). Visual Aids and Teaching Drama. Tikrit University Journal for

Humanities Vol. 13.

Muller, V. (2006). Film as Film: Using Movies to Help Students Visualize Literary

Theory. English Journal Vol. 95, No. 3.

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