IEEE Paper Template in A4 (V1) Nur Alfa Rahmah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol.8 No.1 2018 LET: Linguistics, Literature and English Teaching Journal ||Volume|| 8 ||Issue|| 1 ||Pages|| 78-90 || 2018 || |P-ISSN: 20869606 ; E-ISSN: 25492454| SHORT MOVIE PRODUCTION TO ENCOURAGE ASIAN DIGITAL NATIVES TO SPEAK ENGLISH Nur Alfa Rahmah nuralfarahmah@yahoo.com Afifah Linda Sari alindapersada@gmail.com UIN Antasari Banjarmasin-English Education Department Indonesia Article History: Received: 6 th March 2018 Accepted: 10 th April 2018 Abstract Speaking in foreign language is a productive skill that requires not only sufficient language input and communication strategy, but also a lot of practices and experiences. Students who cannot fulfill all those requirements might get problems during speaking, especially those who have low confidence level, insufficient communication skill, lack of vocabulary and lack of automaticity. Students often hesitate during speaking too because they are afraid of making mistakes, losing face and criticism. Such problems are commonly found among English learners in Asia, especially where English is a foreign language and access to English natural environment and English daily practices is extremely limited. Certain teaching strategies are then needed to overcome these obstacles; one of them is movie production. This study views teenage students in Asia as digital natives that can take a lot of benefits from technology to improve their English and make English language part of their life even though they do not live in natural English environment. Through movie production, students get freedom of expression without feeling anxious that they are being formally graded. It is fun and challenging and explores their language creativity; they can rehearse as much as they want; consult the dialogue to their teachers; and correct their mistakes and learn from it. In brief, this task integrates many communication skills needed in speaking, improves their confidence, and gives them real experience and a lot of practice. The movie can as well be evaluated to assess students' progress in speaking. Corresponding Author: Tel.: .............................. Keywords: Short movie production; English speaking; Asian digital natives. Available online at: http://jurnal.uin-antasari.ac.id/index.php mailto:nuralfarahmah@yahoo.com mailto:alindapersada@gmail.com P a g e | 79 Nur Alfa Rahmah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol.8 No.1 2018 INTRODUCTION The spread of English all over the world is fascinating. First, it spreads as a native language in UK, USA, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Then, it becomes the second language in some Asian regions like Ghana, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Singapore, etc. Gradually, this language has developed to be international language covering China, Egypt, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Spain, Turkey, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, etc. Those regions where English now mostly spoken are Asian countries. In Asia, English has become a very important language. Approximately 350 million people speak English for various purposes in Asia, a number that is close enough to the combined populations of the United States and Great Britain, where English is a mother tongue for most citizens (Honna, 2005). However, this phenomenon alone does not guarantee that English learners in Asia do not have a lot of problems learning English. In fact, researches show that there are many things that hold them back from speaking (Doqaruni, 2015; Ur, 1995; Thornbury, 2007). Researchers have discovered various reasons why Asian students tend to be reluctant to speak in second language classroom situations such as: inhibition (fear of making mistakes, losing face, and criticism; shyness); nothing to say (low proficiency in the target language); previous negative experiences with speaking at class; cultural beliefs about appropriate behavior in classroom contexts (e.g., showing respect to the teacher by being quiet); habits (e.g., becoming used to being passive in the classroom); personality (e.g., introversion); and lack of confidence (Doqaruni, 2015; Ur, 1995). English teachers and researchers usually try to overcome those problems by treating them one by one. Some who agree that confidence is the main issue that make the students hesitate during speaking will try to improve students‟ confidence. Some others who think that the main problem lie in motivation will mostly try to increase students‟ motivation in practicing English. The rest who think that the inadequate ability to speak is what constitutes the main cause of their hesitation during speaking will try to address the ability issue. Although all these factors—confidence, motivation, and language ability—are often treated as distinct, these dimensions are actually related one another in the field of second P a g e | 80 Nur Alfa Rahmah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol.8 No.1 2018 language (Clement, R., Dornyei, Z., & Noels, K.A.: 1994). Treating problems in speaking might require treating all these problems in an integrated way. To understand this issue deeply, we should realize that most Asian students are passive speakers of English. This is because English is not their first nor second language. In Asia, English is mostly a foreign language and access to English natural environment are relatively rare; consequently, regular English speaking practice is not some privilege most Asian students experience. Meanwhile, language is more than just theory and practice; language is a formed habit. When speaking foreign language does not become habit, it creates a lot of hesitations during speaking because the speakers simply are not used to it. Students naturally do not have confidence to start things they are not used to, especially when they realize that they are being watched and formally graded. Students do not feel confidence because they think they do not have the right to, i.e. they barely have enough ability to talk, they almost have never practiced it at all especially beyond the class, and they think they will most probably make mistakes during the production. These problems add tension and pressure in speaking class. The more students feel pressured, they more reluctant they will be in speaking. How should teachers deal with this? This is what the researchers are trying to address in this research. The students need to be given a task that makes them communicate each other in a fun yet challenging way and allows them to feel the joy of speaking English through that, the kind of task that can take away hesitation and increase their motivation, confidence, and English ability at the same time. The researchers propose short movie production as one of effective tasks and solutions to this. Technology Integration for 21st Century Learners The 21 st century students, including Asian students, are also known by another term, that is “Digital Natives” (Prensky, 2001a). Many things in their life are connected to technology and they enjoy being part of it. Digital natives develop hypertext minds, which makes them good at reading visual images and enjoy watching movies and videos a lot; they prefer image-rich environment P a g e | 81 Nur Alfa Rahmah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol.8 No.1 2018 consisting of sound, picture, and video than text; they are also kinesthetic, experiential, and social; they like to be connected to each other and prefer to do task in team than individually (Prensky, 2001a; Oblinger and Oblinger, 2005). Addressing another important pillar in the 21st Century, technology provides opportunities for students to express their creativity. It does not mean that traditional methods are not appropriate to apply in teaching and learning process. On the contrary, some of traditional methods are considered to be useful even today. However, teacher as well as students are expected to be able to adapt modern technology with the purpose of developing and enhancing teaching and learning in globalization era. Today‟s students need teachers and administrators to re-envision the role of technology in the classroom. To approximate student potential, students need access to a constantly evolving array of technological tools and activities that demand problem-solving, decision-making, teamwork, and innovation (Blair, 2012). In this sense, some of applications dealing with modern technology has been utilized as an alternative way to be used in English learning. These will be reduce the students‟ boredom in learning languages, especially when it is designed attractively Integrating technology for developing students' language proficiency, teachers can use videos to design tasks which will require students to practice their language skills. In some cases, video can be as good as an instructor in communicating facts or demonstrating procedures to assist in mastery learning where a student can view complex clinical or mechanical procedures as many times as they need to. Furthermore, the interactive features of modern web-based media players can be used to promote „active viewing‟ approaches with students (Galbraith, 2004). More recently, Willmot et al (2012) show that there is strong evidence that digital video reporting can inspire and engage students when incorporated into student-centred learning activities through: increased student motivation, enhanced learning experience, higher marks, development potential for deeper learning of the subject development potential for deeper learning of the subject development potential for deeper learning of the subject, development of learner autonomy, enhanced team working and communication skills, a source of P a g e | 82 Nur Alfa Rahmah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol.8 No.1 2018 evidence relating to skills for interviews, and learning resources for future cohorts to use. Movie and Language Teaching Tool Language teachers have been using films in their classes for decades, and there are a number of reasons why movie is an excellent teaching and learning tool.According to Donaghy (2014), movie and TV shows are an integral part of students‟ lives so it makes perfect sense to bring them into the language classroom. Movie, as a motivator, also makes the language learning process more entertaining and enjoyable. Moreover, movie provides students with examples of English used in „real‟ situations outside the classroom, particularly interactive language or in other words the language of real-life conversation. Movie exposes students to natural expressions and the natural flow of speech. If they are not living in an English-speaking environment, perhaps only movie and television can provide learners with this real-life language input. The visuality of movie makes it an invaluable language teaching tool, enabling learners to understand more by interpreting the language in a full visual context. Movie assists the learners‟ comprehension by enabling them to listen to language exchanges and see such visual supports as facial expressions and gestures simultaneously. These visual clues support the verbal message and provide a focus of attention. In other side, movie can bring variety and flexibility to the language classroom by extending the range of teaching techniques and resources, helping students to develop all four communicative skills. For example, a whole movie or sequence can be used to practise listening and reading, and as a model for speaking and writing. Movie can also act as a springboard for follow-up tasks such as discussions, debates on social issues, role plays, reconstructing a dialogue or summarising. It is also possible to bring further variety to the language learning classroom by screening different types of movie: feature-length movie, short sequences of movie, short movie, and adverts (Donaghy: 2014). Dealing with oral communication used in English movie and movies, there are phonemes, stress, rhythm, intonation, phrases, grammar, and therefore constitute microskills of speaking mostly found in English movies. The learners P a g e | 83 Nur Alfa Rahmah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol.8 No.1 2018 can use the mickroskills of oral communication appeared by native speakers as a model to develop their speaking ability through imitating some particular elements of language from focusing on the quality and intensity of the exposure. Microskills of speaking or oral communication proposed by Brown (2001: 272 in Donaghy: 2014) is summarized in Table 1 as follows: Table 1: Microskills of Oral Communication 1. Produce chunks of language of different lengths. 2. Orally produce differences among the English phonemes and allophonic variants. 3. Produce English stress patterns, word in stressed and unstressed positions, rhythmic structure, and intonational contours. 4. Produce reduced forms of words and phrases. 5. Use an adequate number of lexical units (words) I order to accomplish pragmatic purposes. 6. Produce fluent speech at different rates of delivery. 7. Monitor your own oral production and use various strategic devices- pauses, fillers, self-corrections, backtracking-to enhance the clarity of the message. 8. Use grammatical word classes (noun, verbs, etc.), systems (e.g., tense, agreement, pluralization, word order, patterns, rules, and elliptical forms. 9. Produce speech in natural constituents-in appropriate phrases, pause groups, breath groups, sentences. 10. Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms. 11. Use cohesive devices in spoken discourse. 12. Accomplish appropriately communicative functions according to situations, participants, and goals. 13. Use appropriate registers, implicature, pragmatic conventions, and other sociolinguistics features in face-to-face conversations. 14. Convey links and connections between events and communicate such relation as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification. P a g e | 84 Nur Alfa Rahmah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol.8 No.1 2018 15. Use facial features, kinesics, body language, and other nonverbal cues along with verbal language to convey meanings. 16. Develop and use a battery of speaking strategies, such as emphasizing key words, rephrasing, providing context for interpreting the meaning words, appealing for help, and accurately assessing how well your interlocutor is understanding you. It is obvious that utterances spoken in English movies are manifestation of microkills of oral communication described from Table 1. Regarding the benefits of using film in the language learning classroom, the researchers believe one of the tasks that can effectively bridge these multimodal learning styles and the students‟ obstacles in learning English especially to improve students‟ speaking skill is creating a short movie or in the project of this research we call it by short movie production. There are some benefits of short movie production as a learning strategy. First, through movie production, the students get freedom of expression without feeling anxious that they are being formally graded which will increase their confidence. Second, making movie is considered cool by teenagers these days. Just imagined if they are given the task to do so; they students will be more motivated to learn English through that. It is exciting and challenging and it explores their language creativity. Third, the students can rehearse as much as they want which will make them practice a lot of English; they will do their best especially when they know the products will be viewed by many people; teachers also can see how good they work as a team. Fourth, students can consult the dialogue to their teachers, correct their mistakes and learn from it. The teachers, thus, will not lose control of students‟ activity at all and can monitor their progress. In other words, this task does not only appreciate the digital native‟s characteristics, but also integrates many communication skills needed in speaking. It improves students‟ confidence, gives them real experience and a lot of practice and eventually encourage them to make speaking English as a habit. Besides, the movie at the same time constitutes as a data or documentation the teachers can use anytime for evaluation. P a g e | 85 Nur Alfa Rahmah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol.8 No.1 2018 METHOD This research is actually based on the reflection of what one of the researchers have done in her previous English speaking and pronunciation practice classes in which the students are encouraged to speak and pronounce like native-speakers. The task to produce short movie was given as a final project so that the students took the task seriously considering the final project score is worth 40% of all score of the lesson in the semester. The data were taken through movie production product assessment, non-participant observation, and semi- structured interview with the students exploring their opinions about the task. Short Movie Production Project The task was given to four classes of freshmen that the lecturer taught. In each class, the students were grouped into the group of 5 to 6 students. All the groups were given the same topic for the movie they were going to make: Problems in Learning English. They were free to explore which aspect of English learning problem they want to address and how they address it in the movie. The lecturer let the students know the rubric she would use to make sure they pay attention to what are important to be learned, rehearsed, and revised during the movie production and to make sure that they did not enjoy making the movie too much that they forget the goal of the task. The rubric consisted of 10 things to be scored, covering pronunciation, content, creativity, duration and team work. All the categories were then divided into several sub categories necessary to know how well the students had progressed and showed their dedication in the performance. The following were the criteria used to give them score: Table 2. Short Movie Production Rubrics No. Aspects to be Assessed Score 1 Consonants, vowels, and diphthong are produced correctly with less mother tongue accent 2 Intonation and word stress are produced properly 3 Liking and reduction are used properly 4 The content is original and creative, enhancing video content innovatively; The story theme, message, plot and scenario are arranged smoothly and clearly P a g e | 86 Nur Alfa Rahmah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol.8 No.1 2018 5 The dialogue is clear and interesting to hear 6 Correct grammar is consistently used 7 The graphic and images contribute to effective video presentation; All shots are in focus and nicely cropped. The camera work is smooth and steady 8 The back sound supports the dialogue but does not disturb the sound clearness of the dialogue 9 The duration of video is not less than 7 minutes and not more than 10 minutes 10 All group members show equal participation and significant roles in the making of the video FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS After the students submitted the products of their short movie production, the researchers evaluated the products based on the rubrics. The four classes showed equal dedication in making good quality movie. The score of their movie production products are below. Table 3. Students‟ Movie Production Score Most groups scored fair to very good in pronunciation points (points 1 - 3. In means, they had done a lot of practices during movie production before they are ready for final performance in front of the camera. Point 6 also ranked the same, from fair to very good, which showed their effort in producing grammatical sentences. Points 4 and 5 which explore their creativity also showed relatively the same results. These scores are quite satisfying considering they were first year students. Point 7 to 10 are more on technical aspects which depended very much on how skillful the students were with technology especially camera and video editing. G1A G2A G3A G4A G5A G6A G7A G1B G2B G3B G4B G5B G6B G1C G2C G3C G4C G5C G6C G7C G1D G2D G3D G4D Point 1 10 9 9 8 8 9 9 8 9 9 7 7 7 8 7 8 7 9 9 8 8 7 8 8 Point 2 9 8 7 8 8 9 9 8 8 9 7 7 7 7 7 8 7 8 8 8 8 7 8 8 Point 3 9 9 8 8 8 9 9 8 8 9 8 7 7 8 7 8 7 8 9 8 8 7 8 8 Point 4 9 8 7 6 8 7 8 10 9 9 8 5 6 8 7 9 7 9 8 7 9 7 9 9 Point 5 10 9 8 8 7 9 8 7 9 8 7 7 6 9 6 8 7 9 9 7 8 7 9 7 Point 6 10 9 8 8 8 8 9 8 9 9 7 8 6 8 8 7 8 8 9 8 9 8 9 8 Point 7 8 7 7 6 8 7 10 8 8 8 7 8 8 9 8 9 9 9 8 10 9 9 9 9 Point 8 6 8 9 7 8 8 8 9 10 9 8 8 9 9 5 9 9 9 9 8 10 9 9 8 Point 9 10 10 8 6 8 9 10 10 8 10 8 9 10 10 10 9 8 10 9 10 10 7 9 9 Point 10 10 9 10 7 8 10 10 10 9 10 10 10 8 10 8 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 Total Score 91 86 81 72 79 85 90 86 87 90 77 76 74 86 73 85 79 89 88 84 89 78 88 84 Group KELAS B KELAS C KELAS DKELAS A P a g e | 87 Nur Alfa Rahmah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol.8 No.1 2018 Throughout the movies they produced, the students did a lot of conversations and many scene changes which indicated that they planned the plot, dialogues, character choice, setting, movie angles, and everything related to movie production well. With all the conversation they have arranged, the students practice many times before they are ready to perform in front of camera. In the process of recording, they might repeat their action a lot of times which means they also repeat the dialogues over and over until they thought it was perfect. In the interview, each group explained what they did to make the video. The following is some of the explanations. “First, we make the concept, like what part we have to record for each performance, what theme we choose, then we start practicing with text but we didn’t record it. After we practice, we start to record part by part. When we make errors, we redo the record many times until we think it’s the best one.” (Group 1-Class A) “We make a concept of the short movie first and practice a lot through remembering the content of what we will show in the video” (Group 2-Class B) How excited they were in movie production? They were so excited. Embarrassment while shooting the video did not become significant problem since the activity was so fun for them. They admitted that they enjoyed all the process although it was not easy at all, just like what was reflected in the interview: “After we make the video, edit it and watch the result, I feel embarrassed and satisfied. It is really funny when I look at myself in that video, trying to say the words with correct pronunciation.” (Group 5, Class C) P a g e | 88 Nur Alfa Rahmah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol.8 No.1 2018 “When we made the video, we did it outside. And oh my God! I was so embarrassed. Too many people watch us! But we still make it perfectly!” (Group 3, Class B) Along with their dedication in the movie production, the students grew both their confidence and speaking skills willingly. All the preparation they did for the movie contributed to the improvement of their English and increase their motivation to learn English. More importantly, the students themselves realize this improvement and are happy with that. When students are happy with their progress, they will be encouraged to develop it by themselves, especially when they know they way, which is by speaking a lot. “Yes, because when I make short movie, I feel more confident to speak up and try to show my best so it takes a good preparation, right? So when I prepare the short movie, of course I will try and try to make my speaking skill better.” (Group 1, Class D) “When we read script and repeat speaking to make movie, we also improve our pronunciation. The other that improves is my confidence. (Group 6, Class C) “Yes, it improves my skill especially my confidence and my pronunciation. With short movie, I can repeat my pronunciation and if I made mistakes while making video, I can repeat again and again and it make me improve”. (Group 3, Class A) “Yes, it improves my speaking skill because when we made the video we have to speak up and have to be really confident when we speak up. Actually, when we made the video, we have to remake the video again and again when we think it’s not good enough. So we speak up again and again too. That’s why our speaking skill improves.” (Group 2, Class B) P a g e | 89 Nur Alfa Rahmah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol.8 No.1 2018 “It really improves my confidence because when I try to speak up in front of the camera, I feel like a real English speaker. Even though my pronunciation is not good enough, I still tried my best so it really encourages my confidence.” (Group 1, Class A) Watching the movie, the researchers can see relatively equal participation from all members of the group. Those who used to be shy and keep silent during the class show equally significant role just like any other member. Some of the students showed fascinating progress in speaking English and some others still needed to learn harder. However, overall, everybody had shown the best English speaker versions they can be in the movie, which means they had done enough researching, studying, and self-evaluating. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS Short movie production is proved to be successful in encouraging students to speak English and overcoming obstacles that make them reluctant during speaking. Short movie production gives them freedom of expression and space to explore their creativity as well as learning cooperation as a team without feeling anxious that they are being formally graded. This activity is fun and challenging at the same time. The preparation the students took during movie production required them to study hard, compose dialogs, practice a lot, evaluate the progress, correct their mistakes, then learn from their mistakes. They rehearsed as many as they should to acquire fluent speaking and good pronunciation. In brief, this task integrates many communication skills needed in speaking, improves students‟ confidence, and gives them real experience and a lot of practice. This research will be a good input for English teachers to support the students‟ progress in speaking. REFERENCES Blair, Nancye. 2012. Technology Integration for the New 21st Century Learner. Retrieved from https://www.naesp.org/principal-januaryfebruary-2012- technology/technology-integration-new-21st-century-learner. P a g e | 90 Nur Alfa Rahmah LET: Linguistics, Literature and Language Teaching Journal Vol.8 No.1 2018 Clement, R., Dornyei, Z., & Noels, K.A. (1994). Motivation, Self-Confidence, and Group Cohesion in the Foreign Language Classroom. Language Learning, 44 (3), 417- 448 Donaghy, K. (2014). How can film help you teach or learn English? 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