Smartphone Screen Recording Apps: An Effective Tool to Enhance Fluency in the English Language

Introduction

This action research investigation describes the implementation of a technology-based tool to the process of the instruction of English as a foreign language (EFL) in a Chilean classroom. It investigates the effects of smartphone video recording applications (no particular brand) on the improvement of the verbal English fluency of a group of 7^th graders. This research project was conducted in a subsidised primary school located in the area surrounding Concepción, Chile. The idea for this study emerged from a review of several reports of the educational improvements observed in the communicative skills of EFL learners through the use of smartphone video recordings, specifically the enhancement of fluency in speech (Foremar, 1999; Katchen, 1991; Lynch & Maclean, 2003; Murphy & Woo, 1998). The report of the outcomes of a feedback tool also drove the desire for an empirical assessment of the subject (Tuga, 2013; Glen, 1996).

The present study analyses the improvement in the speaking fluency exhibited by a group of 7^th graders in a speech task. The participants had to make an oral presentation that followed a model presented by the teacher.

This paper is divided into six parts: firstly, the identified problem is presented along with the corresponding aims of the study; second, the conceptual framework that supports the identified problem and objectives is addressed; third, the methodology is detailed, including the stages of the action research implementation, the data collection techniques and the data analysis; fourth, the main findings of the investigation are assessed and presented; and finally, the paper closes with the interpretation of the results, the concluding statements and recommendations for future research.

Problem statement

Innovative technologies such as the Internet, video conferencing, podcasts, videos and speech recognition software are currently considered the best tools for developing speaking skills. Presently, these technologies are being introduced into EFL classrooms to support and to improve the English speaking skills of learners. Computer-based training, online learning and mobile technologies are some of the useful means of obtaining access to these instruction tools and technological applications, also known as ‘apps,’ have been built as useful resources to help students improve their language skills, particularly oral communication (Bahadorfar & Omidvar, 2014).

In 1998, the Ministry of Education in Chile (MINEDUC) presented an overall reform of the core curricula stating clear learning objectives for the different subjects in the syllabus. A list of fundamental educational objectives to be developed in each year of learning was thus also presented for the language discipline of English. The new curriculum placed primary emphasis on the development of receptive skills (reading and listening skills). However, it did not stress the progression of productive skills (speaking and writing skills).

The Ministry of Education and the English Opens Doors Programme conducted studies on language learning. In 2004, a national initiative to promote the development of English language learning was launched in Chilean schools. This plan proposed that students should reach a specific level of communicative competence in the English language at various stages: 7^th graders were mandated to achieve an A1 level of proficiency in accordance with the Common European Framework of Reference while 11^th graders, who represented the last year of secondary education, were required to attain the B1 proficiency level.

The Key English Test (KET), a diagnostic tool, was applied in 2005 to 10th graders to assess the English language proficiency of Chilean students. This test focused on the assessment of receptive skills, but it did not consider the progression of speaking and writing skills since the applied tool was an adapted version of the international instrument (Agencia de la Educacion, 2005). The results of that test revealed that by the end of their high school education, only 5% of the students achieved the level of proficiency required by the Ministry of Education (Ministry of Education, 2004).

In 2010, the Ministry of Education changed the test and applied the Test of English for International Communication Bridge Test to obtain another perspective of the performance of high school students in the subject of English language learning. This English diagnostic test measured listening and reading skills, and once again eliminated the examination of the development of speaking skills. Hence, Chilean students in secondary schools are given very few opportunities of using the English language in authentic communicative situations. This deficiency hinders the development of their communicative skills, especially in the productive context.

The current study emerges from a specific issue observed during the English lessons to 7^th graders attending a subsidised primary school in Coronel-Chile. The identified problem pertains to the difficulty these students experienced in developing the speaking tasks assigned during the course of the English lessons. In the particular instance, the students were asked to make a short oral presentation about their favourite TV show. The teacher noticed that whenever the students were asked to make oral presentations, they tended to read aloud the presented information instead of speaking fluently to the class. The school was very interested in promoting the development of the English language in its students and its management considered the idea of implementing different types of speech related activities as a way of helping students to improve their fluency in the language. Such activities included the organisation of events such as English festivals, an English week, and English talent shows that were focused on enhancing the speaking skills of the students. The English teacher observed that during their breaks, students were regularly using their smartphones to record videos in their mother language to talk about their preferences and that they were highly motivated by the prospect of sharing the videos with their classmates.

The study reported in the present paper was devised in response to the felt problem of determining a way of enhancing the students’ English speaking fluency. It investigated the effectiveness of smartphone video screen apps to improve their level of fluency as they made oral presentations in the classroom. The action plan was executed in six sessions in which the participating students were asked to record short videos about famous TV shows. These videos were required to include advertisements, interviews, and other mandatory forms of speech communication (See Appendix 5). Students worked in small groups with the aim of improving their fluency in the target language. Smartphone video cameras apps were selected for the recordings because these are commonly used by teenagers in their daily lives and are more accessible to them than the classical video camera.

Conceptual framework

Methodology

Pre-speaking activity

The pre-speaking activity was developed by the students before using the video recording app in accordance with the teacher’s guidelines. The participants were required to talk about their favourite TV show or programme and to include aspects such as the name of the TV show, its nationality, its segments, their favourite part of the show and their reasons for selecting it over other shows. The task presentation of the whole group was expected to last 4 minutes, and each participant was given between 30 seconds to 1 minute to perform individually (see Appendix 4). The oral activity performance was assessed on an individual basis through the use of an adapted analytic rubric created by Zutell & Rasinski (1991) (See Appendix 1). The rubric criteria included expression and volume, phrasing, smoothness and pace. Each criterion was scored according to four categories: Exemplary (4), Accomplished (3), Developing (2) and Beginning (1). Every student was assessed for each criterion, and the 16 points represented the highest score they could obtain (see Appendix 1). The instrument described in a comprehensive way the knowledge and skills to be effectively developed by the learners and could efficiently test the level of proficiency and fluency the students had attained in English language speech delivery.

Post-speaking activity

The post-speaking activity was executed through the use of the smartphone video recording once students had completed their assignment and had presented their TV show videos to their classmates. In congruence with the pre-speaking activity assessment, the participants were again assessed individually using the same adapted analytic rubric with the same criteria. The students participated in the video recording in groups of 3 to 4 students and as before, each student was required to speak fluently in English for about 30 seconds to 1 minute during the video recording related to the TV show (See Appendix 5).

The main purpose of the task was to identify the extent to which the English language fluency of the participants had improved after the short video recordings were produced in which the students showcased their videos to the class.

Simple percentage analysis

This technique displays the data in terms of percentages, which is also used to compare statistical data (Judd, McClelland, & Ryan, 2011). Hence, it was used to compare the performance of participants at both the pre-speaking stage (without the use smart recording video app) and post-speaking stage (with the use of smart recording video app) to achieve the research aim of identifying the extent to which the English speaking fluency of participants had improved after the short video recording session. All the data collected were tabulated as graphs and tables displaying the analysis per criterion. The obtained scores were taken into account to compare the changes in fluency before and after the recording task.

Thematic analysis

According to Braun and Clarke (2006), a thematic analysis is ‘a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns within data.’ (p.79). In qualitative research, a thematic analysis is imperative and must be conducted in a rigorous and methodical manner to yield meaningful and useful results (Nowell, Norris,White, & Moules, 2017).

The audio recorded interview of the focus group was analysed through the transcription of the processed data. The aim of this assessment was to determine the students’ perceptions regarding the usefulness of using smart recorded videos to improve fluency in English. The data obtained from the focus group interview with participants was scrutinised and the most relevant ideas that emerged from the transcripts were selected. Thus, the comments made by the participating students were categorised into three main dimensions: perceptions of video recordings made via the smart video recording apps; the enhancement of English language fluency; and the effectiveness of the video recording as a learning tool. The collected data were tabulated according to these three dimensions.

Findings

The primary objective of this research was to assess the effectiveness of the methodology of using smartphone video recordings apps to increase the English speaking fluency of students. The data analysis will be detailed separately, in accordance with the specific objectives of the study.

Figure 1: provides a comparative view of participants’ performance observed in the expression and volume criteria in both the pre and the post English speaking assessment task.

A significant change is observed in the post-stage assessment. 19 % (6) of the students were placed in the beginning category, 29% (9) were placed in the developing stage, 36% (11) were grouped in the accomplished category while 16% (5) were positioned in the exemplary stage. A clear decrease was noted in the number of students ranked in the first two categories (beginning and developing) which are considered the lowest; in parallel, a significant increase was evinced in the accomplished and exemplary classifications. In the post-activity assessment, 5 students were placed in the exemplary group while none had achieved this level at the pre-recording assessment.

Figure 2 displays information regarding participant performances in the phrasing criterion. This assessment demonstrates that students were mostly placed at the beginning level (14 students, or 45%) before the intervention. After the intervention occurred, this number decreased significantly from 14 to 6 students. The number of students placed in the developing group was enhanced to 7% with the addition of two more students. The accomplished classification evinced a significant increase of four students at the post-activity stage, a 33% increase for this category. From having no students placed in the exemplary category in the pre-activity assessment, 2 participants managed to achieve this enhanced fluency after using the smartphone video recording app.

Figure 2: Comparison of students’ speaking performance according to the Phrasing criterion.

Figure 3 outlines participant performances in the smoothness criterion, comparing the pre-and post- speaking activity assessments. For this criterion, the sample universe was originally divided into 19% (6 students) beginners, 26% (8 students) at the developing stage, 49% (15 participants) accomplished students, and 6% (2 students) exemplary level participants.

Figure 3: Comparison of students’ speaking performance according to the Smoothness criterion.

In effecting the comparison, a 33% improvement was observed in the accomplished category with increased from 10 students (pre-activity assessment) to 15 students (post-activity assessment). An increase was also observed in the exemplary category with gained two participants from none. No significant change was observed for this criterion for the developing category; however, the number of beginners decreased radically as with the other criteria, from 13 to 6.

Figure 4 displays participant performance assessments for the pace criterion. Initially, five students (16%) were placed in the beginning category, 5 (16%) were positioned in the developing stage, 8 (26%) were ranked in the accomplished category and 13 students (42%) were adjudged as exemplary. The post-activity assessment exhibits a noticeable increase, specifically in the upper level exemplary category that was achieved by 13 participants after using the video recording app. At the pre-activity stage, no students had been positioned in this category.

Figure 4: Comparison of students’ speaking performance according to the Pace criteria.

The focus group interview was conducted after the video recording action plan was fully implemented and the subsequent analysis of the results is based on relevant thematic information obtained from the transcripts of the students´ comments, which were grouped into two main dimensions: their opinions on the video recording tool as a means of improving their English language fluency, and the effectiveness of the application.

Dimension 1: Student opinions on the smart video recording app in improving English language fluency

With respect to the dimension the video recording tool as a means of improving their English language fluency, participants mainly expressed positive comments such as their speaking fluency improved significantly since the tasks were related to their own interests. They also stated they enjoyed recording their videos through smart phone apps since it helped, especially when they were required to repeat terminology to achieve the correct pronunciation. On the other hand, some students expressed negative opinions on varied aspects. They claimed that the use of this app had not changed the way they spoke, and one student also added that she suffered from a panic attack.

Table 1: Student Opinions on Improvement in English Fluency.

Analysis and discussion of results

Advances in educational technology have transformed teaching practices and also altered the way students learn. This research area is just emerging in Chile, specifically with respect to the use of smartphones as an interactional learning tool in language learning classrooms to support speaking activities through video recording sessions (Sevari, 2012).

The information presented by this research proposes a valuable pedagogic perspective by investigating how smartphone video recording apps can be turned into effective didactic resources through which to develop the English speaking fluency of 7^th grade students.

The findings of this study indicate that a significant improvement in the speaking fluency of students can be obtained in the levels defined in the assessment rubric criteria (Developing, Accomplished and Exemplary). For this study, a prominent enhancement was observed in the pace criterion, particularly at the exemplary level.

This outcome corroborates what many pieces of research have previously proposed (Gromik, 2017; Sihem, 2013; Baleghizadeh & Oladrostam, 2010; Keddie, 2018; Mercado, 2017) with regard to the benefits of students using smartphones and video cameras to record themselves. This activity accords students the potential to create something memorable, meaningful and enjoyable during their language learning and offers learners the possibility of advancing their oral communication skills, especially since students use apps and smartphones frequently in their daily lives, both within and outside the classroom.

The findings from the focus group interview also indicated that students were in general positively inclined toward the use of video recordings as a resource to improve their speaking fluency. They further expressed that that the video recordings had helped them improve their English speaking fluency since they were required to work repeatedly on their vocabulary, their pronunciation, and the elaboration of phrases.

Table 2: Participant responses about the ease or difficulty of using video recording apps.

Limitations of the study

The first limitation of the study is related to the number of mobile phones used in the action plan to execute the assigned task. Only one smartphone was allowed per group during the video recording sessions in keeping with school regulations and to avoid distractions in other classes. This action limited the amount of time participants could expend on performing their oral communication tasks as they were given fewer opportunities of repeating their speaking scenes. Students could have performed the tasks better with more repetitions and re-recordings if more than one smartphone was available to groups during the intervention sessions.

The second limitation pertains to the technical difficulties faced by two groups in their voice recordings, the editing programme, the lights, and other elements. In conclusion, two groups found it problematic in some aspect to create their videos.

The third inadequacy concerns the paucity of time for the intervention process, which was applied through a mere handful of sessions. For this reason, students were required to spend extra time to record the videos at home and outside the purview of the teacher’s supervision.

The fourth constraint relates to the environments in which the recording sessions were held: the groups had to prepare their scenes in different empty rooms. Fortunately, the school provided enough space where participants could practice and record their videos during classes. However, all the groups (8) had to accomplish modifications and record them at their homes after school.

Conclusion

Smart technology has often been criticised in schools for causing disruption and interfering with the learning process. Nonetheless, many studies have demonstrated its effective results in education. Smartphones are now considered tools that support and enhance the process of classroom learning when they are used appropriately and under the supervision of teachers. The video recording camera tool is one of the five most effective used smart technologies in the classroom. It has been advised by students and is reported to be as one of the most easily used and powerful methods for learning and instruction (Adeboye, 2016). Language educators should not disregard the use of video recording applications in camera smartphones and should consider the incorporation of digital video recordings in their lessons to enhance the fluency of the oral communication of EFL learners (Göktürk, 2016).

This present research endeavour empirically indicates the benefits of using video recording applications in mobile phones with cameras. Students affirmed their enthusiasm for using this tool and confirmed their felt benefits in attaining a degree of fluency through the activity that was conducted for this study. In the focus group, most students recounted their perceived benefits: the vocabulary repetitions, recall of words and phrases, pronunciation modifications, and multiple video recordings had supported their fluency. Some participants did present some negative issues of video recording presentations: technical difficulties, the limiting of one video smartphone camera per group for use in the task; and the lack of adequate time to record and edit their videos. The pre- and post- activity assessments of fluency also underlined the positive effects of the proposed tool on the English oral communication of most of the students, specifically in the pace criterion identified in the analytic rubric. At the post-activity stage, 42% (13 students out of 31) of the sample was adjudged at the highest or exemplary level on this measure.

It is certainly necessary to guide students and to prepare educational institutions to incorporate technological devices to perform educational purposes so that learners are given access to increased opportunities of becoming educated through the use of current teaching methodologies, updated technological tools and devices that form an integral part of the everyday life of students.

Recommendations

In conducting future research on implementing video recording apps as projects in EFL classrooms, educators must consider both the positive and results and the limitations of the present research endeavour and to incorporate new methods or techniques with which to work. Additionally, technology is one of the main aspects to contemplate in further studies on using the video recording tools available to young people in the current environment. Therefore, the school or educational institutions where future studies are conducted must provide enough classrooms, computers lab access, Internet access, and parental consents that allow students to work with smartphones or tablets that may be also used as tools because these also incorporate video camera apps.

It is recommended that future researchers should develop their investigations over an increased number of sessions to obtain more effective data on the improvement registered in the oral communication fluency of their participants. Therefore, the research time allotted for video recording sessions must be longer than three lessons to appropriately observe the enhancements in the abilities of students over more time.

The video recordings must be supervised and monitored by the researcher in every session to avoid future technical difficulties that can affect the sound quality and thus the findings of fluency.