Literature Review

the aim of this innovation will focus on accuracy. Accuracy is the capaauthors like Ellis and Barkhuizen stated that accuracy is the ability to evade mistakes while speaking, showing better control over the target

In order to understand the meaning of accuracy, it is important to

Students struggle when they come to articulate sentences. Speaking is the hardest skill to master, for it integrates more than the use of only integrate vocabulary and grammar but also social communication. Since social communication supports real-life situations, it is recommended to use activities that promote this kind of interaction. Despite -

This innovation is grounded in collaborative work. The purpose of collaborative work is to enable the social aspect of language using the cooperation of learners by giving the students the chance to participate in oral interaction. This discussion is based on real-life situations. Students

This is supported by Senra, who also stated that second language students should get training to use language that people use in real-life sit- periences should be part of the learning process. This is supported by Ausubel who promotes the use of previous knowledge that students have in comes from prior life experiences. Hitotuzi stated that students possess prior knowledge in areas such as life, language, and content areas that

In order to build up rapid transitions to have a variety of lexicon choices to pick from when speaking, it is important to create a useful vocabulary that students can use in various real and meaningful situations. McCarthy and Carter, in their study, have recognized 200 formulaic lan-

This is supported by Boers et al. who found that L2 students that used

In addition, pronunciation of the English language is also an im- talking about oral accuracy. Levis and Levis pointed out that compreThe attitudes that students have toward speaking English have become a source of anxiety that can be detrimental to performance in the classroom. This is corroborated by Macintyre and Gardner who consider speaking a source of anxiety for students when speaking a a language is not a sign of lack of awareness of the language, but it

In order to improve students’ attitudes toward speaking, studies have demonstrated that implementing ICT tools in the classroom reduces anxiety. These tools can help students to comprehend the content and increase stimulation by bringing interesting topics into the uses to language learning is important to reduce anxiety in students.

Dörnyei stated that communicative strategies create positive attitudes to encourage interaction between students and instructors as well as to

The use of mobile applications such as WhatsApp in the educahelps participants to have discussions and enables members to over- search considered collaboration facilitated by WhatsApp to improve accuracy and to reduce anxiety when speaking English. To sum up, by considering the gaps in previous research, combining ICT mobile tools, would allow the use of WhatsApp to improve oral accuracy. Therefore, this study aimed to answer the following questions: to what extent do students from the second grade of International Baccalaureate improve speaking accuracy in English through collaboration using WhatsApp? And, to what extent can voice recording using WhatsApp change students’ attitudes towards speaking English?

Methodology Design

This investigation is based on action research with an analymixed-method design occurs when qualitative and quantitative methanalyze data, the results will be triangulated to support quantitative claims. Action research allowed the teacher to participate and to put tative data was to comprehend and analyze the participants concepts, perceptions, and beliefs participants to answer the research questions.

The post-tests interviews gather information about the reasons, old experiences, attitudes towards speaking drills, and topics of interest that students liked to speak about. These post-tests interviews led the researcher to improve the lesson and adapting new possible ways to intervene. The observations served as means for listening for students’ accuracy.

The quantitative data gathered information from a pre-test. In teacher used a rubric to assess students’ oral production. The teacher graded the conversation using the rubric. The purpose of collecting numerical information was to analyze, interpret and present the inforpre-test helped the teacher highlight the aspects that needed more attention. The quantitative investigation aims to generalize results from

After the intervention, the researcher proceeded to take the posttest, along with the same rubric, in order to quantify in what amount the intervention helped the students. Along with the pre-test and the posttest, there was a survey using a Likert scale. Likert scales are items pre- sights about students´ attitudes towards using technological devices to record voice samples to check accuracy while they speak.

Ethical standards in this study assured the anonymity of the participants as well as the educational institution where the research took place. In this work, there is no trace of students’ personal information which can were informed that they were into a study and their audio recordings were used by the researcher only for academic purposes. In addition, WhatsApp messenger was used only for recording and sending information for the development of the innovation and not for other purposes.

Participants

The group of students that participated in this study belonged to years old. These students were part of the international baccalaureate dents. They had a middle – low economic status. Even though they were at an economic disadvantage to other groups of students, especially

In order to know the level of the participants, it was necessary to take the use of online messaging was strong among the contestants. Twenty-two participants had access to technology.

Classroom Procedures

executed in one unit. Students learned useful vocabulary, phrases, and formats for writing the corresponding written and oral assignments.

portfolios by developing a Curriculum Vitae and a cover letter. Later on, students read job ads. These job ads helped students to develop their job interview skills. Students used the information and experience they collected during their business internship class. In order to develop the job interview, students interacted with peers by using digital audio recordings on WhatsApp.

Since this innovation involved the use of WhatsApp, the teacher made sure that students had this application installed on all their phones. Second, the teacher paired up students and created a WhatsApp group for each pair of students. The teacher was the moderator of each group. This was important to keep high levels of participation. In each group, students actively interacted orally. Students role-played a job interview situation. They used learned vocabulary in order to interact correctly. This was the pre-test activity. After the pre-test, students peer evaluat- down according to the evaluation criteria. This rubric was prepared by the teacher in anticipation of the task.

The instruments used in this study were accordingly used to meet used a rubric meant to measure to what degrees students’ speaking skills, on a scale from zero to ten, had before the innovation and increased after the innovation. The rubric consisted of three categories - ries considered in this rubric were vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. Each one of these categories contains a scale of requisites that students have to meet in order to obtain the points. information. The purpose of these questions was to observe the attitude that students have towards speaking English in class. The second qualitative survey was a Likert questionnaire. Students answered twelve questions intended to assess the experience of using WhatsApp in the classroom. This Likert-style survey was recorded in physical and digital form. In order to test the reliability of the survey, Cronbach’s alpha was ten questions about the post experience of using collaboration facilitated by WhatsApp in order to help participants to increase oral accuracy.

Next, the second research question used two interviews from different characteristics that were applied to obtain qualitative information.

Data Analysis

cess of analysis. The main features that this statistical software was to amount the students improved their ability to speak English accurately. Cohen’s d was used to know the impact of the innovation. Finally, Cronbach’s alpha was run to get the reliability of the survey.

In addition, in order to obtain the qualitative data, one interview and two surveys were applied. First, an interview was carried out after the innovation was applied to all students that participated in the study. The by the participants in a physical and digital form. The second post-survey,

Results

from the second grade of the International Baccalaureate improve accuracy in English in collaboration using WhatsApp? The mean and stanp-value. It is important to mention that these results are p-value is less than 0.005.

Table 2 shows the general results from the interviews and answerscording using WhatsApp help students to speak English with a better that participants had after they participated in the innovation.

Questions Answers

Do you feel comfortable with your pronunciation and grammar when speaking English in class? Why?

When speaking English, do you feel more comfortable to practice with your teacher or with a classmate? Why?

nounce well”, ated.” comfortable with the teacher because he can help a classmate because I don’t feel afraid to make mistakes”.

How would you feel using your cellphone in order to speak English? because I would be less nervous” recordings, I feel that my pronunciation has improved”.

How do you think that the use of a cellphone improved your grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary performance?

Along with this interview, one Likert scale survey was also applied. This survey considered the attitudes that participants had towards using WhatsApp messenger, which contributed to answering the second research question. Among the results, participants agreed that the use of this technological tool could add value to the course and they agreed that WhatsApp was useful for the course. But, more importantly, students agreed that WhatsApp helped to interact with their partners.

Table 3. Survey results

Discussion the second grade of international baccalaureate improve speaking accuracy in English in collaboration using Whatsapp. It was found that using oral recording devices can indeed improve oral accuracy. Thus, three aspects of accuracy were taken into consideration. First, participants have a great increase in their vocabulary skills. The mean score shows that there was an increase of 2.0 points after the post-test. The size index asserts it.

Among the other components of oral accuracy, grammar is also insize and shows an increase in skill. Grammar, as one important aspect of an increase in the post- test. The mean score in this section after the treatment is considered to be just below the passing grade which also suggests that participants need improvement in this area. This increase is not as large as the previous feature but also large in scale.

The way participants improved their pronunciation during this innovation also displays an increase. Pronunciation is an important aspect in oral accuracy, and through this innovation, participants improved how that pronunciation is how people produce words clearly when speaking. Pronunciation as an essential part of oral accuracy and also shows an an improvement in this skill. The total mean in this aspect after the participants get a passing grade and also meet the expectations. It is p-value of all of the three components are less than 0.005, which deter-

The second research question deals with to what extent can voice recording using Whatsapp help students to have a better attitude towards speaking activities. In order to obtain the information to answer this question, one interview and one survey were applied. Anxiety was one of the issues that participants had to deal with when speaking Enclass is corroborated by the answers obtained from the interview with I do not feel good since there are unknown words that I cannot pronounce well My partners make fun of me and I feel humiliated”. In other words, the negativity towards speak-

Collaborative work was tested to reduce anxiety when speaking I feel more comfortable talking with a classmate because we can support each other” and “I like to talk with a classmate because I don’t feel afraid to make mistakes”. In addition, participants agreed that using Whatsapp helped them to interact and to get support from their classmates. Also, participants agreed that Whatsapp made them feel good when communicating with others.

The members of the study stated that using ICT tools such as Whatsapp transformed the experience of speaking English in class. They I feel good because we are young and I like to be in touch with technology I think that it would be good because I would be less nervous”. According to these answers, it is shown that participants felt comfortable and secure when speaking English. They also mentioned that this innovation helped them to communicate with other participants creating a more comfortable environment. Participants mentioned that feel good because I can communicate with people who know English helped participants to enhance communication and reduce anxiety.

By reviewing the results, it is important to notice that participants’ attitudes towards using WhatsApp in speaking activities have increaseduse of Whatsapp was helpful for the course and it was a good complement for the course activities.

Conclusions

This innovation focuses on improving secondary high school students’ oral accuracy using collaboration in oral recording tools facilitated by WhatsApp. After the innovation, the use of oral recording devices cient tools in order to improve their oral skills. The researcher used a lesson plan which focused on a real-life task. This motivated participants to be engaged in the activity.

The achievement of this innovation is to have improved oral accuracy using collaboration facilitated by a technological tool that is usually underestimated by teachers and school authorities. By looking at the results, collaboration through WhatsApp largely helped participants to learn new vocabulary and improve grammar, and pronunciation. This was done by having a pre-test to measure the participants’ skills before intervening. This helped the researcher to have an overview of the weakness that participants had. By applying a well-developed lesson plan and using collaboration facilitated through WhatsApp, it was possible to meet the aims of this research.

The second research question measures participants’ attitudes towards speaking English in class. Surveys were applied. These surveys facilitated by applications like WhatsApp can reduce anxiety in students when speaking in class. This fact obtained from research can help teachers that deal with anxiety when doing speaking activities in class. In addition, the attitude towards speaking English also changed since students’ anxiety decreased when using this technological tool. To conclude, a collaboration facilitated by WhatsApp messenger made it possible to develop accuracy in high school students.

The limitation of this study is the accessibility that some students members do not have internet access from their homes. This is also a problem when using digital platforms such as Schoology. In addition, there were some participants that did not have a cellphone to do the activities and Internet connection to send the recording to the instructor. claimed to have basic knowledge of technology. This delayed the application of the innovation since it required extra time to immerse the participants in the use of technology.

Other researchers would enrich this study by following the following recommendations. First, this innovation focused on improving stuis highly suggested by the results obtained in this research. Additional research needs to work on pronunciation which was the component with the least improvement. Second, it would be recommended to have other recording devices such as computers or other devices that would facilitate the use of participants. When necessary, it is recommended to work with only one device per group. This is recommended since there are a few participants that are not familiar with the use of the application. In addition, it is also suggested to request internet access from school authorities in order to facilitate the use of online data sharing. Finally, according to the survey, participants also suggest that the use of WhatsApp can be used in other subjects.

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