Uploading speaking assignment to YouTube channel as an effort in increasing student’s pronunciation skill

Article history: Received 18 February 2019 Received in revised form 25 February 2019 Accepted 25 February 2019 Available online 04 March 2019 YouTube is an internet channel in which people can freely find, watch, and upload any videos without any particular regulation. Learning motivation can be achieved in many ways. One of those is by uploading speaking assignment to YouTube channel,and a lot of people can watch it. This can be a strong motivation of the students to practice their pronunciation as well as possible. The objective of this study was to investigate student’s motivation in learning pronunciation by uploading their speaking assignment to YouTube. The study employed qualitative study with descriptive analytical approach. Qualitative study was chosen to dig deeper information related to the focus of the study. The instrument of the study was an open questioner with 5 questions related to student’s motivation in learning pronunciation. The study applied random sampling technique with 10 informants who had submitted their speaking assignment to YouTube. The study showed that uploading speaking videos in YouTube could increase student’s motivation. 80 percent of the respondents revealed that before they made their videos, they prepared and rehearsed to have correct pronunciation. In conclusion, uploading video in you tube channel had increased student’s motivation in mastering English pronunciation. © 2019 EnJourMe. All rights reserved.


Introduction
Learning English as a foreign language requires a lot of practice since language can be acquired when people use it as often as possible.People will not be able to master any language if they never use the language in their daily practice.Using a mixed method approach including classroom observation, self-observation, and interviews may help people to achieve better English fluency (Nguyen & Terry, 2017).It is impossible to master any language with a very limited exposure since mastering language can only be achieved by repetitively use it to obtain maximum result.
Teaching English as a foreign language becomes both English practice and language exposure for students.Teachers may develop various ways to maximize their teaching method and exercise to students in learning English.One of the ways is by giving individual assignment to enhance speaking, listening, writing, and reading skill.One of the examples of individual speaking assignment is in the form of video which record student's speaking activity.
Speaking assignment given by teachers have to improve student's ability in learning English and to trigger student's creative thinking.Sometimes, teachers simply ask the students to perform their speaking skill in front of the classroom in the form of telling stories related to any particular topics.Indeed, it is a good way for both teachers and students since teachers are able to assess the student's skill directly and, students do not need to have long preparation for that.
Nowadays, technology, information, and knowledge explosion have led to the increase of teaching and learning English as an international language (Khajloo, 2013).Teachers and students may take a lot of benefit by using internet as the media to learn English since it provides any teaching materials, reading sources, speaking models, listening channels, etc. Students in this era are digital natives who are familiar to use internet for their daily use.Teachers may give a more challenging speaking assignment for students as digital natives.Young people tend to prefer doing more challenging activity since they have high curiosity.It is natural that young age is the time to explore something new.More challenging assignment in the form of speaking video that should be uploaded in YouTube channel may become an alternative to trigger student's creativity and to practice their English.
Uploading student's speaking assignment gives a lot of benefit both for teachers and for students.Teachers may have some particular benefits to ask the students uploading their video to YouTube channels.Teachers will have better documentation of students' speaking assignment if they require their students to upload the assignment via YouTube channel.By having direct presentation teachers will have no rigid documentation since the speaking activity is directly performed by the students in the class rooms.If the students upload their speaking assignment in YouTube channel, teachers only need to ask the url of each video then able to check the videos anytime they need them.Teachers will never be afraid of losing any files since the videos have been automatically saved in the internet.Actually teachers can ask their students to record the videos and submit them in flask disks or teacher's computers, but if the flask disk or computers are broken or lost, the files will also disappear.Furthermore, saving videos in flask disks or computers requires certain large data saving space that somehow become a problem of computer users.
Besides, by uploading the assignment in YouTube channel students can show their creative and critical thinking since they can choose the setting (place and situation) of the video, widely explore the topic of the speaking material, develop the organization of the speaking video, and edit the their performance in the video as well as add more effect to make the video more interesting.One most important benefit is that students will be more eager to learn pronunciation to gain excellent performance in the video.Students may cut the parts that they think improper to show or to have incorrect English pronunciation.In addition, they have more chance to rehearse and find out correct pronunciation by using internet help before taking the video.Furthermore, students are able to check the result of their video and to personally assess their English speaking capability by repetitively replay their videos.In addition, if the videos are shown in front of the class, their friends are capable to give feedback and comment.
By considering the benefits of uploading student's assignment in the form of speaking video, the study about the importance of uploading speaking assignment in YouTube channel especially in the focus of pronunciation learning strategy was investigated in the study.Pronunciation becomes a significant aspect of learning any foreign language since all languages always have distinctive pronunciation that differs one language and the other ones.Hence, the strategy of enhancing pronunciation capability should be developed to give broader steps and senses in student's teaching methods.
The objective of the study was to investigate the student's motivation in learning pronunciation since they were obliged to upload their speaking assignment to you tube channel.
The development of technology in the digital era has changed people's way of life.Technology has brought massive difference on how people communicate, how people purchase their money, how children play, how teachers perform in the class rooms, and how students learn new things and materials.People have to aware on the changes on lifestyle and people's communication as a consequence of technological development.One of important aspects of life in education.It plays a very significant impact in changing people's life and future.As the development of technology, education has to change as well.
Teachers as the main agent of education should have broader knowledge and creativity to develop their performance to gain the best knowledgably output.They have to be able to enhance their teaching methods altogether with the development of digital technology, so more variation in teaching and learning can be significantly achieved.The use of internet as teaching and learning material should become a significant consideration to adjust the development of digital technology and the change of educational process (Terantino, 2011).
There are various benefits that teachers can get from using internet as teaching and learning processes.Internet has offered everything that English learners and teachers need from reading, listening, speaking, as well as writing skills.Internet offers the opportunities to spread messages with a variety resources including pictures, fact sheets, videos, news, events, and blog postings (Bonk, 2009).These unlimited forms of items provided by internet have transformed the education of all nations, from face to face and text book into limitless activities.
Teaching and learning English can be improved by using you tube as a media since in you tube people can find various videos to improve their English proficiency.The main aims of the channel are to upload, view, and share videos.Rapidly, the channel has gained the popularity and many people subscribe it (Alhamami, 2015) because it is simple to use.People just need to type the keywords in the searching engine, and let it find the videos that they expect to watch.
Due to the popularity of the website, its free-of-charge availability and easiness of use, many language teachers have started to use the website to teach different languages (Alhamami, 2015).Teachers can adjust and find various videos based on what they need to teach to students.The videos can be about language focus (grammar), speaking, IELTS, cross cultural understanding, and many more.Recently, you tube is considered as a source of online material that can play a vital role in teaching and learning field (Almurashi, 2016) because it has been broadly used as materials in English classes both as additional or complementary materials and as main material.Furthermore, teachers can help to boost student's creativity and freedom of expression as well as encouraging them to use the target language (Alimemaj, 2010).
However, none of the researchers analyzed the benefit of uploading student's assignment video to YouTube channel as one alternative of submitting student's assignment.In fact, the way students submit their assignment (uploading in YouTube channels or submitting directly to the lecturers) would contribute significant impacts on student's motivation in creating their videos.Moreover, to whom the video addressed would also influence student's creativity and seriousness in making the video.It will be different if students knew that their videos would be watched by more people.They would have better motivation to create videos as great as possible to show that they were capable to do so.
Hence, analyzing the use of YouTube as the channel to submit any student's assignments in the form of video was a significant thing to do.Using you tube channel as a platform to submit student's assignments brings some benefits such as accessible anytime and anywhere, life time to watch since it will be permanently kept in the platform, and easier to share without using any storage devices.
A lot of foreign learners are eager to learn English as well as they can; if people only think about reading and writing they found that it is difficult to achieve that goal (O'Connor, 1998).Learning pronunciation requires more effort since pronunciation will only be produced once the students are willing to speak up loudly.Acceptable English pronunciation that foreigners have to master is known as Received Pronunciation.It is the pronunciation that all kinds of English may accept (O'Connor, 1998).Digital natives are more interested to learn things online.The enjoyable and entertaining atmosphere created by using YouTube motivate the students to learn (Alwehaibi, 2015).The benefits of submitting assignment videos in YouTube channel are not only for teachers but also for students.By submitting their video assignments in YouTube platform, students will have higher motivation to make better videos.They realize if English has been spoken widely all over the world (Crystal, 2003), and YouTube is accessible for all people, so it is possible if their videos are viewed by a lot of people worldwide (Alhamami, 2015).Thus, they have to work harder to create their best videos.Moreover, students can have opportunity to create presentation via YouTube since it is a simple tool for creating and editing videos (Terantino, 2011).It is generally agreed that classroom language activities should integrate more desirable, useful and fun activities (Parker, 2000).Thus, creating assignments in the form of video presentation and uploading their videos in YouTube channel may become a novel thing for students and bring a more fun atmosphere to them.Uploading assignment video in you tube channel can increase student's motivation in having better pronunciation.By creating video, students got chance to think creatively, reproduce on their learning, cooperate with their peers, and learn by contributing actively (Aksel & Gurman-Kahraman, 2014).

Research Method
The study applied qualitative study with descriptive analysis approach.Qualitative study was employed in the study since the study focused on the depth of analysis rather than the quantity of the data obtained.The study used quotes and themes in the form of words rather than numbers to provide evidence of different perspectives (Creswell, 2007).

Instrument
The study used open questionnaires with 5 items questions to reveal student's opinion and idea based on the focus of the study.The questionnaires were distributed in the class rooms and submitted directly right after the students finished to answer their questions.Open questionnaires were chosen to get deeper understanding of respondent's responds on the focus of the study.

Subjects
The subjects of the study were 10 students who had to submit their speaking videos through you tube channel.The students were from various semesters and subjects of study.Three students were in the first semester with English for Daily Usage as the subject of the study, and 4 students were in the 2 nd semester and 3 others from 3 rd semester with English for Academic Conversation as the subject of the study.

a. Characteristics of Respondents
Random sampling was applied in the study, and the informants of the study were students who had to submit their video assignment through you tube channel.The informants were from several semesters (first, second, and third semesters) and two English subjects (English for Daily Usage and English for Academic Conversation).The characteristic of informants is presented in the following table: Source: Primary source b.About the English Subjects and topics of the assessment videos Informants of the study were from two different English subjects namely English for Daily Usage and English for Academic Conversation.Academic Usage was the first English subject given to students in Universitas Aisyiyah Yogyakarta.It focused on the materials about general English including describing people, describing places, telling families, telling daily activities and hobbies, and past experience.Class activities covered all English skills namely speaking, listening, reading, writing, and pronunciation.Meanwhile, English for Academic Conversation was given to the students after they took English for Daily Usage.It focused on giving more speaking activities correlated to several academic purposes.
Both subjects required two video assignments as the replacement of mid-term examination and final examination.Student's value was determined by three (3) daily assessments in a semester with 80% as the value and two video assignments (20%) to complete 100% total value.Video assignments for English for Daily Usage included describing family picture as the first individual video assignment and fable story telling as the second group video assignment.Differently, in the subject of English for Academic Conversation, cross cultural understanding video was used as the first video assignment and ambassador of Universitas Aisyiyah as second video assignment.Students had to submit all their video assignment in you tube channel as the requirement of obtaining their final score.

Discussion
The researcher gave 5 open questions related to the focus of the study which emphasized on the impact of uploading video assignments on student's pronunciation improvement.The first question was about student's preference between two choices namely submitting the video manually by using flash disk or uploading the videos in you tube channel.Then, the second question was asking about students' preparation before making their videos.The third question given by the researcher was to analyze the most significant aspect that the students considered in their videos.Next, question four was addressed to reveal how deep students considered their pronunciation in the video.Next, the fifth question was about student's difficulty and obstacle related to their pronunciation problem when they created their video.Lastly, the last question was their effort to overcome the problems.

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Student's Preference in Submitting Their Videos Majority students as many as 60% preferred to submit their videos in YouTube channel.Student A and D said that uploading video assignment in YouTube channel was easier to do since they could do that online in their house, and they did not need to meet the lecturer face to face.Student E told the researcher that she wanted to be famous, so by uploading her video in you tube she wished that it could be a way for her to be more popular.In addition, student C mentioned that he had more motivation to create better video since a lot of people might watch his online.Students will be strongly motivated to learn English because they know it will put them in touch with more people (Crystal, 2003).
I more like to submit my task in YouTube because it is easier to do, and I can do and submit the video from my boarding house.(Student A and D) Submitting my video in YouTube is a new thing for me.It is interesting because a lot of people can see me and motivating me to make a good video.I hope I can be a famous YouTuber and get money from it.(Student C) However, student B said that she was not confident to submit her video in YouTube platform because she was afraid that a lot of people would watch her video.Similarly, student J also stated that he prefer to submit the video to the lecturer directly because he could not access internet in his boarding house.By analyzing the student's reason why they prefer to submit their video directly without uploading it to YouTube, the research found two major aspects why uploading video to YouTube was not the students' choice.One of those was students' personal perception about their English capability.They were ashamed to use YouTube to submit their video assignment because they were afraid that a lot of people would watch them.One other reason why students preferred to submit their video offline was the accessibility of internet connection in their location especially in their house or boarding house.Not all students had easy access of internet connection, so they have to go to campus or public places which offered free wi-fi service to submit their videos.This activity took their time since they had to spend a particular time to prepare themselves to go to those places.
The following table will present student's preference in submitting their assignment videos.The second question was about the preparation of making the videos.It focused on how long the students prepared to make their videos and what they had to prepare to make their video.Majority of the students (70%) said that they wrote the script before making the video and rehearsed to have better pronunciation.Some of them (30%) browsed how to pronounce the words online via Google Translate engine, and some others (40%) asked their peers who had better English to check the pronunciation.Younger group prefer the materials with gadget (online) related audio features to enhance their English capacity (Jaganathan , Hamzah, & Ilangko, 2014).Also, peer correction leads to more improvement in the pronunciation of the subjects of the study (Ahangari, 2014).
I prepared story to make my video, so I can practice and read it many times.I also try to speak the words before taking the video.(Student B) I check how to say the words by looking in google translate as my lecturer said.I type my script in google translate and press the pronunciation button.(Student G) I asked my friend to help me taking the video and to help me checking my pronunciation because my friend is smarter than me.(Student F) However, most of them revealed that they only had 1 day preparation.They argued that they had to do a lot of assignments from other subjects.Even, 30% of them confessed that they did not have some preparation in making the video.They did not rehearse at all since they did not have some time to do so.
The following table will show whole aspects that students prepared before making their assignment videos.In addition, the researcher also asked the student about the most significant aspect that the students consider in their videos.Half of students (50%) said that they focused on their English presentation including the pronunciation and grammatical order.It means that students realized that pronunciation became a significant aspect in having presentation in English.Understandable pronunciation is one of the basic necessities of learners' competence and the most important features of language instruction (Gilakjani , 2016).They also focused on the volume of their voice since most of them made the video outdoor, in front of the campus buildings.However, half others concentrated more on the video editing including back sounds, additional clips, and video effect.The component of their videos consisted of more music and university picture than English presentation.
My lecturer told us to have more speaking part than any video effect so I remember that English presentation is the highest score.So, I practice how to say words in English and check my script to her before taking the video.(Student A) I think that grammar is important thing in English.I asked my lecturer to check my script related to the grammar of my sentences (Student G).
On the other hand, some students did not really focus on their language performance.Some of them focused more on the quality of their video as well as the sound effect they used although they knew that the most important in determining students' videos was their language performance.However, some students still thought that musical affect and clarity of the picture were the things that they had to consider because they forgot the essence of making the video assignments.
I like my video because the picture is good.I also asked my friend from other program to edit my video (Student D).
When I watched my video again, I think that my appearance was not that good.When taking the video I did not take a bath hehehe….(Student J) All aspects that students considered most in their assignment videos can be seen in Table 4.The last question given by the researcher wanted to reveal what students difficulties when they made their video related to their pronunciation problem.Some of the informants (30%) stated that they did not really have major problem related to pronunciation accuracy since they asked their peer to warn them if they mispronounced the words.Moreover, the topic of their video did not have a lot of difficult vocabularies, and most of their vocabularies had been used in classroom activities.In this case, they had to make assignment videos about describing family picture.On the other hand, students (30%) who took English for Academic Conversation tended to have some pronunciation problem due to newer vocabularies that they had to present in creating assignment videos about cross cultural understanding.English acquisition may become more challenging if the language usages express the tertiary level (Nguyen & Terry, 2017).
My problem is I can't speak English well, but my friends and my lecturer helped me to find some vocabularies related to my video.The topic about culture is quite difficult because I don't use it in daily life.(Student D and Student A) I don't really have problem with pronunciation because some of the words have been practiced in the classroom with the lecturer, but sometimes I'm not confident to speak English (Student C) Although the question from the researcher was quite clear since it stated student's problem related pronunciation, some students answered the question with irrelevant expression.They simply said that their problem on pronunciation was their low English capability (Student E and Student J).
The following table explains the pronunciation problems faced by the students.In the end of the open questionnaire, the researcher asked the students on how they overcame their pronunciation problem during making their video assignments since students were required to create videos that would be watched by a lot of people not only their classmates but also any people who deliberately or incidentally found the student's videos.Some of the students (60%) realized that their videos could be accessed by people around the world, so they did more effort to have better English performance and pronunciation.The efforts done by the students varied namely asking friends to check the pronunciation, checking the pronunciation from online translation engine, watching other videos, and consulting the script to the teacher before making the video.I ask my friend to teach me the words that I cannot pronounce because I know that my friend is good at English (Student E).
I came to my lecturer and ask her to teach me about the pronunciation that I cannot say correctly (Student A).
However, some students (30%) did not have any effort to perform great English in their videos.They argued that they did not have some time to prepare since they had a lot of assignment from other subjects too (Student D, Student H, and Student J).
The table below presents all student's solution regarding their pronunciation problems.

Conclusion and Suggestions
Uploading student's video assignment in YouTube channel was able to improve student's effort in learning pronunciation since they had bigger motivation to have better English performance.Other than getting good score from the lecturer, students were also better motivated since they realized that more people might watch their video in you tube channel.They improved their pronunciation capability by checking the words online and asking their peer to check their pronunciation.However, some students did not prepare anything to make videos since they admitted that they had no time to do so.It is expected that teachers can maximally use you tube service to boost student's motivation in improving pronunciation skill and learning English in general.