VLOG: A TOOL FOR STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PRACTICE ENHANCEMENT

Vlog, stands for video-blogging, is quite popular in the internet. Vlog is considered as a learning tool that is acquainted and adaptable to be integrated in language learning activities especially for speaking practices. Hence, this research is conducted to investigate the improvement of students’ speaking skill after the implementation of the vlog in speaking activities. A mixed method was used in this research. The research subjects were 13 vlogs made by students on the topic of spot tourism. The 13 vlogs were assessed by using the rubric that was developed by Dan Rooney (1998). The result found out that the most prevalent error-detected were the way they delivered the introduction, delivered conclusions and performed proper grammar structure in their utterances. Yet, using vlog deemed to be improving students’ speaking skills especially in enrich their vocabularies, in enhance their speaking fluency, in improve their English pronunciation and intonation. Furthermore, this research recommends the use of Vlogs as alternative learning tools in teaching speaking skills due to positive responses from students.


Introduction
Nowadays, English has become a lingua-franca in which connected people from different countries and different cultures (Majanen, 2008;Baker, 2009). Not only did in social interaction, but in formal circumstances as well, for instance, diplomatic relations, trade and business, and establish other partnerships such as introducing national cultures and such. Thus, by looking at the usefulness and the benefit of English, to be able to speak it fluently deemed necessary expected to participate actively as an active communication skill. Despite the significant role of the English in all aspects, but in Indonesia, the ability of speaking English is still low to middle (Gani, Fajrina, & Hanifa, 2015;Gunantar, 2016). It is understandable that that English language in Indonesia is still regard as a foreign language therefore students rarely used it in everyday conversational language and thus brings fear and hesitancy to them to use it.
English is not used in daily conversation, consequently many students have less opportunity to practice and then they are afraid to speak English. Based on the writers' observation, most of the students are reluctant to speak English. This concern causes most students at non-speaking English school feel anxious and keep silent in speaking class, this phenomenon happens due to pressure from the speaking tasks where the students' needs to converse by using English within limited time individually, and spontaneously they felt hesitant, concern and fear to make mistakes. Thus, with English, students' needs more practices and less fear to try to speak up using English.
According to Cortes and Lorazo (2014) learning activities regards as a social activities where a student not only learn from their teachers or the textbooks in a classroom . They also learn from many other means, such as the media, their peers and also society in general where it also helps them to study and improve their skills. We can consider that learning activities in 21 st century generation are mostly related to the usage of the internet and the media , combining interactive and social properties-social media-of classrooms with students' personal learning environments, for instance Twitter, Facebook, Webinars, blogs, and vlogs in personal channel.
The terminology of "vlog" stands for "video blog" is referring to a blog but form in a video . The vlog created by creating a video or a log in an event to be uploaded to a platform. In the earlier days the vlogs were called as podcast, because it was a term refer to combining audio and video blog. Nowadays the term itself blends and has its own characteristics. (Combe & Codreanu, 2016). Vlogs are personal record that shapes in the form of videos that are updated and distributed publicly through personal channel on video sharing platform, for instance YouTube, Flickr, and so on. In addition, vlogs are forms of blogging activities using video as the tools over its main media sources, which is text and audio (McCarthy, 2010). Combe & Codreanu (2016) mentioned that Vlog has "potential for supporting informal language learning, speaking and inter cultural interaction between other users".
There are various types of media that can be used to teach speaking. According to (Kahler, Jacobs, Raftery, & Ditnes, 2017) stated that most college and universities students share habits of watching videos. They watched the videos for many reasons such as for their classes or to completed their assignment. It is also stated that as many as 68% students said that they even watch videos during their classes. Align with that statement therefore to upgrade their speaking skills, one strategy which can be used is using vlog through YouTube. According to (Lestari, 2019), video blogging or vlog has advantages than the usual text blogging because it combined the video, sound, pictures and also text to increase the content, context, information and thus evoke more emotions which can be shared with other users. Based on the descriptions above, therefore this research will be focusing on using vlog as a learning media to improve students' speaking skill.

Methods
This research used mixed methods to obtain more comprehensive facts about the application of blended learning in speaking learning activities through vlog. Qualitative data will be collected from observations and interviews (Creswell, 2009). The quantitative data were collected from the results of students' vlogging assessments.
Vlogs were assessed based on criteria of introduction, body, conclusion, eye contact, use of language, body language, clarity, topic, visual aids. All those criteria's were used as the guideline of the performance of their spoken English whether there has been improvement or not.
The participants of this research were 40 students of English Language Study Program.
The participants then divided into 13 groups where they made 13 vlogs with a tourism theme. After, then all students' vlogs is uploaded to YouTube channel, namely, "A1 2018 Channel" https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1ajpjgOk6EASFOoi6J13pg/ where their peers can leave comments and see the vlogs themselves. The assessing grade where made by making a rubric then graded by the criteria where the writer see it fit.

Students' perception using vlog as their learning tool
The students were asked regarding their opinion of choosing YouTube as their video platform to share their works. There were four reasons on why students' chose YouTube as their favorite learning platform. The first reason was because YouTube was their number one go to source to find any information they need regarding video search engine platform. Second reasons were because they found YouTube much more appealing than any other platform or search box therefore they use it more often. For third reason it's because they found YouTube content much better and different than TV. They believed that YouTube was more appealing and the rise of the YouTube as content creator add those interesting points. Meanwhile, when asked regarding their opinion why students love using vlog as their learning tools, the students shared several opinions. The first reason is because they liked YouTube for actively do the assignments. As the second reason, they did not need to practice speaking right in front of the class but through camera. They motivated to create and edit the content through their taste and talent.
Since all students recorded the vlogs using their phones and that they were fairly technology savvy, all of them were enthusiastic on the ideas of bringing more technology into classroom activities. For one thing, technology was something that they were familiar with. It was also flexible and a lot more interactive compared to the usual or conventional method. They were also finding it fun and add as media to be creative as reason why they prefer speaking practice using Vlog and YouTube. Therefore, the research resulted concluded that YouTube has quite impact for students' life since they use this application most of the times. YouTube as learning tool is deemed positive.

Students' vlog assesment
In this research activity, 13 groups participated in making vlogs and assessed. The speaking skill is assessed according to Rooney (1998). The results of the assessment is presented in the following table. It can be seen that the highest score is SV007 entitled "Vlog at Bandung Baru museum" and SV002 entitled "Vlog at museum geology" whereas the lowest is SV005 entitled "Vlog a day at Museum UPI" and SV010 entitled "explore to Bandung".
Cinematography and editing are wisely good in their deliverance. Overall, they made good descriptions to the viewer to explain good tourism spots to visit. Instead of some mistakes, they managed good grammar. Assessment of speaking is vocabulary, grammar, fluency, pronunciation and intonation.
The findings discussed speaking skills, vlog implementation and students' creativities.
In speaking, most students fairly delivered their ideas and recommendations of their tourism spot. In vlog implementation, it shows students feel enjoyable with the vlog as learning media. The students do not hesitate to create, share and record their vlogs in public and practice their speaking skill. They were not hesitant to pour their ideas to creating their vlogs with the given themes in the classroom. This finding supports Pamungkat (2019) revealing that video-assisted speaking practices are potential to promote students' speaking enhancement.
In students' vlogging creativities, this research indicates that students' creativity is improved. Some students edited their vlogs fairly simple by adding some videos, quotes, captions, memes and et cetera to make their videos more pleasant visually. Therefore, using vlog as learning tool promote students' speaking fluency and triggers them to creatively edit and publish scenery photos and videos. As Misdi, Hartini, Farijanti, & Wirabhakti (2013) suggest, providing student-centeredness in learning, e.g.
English speaking practices, is important in developing students' autonomous learning awareness in the era of 2.0.

Conclusion & recommendation
Using vlogging tool in language learning is potential for promoting speaking skills and develop students' multimodal literacy, e.g. editing and capturing events published in their vlogs. These activities are rich of language aspects such as vocabulary, fluency, pronunciations and intonation. The students also perceived their vlogg-mediated speaking activities positively.
Since the current research is part of longitudinal projects, findings needs further investigation for other aspects of vloging in English learning, e.g. students' motivation, learning outcomes, and other impacts. Vloging has also other interesting aspects to be studies in relation to the English learning. Teachers are also other party to be interviewed and questioned for their perception. This research is an initial report.