AN ACTION RESEARCH ON THE APPLICATION OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING TO TEACHING SPEAKING TO THE SECOND YEAR SUDENTS AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, GIA LAI TEACHERS' TRAINING COLLEGE

Part A: INTRODUCTION I Background to the study “Better English, more opportunities” is the answer of most university students when they are asked about their goal of learning English English can help them prepare well for future career as it can not only equip them with a useful source of personal, linguistic, social and cultural knowledge but also provide them with access to modern technology, information concerning a variety of issues in modern society Especially, our country’s recent regional and global participation has been increasing the demand for English speaking people who are expected to communicate verbally with the outside world and access modern technology For these reasons, at the tertiary level where the source of English teachers for the whole country is provided, English teaching has been granted special supports from educational authorities The most important issue in this field, which has presented various complicated problems for generations of English teachers in Vietnam is the adoption of an appropriate English teaching method which can satisfy the need of the society With this orientation, in recent years, the teaching and learning English in Vietnam has been considerably changing With the efforts of several international projects and organizations such as VAT (Vietnam Australia Training), VSO (Voluntary Service Oversea), … and groups of teachers who attended TESL, TEFL or TESOL courses, various new approaches, methods and techniques on the teaching of English have been introduced and applied in schools, colleges and universities nationwide Generally, English teaching has shift from the traditional grammar translation approach to the communicative approach New textbooks and syllabus that are communication-oriented and learner-centered are designed and implemented, which all required teachers of English to improve their teaching skills to be successful in the classroom Every year, many teachers training courses are hold and after attending the training courses, almost all teachers are eager and enthusiastic to try out the new methods and teaching techniques to their real classroom contexts However, how can we incorporate the new approaches and methods (structures, techniques, activities, ect.)? How can we implement them in our real classroom contexts with our particular students? are questions of great concern The recognition of the fact that there is a missing linking between the training and the reality of the classroom practice has promoted interest in the classroom research Every school year, from primary to tertiary level, hundreds of researches on various issues relating to teaching language methodology are carried out for the purpose of professional development II Statement of the problem Groupwork is one of the most popular structures of learner-centered approach applied in most language classrooms Over the past few years, groupwork has especially received more and more emphasis in language classrooms and groupwork activities are used in many aspects of the second language instructions, particularly in encouraging student’s oral practice “Groupwork is any classroom activity in which students perform collaborative tasks with one or more partners It has been considered one of the major changes to the dynamics of classroom interaction wrought by students-centered teaching Groupwork can greatly increase the amount of active speaking and listening undertaken by all the students in the language class” (Nunan and Lamb,p.142) In groups, students are not passively sitting and listening to the teachers, but joining actively in the learning process In other word, groupwork enhances the gradual shift from teacher-centered classroom to student-centered classroom The benefits of groupwork pointed out in Davies and Pearse are “variety and dynamism, enormous increase in individual practice, low stress private practice, opportunity to develop learner autonomy and interaction among peers.” However, simply putting students together in a group is no guarantee that cooperation will occur Because the lack of understanding the dynamics of group activities, it is not uncommon to hear teachers say “I have tried putting my students in groups and telling them to cooperate, but it did not work.” A frequent problem in group is some of the group members dominate the group and, for whatever reason, impede the participation on others For this reason, how to organize groupwork successfully in the classrooms is a question of great concern for many language teachers and language researchers The most important reason why we purse this study on groupwork derived from our own experience of being a teacher who failed to organize students to work successfully in group activities At Gialai teacher’s training college, the unique college in a mountainous town, Pleiku, the students have very little chance to use the language, so most of them are very shy to speak Moreover, the students have mixed levels of speaking competence (some of them are minority people) During speaking activities, the strong ones speak a lot, the average speak some and the weak students seem to keep silent all the time Some strategies have been carried out such as talking to them to find their problems, choosing interesting topics, monitoring frequently to help and encouraging the weak one to speak and ask the strong one help their friends by assigning the roles for them and keep asking questions to force them to speak This however can not help much They speak just a little and the keep silent again We kept on finding the ways to get all our students involved in the class speaking activities During the search, we found some articles about implementing cooperative learning structures to improve group activities in which cooperative structures can be used as a mean to improve students’ cooperation, participation and even their language proficiency What it meant to us was that the way we organize and structure groupwork affected students’ involvement in group activities There are sound reasons to take CL into implementation First of all, CL is highly appreciated for their usefulness to students’ achievement “CL seems to provide an environment in which students’ needs of love, belongingness, power, freedom and fun can be met in a way that is beneficial for both academic achievement and the development of the learners’ social and learning skills” (D.W Johnson el al.1990; Slavin 1987; Kagan 1989) It is undeniable that CL is the most flexible and powerful grouping strategies because in CL, learners work together to accomplish a shared goal Therefore, they are motivated to work together for mutual benefit in order to meet their own and each other’ learning Additionally, CL has a strong foundation on research Many hundreds of studies across a wide range of subjects areas and age groups have been conducted (Cohen, 1994b; Johnson, Johnson and Stanne, 2002; Sharan, 1980; Slavin, 1995) and the overall findings of these studies suggested that, when compared to other instructional approaches, group activities structured along CL lines are associated with gains on a hot of key variables: achievement, higher thinking level, self-esteem, liking for the subject matter and for school and intergroup relations Meanwhile, with regards to the successes of CL implementing programs by thousands of teachers from many countries all over the world, I would like to carry out such a program in my department with a view to experiment a new strategy to structuring groups in teaching speaking with hope of improving my students’ oral communication skills Moreover, the application of CL, considered one of educational innovations, has not been popular in Vietnam There have been few or no studies on CL application in teaching English generally, or in teaching speaking particularly Also, it is worth mentioning that I have conducted a small simple scale action research on implementing jigsaw, a CL structure, in teaching speaking, which resulted in some achievement This investigation in to CL will hopefully serves as an advisable supplementation to my knowledge on CL theory and CL application to English teaching For all the above reasons, it is strongly desirable for me to propose “ An action research on the application of cooperative learning structures to teaching speaking to the second- year students in the Department of English, Gialai Teachers’ Training College ” to be the subject on this thesis III Scope, objectives and research questions for the study This study is aimed to investigate how well CL can improve the participation and achievement of the second year students of the department of English at Gialai College in oral communication activities The data collection and data analysis therefore are based on the information provided by classroom observation, test scores and the journals written by the students of the department of English during the second semester from February to June 2005 The subjects of the study are the second year students of Department of English Materials involved in the CL training and implementing program which are topic- and task- based are developed during the course progression The topics are suggested by the students and selected in open class, the tasks and activities structured along CL are designed and developed with the aims of improving students’ participation and achievement in oral communication skills Thus, the first and foremost objective of the study is for the sake of the students Besides, the study is expected to serve as a source of reference for teachers of English on the teaching of speaking skills, especially for those who concern CL, one of the educational innovations which has the best and largest empirical base To be more specific, in realizing the study, the main objectives are: To investigate the effects of CL on Students’ participation in oral communication activities To investigate the effects of CL on the students’ achievement in speaking skills To give some pedagogical implications and suggestions for further development With those aims, my research questions with sub-questions are: What are the effects of CL on students’ participation in the group activities? - Are the students motivated to participate? - Is the amount of the students’ participation increased and divided equally? - Is the nature of the students’ participation improved? What are the effects of CL on students’ achievement? - Do the students get higher achievement in oral examinations? - What oral communication skills the students develop? What are the students’ attitudes towards CL? IV Methods of the study This research is realized with regards to both qualitative and quantitative analysis On the one hand, quantitative analysis is involved in the process of data collection and analysis, which are carried out at the Department of English, GTTC The data collected will go through analysis and yield conclusion about the subjects of the study The instruments for this process conclude two observation schedules filled by colleague observers, and records of students’ four semester final test scores On the other hand, qualitatively analyzed, the students’ opinions of CL (the learning, attitude, and achievement) reflected through their journals have been subjectively analysed basing on the knowledge that the researcher has acquired from the abundant resources of materials on CL developed by famous scholars in the field Thus, three main instruments for data collection are used in this study, including observation schedules, students’ speaking test scores and students’ journals 23 second -year students have undertaken the data provision process over a semester Hopefully, the study will yield beneficial results which support the learning and teaching speaking in the future V The design of the study: The study is divided into three parts, which are presented as follows Part A is the introduction, which states the background to the study, the statement of the problem, the scope, objectives and research questions as well as the methods and design of the study Part B, including three chapters, reports on the main contents of the study Chapter one presents all necessary literature related to the study Then, in chapter 2, how we have carried out the study at the Department of English, GTTC is described Sub steps in this process consist of observing the learning situation, collecting data, analyzing data and summarizing findings The last chapter deals with the summary, the findings as well as the application and suggestions for further studies Part C is the conclusion where we summarized all the main contents of the study Besides, there are also nine appendixes in which supplementary materials and list of references are provided PATR B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter is concerned with some of the most important issues in theory of cooperative learning in general and in language teaching in particular The main features will be taken into consideration, namely, theoretical background of CL and CLL and theoretical background of speaking, the language skill to which CL is intended to be applied I Experimental language learning as cooperative learning Two models of teaching As a result of developments in society and educational theory, the pedagogical thinking has been shifting away from the traditional behavioristic model of teaching as transmission of knowledge towards an experiential model whereby teaching is seen as transformation of existing or partly understood knowledge, based on constructivist view of learning Nunan (1988) assumed that in the transmission model of teaching, the teacher is the person in authority in the class whose job is to impart knowledge and skills to the learners Knowledge is seen as deniable in terms of right and wrong answers Students tend to see their role as relatively passive recipients of the knowledge, expecting the teacher to be in charge of their learning Or, Glasser (1986) gave an example of this model the traditional structure of a secondary school with a teacher in front of the room facing thirty to forty students The underlying behavioristic model involves various rewards and sanctions to ensure learning But there are limits to what we pressure the students to learn if they not experience satisfaction in their work Sanction will cause discipline problems and underlying tensions in class in which teacher has the final word and the power to reward, punish and evaluate Students learn as individuals, and the cooperation is limited by competition for grades The experiential model, on the other hand, would seem to offer potential for a learning atmosphere of shared partnership, a common purpose and a joint management of learning Class behavior is owned by the whole group, of which the teacher is one member As the rules of conduct are agreed upon jointly, all share the responsibility for decisions and discipline Learning can become a discovery of understandings As there are fewer underlying tensions, energy can be channeled into more creative pursuits ( Brandes and Ginnis 1986; Salmon 1988) The degree of self-directed (as against other-directed) learning can be clarified by examining the degree of learner involvement at the different stages of instructional process This can be done by asking the following questions (Riley 1984:127-30): • who analyses the need? • Who defines the objective? • Who decide where and how often learning take place? • Who chooses the material? • Who chooses the work techniques? • Who decides on levels and criteria of acceptable outcomes? • Who monitors the learning program and process? • Who evaluates the results of learning? Following is the description of the two models of teaching: Table 1: Traditional and experiential models of education: a comparison Dimension Traditional model: Experiential model: Behaviorism Constructivism View of learning Transmission of Knowledge Transformation of Knowledge Power relation Emphasis on teacher’s authority Teacher as a learner among learners Teacher’s role Providing instruction; mainly professionalism individual autonomy Learner’s role frontal Facilitating learning (largely in as small groups); collaborative professionalism Relatively passive recipient of Active participation, largely in information; work mainly individual cooperative small groups View of knowledge Presented as ‘certain’ application, Construction problem-solving knowledge; of personal identification of problems View of curriculum Static; hierarchical grading of Dynamic; looser organization of subject matter, predefined contents subject matter, including open parts and integration Learning experiences Knowledge of facts, concepts and Emphasis on process: learning skills; focus on content and skills, self inquiry, social and product Control of process communication skills Mainly teacher-centered learning Emphasis on learner: self- directed learning Motivation 10 Evaluation Mainly intrinsic Mainly extrinsic Product-oriented: achievement testing; Criterion-referencing (and norm- referencing) Process-oriented: reflection on process, self-assessment; criterion-referencing (Nunan (1993): Collaborative Language Leaning and Teaching) Generally, in experiential learning, the schools are made more effective by ensuring that learners’ basic needs for love, belongingness, power, freedom and fun are satisfied from their early classes onwards As Glasser (1986:54) points out that, there is no sense in telling learners how valuable classes are and how much they need them unless we can structure classes so that they are more satisfying to them CL seems to provide a classroom environment in which such needs can be met in a way that is beneficial for both academic achievement and the development of the learners’ social and learning skills It is certain that any more discussion of CL should originate from CL definitions, which will be dealt with in the next section + Individual accountability promotes fair evaluation Also though carefully-structured class activities, we fostered the individual accountability for the students, for example, in “number heads together” activity, each group receives a specific task to complete cooperatively, then one group member was randomly called to be responsible for reporting the group’ work In this way, all the students were encouraged to participate and make contribution to the task, especially the weak and shy students because they may be the person called and the job they was not personal but the team’s + A clear criterion-referenced grading scheme encourages cooperation During the on-going assessment and test, we have adopted a criterion-referenced grading system that allows all the students to receive appropriate grades Especially, the standards were within the grasp of all the students who worked cooperatively towards the established benchmark Besides, we have also used some classroom techniques which were created by experts of CL application such as one-minute paper, visible quiz, competition among groups…ect + Students and teachers should monitor group behavior In our action program, the students were grouped basing on their intelligences and language competence, so we can choose some to be the leaders of groups who can help the teacher to monitor group behavior Moreover, every group member was trained some social skills such as listening, providing constructive feedback, eliciting After every activity, during the lesson reflection, the teacher usually asked the questions such as: “did all member of your group contribute?”, “what could you next time to make your group function better?”, or “what were the most important things you learned today?”, ect During the activities, the teacher kept moving from group to group to check if the students were actually working, encourage and help them, especially, the weak and shy students who were always afraid to ask “dumb” questions in front of the class Establishing a cooperative activity When establishing a cooperative activity, we have always followed important guidelines of CL application Firstly, before proposing an activity, a set of questions was taken into consideration and answered: “what will I do?”, “why am I dong it?”, “how will this activity further my lesson objectives?”, “how will I introduce this activity to the students?”, “how will I group the students?”, “how will I monitor the students’ interaction and learning?”, “how will I foster positive interdependence (goal, resource materials, evaluation, role, ect.?”, “how will I maintain individual accountability?”, “what problems, challenges I expect?”, ect Secondly, students were trained necessary collaborative skills and equipped with understanding of what is CL, and how it can help them study speaking better Another important thing was the instructions We have always been very careful in giving instructions because we know that in CL activities, it would be very frustrating for both the teacher and students if instructions were not clear Some effective techniques of giving instructions were frequently used such as handouts of activity steps, tasks written on flipcharts and stuck on the board, or asking the students to repeat the instruction to reinforce, act Organizing group As mentioned above, we did not randomly select the students for groups Moreover, the size, the intelligences, language competence were all considered when grouping the students The number of students in groups only maximized to only which were large enough to contain students who have diverse opinions, experience, talents, ability so that the group can work well and when one member was absent, the group still functioned well and the workload can be easily shared The groups worked together for the whole term, which helped them have enough time to get acquainted, identify each other’s strengths, and learn to support and help each other Generally, all the groups functioned well during the action program Managing group activities At first, we had some problems in managing CL groups But later, when we applied some CL techniques developed by, Laurrel, things become better Some of the techniques proved to be very effective and helpful such as: signals, both visual and audial, team folders, think-pair-share index cards, or roundtable sheets I.1.3.2 How the problems of CL application are dealt with This was the first time we have experimented the application of CL structures to the teaching of speaking Although a lot of difficulties appeared while we were carrying out the study, generally, we have been able to deal with most of the difficulties and problems as we have had an abundant literature review and adopted many of the techniques of CL implementing by experienced teachers through out the world Firstly, we have referred to an appropriate literature review which covered both theoretical and practical issues of CL As mentioned above, CL is quite a new concept to the students Most of them have no ideas of “what is CL?” Thus, the CL training program is required to follow clearly and carefully conducted stages through witch CL theory will be introduced in a very simple and easy to acquire way Firstly, conducting an informal discussion about their problems in group activities can help to determine students’ needs and raise their curiosity of CL (what is CL?, how can it help to solve their problems in group activities?, can it help them to improve participation in the group activities?, and how can it help them to get higher achievement in speaking?) Then the example of a film, the final product of collaboration led them to the idea a common goal, individual accountability, and interdependence, the important features of CL which seem to be most responsible for learning gain In term of selecting the structures, preparing the materials and activities, most of the structures applied in the training and implementing program were selected and adapted from over 100 CL structures developed by Dr Spencer Kagan (Kagan online) basing on the students’ needs, habits of learning, and their reflection on the lessons The activities integrated with the coursebooks, thus, they fitted the students’ ability and expectation and self-designed supplemental activities contributed greatly to the effects of the CL application The hanhout activities in every lesson were flexible and encouraged cooperation because they were adjusted by the students’ reflection and the teachers’ observation At the end of program, the students have grasped some general knowledge of CL and equipped with some collaborative skills, so they were interested and motivated to work in CL groups The explicit training at the beginning of the program helped students have a clear idea of what they were being taught and what they required to Generally, in scope of an action research, what we have achieved in the CL training and implementing program was really helpful With some basic knowledge of CL and some necessary collaborative skills students have gained from the program, the researcher could easily conduct the action research and reached our aims However, there were some things we wished we could have been able to so that the experiment could have had better results Firstly, we wished we could have had more time for training so the students would have been more knowledgeable and confident with CL Secondly, it would be much better if all the teachers involved in the study had sufficient theoretical knowledge of CL to understand better the activities and give us more helpful comments Another thing is that we wished we could have more time and condition to carry out some CL project activities outside classroom, in a wider scale such as play performance, English festivals , ect, which can help students learn, reinforce, improve collaborative skills, and provide them with a very good experience of exploratory learning of CL I.2 Findings Doing this action research, we aimed to solve the biggest problems of our speaking class which were students’ unequal participation and their slow improvement in speaking activities The question arising were “ can we help improve our students’ participation and achievement with CL application? If yes, how did they improve?” So far, we have been able to answer the questions through the results of the data analysis In the data collection, the method and tools used were appropriate and effective in collecting the necessary data The tables and the graphs clearly show the improvement of the students’ participation and achievement Although the actual studying results did not show much improvement, this is quite easy to explain In such a short period of time for the implementation of a new learning theory, the more important feature we want to focus here is the students’ improvement in the process of learning, not the outcome Most of the students found satisfied for being able to work in an environment in which they actively participate in learning the weak students were not hesitant to ask for help as their groupmates were always willing to help and encourage them to work hard so that they together could reach the goal of the group and improved their speaking skills by asking questions, responding others, explaining and clarifying ideas to groupmates, ect The good students found themselves progress through helping friends, they improved their oral communication skills and some other academic skills such higher level thinking skill, critical thinking skill in explaining, clarifying, tutoring, evaluating, eliciting, discussing and debating, formulating ideas, structuring move, ect Obviously, the students were more confident, independent, responsible, active, involved in the learning More importantly, students have been able to find out and use suitable learning strategies which help to direct their long-term learning Moreover, the study helped to build up the researcher’s confidence in applying CL structures to the teaching of speaking Most importantly, the researcher has been trying to acquire an appropriate understanding of CL theory (the concepts, the premises, the principles, the structures, the interface between CL and language learning) Besides, the researcher has learnt how to make careful and conscious selection of suitable structures Materials and activities were always adapted and designed with sensitive regards to the students’ refection after every lesson In conclusion, with the practical application experience and the positive results collected from the experiment, we can be confident to say that CL structures are feasible to be applied to teaching speaking for the second-year students in our department In conclusion, it can be said that the researcher had been able not only to investigate the effects of CL on students’ participation and achievement but also gain a lot of experience in applying CL to teaching speaking skills However, the research has number of defects In the first place, it was the number of the students of the study actually, this is an action research conducted in a class of 23 students aiming to solve their problem only, so the study can not represent a large population of students in general Secondly, it was the teachers who participated in the observation This was the study of one researcher and other colleagues just helped her to observe the lessons Though they were explained carefully what we applied in the lessons, there were many things which were not very satisfactory It would be much better if all the teachers had sufficient knowledge of CL to be more helpful and effective in observing the lessons and giving comments Another limitation of the study ii its emphasis only the academic of CL, but not social and psychological benefits of CL which can make a considerable and interesting contribution to the understanding of CL benefits to the teaching speaking to the students Moreover, within a limited time, the CL training and implementing program was only conducted in a small scale through simple activities but not large cooperative projects, which can be very effective and helpful in widening students’ awareness of CL and training them good collaborative skills that were helpful for them not only in the learning of speaking and other language skills but also in their future job as teachers For instance, if the students had the chance to some kinds of CL projects, they would be more aware of the responsibility, individual accountability, ect Additionally, because of the administrative reasons and requirements of the same format and criteria in comparing test scores, the on-going assessment was not taken into account for students’ achievement, the comparison is just based on the test scores which may be affected by many factors Last but least was that the nature of students’ participation was not fully exploited If we had more time, more appropriate and exact categories of student’s interaction would be taken into the observation, which would give us a better insight in the nature of students’ participation and we could help students improve more particularly Despite these defects, the study was generally successful We have clarified the students’ problems in group activities and conducted a relatively successful CL training and implementing program The effects of CL on the students’ participation and achievement have been discovered and students’ attitude towards CL has been investigated With regards to both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the study has provided reliable results That is not mention to the valuable research skills we have gained, especially in researching in cooperative learning, one of the educational innovations which is not very popularly recognized in our department in particular and in Vietnam in general Moreover, one semester with the students gave us good opportunities to discover their strengths and weaknesses showed during their group cooperation as well as their difficulties, expectations, desires, feelings revealed through the journals, all of which were a valuable source of information a teacher needs to know so that we can adjust and strengthen our role as their teacher, a facilitator in classroom activities Especially, this first research into CL application seems to arouse interest of the teachers in our department in CL Many of them came to ask about CL and shared with the researcher the feeling of observing CL activities We were very eager to discuss CL projects which we are going to set up in our department in the future To us, such eagerness and interest were best rewards we receive after the research That brief look over what we have been able to and have not been able to as well as the findings of the study gave impetus for us to summarize some implications for the future teaching of speaking in general and in future CL application as following II Pedagogical implication of the study As this kind of action research on CL application is one of the first to be realized in my teaching situation in particular and in Vietnam in general, we would have a lot of experience to share it with whom it may concern First of all, CL training and implementing program really proved its effects in teaching speaking Whether this small scale action research within a limited time can not represent a large number of population of students in general, statistic analysis results still strongly suggests the integration of CL strategies into speaking curriculum With the present speaking syllabus at DE, GTTC, the teachers can embed CL strategies into classroom activities and self-designed activities after explicitly explaining about CL theory to the students and training them necessary collaborative skills However, while doing so, the teachers must pay attention to the time available for the training theory and implementing activities Our experience to solve the problem is not based too much on the coursebooks, i.e the teacher can select tasks, activities in the coursebooks and adapt them with CL structures Alternatively, the department needs to consider the benefits of CL and decides to integrate the program in a more CL structured syllabus In both solutions, the teachers should work together CL strategies are not only applied in teaching speaking but also other skills so that the students are more knowledgeable, confident and skillful to work in CL activities Moreover, to encourage them on the initial trying of this new method, the department should provide some investment to organize and conduct the program on a larger scale such as play performance of shakespear’s works, regular student-organized English speaking clubs, students’ magazines of schooling, studying- relating issues, ect in which the students can be equipped with helpful knowledge, experience, skills for their learning and future jobs Additionally, when implementing CL, the following very important factors should be taken into consideration: conducting cooperative learning classroom, establishing a cooperative activity, organizing group effectively, and managing group activities successfully Self-designed activities have proved to be very important and effective in implementing CL Firstly, these activities are better structured, so they can get all students involved in the learning process Secondly, it is intermediate effect that they have on the students’ learning Whenever the teacher discovers a problem that students have during group activities, they can immediately choose some suitable structures and strategies which can help to solve the problem and design interesting and effective activities Besides, the realization of the study has strengthened the orientation and proved the practicality of cooperative learning in teaching English in Vietnamese college context where most of the students used to be taught by teachers of traditional approach, considering the teachers as experts of knowledge, so depending on the teachers Some of the techniques of CL are especially helpful for Vietnamese learners because they can develop their higher thinking skills, critical thinking skills, independent working, sharing, ect Administratively, assessment of speaking should be of various types We can have individual assessment such as test or report or group assessment such as group test or group projects Moreover, the assessment should be going on the semester not only the end of term test Dong this study, we not only improve our teaching, discover how our students learn and progress and gain teaching experience As college teachers, we also acquire plenty of research experience with which we are encouraged to carry on further studies in the field The suggestions for further researches will be presented in the next section III Suggestions for further studies Within the one semester time limit for the action research, we decided to narrow the topic of the research to “application of CL to the teaching of speaking skills to the second-year students” If we had more time, we also wish to carry out studies on the related subjects However, before thinking about other related researches, it can not be denied that there are some areas within this research which can be further developed into a full research as well How to design supplementary CL activities?, how to clarify students’ problem in group activities?, how to the grouping successfully?, how to train students necessary skills to work well in CL group?, how to conduct a cooperative classroom successfully?, how to manage CL activities effectively?, what is the suitable interaction between teachers and students in CL, ect are interesting topic to researches on In addition, we wish the future research will make up for this study with more regards to the nature of students’ participation Of equal interest, a thorough study should be done about the correlation between the nature of participation and students’ achievement, for example, it is possible to track what categories of the participation nature affect the students’ learning of speaking skills One important related subject is the continuous study on the same population of students in their third year to see how well they work in CL groups and how much improvement they make This will start a long-term research on teaching and learning of CL at the college Another suggestive research topic is the application of CL in teaching other skills of English for the same and different population of students, actually, when we know how to conduct a research in speaking skill, the similar researches on other skills are not too hard Finally, to reach a higher reliability, we wish to have a chance to carry out the research under an experimental condition This means we would have two classes of students, one experimental class and one controlled class These research subjects are what we realized that we should continue to after this study we hope that the study will be of great interest and raise some other research subjects related to the readers’ field of teaching, then more careful researches will be realized about the application of CL to teaching English skills PART C: CONCLUSION The application of CL in teaching speaking skill to the second year students at DE, GTTC is one of the first researches of its scope to be realized in our college and perhaps in Vietnam What gave us impetus for the research is our desire to find out a solution to our speaking class where most of the students were not involved in the learning and as a result, they get a very slow progress and low achievement Moreover, the lack of the researches on such an area, the college’s emphasis on methodology innovation and the successful researches of CL application by thousands of teachers throughout the world were also important rationale of the research Doing the study, we aimed at clarifying the students’ problems in group activities, introducing the theory of CL, experimenting the application of CL structures to teaching speaking skills and investigating the effects of CL on the students’ participation and achievement to improve the students’ speaking performance and evaluating the CL training and implementing program to yield some necessary pedagogical implications With this direction, we have done the research in one semester with the collaboration of 23 students in class 2A The theoretical background for the study was presented fully in chapter 2.We have presented the differences of experimental study and the traditional approach, the definitions of CL, the principles of CL, the interface between CL and language pedagogy, the structures of CL and the theory of CLL Moreover related literature to speaking was also carefully presented including the nature of speaking, the problems with speaking and speaking activities These issues serve as strong background for the study to be carried out During this time, the students were taught the theory of CL and trained some necessary collaborative skills through coursebook CL-embedded activities and supplemental self-designed activities Data was collected from the pre- and post observation, the students’ test scores and the journal they were instructed to write after every CL lesson These quantitative and qualitative data was then analyzed and revealed the following findings: Well-structured CL activities had positive effects on students’ participation They created a more equal participation among the students, decreasing the amount of advanced students’ participation and increasing weak students’ participation in group activities Moreover, it also improved the nature of their participation The interactions are more diverse and no longer good student-dominated Statistic analysis of the test scores also lets us know that after one semester, the students make some progress in speaking performance in general With three indicators of central tendency of higher mean, mode and median, we can say that the students outperformed themselves after a semester learning in CL activities and the lower standard deviation showed that the students working with CL perform more heterogeneously The students’ journals in which they reflect their feelings, attitude towards CL reveal their positive motivation, interest, desire to work in CL groups They were all very happy and satisfied with CL because they said that working in supportive CL groups they feel more confident, independent, responsible, and less anxious, and in CL groups, their ability, participation, contribution are valued and praised In general, the study succeeded in completing the objectives which had set out at the introductory stage We have been able to clarify the students’ problems, conducted a successful CL training and implementing program, equipped students with a general knowledge of CL and collaborative skills, have investigated the effects of CL on students’ participation and achievement as well as the students’ attitude towards CL, which help to orient the teachers of speaking in designing and conducting group activities in speaking class Basing on the findings, we had put forward some pedagogical implications in the last chapter The benefits of CL in teaching speaking has proved with emphasis on selecting appropriate CL structures, doing effective grouping, using good techniques of managing CL activities With the success of the study, CL is also recognized and strengthened In the future, it is hoped that more studies on CL will be realized, such as those listed in the suggestions for further studies However, the study certainly still owes some shortcomings We would be willing to hear and grateful that the readers could give us constructive comments so that it would be improved TABLE OF CONTTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENTS LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS, TABLES, CHARTS AND APPENDIXES PART A: INTRODUCTION I Background to the study II Statement of the problem III Scope, objectives and research questions for the study IV Methods of the study V The design of the study PATR B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW I Experimental language learning as cooperative learning II What is cooperative learning? III Principles of cooperative learning III.1 Heterogeneous Grouping: III Group Autonomy: 10 III.4 Simultaneous Interaction (Kagan, 1994): 10 III.5 Equal Participation (Kagan, 1994): 11 III Individual Accountability: 11 III Cooperation as a Value: 12 IV Cooperative Learning Structures and Techniques 13 V Cooperative Learning and Language Pedagogy 16 V.1 The input hypothesis 16 V.2 The interaction hypothesis 17 V.3 The output hypothesis 17 V.4 Sociocultural theory 18 V.5 Content-based instruction 18 V.6 Individual differences 19 V.7 Learner autonomy 19 V.8 Affective factors 20 VI Cooperative language learning 21 VI.1 The goals and advantages of CLL 21 VI.2 Design 22 VI.2.1 Objectives 22 VI.2.2 The syllabus 22 VI.2.3 Types of learning and teaching activities 22 VI.2.4 Learner roles 23 VI.2.5 Teacher roles 23 VI.2.6 The role of instructional materials 23 VII Speaking skill 24 VII.1 The nature of speaking: 24 VII.2 Problems with speaking and speaking activities 28 VII.2.1 Problems with speaking 28 VII 2.2 Problems with speaking activities 29 CHAPTER 2: DEVELOPMENT OF THE RESEARCH 31 I Learning situation of the second year students at the department of English, Gialai teachers’ training college 31 I.1 Students and Teachers 31 I.2 College and class 32 I.3 Speaking tasks and materials in teaching speaking 33 I.4 Requirements for the second year students in speaking skills 35 I.5 Speaking teaching procedures 36 I Speaking test 37 II Methodology of the study 39 II.1 Subjects 39 II.2 Problem diagnosis 39 II.3 Plan of action – the CL training and implementing program 41 II.4 Instrumentation and data collection 45 III Data analysis: 46 III.1 Data analysis procedure 46 III.2 Data analysis results 47 III.2.1 The quantity of students’ participation 47 III.2.2 58 Nature of students’ participation III.2.3 Students’ test performance 60 III.2.4 Oral communication skill development 61 III.2.6 Students’ attitude towards CL 64 IV Discussion of the research questions IV.1 What are the effects of CL on students’ participation in the group activities? 67 67 IV.1.1 More equal participation 67 IV.1.2 Nature participation improvement 68 IV.2 What are the effects of CL on students’ achievement 68 IV.3 What are students’ attitude towards CL? 69 V Summary CHAPTER 3: SUMMMARY AND APPLICATION I summary I.1 CL training and implementing program 71 72 72 72 I.1.1 To clarify the students’ problems in group activities? 72 I.1.2 To introduce the theory of CL 72 I.1.3 To experiment the application of CL structures to the teaching speaking 73 I.1.3.1 How the requirements of CL application are met Conducting the cooperative classroom Establishing a cooperative activity 73 73 74 Organizing group 75 Managing group activities 75 I.1.3.2 How the problems of CL application are dealt with I.2 Findings 76 77 II Pedagogical implication of the study 80 III Suggestions for further studies 82 PART C: CONCLUSION 83 ... for me to propose “ An action research on the application of cooperative learning structures to teaching speaking to the second- year students in the Department of English, Gialai Teachers’ Training. .. achievement of the second year students of the department of English at Gialai College in oral communication activities The data collection and data analysis therefore are based on the information provided... reason, the application of CL, one of the educational renovations, is carried out aiming to find out the way to improve the teaching and learning II Methodology of the study II.1 Subjects The action