(SKKN 2022) TECHNIQUES FOR ORGANIZING PAIR WORK AND GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES FOR THE STUDENTS AT HAM RONG HIGH SCHOOL

THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT HAM RONG HIGH SCHOOL - - INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE TECHNIQUES FOR ORGANIZING PAIR WORK AND GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES FOR STUDENTS AT HAM RONG HIGH SCHOOL Author: Bui Thi Hieu Position: Teacher Research field: English THANH HOA 2022 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PAGES 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Scope and objectives of the study 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Significance of the study CONTENTS OF THE TEACHING EXPERIENCE 2.1 Theoretical Background 2.2 The reality of the study 2.2.1 Background of the study 2.2.2 Methodology 2.2.3 Data analysis 2.3 Teachers’ implementation of pair work, group work in 1 2 5 5 11 current classes as teaching experience 2.4 The effectiveness of the teaching experience 11 INT RO DU CTI ON 1.1 RATI ONAL E To meet the CONCLUSION 3.1 Conclusions 16 3.2 Limitations of the study 18 3.3 Suggestions and proposals 18 REFERENCES demand of learners, teaching English in Vietnam has been changing English is taught not only at all colleges and universities, but also almost every high school and it is considered as a compulsory subject at secondary school By applying various new approaches, methods, and techniques, teaching English has shift from the traditional grammar translation approach to the communicative approach According to Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), the purpose of language teaching and learning is to develop communicative competence in the target language In learner-centered approach, the choice of teaching methods are often more complicated than the construction of many teaching objectives Some authors suggest that this type of work can carry out in two periods In the first period, teachers need to find the student's experience and learning methods they prefer, and with their existing experience, teachers can select appropriate teaching methods In the second stage, teachers need to engage the active participation of students in planning their academic programs This work can be done by encouraging students to think, to engage in learning activities organized by teachers in a positive, proactive and creative way Therefore, the organization of learning activities for students have a special role and it’s very important for teachers to pay attention in setting teaching program Two common forms of class organization are working in pairs (Pair work) and working in group (Group work) In the context of Ham Rong High School, English is taught as a compulsory subject for the students of Grade 10,11,12 These students have to take the entrance exam to get GSEC Although these students only have to a written test, all the teachers here have been trying their best to help their students in learning communicative skills well Both of them are aware of the importance and benefits of using pair work, group work to help improve the communicative skills However, they have faced many challenges in organizing these techniques during lessons, such as large classes; noises; lazy and passive students, etc For all the above mentioned reasons, I have decided to carry out a research work in: “Techniques for organizing pair work and group work activities for students at Ham Rong High School” This study is intended to make a small contribution on how to use the pair work, group work effectively and successfully in English teaching and learning practice in Viet Nam 1.2 Aims of the study: This study is aimed at: - Finding out the use of pair work and group work in English speaking classes at Ham Rong High School - Suggesting the useful techniques of pair work and group work to the students at Ham Rong High School in learning speaking English 1.3 Scope and objectives of the study: To improve communicative skills for students at Ham Rong High School, the teachers can make use of various techniques and a number of things should be done However, within the framework of a teaching experience, the author only intends to draw a brief overview of how are the pair work and group work used at Ham Rong High School Also, due to the time constraints, this study only involves a small number of English teachers and students at Ham Rong School 1.4 Methods of the study: In order to find out the answers to the research questions, both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to carry out the study The data were collected by means of questionnaires and interviews for English teachers and the students at Ham Rong High School Besides that, reviewing the related documents from many published books written by different authors and collecting information from others previous studies are methods to establish the theoretical background of the study 1.5 Significance of the study: This study is hoped to be used to both teachers and students at Ham Rong High School This study has been able to contribute to teachers’ knowledge of communicative language teaching, communicative activities in general and pair work, group work in particular Besides that, from the finding of the study, teachers can be provided with important information which may be valuable for their future lesson planning On the other hand, the teachers’ transformation in pair work and group work implementation will be beneficial to the students CONTENTS OF THE TEACHING EXPERIENCE 2.1 Theoretical background * Interactions in speaking classes - Definition of Classroom Interaction Classroom interaction involves two main aspects, which are the negotiation of meaning and feedback, if these two elements are not available in the classroom, then we cannot speak of a successful learning through interaction Ellis (1999:09) says, “Interaction contributes to acquisition through the provision of negative evidence and through opportunities for modified output.” Interaction then is rich of meaning negotiation where the learners can receive feedback from their interlocutors - Speaking skills in language teaching and learning Among the four skills in learning English, speaking and writing are the productive skills However, speaking is regarded as very important for language teaching and learning Speaking is a bridge to reach other skills Speaking helps learners to read better, to listen more effectively and write more accurately Speaking is surely the most effective means of communication (Ur, 1996) Speaking is a basic skill that language learners should master with the other language skills It is defined as a complex process of sending and receiving messages through the use of verbal expressions, but it also involves non verbal symbols such as gestures and facial expressions Hedge (2000: 261) defines speaking as “a skill by which they [people] are judged while first impressions are being formed.” That is to say speaking is an important skill which deserves more attention in both first and second language because it reflects people’s thoughts and personalities * Pair work and group work in speaking classes - Definition of pair work According to Adrian Doff (1988 :137), the whole class is divided in to pairs by the teacher Every students works with his or her partner in pairs and all the pairs work at the same time (It is sometimes called simultaneous pair work) This is not the same as ‘public’ or ‘open’, pair work, with pairs of students speaking in turn in front of the class In fact, a pair work consists of two students working together at the same time There are two main types of pair work: fixed pairs and flexible pairs, given by Byrne (1983) In the former, students work with the same partner to practice the target language In the later, students keep changing their partners they like This may make the activity more interesting but the class noisier It can be seen that pair work can get students to practice the target language more and increase students’ talking time in the class - Definition of group work Doff (1988: 137) also defines group work as a process that “the teacher divides the class into small groups to work together usually four or five students in each group, as in pair work, all the groups work at the same time” Like pair work, group work also gives students more opportunities to practice the target language in the whole class In addition, students can work independently and freely under the teacher’s control without the pressure of the whole class watching what they are doing - Advantages of pair work and group work Pair work and group work gives the students far more chances to speak English in the classroom According to Michael Long and his colleagues (1985) who investigated differences in the quantity and quality of student language in group work versus teacher centered activities the language produced by students working in groups is more varied and greater in quantity Learners take the initiative to express themselves, they are more spontaneous Asking questions and responding they use more language functions Working in pairs and groups is less stressful and more effective for students, especially introverts who needn't perform in the front of the whole class They feel more confident working with the friend they like and are more likely to accept his/her correction or criticism There are always more and less gifted pupils in the process of language learning and these methods prevent them from not being laughed at by the whole class if they say something wrong "It is generally easier to show that you not know, or not understand something, in a smaller group than in a large one” (Norman, Levihn and Hedenquist, 1986:8) - Some common activities for pair work and group work There are a variety of activities which can be applied in communicative English classes through the use of pair work and group work Some common activities are: - Game: A game could be any activities that formalize a technique into units that can be score in some way Guessing games are common language classroom activities - Role-play: Role-play minimally involves giving a role to one or more members of a group and assigning an objective or purpose that participants must accomplish - Drama: Drama is a more formalized form of role-play and simulation, with a pre-planned story line and script Sometimes small groups may prepare their own short dramatization of some event, writing the script and rehearsing the scene as a group But they are time consuming and rarely can form part of a typical school curriculum - Projects: Mainly for young learners who can greatly benefit from hands-on approaches to language, certain projects can be rewarding indeed - Interview: A popular activity for pair work, but also suitable for group work, interviews are useful at all level of proficiency - Information gap: This technique is one of the easiest and most interesting forms of communicative activity in the speaking lesson Information-gap activities include a tremendous variety of techniques in which the objectives is to convey or to request information - Problem solving and decision making: Problem-solving techniques focus on the group’s solution of a specified problem - Decision-making techniques are simply one kind of problem-solving where the ultimate goal is for students to make a decision Opinion exchange is a difficult technique for students to deal with at the beginning levels of proficiency, but by the intermediate level, certain techniques can effectively include the exchange of various opinions 2.2 The reality of the study 2.2.1 Background of the study Our school has got 11 teachers of English aged from between 33 to 58 Almost of them have at least ten years of teaching experience Our current material of teaching English is the text-book Tieng Anh 10, 11, 12 by Education Publishing House This text-book is divided into sixteen units, each of them has been divided into four parts in which “listening and speaking” part aims at providing students the different topics and structures through listening and reading and requires them to practice speaking skills In each semester, students have to learn English in periods per week It can be seen that communication is the goal of English language learning Its purpose is to help students develop their communicative competence This makes teaching and learning to improve students’ speaking skills to be an important part in any English course Like in many other schools, English teachers at Ham Rong High School find out the benefits of using pair and group work and spend much time to apply these techniques to develop students’ speaking skills However, we have some problems such as: large classes; noises; lazy and passive students The major concerns of this research are find out the useful techniques for organizing pair work and group work to help teachers and students in teaching and learning speaking English 2.2.2 Methodology -Participants The subjects of the study are teachers of English who teach English for the grade 10 students of Ham Rong High School They range from 33 to 45 years of age The grade 10 students were randomly chosen from over 500 students of 12 classes -Research instruments The instruments used to collect data was questionnaire and interview for the teachers and the students to get information about using pair-work, group-work in speaking classes The first are the questionnaires for the students including questions written in Vietnamese, was administered to 110 students 2.2.3 Data analysis The data of the study was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively As for quantitative analysis, we used descriptive statistics to quantify the data in form of charts and figures The qualitative data were obtained from the interview Table 1: Students’ opinions on speaking skill Question s Numbers Percent of students % Options/ a It’s a compulsory subject in the curriculum 16 14,5 56 68,2 c Speaking English is necessary for your future job 90 81,8 d Learning speaking English is your interest 20 18,2 a very interested 19 17,3 b interested 81 73,6 c not very interested 10 9,1 d not interested 0 b Learning communicate speaking English is to The statistics in table shows the students’ opinions on speaking skill It can clearly be seen that most of the students asked (81,8 %) say that speaking is necessary for their future job and 73,6 % of them are interested in speaking skill while little of them (14,5 %) says they learn Speaking skill because English is compulsory at their school Some students find English really interesting while there are 56 out of 110 students (62,8 %) who want to learn speaking skill just to communicate About 18,2% of them stated that English is their interest It means that speaking English is so important for most of the students Table 2: Students’ opinions on the way to learn speaking skill Questions Numbers of students Percent % Individual work 23 20,9 Pair work and group work 92 83,6 whole class 16 14,5 33 30 45 40,9 Options answering questions the teachers’ 5.listening and taking notes As can be seen from the table 2, (83,6%) of the students asked said that they like working in pairs and groups, whereas they had very little favor for working individually (20,9%) , only 14,5% of them liked working in whole class 30% of students enjoyed answering the teacher’ questions and 40,9% liked listening and taking note From this, it can be understood that most of the students see the importance of working in pair and group for the better speaking skill This also means that pair work and group work are surely the most suitable activities for the speaking skill Table 3: Students’ opinions on the impact of pair-work and group- work Questions Options Numbers of students Percent % a It increases the students’ speaking time 82 74,5 b It promotes students’ independence and cooperation 80 72,7 d Shy and passive students have more chance of expressing themselves 76 69 c It improves students’ motivation 85 77,3 e Students can learn from each other 80 72,7 It was obvious that almost all the students ( more than 70%) found that pair work and group work were so beneficial for their speaking skill that they can speak more in English, they can be much more confident and they also have chance to express themselves, their independence, cooperation and motivation in speaking were improved Regarding the benefit of learning from each other of group work, 72,7% (80 out of 110) the students stated that they learnt each other so much Table 4: Students’ wishes about the partners in pair and group work Options Numbers of students Percent % a Students of the same English proficiency level 35 31,8 b Students of higher English proficiency level 40 36,4 c Students of lower English proficiency level 10 9,1 d Students sitting next or near to each other 13 11,8 e Students of the same interest 12 10,9 Questions About the students they preferred working with in pairs and in groups, most of the students wanted to work with the students who were at the same level or higher level of proficiency Working with the people they really liked was also preferred by 10,9% Also, some of them (11,8%) liked working with the ones at the same table However, few of them (9,1%) liked working with the students who were worse at English Table 5: Students’ recommendation for the things the teacher should Numbers of students Percent % 110 100 b provide necessary vocabulary and functional language 45 40,9 c Go round monitoring students’ performance and help if necessary 34 30,9 d Minimize teacher’s talking time 110 100 e not to interrupt when students’ talking time 67 60,9 f Always provide feedback, praise and encourage the students 110 100 5,4 Questions Options/ a Give clear examples instruction with g Others One very important thing which helps to improve group work activities is to get the students ideas about what the teachers should about that It is quite clear that all of them (100 %) wanted their teachers to minimize his/her talking time, to create a competitive atmosphere, to give feedback, praise and encouragement and give clear instruction But 60,9% wanted their teachers not to interrupt when they made mistakes 40,9 % would like their teacher to give enough necessary vocabulary and functional language for their activities The bar chart bellow shows the students’ appreciation the improvement of their learning speaking English after the 1st semester of using pair work and group work Chart : Students’ response to pair work and group work activities (Question 7) The data from Chart showed that more than half of the students (65.5 %) were interested in pair work and group work activities 18.2% of them even were very interested in working in pairs and in groups This showed that pair work and group work could attract students and increased their interest in the lesson as well On the other hand, 10.9% of students were not very interested and only out of 110 students found pair work and group work activities boring From that, we can see the reasons why students don’t like working in pair and group are mainly on the ways of organizing pair and group work Therefore, it’s very necessary that teachers have to try their best to design those activities effectively After the first semester of learning speaking English through pair work and group work, the following results were conducted from questionnaires and interview 87 out of 110 students (79.1%) strongly agreed that working in pair and group could help their interest and participation in learning increased The reasons are because of many benefits of pair work and group work, such as they felt more confident to speak, they helped each other to solve teacher’s problems, or they have more chance to speak… 9.1% of students said that those activities were not useful for learning speaking as we can in the result of Question On the other hand, some of students (11.8%) showed the other opinions that pair work and group work were either helpful or unhelpful However, in the summary, it’s true that the pair work and group work are the beneficial techniques in learning speaking English at Ham Rong High School For the benefit of pair and group work activities, 100% of them claimed that pair and group work were very beneficial and helped students to increase the students’ speaking time, to promote students’ independence and cooperation, to improves students’ motivation, to decrease the teacher speaking time and helps shy and passive students have more chance of expressing themselves and learn from each other They also gave some more benefits such as: to creates exciting atmosphere as it lends itself to game-like activities which frees the teacher from his/her hard role of “an expert who always lectures”, This proved that these two techniques could increase students’ participation and interest in the class 2.3 Teachers’ implementation of pair-work, group-work in current classes as teaching experience Regarding the activities the teachers chose for pair and group work, Role playing, Games, Interview, Information gap, Discussing, Opinion exchange are the most frequently in which discussing helps to elicit the students’ ideas, background knowledge, role play helps to make the students understand the nature of English and games help them to the group work activities without any pressure and stress The students may think that they are playing not just learning 75 % of the teachers used Projects, problem- solving and only 25% of teachers used drama because they thought that those activities was only suitable for the high level of English proficiency and took much time to prepare 10 Table 6: Things the teachers often during pair and group work Number of teachers Percent % 100 b provide necessary vocabulary and functional language 100 c Go round the class and help if necessary 100 d Minimize teacher’s talking time 50 e not to interrupt when students’ talking time 75 f Always provide feedback, praise and encourage the students 100 g Do nothing 0 h Others 50 Questions Options a Give examples clear instruction with In this table, question looks into other things the teachers used during group work activities The things like giving clear instructions, going round the class and giving help if necessary, providing vocabulary and functional language and providing feedback, praise and encourage the students received 100% ideas from the teachers From the interview, they said that those activities were helpful to students when working in pairs and groups Of course, none of teachers nothing at the time students working Half of them chose minimize teacher’s talking time and not to interrupt when students’ talking time Some others ideas are standing in front of the class and observe or remaining in the teacher’s seat and observe or sometimes can work in pair or group as a member -Teacher’s appreciation on how useful pair work and group work are to improve student’s learning speaking English after the 1st semester From the result of question and the direct interview, when asked about their students’ attitude to pair work and group work activities, 100% the teachers said that their students were interested in these activities, even 75% of them said that students were very interested This showed that pair work and group work were the favorite activities of students in speaking lesson Most students found pair work and group work activities interesting, which made them participate more in the class It can be seen that, teachers and students at Ham Rong High School shared the same opinion that pair work and group work could help students’ learning speaking English improved in term of interest and participation in learning process It meant that these techniques are helpful to both teachers and students 11 2.4 The effectiveness of the teaching experience 2.4.1 How pair work and group work are used in English speaking classes of the 10 grade students at Ham Rong High School? As can be seen from the survey, it was unmistakable that the two techniques: pair work and group work were often used in speaking classes at Ham Rong High School Both of teachers and students agreed the appropriation of using pair and group work in speaking lesson This proved the importance of pair work and group work techniques to teaching and learning process However, some students did not like working in pairs and in groups because of their low level of proficiency Instead of discussing the problems given, they talked about others in their mother tongue And most of the teachers in the survey said that they designed their own ways to make the group work activities suitable to the students, these activities were also used but rarely In order to manage students working in pair or groups, the teachers often went round, and observed the class They went to each pair, group and helped them to correct the mistakes, even translated the words into English for them and helped them participate actively in their work To make pair and group work activities work effectively, the teachers also selected the task carefully, gave clear instructions, grouped the students appropriately, set the focus and objectives of the activity, and praised and encouraged the students during that time They also often set the time limit, provided feedback when having enough time but never let the students choose their own topic From the result of interviewing teachers and students, most of them agreed that learning speaking English were improved after the st semester of using pair work and group work Firstly, pair work and group work activities gave students more opportunities to practice speaking English In other words, students would get more involved in the lesson In addition, students could help each other and learn from each other in pairs or in groups A large number of students revealed that they preferred working in pairs and groups as they were able to learn a lot from their partners especially the ones who were at higher level of proficiency Therefore, pair work and group work activities could get almost all students in the class to contribute to the lesson Their participation in speaking lesson would be increased The research results also showed that most of students were interested in working in pairs and in groups This indicated that students’ interest was increased when they took part in pair work and group work activities They often felt active and free as they were put in pairs and groups to work together They became selfcentered in their learning while their teacher worked as a consultant or a supervisor Working in pairs and groups, the students could express their opinions without being afraid of losing their face Thus, they felt comfortable in the class Therefore, their desire to learn the target language would be raised However, teachers should try to organize pair work and group work activities more effective Teachers should provide the students with necessary vocabulary and 12 clear instruction Also, the group size should include from to students who were at different level of proficiency Sometimes, teachers could give students a chance to choose their partners, which might increase their participation and interest in the task given 2.4.2 What are useful techniques of pair work and group work to the students in learning speaking English? The first common activity is using games Games have been shown to have advantages and effectiveness in learning English in various ways First, games bring in relaxation and fun for students, thus help them learn and retain new words and new structures more easily Second, games usually involve friendly competition and they keep learners interested These create the motivation for learners of English to get involved and participate actively in the learning activities Third, games bring real world context into the classroom, and enhance students' use of English in a flexible, communicative way However, it’s important that games can help teachers to attract students communicating in a pleasant, entertaining way, thus leading toward the goal of improving learners' communicative competence Therefore, using games is one of the most suitable activities in speaking lessons, especially to the students of low level of English proficiency at Ham Rong High School Secondly, role-play is an effective to use in teaching speaking English Role play is very important in teaching speaking because it gives students an opportunity to practice communicating in different social contexts and in different social roles In addition, it also allows students to be creative and to put themselves in another person’s place for a while Role play can improve learners’ speaking skills in any situation, and helps learners to interact That was the reason why both of teachers and students at Ham Rong High School chose role-play as a suitable activity in teaching – learning speaking Especially for the shy learners, role play helps by providing a mask, where learners with difficulty in conversation are liberated The following lesson plan demonstrates how the teachers at Ham Rong High School apply role-play technique in teaching speaking: 13 Unit 3: people’s background LESSON 3: SPEAKING Time: 45 minutes I AIMS: Training Sts to improve speaking skill II OBJECTIVES: By the end of this lesson, students will be able to talk about their background and know how to ask about other people’s background III TEACHING AIDS: textbooks… IV PROCEDURE: 14 Stages & Content A.WARM – UP: T’s activities Ss’ activities - Ask sts to close their books Brainstorming - Ask them to brainstorm all - Individually What information will tell you sorts of information which work tell about somebody’s about somebody’s background? background * Answer: family, education, experience… B PRE – SPEAKING: - Ask Sts to discuss the - Work in pairs Work in pairs and find out the questions that can be used to questions that you can ask when get information for each you want to know about item, then calls on some Sts to give questions for each somebody’s background item Answers - Give suggestions - pair-work Family: - pair-work How many people are there in your family? - Give suggestions What does your father do? -pair-work Give suggestions Education: -pair-work Give suggestions Where did you study at high -pair-work school? What subjects you like best? - Give suggestions What degree you have? Experience: - Give suggestions How long have you worked as a doctor/ teacher ? -pair-work -pair-work What experience you have? - Open textbook the C WHILE – SPEAKING: - Introduce the task Imagine you are a journalist Use the cues below to interview a classmate about his/ her background or that of a person he/ she knows well Change the role when you have finished - Give questions for the - Listen to the teacher information items - Look at the timetable and - Ask Sts to draw a form by try to themselves understand it - Work in pairs * Note: Before carrying out the - Ask Sts to carry out the interview, Sts should study the interview in pairs items of information carefully and find the questions for each item Greeting: Good morning! - Go15around the class and Date of birth: When were you offer help if necessary and to born? make sure that all Sts are Place of birth: Where were you working The third activity both of teachers and students of Ham Rong High School choose are Interview Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people It is a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own interview questions Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance to practice their speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them becoming socialized After interviews, each student can present his or her study to the class Moreover, students can interview each other and "introduce" his or her partner to the class Fourthly, the findings of the questionnaire reveal that the majority of students and teachers at Ham Rong High School consider Information-gap activities effective in speaking lessons As for students, Information-gap activities are suitable for their language proficiency, so they can use English to communicate with their partner to accomplish the tasks given by teachers In terms of students’ participation, they are motivated to participate actively when the teachers give them an interesting topic or games These things are factors which help to encourage students to use English to communicate with their partner In addition, basing on the result of interview, the researcher also finds out that during information-gap activities, there is an increase in students’ talking time when they are required to work in pairs or groups Discussing and Opinion exchange activities attract the same amount of interest of most of students at Ham Rong High School, because they can talk freely and actively in pairs or groups In these activities, the teacher can form students in pairs or groups Then each group works on their topic for a given time period, and presents their opinions to the class It is essential that the speaking should be equally divided among group members At the end, the class decides on the winning group who defended the idea in the best way This activity fosters critical thinking and quick decision making, and students learn how to express and justify themselves in polite ways while disagreeing with the others On the other hand, some teachers show the opinions that these activities can makes noises as game activity And if teachers form a large group of 6-7 students or more, the quiet students may avoid contributing in speaking or students may use mother tongue rather than English However, in conclusion, Discussing and Opinion exchange are still the appropriate activities for students at Ham Rong High School The last three activities which common used in speaking classes are problemsolving, Drama, and Projects But because of the student’s low level of English proficiency and time-consuming, both of teachers and the students at Ham Rong High School don’t choose these activities as the most suitable ones 2.4.3 The use of suggested activities at Ham Rong High School As stated in the reality of the study, Tieng Anh 10 by Education Publishing House is used as the course book to teach English This book is designed to help students developing all types of communicative skills which includes grammar, vocabulary, reading, listening, writing and speaking All of teachers spend one 16 period each unit for teaching speaking And because of that time for speaking, the activities as role-play, game, interview, information-gap, discussing, opinion exchange are often organized for students during pair and group work From the teaching experiences of authors and interview’s result of other English teachers, it can be seen that pair work and group work activities are used through 16 units of the book Tieng Anh 10 depending on the students’ English proficiency level and the aims of each unit Some of them are designed according to the teaching guide’s book, some of them are self-designed by teachers In conclusion, it can be seen that these activities of pair work and group work are suitable and beneficial for both teachers and students of Ham Rong High School And in order to organize pair work and group work successfully, it is necessary that teachers need to work closely to students so as to understand more about their desires in learning speaking through pair and group work From that, teachers should use the appropriate activities which helpful for students’ level and learning target In the end of this chapter, the author’s sample lesson plan is showed as an example of using pair work and group work activities in speaking lesson CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 3.1 Conclusions The study was carried out at Ham Rong High School in order to research the techniques for organizing pair and group work in speaking class With the use of instruments such as two questionnaires, and interviews for both students and teachers at Ham Rong High School, the researcher has found out the answers to her three research questions as mentioned in part 1- Introduction It is true that both of English teachers and the students of Ham Rong High School saw the importance of speaking skill in their future job Most of them were interested in this skill compared to other skills such as listening, writing and reading They also knew good speaking skill could help them to communicate successfully About the way to learn speaking, pair work and group work were considered the most interesting activities because of many benefits for teaching and learning process And both of the teachers and students have been trying to make use of the advantages group work activities bring about For the students, firstly, pair and group work activities helped them to be more confident, especially with shy and weak students as they were given time to prepare, to check mistakes with friends before speaking Secondly, students also have more chance to speak English, to get closer to their friends and they can learn each other Pair and group work helped them to be more independent from their teacher, so their motivation of learning was increased This is really the better way compared with the way they learnt from their teacher The teachers also had some advantages from this The first is the teacher freed herself/ himself from being “an expert who always lectures” The teacher had more time for each small group to get 17 closer to the students Therefore, the students’ mistakes were corrected and their weaknesses were limited too Because of many advantages, both the teachers and the students confirmed the frequency of the use of these two techniques in their English classes They shared the same opinions on the way of organizing and managing pair work and group work Some most favorite activities teachers and students often use in pair work and group work are Games, Role - play, Discussing, Interview, Information gap… For the main aim of this research, the author found out that the learning speaking English of students was improved after the 1st semester of learning through pair and group work To be specific, the students felt more confident, comfortable and relaxed in working in pairs and in small groups Besides, working in pairs or in groups, the interaction between students were better as they could discuss freely, and learn from each other as well Therefore, their desire to learn and their interest in the lesson were really increased However, there were some factors which needed considering when pair work and group work activities took place First of all, before asking students to work in pairs and in groups, teachers should have given clear instructions, and provided students with necessary vocabulary Moreover, to get the whole class involved in the lesson, the teacher should have moved around the class and helped the students if necessary Also, if the teacher had praised students properly, they would have worked more effectively In addition, the way of grouping students should be suitable for the task given and might encourage students to work more effectively as well Students liked to work with the ones who were at higher level of proficiency Therefore, students with different proficiency level should be arranged to sit together Also, the number of students in each group shouldn’t be too large As found from the data collection, the suitable number for a group was or students 3.2 Limitations of the study Because of the limitation of time, this study has some limitations It only investigated the current situation of using pair work and group work in some communicative English classes at Ham Rong High School The respondents of the study were limited to the grade 10 students, so their opinions about using pair work and group work could not be considered as representative of all students learning English as a foreign language at Ham Rong High School 3.3 Suggestions and proposals This study researches the techniques for organizing pair work and group work activities in speaking lesson in order to help improving students’ speaking skill As no single research design is all-inclusive and complete, this study can not cover everything in its field of study Compared with previous years, the situation of English teaching now has a lot of positive, paying special attention to training four skills to students So teachers should combine all activities to create excitement for students and make students love English more And from what have been presented, the study is hoped to be useful, preferred to by secondary school teachers and can be widely applied 18 APPROVAL BY THE HEADMASTER OF THE SCHOOL Thanh Hoa, April 18th, 2022 I hereby declare that this study is conducted by myself, if something goes wrong I would be responsible before the law Bui Thi Hieu 19 REFERENCE Hedge, T (2000) Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom Oxford: Oxford University Press Byrne D (1983), Teaching Oral English, London: Longman Doff, A (1988) Teach English: A training course for teachers Cambridge: CUP Duong, Luu Thuy ( 2006), An investigation into the use of pair and group work in the speaking class of 1st year students at Hanoi Open University, Faculty of Tourism Hammer, J (1991) The Practice of English Language Teaching New York: Longman Publishing Kayi, H (2006) Teaching speaking: Activities to promote speaking in a second language The Internet TESL Journal, 12 (11) Retrieved April 20,2011from http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Kayi-Teaching Speaking.html Little, W (1981) Communicative Language Teaching: An Introduction, Cambridge: CUP Long, M H., & Porter, P (1985) Group work, interlanguage talk, and second language acquisition TESOL Quarterly 19, 2, 207-27 McDonough, K (2004) Learner-learner interaction during pair and small group activities in a Thai EFL context System, 32, 207-224 10 Nolasco, R and Athur, L (1993) Large Classes London: Macmillan 11 Nunan D (1989), Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom, Great Britain: Cambridge University Press 12 Nunan, D (1991) Language Teaching Methodology, London: Prentice Halls 13 Phuong, Mai Thi (2008), Organizing pair work and group work in the context of high school classroom at Pham Van Nghi Upper secondary school, Nam Dinh 14 Richards J C and Rodgers T S (1986), Approaches to Methods in Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press 15 Richard, C and Rodges, T S 2001 Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching Cambridge: CUP 16.Ur, P (1996) A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory, Cambridge: CUP 20 21 ... English at Ham Rong High School For the benefit of pair and group work activities, 100% of them claimed that pair and group work were very beneficial and helped students to increase the students? ??... seen that these activities of pair work and group work are suitable and beneficial for both teachers and students of Ham Rong High School And in order to organize pair work and group work successfully,... students at Ham Rong High School, because they can talk freely and actively in pairs or groups In these activities, the teacher can form students in pairs or groups Then each group works on their