(LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ) Using group work activities to reduce students'' speaking anxiety-an action research

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ĐINH THỊ THÚY USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO REDUCE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ANXIETY- AN ACTION RESEARCH Sử dụng hoạt động nhóm để làm giảm bớt lo lắng học sinh học nói M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com HANOI - 2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ĐINH THỊ THÚY USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO REDUCE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ANXIETY- AN ACTION RESEARCH Sử dụng hoạt động nhóm để làm giảm bớt lo lắng học sinh học nói M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410 SUPERVISOR: PHẠM MINH HIỀN, M.A HANOI - 2012 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i ABSTRACT ii LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND TABLES iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v PART A: INTRODUCTION I Rationale of the study II Aims of the study III Scope of the study IV Methods of the study V Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Speaking skills and its related concepts 1.1.1 The importance of speaking skills 1.1.2 Elements of speaking skills 1.2 Group work in a speaking lesson 1.2.1 Definition and description of group work 1.2.2 Advantages and disadvantages of group work 1.2.3 Teacher‟s role in carrying out group work 1.3 Definitions of anxiety in Speaking English in classroom (SEC) 1.3.1 Definitions of anxiety 1.3.2 Anxiety in second language (L2) and in SEC 1.4 Main factors causing students’ anxiety in SEC 10 1.5 Effects of anxiety on students of SEC 10 1.6 Teacher’s role to students’ anxiety in SEC 11 1.7 Teaching techniques to reduce students anxiety in SEC 11 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Practical grouping strategies 12 2.1 Group formation 12 2.1.1 Random grouping 12 2.1.2 Student- selected grouping 13 2.1.3 Teacher- formed grouping 13 2.2 Procedures of group work 14 2.3 Common oral activities for group work 15 2.3.1 Opening- circle discussion 15 2.3.2 Role play 15 2.3.3 Information Gap Activity (IGA) 15 2.3.4 Problem- solving 16 2.3.5 Other picture card activities 16 2.4 Problems and solutions in using class group work 17 Summary 19 Chapter 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 20 2.1 Research questions 20 2.2 Description of data collection instruments 20 2.2.1 The rationale for using questionnaire 20 2.2.2 Questionnaire 21 2.3 Participants 21 2.3.1 The students 21 2.3.2 The teacher 21 2.4 Research method 22 2.4.1 Overview of action research 22 2.4.2 Procedure of the action research 23 2.4.2.1 Initiation 23 2.4.2.2 Preliminary investigation 23 2.4.2.3 Hypothesis 23 2.4.2.4 Intervention 24 2.4.2.5 Evaluation 25 2.4.2.6 Dissemination 25 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 2.4.2.7 Follow up 25 2.5 Data collecting procedure 26 2.6 Data analysis 26 2.7 Summary 26 Chapter 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 27 3.1 The initial data 27 Results from questionnaire 27 3.2 The post data 32 Data collected from questionnaire 32 3.4 Discussion 34 3.5 Summary .36 PART C: CONCLUSION 38 Summary of main findings 38 Limitation and recommendation for further research 40 REFERENCES APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE Appendix 3: LESSON PLANS FOR SPEAKING GROUP-WORK ACTIVITIES OF THE STUDY Appendix 4: The description of the second lesson during the intervention: Task 2- Unit 13: FILMS AND CINEMA –(English 10), page 134 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Table 2.2 Procedures of group work 14 Table 2.4: Problems and solutions in using class group work 17 Table 1: Students‟ evaluation on their anxiety in SEC 27 Table 2: Students‟ feeling when speaking in group work activities 29 Table 3: Student attitude to group work activities in speaking lessons 29 Table 4: Student‟s attitudes toward grouping strategies 30 Table 5: Students‟ preferences to group work activities in speaking lessons 33 Table 6: Students‟ self- evaluated participation in speaking activities in group 33 Chart 1: Students‟ evaluation on their anxiety in SEC 27 Chart 2: Factors making students anxious in SEC most 28 Chart 3: Students‟ favourite activities 31 Chart 4: Students‟ confident participation in group work activities 32 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS SEC Speaking English in classroom DHHS Dong Hy High School AR Action Research MAM Making a mistake BCM Being corrected mistakes as soon as they are made BAS Being asked to speak without preparation ADT A difficult topic SFW Speaking in front of the whole class AO Another one TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION I Rationale of the study In Vietnam for some recent decades, English has taken more and more important role in almost all aspects such as: politics, economy, culture, communication, education and information technology, especially since Viet Nam adopted its open door policy and become a member of WTO English helps Vietnamese labours to have access to latest information in the world and take part in the world labour force with English as an international means of communication in this modern age However, it is the fact that using English for real communication in general, with limited English speaking ability is a big problem for Vietnamese learners The traditional teaching and learning English at high schools in Vietnam leads to the fact that students are inclined to develop reading and writing skills seem to remain a big problem to Vietnamese learners, meanwhile speaking and listening skills are almost ignored Although students can some tasks in English, they can‟t use English as a communicative tool Since the teaching approach Communicative Learning Teaching (CLT) was introduced, the teaching and learning of English has changed its emphasis from “Master of language Structure” to “Master of use” According to this theory, teachers teach students how to understand as well as how to perform But due to the strong effect of the traditional way of ELT in schools in Vietnam, the panorama of ELT, particularly including speaking skill remains dull Like in most of schools in the north of Vietnam, the majority of the students in Dong Hy high school (DHHS) where I work, have no ample opportunity to study the English language because they have few English lessons per week (three English lessons per week) Though they are encouraged to take few courses in school in the use of English, the content of these English courses are grossly inadequate for the students to acquire requisite skills in effective use of language for communication and for the give and take of social experience In order to study English as a foreign language and be successful with it, the students must be helped by the teacher to acquire skills in the four language art skills, namely: speaking, TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com listening, writing, and reading Of the four skills mentioned above, speaking is the skills secondary school students need great support Recently, teachers in my school have introduced activities through which they can help students go beyond the mastery of structures to the points and use them to communicate more meaningfully in real situations Also, group work approach has also been applied in all kinds of lessons and has shown its effectiveness It is said that using group work is one of good ways to motivate students in learning English By grouping students, teachers enables students to help one another study Using group work has many advantages such as more language practice in classroom, more purposeful communication, more students‟ involvement and motivation, more chances for students to help each other, more chances for students to foster responsibility, autonomy and independence (Underwood, 1987; Hyland, 1991; Ur, 1996) Therefore, simply putting students together in a group is no guarantee that it is beneficial Without careful planning and facilitation, group work can frustrate students and instructors and will be a waste of time In DHHS during the group work there, the better students contribute a lot whereas some weaker ones become passive I realized that there were much more students who were anxious than those confident in speaking English in class Moreover, the anxious students have differently certain manifestations, for example giving frequent communicative feedback such as (uh- huh) and playing with the hair, clothes, or other manipulability objects It seemed that studying on students‟ anxiety was really meaningfully important As we all see “Anxiety is the rust of life, destroying its brightness and weakening its power.” - said by Tyron Edwards, a famous American theologian of “New Dictionary of Thoughts” The wish to help her students to overcome the obstacles in speaking English encouraged the researcher to carry out this study, entitled the use of group work to reduce grade ten students‟ anxiety in speaking lessons at Dong Hy High School 10 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com II Aims and objectives of the study The study aims to: - gain understanding of factors that cause students‟ anxiety in speaking English lessons in one tenth form class of Dong Hy high school - experiementing solutions that can address anxiety-causing factors so as to help the students to feel less anxious in speaking English in the speaking lessons Those aims are specified into the following objectives: - to find out what students say about factors that make them anxious in speaking English in the classroom; - to find out effective classroom techniques that can create a low-anxiety classroom atmostphere so that students can be more active in speaking English in the lessons Research questions: In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims and objectives, the study is to seek answers to the following research questions: What factors a group of grade 10th students in Dong Hy high school think cause their anxiety in speaking English? What classroom techniques that help to reduce the students‟ stated anxiety in speaking English? III Scope of the study As an action research project, the study was conducted with the researcher‟s own students in her own class The study is, therefore, limited itself to just one „problem‟ the researcher was encountered with in her teaching, i.e students‟ speaking anxiety On the basis of the analysis of the factors the students, who were in one grade-10th form, stated, the researcher experiemented with some interventions to address the problem 11 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE Time: Class: 10A12 This questionnaire is part of the survey of my study I would be grateful if you are answer truthfully Your responses will be anonymous and strictly used for my research Please tick one appropriate box for one each item How much anxious you think you are in SEC? ( tick one)? a None b A little anxious c Quite anxious d Very anxious What is the factor that makes you anxious in speaking English in class most ( if the answer in question is not (a))? a Making a mistake b Being corrected mistakes soon as they are made c Being asked to speak without preparation d A difficult topic e Speaking in front of the whole class f Another one (………………………………………… ) Do you think speaking in groups is more comfortable? Yes No What you think of group work activities in speaking lessons? (more than one options are accepted) I TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com a Group work makes lessons exciting and creates a lively class atmosphere b It is noisy and out- of- control c Students- especially the anxious- are more likely to participate in small groups actively with slighter inhibition d Better students dominate group work e Groupwork makes more opportunities for student use Vietnamese If you have to work in groups what grouping strategies would you like best? a I choose my own group b The teacher assigns me in a group c The teacher changes the group member from time to time When the teacher put the students in groups what activities would you like best? Discussion in groups about a suggested title Communicative game Role play Information Gap Activity Interview Thank you for your cooperation! II TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE Time: Class: 10A12 This questionnaire is part of the survey of my study I would be grateful if you are answer truthfully Your responses will be anonymous and strictly used for my research Please tick one appropriate box for one each item How did you feel about speaking English after these six weeks? Very confident Quite confident A little bit more confident No change Which group work activities made you feel more relaxed? Discussion in groups about a suggested title Communicative game Role play Information Gap Activity Interview How you self- evaluate your participation in group work activities? a I spoke most of the time b I spoke as much as others in the group c I spoke the least in the group d I never spoke in the group Thank you for your cooperation! III TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com APPENDIX 1: PhiÕu ®iỊu tra Thêi gian: Líp: 10 A12 PhiÕu ®iỊu tra phần nghiên cứu đề tài nghiên cứu Tôi biết ơn em trả lời cách trung thực Câu trả lời em không công khai đợc sử dụng nghiêm túc cho mục đích nghiên cứu Em hÃy đánh dấu vào ô lựa chọn thích hợp Khi tham gia vo hot động nói tiếng Anh, mức độ lo lắng em ? a Em không lo lắng b Em lo lắng chút c Em lo lắng d Em lo lắng 2, Nh†ng yÕu tè nµo khiến em lo lng tham gia vào hoạt ®éng nhãm học nói vËy? a Em mắc lỗi b Giáo viên chữa lỗi sau em nói sai c Em khơng chuẩn bị trước nói d Chủ đề khó e Em nói trước lớp e Các lí khác … Theo em nãi theo nhãm có thuâ ̣n tiê ̣n khơng? Cã Kh«ng 4, Theo em, học theo nhóm? a Thú vị em tham gia khơng khí học sinh động b Khiến lớp trật tự lộn xộn IV TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com c Khiến em mạnh dạn thực hành kĩ giao tiếp Tiếng Anh nhiều d Em hội lên tiếng bạn học tranh lượt nói em d Học sinh có nhiều hội để sử dụng tiếng Việt Nế u em đươ ̣c hoa ̣t đô ̣ng nói theo nhóm thủ thuâ ̣t hoa ̣t đô ̣ng nhóm nào giáo viên áp dụng em thích nhất? Em tự cho ̣n nhóm ho ̣c của ̀ h Giáo viên xếp em vào nhóm Giáo viên ln ln xếp thay đởi thành viên nhóm 6, Trong các hoa ̣t ̣ng học nói em thích tham gia hoa ̣t đô ̣ng nào nhất? Thảo luận nhóm theo chủ điểm Chơi trị chơi ngơn ngữ Đóng vai, nói theo mẫu hội thoại học Khoảng trống thông tin Phỏng vấn Thực hành luyện ngữ âm đồng Cám ơn hợp tác em! V TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Appendix 2: PhiÕu ®iỊu tra Thời gian: Lớp: 10A12 Phiếu điều tra phần nghiên cứu đề tài nghiên cứu Tôi biết ơn em trả lời cách trung thực Câu trả lời em không công khai đợc sử dụng nghiêm túc cho mục đích nghiên cứu Em hÃy đánh dấu vào ô lựa chọn thích hợp cđa m×nh 1, Em cảm thấ y thế nào tham gia giờ luyê ̣n nói theo nhóm sau tuầ n? Tự tin nhiề u Khá tự tin Tự tin chút it́ Không thay đổ i 2, Hoạt động nhóm theo em thú vị ? Thảo luận nhóm theo chủ điểm Chơi trị chơi ngơn ngữ Đóng vai, nói theo mẫu hội thoại học Khoảng trống thông tin Phỏng vấn Thực hành luyện ngữ âm đồng Em tự đánh giá thế em làm việc theo nhóm? Em đươ ̣c nói hầ u hế t thời gian Em đươ ̣c nói bằ ng các ba ̣n khác nhóm Em nói it́ nhấ t nhóm Em khơng bao giờ tham gia nói nhóm C¸m ơn hợp tác em! VI TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Appendix 3: LESSON PLANS FOR SPEAKING GROUP-WORK ACTIVITIES OF THE STUDY Three lesson Plans for Speaking Group Work Activities in the Intervention Stage * Unit 12: Music (speaking lesson Task 2, page 127) Date: Friday, March 2nd, 2012 Level of the students: Grade 10 Organization: groups with 5-6 students in each Time: 20 minutes Speaking group work activity: Interview I Objectives: By the end of this lesson Ss will be able to express their favorite kinds of music, the reason why they liked those kinds of music and the time when they listen to those music or singers whom they liked II Material: Textbook: “Tieng Anh 10” Nha Xuat Ban Giao Duc III Teaching Aids - Board, chalk, - role cards for each group (1 pink card for interviewer and yellow cards for interviewees) - 25 blue practice cards for each group IV Procedure Stage Time Teacher’s activity Students’ activity - Play a game: Word web T writes Ss speak some kinds of music like Pre- 6‟ a word “MUSIC” on the board pop music, classical music, folk VII TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Teacher copies down the word the music, rock‟n „roll, jazz and so on activity students speak Ss are asked to read in chorus Folk Rock Music Classical Jazz Pop - T writes down some suggested words on the board and asks Ss to read in chorus e.g rousing/ lyrical/serene/peaceful/ pleasant / help (smb)forget troubles / make (smb)excited relaxed /make and give (smb) feel them the Ss listen to the teacher carefully translation Purpose: To draw students‟ interest in the lesson To expand Ss' vocabulary of music T gives clear, detailed instructions for the required task - T divides Ss into groups Ss work in groups Whileactivity 8‟ randomly and assigns the passive Ss One passive student of each group the role of interviewer and gives is assigned a role of interviewer him/ her one pink role card and and he/she could ask members of each student a yellow role card the group one by one about music VIII TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com containing one kind of music and basing on suggested words on the some adjectives relating to music pink role card given by the teacher (Appendix 10) Each student will Other students answer the implement his/ her role using the interviewer‟s questions basing on guided words/ phrase on the cards the cues on the cards (Each student While Ss are speaking T walks is given a yellow role card) Then round the class to see how well Ss the secretary will complete the work and whether they need some table copied from the textbook (see help and notes the common below) Post- 6‟ activity mistakes Ss have Ss work in groups T asks Ss to stop speaking All Ss stop speaking students are invited to look at the or assigned students from some blackboard The teacher asks two groups stand up and present the or three Ss to present their ideas of group‟s idea orally Members of their groups in front of the class group may help if he/ she fails to Teacher then gives feedback and speak correct common mistakes if there are and then enhance them for future group work Handout for interviewers Partner Partner Partner Partner Partner Kind of music Reason for listening to music Favorite band/musician Favorite song/piece of music When listen to music IX TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com * Unit 14: The World Cup (Speaking lesson Task page 147) Date: Monday, 26th, 2012 Time: 20 minutes Organization: groups with 5-6 students in each Level of Ss: Grade 10 Speaking group work activity: Information Gap Activity I Objectives: After the lesson, students will be able to talk about the world cups which were held They can talk about some football teams, about the information related to the world cups like the time and the place where the world cups were held, the events in the world cups, etc II Material: Textbook: “English 10” Training and Education Publisher III Teaching Aids - Board, chalk, some sheets of paper A4, some pictures of football teams Information cards which contain different pieces of information, one card per student IV Procedure Stage Time Pre- 6‟ activity Teacher’s activity Students’ activity Asks Ss to close the books and Ss close the books and look at some shows the picture pictures of several football teams and E.g What team is it? world cups then answer the questions Have they ever taken part in World Ss answer T‟s questions Cup? When did they take part in? Did they win the world cup? Whileactivity 8‟ T put Ss into groups of and and Ss are divided into groups of and gives instruction of the game to Ss Each student of the groups E.g The first World Cup was receives a card with an unfinished held _ in 1930 sentence.(as many information cards X TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com The _ match was between as there are students) They have to Uruguay and Argentina find a suitable word to fill in the gap defeated Argentina by basing on the table in the task (see to the table below) then speak out their Argentina was _ own sentences The secretary will Uruguay became the join those sentences from group T gives secretaries of groups members to write a complete passage sheets of paper A4 and each student on paper A4 a piece of paper on which there is Each group is given “25 English practice cards” unfinished sentence While Ss are speaking, T goes round the class to see how well students work and whether they need some help and notes common mistakes Postactivity Ss work in groups in mins 6‟ After Ss have finished, T calls one, Ss present their own passage in front two or more presenters of some of the class group to perform their own passage in front of the class, then T elicits comments provides from the class feedback and Good presentation can be marked Handouts for each member of the groups The first World Cup was held _ in 1930 The sixth World Cup _ between Sweden and The _ match was between Uruguay and Argentina Brazil was the winner and Sweden was _ defeated Argentina by to Sweden was defeated Brazil by Argentina was _ The sixth World Cup was in 1958 Uruguay became the Argentina was runner up _ became the champion and Sweden was runner up XI TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Appendix 4: The description of the second lesson during the intervention: Task 2- Unit 13: FILMS AND CINEMA –(English 10), page 134 * Original Task 2: Work in groups: Find out what your friend feel about each kind of film Use the words in the table below Example: A: What you think of horror films? B: Oh, I find them really awful C: I don’t quite agree with you I find them very interesting Detective films Interesting Science fiction films Moving Love story films Good fun Cartoon films Violent War films Boring Thrillers Exciting Action films Terrifying * Intervention task 2:  Pre-speaking activity: Brainstorming (4 minutes) To check if students understand the different types of films and the adjective Preteach is necessary The students played a game called “who knows the most adjectives?” T writes a word of a kind of films then asks students to give more adjectives to describe it E.g Cartoon films – funny, interesting, attractive, colorful, Detective films- exciting, nervous XII TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Teacher can introduce some other types of films which attracted a lot of attention because these kinds of film are popular especially among the young: comedy, family, fantasy, historical and so on Through this activity, some new adjectives: moving/ good fun/ violent/ exciting/ terrifying were presented A brief introduction to the topic was then given to the students to arouse more interest in the speaking topic Revising the frequently-used structure The frequently-used structures in the short dialogue were written on the blackboard Teacher conducts a mini substitution drill to practice a) I find + O + adj Example: T: interesting Ss: I find them interesting b) Showing agreement using “ Me, too.” Example: S1: I find detective films boring S2: Me, too I find thrillers exciting S1: Me, too Demonstrate the model dialogue with a strong student The teacher gave clear, detailed instruction for the task and set the time  While activity: (8 minutes) Work with three other students and demonstrate the model conversation T: What you think of horror films? S1: Oh, I find them quite disgusting S2: I don’t quite agree with you I find them interesting S3: Me, too What you think of thrillers? Get students into groups of four randomly, one passive/ anxious student in each group was assigned the role of an interviewer with the question “What you think XIII TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com of … films? One dominant was assigned the role of a secretary to complete the table given by the teacher Ss‟ name Preferences- Types of Ss‟ opinions films There were groups in this task There were students in group from1 to Group had students Let students practice the task When they finish, the dominant students was asked to write the information they had collected While the activity was in process, the teacher walked around and helped the students to implement the task and took notes of common mistakes In addition, the teacher reminded the secretary to complete the table which leads in to the post activity of task and come to task For more information, see the lesson plan in Appendix  Post Activity: (5 minutes) “4/3/2 technique” was implemented at this stage At the end of the task, group was asked to present their group work result to the whole class as the model Following is their discuss: Ss‟ name Preferences- Types of Ss‟ opinions films Vi Ngoc Anh Love story, Cartoon Interesting, exciting Nguyen Bao Trung Thrillers, Action Terrifying Tong Anh Tuan Love story, Detective Interesting, exciting, moving Hoang Tieu Phuong Cartoon films Good fun XIV TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com The dominant student of group who copied their friends ideas onto the table gave the first delivery of the talk S/he explained that every time they prefer a type of film Example: Some of us/ Most of us/ None of us like … film because… Average students who were neither the best nor the worst in the groups gave the second same talk The most anxious student who was assigned the role of an interviewer was the last talker After the students had finished reporting, the teacher gave constructive comments, and the whole class applauded to encourage them Get the rest students talked in their group All the students seemed to be happy after the activity XV TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ... group work to increase equality in group work activities - Allow students to work at their own levels: The levels of students are not the same, so don‟t expect them to contribute equally to group. .. to help her students to overcome the obstacles in speaking English encouraged the researcher to carry out this study, entitled the use of group work to reduce grade ten students‟ anxiety in speaking. .. will work one group and share his/ her group? ??s agreement to the new group * Pyramid grouping: Students work in small groups (of or 3) on some tasks, then two or three groups are combined to make