Introduction
Aims of the study
This study was carried out with three aims Firstly, it was expected to find out different teamwork activities currently being used in English speaking lessons at ISP Secondly, the frequency of these activities and the teachers’ ways to use them were also identified Next, this study aimed to identify students’ attitudes towards each kind of activities in their lessons Last but not least, the problems of using these activities for both the teachers and students in carrying out this technique were carefully analyzed to reveal the findings In a nutshell, all the objectives of this study could be summarized into these three following research questions:
1 What kinds of teamwork activities are currently used in English speaking lessons at ISP?
2 What are the students’ attitudes towards these activities?
3 What are the problems in using these teamwork activities?
Scope of the study
As mentioned in the title, this study focused on the use of teamwork activities as a means to improve the students’ oral skill in their English were organized and used only for English speaking lessons, not in the other English lessons Therefore, in this paper, speaking lessons refer to the ones carried out in English, not in other languages
In terms of participants, the researcher attempted to investigate a certain number of the chosen students at pre-intermediate English level at ISP
In addition, ISP teachers in charge of their speaking lessons were also the important participants in this research.
Significance of the stdudy
With reference to the significance, this study is supposed to benefit the teachers and students of the surveyed division in particular, and others in the same conditions As for ISP students, it is expected that they will be aware of the benefits of teamwork activities in their speaking lessons, hence, the importance of tight cooperation with their partners to achieve their communicative competence best under their teacher’s directions will be highly noticed As for the teachers, this study is assumed to provide the strategies in designing and carrying out teamwork activities appropriately in English speaking lessons Furthermore, with its findings through thorough analysis, this study is believed to be such a reliable reference for all those who are concerned about this matter.
Literature Review
Teaching English speaking for communication
It is undeniable that designing and organizing activities for speaking plays a leading role in fostering student’s use of English in real communication With the aim of enhancing the effectiveness of a speaking lesson, Harmer (1991, pp.36-37) suggested these following activities, all of which were organized for small groups of students
This activity is followed by a content-based lesson More specifically, students study their reading or listening comprehension in each unit of their textbook under teacher’s control to gain the general knowledge of the topic
After that, the whole class will be divided into small teams of four or five to get involved in the discussion Teachers should provide their students with controversial situations so that they can freely express their different ideas, for instance, “Parents should allow their children to play video games Do you agree or disagree? Why?” Teachers should notice that they should master the time excellently so that as many students have a chance to present their teams’ opinions as possible by giving them a limited time to finish their task, to share their ideas before the class as well as to get comments from their teacher “This activity fosters critical thinking and quick decision making”, Harmer affirmed the strength of discussion in his book In this activity, students also learn how to negotiate with the others by justifying themselves in a polite way when their idea is different from the other groups Also according to Harmer, students should always be encouraged to ask questions, support their partners or check for clarification
Problem solving and decision making
Problem solving and decision making help the students to develop their critical thinking and creativity As a matter of fact, to solve the situations or problems given by the teacher, the students cooperate with their partners within a limited period of time to find out the appropriate solutions As for this activity, small teams of 3-4 students should be formed to quickly solve the given problem, especially the challenging ones The team members may have different solutions; however, they will negotiate with one another to find out the best one
It is obvious that games are the best choice to motivate the students, especially in the speaking lesson Teachers often use games in the lead-in part to lead their students to the topic quickly and effectively Students themselves are in favor of these activities as they do not have to endure any pressure during the lesson There are some common kinds of games such as crosswords, gap fillings, jumbled words or matching, etc However, a game should not take so much time, in fact, 5-10 minutes is enough for each because the time for each speaking period is ranging from 40- to 50 minutes
The rest of the time should be spent on the other activities as well
In Harmer’s study, he clarified that role-play is a situation in which students pretend they are in "various social contexts" and have a variety of social roles In these activities, teachers provide students with such information as who they are and what they think or feel For example, teachers assign each student a role; “You are a hotel receptionist and you are a customer ….” It can be seen that students gain much from taking part in this activity Moreover, role play is also a kind of entertainment which makes them feel relaxed and find themselves more creative What is more, they have an opportunity to practice English speaking, particularly improve their vocabulary and pronunciation Familiar situations could be assigned in class in the form of teamwork However, for complicated ones, it is better to give the students enough time to do their rehearsal, probably at home to save time
Stimulations are somewhat similar to role-play; however, the realistic environment created in these activities makes stimulations different from role- play In stimulations, students bring their prepared items to class to create their own situation, i.e., a student who is going to act as a singer can bring a microphone and music player, or even put on their make-ups to perform before the whole class It was stated in Harmer’s book that these activities increase the hesitant students’ self-confidence and entertain the whole class
In fact, the more natural the students’ performances are, the more successful the speaking lesson is
In this activity, it is suggested that students should work in pairs To make it clearer, one student owns the information that the other does not have and two members in each pair will share or exchange their information
However, teachers should promote their students to use the target language when they exchange information If so, everyone has the opportunity to talk extensively in English when they try to negotiate with each other
With the aim of activating students’ critical thinking, teachers give a topic or a situation for small groups of students to produce ideas in a limited time In this activity, students can freely share their new ideas with one another and then they negotiate to give out the best ideas to present before the class
Brainstorming fosters students’ critical thinking whereas storytelling helps foster their creative thinking Teachers provide their students with a series of pictures and ask them to invent a story based on the main episodes or details presented in each picture Thanks to this, students can create different interesting and surprising details to make their story fascinating based on their imagination It is recommended that this activity should be organized as a competition in which every group of students tries to win the prize This, with no doubt, plays such an important role in motivating students as everyone wants to become the champion and to be appreciated by their teacher
Students should work in pairs or in teams of three or four to carry out this task In this activity, teachers will provide their students with a list of topics based on the theme and content presented in the textbook Each team will choose one topic to conduct their interview in which one student is the interviewer and the other(s) will be the interviewee(s) They have to prepare questions for the interview and try to answer them in a given period of time
After discussing, each group will be asked to present their products to the class This kind of oral activity gives students a chance to practice their speaking skills, hence, develop their competence
Each team of students is assigned with their task that they should carry out at home The task is reading a newspaper or magazine at home and trying to summarize its content in their own words After that, the representative of each team will be called to present their shared report in front of the whole class Besides, the other members can support their partner during the performance To motivate the students, teachers may allow them to talk about their own experience, which is also called “reporting”
Presentations and reports are ways of communicating ideas and information to the others However, unlike a report, a presentation carries the speaker’s personality better and allows the immediate interactions among the participants Additionally, a presentation is longer and requires more preparations for the content before it is delivered to the audience In order to make a good presentation, the students need time to prepare and rehearse at home before the class time What is more, the teacher should ask their students to work in teams so that they can support each other in their preparations as well as their performance before the class
Teamwork in English learning and teaching
In English Teaching Methodology (ELT), the terms "pair work" and
"group work" become so common nowadays among language teachers and learners since it is one of the features of CLT and also proved to contribute to the great effectiveness of a speaking lesson However, this study does not attempt to adopt these terms because working in groups and working in teams are not the same thing According to Harmer (2001, p.116), students working in pairs or groups can "veer away from the point of an exercise" and spend their time on private talks In fact, the reason for this problem is the lack of responsibility among group members because there seems to be no thread holding them together At this time, pair work and group work are not concerned about members' collaboration
In contrast, teamwork guarantees the optimum contribution of each member to the shared result of the whole team Thus, teamwork-based learning is called Interactive and Cooperative learning which is also familiar to students and teachers in the light of CLT This research would adopt the theories of David and Rodger Johnson (2001) on cooperative & Interactive learning
Cooperative learning is simply working together to accomplish shared goals In cooperative activities, students reach for the outcomes that are beneficial to themselves and to all other members Using teamwork activities is the instructional use of small groups in which students cooperate to maximize each other’s learning effectiveness More specifically, cooperative efforts result in participants "striving for mutual benefits", or all the team members gain from each other’s efforts This is the activity in which “we all sink or swim together here” (David & Johnson Rodger, 2001, p384) It is very clear to see that one’s performance is mutually caused by oneself and one’s colleagues
In this theory, there is a "positive interdependence" among students’ goal attainments in cooperative learning situations (page 384) The students perceive that when the other students in the learning group also fulfill their goals, it means individuals themselves can achieve their goals In fact, it is quite essential to distinguish cooperative learning from competitive or individual learning Competitive learning environment refers to a student who works against each other to attain his/her own success of being the winner
Therefore, there is a negative interdependence among goal achievements
Another learning environment is called individual learning In this type of learning, students work alone to accomplish the goals regardless of their peers' goals, hence, their achievements are independent
In complete contrast with the two learning situations mentioned above, cooperative learning brings out the benefits for every learner
David and Johnson Rodger (2001) pointed out that cooperation typically results in higher achievement and greater productivity; more caring, supportive, and committed relationships; and greater psychological health, social competence, and self-esteem It is true that the goal achievement in cooperative learning is shared among students, which means that the success or failure of this member is the others’
Below is the summary of cooperative learning given by David and Johnson Rodger:
Cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject Each member of a team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement Students work through the assignment until all group members successfully understand and complete it
Cooperative learning efforts result in participants striving for mutual benefit so that all group members:
Gain from each other’s efforts (Your success benefits me and my success benefits you)
Recognize that all group members share a common fate (We all sink or swim together here)
Know that one’s performance is mutually caused by oneself and one’s team members (We cannot do it without you)
Feel proud and jointly celebrate when a group member is recognized for achievement (We all congratulate you on your accomplishment)
These authors also provided the following elements of cooperative learning to be set as the criteria to achieve a productive cooperative lesson
(sink or swim together here)
- Each group member’s efforts are required and indispensable for group success
- Each group member has a unique contribution to make to the joint effort because of his/her resources and/or role and task responsibilities
- Orally explaining how to solve the problems
- Teaching one’s knowledge to other
- Connecting present with past learning
(No hitchhiking, no social loafing)
- Keeping the size of the group small The smaller the size of the group, the greater the individual accountability may be
- Giving an individual test to each student
- Randomly examining students orally by calling on one student to present his/her group’s work to the teacher (in the presence of the group) or to the entire class
- Observing each group and recording the frequency with which each member contributes to the group’s work
- Assigning one student in each group with the role of checker The checker asks other group members to explain the reasoning and rationale underlying group answers
- Having students teach what they learned to someone else
(Social skills must be taught)
- Group members discuss how well they are achieving their goals and maintaining effective working relationships
- Describe what member actions are helpful and not helpful
- Make decisions about what behaviors to continue or change
(Chart summarized by David & Johnson Rodger, 2001, pp 385-389)
In brief, it is proved that cooperative learning environment promotes the learners to develop their communicative competence easily and quickly in the light of CLT
Ways to divide the whole class into small teams Groupinging students by interests
Teachers can allow those who are interested in the same topic to work together By working in this way, do they easily motivate their students to show their real interest in the chosen topic It is vital that teachers give out a list of different topics related to the lesson so that the students have more chances to choose and then form a team of the same interest However, the teachers should notice that in some cases, there are so many students sharing the same interest, which makes it difficult to group them To solve this problem, the teachers should ask their students to form small teams of three or four or even five, there can be different ones of the same interest
Grouping students by different abilities
The fact that students can assist each other to achieve their learning goals is the aim of this method A team of different abilities involves excellent students, good ones as well as slow ones In each activity, these students work together to complete their task, hence, students of advanced level will help those of the lower one to improve their English speaking For example, when this one does not know how to express his or her idea in English, the other ones can help him or her and gradually, this one’s ability of using English will be much developed
To save time in class, teachers tend to group the students sitting next to each other to form a team These students know and understand each other much better than those who sit far from them, therefore, they can easily form a strong team by cooperating tightly with each other to complete the assigned task
This is the most common way of grouping as it is considered to be fair among students Random student groupings can be done by having students count off, pair up or cast lots There will be no change and no argument when this method is used
What “team” means is more than one; this is to say ones gather together to share their ideas or to solve problems According to Jacobs and Hall
(1994), even two people can form a team; however, how many people in a team should be the best? Also according to Jacobs and Hall, the smaller the team is, the more each member talks and the less chance that someone will be left out Additionally, as for smaller teams, all the members can be easily controlled or they require fewer management skills and decisions can be made faster with a few ideas from the members
In his action research (1996), William Pellowe affirmed that activities for teams of two members or pair work activities are an integral aspect of many teachers’ approach to language teaching He noted that “pair” refers to teams of 2 or 3 (as for classes of odd numbers of students, there must be a team of three)
Likewise, according to Jaques (2000, pp.52-53), doing a small team activity is one way to “change the pace” in the classroom The aim of this division is to generate ideas, increase students’ confidence in their answers, and encourage broad participation in a plenary session By using this strategy, the students have a chance to “validate” their ideas in pairs before sharing the ideas with the whole class (Jaques, 2000) Hence, shy students will feel more confident to participate in activities
Teams of three, four or five
When students face a challenging task, it is necessary that they need more help from others In this case, pair work is not a good idea; instead, the size of teams should be bigger with three, four or five members The team leader will be responsible for dividing tasks for each member, at the same time they will do their tasks and then the leader collects all the results to make the product of the whole team
Larger teams of more than five
In Jacobs’ opinion, larger teams are the best choice for doing big tasks as they “increase the variety of people” in a team in terms of skills, personalities, backgrounds and so on Larger ones also reduce the number of teams, which makes it easier for the teacher to monitor
Methodology
Participants
ISP, established in 2011, is a program at VNU for non-major English learners who need to cover a one-year course to achieve band 6.0 of IELTS
The program includes five mini-semesters and this target needs to be fulfilled in the last semester In fact, this study focused on the investigation into the second semester with three groups of students at pre-intermediate level namely ISP8, ISP9, and ISP10 with 25 students per class on average In other words, the total number of student participants was 75 These students were required to pass the Key English Test with the overall result of target 5 in the
10 scale The KET speaking test, in particular, was designed in the form of an interview and role-play in accordance with certain situations More clearly, each candidate would be given a card in which their role was assigned and they need to make a conversation with the examiner within 3-4 minutes The speaking mark made up 20% of the overall result
To build up a strong foundation for all the students of this level, the syllabus stated the required course books namely New English File, Pre- intermediate by Clive Oxenden and Christina Latham-Koenig and Let's talk 2 by Leo Jones, second edition as well as supplementaries
The survey also included five interviews with 5 teachers being in charge of the speaking lessons as they helped provide detailed information about the use of teamwork in the chosen ISP groups.
Data collecting instruments
The aim of using this instrument is to survey a large number of students within a short time In the designed questionnaires, both closed-ended and open-ended questionnaire items were used (see appendix 1) The data collection included three phases namely piloting, delivering questionnaires, and collecting data
In phase 1, five motivated people were chosen to complete the questionnaire before the real survey so that if any misunderstandings raised, they would be corrected at once In phase 2, 75 printed questionnaires were delivered to ISP students at their break time and finally, after 15 minutes, these items were collected to aid the analysis procedure
In this study, all the questions and instructions were written in simple English and designed in two types of questions namely closed-ended and open-ended questions As for the open-ended questions, the participants write their answers in the space of the questionnaire papers More broadly speaking, the questionnaire contained three types of questions namely factual, behavioral and attitudinal The Factual questions covered the information of the participants’ age, gender, and years of studying English in part 1 at the beginning of the survey questionnaire The Attitudinal questions focused on the participants’ opinions or thoughts about cooperative learning and the teamwork activities used in their speaking lessons These questions were questions three, ten, eleven and fifteen The Behavioral questions were used to find out the respondents’ experience in their group speaking In this study, the researcher used a lot of behavioral questions (the other 11 questions were behavioral questions) to investigate what the respondents did in their speaking lesson
Interviewing helps the researcher directly find out specific information about the current teamwork activities in speaking lessons Five semi- structured interviews were carried out with five chosen teachers of English with the aid of the prepared recorders and notes with their permission During the interviews, Vietnamese was used to avoid misunderstandings and to save time
Class observation With the aim of enhancing the reliability and the validity of the study, the researcher fully focused on the class observations Before observing, the researcher created a list of the observation items to help get the answers to the research questions The speaking lessons of three chosen groups were observed with their teachers’ permission Cameras or recorders were not used to avoid the participants’ distraction Instead, notes were used to “record” the lessons based on the observation scheme or checklist prepared in advance.
Data analysis
In this study, descriptive statistics was used to describe the basic features of the collected data by presenting quantitative items in a manageable form (according to William M.K Trochim, the research methods knowledge base (2006)) ii Data analysis procedure
Firstly, the researcher created pie and bar charts for analysis In this step, descriptive statistics was exploited to analyze the collected data to find the answers to the research questions Secondly, the answers to closed-ended questions were categorized into groups Lastly, open-ended items as well as the data collected from interviews, and observations were analyzed based on the interpretive framework incorporating the objectives of the study To sum up, the aim of these steps was to find out the reliable answers to the research questions of this study.
Results and discussions
Working in teams
2.1 Grouping students to form a team
The charts above show the ways to group the ISP students and the size of each team at this division
It can be seen from figure 4 that there were three main ways to gather the students All the teachers could ask the students sitting next to each other to form a team; or they could group the excellent students with the lower leveled ones or they can form small teams at random The way of grouping students with different abilities accounted for only 25%, which was one- fourth of the others
The interviewed teachers reported that it was much more convenient to group the students randomly or with the ones sitting nearby because it helped save a lot of time Also, this grouping method helped the whole class under control when no one needed to change their seats Grouping students with different abilities could bring them a lot of benefits as the excellent students could help their weak peers during their teamwork It also helped the whole team to complete the task more quickly However, this way took too much time to carry out, and it was not easy for novice teachers to control the noise of the students' changing their seats
Figure 5 presents the number of students in each team It shows that all the students were asked to work in pairs or in small teams of 3-4 in their speaking lessons (working in pairs and in teams of 3-4 both accounted for 100%) In addition, teams of 5-6 accounted for 59.3% and 0% for “the whole class”
According to the teachers, at ISP, there were no more than 25 students in each class; therefore, organizing activities for pairs and small teams of 3-4 was common Besides, they affirmed that working in teams of 2-4 kept the whole class under control The bigger ones of 5-6 or more were used for more challenging tasks which required the students to complete within the limited time
2.2 The problems in using teamwork activities
As can be seen from figure 6 above, the most notable problems of teamwork involved loose cooperation among team members, not good English and difficult tasks More specifically, 84.7% of the students did not use English well; 82.2% of them agreed that team members did not cooperate tightly with their partners; and 61.4% claimed that the activities organized by their teachers were not exciting enough All these problems contributed to the
The researcher’s observations also showed that the students’ ability to use English was not good enough during the speaking lesson, especially in group ISP10 A large number of the students even did not understand their teacher’s instructions in English; therefore, they could not complete their tasks successfully The interviewed teachers also said that their students hardly ever used English during their teamwork Instead, they often used Vietnamese and then translated into English, which wasted too much time
When presenting the shared result, they also found it so hard to express their ideas in English As a result, they were lack of confidence in representing their team to deliver the shared ideas before the whole class They even mixed English with Vietnamese in their presentation when being unable to find suitable English words to express the ideas
As for the cooperation among the students, it is true that boys were not as cooperative as girls in a team As it was observed, in group ISP8, there were more boys than girls; thus, the teachers had difficulties in controlling their students' teamwork, especially due to the constant big noise in Vietnamese coming from the boy students In addition, the students were not active in their teamwork when their English lesson was in the last period of the school day because then they felt exhausted, even bored and unable to concentrate on their task
Another problem facing the students was the task's level of difficulty
The interviews revealed that such tasks on vocabulary as finding the missing words or word formation or idioms were not only difficult but also boring
Besides, within such a short period of time, they could not finish their task; as a result, the teacher had to give out the key quickly to save time
2.3 Ways to motivate and control the whole class during the lesson
Based on the students' behavior in class, the teachers worked on effective ways to motivate all of them to get involved in teamwork activities
Students’ behavior during the lesson
The chart illustrating the result of question 12 in the questionnaire revealed that 79% of the students cooperated with their friends to complete the given task; only 5% of them often read story books and 47% chatted with friends
According to the teachers, in speaking lessons, the students were very supportive and cooperative with their partners In fact, the teachers did not put so much pressure on their students during the lesson, which made them feel comfortable and motivated However, a large number of students, especially the boys did not follow their teachers’ instructions What is more, their English was not good enough to communicate with the others in teamwork activities
The results collected in the observations revealed that most of the ISP students made great contribution to their teamwork although a few of them felt exhausted and neglected their shared work in a team
As can be seen from figure 8, the teachers at ISP often motivated their students to take part in teamwork activities by using interesting games (84.7%), organizing competitions (83.9%), giving them gifts (73.7%), and using visual aids (74%) Surprisingly, giving high marks was not used as a motivation As a matter of fact, the teachers told that at ISP, the students' participation in class was not included in the assessment frame, in other words, only the students' performance in their exams was assessed as their final result
According to the teachers, a successful lead-in with clear visual aids helped motivate the students and made them understand the topic of the lesson As it was observed, the teachers also organized competitions among teams so that the students could show their optimum speaking competence and every single member tried to cooperate with their partners in order to win the contest
It is also true that the students were motivated by small gifts, especially in games However, three out of five teachers affirmed that giving small gifts made the whole class too noisy, hence, it would be hard for them to control the whole class
Figure 9 revealed the ways the teachers used to control the big noise coming from the students’ private talks in Vietnamese during their teamwork
It clearly shows that giving punishment accounted for 84.7%, assigning team leaders accounted for 55.1%, and 30% for giving low marks
It was shared among the teachers that the “noisy” and lazy students who distracted the other members were punished strictly by reporting their bad behavior to their head teachers As for the stubborn ones, the teachers even asked them to stay for face to face talks This solution was the most common one, though, not hard enough at ISP The teachers also punished their students by giving them low marks in the class assessment notebook, then they would not be rewarded at the end of the semester
Conclusion
These above findings set the basis for the reseacher to suggest some recommendations for both the ISP students and teachers of English in using teamwork activities more effectively in their English speaking lessons.
Recommendations
Summary
In brief, it has been proved that exploiting teamwork activities as a main technique in teaching speaking could benefit both the teachers and learners In the light of CLT, the learners are given more chances to communicate in the target language as much as they can By working in small teams even within a short time, can every individual easily acquire the communicative goal thanks to the interaction with their friends The success of a cooperative learning lesson depends much on the kinds of activities designed by teachers as well as the way they are organized, in other words, the approach they use Therefore, irresponsible teachers cannot help foster their students to speak English in class This is to say that although students are considered to be the center of the lesson as stated in the theory of CLT, the teachers’ role is still a focus
In this study, the researcher desired to find out the teamwork activities that were appropriate for ISP students at VNU Obviously, there were various teamwork activities which seemed interesting and effective; however, not all of them were suitable for students’ level as well as the circumstances
Another purpose of this study was to find out the effective ways to organize teamwork to foster the learners’ use of English as much as possible With these findings, this study was expected to benefit the students and teachers in learning and teaching English at ISP
This chapter addresses the participants of the survey and the research instruments including questionnaires, interviews, and class observations
ISP, established in 2011, is a program at VNU for non-major English learners who need to cover a one-year course to achieve band 6.0 of IELTS
The program includes five mini-semesters and this target needs to be fulfilled in the last semester In fact, this study focused on the investigation into the second semester with three groups of students at pre-intermediate level namely ISP8, ISP9, and ISP10 with 25 students per class on average In other words, the total number of student participants was 75 These students were required to pass the Key English Test with the overall result of target 5 in the
10 scale The KET speaking test, in particular, was designed in the form of an interview and role-play in accordance with certain situations More clearly, each candidate would be given a card in which their role was assigned and they need to make a conversation with the examiner within 3-4 minutes The speaking mark made up 20% of the overall result
To build up a strong foundation for all the students of this level, the syllabus stated the required course books namely New English File, Pre- intermediate by Clive Oxenden and Christina Latham-Koenig and Let's talk 2 by Leo Jones, second edition as well as supplementaries
The survey also included five interviews with 5 teachers being in charge of the speaking lessons as they helped provide detailed information about the use of teamwork in the chosen ISP groups
The aim of using this instrument is to survey a large number of students within a short time In the designed questionnaires, both closed-ended and open-ended questionnaire items were used (see appendix 1) The data collection included three phases namely piloting, delivering questionnaires, and collecting data
In phase 1, five motivated people were chosen to complete the questionnaire before the real survey so that if any misunderstandings raised, they would be corrected at once In phase 2, 75 printed questionnaires were delivered to ISP students at their break time and finally, after 15 minutes, these items were collected to aid the analysis procedure
In this study, all the questions and instructions were written in simple English and designed in two types of questions namely closed-ended and open-ended questions As for the open-ended questions, the participants write their answers in the space of the questionnaire papers More broadly speaking, the questionnaire contained three types of questions namely factual, behavioral and attitudinal The Factual questions covered the information of the participants’ age, gender, and years of studying English in part 1 at the beginning of the survey questionnaire The Attitudinal questions focused on the participants’ opinions or thoughts about cooperative learning and the teamwork activities used in their speaking lessons These questions were questions three, ten, eleven and fifteen The Behavioral questions were used to find out the respondents’ experience in their group speaking In this study, the researcher used a lot of behavioral questions (the other 11 questions were behavioral questions) to investigate what the respondents did in their speaking lesson
Interviewing helps the researcher directly find out specific information about the current teamwork activities in speaking lessons Five semi- structured interviews were carried out with five chosen teachers of English with the aid of the prepared recorders and notes with their permission During the interviews, Vietnamese was used to avoid misunderstandings and to save time
Class observation With the aim of enhancing the reliability and the validity of the study, the researcher fully focused on the class observations Before observing, the researcher created a list of the observation items to help get the answers to the research questions The speaking lessons of three chosen groups were observed with their teachers’ permission Cameras or recorders were not used to avoid the participants’ distraction Instead, notes were used to “record” the lessons based on the observation scheme or checklist prepared in advance
3 Data analysis i Data analysis methods
In this study, descriptive statistics was used to describe the basic features of the collected data by presenting quantitative items in a manageable form (according to William M.K Trochim, the research methods knowledge base (2006)) ii Data analysis procedure
Firstly, the researcher created pie and bar charts for analysis In this step, descriptive statistics was exploited to analyze the collected data to find the answers to the research questions Secondly, the answers to closed-ended questions were categorized into groups Lastly, open-ended items as well as the data collected from interviews, and observations were analyzed based on the interpretive framework incorporating the objectives of the study To sum up, the aim of these steps was to find out the reliable answers to the research questions of this study
This chapter aims at providing the results and comments on the qualitative and quantitative data collected from questionnaires, interviews, and class observations These data revealed the facts of using teamwork activities in English speaking lessons at ISP, VNU via the pie and bar charts exploited to present the results
1 The use of teamwork activities in Enlgish speaking lessons at ISP,
Conclusion
Summary of the study
Based on the analysis and discussions of the collected data from questionnaires, interviews, and class observation, the researcher found out satisfactory answers to the research questions as follows
First of all, teamwork activities were widely used and exploited in the English speaking lessons at ISP, VNU with such major activities as games, problem-solving, role plays, and discussions Games, role plays and problem- solving were used quite frequently in the English speaking classes
Secondly, the surveys revealed that a majority of the students were interested in games, role-plays and problem-solving whereas discussions tended to distract them from the lesson It was confirmed that the games carefully prepared and organized by the teachers in the lead-in part strongly motivated the students to participate actively in the lesson As for storytellings, they expected that the teacher would assign them with more tasks as these activities could contribute to their vocabulary build-up
Thirdly, it was found that both the teachers and students gained a lot of benefits from teamwork activities, however, they also had to face a lot of problems during the speaking lesson On one hand, instead of controlling and paying attention to all the students individually during the lesson, the teachers only supervised small teams of students and gave them the instructions if necessary As for the students themselves, acquiring better English was undeniable; moreover, they did not feel stressed during the teamwork because there was less pressure on them On the other hand, there were a lot of problems coming from teamwork that needed to be solved The most common problem was troublesome noise coming from the private talks in Vietnamese mostly by boys To solve this problem, the teachers gave punishment, for example, giving low marks or reporting to their head teachers or assigning leaders to help them keep their whole team organized and attentive to the task
The other problem was the students’ English proficiency The collected data revealed that it was so hard for them to find suitable English words to express their ideas; therefore, they used a lot of Vietnamese during the teamwork or they often asked their teachers for suggestions In fact, the teacher himself helped the learners to enrich their vocabulary by asking them to study more words at home or encouraging them to learn vocabulary in teams so that the excellent students can assist the lower leveled ones
Last but not least, a set of recommendations were given in chapter 5 for the participants at ISP based on the previous chapter – results and discussions
As for the teachers, they should choose the interesting teamwork activities which were suitable for the students’ level It was also recommended that they should gather the students of mixed level so that the better can help the weaker ones The teachers should also find the best ways to motivate their students, i.e, using games, giving compliments or gifts Meanwhile, they should solve the problems coming from teamwork so that the speaking lesson became more effective As for the students, it was recommended that they should practice to improve their English skill as well as tightly cooperate with their friends to acquire a higher English level.
Contributions and limitations of the study
With the analysis and discussions of the collected data and some recommendations presented in chapter 4 and 5, this study is expected to benefit the ISP students and teachers at VNU in exploiting teamwork activities effectively in the English speaking lessons It can also be useful for teaching and learning the other skills namely listening, reading and writing
Besides, it is believed that other tertiary students and teachers with the same condition in Vietnam can consider these recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of the speaking lesson More broadly, it can be applied to the language learners in general in Vietnam, not only the tertiary students The researcher hopes that the students’ communicative competence will be developed thanks to teamwork activities designed and organized by their teacher Furthermore, this study can be a reliable reference for further studies on this matter In fact, the review of the related studies and this research’s findings are both reliable and valid thanks to the researcher’s enthusiasm and hard work
This study still has two remarkable limitations in spite of the researcher’s great effort during the process of carrying out this research
Firstly, in terms of the scope of the study, the number of the participants is limited to 75 ISP students and five teachers of English at this division Therefore, the scope of this study is not of large scale and it is only applied to the participants of ISP, VNU and some colleges with the same conditions in Vietnam What is more, this thesis was carried out in the English speaking lessons, thus, it cannot be applied in the other English classes on the whole
Secondly, due to the shortage of time, the researcher carried out only five class observations at ISP, VNU As a result, there is a limitation in the reliability and validity of the study
It is expected that these limitations can be improved and overcome in further studies.
Suggestions for further studies
Although the use of teamwork has been investigated in numerous previous studies, there is still a big gap that needs to be filled For example, the research can be carried out with a larger number of participants from various colleges in Vietnam In other words, the later researchers can expand the scope of their studies to a larger scale For example, they might investigate teamwork activities in English classes of all four skills What is more, later researchers should manage their time better so that they can enhance the reliability and validity of the researches by carrying out more observations as well as experimental teaching lessons
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English and Communication Vol II
Researcher : Nguyen Thi Phuc Organization : Hanoi University of Languages & International Studies
This survey questionnaire is designed with the aim of getting necessary information for my study “ The use of teamwork activities in English speaking lessons at International Standard Program (ISP), Vietnam National University, Hanoi ” It is certain that there are no right or wrong answers, so please answer these questions in your own opinion I also assure that you will not be identified in the discussion of any data Thank you for your cooperation
Please fill in the blanks or put a tick (V) next to your choice
Your group: ISP _ Your sex: Male Female
Your age: Your years of learning English: _years
Please circle the choice for each question You can circle more than one Please write your answer in the provided space for other choices and question 15
1 How often are teamwork activities used in your English speaking lessons?
2 Which teamwork activities are often used in your speaking lessons?
3 In your opinion, which activities are interesting?
4 Which materials does your teacher use for the speaking lessons?
5 Which materials are interesting and useful?
6 How do you get the ideas and vocabulary for your speaking activities?
A Use the information in the textbook B Use the background knowledge
C Brainstorm ideas in teams D Others
7 How is a team formed in your class?
A Students sitting next to each other B Students with the same interests
C Students with different ability D Random groupings
8 In speaking lessons, you often work in _
A teams of 2 members B teams of 3-4
C teams of 5-6 D the whole class
9 How much time is spent on each teamwork activity?
A 2-5 minutes B 5-10 minutes C More than 10 minutes
10 What are the problems of working in a team?
A The other members do not cooperate
B There is not enough time
C The activities are not interesting
11 What are the good things of using teamwork activities in speaking lessons?
A Students are motivated B Good students can help the others
C Students’ speaking skill is much improved D Others _
12 What do you often do in speaking lessons?
C Cooperating with partners D Reading storybooks
13 What does your teacher do to encourage you to work in a team?
A Using interesting games B Giving you gifts
C Giving you high marks D Organizing competitions
E Using visual aids (pictures, videos, …) F Others
14 What does your teacher do to control the class’s noise?
A Assigning teams leaders to control others B Giving punishment
15 What should we do to make teamwork activities better in a speaking lesson?
THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS!
Observer’s name: Nguyễn Thị Phúc Group: ISP _
Date: _/ /2010 Name of the lesson: _
Criteria Names and details Comments and Notes Teachers' problems
Students' attitudes towards teamwork activities
Students' use of target language
T: Good morning R: I am postgradate from Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies
Would you mind if I asked you some questions?
R: Thank you How long have you been teaching at this school?
T: …er nearly five years At first I taught at the division of engineering and technology for two years and for the last three years, I've been teaching at ISP division and I really love my job here The students are placed into two different groups namely higher level and lower level
R: Well, I'm conducting a research on the use of teamwork activities in the English speaking lessons for lower level students Can you tell me exactly which level are they?
T: Well, most of them can communicate in basic English because their vocabulary is not rich And so, they are of the pre-intermediate level
R: So, they seldom use English in the speaking lesson, right?
T: Not really They still use English because they are provided with the necessary vocabulary in the coursebook But they cannot communicate with their partners totally in English as they can’t find the suitable words to express their ideas
R: Uh huh Ah, do you often use teamwork activities in the speaking lessons?
T: Of course, it is required in any lesson, not only speaking
R: And what activities do you often use for speaking?
T: …er games, storytelling, problem-solving, discussions, role-plays, gap fillings R: Which one interests the students most?
T: Of course games, role play and storytelling And they don’t seem to concentrate on discussions Perhaps they are too boring
R: How do you organize role-plays for the students?
T: The students work in pairs or in groups of three to practice the dialogue provided in the book R: Oh, so you don’t ask them to design their own conversations to act?
T: Ah, yes but this takes so much time for preparations So, normally we assign them to be done at home with the given topics
R: I see Can you tell me how you group your students?
T: The students sitting next to each other will work with each other They can work in pairs or small groups of 3-4
R: Is there any problem during the group work?
T: (laughing) Of course yes The students make troublesome noise and do other things without concentrating on their task
R: How do you control this noise?
T: Well, teachers must be strict during the lesson The troublesome students will be criticized or even punished In some case, I ask them to stay after school for private talks
R: Uh huh What about motivations? What do you do to motivate them to speak English and cooperate with their partners?
T: The students like good marks and of course, they are scared of bad ones But unfortunately, their participation in class is not a criteria of overall assessment So, I often give them gifts and design competitions for them
R: Quite interesting And the last question Which materials do you use in the speaking lesson?
T: As for speaking, pictures must be prepared in advance and other kinds of visual aids like PowerPoint I also use references like newspapers or magazines to motivate them
R: Thanks so much for your help Good luck to you
R: I am a postgraduate at Hanoi University of Languages & International Studies
I’m carrying out my research on teamwork activities Would you mind if I asked you some questions?
R: Thanks How long have been teaching here at ISP division?
T: Three years but I've been teaching in VNU for four years I spent my first year teaching at the division of Social Sciences and Humanity
R: Can you tell me what teamwork activities you often use in the English speaking lesson?
T: Well, games, role-play, discussions, storytelling, and problem-solving
R: Which activities are your students interested in most?
T: Oh, games and role-play are their favorite activities
R: Can you tell me more about these activities?
T: As for games, I often use visual aids such as pictures or PowerPoint, so they are quite interested
R: And what about role-play? Do you motivate them to act their role?
T: Yes But there is not much time for s speaking lesson, so I often ask them to act a short conversation to practice pronunciation
R: Uh huh Have you ever asked them to create their own long conversations and then perform them in class?
T: Yes, once, ah twice exactly
R: What do they think about that?
T: They are quite excited because they can get more fun and no one feels stressed
R: Uh huh How about groups of students? How do you group them?
T: I often group the ones sitting next to each other or sometimes group them with mixed abilities so that they can assist each other
R: Do you students concentrate on their task?
T: Not really They often chat, read magazines or even sleep in class, especially boys Of course there are some of them working seriously
R: Oh, really? And do they use English to communicate in your lesson?
T: Not all of them They can use only basic English, you know So, communicating totally in English is impossible
R: So what do you do to motivate them to speak English as well as cooperate with their partners?
T: (Laughing) Just give them compliments and special gifts at the end of the semester
R: Uh huh And the last question What do you do to control the troublesome noise during their group work?
T: Of course, criticizing them or giving them hard punishment
R: Thanks so much for your help
R: I’m a senior student from HULIS I’m carrying out my research May I ask you some questions?
R: Thanks How long have you been teaching here?
T: …er seven years R: Uh huh Do you often use teamwork activities in the speaking lesson?
T: Of course yes It is required in here
R: Ah hah So can you tell me what activities do you often use in these lessons?
T: Games, discussions, storytelling, and problem solving
R: can you tell me more about these activities? Which ones are the students interested in?
T: I often use games in the lead-in part of the lesson to lead them to the topic
Games are their favorite activities Storytelling also interests them a lot You know, they are interested in the pictures I provide and the stories they invent are quite interesting But they do not concentrate on discussions or problem solving
R: What do you do to motivate them?
T: I often give them compliments, high marks or gifts
R: Ah hah Do the students use English when working in groups?
T: They often use Vietnamese and then translate into English because it is hard for them to communicate totally in English
R: Oh, the break time is nearly over May I ask you one more question?
R: What do you do to control the troublesome makers, for example the noise makers in the speaking lesson?
T: Ah, Just give them low marks Sometimes I ask to meet them or even their parents after school
R: So many thanks for your help Goodbye T: Goodbye
R: I’m a postgraduate at HULIS I’m carrying out my research on teamwork activities May I ask you some questions?
T: Of course You are welcome
R: Do you often use teamwork activities in the speaking lessons?
R: Can you tell me what they are?
T: Games, problem solving, discussions and role-plays
R: Which ones interest the student most?
T: Games and role-plays Discussions and problem-solving seem so boring to them
R: How do you organize games and role-plays?
T: Games are used at the beginning of the lesson for about 5 to 10 minutes Role- play is quite simple The students act the conversation provided in the book to improve pronunciation Sometimes I ask them to work with their partners at home to invent a situation and perform in class
R: Oh, quite interesting What do they think about it?
T: They are quite excited because they can get more fun
R: How do you group your students?
T: Well, by random groupings That’s fair among them
R: Uh huh What do you do to motivate your students to speak English and work with their peers?
T: Almost every teacher gives them high marks and compliments I also give them gifts for their achievements
R: What about the noise? Is your speaking class too noisy with private talks in Vietnamese?
T: Of course yes I often point out group leaders and ask them to control their own group
R: So many thanks for your great help Goodbye
R: I’m a postgraduate from HULIS, VNU I’m carrying out a research on teamwork activities Is that ok if I ask you some questions?
R: How long have you been teaching in here?
T: er, nine years But I've been teaching at ISP for only three years
R: Oh, quite long What teamwork activities do you use for speaking lessons?
T: Games, discussions, role-plays and problem solving
R: Can you tell me more about these? Are they interesting to the students?
T: Yes, except for discussions They seem to be so boring
R: Uh huh What about the others? How do you organize them?
T: I use a lot of games in my lesson to motivate the students Problem solving is rarely used as it makes them distracted when it is too challenging
R: Oh really? And role-plays?
T: It is simple The students are asked to act short conversations given in the book just for improving their pronunciation
R: Uh huh And how do you group your students?
T: The ones sitting next to each other will be a pair or small groups They can easily exchange information
R: Yeah And how much English do they use in your lesson?
T: They use both English and Vietnamese and Vietnamese is quite often They cannot express their ideas in English
R: Right What do you do to motivate them?
T: You see, I give them good marks, gifts and compliments
R: Ah hah And the last question What do you do to control the class during their group work?
T: I threaten to give them low marks in participation or even report their misbehaviors to their form teachers (laughing)
R: Oh really? Thanks so much for your help Good luck!