VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THU HUYỀN A STUDY ON THE TEACHER’S ROLES IN GROUP WORK IN COMMUN[.]
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES - - NGUYỄN THỊ THU HUYỀN A STUDY ON THE TEACHER’S ROLES IN GROUP WORK IN COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING AT PHUC THO HIGH SCHOOL,HANOI (Nghiên cứu vai trò giáo viên hoạt động nhóm lớp học giao tiếp trường THPT Phúc Thọ, Hà Nội ) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi - 2016 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES - - NGUYỄN THỊ THU HUYỀN A STUDY ON THE TEACHER’S ROLES IN GROUP WORK IN COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING AT PHUC THO HIGH SCHOOL, HANOI (Nghiên cứu vai trị giáo viên hoạt động nhóm lớp học giao tiếp trường THPT Phúc Thọ, Hà Nội ) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Assoc.Prof Dr Nguyễn Xuân Thơm Hanoi - 2016 DECLARATION I, Nguyen Thi Thu Huyen, declare that this thesis is my own research for the Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or institution Hanoi,2016 Nguyễn Thi Thu Huyề n ̣ i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express special thanks to my supervisor Assoc.Pro.Dr Nguyễn Xuân Thơm for revising my thesis, for his valuable advice, kind and helpful attitude and considerable assistance that he provided me throughout the study I am also greatly indebted to all the lecturers at the Faculty of PostGraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, for their useful lectures which played an important role in the completion of my thesis Finally, I wish to thank all my friends and colleagues for their support during the process of writing this paper ii ABSTRACT One of the techniques of communicative language teaching is group work, which provides a chance for social interaction Group work is one of the possible solutions of the problem how to get all students to speak in language lessons The teachers sometimes have a tendency to interrupt students when they are speaking together during group work activity The students not feel comfortable with the interventions This research was carried out to investigate the roles of teacher and the behaviors of the tenth-grade students to these roles in group work activities in communicative language teaching at Phuc Tho high school, Hanoi The data for this research was collected through the observation of some communicative classes in grade 10 and in the forms of survey questionnaire for the tenth-grade students at Phuc Tho high schoool The findings of the research revealed that the teacher plays most roles in all stages of group work, the students like to work with their friends, arranging weak students and strong students into groups is very helpful, most of the students want to practise speaking English in class without the teacher‟s control, the teacher needs to be sensitive when interrupting group work communication and the teacher should always available and only interrupt students‟ work when they ask for support It is hoped that this thesis will help other teachers of English to make use of their roles appropriately in group work activities, to help students learn best in groups and to take all advantages of the group work under their arrangement iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT: Communicative Language Teaching LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Teacher‟s roles during the activity Interview and Report 24 Table 2: Students‟ behavior in the activity Interview and Report 24 Table 3: Teacher‟s roles during the activity Discussion 26 Table 4: Students‟ behavior in the activity Discussion .26 Table 5: Teacher‟s roles during the activity Verb Review game 28 Table 6: Students‟ behavior in the activity Verb Review Game 28 Table 7: Teacher‟s roles during the activity Picnic Planning 30 Table 8: Students‟ behavior in the activity Picnic Planning .31 Table 9: Teacher‟s roles during the activity Name the Place 33 Table 10: Students‟ behavior in the activity Name the Place 33 Table 11: Teacher‟s roles during the activity Movie Review 35 Table 12: Students‟ behavior in the activity Movie Review .35 Table 13: Teacher‟s roles during the stages of group work activities 1-6 36 Figure 1: The students‟ interest in work arrangement 37 Figure 2: The students‟ preference with the change of the partners 38 Figure 3: The students‟ preference with group formation 39 Figure 4: The students‟ choice of the partners 39 Figure 5: The students‟ preference with the teacher‟s control 40 Figure 6: The students‟ feelings when the teacher corrects all of the mistakes 41 Figure 7: The students‟ choice of the supporter 41 Figure 8: The students‟ preference with speaking English without the teacher‟s control 42 Figure 9: The student‟s interest in the teacher‟s participation 43 Figure 10: Learning by speaking with the partners who make a lot of mistakes 43 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale .1 Aims of the study Significance of the study Research questions .2 Method of the study .2 Scope of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT .5 CHAPTER I – LITERATURE REVIEW .5 I.1 Communicative language teaching (CLT) I.1.1 An overview of communicative language teaching (CLT) I.1.2 Communicative activities I.1.2.1 Definition of communicative activities: .6 I.1.2.2 Types of communicative activities .7 I.2 Group work I.2.1 Definition of group work I.2.2 Difference between group work and pair work I.2.3 The organization of group work I.2.3.1 The formation .9 I.2.3.2 Group size 10 v I.2.3.3 Procedures for group work 11 I.2.4 Advantages and disadvantages of group work 12 I.2.4.1.Advantages of group work 12 I.2.4.2 Disadvantages of group work 14 I.3 The roles of a teacher 14 I.3.1 The roles of teacher during group work 14 I.3.2 Teacher positioning in the classroom .15 CHAPTER II - METHODOLOGY 17 II.1 The setting of the study 17 II.2 Methodology 17 II.2.1 The description of participants and methods 18 II.2.2 Description of the activities .19 II.2.2.1 Activity 1: Interview and Report .19 II.2.2.2 Activity 2: Discussion .20 II.2.2.3 Activity 3: Verb Review Game 21 II.2.2.4 Activity 4: Picnic Planning .21 II.2.2.5 Activity 5: Name the Place 22 II.2.2.6 Activity 6: Movie Review 22 II.2.3 Observations 22 II.2.3.1 Observation 1: Interview and Report 23 II.2.3.2 Observation 2: Discussion 25 II.2.3.3 Observation 3: Verb Review Game 27 II.2.3.4 Observation 4: Picnic Planning 29 II.2.3.5 Observation 5: Name the Place 31 II.2.3.6 Observation 6: Movie Review 34 CHAPTER III – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 36 III.1 Findings from observations 36 III.2 The analyses of the questionnaires for students 37 PART C: CONCLUSION 45 vi I Summary 45 II Concluding remarks 45 III Limitations of the study 46 IV Suggestions for further studies 47 REFERENCES 48 APPENDIXS…………………………………………………………………… .I vii PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale As far as we know, in recent years there have been number of exciting developments in language teaching These developments are sometimes referred to as communicative language teaching (CLT) According to Nolasco and Arthur (1988) a greater emphasis on activities in which students have chance to determine what they want to say independently on the teacher is among the most important features of CLT The problem of getting students to express themselves freely in the foreign language has come to prominence One of the techniques of communicative language teaching is group work, which provides a chance for social interaction Group work is a class management strategy and the role of the teacher has to play while teaching is of a facilitator Teacher‟s role in group work is very difficult and at the same time it is very important role, too Groups of some students can be formed to solve a problem or pose a question The teacher can organize these groups at any time in a class of any size to check on the students‟ understanding of the material, to give students an opportunity to apply what they are learning, or to provide a change of pace I have chosen the topic of group work for my thesis since it is one of the possible solutions of the problem how to get all students to speak in language lessons I often use this way of interaction in my teaching, but I sometimes have a tendency to interrupt students when they are speaking together during group work activity I have noticed that they not feel comfortable with my interventions That is why I decide to observe students‟ behavior to find out how this is changing with various teacher‟s roles My main aim is to find out what teachers actually in various stages of group work and what are students‟ perception and reactions to teacher‟s roles I will observe my own classroom to examine how many roles the teacher has during one stage of an activity Aims of the study The purpose of this research is to find out the roles of teacher in group work activities in class and students‟ behaviors to the teacher‟s roles in order to obtain ... motivation, allow natural learning and create a context supporting learning as well "In communicative activities the teacher creates a situation and sets an activity in notion, but it is the learners... Since the introduction of communicative language teaching in the late 1970s, there have been a variety of definitions and ideas about CLT Among the available definitions, the one given by Nunan... context in which the interaction takes place Simulation and role-playing are important techniques for creating a variety of social relationships and situations Nolasco and Athur (1993) also characterized