Towards pairwork and groupwork in english classes at high schools in an giang province

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES  LAM THANH NAM TOWARDS PAIRWORK AND GROUPWORK IN ENGLISH CLASSES AT HIGH SCHOOLS IN AN GIANG PROVINCE M.A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL Supervisor HO THANH MY PHUONG, Ph.D HO CHI MINH CITY, May 2007 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: TOWARDS PAIRWORK AND GROUPWORK IN ENGLISH CLASSES AT HIGH SCHOOLS IN AN GIANG PROVINCE in terms of the statement of Requirements for theses in Master’s Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institution Ho Chi Minh City, May 20, 2007 LAM THANH NAM CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION English plays a crucial role in the context of international integration nowadays As a foreign language, it is one of the basic and compulsory subjects at the high school level in Vietnam Possibly speaking, the English teaching at high schools has made a positive contribution to the national manpower training and development Such achievements resulted from the progressive effort of both teachers and students However, the reality of teaching and learning shows some defectiveness that needs to be overcome so as to meet the increasing requirements of the country in the current stage This introductory chapter will indicate a problem concerned with English teaching and learning at high schools in Vietnam, particularly in An Giang Province The research questions, the purposes and significance of the study will also be stated in this chapter 1.1 Background of the problem 1.1.1 Setting of the study For the past few years, especially since the new Tieng Anh textbooks were put into use (in 2002), remarkable changes have been made in teaching and learning English at high schools in Vietnam, advocating the two approaches popular in the world and in the country as well: the learner-centered approach (in pedagogy) and the Communicative Approach (in language methodology) Dealing with the improvement in teaching this foreign language to high school students, the guidebook by the MOET points out: In the light of the learner-centered approach and the CA, the teacher plays not merely the role of a transmitter of knowledge but also the role of an initiator, an assistant, a consultant, a participant and a reference resource in the students’ learning process For the students’ part, they not only sit face-to-face with the teacher, listening to the teacher’s explanation but also use English to perform communicative tasks in pairs and in small groups actively and voluntarily under the supervision and with the assistance of the teacher (Hoang et al., 2006, p 49) In fact, organizing the classroom for students to work in pairs and in groups, referred to as PW and GW in this study, is not a new concept in CLT since they have proved to be extremely effective ways for students’ interactions via the use of the target language to communicate with each other Hence, PW and GW are implemented as an integral part in a large number of modern English coursebooks which are used by many institutions and foreign language centers in Vietnam such as Let’s Talk by L Jones 1998, Language in Use by A Doff & C Jones 1999, New Interchange by Jack C Richards 2001, Passages by J C Richards & C Sandy 2001, KnowHow by T Naber & A Blackwell 2003, etc And positively, the set of new Tieng Anh textbooks in Vietnam is also included in this list Therefore, whether teachers of English at high schools have been willing or, for some reason, unwilling to use PW and GW in class, they must be accustomed to these techniques of classroom organization in order to adapt themselves to the current trend in teaching English, and above all, to help students learn and be able to use English for realistic communication, at least in basic daily situations Nevertheless, no matter how much the textbooks are improved and how advanced the viewpoints in education and training have become, still it cannot be so self-confident to say what is expected to happen should happen smoothly in the reality of each classroom, particularly in different settings with different teaching and learning styles Obstacles must arise in practice attributed to the teacher’s method, the students themselves, the materials, the classroom facilities for study, and so on In professional workshops held every summer in An Giang Province, for instance, many teachers complain that the new approach is hard to apply to their students Almost nothing happens when they ask them to work in pairs or in groups The students are simply shy and unaccustomed to communicating with their peers in English If it might be a little luckier, some students turn aside to talk with their partners, but what can be heard from their exchanges is mostly in Vietnamese Other teachers feel safer organizing teacher-led discussions rather than assigning cooperative work to their students The reason is that they not want to receive unpleasant complaints from their fellow teachers teaching nextdoor any time their students work in groups because of the intolerable noise they make What about the outcome of the teaching process? The percentage of high school graduates in English was not very high in recent years Specifically, this percentage in the 2006 graduation exam was 44.37% for the 3-year curriculum and 64.84% for the 7-year curriculum (*) It is not a satisfactory result after many long years of teaching and learning at school However, the exam scores cannot assure a degree of reliability in students’ spoken and written English for communication since what they are asked to perform in the exams is chiefly their knowledge of grammar structures and vocabulary in separated sentence units In his article considering the quality of teaching English as communication, Widdowson (1994) remarks “students in developing countries, who have received several years of formal English teaching, frequently remain deficient in the ability to actually use the language, and to understand its use, in normal communication, whether in the spoken or the written mode.” High school students in Vietnam are also in a similar situation, particularly those in the countryside and in rural areas where exposure of English is quite limited Having the same assessment as above, Le (2005) from the National Strategy and Educational Program Institute, in his article on the reality of teaching and learning English at high schools in Vietnam, reports that the syllabus and methodology have not given enough concentration on the development of communicative skills Hence, after graduation, most of the school leavers not have the ability to communicate in the foreign language as the proposed objective This pitiful reality is being meliorated by many educational forces More and more language teachers realize that: (*) Source: Department of Education and Training of An Giang Province - 2006 Since communication is a process, it is insufficient for students to simply have knowledge of target language forms, meanings, and functions Students must be able to apply this knowledge in negotiating meaning It is through the interaction between speaker and listener (or reader and writer) that meaning becomes clear (LarsenFreeman, 1986, p 123) PW and GW, if used properly, can help to achieve that goal, i.e these techniques can bring students more opportunities to interact with one another in the classroom, either in spoken or written language Therefore, a thorough understanding of what PW and GW are and how to apply them successfully in class is a constant concern of any CLT teacher This study presents an investigation into the implementation of PW and GW in English classes in An Giang Province hopefully to make some contribution to the improvement of English teaching and learning quality in the home province More practically, it aims to meet the need of the majority of English teachers to have an overall view of PW and GW as leading classroom activities shooting through the new textbooks which will be used on a large scale in the years to come 1.1.2 Description of high school education in An Giang Province Situated in the Mekong Delta, An Giang Province has a third-ranked city, a town and other districts, each of which has at least one townlet The total number of townlets at the current time is 16, i.e there are nearly townlets in a district For the last years, An Giang has recorded significant achievements in education with the total number of 52 high schools over the population of 2.2 million (*) Supporting the policy of socialization in education by the government, An Giang's high schools are diversified into three types: public (79.2%), semi-public (17%) and people-founded (3.8%) schools Every public school has official teachers of English Some semi-public schools may have guest teachers of English from public schools Currently, An Giang has a teaching staff quantitatively sufficient for the need of the (*) Source: Population Committee of An Giang Province - 2005 provincial education The latest statistic of high schools, high school students and teachers of English in the whole province is shown in Appendix A It is common throughout the province that most of the high schools have big classes in all the three grades 10, 11 and 12 Except for some classes at the only specialized school (Thoai Ngoc Hau school) with about 30 to 35 students each, the other schools have big classes with the average number of students varying from 40 to 48 each Teaching and learning at high schools are closely directed by the DOET (of An Giang Province) in training plans, student management and teaching methodology For the English section, all the teachers of English receive professional training every year This professional training aims at providing the teachers with up-to-date information about the new teaching methodology and opportunities for them to share ideas and together solve common problems they have in their teaching 1.2 Purposes of the study The benefits of PW and GW in language teaching can be popularly found in the literature through the 1980s and early 1990s This study is aimed to make an investigation into PW and GW activities to find out their roles in English classes at high schools Students at this level are expected to be able to use the target language as a communicative instrument at the basic level of listening, speaking, reading and writing skills so that they can acquire knowledge of modern technology, learn about the world's diversified culture and easily integrate themselves with the international community (Hoang et al., 2006) From the evidence collected, the researcher attempts to identify what factors help to foster PW and GW in classrooms, so more appropriate procedures and strategies for these activities can be sought to improve the quality of EFL teaching and learning at high schools 1.3 Research questions To serve the above-mentioned purposes of the study, two research questions were designed:  How are PW and GW activities operated in English classes at high schools in An Giang Province?  What factors contribute to the success of PW and GW in the classroom? 1.4 Significance of the study PW and GW are not new concepts to CLT teachers But a thorough study into these ‘magic tools’, as called by Fujita (1994), is still necessary in the context of EFL teaching and learning in Vietnam for the following reasons: Firstly, this study is quite suited with the common trend of education in the world and in Vietnam as well One of the demands on modern education is to reestablish the values of cooperation in an increasingly depersonalized world It has been suggested that we need an interdependent learning model in which cooperation is structured to be as competition (Rivers, 1983, p 77) In the current time of international integration, Vietnam’s education in general and English teaching in particular should take this into account In fact, the objectives of EFL teaching at high schools in Vietnam have gradually been shifted from the traditional Grammar-Translation method focusing on grammar accuracy and translation to the CA emphasizing proficiency in everyday communication In an English classroom, real communication should be considered to be the cooperation between the teacher and students or students and students as message-giver and message-taker Individual work, as Fu (2006) claims, cannot fulfill this requirement while the whole-class work lacks individuality So the task of cooperative learning falls on the shoulders of PW and GW This viewpoint is shared by Rivers (1983, p 78): Cooperative learning implies full participation of both teacher and student and the interaction of student with student It implies participation in planning and the opportunity to make effective choices It implies small-group activity, large-group instruction, interacting in pairs, Secondly, the study contributes to improving the quality of teaching English at high schools, especially these days when CLT plays a predominant role in teaching English Through the findings of the study, high school teachers can realize the students’ learning styles and their attitudes towards PW and GW so they can have some appropriate adaptation to their own teaching situations In addition, some PW and GW activities which were successfully used are also included as extensive material to share among colleagues of the same interest Thirdly, PW and GW are not always popular with everybody, particularly in state schools where many teachers teaching the spoken language under the pressure of a belief that a good class is a quiet one Therefore, the study serves to court expansive support of colleagues and the governing body towards these new ways of classroom organization, which probably produce noise because (almost) all the students are practicing English orally at the same time If the noise is caused by oral interaction in the target language and can be put under a good control, it is a clear proof that the students are learning Finally, the study results can serve as an essential reference resource for further research For those who are interested in PW and GW, this study can provide them with useful information in this field so more profound investigation can be undertaken into other learners such as kids, primary school pupils or adults from different backgrounds in varied learning circumstances 1.5 Limitations and delimitations Because of the space-time limit, the study itself is confined to the students and teachers of English at high schools in An Giang Province only Its main focus is on the implementation of PW and GW in English classes, not all aspects related to classroom interactions in EFL teaching and learning or projects assigned to groups of students to complete out of the classrooms The study will not be generalized to learners of general English at colleges or foreign language centers since the teaching contexts at these institutions are somewhat different in course books, course objectives, schooling facilities, teaching and learning styles, etc As reported in details in Chapter III, the investigation was undertaken within the first semester of the school year 2006-2007 when the two sets of old and new textbooks were still in simultaneous use Some of the results may change in the upcoming school years when the same series of textbooks and teaching curriculum will be employed and schooling conditions might be improved 1.6 Definitions of terms 1.6.1 Pairwork In pairwork, as defined by Doff (1988, p 137), the teacher divides the whole class into pairs (two students each) Every student works with his/her partner, and all the pairs work at the same time (so sometimes called 'simultaneous PW') This is not the same as 'public' or 'open' PW, with pairs of students speaking in turn in front of the class under the teacher’s control According to Byrne (1991, p 31), there are two main kinds of PW:  Fixed pairs (also called 'closed' pairs): This is when the students only work with the same partner (usually the student on the left or the right) in order to complete a task of some kind Afterwards they may change partners, either to repeat the activity, or to something connected with it For example, for a questionnaire activity, the students first have to write the questionnaire (e.g A works with B), then use it to interview someone (A works with C, B works with D) PW activities of the ‘fixed pairs’ kind should be the first choice, if the teacher wants to keep things very simple at the start  Flexible pairs: For this students keep changing partners They may work with any partner, one by one, to complete a task which required them to collect information from different people For example, in a Find someone who activity, each student has many questions (e.g Can you swim? Can you speak Chinese? Can you use a computer?) which he/she uses to interview several others in order to find out two or three things about each To flexible PW, the students must stand up and move around the classroom freely This will make the activity more interesting for them as they can then choose the person they want to talk to 1.6.2 Groupwork Handy (1976) defines a group as "a number of people who interact with one another, who are physically aware of one another, and who perceive themselves to be a group" In groupwork, the teacher divides the class into small groups to work together (usually four or five students in each group) As in PW, all the groups work at the same time (Doff, 1988, p 137) CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS This final chapter presents some important conclusions answering the research questions how PW and GW activities are operated in English classes at high schools in An Giang Province and what factors contribute to the success of PW and GW The summary is followed by practical recommendations for EFL teaching and learning in the current context of the province 5.1 Conclusions 5.1.1 PW and GW play an integral part in the methodological innovation in English teaching at high schools but lack for comprehensive measures Although PW and GW are not employed as frequently as they are worth, these two work-arrangement techniques apparently play a significant role in English lessons at high schools For the tenth grade, PW and GW make such a great contribution to creating a communicative environment for student-student interactions in skills lessons Without learning in cooperation, the students certainly cannot fulfill the tasks given in the textbook For the eleventh and twelfth grades, PW and GW are used less frequently because of the syllabus frame imposed by the old textbooks Particularly for the twelfth grade, on the one hand, much vocabulary and grammar has to be formally taught so that the students can get satisfactory results in the graduation exam To follow the CLT as required, on the other hand, many teachers creatively include 91 PW and GW in their lessons to exploit the textbook they are using Some others are tied to the old teaching materials with much explanation of the language phenomena but neglect helping students to use the language Many PW and GW activities are well-done, but others have almost no effectiveness because there is a lack of comprehensive know-how 5.1.2 PW and GW are quite suitable for the students and the teaching methods at high schools Though many of the students are afraid of making mistakes and not willing to use English to communicate with friends, most of them like to get together for cooperative learning in pairs and in groups This is the first important condition for PW and GW to be organized successfully In accordance with the new methodology, PW and GW can be used in any stage of a skills lesson, especially in the While-stage of speaking lessons and the Post-stage of reading, writing and listening lessons A PPP shape of a grammar and vocabulary lesson usually has PW and GW in Practice and Production stage to give learners from controled to less controled practice of the target item 5.1.3 There is not much difference in how PW and GW are employed across schools of different types and locations The training on CLT that teachers of English received can ensure a relatively equal implementation of new teaching techniques in general and PW and GW techniques in particular throughout the province However, what makes it different between their use in public and semi-public schools is the unbalance in the students' levels Richer vocabulary stock helps students at public schools make verbal exchanges more easily than students in semi-public schools Thus, more complicated tasks are designed for students at public schools than for those at semi-public schools Students in town/city are less shy in PW and GW than their friends in townlets and villages since they are exposed to English through foreigners, the Internet, books, music, English-speaking clubs, and many other social activities Therefore, PW and GW in town/city class involve more students than in townlets and villages 92 5.1.4 Many students are not well-prepared before working in pairs or groups Most of the PW and GW activities can be found to have three stages: the first stage is to prepare students for the main interactive activity in pairs or groups, the second stage is to keep them on task, and the final stage is to give feedback on what has been done Most of the teacher's roles as a facilitator in PW and GW are manifested in the pre-stage, when he provides students with essential input and gets them ready for the following cooperation Whether the while-PW/GW activity can go on smoothly or not definitely depends on how the teacher does the preparatory steps However, for most of the time, these procedures are not done satisfactorily As an inevitable result, students either the job improperly or get confused or even nothing at all Giving examples is extremely important if the activity is new to the students so that they can have enough confidence to the job similar to the model In some lesson observations, no examples were given, so many students could not see how the task was expected to perform and they were not confident enough to work with each other 5.1.5 PW and GW are still at basic levels of interactions and lacking in communicative needs For several objective and subjective reasons such as students' ability, the teacher's creativeness, the textbook designs, materials sources,… most of the PW and GW activities at high schools are sharing answers after individual work and working together on the same language exercise for every pair or group Oral interactions usually take the form of controled practice in which students act out a mapped dialogue or exchange the information they have already known, e.g summarizing a reading selection, retelling a story, making non-stopped sentences in a chain game, asking and answering questions based on what they read or heard, etc In fact, there is no information gap in such activities Students get the information they not actually want to know Furthermore, the time limit and the fixed teaching syllabus applied from year to year make it hard for the teacher to have genuine PW and GW activities which last more than 10 minutes No flexible pairing or new grouping with representatives from the previous groups can be done within such 93 limited time and fixed seating arrangements Consequently, students miss valuable opportunities to learn from different classmates through PW and GW activities 5.1.6 Depending on the teacher’s organization skills, possible problems in PW and GW come at different levels for different classes Among many problems the teacher may face in organizing PW and GW are students’ lapse into the mother tongue, noise, classroom seating arrangement, students’ working improperly, unequal contribution of group members, etc These problems are not alike in every class For instance, more English is heard in good classes than in weak ones; teachers who can control the class well have little trouble with noise; the teacher’s effective monitoring can prevent students from working improperly; the current seating arrangement is a common problem to every teacher but if instructions can be given clearly, the teacher can appoint who is working with whom so that students sitting in fixed desks can still working rather comfortably in pairs and groups 5.1.7 Teachers can create factors favorable to PW and GW As an organizer and facilitator of the learning process, the teacher can make use of PW and GW to increase STT When these activities are organized, some factors which are favorable for their success should be taken into consideration The teacher's clear instructions help students to the task properly as expected Sufficient language input helps students express their opinions more easily and effectively Working with cooperative partners in pairs and groups can encourage their using English much more than with critical partners The teacher's monitoring helps to keep students on task Students' motivation by interesting tasks and bonus marks are very helpful in getting them to take part in PW and GW actively, and in turn foster their language acquisition 5.2 Pedagogical recommendations From the findings presented, several important recommendations can be made for teaching English at high schools, and probably for other language institutes which have similar teaching and learning circumstances 94 5.2.1 PW and GW should be maintained and made routine techniques in English classes PW and GW play an important part in English teaching at high schools Therefore, they should be set up as routine techniques in the teacher’s lesson planning On the first one or two occasions, PW or GW is probably uneasy for both the teacher to organize and the students to get involved in However, as it is popularly said, ‘Practice makes perfect’, if the teacher becomes skillful at organizing PW and GW and students are accustomed to working with peers on learning tasks, then these cooperative activities will be less time-consuming and go on more smoothly Littlewood (1987) believes that a few moments of 'chaos' may follow, but once GW has become a normal part of the class routine, it will not be much trouble 5.2.2 More energy should be invested in the pre-stage of PW and GW Students need to be prepared for their actual working in pairs or groups Most of this preparation is done by the teacher in pre-stage of PW or GW, especially when a new task is introduced into the classroom, preparation for it is always necessary to get them accustomed to new working skills These procedures include getting students excited about the task that they are going to do, giving clear instructions, checking understanding, giving models and setting time limit Once students have become interested in what they are about to do, they will it better If they exactly understand what to and how to it, they will it properly with confidence Additionally, all of them are encouraged to finish the task at the same time once the time limit is made realistic and challenging 5.2.3 PW and GW activities should be diversified so as to create opportunities for students to use the target language PW and GW provide valuable opportunities to maximize STT Their benefits in encouraging students to use language are more highly acknowledged by Byrne (1998, p 39): Group work is of course only one of a range of procedures that you should be using in the classroom to facilitate language teaching, but it is one that is effective in ensuring that the students begin to use language and not merely practise it 95 The teacher should diversify tasks so as not to make students bored with doing the same kind of PW and GW repeatedly In fact, students can be put in pairs and groups to a wide variety of learning activities from controled practice to free production of English Once students are used to the idea of PW and GW, it is suggested that the teacher should let them use English more freely to perform communicative functions rather than tie them to mechanical drills or structured practice 5.2.4 The system of student assessment should be improved to meet the needs of the new teaching methods CA or CLT is frequently called upon, but in fact the assessment tools still attach importance to testing students' language knowledge rather than their ability to use the language for communication The assessment system has not had necessary changes to keep up with the new teaching methods During a semester, not all the individual students are asked to perform their spoken English in a formal test Oral tests usually take the form of before-the-lesson tests which weigh about 10% to 15% of the overall mark and are done on about half of the individuals per semester because of the time limit in class Therefore, many students are not keen to practice spoken English or take part in communicative activities with peers They merely care for the meanings of isolated words and grammar rules and they can have enough confidence to pass almost every test at high schools In order to repair this discrepancy in the students’ learning strategy, it is suggested that oral testing should play a considerable amount in the student assessment system in some way such as checking students' speaking performance in before-the-lesson tests, assigning oral presentations to GW or, as McNamara (2000) suggests, asking pairs of learners to take part in role plays or in group discussions as part of oral assessment To so, students should be informed before the course starts so that they can have enough time for preparation by enthusiastically using English in PW and GW 5.2.5 Students should be equipped with cooperative skills before they are put in pairs or groups 96 For students with high cooperative skills, it is not very problematic to PW and GW But for those who are not accustomed to cooperative learning, putting them to work together in pairs and groups is really a big challenge They must definitely be able to send and receive messages accurately so that they can understand the others' ideas, beliefs, feelings, and so on Besides, as Johnson (1987) claims, controversy skills, skills in building and maintaining trust are also especially important for successful cooperation For instance, during a PW and GW activity, in order not to lapse into the unnecessary use of mother tongue, students need to be trained in advance with how to simplify a saying, how to ask for clarification or repetition; in order to maintain a good cooperation with peers, they ought to be taught how to be critical of ideas, not persons, etc 5.2.6 Students should be motivated by the value of PW and GW so they selfconsciously participate in PW and GW For many young learners who have not been fully aware of the necessity of English in the modern world, making them interested in cooperative learning is as important as getting them to it well Many of them merely sit together to work in pairs or groups simply because they are told to so They have no choice but follow the teacher's orders if they not want to be criticized by the teacher If they have no motivation for what they are doing, they cannot it well Hence, they should be told why they need to take part in classroom activities with peers because of such a lot of practical benefits they will get from them Gebhard (2000, p 84.) argues that: If we truly believe that students need to use English to learn English and they are not doing so, I believe we need to negotiate with students why it is important to use English in class It is important to gain their trust and commitment They need to want to use English in class because they see value in doing so We then are more likely to be successful in implementing techniques that focus their attention on using English to learn English Besides formal PW and GW activities, it is a good idea to motivate the class with a certain simple affective activities which can be done in pairs and groups For example: 97 - Spelling games: students in pairs take turn to spell a secret word of a particular topic (fruit, clothing, furniture, famous people, well-known places, ) for the other to call it out; - Guessing games: students in pairs take turn to give hints for the other to guess what the secret word is The hints can be prepared by the teacher or the students themselves; - Quizzes: students in each group are asked to solve a quiz (puzzle) Then they can use the quiz to challenge the other groups; - Brainstorming: students in groups are asked to brainstorm as many words as possible from a given topic or a set of letters The group with the most correct words is winner; - Songs: students in groups are asked to put separated lines from a favorite English song in the correct order while they are together listening to it; and so forth Such mentioned-above activities not take much time to prepare and to perform in class They serve to make students friendly with PW and GW and highly motivated to take part in more communicative activities later on (see Appendix H for some PW and GW activities applicable to English classes at high schools) 5.2.7 PW and GW activities can be adapted to suit the current schooling facilities At the present time, the local classrooms not have such comfortable material conditions as those in developed countries Seating arrangements are not ideal for every PW and GW activity But this does not mean that we cannot implement PW and GW in the Vietnamese context Though the classrooms not have soundproofed walls, PW and GW activities can still be made exciting if the teacher can control the noise Though students' desks cannot be moved easily to form flexible pairs and groups, students can still work with partners beside, behind or in front of them, or exchange seats with classmates nearby in the twinkling of an eye if they are trained to be familiar with pairing and grouping The following figure shows how the student As 98 and Bs in a 44-student class can exchange their seats easily and quickly to form new pairs or groups Figure 18: Seat exchanging between student As and Bs to form new pairs or groups in a 44-student class Teacher's desk A A A A A B  B B  B B  B B  B B  B A A A A A A A A A A A B  B B  B B  B B  B B  B B  B A A A A A A The teacher can appoint the students as As and Bs in rows facing the teacher's desk After making sure they know whether they are student As or Bs, the teacher asks the student Bs (in bold) to stand up and move one step (following the direction of the arrow) to exchange their seats with each other Then new pairs and groups are formed and ready to work 5.2.8 The teaching materials should be adapted to enhance communicative activities In the two years' time when the old English textbooks are completely replaced by the new Tieng Anh textbooks (7-year curriculum), there will be a consistency in English materials for all the three grades at high school level The new textbooks prove to have far more outstanding features than any of the old ones Possibly speaking, they have been a significant breakthrough in materials design in Vietnam so far Though they contain available PW and GW activities, making them effective and successful depends on the teacher's methods To make the tasks more communicative, some modifications are certainly needed Materials for information-gap activities should be accompanied with these books to create meaningful and realistic communication among students like many popular course books, e.g KnowHow, Let's Talk, New Interchange, etc 99 5.2.9 A flexible teaching plan should be constructed Teachers at high schools must follow the school's teaching plan for each subject proposed at the beginning of each academic year Such a fixed syllabus disables the implementation of PW and GW activities designed to last longer than 10 minutes whereas a wide variety of PW and GW materials are now available in many readymade activity books If the teaching plan can be flexible, i.e the teacher can have some time set aside for optional activities, these books can provides valuable sources of PW and GW tasks serving to diversify the classroom activities and give students great opportunities to use English communicatively 5.2.10 High school classes should be small Big classes cause some defectiveness to language teaching If the problem of big classes can be solved, a lot of other advantages can be brought to teaching and learning First of all, the teacher can control a small class more easily and effectively than a big class Second, each student working either individually or in pairs or groups will get more care from the teacher Third, each student has more opportunities to give his/her English performance in front of the class, which helps to build confidence for their English use in real life In addition, it is less stressful for shy students to talk in front of a small class than of a big class Finally, a small class leaves more room for movement Then the teacher can have flexible pairs or groups so that students can move a bit to choose the classmates they want to talk to 5.2.11 More English than Vietnamese should be heard in English classes Vietnamese is not encouraged but can not be prohibited excessively since it may be at times very helpful for students (and the teacher) during PW and GW Students use Vietnamese in PW and GW for a lot of reasons For example, they not know a word they want to say in English, it is hard for them to put the English words together to express the ideas they have in their minds, they are afraid of their critical partners, they not have the habit of using English in class, there is no penalty whenever they use Vietnamese, etc Depending on the reality of each case, the teacher can choose one or some of these solutions that work to minimize students' using Vietnamese in PW and GW: the teacher himself should have a habit of speaking English in class, 100 give tasks suitable for students levels, encourage students to use simple English to express their ideas instead of sophisticated English, free them from worrying about making mistakes, and so on 5.3 Recommendations for further research This study on PW and GW was undertaken during the first semester of the academic year 2006-2007 The reality of PW and GW implementation at the local schools may change in the two years' time when the new Tieng Anh textbooks for the 11th and the 12th graders are officially put into use Then a fuller investigation into PW and GW will be extremely necessary once these techniques have become significant parts, if not to say decisive factors, contributing to the success of a communicative English lesson How the new generation of high school students who started using the new Tieng Anh textbooks from Grade work in pairs and groups in English classrooms? Are they well-prepared with skills essential for learning in cooperation? After many years of learning English communicatively, is their communicative competence better than the old generation of students? etc These questions would appeal for a continuation of study on this field in the years to come Beyond the range of English teaching and learning at high schools, the merits of PW and GW also should be investigated in other CLT contexts In fact, foreign language learning in Vietnam in the time of international integration has increasingly become a legitimate need for almost everybody Many parents, especially in towns and cities, send their children to language schools at their very early ages Many students continue to learn English as a compulsory subject at university English classes with flexible time-tables are available for learners of any levels to enroll in Such diversity of teaching and learning situations must require some adaptation of PW and GW to suit the typical reality of each case Therefore, problems related to PW and GW need to be realized and solved seriously so that students can get the maximum benefits from their cooperative learning with peers These issues would be a fertile area for further research *** 101 In conclusion, the time that high school students spend in English lessons is usually quite short If they are only allowed to talk to the teacher, most of them will not have the opportunity to say much - if anything Working in pairs or small groups means that more students have more opportunity to talk more More importantly, as teenagers, high school students need the space and opportunity to be who they are PW and GW give them a learning environment to exchange ideas, to be creative and to help one another learn English REFERENCES Brown, H D (2000) Teaching by Principles: an Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy New Jersey: Prentice Hall Burns, A (1999) Collaborative Action Research for English Language Teachers UK: Cambridge University Press Byrne, D (1978) Teaching Oral English London: Longman Group Ltd Byrne, D (1991) Techniques for Classroom Interaction New York: Longman Group UK Limited Byrne, D (1998) Focus on the Classroom Hong Kong: Modern English Publications Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Routledge, K M (2000) A Guide to Teaching Practice London: Penguine Davis, B G (1999) Cooperative Learning: Students Working in Small Groups Stanford University Newsletter on Teaching Vol 10, No 2, pp 1-4 Doff, A (1988) Teach English: A Training Course for Teachers Great Britain: Bell & Bain Ltd., Glasgow Fu, R (2006) An Investigation into Pair Work and Group Work Using Corpus SinoUS English Teaching, Vol 3, No 7, pp 43-47 Fujita, T (1994) A Magic Tool in the Classroom: Pair Work English Teaching Forum, Vol 32, pp 47-48 Gebhard, J G (2000) Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language USA: The University of Michigan Press 102 Gower, R., & Walters, S (1983) Teaching Practice Book: a Reference Book for EFL Teachers in Training England: Clays Ltd., St Ives plc Hadfield, J (1999) Beginners' Communication Games China: Longman Hadley, G S (n.d.) 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