An investigation into how cooperative learning is used in while writing stage in grade 10 classes at quang trung upper secondary school gia lai province

TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Page STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS LIST OF TABLES LIST OF CHARTS ABSTRACT CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study 1.2 Statement of the problem 11 1.3 Scope of the study 12 1.4 Objectives of the study 12 1.5 Research questions for the study 12 1.6 Organization of the study 12 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 14 2.1 Cooperative Learning (CL) 14 2.1.1 What Is Cooperative Learning (CL)? 14 2.1.2 Elements of Cooperative Learning 16 2.1.2.1 Positive interdependence 17 2.1.2.2 Quality of group interaction process 18 2.1.2.3 Individual accountability 18 2.1.2.4 Interpersonal and small group skills 19 2.1.2.5 Group processing 19 2.1.3 Grouping Arrangements and Grouping Strategies 21 2.1.3.1 Grouping Arrangements 21 2.1.3.2 Grouping Strategies 22 2.1.4 Cooperative Learning and Group Learning 23 2.1.5 Benefits and Limitations of Cooperative Learning 24 2.1.5.1 Benefits of Cooperative Learning 24 2.1.5.1.a Benefits to the Learners 24 2.1.5.1.b Benefits to the Teacher 26 2.1.5.2 Limitations of Cooperative Learning 27 2.1.6 Planning and Conducting Cooperative Learning lessons 28 2.1.6.1 Planning for Cooperative Learning 28 2.1.6.2 Conducting Cooperative Learning Lessons 32 2.1.7 The Role of Teachers in Cooperative Language Learning 33 2.2 Writing Skill 34 2.2.1 The Importance of Writing Skill 34 2.2.2 Definition of Writing 35 2.2.3 Process Writing 36 2.2.4 Principles and Techniques of Writing 39 2.2.5 Unit Components in Teaching Writing 41 2.2.6 Tasks of the Teacher in Teaching Writing 42 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 44 3.1 Research design 44 3.2 Participants 44 3.3 Data Collection Methods 46 3.3.1 Questionnaire 46 3.3.1.1 Questionnaire to students 46 3.3.1.2 Questionnaire to teachers 47 3.3.2 Interview 48 3.3.3 Class observation 48 3.4 Procedures of data collection and data analysis 49 3.5 Reliability and Validity 50 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 51 4.1 CL activities in the EFL writing classes 51 4.1.1 The extent to which CL activities have been applied in the EFL writing classes 51 4.1.1.1 Three stages in teaching writing 51 4.1.1.2 Kinds of organization 53 4.1.1.3 CL activities in while-writing stage 55 4.1.2 How CL activities have been applied in the EFL writing classes 56 4.1.2.1 CL groups 57 4.1.2.2 Kinds of CL groups 59 4.1.2.3 Basic phases 62 4.2 Students’ and teachers’ perceptions of CL activities in while-writing stage 63 4.2.1 Students’ perceptions of CL activities in while-writing stage 64 4.2.1.1 The necessity of CL activities in while-writing stage 64 4.2.1.2 The effects of CL activities in while-writing stage 65 4.2.2 Teachers’ perceptions of CL activities in while-writing stage 66 4.2.2.1 Importance, necessity, and students’ attitudes 66 4.2.2.2 Advantages and disadvantages 69 4.2.2.3 Students’ writing skill 75 4.3 Suggested solutions to improve students’ writing skill 76 4.3.1 Activities to make CL groups more effective 76 4.3.2 Activities to improve students’ writing skill 79 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 83 5.1 Summary of the findings 83 5.2 Pedagogical implications of the study 84 5.3 Limitations of the study 86 5.4 Suggestions for further studies 86 REFERENCES 88 APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS (IN ENGLISH) i APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS (IN VIETNAMESE) iv APPENDIX 3: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS viii APPENDIX 4: QUESTIONS FOR TEACHER INTERVIEW xiv APPENDIX 5: OBSERVATION SHEET xvii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Cooperative Learning (CL) Group Investigation (GI) Student Team Achievement Divisions (STAD) LIST OF TABLES Table Page Table 2.1: Differences between Cooperative Learning and Group Learning 24 Table 2.2: Syntax of the CL Model 33 Table 2.3: Process writing 37 Table 3.1: Student information 45 Table 3.2: Teacher information 45 Table 4.1: The number of students in a CL group 57 Table 4.2: Teachers’ perceptions of the importance, the necessity, and students’ attitudes 66 Table 4.3: Advantages of implementing CL activities in while-writing stage 70 Table 4.4: Difficulties of implementing CL activities in while-writing stage 73 Table 4.5: Teachers’ perceptions of students’ writing skill 76 Table 4.6: Some activities to make CL groups more effective 77 Table 4.7: Some activities to improve students’ writing skill 80 LIST OF CHARTS Chart Page Chart 4.1: Frequency of pre-writing, while-writing, and post writing stages 52 Chart 4.2: Kinds of organization in while-writing stage 53 Chart 4.3: Kinds of CL activities in while-writing stage 55 Chart 4.4: Frequency of CL activities in while-writing stage 56 Chart 4.5: CL groups assigned by the teacher 60 Chart 4.6: Students’ perceptions of the necessity of the implementing CL activities in while-writing stage 64 Chart 4.7: Students’ perceptions of CL’s effects in while-writing stage 65 Chart 4.8: Students’ interests of using CL activities in while-writing stage 68 Chart 4.9: Some activities to make CL groups more effective 78 ABSTRACT Implementing cooperative learning has been widely recognized as one of the most essential elements in the process of foreign language learning and teaching It not only helps learners improve their language skills but also develops their creative thinking, interpersonal skills and cooperation in managing group work Cooperative learning has recently been applied in teaching and learning English in high schools in Vietnam; however, lack of professional instructions makes it difficult for both the teachers of English and the students So, this study has been conducted to investigate the real situation of using cooperative learning activities in while-writing stage at Quang Trung Upper-Secondary school, Gia Lai province with the aims are to find out whether or not teachers of English have applied cooperative learning activities in while-writing stage, and the perceptions of teachers of English and students in using cooperative learning activities in while-writing stage It is also aimed to put forward some suggestions for further development of how to improve grade-10 students’ writing skill with particular reference to cooperative learning Three instruments (1) questionnaires for students and teachers, (2) teacher interviews, and (3) class observations were used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data The participants of the study are eighty-four grade-10 students and eight teachers teaching grade-10 English at Quang Trung Upper-Secondary school, Gia Lai province in the school year of 2010-2011 The results indicate that most teachers have conducted the writing lessons following three main stages of pre-writing, while-writing and post-writing with various activities and cooperative learning activities have frequently been applied by teachers The results also show that all teachers recognize the necessity of implementing cooperative learning activities, and that students have positive attitudes towards cooperative learning activities Based on the findings, additionally, some suggestions to help teachers implement cooperative learning effectively have also been given CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study In recent years, along with the new curriculum of the English program at the high school level designed by the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training, there has been a renovation in methodology of teaching and learning English It can be clearly seen that English teaching has shifted from the traditional grammar translation approach to the communicative approach New textbooks and syllabus that are communication-oriented and learner-centered have been designed and implemented, which all require teachers of English to improve their teaching skills to be successful in the classroom and learners should not only have a good command of grammar, but be able to communicate successfully as well In fact, “Classroom goals are focused on all of the components of communicative competence and not restricted to grammatical and linguistic competence.” and “in the communicative classroom, students ultimately have to use the language productively and receptively, in unrehearsed context” (Richard and Rodgers, 1986) After attending the training courses, most teachers are eager and enthusiastic to try out the new methods and teaching techniques in their real classroom contexts Of these new areas, cooperative learning (CL) is particularly potential There are sound reasons to take CL into serious consideration First of all, CL is highly appreciated for their usefulness to students’ achievement Le (2002) points out that Johnson el al (1990); Slavin (1987); and Kagan (1989) believe “CL seems to provide an environment in which students’ needs of love, belongingness, power, freedom and fun can be meet in a way that is beneficial for both academic achievement and the development of the learners’ social and learning skills” It is undeniable that CL is of the most flexible and powerful grouping strategies because in CL learners work together to accomplish a shared goal Additionally, CL has a strong foundation on research So far, many studies into CL have been conducted The overall findings of the studies of Cohen, 1994b; Johnson, Johnson and Stanne, 2002; Sharan, 1980; Slavin, 1995 (cited in Le, 2002); and Liang, 2002 suggested that when compared to other instructional approaches, CL group activities are associated with gains of key variables: achievement, higher thinking level, selfesteem, liking for the subject matter, and intergroup relations CL helped significantly to enhance the learners’ oral communicative competence and their motivation toward learning English Although CL has not been very popularly applied in Vietnam, there have been some studies on CL in teaching English in general and in teaching the speaking skill in particular “An Action Research on the Application of Cooperative Learning Structures to Teaching Speaking to the Second-year Students in the Department of English, Gia Lai Teachers’ Training College.” (Le, 2002); “An Investigation into Students' and Teachers' Perception of the Implementation of Cooperative Learning in English Speaking Class at Can Tho In-service Center.” (Tat, 2007); and “Using some Cooperative Learning Structures to Increase EFL Learners’ Motivation in Speaking and Improve their Speaking Performance: A Case Study of Grade 10 Students at Mang Thit High School, Vinh Long Province.” (Nguyen, 2008) all have similar major findings These authors shared the same ideas that teachers, who employed CL method, could promote students’ learning On the other hand, wellstructured CL activities had positive effects on students’ participation They created more equal participation among the students, decreased the amount of advanced students’ participation, increased weak students’ participation in group activities, and made students’ progress in speaking performance in general From the findings, some practical pedagogical implications were given out for successful CL practice in teaching and learning English And even though much has been written about strategies that educators can use to integrate CL into their courses in teaching speaking skill, little research has been actually done in teaching writing skill, and in the specific context like my working place, a school in a mountainous province Therefore, I find the findings about using CL activities in teaching writing skill in such a context significant This investigation will hopefully serve as an advisable supplementation to my knowledge on CL theory and CL application to English teaching 10 A: Helping 80% 75% students 70% CL activities 60% 60% 54% B: Dividing Strongly agree 50% 40% 40% 30% Neutral 29% Disagree 24% 10% Strongly disagree 17% 20% of different levels C: Giving the effective CL groups 1% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% A groups Agree B some gifts C Chart 4.9: Some activities to make CL groups more effective We can find that what students wanted was very reasonable Language teachers must first understand what students need and then be able to adjust their teaching to meet those needs Once students feel eager to study, teachers will certainly have a strong motivation in teaching languages As a result, learning and teaching language can be considerably improved Beside the results collected from the student questionnaire, the suggested solutions to teaching writing skill in order to improve students’ writing skill were also explored via means of the questionnaire handed to teachers and teacher interview The teachers were asked to answer the open-ended question “Can you suggest some solutions to the difficulties you often face in implementing CL?” There were some useful suggested solutions, which could be mentioned here One showed his suggestion: The most important thing teachers should is to explain to the students what CL is During conducting a CL lesson, teachers should require students to practice only few pieces of knowledge of point of teaching Teachers should divide the long tasks into subtasks because the time is limited Besides, teacher also should control the class and encourage students to practice well (Teacher’s interview October 20, 2010) 78 Another frankly shared: Firstly, not use the same method in all writing lessons Depending on each lesson, teacher should know well how to organize CL activities, how to control groups’ activities Secondly, the most important thing is how to evaluate the results of all groups Last but not least, whenever you assign a writing task you should make students clear that “the why”, “the what”, and “the how” (Teacher’s interview October 20, 2010) In addition, another stated: Teacher should provide useful languages and structures, arrange students’ levels, movable chairs, decrease the number of students in class Moreover, there must be good instruction, clear outline, intelligent group dividing, close observing, helpful teacher, and good correction When dividing students into groups, teacher must make sure that each group has good student(s) Teacher should move around, observe, help students and have students discuss softly (Teacher’s interview October 20, 2010) To sum up, the teachers of English at Quang Trung Upper-Secondary school, Gia Lai province contributed their own suggestions for a better CL lesson in writing class Their suggestions mainly focused on the issues that both teachers and students met in teaching and learning process The most extensive number of teachers, up to 75%, indicated that students should be taught what CL was; students should be provided with guidelines on how to work in CL groups and how to plan them In their opinions, these instructions would be helpful for students to work cooperatively, and behave with others better 4.3.2 Activities to improve students’ writing skill To help improve the writing skill of students through CL activities, some activities were recommended The results of analysis are revealed in Table 4.7 As indicated in Table 4.7, six activities were recommended to help improve the effectiveness of using CL activities in while-writing stage It seems to be a prominent feature that a majority of informants who agreed with the suggested activities made up from 62,5% to 100% Firstly, all of the teachers (100%) reported that they introduced specific types of writing to students, and helped students 79 overcome difficulties by supporting them with ideas and with the means to carry them out Secondly, the majority of teachers (87,5%) agreed that motivating students to write, evaluating their work, and giving feedback were activities to improve students’ writing skill Lastly, a relatively high percentage of teachers confirmed that they responded to students’ work at various draft stages, and enthused students with the value of the task, persuaded them to write (accounting for 62,5% and 75% respectively) Table 4.7: Some activities to improve students’ writing skill Introduce specific types of writing Motivate students to have ideas (%) (N=8) (%) Informants Yes (N=8) Activities Informants No 100 12,5 87,5 Enthuse students with the value of the task; persuade them to write 37,5 62,5 Support them with ideas and with the means to carry them out 0 100 Respond to students’ work at various draft stages 25 75 Evaluate students' work, indicate where they wrote well and where they made mistakes, and award grades 12,5 87,5 In addition, through interviews, the researcher also got much information about some activities teachers should have applied to improve students’ writing skill Some of the teachers expressed their views as follows 80 For me, I often considered these things whenever I prepared to conduct CL groups First of all, I had to find the best way to introduce the writing lessons by explicitly teaching them the micro skills such as brainstorming and planning Then, I guided them to contribute ideas to make CL group effective I played the role as a facilitator to encourage them to write Besides, I also supported some ideas I was willing to help them overcome some constraints in writing process (Teacher’s interview, October 20, 2010) One teacher stated: One important thing was the instructions We have always been very careful in giving instructions because we know that in CL activities, it would be very frustrating for both the teacher and students if instructions were not clear Some effective techniques of giving instructions were frequently used such as handouts of activity steps, tasks written on flipcharts and stuck on the board, or asking the students to repeat the instruction to reinforce (Teacher’s interview, October 20, 2010) Another added: In my opinion, whenever I had time to evaluate students' work such as indicating where they wrote well and where they made mistakes, and award grades, it seemed that my students were motivated to write better I also gave bonus marks for some good CL groups, which made them feel eager to take part in the writing lessons (Teacher’s interview, October 20, 2010) To sum up, in order to have a good writing lesson and improve students’ writing skill, there are some activities that should be applied by the teacher First of all, teachers should introduce specific types of writing such as writing a letter of invitation, writing a narration and so on as well as they should give clear instructions Second, teachers should motivate students to have ideas Third, teachers should help students overcome difficulties by supporting them with ideas and with the means to carry them out Last, teachers should evaluate students' work 81 With the teachers’ suggested activities combined with their efforts in conducting CL activities in language classes, it is hopeful that learning and teaching writing skill at high school will be more interesting Summary In conclusion, this chapter has reported and discussed the analyses of the findings from questionnaires, interviews, and class observations As discussed previously, a number of interesting findings of the use of CL activities in while-writing stage have been revealed In detail, the first part of this chapter focuses on the extent and how CL activities are used in while-writing stage Second, teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the implementation of CL activities are presented such as the importance, the necessity, students’ attitudes, advantages and disadvantages Suggested activities were also pointed in the third part of this chapter These findings help us to have a deeper understanding of the situation of learning and teaching writing and the implementation of CL activities in while-writing stage at Quang Trung Upper-Secondary school, Gia Lai province 82 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION This chapter reviews the results found in chapter 4, discusses some pedagogical implications, gives limitations of the study, and offers some suggestions for further studies 5.1 Summary of the findings Firstly, concerning to the extent to which CL activities have been applied and how CL activities have been applied in the EFL writing classes at Quang Trung UpperSecondary school, Gia Lai province, it was found that most teachers conducted the writing lessons following the three main stages: pre-writing, while-writing and postwriting with various activities and CL activities were applied more frequently In addition, the teachers used some kinds of organization in which group work and pair work were the most favorite teaching modes The way the teachers form CL groups with more than members of different ability was rather highly appreciated in the real context More importantly, the vast majority of students found satisfied for being able to work in an environment in which they actively participated in learning Although some students still felt shy in learning activities, it was certain that the weak students had chances to ask for help from their classmates The good students found themselves progress through helping friends They improved their communication skills and some other academic skills such as higher level thinking skill, critical thinking skill in explaining, clarifying, tutoring, evaluating, eliciting, discussing and debating, formulating ideas, etc Obviously, the students reached the goal of the CL group and improved their writing skill by asking questions, responding, discussing and sharing ideas to write, all make them more confident, independent, responsible, active, and involved in the learning Secondly, in terms of the students’ and teachers’ perception toward using CL activities in while-writing stage, the results of this study clearly revealed the followings First, the total of participants recognized the importance, the necessity of implementing CL activities, and the teachers also recognized the students’ positive attitudes towards CL activities Second, the benefits and limitations of CL activities were also indicated Both teachers and students can benefit in using CL 83 activities such as CL saved time for the teacher because he/she only contacted with or groups instead of 35 to 45 individuals in class; CL improved academic performance of the weaker students when grouped with higher students; CL makes the classroom’s atmosphere more exciting, active, and exploratory and so on However, there were some obstacles in using CL groups in while-writing stage In the first place, it was the use of mother tongue of students Next, the large class size, the limitation of time, and the mixed levels of students and so on, all made applying CL activities rather difficult Third, the majority of teachers recognized that thanks to CL activities, students’ writing skill was considerably improved Students can write not only accurately but also coherently, which helps them be confident in the exams Last but not least, being conscious of the important role of CL activities in writing classes, the teachers showed their enthusiasm in giving suggested solutions for a better method In fact, they gave some useful solutions to help using CL activities be more effectively A large number of teachers thought that there were many ways to motivate students to take part in CL activities For example, they paid attention to weak students, built up good relationship with students to help them get involved in learning, had suitable CL forming groups and so on In the same vein, students also showed some activities they wanted their teacher to apply such as teachers should have given bonus marks for good groups; teachers should have guided students more clearly; and teachers also should have paid more attention to every member of a CL group 5.2 Pedagogical implications of the study After investigating the real situation of using CL in while-writing stage at grade 10classes at Quang Trung Upper-Secondary school, Gia Lai province, the researcher would like to propose some implications so that the teachers of English at Quang Trung Upper-Secondary school, Gia Lai province, and other schools can effectively apply CL in teaching and learning English writing lessons Forming groups based on the real context of the class is very important in applying CL to teaching English writing lessons Groups should be changed regularly in 84 terms of participants’ ability and interests so that students can effectively work Most of the classes at Quang Trung Upper-Secondary school, Gia Lai province are large with more than 45 students, thus changing in forming CL groups certainly takes a lot of time and it is easy to cause a chaos To solve the problem, teachers can ask students to pick up numbers which is the base for the teachers to form new groups in each lesson A list of groups per unit in which the number of students can be changed is conducted according to purposes the lessons Besides, teachers can ask the monitors or group leaders to divide classes into groups before the lessons to save time and keep discipline Helping students get acquainted with CL and organizing small CL activities are what teachers should before applying CL in teaching languages The teachers ought to go around the classrooms, observe and find out difficulties that the students encounter and give clear explanations both in English and Vietnamese in order to make all students clearly understand the way to apply CL Only when without misunderstanding among students can the teachers organize CL activities in whilewriting stage more easily Using CL activities in teaching writing has really improved their effects Whether this small scale research within a limited time can not represent a large number of students in general, statistic analysis results still strongly suggest the integration of CL strategies into writing curriculum Teachers should embed CL strategies into classroom activities by selecting tasks, activities in the course books and adapting them with CL structures Additionally, when implementing CL activities in writing classroom, some very important factors should be taken into consideration such as conducting CL activities, establishing a cooperative activity, organizing group effectively, and managing group activities successfully Especially, self-designed activities are believed to be very important and effective in implementing CL Therefore, these activities should be better structured so that they can get all students involved in the learning process Whenever teachers discover a problem that students have during 85 group activities, they can immediately choose some suitable structures and strategies which can help to solve the problem and design more interesting and effective activities 5.3 Limitations of the study Although the researcher has covered the aims of the study, there are still some limitations The first is the scale of the study This research work was carried out at only Quang Trung Upper-Secondary school, Gia Lai province with the enrollment of 84 students of grade 10-classes and teachers of English, which can not reflect the total picture of using CL activities to make writing lessons more interesting In fact, it could be conducted in a larger scale with the same knowledge and researching procedure The second is that the findings simply focused on the implementation of CL activities in writing classes, so they can not characterize the entire population of teachers and students in the other classes such as speaking, reading and listening 5.4 Suggestions for further studies Basing on the above limitations of the study, the following recommendations are given for further studies First of all, a similar study should be done on the larger scale in terms of both schools and participants The number of schools can be broadened to more than one in Gia Lai province in particular or other provinces in general Moreover, the number of participants involving in the survey should be larger so that it can fully reflect the situation of the issue Second, this study investigated using CL activities in while-writing stage in grade10 classes while CL has been continually introduced to both in the grade-11 classes and grade-12 classes So, it is recommended to conduct the next research work with the other group of students at high schools in general and in Quang Trung UpperSecondary school in particular 86 Third, the application of CL in teaching other skills of English for the same and different population of students is also another suggestive research topic to investigate Last, there are still some areas within this research which can be further developed Some interesting topics to researches on are such as: How to design supplementary CL activities? 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