Teachers perceptions of collaborative learning in english language teaching

Trang 1 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION Trang 2 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES EDUCATION VU THI LANH TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNI

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES EDUCATION VU THI LANH TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNING IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING MASTER THESIS Thai Nguyen, June 2023 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES EDUCATION VU THI LANH TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNING IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING Major: English teaching theories & methodologies Code: 8140111 MASTER THESIS Thai Nguyen, June 2023 i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby certify that I wrote the current thesis on my own, that it has not been submitted in whole or in part as graded academic work, and that I used just the methods listed Thai Nguyen, June 2023 Vu Thi Lanh ii ACKNOWLEDGMENT Words cannot express my gratitude to Mrs Cao Thuy Hong, Ph.D., my supervisor, for her insightful instructions and guidance to complete the research I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all teachers and staff at English Faculty, Thai Nguyen University of Education, for their encouragement and suport I am also grateful to all teachers who participated in my research Without them, I would never complete this research I would be remiss in not mentioning my family and friends for their unconditional suport and motivation Thanks to them, I could invest my time and effort in completing this study iii ABSTRACT Understanding teachers' perceptions about collaborative learning would be an important step toward the implementation of collaborative learning in English lessons The current study aimed at investigating teachers' perceptions of the collaborative learning, particularly (i) teachers’ perceptions of collaborative learning, (ii) teachers’ perceptions of their roles in collaborative learning, as well as (iii) the challenges of collaborative learning A mixed method approach with the use of both questionnaires and interviews were used to gain insights into the problem Findings from the study showed that teachers generally had insufficient understanding of the concept of collaborative learning The most limited area of perception was that of teacher’s role In terms of challenges, teachers appeared to have more difficulty with (i) evaluating students fairly, (ii) balancing the teams of mixed-ability students, and (iii) determining tasks for cooperative learning Based on the findings from the current study, schools, provincial Departments of Education, as well as teacher training institutions might have appropriate plans to support teachers and encourage their use of collaborative learning in teaching English Keywords: collaborative learning, teacher’s perceptions, English teaching iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGMENT ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF FIGURES vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii Chapter One: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 RATIONALE OF THE STUDY 1 1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 3 1.2.1 Aims of the study 3 1.2.2 Objective of the study 3 1.3 RESEACH QUESTIONS 3 1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 3 1.5 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 3 1.6 THE STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY 4 Chapter Two: LITERATURE REVIEW 5 2.1 THE CONCEPT OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNING 5 2.2 IMPLEMENTATION OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES 10 2.2.1 Key principles of collaborative learning 10 2.2.2 Managing groups in collaborative learning 12 2.2.3 Stages in designing instruction for collaborative learning 14 2.2.4 Teachers’ roles of collaborative learning 16 2.2.5 Benefits of collaborative learning 19 2.2.6 Challenges of collaborative learning 20 2.3 PREVIOUS STUDY ON TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNING 22 Chapter Three: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 24 v 3.1 CONTEXT OF THE STUDY 24 3.2 RESEARCH DESIGN 24 3.3 RESEARCH POPULATION AND RESEARCH SAMPLE 25 3.4 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENT 25 3.4.1 Questionnaire 25 3.4.2 Interview 29 3.5 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES 30 3.6 DATA ANALYSIS 31 Chapter Four: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 32 4.1 DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION OF THE PARTICIPANTS 32 4.2 CHECKING OF SCALE RELIABILITIES 32 4.3 RQ1 WHAT ARE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE COLLABORATIVE LEARNING? 37 4.4 RQ2 WHAT ARE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ROLES IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING? 40 4.5 RQ3 WHAT ARE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE CHALLENGES OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNING? 42 Chapter Five: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 47 5.1 SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS 47 5.2 RECOMMENDATIONS 47 5.3 LIMITATIONS 50 Reference 51 Appendix A: QUESTIONNAIRE 65 Appendix B: INTERVIEWS 70 Appendix C: SUGGESTED COLLABORATIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES 72 Appendix D: SUGGESTED GROUPING TECHNIQUES 73 Appendix E: SIX STRUCTURES FOR THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOM 78 vi vii LIST OF TABLES Name of tables Page Table 3.1 The classification of the questionnaire items 27 Table 3.2 Interviewees’ information 30 Table 4.1 The demographic information of the participants 33 Table 4.2 Interpretations of Cronbach’s alpha value (George & 34 Mallery, 2003) Table 4.3 The scale reliability of the questionnaire items 34 Table 4.4 Mean scores of teacher’s perceptions 39 Table 4.5 Item statistics for Interdependence 39 Table 4.6 Item statistics for face-to-face promotive interaction 40 Table 4.7 Item statistics for teacher’s perceptions of teacher’s 42 role Table 4.8 Item statistics for perceived challenges 43 Table 5.1 GLAID framework (De Hei et al., 2016) 50 LIST OF FIGURES Name of figures Page Figure 4.1 The collaborative learning strategies used by teacher 47 Abbreviations viii CL The CLIQ LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS GLAID Meaning Cooperative Learning M Cooperative Learning Implementation Std deviation Questionnaire N Game Learning Analytics for Intellectual Disabilities Mean score Standard deviation Number