An investigation into the perceptions and actual behaviors of the teachers and the students at the faculty of Foreign Language of Ho Chi Minh City University of20150227.PDF

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Table of contents PART I: INTRODUCTION………………………… ………………….… ………… 1 Rationale The purposes of the study…… Research questions 4.Methods of the study Scopes of the study Design of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Communicative language teaching 1.2 Group work 1.2.1 Definitions of group work 1.2.2 Advantages and disadvantages of group work 1.2.2.1 Advantages of group work 1.2.2.2 Disadvantages of group work 1.2.3 Teacher’s roles in carrying out group work 1.2.4 How to organize group work in speaking lessons 1.2.5 Group formation 10 1.2.6 Group Size .11 1.3 Perception and behavior 11 1.3.1 Definition of perception 11 1.3.2 Definition of behavior…………………………………………………………12 1.3.3 Relationship between perception and behavior in teaching and learning language 13 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 15 2.1 Background of the study 15 v 2.1.1 Description of the students at FFL, HUI 15 2.1.2 Description of the teachers at FFL - HUI.…………………… …… 15 2.1.3 Description of the physical setting … 16 2.1.4 Description of the subject matter ………………………………………….16 2.2 Design and data analysis 16 2.2.1 The student sample 16 2.2.2 The teacher sample 17 2.2.3 Research instruments 17 2.2.4 Procedure…………………………………………………………… ……18 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS 3.1 Questionnaire results………………………………………………… ………19 3.1.1 The teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the best way to teach and learn speaking in class 19 3.1.2 The students’ feelings when they work in groups .20 3.1.3 The teachers’ perceptions of the appropriate time for each group work activity…………………………………………………………………………… …… 21 3.1.4 The teachers’ and the students’ perceptions of preferred group members .21 3.1.5 The teachers’ and the students’ perceptions of the most appropriate number of members in each group .22 3.1.6 The teachers’ and the students’ perceptions of the benefits and the weaknesses of group work for improving speaking skill .23 3.1.7 The teachers’ and the students’ perceptions of the things should be done by the instructor before activity………………………………… ………………………… … 25 3.1.8 The teachers’ and the students’ perceptions of the things should be done by the instructor during activity 25 3.1.9 The teachers’ and the students’ perceptions of what the teachers should after activity ………………………………………………………………… ……… 26 3.1.10 The teachers’ and the students’ perceptions of the difficulties when carrying out group work 26 3.2 Class observation 27 CHAPTER 4: MAJOR FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS…………………… 32 4.1 Major findings …………………………………………………………………….32 vi 4.2 Recommendations ……………………………………………………………… 36 PART III CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………… 43 References Apendix A- Teacher questionaire Apendix B- Student questionaire Apendix C- Observation sheet Apendix D- Collected data iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ESL: English as a Second Language EFL: English as a Foreign Language FFL: Faculty of Foreign Languages HUI: Ho Chi Minh University of Industry CLT: Communicative Language Teaching L1: First language L2: Second language PART I INTRODUCTION Rationale English has been widely used in many areas such as politics, economics, tourism, electronics, telecommunication, culture and science and technology English is not only a means but also a key to accessing the latest achievements of science and technology Therefore, it is necessary for many Vietnamese to have a good command of English to satisfy the growing needs in a developing country like Vietnam Speaking is an essential skill for English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) For many, speaking is the most important to master With strengthened speaking skills, ESL/EFL speaker will make greater progress and attain greater development in all academic areas Being a teacher of English at Faculty of Foreign Language – Ho Chi Minh University of Industry (FFL-HUI), the researcher is well aware of the importance of using group work to help energize the speaking class Like many other teachers working here, however, the researcher has also faced many challenges in organizing and managing group work during English speaking lessons For instance, the noise created by students when they work in groups, student‟s laziness, students‟ use of their mother tongue, etc In fact, there is a close relationship between one‟s perception and his/her behaviors Yu (2004) stated that teachers' perceptions "construct" their practices, which in turn, lead to whatever progress both the learners and the teachers achieve Practice and progress in language learning and teaching will re-construct teachers' perceptions of L2 development Teachers need to reflect upon their own ideas and practices to be better informed Dewey (1933) argued that teachers should be reflective-practitioners through questioning the beliefs and methods in their own experimental approach to schooling - psychology and sociology being tools or resources for the construction of new educational hypotheses to be tested against experience To meet the increased needs of teachers and students, at FFL- HUI, the author of this study is determined to choose this area to research on This study is intended to make a modest contribution to investigating what the teachers‟ and students‟ points of views about group work activities and what they really before, during and after this activity The results of the study, hopefully, enhance the flexibility of using group work to create positive, dynamic and effective atmosphere in English speaking (speaking) lessons, and more importantly improve students‟ oral practice of English For all of the reasons above, it would be necessary to have an investigation into the students‟ and the teachers‟ perceptions of using group work to improve English speaking skill and their classroom practice respectively By doing so, we could recommend some techniques to increase the effectiveness of teaching and learning English speaking by using group work at the FFL-HUI It is hoped that this study will reveal issues concerning teaching speaking by group work and provide classroom English teachers with an in-depth understanding about the procedure of organizing group work to teach speaking effectively The purposes of the study The first purpose of this study was to examine teachers‟ and students‟ perceptions of using group work to teach and learn English speaking at the FFL-HUI That is to say, the researcher aimed at finding how the participants at the chosen setting think about the effectiveness of this activity to improve English speaking skill for the learners Moreover, the study also aimed at investigating the actual behaviors of the participants when group working in the real lessons to compare with their perceptions Finally, the results of this study helped to facilitate the application of group work in teaching and learning speaking to improve the effectiveness of speaking lessons at the FFL-HUI Research Questions In the study, the following research questions are posed: 1.a What are FFL-HUI teachers‟ perceptions of group work in English speaking class? 1.b What are FFL-HUI students‟ perceptions of group work in English speaking class? 2.a What are the teachers‟ actual behaviors when group working in English speaking class? 2.b What are the students‟ actual behaviors when group working in English speaking class? How to further improve the effectiveness of group work in speaking lessons at FFLHUI? Methods of the study To achieve the aims of the study, a mixed method combining both qualitative and quantitative styles was used The data for the research was collected from the third- year students and the teachers who have experienced in teaching speaking at FFL-HUI by survey questionnaires, oral interviews and classroom observations Both qualitative and quantitative analysis methods were used to deal with the collected data Data from questionnaires were processed quantitatively for descriptive statistics On the basis of those statistics, the researcher can give comments, recommendation, conclusions about the perceptions of the teachers and the students of group work in speaking lessons at FFL-HUI, thus answering research questions 1.a and 1b To answer research questions 2.a, 2.b, and 3, a qualitative method using an “interpretive model” (Hatch 2002: 179) was employed to analyze data collected from the researcher‟s interviews and observations of the speaking English classes in the setting to find out the participants‟ actual behaviors when they work in groups in the classrooms and recommendations for further improvement Scope of the study Group work can be applied to improve all of the four skills in learning language, speaking, listening, writing and reading, but the study only focuses on speaking skill Moreover, it is not the researcher‟s intention to investigate the perceptions and behaviors of all the teachers and the learners in the FFL-HUI about this activity Instead, the researcher only intends to draw a brief overview of the point of view and actual behaviors of the teachers who have experienced in teaching speaking and of the third-year students in the FLL-HUI about group work The reasons for this choice were that the teachers having experiences in teaching speaking can give clearer opinions about this activity as they have used it to teach speaking, so that they can understand what should be done to improve the effectiveness of group work Meanwhile, only the third- year students were chosen to investigate since these learners have had nearly years at the college so they get used to learning at the higher level Furthermore, the objectives of the training syllabuses for the third-year students are to help the learners improve communicative skills rather than improve pronunciation or vocabulary at all Design of the study The study consists of three main parts: Part I, Introduction, presents the rationale, purposes, research questions, scope, methods and the design of the study Part II, Development, is organized into four chapters - Chapter 1, Literature review, reviews such basic concepts and knowledge relevant to the study such as Communicative Language Teaching approach, some basic factors of group work as well as theory of perception and its importance in language teaching - Chapter 2, Methodology, provides an overview of the current situation of teaching and learning speaking at FFL-HUI Sampling, Instruments and Procedures for Data collection and analysis are also presented in this chapter - Chapter 3, Results, presents the research results, - Chapter 4, Recommendations, discusses the major findings of the research and also suggests some recommendations to further improve the effectiveness of group work in teaching speaking at FFL-HUI Part III, Conclusion, summarizes the major findings and suggestions The limitations of the study and recommendations for further studies are also included in this part References and appendices complete the thesis PART II DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter consists of sections which review major theoretical background that the researcher based on when carrying out the thesis Section one deals with the issues of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) which is intended to be discussed in terms of CLT charateristics and communicative activities Section concerns some concepts related to the study of factors that affect the effectiveness of group working such as definition of group work, advantages and disadvantages of using group work in English speaking lessons, students and teachers‟ roles, how to organise groups, form groups The last section in chapter one focuses on reviewing scholars‟ ideas of perception and behavior as well as their relationship in language teaching and learning 1.1 Communicative language teaching The Communicative Approach emerged in the early 1970s as a result of the work of the Council of Europe experts (Al-Mutawa and Kailani, 1989) However, it can be traced back to the work of Chomsky in the 1960s, when he advanced the two notions of 'competence' and 'performance' as a reaction against the prevalent audio-lingual method and its views These two concepts were developed later on by Hymes, into a „communicative competence' which refers to the psychological, cultural and social rules which discipline the use of speech (Hedge, 2000) Dimensions of communicative competence which are identified in the literature include: linguistic or grammatical competence, sociolinguistic or pragmatic competence, discourse competence, strategic competence (Richards & Rogers, 1986; and Hedge, 2000), and fluency (Hedge, 2000) Communicative Language Teaching is best considered as an approach rather than a method (Richards & Rogers, 1986) Within language teaching methodology, a distinction is often made between methods and approaches, in which methods are held to be fixed teaching systems with prescribed techniques and practices, whereas approaches represent language teaching philosophies that can be interpreted and applied in a variety of different ways in the classroom (Rogers, 2001) Learner-centeredness is a key point of CLT Students in this approach are seen to be able to play a more active and participatory part than in traditional approaches Therefore, the roles of the teachers will be re-defined with the charge of activity organization because each learner is thought to have unique learning styles, needs and goals, which should be reflected in the design of the method of instruction (Richards and Rodgers, 2001) In conclusion, CLT can be characterized by the following features: - An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language - The introduction of authentic texts into learning situation - The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on the learning process itself - An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning - An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation outside the classroom (Nunan, cited in Brown 1994a:78) 1.2 Group work 1.2.1 Definitions of group work According to Doff (1988:137), in group work, the teacher divides the class into small groups working together (usually four to five students in each group) and all the groups work at the same time Nolasco and Arthur (1998) defines that group work is a number of people (usually more than two) assigned a task together and they will work on it cooperatively Richards and Platt (2010; 163 - 164) considers group work in language teaching is a learning activity which involves a small group of learners working together The group may work on a single task, or on different parts of a larger task Richards also discusses that this teaching activity has three characteristics: first, a small number of students (two to twelve) meet together; second, they choose, or are given, a common topic of problem and a goal or objective; third, they exchange and evaluate information or ideas about the topic In short, group work is a cooperative learning activity which involves from more than two students up to twelve students The group-members work together to carry out an activity given by the instructor or chosen themselves In a language lesson, the students are more comfortable when sitting in groups; however, they have certain linguistic targets to reach There are a lot of activities for them to get the target More importantly, although they work cooperatively, each member in the groups has their own responsibilities and targets ... 3.1.5 The teachers? ?? and the students? ?? perceptions of the most appropriate number of members in each group .22 3.1.6 The teachers? ?? and the students? ?? perceptions of the benefits and the. .. 3.1.8 The teachers? ?? and the students? ?? perceptions of the things should be done by the instructor during activity 25 3.1.9 The teachers? ?? and the students? ?? perceptions of what the teachers. .. influencing the way they teach, how they motivate and engage their students Teachers'' perceptions of what is meant by L2 learning, and what affects learning will influence everything they both within and