DECLARATION I certify that the minor thesis titled “Enhancing third-year non-English major students’ participation in speaking lessons through collaborative activities at Hanoi University of Business and Technology” is the result of my own work and that this thesis has not been published or submitted for a degree to any other universities or institutions. Signature Nguyễn Thị Minh Hà i ACKOWLEDGEMENTS To complete the task, I have received a great deal of useful and practical support from many people. First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Mr. Đỗ Bá Quý. for his scholarly knowledge, wholehearted supervision, insightful invaluable guidance and constructive critical feedback. He has inspired and encouraged me during the steps of the thesis. Also, my special thanks are sent to my colleagues and my beloved third-year students in two classes, KT1210 and KT1218, of Hanoi University of Business and Technology (HUBT) for their participation in as well as their strong support for the research with comments, useful materials and classroom observation opportunities without which my work would have not been completed. Last but not least, I would like to convey my heartfelt thanks to my family and all of my close friends for their love, care, encouragement and financial as well as spiritual support for me to fulfill this thesis. Hanoi, August 2010 Nguyễn Thị Minh Hà ii ABSTRACT Cooperative learning has been widely accepted and used in international English language classes for years, but in Vietnam, this approach seems to be a fairly new issue and yet to be applied nationwide. Taking the advantages of collaborative learning, the author of this study attempted to apply some collaborative activities to 58 third-year non-English major students in speaking lessons in hope that they can solve some in-class speaking problems such as boring and quiet atmosphere, team members’ laziness, ‘hijacking’ attitudes, ineffective collaboration, too much competitiveness, etc. This action research is conducted in two classes of Accountancy at Hanoi University of Business and Technology with the focus on the effectiveness of the cooperative activities in enhancing students’ participation in speaking lessons, to some extent. In this paper, the researcher uses four data collection instruments: questionnaires, follow-up semi-structured interviews with students, observation in each lesson and students’ reports on their pair or group work after the lessons. The researcher reviews some theories regarding speaking skill, cooperative learning, and then analyzes the informant’s feedback on the effectiveness of cooperative learning. The research shows that collaborative activities are effective in helping students to change their attitudes towards speaking skill, as well as pair or group work, and enhance their participation in speaking lessons. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS HUBT: Hanoi University of Business and Technology ESL/ EFL: English as a second or foreign language CL: Cooperative learning/ Collaborative learning CLL: Collaborative language learning CA: Collaborative activities LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Some matters related to grouping before and after the application of CA Table 2: Conflicts during discussion before and after the application of CA Table 3: Students’ distribution of participation- class 1 Table 4: Students’ distribution of participation- class 2 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Cooperative learning outcomes Figure 2: Students’ attitude towards speaking practice in class before the application of CA Figure 3: Students’ attitude towards speaking practice before and after the application of CA Figure 4: Students’ attitude towards pair or group work before and after the application of CA Figure 5: Students’ desire for leadership in pair or group work Figure 6: Students’ distribution of participation- class 1&2 v