A study on students'''' behavior in group work in speaking classes at Vinh Uiniversity

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY LÊ THỊ THANH BÌNH A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ BEHAVIOR IN GROUP WORK IN SPEAKING CLASSES AT VINH UNIVERSITY MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION Nghe An, 2014 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY LÊ THỊ THANH BÌNH A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ BEHAVIOR IN GROUP WORK IN SPEAKING CLASSES AT VINH UNIVERSITY Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Code: 60140111 MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISOR: Lê Phạm Hoài Hương, Assoc. Prof., Ph.D. Nghe An, 2014 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my very affectionate and deeply-felt thanks to my supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Pham Hoai Huong, for giving effective instructions and invaluable advice during the preparation and completion of this graduation paper. I owe her a dept of gratitude that cannot be measured. I also wish to acknowledge my debt to all the teachers of the Foreign Languages Department at Vinh University as well as some teachers from Vietnam National University, Hanoi – College of Foreign Languages, whose lectures and ideas have inspired my thesis and whom it is impossible to thank individually. My appreciation also goes to the students at Vinh University for their valuable assistance in completing my survey questionnaire and providing me with a lot of useful information. Finally, I would like to send my great thanks to my family, my friends who have directly or indirectly helped me with their encouragement and advice. On the whole, without all these help my graduation paper would not have possibly been completed. Due to limited scope, it is sure that in this graduation paper, mistakes are inevitable, that is why I hope to receive further comments and advice to make it better. Vinh, 2014. LE THI THANH BINH i ABSTRACT This study was set out to investigate students’ behavior in group work in speaking classes at Vinh University. The study used both quantitative and qualitative approaches in methodology. A questionnaire was sent to 100 students who came from different regions from mountainous areas to city centers and had no common in major. Interview data was also collected with 10 students and 5 teachers. These teachers have had a period of time applying group work in English speaking classes. In addition, observation was conducted in some classes with group work activities. Results highlight the complexity of what happens when students work in groups in English speaking classes. Some dominant behavior of students in group work includes impatience, selfishness, impoliteness, embarrassment and non- cooperation with partners. The study also shows that there is a conflict between teachers’ intentions and students’ interests. They seem dissatisfied with some of teachers’ decision, especially comments and marks. Therefore, teachers’ roles in those classes are strongly emphasized although students are still center of the class. Based on the findings of the study, implications were made for teachers and students in managing group work. ii TABLES AND CHARTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT: Communicative Language Teaching CLL: Cooperative Language Learning EFL: English as a Foreign Language ESL: English as a Second Language GW: Group Work iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1. Rationale Nowadays, people seem to familiar with terms “global citizen”, “interaction”, “collaboration” which highly consider the relationship between person and person. Therefore, the word “group work” has gradually become a key term in any fields of life such as business, sport and education. It can be seen that group work enhance effective and efficient achievement of an organization’s work; members of a team are more committed to work on goals that they help to create. Moreover, everyone in group work can contribute their unique abilities and they have a sense of belonging (Davis, 1993). Problem-solving, persuasive argumentation and teamwork are necessary skills and valued by employers. Group work is also emphasized in Communicative Language Teaching which is popular in teaching methodology in many countries. Barkley (2005) believes that learners will obtain several benefits. Group work is one pedagogical strategy that promotes participation and interaction. It fosters a deeper and more active learning process, and it also provides instructors with valuable demonstrations of the degree to which students understand particular topics or concepts. In addition to exposing students to different approaches and ways of thinking, working with other students in groups can promote a sense of belonging that combats the anonymity and isolation that many students experience at a large campus. Some students may initially be reluctant to participate in group work, so sharing the reasons for group work with your students can help to convince the reluctant ones. It might help them to know that research has shown that groups frequently devise more and better solutions than the most advanced individual . Working together in groups also gives students the opportunity to learn from and teach each other. Classroom research has shown that students often learn better from each other than they do from a teacher . However, the complexity of what occurs when students are placed in groups as part of their English speaking lessons should be explored. It is difficult to find 1 out what the students actually behave in these situations. It is clear that students in groups often do not do what the teacher expects. Neither do the students always move towards the teacher’s intentions when working in groups. Breen (1987: 23) warns that ‘learners are capable of playing havoc with the most carefully designed and much-used task’. Being a teacher at Vinh University, the author has recognized that group work is widely used in any English speaking classes but students’ behavior is various. And she wants to do research on it with the hope to find out positive and negative sides of group work and contribute some suggestions to build better speaking classes. Those reasons above lead to the study “A study on students’ behavior in group work in English speaking classes at Vinh University”. 1.2 Research aims: - To understand how group work is carried out in English speaking classes at Vinh university. - To find out how students behave with each other and with teachers during the time working in groups. - To recommend practical suggestions to boost good behavior in group work and decrease short- comings. 1.3 Research questions: The research tries to answer the following questions: 1. What do students think of group work carried out in English speaking classes at Vinh university? 2. How do students behave in group work in English speaking classes at this university? 3. What should be changed to improve the effectiveness of group work in English speaking classes? 2 1.4 Research significance The research zooms in the way students behave and react with each other and with teachers. That helps teachers know what students like to do and what they do not. The research focuses on understanding students’ needs, thoughts and ideas in group work. From that teachers can modify group work effectively in order that students feel excited to join in any activities with others. 1.5 Scope of the study Many sides of group work have been studied by researchers. They have described its advantages and disadvantages, methods to manage group work. They have also found out activities related to group work in reading, writing, listening and writing. In this thesis, the author would like to pay attention on students’ behavior in group work in English speaking class. The research collects statistics from survey with 100 students, interview 10 students and observations of some classes at Vinh University. 1.6 Thesis structure The study consists of five chapters: Chapter 1, entitled “Introduction”, outlines the background of the study. In this part, the author presents the reasons for choosing the topic, the purposes, the scope, the research questions, and the organization of the study. Chapter 2 , ‘Literature Review’, presents an overview of what is group work, its advantages and disadvantages; definition of behavior; previous studies related to this topic in foreign countries and in Vietnam. In Chapter 3, “Methodology” presents the detailed procedure of the study: the methodology, population selection, data collection and analysis. Chapter 4 is the “Findings and Discussion” which provides data description and analysis with findings. The last chapter, “Conclusion and Recommendations”, summarizes main points and contents of the study based on the results of the study; suggests some techniques for teaching and presents the recommendation for further research. 3 [...]... information on research methods, participants, data collection and analysis which related to how students behave in group work in speaking classes at Vinh University 3.2.Research methodology For some reasons, the study has adopted both qualitative and quantitative approaches John (2006) clarifies that qualitative research is collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data by observing what people do and... everything and they prefer writing everything in their notebooks, learning to read, studying grammar, and learning English words by seeing them - Students’ motivation Motivation is a key factor leading students’ success in learning in general, and in learning language in particular There are many different kinds of motivation such as integrative motivation, instrumental motivation, intrinsic motivation,... when they are engaged in group work interaction” Another problem given by Ngoh (1991) is “the administration of small group work is a demanding and arduous process, as it is a careful planning, preparation and constant motoring” Besides, teachers fear that the potential chaos and conflicts may arise within groups and that in classrooms where students share a common native language, they have the tendency... that speaking is the medium through which much language is learnt In conclusion, it is reasonable that speaking is a way to communicate with people By studying what a speaker should do, what activities should be used in a speaking class, and what students’ needs and suggestions, teachers can help learners enhance their speaking skill and oral competence 2.4.2 Problems with speaking and speaking activities... confirms speaking as an undervalued skill in many ways As the fact that almost all people can speak, and so take speaking skill too much for granted He also asserts that speaking skill deserves attention every bit as much as literacy skilled Learners often need to be able to speak with confidence in order to 16 carry out many of their most basic transactions Bygate also highly appreciates speaking by stating... do and say While, quantitative research refers to counts and measures of things, qualitative research refers to the meanings, concepts, definitions, characteristics, metaphors, symbols, and descriptions of things Bawden (1990) defines qualitative data as studying the behavior of individuals in all the complexity of their real-life situations In contrast to quantitative data, qualitative data does not... The teachers should consider these points when teaching speaking skill 2.5 .Group work in speaking lesson According to Brown (2001), there are four typical benefits of group work in speaking lesson: Group work generates interactive language The teacher talk is really dominant for a long time in so-called traditional language classes The teacher lectures, explains grammar points, conducts drills and spends... have different concepts of speaking: Brown (1994) defines speaking as a process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information Brown and Yule (1983) also pointed out that spoken language consists of short, fragmentary utterances in a 4 range of pronunciation, adding that spoken language is made by using the loosely organized syntax, and non-specific words, phrases... contains a great deal of information that the listener needs And at the same time, the listener is helped by the speakers’ prosodic features such as stress and intonation which accompany the spoken utterances and form part of its meaning, and also by his facial and body movements Brown (1983) also reveals that speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and... extrinsic motivation, global motivation, situational motivation and so on - Teaching techniques It is obvious that different teaching techniques create different degrees of students’ participation and interest in the lesson For example, techniques which focus on grammatical and phonological accuracy like choral repetition, drilling 25 substitution, content explanation will result in learners’ passiveness . MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY LÊ THỊ THANH BÌNH A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ BEHAVIOR IN GROUP WORK IN SPEAKING CLASSES AT VINH UNIVERSITY MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION Nghe An,. 2014 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY LÊ THỊ THANH BÌNH A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ BEHAVIOR IN GROUP WORK IN SPEAKING CLASSES AT VINH UNIVERSITY Major: Teaching English to Speakers. out to investigate students’ behavior in group work in speaking classes at Vinh University. The study used both quantitative and qualitative approaches in methodology. A questionnaire was sent