STUDENT SELECTED OR INSTRUCTOR ASSIGNED GROUP FORMATION IN REDUCING STUDENT’S SPEAKING ANXIETY AT BINH DUONG UNIVERSITY

Project Report 2016 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study It is a common belief that human beings are different from the animals mainly due to the language Thanks to language, people can share their thoughts, know-how, experience and feelings which help us communicate meaningfully and successfully Language exists mainly in two forms of spoken and oral Regarding to language teaching and learning, we could identify language in four macro skills that are reading, writing, listening and speaking In communication, especially international communication for business and merchandise as well as culture exchange and all other reasons, speaking skill is a must for someone who wants to it well Due to the strong demands of the society, especially in Asian countries, English is now not only a dominant foreign language but also a second language The number of English centers is mushrooming indicating the era of global communication English is now not an optional subject but obligatory and applied almost at the beginning of secondary in most of the countries In Vietnam, students in big cities like Ho Chi Minh or Ha Noi even start to study this language since their kindergarten However, despite the effort to bring English into use at the early stage of life, Vietnamese students‟ capability of handling the language in daily communication is still limited Unsurprisingly, the number of unemployed people annually falls on the new graduates Companies all over the country complain about the deficiency of potential employees who can the work well and speak English fluently, although it is marked that in Vietnam whenever a senior want to graduate, he or she must obtain a TOEIC certificate of a minimum 450 However, knowing English, but not actually speaking English is not an actual solution because communication, understanding and the gap between cultures can only be made through speaking Due to the social as well as economic demands, it is important to train the young generation English and all the four macro skills intensively and extensively with the focus on speaking A plethora of studies have been made to evaluate one‟s speaking ability and factors that may enhance or influence learners‟ oral performance While concerning this issue, Ellis (1985) discovered contributing factors to the success or failure of language learners which were grouped Project Report 2016 into the general factors and the personal factors These factors explain how some people instinctively learn languages successfully while the others cannot Developing what have been causing language learning obstacles, MacIntyre and Gardner (1992) re-categorize these factors into cognitive factors and affective factors in that affective factors are considered the major elements including self-esteem, inhibition, risk-taking, anxiety and empathy Among those sub-factors, anxiety proves to be the critically detrimental to success learning and the “crucial element accounting for individual differences in learning outcomes” (Hui, 2012) Hui Ni (2012), also from her research carried out in Heze University, China, revealed that students attend to the lesson much more if they are put under low anxiety Tallon (2009) in discussing anxiety in language teaching and learning stated that this is not a case study, but has been "extensively reported in social psychology, educational psychology, and speech communication” MacIntyre (2002) used the term the “willingness to communicate” (WTC) to indicate anxiety in language performance, especially speaking He believed that the ideal environment for language learning must be anxiety free That is the only key for promoting learners‟ willingness to speak The question raised is that why it is happening within the classroom context According to McIntyre & Thivierge (1997), classroom is considered the base for understanding anxiety in that factors influencing students‟ speaking are observed including the sense of “Self”, cultural differences, gender, a strict formal classroom environment, pedagogical approaches and peer relationship (Tseng: 2012; Liu: 2006) Taking a careful and logical look at these above factors gives us a hint of the root cause of the problem While pedagogical approaches are related to teaching methodology which depends on teacher‟s ability and flexibility, the other factors seems to lead us to an unexpected factor which is the audience For example, the sense of “Self” as Horwitz et al (1986) stated is the strongest threat to language study The anxiety is created when people start to worry about their peer‟s thinking and concern about pleasing friends This issue had been investigated by many linguistics which resulted in the creation of Terror Management Theory that said “people are motivated to maintain a positive self-image because self-esteem protects them from anxiety” (Greenberg et al.,1992 cited in Onwuegbuzie et al., 1999:229) While culture differences create pressure on speakers due to their worry of saying something wrong, inappropriate to the audience In the same line, gender could Project Report 2016 also be a source of anxiety even though it is in much less frequent report which stresses the speakers to talk to the opposite sex As a logical prediction, audience and especially their view on the speakers is proven to be one of the root causes for language speaking anxiety Started in 1984, Dalg & McCroskey found out that the communicative processes are under a huge influence of audience‟s perception of the speaking quality of a speech To support this idea, McIntyre & Thivierge (1995) discovered three main types of audience variables that account for speaking anxiety including audience interest in the topic, audience responsiveness and audience formal evaluation of the speech All of these elements together have become notorious in contributing to anxious speakers Therefore, a supportive and friendly environment is always strongly recommended as a solution for the problem Previous studies have recommended a variety of methods in creating a free-anxiety learning atmosphere However, in conjunction with the audience factor mentioned above, a cooperative learning environment would be required to establish Discussing about this, Schmuck & Schmuck (2001) said “the students of a class are more than a collection of individuals They form a social system with peers in which they experience interdependence, interaction and goal striving” In addition, Okon (2016), when studying about the social factor posing language anxiety, suggested that peer collaboration could enhance familiarity among friends and therefore reduce the level of anxiety This peer collaboration in language teaching and learning has got another name that is group dynamic 1.2 Rationale of the study It should be noted that studying about group dynamic and its relevance is no longer new to generations of linguistics, researchers and teachers all over the world It is easy to find references on any social media networks, online websites and library in-stock It has been studied during the last few decades with positive results on language learning Forsyth (1990) stated that group dynamics is an enormous resource which has a powerful effect on changing students‟ behavior and attitude Dornyei (1994) proved a profound effect of group dynamic on enhancing students‟ motivation through collective data And recently, Dornyei & Ushioda (2011) once again while proposing their Motivation Self-System Model restated the benefits brought to language education in creating a pleasant and supportive atmosphere as well as a cohesive learner group with appropriate norms Project Report 2016 Consequently, regardless of this research, it is not too impetuous to say that there is very few studies have been done towards the effectiveness of group dynamic through two ways of grouping on reducing language speaking anxiety, not to mention in Vietnamese context In addition, in most of the studied reviewed for the purpose of this study, the researchers seem to only focus on the positive results gained on language learning through group dynamics or to examine whether group dynamic works on their students, or how communication improved by applying group dynamic without considering the possibility for different result from two ways of grouping All together, this calls for a study on the gap left from the previous studies This could possibly reveal an answer for future grouping under the name of group dynamics in language teaching and learning As discussed above, this study is conducted for the purpose of discovering the effectiveness of two ways of grouping named student-grouping and teacher-grouping on reducing language speaking anxiety Firstly, it aims at investigating the difficulties students encounter when speaking in groups Secondly, the researcher also desires to assess the effectiveness of studentgrouping and teacher-grouping on student‟s speaking anxiety and to what extent these two ways of grouping different from each other in terms of students‟ preference Last but not least, causes for the differences are also a main target to be figured out through the study Moreover, due to the time constraint and the limitation of the researcher‟s ability as well as the requirement of the course, the study can only go through the issue from a short term experimental study and a brief survey Therefore, it would be necessary for a long term study on the same issue implemented for better learning outcomes 1.3 Research questions With the hope of understanding the effectiveness of two ways of grouping on speaking anxiety, this paper will also used for answering the following research questions: 1/ What difficulties hinder students from speaking in groups? 2/ Are there any significant differences between the effectiveness of student-selected and instructor-assigned on students‟ speaking anxiety in terms of students‟ preference? 3/ Is it possible that the sense of familiarity within group member can reduce the level of anxiety? Project Report 2016 4/ What are the causes for the different levels of anxiety in speaking through two kinds of grouping? 1.4 The significance of the study Hopefully, this paper is practically and scientifically valuable For the practical aspect, it grasps interest of those who are concerned with the effectiveness of two ways of grouping on speaking anxiety yet fail to have chances to search it in detail in a particular situation as Binh Duong University As mentioned above, the study examines, compares, as well as contrasts the possible differences of these two ways of grouping The results are expected to picture the current situation in communicative classes from which teachers will be aware of the power of group dynamic in teaching and learning outcomes, especially in speaking skill, in alignment with the real causes for better improvement in the future For the scientific aspect, it helps to find out causes for the differences between student-grouping and teacher-grouping on speaking anxiety that a plethora of studies in the field has not deeply considered yet On the other hand, this could probably contribute to the national material resources for further studies in future CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Language speaking anxiety’s definition and symptoms Anxiety is believed to be the main factor in influencing one‟s learning result Anxiety is first defined by Spielberger (1966) as “subjective feelings of tension, apprehension, nervousness and worry as a result of an arousal of the autonomic nervous system” This annoying feeling accompanies people in every stage of their life as a stimulus for success or a cause for failure which depends on how they deal with it Undeniably, one has to have this feeling at least once in their life Anxiety exists in every upcoming event such as our first time to get on the stage for receiving awards, the first time to ride on a bike and the first time to take a test It is found the most easily in classroom settings or any kinds of learning settings when everything is unpredictable, especially in language learning That is why many researchers have studied this typical learning feeling Horwitz (1986) later described anxiety “a distinct complex of selfperceptions, beliefs, feelings and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from Project Report 2016 the uniqueness of the language learning process” This definition is considered the most notorious to all generations of language learners who study anxiety In line of language learning anxiety, MacIntyre and Gardner (1991) supported anxiety as one of the best predictors of success in the second language learning accompanied by negative thinking, reacting and behaviors (Hammad &Ghali, 2015) Other studies show that these symptoms are identified with an increase in self-focused attention, distracting and self-deprecating thoughts (Eysenck, 1979; MacIntyre & Gardner, 1994) However, as stated above, anxiety could reinforce or affect a person‟s learning process Studying this, Dornyei (2005) classified the anxiety into two types which are trait anxiety (personal factors) and state anxiety (emotional factors) Before that, MacIntyre and Gardner (1991) suggested another type defined in a specific situation which is called the situation specific anxiety All those types together make the language acquisition more complex to study Given these classifications of anxiety, foreign language anxiety is not any of these types (Horwitz & Scope, 1986) as it depends on specific classroom settings including teacher‟ s and students‟ perceptions as well as other facets which exist only in language leaning Horwitz‟s study about this resulted in the exploration of three main components of foreign language anxiety: communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation and test anxiety Communication apprehension comes from one‟s psychiatric reactions or behaviors towards the classroom interaction requirements mainly depending on one‟s personality such as the differences between introverted and extroverted person (Horwitz et al., 1986) While the extroverted feel quite relaxed in making communication with the others, the introverted are conservative and shy Fear of`negative evaluation, on one hand, is quite close to their counterpart which is about one‟s negative thinking, or to put it another way, one‟s low self- esteem and selfconfidence People who experience this fear usually avoid raising their voice in front of people or refusing to give their own thinking due to feeling anxious of wrong answers The last type is identified in testing situations when students are worried about failing the test Clearly from the above findings, anxiety is a common problem faced by language learners However, some people would want to question whether its degree of intensity contributing in every corner of English may or may not be the same Arising out of this consideration, many researchers like Horwitz et al (1986), MacIntyre and Gardner (1989) have worked on hundreds Project Report 2016 of cases, thousands of learners as well as teachers to find out the answer First of all, they came up with the generalization of typical symptoms or signs As MacIntyre and Gardner (1993) included nervousness, tension, apprehension and introversion while Horwitz et al (1986) came up with tenseness, trembling, perspiring, palpitation, etc In classroom context, this is familiar for teachers to observe anxious students who show their concentrating difficulty, sweating, hesitation and more Yet, it would not be fair to treat all English skills the same amount of anxiety The literature drawn from most of the other studies on the same issue suggested that speaking skill is extremely anxiety-provoking in comparison with other skills since speaking is the only skill among all four macro skills that requires the learners to guarantee an on spot interaction, fluency and accuracy within a limited time allowance This would not be necessary to rush yourselves when learners deal with receptive skills such as listening and reading while writing is on the side of personal and logical expressions which allow the writers an appropriate period of time to brainstorm and organize the ideas Therefore, to avoid a broad and helpless discussion, it is worth examining the anxiety in language learning only in the relation with the speaking skill as most of the researchers traditionally as well as currently doing 2.2 Grouping’s effect on speaking anxiety As mentioned above, to keep up with the urging requirement of social and personal needs, language teaching and learning must put the focus on communicative skills including speaking and listening While listening can be improved through the providing of phonetics and phonology knowledge as well as sub listening skills, it is not easy for speaking It is obvious that speaking always accompanies anxiety at some certain levels for all learners even though their levels may diverse In order to solve the problem, group work was recommended in the light of reducing anxiety to the lowest point, but still guaranteed as much communicative practice as possible for students Bar-tal & Bar-tal (1986) from their study concluded that grouping could facilitate L2 learning since members shared the risks and interaction was taking place naturally Louise (1961) also agreed with this idea since he had a strong support to the philosophy of “short-attention span” of students This called for a change in our frequent classroom setting by grouping the students together and made them have a sense of getting involved in every part of the lessons In Stanford University Newsletter on Teaching issued in 1999, Barbara mentioned the term “cooperative Project Report 2016 learning” that promoted learning if students were put into groups All together, it would be a bright future for our students to take the initiatives in their learning and gain much more success as well as motivation that can only brought by applying grouping method 2.3 Group dynamics’ theory Regarding to grouping, it would be insufficient without mentioning group dynamics which is developed based on the explanation of grouping‟s effect in language teaching and learning Group dynamics is a social scientific term that was brought into use since 1940s by Kurt Lewin The idea is that people, who are definitely isolated individuals, will act and behave differently under the influence of group‟s norms Even though, group dynamics had found a way to get into language teaching quite late, the impact was quite notorious in the research of friendly classroom environment which was free of anxiety 2.4 The correlation between grouping and speaking anxiety Conceivably, from all the previous discussion and studies‟ references, grouping in language classroom does have a positive impact on reducing students‟ speaking anxiety First of all, it is worth mentioning the reasons causing speaking anxiety which include a variety of fears: communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation, test anxiety and specific-situation In the context of a normal English classroom, these fears usually come from shy, introverted and uncertain students who are always not willing or refuse to engage in communication Therefore, the most important factor for reducing their fear is creating a friendly environment This could be achieved through group work where the risk of being judged by other people is reduced to the lower number of attendants, more time for practicing to get familiar with their fear and building up their confidence as well as giving them the natural source of motivation Hammer (1991) believed that grouping increased the amount of student talking time That probably fits in the need Moreover, research findings suggested that group work helped increase the frequency of language practice, enhance critical thinking that students can quickly organize their speech in a given time which is necessary to install students‟ confidence (McGroatry: 1989; Richards & Rogers: 2001) In addition, Salmi (2003) clarified the benefits of group work in speaking in that learners‟ willingness to speak promoted by time as they have to share their thoughts, solution for the success or failure of the whole group Project Report 2016 Besides, group work is a nice activity where weak students seek for friendly help without losing their self-esteem According to Doff (1988), the more the students participate during group work practice, the more fluent their speaking is This idea was later confirmed by Ur (1996) as he claimed that the chances for students to practice speaking were five times higher if there were five groups Finally, group work generated motivation as well as granted students a considerable amount of autonomy (Richards & Lockhart, 1994) In terms of speaking anxiety, Doff (1988) said in his study “students fell less anxious when they are more private than when they are shown in front of the whole class” Group work, consequently, becomes very helpful in getting shy, uncertain students to speak and overcome their shyness As a whole, group work brings tremendous benefits for students in their language learning in general, and in speaking in specific Group division creates a friendly environment where students feel most comfortable to share their ideas, seek for chances to practice and learn from their friends‟ mistakes For those who are ambitious, they can also motivate themselves through observation of their friends‟ performances In general, group work has been used and become a regular practice in English classroom through a diversity of activities Therefore, to conclude, group work, or peer cooperation is extremely beneficial in many different ways, especially in reducing speaking anxiety 2.5 Relevant studies During the last few decades, it is noted that the majority of studies in this field have been done involving grouping, group dynamics and speaking The first among relevant studies conducted by two well-known researchers (McIntyre & Thivierge, 1995) involving ninety-five sophomores from psychology and communication classes with the purpose of finding out the relationship between audience familiarity and speaking anxiety This research was developed based on the previous findings which claimed that speaking anxiety was closely related to crucial elements such as communication apprehension, performance apprehension, situational factors, personality traits and audience anxiety In relation to group dynamics developed through their theoretical ground for the study, they focused on the audience‟s aspects where grouping and group familiarity eased the level of anxiety in speaking Project Report 2016 This study was an examination for the previous statements on the same issue made by Buss, McCroskey and Froming Buss (1980) believed people responded less anxiously to their familiar audience, while McCroskey (1984) found that that was because friend audience would be more tolerant and understanding than the total strange listeners To complete the philosophy on audience familiarity, Froming (1990) concluded unfamiliar audience tended to make negative evaluation That was the source for anxiety arousal among speakers However, there were also findings against this conclusion in that Brown & Garland (1971) disapproved this idea by stating that familiar audience might provoke the same amount of anxiety with the unfamiliar Betty (1988), on the other hand, found no correlation between these two variables Thanks to these findings, McIntyre and his partner‟s work had its ground From their study, it was concluded that there was a stronger impact on speaking anxiety from pleasant audience than the familiar audience Later in 1997, after the discovery of three sources of anxiety originated from audience by Buss (1980) and Motley (1991), McIntyre & Thivierge implemented a study in order to find out more variations for the audience provoking factors in speaking 121 sophomore students participating in this study were asked to present in form of vignettes followed by a questionnaire The study revealed that the most preferred audience type was interested, responsive and non evaluative ones Data showed that this type of audience aroused the least anxiety and provoked the greatest willingness to speak The question raised was when audience would be interested and cooperative Reviewed back to the study finished in 1995, the variations of audience‟s reaction to a given speech could vary depended on how close they are to the speaker (Buss:1980, McCroskey:1984, Brown & Galant:1971, Froming et al.:1990) It was easy to see that these three variables contributing to the speaking anxiety, and grouping from group dynamics theory in relation to this might give us a more precise answer Discuss about speaking anxiety in groups, Asaoka (2013) believed that the essential elements for speaking performance laid on group‟s cohesion and communicative enjoyment as she stated “stronger cohesiveness provides a source of security for its members, which leads to heightened self-esteem and lower anxiety” (Asaoka:2013, p.50) In order to increase this communicative enjoyment between class members and achieve the target of speaking fluency, the researcher applied seating-allocation among 26 freshmen in the Fall Semester at Grinnell College The 10 Project Report 2016 Last but not least, concerning to the effectiveness of these two Table 16 Student's opinions about group formations' effectiveness grouping 7% Student-selected methods Data collected from student‟s answers reveals that 72% of students 21% choose student-selected grouping, while Instructorassigned 72% only 21% of students vote for instructor- Both assigned grouping, not to mention 7% of students support both ways 4.2 Findings and discussion of results From the quanlitative analyses of the data, findings emerged to be grouped into three categories based on the problems presented in the research questions According to the study‟s logic proposed earlier, the structure of findings would follow the stepping stone order in that the first one is the ground to develop arguments for the next ones The first category is about speaking difficulties under group dynamics‟ impact The second one aims at answering which group formation has more benefits on student‟s speaking anxiety This part would also explain causes in relation with the sense of familiarity and unfamiliarity Finally the last one is about student‟s viewpoint on separate group formations together with speaking anxiety Consistent with this study‟s purposes, theses three categories would captures significant differences between group formations in easing anxiety as well as further discussion on the root causes 4.1.2.1 Students’ speaking difficulties and group dynamics’ impact Data from question 3, and clearly showed that students tend to feel anxious when dealing with speaking skills (78% out of 100% of answers) (refer to Table 17) Due to this very natural feeling, they usually seek for friendly help from other students who would share the risk of speaking and cooperate in making a conversation they can barely make themselves As a result, students feel more comfortable and confident to join in the work This is what has been concluded long time ago by Bartal and Bartal (1986), Barbara (1999), and Doff (1988) Up to 47% of students have the same opinions (refer to Table 2) 28 Project Report 2016 Table 17 Anxious when speaking No 22% Yes 78% Apart from this easing effect, speaking conducted in group is also found to be very beneficial as students address in their answers Harmer (1991) mentioned in his study, group dynamics created from group work can help students develop their critical thinking which is in line with student‟s opinion (17%) This number of student believe that working in group help them learn more from the others as well as recognize their own mistakes (15%) which is effective (10%) for their future learning As McGroatry (1989), Richards and Roger (2001) discovered, the more speaking practive students have, the more confident they are The data collected from two experimental classes has proved that group work does have a profound amount of benefits on students, especially for easing their speaking anxiety 4.1.2.2 The effectiveness of student-selected and instructor-assigned group formations on reducing speaking anxiety From the proven facts about the effect of group dynamics in speaking, group work have been widely practiced in most English classrooms It should be noted that this group work can exist in two forms: student-selected groups and instructor-assigned groups which are the main focus of this study in that the researcher would test their effectiveness on reducing speaking anxiety this will be discussed based on the table of mean scores of the familiarity‟s elements below Group formations Student-selected groups Instructor-assigned groups Factors Pleasantness Communicative 84.6% enjoyment 75.9% 12.7% 24% and satisfaction Cohesion 76.5% 23.4% Communicative competence 18.1% 77.4% 29 Project Report 2016 Negative Evaluation 23% 76.7% Responsiveness and interest 80.9% 19.1% Acceptance 83 % 16.9 % As McIntyre and Thivierge ascertained in 1995 that the sense of familiarity between group members will decide whether the speaking activties are successful or not This was later confirmed by Buss (1980) and McCrosky (1984) This is explained by the fact that familiar friends are usually more tolenrant and understanding with their friends‟ ideas and mistakes than the unfamiliar ones Thanks to this kind of behaviours, students who work with friends usually feel more pleasant and confident to share their ideas ( 84.6% in comparison with 12.7% of teacher-selected groups) These are further explained with feelings such as comfortable (80.9%), encouraged (80.9%), less stressful to share ideas despite their weaknesses in terms of vocabulary or speaking competence (87.8%) (reter to Table 4) Arguing for this finding, Froming (1990) from his study mentioned in Chapter stated that unfamilar friends tend to give negative evaluation to the speaker And this is a source of anxiety arousal In this study, this is highly observed in teacher-assigned groups where students feel very stressful and nervous Up to 73.7% of students experience this annoying feeling in groups of new friends That dramatically affects student‟s willingness to speak in a negative way Most of the partcipants worry to be judged (82.6%), be corrected mistakes (73%) and be overwhelmed under the others‟ expectation (70.4%) That is why only 19.1% students are comfrotable to share their ideas while a four times higher percentage of 80.9 % students are just in tense (Table 8) Found in 1997 from the previous study in 1995, McIntyre and Thivierge claimed that the sense of familiarity in groups of friends could be identified by their interested expression to the speakers, responsive comversations, or the non-evaluative attitude These elements together were very effective in reducing speaking anxiety, or in other words, enhancing student‟s willingness to speak As these two researchers discovered, this can only found in groups of friends These elements were also included and measured in this study‟s questionnaire Not surprisingly, a large number of participants accounting up to 80.9% agree with this findings above which is four times higher than the instructor-assigned groups On the one hand, students who get responsive 30 Project Report 2016 attention and support are more relax, and confident ( the figures show 75.7%, 86.1% and 80.9% respectively referring to feelings of encouragement, confidence and free-anxiety) On the other hand, only a small percentage of students found those feeelings in groups assigned by teachers (the figure is always below 25%) (Table 9) Moreover, Asaoka (2013) believed that student-selected groups sustain group‟s cohesion As a consequence, the students of these groups enjoy their communicative activities more In accordance with this, the reseacher also found the same result as 75.9% ( mean score) of students voted for it However, there were still arguments against this finding Some reseachers from their studies argued that speaking with unfamiliar group members increase group‟s flexibility, exposes students to anxiety which later gets students familiar with high anxiety and build up their confidence in any speaking situations Moreover, speaking within groups of unfamiliar friends was a good way for students to realize their levels in comparison with other And this was a good source for speaking motivation This view, however, does not receive much support since only 18% among all participants (refer to Table 15) agree on the good side of being exposed on high anxious situations for better improvement Furthermore, in terms of communicative competence, up to 77.4% of students believed that this just made them more stressful to speak One more reason given is that good but unfamiliar students tend to dominate the speaking rather than helping the others (80%) And arguments within groups can only make them less willing to speak or increase their anxiety (80%) (refer to Table 7) Another obstacle that obstructs the speaking success is the fear of being rejected by other people (Michaela, 2009) Data proved that instructor-assigned group formation show a high percentage of disapproval or ignorance in the student‟s viewpoint (above 80%) While this is much slower for students joining their self- selected groups (under 18%) From all the above results, there is a significant diffrences between the effectiveness of two group formations on the student‟s speaking anxiety Therefore, reseachers can confidently state that group dynamics can work best within student-selected groups in easing students‟ speaking anxiety This conclusion is made based on a collected data and analysis of various contributing speaking anxiety elements Moreover, data also reconfirms the findings from previous reseacher that the sense of familiarity between group members can reduce their nervousness when speaking rather than unfamiliarity in the study of Brown and Garland (1971) 31 Project Report 2016 4.1.2.3 Students’ viewpoints on the relationship between group formations and speaking anxiety Regarding to the massive choices for student-selected group formation, it is necessary to investgate the rootcauses that lead to the significant differences between the two group formations First of all, most of the answers received in terms of student-selected group‟s opinion share the same ideas They include the pleasantness brought by friends (20%), the confidence thanks to friends‟ tolerance and support (20%), great possibilities for easy cooperation It is worth mentioning the negative idea which is meaningful despite its small amount (6%) (refer to Table 14) That one reason is the distraction of friends It is common to obeserve friend chat time during a speaking session These students usually go off the topic and start some jokes which is useless for their speaking and above all distract other friends from practicing speaking Even though this small amount of distraction is the only negative feedback received on the side of student-selected group formation It is still a warning to teachers for further group control and management On the side of instructor-assigned group formation, the deviation between positive and negative viewpoints are not so giant as its counterpart in which CHAPTER V CONCLUSION The data collected from the questionnaire has been very helpful in answering the questions raised in this study on the effectiveness of each separate group formation on reducing speaking anxiety In addition, the provision of experimental teaching in shaping students‟ awareness before completing the questionnaire is also worth complimenting on Conclusion Suggestions/ pedagogical implications Limitation of the study 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Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Snow, C E (1993) Bilingualism & Second Language Acquisition Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Spielberger, C D (1983) Manual for the state-trait anxiety inventory Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press Taylor, I., & Taylor, M (1990) Psycholinguistic: Learning and Using Language Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Preatice-Hall MA: Newbury House APPENDICES Experimental teaching activities  Session 1: Unit (What’s she like?) 35 Project Report 2016 Speaking: describing people Vocabulary: appearance and personality Grammar: “be like” and “look like” - What‟s he like? - What does he look like? - Who does he look like? Activity 1: Describe people In this activity, after students were grouped according to their choice Teacher showed a picture of a person on the screen, students discussed in groups and tried to describe that person as much as possible After minutes, teacher randomly invited the representative from each group to come to the front and present their groups‟ work The group with the most accurate description was a awarded point This activity was repeated one more round Activity 2: Appearance or personality Teacher wrote the question on the board which was “What you think is more important: appearance or personality?” Students worked in group to discuss the question and gave examples to support their ideas After minutes, teacher invited the representative from each group to come to the front and present their groups‟ work This was important to choose the people who had not been invited before For each convincing reason, the group got one point The winner was the group with the most scores  Session 2: Unit ( What can you there?) Speaking : talking about cities, making suggestions Vocabulary: local attractions Grammar: “can” and “can‟t” Activity 1: “Outburst” This activity was designed based on the concept of a very popular game “outburst” In this activity, each group had to write down five local attractions they knew within 1minute Then, 36 Project Report 2016 two groups would compete with each other at once in that group A would appoint one person to guess and the whole group received the paper from group B They had to describe the places in English so the other one could guess Each correct guess would earn them one point Afterwards, it was group B‟s turn to guess After all groups finished competing in pair groups, winning groups would the activity again but with an assigned country theme such as America or France untill they found the winning group Activity 2: city life or country life The teacher wrote the topic for a debate on the board “ a country life is better for teenagers than a city life” the teacher divided all available groups into two big groups: one would argue for the statement, one would argue against All groups were awarded minutes to discuss according to teacher‟s assignment of whether they were arguing for or against After that, all groups would have 10 minutes to debate for oragainst the statement by speak out their opinions Each group‟s opinion would be noted on the board by the teacher After the given time, teacher would cover all the opinions, groups with the most agreeable opinions won the game  Session 3: unit 11 (Did you have a good time?) Speaking: talking about vacations Vocabulary: vacation activities Grammar: the simple past Activity 1: Where are we going? In this activity, each group was assigned to write a list of things and activities they had brought and done in their trip to one place This place‟s name was not revealed and limited within the country After minutes of preparation, each group‟s leader had to tell the class things related to their trip Which group made the correct guess of the place would score one point This activity continued untill all groups had their turns Activity 2: Our vacation 37 Project Report 2016 Each group was given minute to go on the board and write five random words Those words could be nouns, adjectives, verbs or adverbs Then, their job was to tell the whole class their group imaginary vacation using those words and the simple past tense They had 10 minutes to prepare Same as the above activities, teacher chose one person randomly from each group to come to the front and speak  Session 4: unit 12 ( I am going to study law.) Speaking: talking about future plans Vocabulary: careers and schools Grammar: “be going to + Verb” Activity 1: “I wish to become… ” This activity would start by teacher saying the sentence “I wish to become” with a job Students in a group had to write down what they were going to to become that person Each round would last minute Then, students had to hand in their papers to the teacher Each correct sentence was awarded one point There were rounds The winner was the groups with the most scores Activity 2: It’s summer time! The teacher wrote on the board 10 famous places for a good vacations in Vietnam Each group leader had to come to the front and play “Rock Scissor Paper” to choose the place they liked When all groups had already had their destinations They had minutes to discuss their plan for the trips including both affirmative and negative sentences with “going to” For example, they could talk about what they were going to or not going to bring Then, teacher chose one person from each group randomly to present With each correct sentence, they scored one point The group with the most points won the game Questionnaire QUESTIONNAIRE 38 Project Report 2016 TOPIC: STUDENT-SELECTED OR INSTRUCTOR-ASSIGNED GROUP FORMATION IN REDUCING ENGLISH SPEAKING ANXIETY AT BINH DUONG UNIVERSITY My name is Huynh Tran Vuong Chan I am a TESOL postgraduate student from University of Social Science and Humanities Ho Chi Minh City This questionnaire is one of the most important parts for finishing my course of Master of Art in TESOL It would be unachievable without your help in completing this questionnaire This would give me reliable statistic data about what kind of group formation is more effective in reducing students‟ English speaking anxiety Your identity and results will be kept anonymous and will only be used for the purpose of this paper Thank you for cooperation and assistance * Note: You are required to answer all of these questions Due to the importance of your answers to a scientific research, please answer these questions sincerely and thoroughly Name: Age: _ Occupation: _ University: 1) How many years have you learned English? _ 2) How you rate your present English level? _ 3) Do you feel anxious when speaking in English? _ 4) When practicing the speaking skills, you like to practice on your own or in group? Why? _ 5) What hinder you to share your ideas when speaking in group? 39 Project Report 2016 6) Between student-selected and instructor-assigned group formations, which one you like to practice speaking in? Why? 7) Describe your thought of working in group of your choice? 8) Describe your thought of working in group of teacher‟s assignment? 9) Which group formation you think will be more effective for you to improve your speaking? Why? Now, let‟s read these statements about group work in your English classes and choose the one that you agree on by putting a stick (√) in the box of your choice NO STATEMENTS I feel comfortable when speaking in this group because everybody does not expect too much of the result I am not worried to share my opinions because others are 40 STUDENT- INSTRUCTOR- SELECTED ASSIGNED Project Report 2016 willing to listen to me I am nervous to present my idea because no one will laugh at it I am not worried when speaking because others are tolerant to my mistakes When speaking on group behalf, I am less anxiety thanks to my group members‟ support I am comfortable when speaking because the others can understand my ideas despite my lack of vocabulary Everybody comfortably shares their ideas and there is an interaction within group members I am confident to share my opinion and the others support me Group speaking activities help my group members be more confident, opener because we have a good time together 10 I am comfortable because my group members support and help each other 11 I am not worried when practice speaking because each time is a new experience and I am not bored 12 My group members inspire each other so I am not embarrassed to speak what is on my mind 13 We can always agree on what to say in front of my class 14 We often argue and some people just want to keep their own thinking 15 Some members dominate the speaking, I am nervous to speak my ideas 16 I am worried when each member has to speak 17 I shiver when it is my turn to speak in front of my group members 41 Project Report 2016 18 Working in this group makes me stressful because I think I am the worst in my group 19 I have more chances to speak in this group, and I gain more confidence 20 I am not worried when speaking because I learn many things from my group members 21 I often get nervous and forget what I want to say 22 I am not stressful when the others ask for my opinions 23 When speaking, I am worried of being corrected 24 I am not comfortable to share my ideas because the others might judge mine 25 I am stressful to present on my group behalf because the others seem to expect too much 26 I am nervous when being asked while I have not had anything on my mind yet 27 I am encouraged when my group members listen to each other‟s ideas 28 I am more confident in this group, the others show me how to speak when I not know 29 When speaking on my group behalf, I am nervous when nobody seems to show any support 30 Whenever I say something, I am afraid of being ignored 31 I feel like a stranger in this group and nobody seems to care about what I say 42