Promote the effectiveness of pair work and group work in speaking lessons at tran an chiem high school

- Suggesting some effective ways of using pair and group work in speaking lessons.. Besides, the researchermakes an attempt to find out the advantages and disadvantages of pair and group

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HÓA

TRƯỜNG THPT TRẦN ÂN CHIÊM

SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM

PROMOTE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PAIR WORK AND GROUP WORK IN SPEAKING LESSONS AT

TRAN AN CHIEM HIGH SCHOOL

Người thực hiện: Đỗ Thị Thu

Chức vụ: Giáo viên

SKKN thuộc môn: Tiếng Anh

THANH HÓA NĂM 2018

Table of contents Page

1 Introduction ………

1.1 Reasons for choosing the topic ………

1.2 Purposes of the study………

1.3 Objects of the study………

1.4 Methods of the study………

2 Contents ………

2.1 Theoretical background………

2.1.1 Definition of pair work and group work………

2.1.2 Pair and group activities in a speaking lesson…………

2.1.3 Advantages and disadvantages of pair work and group work………

2.2 The use of pair work and group work in speaking lessons at Tran An Chiem High School ………

2.3 How to organize pair work and group work effectively…

2.3.1 Preparation for pair or group work ………

2.3.2 Steps in the classroom………

2.3.3 Steps for organizing pair or group work in a speaking lessons………

2.3.4 Sample speaking lesson plan applying pair work and group work………

2.4 Effects of the study on teaching and learning………

3 Conclusion ………

3.1 Conclusion ………

3.2 Recommendation ………

References ………

Appendice

2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 4 5

7 9 9 9

11

12

15 16 16 17 19

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Reasons for choosing the topic

In recent decades, it is undeniable that English has become a primarymedium of international communication in commerce, transportation, banking,tourism, technology, aviation, diplomacy, scientific research etc, As a result,Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training has adopted English as acompulsory subject at schools, colleges and universities since 1990s However,most of the students have still been confused with the demand of communicativecompetence, which derives basically from the lack of the opportunities topractice, the limited exposure to the real language interferences, and especiallythe lack of suitable teaching and learning methods They are mainly taught withthe traditional method – Grammar Translation Method which focuses onacademic study of grammar; subsequently, students are discouraged frompromoting their overall communicative competence

Since the onset of the communicative era, speaking has been perceived as themost fundamental skill to acquire and also the ultimate goal of languagetraining; therefore, its development has become the focus of attention of bothteachers and students However, helping students to achieve proficiency inEnglish language speaking in such Vietnamese classroom conditions faces anumber of difficulties Fistly, classes are at large size Secondly, most studentshave low motivation to learn English Besides, materials do not fulfill students’need because many topics for speaking in the course book do not relate much tostudents’ everyday conversations and hardly reflect the variety of oralcommunication in real life situations Moreover, many students are too shy tospeak in English lessons They may have difficulty taking part in theconversations because they suffer from saying something wrong orincomprehensible and losing face in front of their teacher or peers Last but notleast, students find it easier to express themselves in their mother tongue than inEnglish, so if they are not instructed carefully, they will not try to express theirideas in English

According to Nunan (2003), one of the main principles for teaching speaking

skill is that ‘teacher increase students’ talking time by letting students practice

in pair or group and limit teacher’s talking time’ Pairwork and groupwork has

long been applied in teaching but in fact the majority of students are still afraid

of speaking lessons So what is the main cause for this – that is also the reason

why I choose the topic “ Promote the effectiveness pairwork and groupwork

in speaking lessons” to study with the hope of trying to find out the better way

to teaching speaking lessons effectively

1.2 Purposes of the study.

This study is aimed at:

- Investigating the use of pair work and group work in speaking lessons at Tran An Chiem High School

- Pointing out the benefits and challenges of using pair and group work activities

- Suggesting some effective ways of using pair and group work in speaking lessons

- Showing how pair and group work can be used for various classroom activities

- Giving teachers confidence in using pair and group work themselves

1.3 Objects of study

As mentioned above, the study focusses on finding out the frequency of usingpair and group work in speaking lessons as well as the methods applied toimprove students’ speaking skill in the speaking lessons Besides, the researchermakes an attempt to find out the advantages and disadvantages of pair and groupwork in speaking lessons as well as suggest the effective ways and methods ofusing pair and group work to teach this skill The study is carried out on fortytwo grade – ten students at Tran An Chiem High School in Yen Dinh district andfour English teachers there

1.4 Methods of the study

To realize the aims of the study, the reseacher has used both quantitative andqualitative methods The theoretical background of the study comes from a lot ofpublished books by famous researchers in the field The data for the charts hasbeen collected through survey questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS software

2 CONTENTS 2.1 Theoretical background

2.1.1 Definition of pair work and group work

The definitions of pair work have been developed over the years with thecontribution of a great number of linguistics and are brought together by Doff

(1988): ‘In pair work, the teacher divides the whole class into pairs Every student works with his or her partner in pairs, and all the pairs work at the same time (it is sometimes called ‘simultaneous pair work’) This is not the same

as “public” or “open” pair work, with pairs of students speaking in turn in front

of the class.”

The definition of pairwork in this case is an activity that gives students achance to talk to each other, practice language together, study a text, researchlanguage or take part in information-gap activities They can write dialogues,predict the content of reading texts, or compare notes on what they have listen orseen

In general, there are two main types of pairwork, fixed pairs and flexible

pairs, suggested by Byrne (1983) The first type is when the students work with

the same partner in order to complete task In this kind of pairs, they will deeply

understand each other and know the other’s ability Meanwhile, the second one

is when students keep changing their partners They can lift the chair freely totalk to any partner they like, which makes the activity more interesting

In group work, the teacher divides the class into small groups of four or fivestudents to work together and all the groups work at the same time just as in pairwork (Doff 1988: 137) In this setting, students are assigned a task that involves

“collaboration and self-initiated language” (Brown 2001:177), then students

have opportunities to speak and altogether take the responsibility to pursue the

common goals

2.1.2 Pair and group activities in a speaking lessons.

According to Brown (2001), appropriate pair activities include Dialogues, Questions and Answers, Drills, Quick Brainstorming Pair work enables teachers

to engage students in interactive communication for a short period of time with

minimum of logistical problems Typical group tasks are Games, Role – play and simulations, Drama, Projects, Interview, Brainstorming, Information gap,

Jigsaw, Problem solving and decision making, and Option exchange.

Byrne (1991: 36-102) suggests some more activities for pair and group work

In his opinion, pair work can be used for Controlled converstion, Questionnairesand Quizzes, Find a partner whereas group work for Discussion, Interpretationactivities, Planning activities, Invention activities and Project activities

Moreover, Doff (1988: 211) adds Exchanging personal information activity forpair work and Guessing games activity for group work

Perhaps the list of activities for pair work and group work is still lengthened

by many other researchers For the limitation of this study, some most popularones will be focused on

• Games

A game could be any activity formalizing a technique into units that can bescored For example, students can practice twenty questions through a guessinggame in whicj one member secretly decides he/ she is some famous person; therest of of the roup has to find out who, within twenty yes/no questions, witheach member of the group taking turns asking questions The person who is “it”rotates around the group and points are scored

• Information gap

In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs One student willhave the information that other partner does not have and the partners will sharetheir information This activity serves the purposes of solving a problem,collecting information etc,

• Role play

Role play involves giving a role to each member of the group and assigning anobjective that participants must accomplish In pair, for example, student A is anemployer; student B is a prospective employee; the objective is for A tointerview B Or a group role – play might involve a discussion of a politicalissue, with each person assigned to represent a particular political point of view.

• Interview

Students work in pairs or in groups of three or four to conduct interviews on alist of topics based on the theme and content in the textbook In each pair/ group,one is the interviewer and the other(s) will be the interviewee(s) Their tasks are

to prepare questions for the interview and to answer them in a given period oftime When time is over, each pair/ group will be called on to present theirresults to the class

• Problem solving

Students are requested to find out the solutions to a specified problem whichmight be relatively simple (such as giving direction on a map), moderatelycomplex ( such as working out an itinerary from a train, plane, bus schedules),

or quite complex ( such as solving a mistery in a crime story)

• Discussion

In group discussions, students should always be encouraged to work intosmall groups of four or five to ask questions, paraphrase ideas, express support,check for clarification and so on This activity is often carried out after studentshave completed a content –based lesson under teacher’s control to gain thegeneral knowledge of the topic

2.1.3 Advantages and disadvantages of pair work and group work.

• Advantages of using pair and group work activities.

Brumfit says that pair work and group work are the most effective techniques ofclassroom organiztion which combine aspect of communication learning andnatural interaction in a stress free environment (Brumfit, 1984: 78)

Pair work and group work give students more opportunities to speak English inclassroom Students participate in the lesson much more actively because theyare involved in talking to their friends, exchaging opinions, practising newstuctures more than listening to their teacher talking By dividing the class intogroups, students get more chances to talk than in full class organzation, thuseach student can say something Penny Ur recommends that teachers workingwith larger classes should divide them into five groups which is the mosteffective organization for practising speaking (Ur, 1996:232)

Students may feel less anxious when they are working in a group with a smallnumber of people Particularly, timid students find it hard to speak in front of the

class and teacher in their eyes seem to be fear They become silent and cannotthink of anything to say However, when participating in pairs or groups, theymay find it easier to share their opinions.

Besides practising and consolidating the language, pair work and group workhelp to integrate the class Students learn how to cooperate with one another,make compromise, negotiate, and respect individual with different abilities andviews, which is important for the class atmosphere and relationship with theteacher Instead of sitting alone passively listen to the others, they can help eachother and contribute to the success of a lesson In such a class, the teacher is nolonger a supervisor but become a resource center and advisor for the students

• Disadvantages of using pair work and group work activities.

Gross (1993: 67) also points out clearly disadvantages of using pair work andgroup work activities as follow:

Some teachers are reluctant to use pair or group work being afraid of noise ordiscipline problems which might occur particularly Indeed students make noisewhile working on the task; they discuss things, check words and communicatewith one another However, it is so-called “positive noise” and it does notdisturb the students They are concentrating on their task so they do not hear it

If an activity goes on for too long; students, especially the poor ones make noisebecause they become bored, they want to get the teacher’s intention and theybecome disruptive

Another disadvantage of using pair or group work activities is makingmistakes Some teachers neglect to use pair or group work saying that studentsmake mistakes trying to express their own ideas Indeed, incorectness is aproblem yet in real life, it is communicative fluency that matters not accuracy, so

we should not be concerned too much with accuracy if we want to practice oralskills According to Doff (1998:141), when learners work in pairs, it isimpossible for the teacher to listen and correct all the mistakes they make and it

is also not the purpose of this activity However, he or she can reduce thenumber of mistakes before the students start working by demonstrating theactivity to the class first and by asking pairs to perform in front of the classafterwards and discussing what they said and pointing out the most commonmistakes

2.2 The use of pair work and group work in speaking lessons at Tran An

Chiem High School.

I have conducted a survey to find out the real information about the application

of pair work and group work in speaking lesson at Tran An Chiem High School through two survey questionnaires; one for four English teachers and one for 40 grade-ten students (see the Appendices) The followings are the results of the survey when I started carried out this survey

Table 1 Teachers’ frequency of using pair work and group work in speaking lessons

The pie chart shows that half of the teachers often use pair work and group workactivities to teach students Twenty percent always use this method and the rest often organize this activity Therefore, it is clear that, pair work and group work play an important role in teaching English at Tran An Chiem High School

Table 2: Kinds of pair work and group work activities used in speaking lessons

With four options for the teachers to select in the survey questionnaire:Dialogue, Role play, Games and Other activities to answer the question aboutkinds of pair work and group work they often use to teach speaking skill, onlytwo options have been selected Most of them use Dialogue and only one usesRole play and no one mentions any other kinds of pair work and group work So

we can see that more activities should be applied to enhance the effect of thespeaking lessons

Moreover, with the last question in the survey for teacher, all of them confirmthat pair work and group work are very effective in speaking lessons

Table 3 Students’ feelings when taking part in pair and group work in

Table 4 below illustrates the frequency of taking part in pair work and group work activities The majority of the students sometime join in these activities, which acounts for 85.7 percent Six of them often do so and noone chooses

‘Always’ or ‘Never’ option

Through the survey, it is clear that pair work and group work have been used

to teach speaking lessons However, very few kinds of these activities are

applied and students are sometime involved in Besides, when taking part in pair

or group work, many students still feel nevous or timid Therefore, the question

is that how to enhance the effect of pair and group work in speaking lessons to improve students’ speaking ability

2.3 How to organize pair work and group work effectively.

2.3.1 Preparation for pair or group work

In order to prepare for pair or group work, according to Littlewood (1981)the teacher needs to do the following:

- Select the activity

- Prepare any physical material for pair or group work ahead of time

- Anticipate the size and the selection of pairs or groups

- Anticipate how students will be organized within the pairs or groups (tasks and roles)

- Consider the timing of the pair or group work

- Consider how the pair or group work will be shared with the entire class and linked with the overall curriculm

2.3.2 Steps in the classroom

• Select the activity

An activity that is best suited for pair work and group work may meet thefollowing criteria:

- The activity has multiple tasks that can be shared among pair orgroupmembers or a single task, such as generating ideas, that benefit fromthe articipation of all individuals within a pair or group

- The activity involves problem solving and discussion

- Examples of activities that may be suited for pair or group work areinvestigations of materials (newspapers, scientific specimens) and development

of ideas or arguments

• Preparation for materials

The teacher will need to personally collect, or organize students to collect,physical specimens for investigation For example, if the teacher anticipatesdoing a lesson on the role of the media, she or he might ask the students to bringinto class newspapers and magazines There should be materials sufficient foreach pair

• Size and selection of pairs or groups

Pair size normally ranges between two students Group size can sometimes

go larger although groups larger than 8 do not ensure that everyone willparticipate

Pair membership can be determined in different ways A random selectionmight be done by “counting off” with students (go around th roomsystematically having students count 1,2, etc., with each number representing apair or selecting pairs on the basis of birth date

Sometimes pairs are organized for one activity Other times, teachers use pairsfor series of activities, so that students get used to working with one another

• Organize students within the pair

A laissez-faire approach to pairwork would be that the teacher gives a generalassignment to the pair - such as organize a research project on ‘qualities of a

good leader’ – and the students are left to organize the pair or group workthemselves.

A highly structured approach would be that the teacher assigns a specific role

to each pair or group member Depending upon the task, the role might include

‘materials handler’, ‘scribe’, ‘reporter to the pair’ and so on A semi-structuredapproach might be that the teacher recommend certain roles, but leaves it to thepair or group to assign roles

A more structured approach, with rotation of tasks within a pair or group, isoften used with younger students A less structured approach can be used withstudents having experience in pair or group work or for simple tasks that do notrequire students to take on different roles

• Time the pair and group work

The teacher should anticipate student questions about timing, the task results,sharing with the whole pair, and so on After giving clear instructions to thestudents, the teacher should be available to answer questions, but not interferewith the pair or group’s activities

It is common in many classrooms that a pair or group activity constitutes 20minutes of a 40 minute – period, with 10 minutes allowed for sharing other pair

or group work with the whole class

• Share pair or group work with the whole class

Usually the results of the pair or group work are shared with the class Thissharing can be oral (reporting out), visual (written or graphic representation), orboth

It is highly interesting to contrast the results of pair or group work

2.3.3 Steps for organizing pair or group work in a speaking lessons

Harmer (2001) divides pair and group work into three steps: Pre activities,While activities and Post activities

• Pre activities

We need to give instructions to let students understand what they are going to

do, give them ideas of when they will have finished the task they ar going to getinvolved in Sometimes, we may ask them to repeat the instructions or totranslate them into their first language so as to check their understanding Insome cases, our instructions may involve a demonstration

• While activities

While students are working in pairs the teacher has a number of options Theycould, for instance, stand at the front or the side of the class (or at the back or