An investigation into the use of group work to teach speaking to large english classes at a police university in vietnam

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES ***************** NGUYỄN THỊ THỦY AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USE OF GROUP WORK TO TEACH SPEAKING TO LARGE ENGLISH CLASSES AT A POLICE UNIVERSITY IN VIETNAM Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng phương pháp làm việc nhóm để dạy nói cho lớp học tiếng Anh đơng người trường đại học Việt Nam) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES ***************** NGUYỄN THỊ THỦY AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USE OF GROUP WORK TO TEACH SPEAKING TO LARGE ENGLISH CLASSES AT A POLICE UNIVERSITY IN VIETNAM Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng phương pháp làm việc nhóm để dạy nói cho lớp học tiếng Anh đơng người trường đại học Việt Nam) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr Hoàng Thị Hạnh Hanoi 2014 DECLARATION I, NGUYEN THI THUY, hereby certify that the thesis entitled “An investigation into the use of group work to teach speaking skills to large English classes at a police university in Vietnam” is my own study in the fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts at Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi Hanoi 2014 Nguyen Thi Thuy i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the assistance I received from a number of people in the course of carrying out the research paper I highly treasure the important role they played in making the completion of this minor thesis a success First of all, I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Dr Hoang Thi Hanh for painstakingly reading through my work from the beginning to the end and for her constant advice and invaluable comments and suggestions Without her continuous support I may not have come this far Secondly, I want to express our sincere gratitude to the Post-Graduate lecturers who supplied me with basic and useful knowledge about how I could structure a research project and what I should write in each chapter Thirdly, I would like to extend my thanks to my colleagues and my students at the People’s Police University of Technology and Logistics for their willingness to help me complete my thesis Finally, millions of thanks go to our beloved family whose financial support and spiritual encouragement contribute a significant part to the completion of the research ii ABSTRACT This study attempted to investigate the effects of group work on students’ participation in English speaking lessons Students’ attitudes towards the use of group work were identified To achieve these objectives, 36 second-year students of a police university were involved The data were obtained through the analysis of students’ journals; notes from the researcher and group secretaries; and interviews with students and teachers before the treatment as well as an observing teacher after the treatment The findings show students’ positive attitude towards group work, which results in a significant increase in students’ speaking participation The results obtained indicate some improvements in students’ speaking Pedagogical implications drawn from the findings and suggestions for the further cycle in the action research are presented iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Table of contents iv PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale for the research Objectives of the study Research questions Significance of the study Scope of the study Method of the study……………………………………………… The presentation of the study…………………………………… PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Theoretical background of speaking 1.1.1 Nature of speaking skill 1.1.2 Teaching Speaking skill 1.1.3 Classroom speaking activities 1.1.4 Problems with speaking activities 1.2 Overview of group work 10 1.2.1 Definition of group work 10 1.2.2 Benefits of group work 11 1.2.3 The implementation of group work in the classroom 12 1.3 Review of the related studies 15 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Why action research? 18 2.2 Research setting 18 2.2.1 Overview 18 iv 2.2.2 Description of the English course 19 2.2.3 Participants 19 2.3 The Research Design 20 2.4 The procedure of the study 20 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS 3.1 Students’ journals 26 3.2 Teachers’ notes and secretaries’ notes 30 3.3 The post-treatment interview with the observing teacher 31 3.4 Some newly-arising problems and solutions for the next cycle 34 PART C: CONCLUSION Summary of the study 36 Pedagogical implications 37 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies 37 REFERENCES 39 APPENDICES I v PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale for the research With my own experiences of an English teacher, I see that speaking is a problem for most of non-majored English students My students are not an exception Before entering their universities, they mainly come from rural areas, so they did not have a lot of chances to practice English in communication or for interaction in their daily life During the speaking lessons, the students seem to rather quiet and passive Whenever I ask them to say something in English, they just say “yes” or “no” and hardly answer the open questions like “Why …?”, “What you think…?”, etc As a result, teacher talking time was much greater than student talking time in class The speaking period seems to be boring and stressful not only to the students but to me as well Besides, I encountered quite a few problems in terms of a large number of students in my English classes In speaking lessons, I cannot control and check individuals’ speaking performance Speaking opportunities for each student become limited Most of students not have any contributions to their speaking, whereas only few students take part in speaking activities In order to overcome these obstacles and make my speaking lessons more interesting, I tried to search and read some studies to find some solutions to my problems One of the strategies that reflect the principle of learner - centeredness is group work This method was applied widely in some classrooms and showed some positive effects on students’ speaking However, when group work is used in my own context, I not know whether it is appropriate and helpful to my students or not Therefore, it is necessary for me to a small action research on “the use of group work to teach speaking skills to large English classes at a police university.” Objectives of the study With the attempts to find out the extent which the use of group work can help my students enhance their speaking skills and also know how my students perceive this learning technique Specifically, this study is carried out with two main objectives as following: - To investigate the effects of group work on students’ participation in English speaking lessons - To examine students’ attitudes towards the use of group work in the classroom Research questions In order to achieve the set goals in the previous section, the research seeks to answer the following research questions: How does the use of group work influence students’ speaking? What are students’ attitudes towards the use of group work in English speaking lessons? The significance of the study After finding out the impacts of group work in oral performance, this study is hoped to be valuable to both teachers and students at my university Firstly, it helps me to understand whether the use of group work increases students’ participations in speaking activities or not Moreover, this research is also expected to raise the teachers’ awareness of students’ motivation in language learning in general, and in speaking in particular From these findings, it will be useful for my colleagues to select the suitable methods in their future lesson planning Besides, for my students, they may have one more chance to practice their speaking skills in another way in comparison to previous methods Their teacher’s transformation in group work implementation will be able to be beneficial to the students The scope of the study This study mainly focuses on the impacts of group work on students’ speaking in English lessons Besides, their attitudes towards the use of group work in speaking activities are also one of the concerns of the study The participants in this study are 36 second year non English-majored students at my university Method of the study In consideration of the research’s purposes, this study employs three data collection instruments including interviews with teachers and students; students’ journals; notes from the researcher and the groups’ secretaries The interview with students and teachers: this instrument is employed to find out the problems students encountered in previous speaking lessons Students’ journals: These journals are collected at the end of each lesson during the experiment to investigate what students like and dislike about the use of group work in speaking lessons The interview with the observing teacher: This method is carried out to investigate her opinions about the use of group work to teach speaking skills and its appropriateness after she observed some speaking lessons in the process of experiment In summary, after using group work, some problems such as the lack of vocabulary and grammar structures, students’ shyness and reservedness in speaking activities, the imbalance of students’ speaking chances, and the pressure of a crowded class that reduced students’ speaking have been solved partly The above conducted strategies made quite good effects: students wanted to talk more, better students helped the weaker ones and the atmosphere in the class was more active However, there were some new problems rising in the process of group work It is the disagreement among group members Another difficulty is that group work makes the class become noisier Besides, group formation is also a problem mentioned in some journals 3.2 Teachers’ notes and secretaries’ notes In the three pre-experiment activities, a number of students took part in speaking process less than in the three experiment activities Only about a half of the class involved in the speaking process; specifically 12 out of 36 students for the first activity, 15 out of 36 students for the second one, 16 out of 36 students for the third one After the group work method was applied in the speaking lessons, things seemed better When they worked in groups, students had more chances to speak to each other (see the table below) 30 Figure 3.1 Number of participating students As can be seen from the table, there was a considerable increase in numbers of participants Students’ participation in speaking lessons became more positive and enthusiastic However, there were still some students who did not participate in speaking tasks after the intervening activities In general, the new method had worked rather effectively in encouraging the students to speak more in the speaking lessons The total number of participants increased after the intervening activities (100 students during the experiment compared with 43 students in the pre-experiment activities) 31 3.3 The post-treatment interview with the observing teacher In order that the result of data gained from the experiment is more objective, an experienced English teacher was invited to observe the procedure of my students’ group work After taking actions, I interviewed the observing teacher and she shared with me a lot of valuable opinions Firstly, according to her, students’ attitudes towards the lessons are so attentive and enthusiastic She said: “Students seemed to be more active in the group work Most of students found their chance to speak English They don’t just sit and watch the lesson They tried to participate in their group’s tasks as much as possible.” It is clear that there were the differences in my students’ classroom behavior and performance compared with the pre-experiment lessons Students’ shyness and nervousness didn’t last any more Secondly, she showed that students had more time and opportunities to practice English in the class Most of students made their contributions positively to their group’s speaking She said to me: “Students sit together in smaller groups of four and each person plays a role in their groups Every one has their speaking turn I like the way the leader of the group next to me encouraged the other members to say more or expand on their ideas, specifically with follow-up questions such as “Why you think that? Can you give me an example?” or encouraging phrases such as “Tell me some more Go on That’s interesting” Another thing that student helped each other to overcome some problems relating to the use of vocabulary was also mentioned in this interview 32 “Normally, teachers always help students if they have any new words or word phrases However, they can’t cover the whole large class’ questions When I observed students’ group work, it seemed to be that they supported each other about it very much, even they also could check some mistakes from their friends” This finding seems to be rather optimistic for teachers in general and for her in particular She also revealed that in fact, she felt so tired, even stressed when she had to cover the whole large class by answering all the questions from her students Apart from these positive opinions, the observer also gave some negative comments She reported that the class is sometimes so noisy Some students became too excited and had loud voices that disturbed the others Another problem was that students used Vietnamese too much in speaking activities She complained: “I tried to listen to what some groups discussed about Students seemed to use Vietnamese too much in speaking lessons…” It is undeniable that the habit of using Vietnamese seems to be a big obstacle in speaking lessons It is difficult for teachers to control this problem, especially in a too crowded class Generally, the interview with the observing teacher gained some positive comments The first is students’ enthusiasm and activeness in speaking activities, which made the lessons more effective Another thing is that student’s speaking opportunities increased considerably In addition, teachers’ anxiety about checking students’ mistakes such as grammar, vocabulary is partly reduced thanks to students’ support in group work However, the interviewer also stated some problems such as students’ habit of using Vietnamese and the fact that the class was so noisy 33 3.4 Some newly-arising problems and solutions for the next cycle Based on some feedbacks from my students and the observing teacher, it can be concluded that there were some positive changes in students’ speaking after applying group work in speaking lessons However, it is impossible to avoid some problems suggested by both the teacher and my students First, the problem was that some students seem to be lack of motivation in discussing with the others when they are in randomly selected groups Second, there was the conflict of ideas among students in groups Third, some student felt uncomfortable and tired because the classroom was so noisy Additionally, students tended to use too much Vietnamese to discuss with each other From these problems above, I decide to find some solutions to overcome those difficulties Some rules for group work are still unchanged These are some suggestions for the next teaching cycle For the first problem, I will change the way of forming groups In the first cycle, I selected students in groups randomly My intention for the next teaching is to give students the opportunity to choose their own group mates so that they feel comfortable to work with each other In order to solve the second problem, I will ask group leaders to explain to their group mates that it is important to respect the ideas of other group members, show their disagreement politely and understand that working in a group requires some negotiation and compromise Besides, I will also ask secretaries to write down and recollect all ideas of members For the third problem, I see that when students work in groups, it is impossible to avoid making noise However, it can be improved if the groups are set up in safe distance It means that the groups’ position can be far from each other Finally, for the fourth problem, I intend to make some rules for punishment Specifically, I prepare some notes including the name of group members in the first column, the Vietnamese speaking times in the second one; then I deliver them before students work in groups 34 and ask group secretaries to tick how many times their members use Vietnamese I also say to the class that a person will be punished if he/she uses Vietnamese more than two times These are some solutions that I suggest for the next teaching cycle It is hoped to be beneficial to improve the problems rising in the first cycle 35 PART C: CONCLUSION Summary of the findings Generally, using group work activities in speaking lessons is not the new idea For other researchers’ opinions, this method no doubt gives big and necessary benefits not only teachers but also learners In this study, the effects of group work on the students' participation have been shown and learners' attitude towards this speaking activity bas been investigated The result of the study has presented through the interview with students and teachers, students’ journals, interview with the observing teacher, notes from the researcher and the groups’ secretaries Firstly, through the pre-interview, it can be seen that students were aware of the difficulties that they encountered in speaking lessons They are the lack of vocabulary and grammar structures that limited students’ speaking, students’ shyness and reservedness in speaking activities, the imbalance of students’ speaking chances, and the pressure of a crowded class that reduced students’ speaking Secondly, based on students’ feedback from their journals, it is clear that most of students expressed their interest in taking part in group work activities Speaking in groups did help them overcome some of the problems they had encountered in previous speaking lessons By this way, students became more confident and active in speaking tasks Moreover, they had more chances to practice their speaking skills To some extent, work group activities caused some problems such as the disagreement of opinions among students in a group, the fact that working in groups made the class become noisy The negative feedback towards group formation is also mentioned Thirdly, some notes from the researcher and the groups’ secretaries also showed some positive changes of students’ participation and contributions in speaking activities Students seemed to talk more and cooperate better 36 Finally, the researcher also gained some interesting information from the observing teacher She showed her positive attitudes towards the use of group work in speaking tasks The interview indicated that students seemed to be more enthusiastic about taking part in the group work activities Students got more chances of speaking, supported each other if necessary However, there existed some negative factors when applying this method There was so much noise from the group work Students still had the habit of using Vietnamese in the process of discussion From some above findings, it can be found out that using group work can bring many benefits in the process of teaching and learning speaking skills This research can be a suggestion for teachers and learners to choose a suitable method in their own context Pedagogical implications of the study The first, the realization of this study has showed the orientation and showed the practicality of using group work in teaching English in Vietnamese education, especially in university context, where a lot of teachers use traditional approach and students depend on them a lot Group work activities are very important and necessary for Vietnamese students, especially the first year students, who have finished high school, where teachers use traditional methods of teaching English a lot Participating in group work activities can help them improve their independent working, have more critical thinking skills Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies 3.1 Limitations of the study Within the scope of a minor thesis, limitations are inevitable Firstly, some changes introduced during the semester were only applicable to the author’s own class, 37 so it could be too generalized to adopt these changes without adaptation in other classes with different students Secondly, the researcher’ practical experience and knowledge of this field is limited, the given pedagogical implications are therefore likely to be subjective and incomplete Thirdly, to make the research findings more reliable, more responses from students of that school should be collected 3.2 Suggestions for further studies Due to time constraint that this action research was only carried out in a short period of time (six weeks) for only the second year students, not for third ones who have more experience in learning English and in taking part in a teamwork Moreover, some new arising problems that are not still improved They are the fact that the class was too noisy; students’ habit of using Vietnamese in speaking lessons; students’ dislike toward group formation; the disagreement of ideas among students in some groups I also suggested some solutions to solve these problems in the next teaching cycle Therefore, some proposals for further studies concerning these matters can be added as follows: - An investigation into the use of group work to teach speaking to the third year students - Some strategies to help students prevent the habit of using Vietnamese in speaking lessons 38 REFERENCES Brown, H D (1994) Principles of language learning and teaching.(3rd ed.) USA: Prentice Hall Regents Brown, H D (2001) Teaching by principles - An interactive approach to language pedagogy NY: Pearson Longman Burns, A (1999) Collaborative action research for English language teachers The UK CUP Burns, A & Joyce, H (1997) Focus on speaking Sydney: National Center for English Language Teaching and Approach Canale, M (1983) From communicative competence to communicative language pedagogy In Richards, J.C & Schmidt, R.W (eds), Language and communication London: Longman Doff, A 1998 Teach English Cambridge Cambridge University Press Ellis, R (1997) Second Language Acquisition Oxford: Oxford University Press Harmer, J (1994) The practice of English language teaching New York: Longman Johnson, David W., Johnson, Roger T., and Smith, Karl A 1991a Cooperative learning: Increasing college faculty instructional productivity ASHE-ERIC Reporter on Higher Education Washington, DC: The George Washington University Kayi, H (2006) Teaching speaking: Activities to promote speaking in a second language Internet TESL Journal, 12(11) Retrieved from http://iteslj.org/Articles/KayiTeaching Speaking.html 39 Killen, R (2006) Effective teaching strategies: Lessons from research and practice Thomson Social science press Larry K Michaelsen, Designing Effective Group Activities: Lessons for Classroom Teaching and Faculty Development Central Missouri State University, Dockery 400G, (660), 543-4124 Littlewood, W (1998) Foreign and second language teaching Cambridge: Cambredge University Press Lê Hoàng Mai Linh (2008) A study on improving speaking skill of the 1st year students of pre-intermediate level at FPT university through group work Hanoi: ULIS Moore, K D (1992) Classroom teaching skills Mc Graw – Hill, Inc Nunan, D (2003) Practical English Language Teaching New York: McGraw-Hill Nguyễn Thị Thùy (2008) How group work is used in speaking lesson of the 1st-Year major students of English at Vietnam University of Commerce Hanoi: ULIS Trương Hồng Thúy (2010) Using group work to improve speaking skill of the first year students at the College of Technology and Economics in Trade Hanoi: ULIS Stern, H H (1983) Fundamental Concepts of language teaching Oxford: CUP Ur, P (1996) A course in language teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Vương Thị Thu Huyền (2012) An investigation into students’ participation in group work at Luu Nhan Chu 40 High School Hanoi: ULIS Appendix 1: Câu hỏi vấn học sinh trước dạy thử nghiệm Em học tiếng Anh rồi? Trong số kĩ nghe, nói, đọc, viết em thấy kĩ khó nhất? Em tự đánh giá kĩ nói mức độ nào? Trong q trình học kĩ nói, em thường gặp khó khăn gì? Khi gặp vấn đề em thường làm nào? I Appendix 2: Câu hỏi vấn giáo viên trước dạy thử nghiệm Chị dạy tiếng Anh rồi? Khi dạy kĩ nói cho sinh viên chị thường gặp khó khăn gì? Chị thường dạy giải khó khăn nào? II Appendix 3: Notes about number of participating students during the experiment Group: ……… Name of students Activity Activity III Activity Appendix 4: The summary table about number of participating students Activities Before the experiment Activity Numbers of participants 12 Activity During the experiment Activity 15 16 IV Activity 33 Activity 35 Activity 32 ... background of speaking 1.1.1 Nature of speaking skill In the process of teaching and learning English, speaking skill plays an important role in mastering this language Therefore, there are many different... entitled ? ?An investigation into the use of group work to teach speaking skills to large English classes at a police university in Vietnam? ?? is my own study in the fulfillment of the requirement for the. .. activities in speaking class when arguing that “if the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking in class can be a lot of fun, raising general learner motivation and making the English language