Applying cooperative learning principles to the teaching of english speaking skills in large classes at ba đình high school

1 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 TABLE OF CONTENTS THANH HOA PROVINCE DEPARTMENT OF PART I: INTRODUCTION EDUCATION AND TRAINING 1 Rationale of theBA Study ĐÌNH HIGH SCHOOL Aims of the Study The Participants Scope and Significance of the Study Method of the Study PART II: CONTENT THEORETICAL BACKGROUND EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE Definitions of listening comprehension 2 Possible problems in listening comprehension II RESEARCH SETTING An overview of Ba Đình High School The teachers of English in Ba Đình High School The students in Ba Đình High School APPLYING COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES TO III RESEARCH METHODS TOLEARNING SOLVE THE PROBLEM 1.Definition of compensation strategies THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS IN 2.The importance of compensation strategies in listening LARGE CLASSES BA ĐÌNH HIGH SCHOOL, Compensation strategiesAT in listening 3.1.Raising awareness of compensation strategy training NGA SƠN, THANH HÓA 3.2.Integrating strategy training into the lessons 3.3.Teaching basic grammatical rules and phonological rules 3.4 Teaching discourse marker clues 10 3.5 Exploiting background knowledge 11 3.6 Recalling key words and structures 12 3.7 Making full use of visual aids 12 3.8 Providing pairwork and groupwork 12 3.9 Giving encouragement 13 3.10 Providing a variety of listening tasks 13 Implementer: Nguyễn Thị Lan Anh PART III: RESULTS (Reached result) AND FINDINGS 14 Job title: Teacher I RESULTS 14 School: BaOFĐình high school – Nga Sơn II THE CURRENT SITUATION APPLYINGCOMPENSATION 15 STRATEGIES IN LISTENING Experience initiative: English III IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS PART IV: CONCLUSION 17 18 THANH HOÁ 2020 PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the Study Entering the 21st century, under the impact of globalization Vietnam is facing a range of political, social, economic, technological and educational changes It is widely accepted that the shift from a central economy to a mixed system with both socialist and market sectors since the late 1990s has required the Vietnamese education system to carry out remarkable changes Today, people insist that education and training must not only be able to equip students with new scientific and cultural knowledge but also develop their reasoning thought, creative abilities and team work skills Language teaching is a complex process involving many interrelated factors Besides suitable and effective methods of teaching language, classroom interaction is considered as the most vital element in language learning process The emphasis on individual achievement and transmission of information has become inadequate in supporting the development of students’ thinking and learning skills The best way is to enable students to become actively involved in their learning processes, which will provide them with more opportunities to develop important knowledge and skills for today’s labour market It is clear that one of the main goals of learning English is to use it effectively in communication Speaking skill, more or less, is an important skill that students must acquire in the learning process Since the application of the new textbooks, speaking skill has had a different position at upper secondary schools As we know, learning a foreign language is a process in which learners not have a natural communication environment like native people Thus, in order to help students master a foreign language as a means of communication, the teacher plays an important role in finding out the ways to make their speaking lessons more interesting and productive Accordingly, nowadays, instead of making use of activities that demand accurate repetition and memorization of sentences and grammar patterns, activities that ask learners to negotiate meaning and to interact meaningfully are required All the reasons mentioned above encouraged the researcher to carry out the study "Applying cooperative learning principles to the teaching of English speaking skills in large classes at Ba Đình high school” with the hope to contribute her small part to improving the teaching and learning of the speaking skill for students at Ba Đình high school Aims of the Study The study aims at answering the following questions: - What are the difficulties of teaching English speaking skills in large classes at Ba Đình high school? - To what extend did the application of cooperative learning principles improve English speaking skills of students in large classes at Ba Đình high school? 3.The Participants In this individual research, the researcher will only focus on the effectiveness of applying CL principles in teaching speaking skills to two large classes 11A, 11K at Ba Đình high school The speaking activities are selected and adapted the text book The data collected from classroom observation, informal interviews and questionnaires are then analyzed by the researcher Scope and Significance of the Study The study is divided into three main parts The contents covered in each part are as follows: - Part A is the introduction which gives the rationale of the study, the objectives, the research questions, the scope, methods and organization of the study - Part B is the development of the study which comprises chapters Chapter presents the literature reviews of the study Chapter describes the process of implementation of the study such as data collecting and analyzing, findings and research discussing questions Chapter is devoted to pedagogical implications and suggestions for further study - Part C is the conclusion of the study Method of the Study The action research employs both quantitative method and qualitative method to analyze the collected data During speaking lessons on the basis of CL principles, classroom observation is made to note down the students’ attitude, participation and cooperation in groups, discussion and even conflicts,…The students are also interviewed to clarify their answers in the questionnaires previously done by themselves The collected information, thus, is more reliable and straightforward PART II: CONTENT I Theoretical background Speaking skills Speaking skill is very important as it enables us to express our thoughts and feelings, gives comments or feedbacks to what we hear orally As Lawtie, (1992) says that speaking is fundamental of human communication When examining the nature of speaking skill, Littlewood (1992) is more concerned with the lack of transfer from the practice of motor-perceptive skills to genuine communicative interactions He points out that successful oral communication involves the development of: (a) The ability to articulate phonological features of the language comprehensibly; (b) Mastery of stress, rhythm, intonation patterns; (c) An acceptable degree of fluency; (d) Transactional and interpersonal skills; (e) Skills in taking short and long speaking turns; (f) Skills in management of interaction; (g) Skills in negotiating meaning; (h) Conventional listening skills; (i) Skills in knowing about and negotiating purposes for conversations and; (j) Using appropriate conversational formulae and fillers Because speaking the second language constitutes great cognitive load, emotional load, and linguistic load as Ali has pointed out above, it is really a challenge to the students The challenge is far greater when students have to learn English in a large class This issue is reviewed in the subsequent section Large classes The term of large classes may vary from place to place In some language school, a group of 20 students may be considered large However, in my teaching situation at Ba Đình high school, a teacher will feel relieved if there are thirty students in a class This size is certainly considered as small since the number of students in each class ranges from 45 to 50 Cooperative learning (CL) CL has long been introduced and repeatedly shown to be superior to the traditional teacher-centered approach to instruction During the past 90 years, more than 600 studies have been conducted by a wide variety of researchers in different decades with different age subjects, in different subject areas, and in different environments There have been many definitions of CL by many scholars and followings are some of them: CL is group learning activities organized so that learning is dependent on the socially structured exchange of information between learners in groups and in which each learner is held accountable for his or her own learning and is motivated to increase the learning of others (Olsen and Kagan, 1992) The fact that CL is a method of instruction that promotes the development of highorder levels of thinking, essential communication skills, improves motivation, positive self-esteem, social awareness and tolerance for individual differences in group activities of the learners differentiates CL from traditional group work which may exist uneven participation when one or two members dominate the work Many principles have been proposed for CL The discussion of some principles is presented in the next section II RESEARCH SETTING An overview of Ba Đình High School Ba Đình High School is located in Nga Sơn district Ba Đình High School is one of the oldest as well as biggest schools in the area At present, there are 31 classes with over 1200 students placed into three different grades: grade 10th, 11th and 12th The teaching staff composes of more than 100 teachers of 12 compulsory subjects, of whom two-thirds are young, creative and well trained whereas the others are experienced and enthusiastic With the innovation in educational policy, Ba Đình High School is one of the schools in Nga Sơn which has high percentages of high school graduated students The teachers of English in Ba Đình High School There are 10 teachers of English currently working in Ba Đình High School Nearly all of them are female whose age ranks from 28 to 50 Among them, one half studied at Hanoi Foreign Language Teachers Training College Another quarter that was trained from in-service training programs has experienced teaching for many years However, their communication ability as well as new teaching methods should be improved Obviously, the age of the English teacher staff reveals the fact that many of them were trained in the traditional method-the grammar-translation one Few of them have taken retraining courses to improve their English and their teaching methods This constrains them from teaching writing effectively Nevertheless, most of them are severe, enthusiastic in working Of the teachers, a teacher got M.A degree At the present, each teacher has to teach twelve periods divided into classes per week excluding the burden of marking examinations and time for a lot of different school work Apparently, the teachers in Ba Đình High School have to deal with a heavy workload in order to fulfill their task The students in Ba Đình High School The majority of students in the study at Ba Đình High School are aged from 15 to 18 Most of them come from urban areas and they have learnt English since they were at primary schools Therefore, their English proficiency is some how better than students from rural parts due to the availability of opportunities to attend part-time English courses Among them, there are a large number of students who are really interested in learning English and want to develop their ability in using English In contrast, the other part of students is lowly motivated They tend to regard English as less important than other subjects and they study English only in order to pass the examinations Current situation of teaching and learning speaking skills at Ba Đình high school The teaching and learning of English speaking skills at Ba Đình high school face common problems that most school with large classes of students Within a limited time and a large size of students in each class which ranges from 40-50, most teachers find themselves unable to implement efficiently their tasks Besides, it is impossible to carry out individual checks which is essential for evaluating and adjusting their teaching methods and materials To make matter worse, the levels of proficiency of the students are mixed while it is extremely difficult for the teacher to carry so many teaching plans simultaneously Most students enrolled at Ba Đình high school with relatively poor knowledge of English since it is neither their major nor a requirement for university entrance exam This made them more demotivated and disinterested in English in general and in improving their speaking skills in particular III RESEARCH METHODS TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM Large classes 1.1 Advantages of large classes: For many students, large classes are best places to meet with other students.Large classes also benefit students by giving them the opportunity to learn from the interesting ideas and life experiences of a large and diverse body of classmates (Bradley, Cara & Green, Eric) There is more variety of people to communicate with, to compare notes, to have fun and to form groups together It is also suggested that “students may work by themselves in the large classroom, as a large class gives them a feeling of independence so that learning was assisted by reliant self and having to study and learn themselves.” (Wulf, Nyquist and Abbot,1987) The content of the large class provides general information which is easy to digest in the large classrooms “It is usually good for any person to learn, as the content is less detailed, more general and broader” (Wulf, Nyquist and Abbot,1987) Obviously, when there are many students in a class, many different ideas and experiences are shared Some students may even be more capable than the teacher in explaining certain difficult concepts to each other This stimulates the students and enlivens some parts of the lessons where they discuss and learn from each other, thus brings variety and speeds up the work 1.2 Disadvantages of large classes: The teaching of a large class is truly challenging and requires more effort and planning It may distress any teacher due to its negative influence on teaching and learning quality Small classes are believed to achieve better results than large ones Most EFL teachers in the world reject teaching in a large class as it often means heterogeneous ages with many difficulties in learning and individually giving and getting attention They also find it difficult to motivate participation, to make interaction and to give feedback Connant (2003) states that teaching large classes is demanding and difficult Among other things, as the size of a class increases, the challenges associated with building a participation-based class culture intensify In a large class, the students are not prepared to be called upon by the teacher and this is difficult to keep everyone involved in the discussion Students are not motivated to share their thoughts as no formal incentives exist Challenges of teaching a large class includes the difficulties in keeping good class discipline It is quite easy to get distracted in a large class There will always be latecomers and students chatting or doing something else while the teacher is teaching and that can be distressing It is also imperative to ensure that in large classes students understand the materials well Cao Xia (2006) states some major problems in a large class There is little chance for teachers to check individual student’s performance and for students to practice and lack of teacher-student interaction, which is unfavourable for language teaching and learning There exists a gap between the theory of teaching methodology and reality of the teaching situation From the students’ perspective the main problem with large classes is the feeling of anonymity, which makes it harder for them to be motivated Many feel too intimidated to ask questions or to participate in class discussion (Islam, 2001) Because of the above-mentioned disadvantages, it is not surprising that teachers often find it difficult to carry out their teaching in an effective way which involves full participation and contribution of all students 1.3 Teaching speaking skills to large classes: As we speak more than we write in our daily lives, teachers should maintain a good balance between teaching of reading, writing and listening, speaking skills Nunan (1991) wrote, "success is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the (target) language." Therefore, if students not learn how to speak or not get any opportunity to speak in the language classroom, especially in a large class, they may soon get de-motivated and lose interest in learning On the other hand, if the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking in a large class will then develop its advantages and can be a lot of fun, raising general learner motivation and making the English language classroom a fun and dynamic place to be However, it is certainly not easy to carry out speaking activities in large classes as we always faces hurdles as mentioned above 1.4 Key aspects effective for large class management a Getting attention and participation : The teachers are advised to use some attending strategies that are “the ways a teacher acknowledges, through verbal or nonverbal means, the presence, contribution, and needs of individual learners” (Wajnryb,1992) These attending behaviours may be using students’ names, eye contact, facial expressions, etc Lewis and Hill (1992) stated that having eye contacts with students helps the teacher know if the class understands or not and if they are bored, confused or interested in the lectures Brown (1994) states that in order to create a positive classroom atmosphere, the teacher should establish rapport which is built on trust and respect and that leads to feelings of capable, competent and creative It is imperative that teachers introduce themselves and get to know the students Students will feel more comfortable and more open as they know more about the teacher Conversely, the more the teacher knows about the students and their attitudes, this will assist in preparing more effective classes There are some problems with silent students who are reluctant to take part in any kind of discussions in English because of lack of confidence, fear of making mistakes, feeling of having nothing to say on the subjects or lack of appropriate language and practice of conversational interaction Mc Keachie (1994) states that one way to deal with this passiveness and reluctance is to find the root of the problem and start from there Opportunities should be given for learners to practice in the target language by providing them with appropriate environment of collaborative work, authentic materials and tasks In tasks such as role-plays and discussions, the language learners contribute and participate freely using comprehensible expressions If the teacher is in control, such as in questioning and answering activities, the learners will only participate by providing words, phrases or short sentences He should reduce his speaking time and step back, observes to give help where necessary b Giving and checking instructions: A teacher’s instructions may be broken down into organizational and instructional categories The organizational instructions tell the students what they are going to and the instructional ones show them how to Cymru (2003) point out that organizational instructions should tell the students how to perform the activity in a safe and enjoyable environment They should tell where the group perform the activity, what are the boundaries, how many people the group will be working with and how the group should be formed; what, how and when equipment is needed and who is to collect it, how the activity starts or stops and when students will know when this is; and what happens if students finish early or have a question Cyrus (2003) also states four key guidelines when giving informational instructions The first key guideline is one idea at a time which means to tell them everything you know about the skill then pick out the most relevant point and emphasize it The second one is keeping instruction in brief which allows the students to spend greater time of the lesson doing rather than listening to the teacher The third is using key words or phrases which helps to refrain from lengthy explanation to a concise repeatable form The last key guideline is making the instruction relevant The more refined the observational and assessment skills are, the more pertinent the instructions become c Managing group work: Students have little opportunity to speak to the teacher in a large class Therefore, it is suggested that students work in pairs or small groups Nolasco & Arthur (1988) report that grouping is one technique that has been used to reduce the negative effects of large classes It is stated that “pair work and group work have the advantages that learners are working simultaneously and, therefore, not only language practice time greatly increased, but children are less likely to become bored and lose interest because they are actively involved.” On the other hand, the students feel less anxiety in the group than in front of the whole class, more confident as they are not afraid of making mistakes or being judged by the teacher It is also true that in large classes, student pairs and groups can learn from each other Therefore, the teacher should structure them into mixed-ability groups in which the more able learners can help the others to master the work They may also be asked to work in the same-ability groups in which the faster learners groups may get on with the work on their own However, the teacher needs to move around to observe their progress or to see what problems are coming up to give advice, encouragement and individual help where it is needed It is important to monitor time and group size Time should not be wasted in confusion and complaining instead of working on the assigned task which must be specific and concrete The time allotted must be proportional to the task with a timelimit set to forge group focus on the task Group size must also be proportional to participation In large classes, group projects work best if they are brief and to the point, something quick and easy that adds presentational variety Advance planning and attention to detailed instructions is essential to ensure group activities work well in large classes All considered, a large class seems to be a facilitating condition for the application of cooperative learning (CL) principles However, little has been researched on the impact of CL on students’ learning to speaking English as a foreign language Cooperative learning (CL) 2.1 Definition of CL: CL has long been introduced and repeatedly shown to be superior to the traditional teacher-centered approach to instruction During the past 90 years, more than 1600 studies have been conducted by a wide variety of researchers in different decades with different age subjects, in different subject areas, and in different environments There have been many definitions of CL by many scholars and followings are some of them: CL is group learning activities organized so that learning is dependent on the socially structured exchange of information between learners in groups and in which each learner is held accountable for his or her own learning and is motivated to increase the learning of others (Olsen and Kagan, 1992) According to Jacob (1997), CL is a body of concepts and techniques for helping to maximize the benefits of cooperation among students in education It provides language teachers with essential concepts of heterogeneous classes, learner cooperation and mutual help in learning; and equips teachers with effective instructional techniques to exploit cooperation in language learning classes Johnson (2001) considers CL as a general term for an instructional approach that “emphasizes the conceptual learning and the development of social skills as learners work together in a small heterogeneous group.” The fact that CL is a method of instruction that promotes the development of highorder levels of thinking, essential communication skills, improves motivation, positive self-esteem, social awareness and tolerance for individual differences in group activities of the learners differentiates CL from traditional group work which may exist uneven participation when one or two members dominate the work Many principles have been proposed for CL The discussion of some principles is presented in the next section 2.2 Principles of Cooperative Learning a Heterogeneous grouping: This principle means that the groups in which students cooperative learning tasks are mixed on one or more of a number of variables including sex, ethnicity, social class, religion, personality, age, language proficiency, and diligence This kind of grouping outweighs the homogeneous one because of a variety of benefits such as making peer-tutoring more likely to happen, providing a variety of perspectives or helping students to get to know and learn tolerance towards others’ differences 10 Generally, students prefer working with the peers they like to working with the ones chosen by the teacher However, it is the teacher who makes conscious decisions about such things as how different the levels of students in each group should be, which students should work together and so on Failure in structuring groups suitably may result in ineffective cooperation Chen (2004) suggests that groups of three or four likely work best; sometimes larger group, of five to ten, are expected to give good results in big tasks where enormous human resources and the variety of people in terms of skills, background knowledge, etc are required b Collaborative skills: Collaborative skills, such as giving reasons, are those needed for students to work with others Students may lack these skills, the language involved in using the skills, or the inclination to apply the skills which are supposed to be taught one at a time However, which to teach should depend on particular tasks and students that the skill instruction intends to be combined in Some of the many skills important to successful collaboration may be: checking that others understand, asking for and giving reasons, disagreeing and responding politely, encouraging others to participate and responding to encouragement to participate c Group autonomy: This principle encourages students to look to themselves for resources rather than relying solely on the teacher When student groups are having difficulty, it is very tempting for teachers to intervene either in a particular group or with the entire class However, Roger Johnson suggests in his article: “Teachers must trust the peer interaction to many of the things they have felt responsible for themselves.” Students should learn to depend on themselves, teacher’s intervention should not always be the first option d Simultaneous interaction (Kagan, 1994): The normal interaction pattern in a nongroup classroom is like this: first, the teacher speaks then he is followed by sequential interaction of the students who have no time for their own active participation In contrast, when group activities are used, each student in every group is speaking and negotiating with others The Simultaneous Interaction principle means that students in each small group are able to speak at the same time as they are given more opportunities to learn actively and engage in the group activities e Equal participation (Kagan, 1994): CL offers many ways of promoting more equal participation among group members.It is recognized that participation will never be truly equal because students have unequal gifts and so their contributions differ However,in CLeach member of the group is given an equal share of responsibility and input to avoid the problem of dominating the group of one or two members and thus, impede the participation of others The teacher cannot control how equal the contribution of each student will be, but the teacher can control and structure for more 11 equal opportunities for contributions Group members take turns to similar tasks in rotation such as group leader, note taker, speaker,… f Individual accountability: It is difficult to maintain equal participation among group members and so they should be given a particular task each to avoid “hitchhiking” phenomenon in the group It is advisable that the teacher ask any of them to a task at random Also, they will be checked one by one to verbalize the whole group’s ideas individually When getting the students work and encourage individual accountability in groups, we should make them feel that they have the right to contribute their knowledge and ideas to the common task of the group Besides, the teacher should create a competitive atmosphere among groups so that learners feel more accountable for their own group’s task g Positive interdependence: Positive interdependence means that team members need each other to succeed It is this “All for one, one for all” feeling that leads group members to want to help each other, to see that they share a common goal There are many forms of positive interdependence that can be structured in groups One way to ensure that positive independence occurs lies with the face-to-face promotive interactions between group members.Positive interdependence can also be built into the group by having some form of shared grades For example, besides their individual scores on an exam, students receive a certain number of points if all group members score at or above a certain grade Besides, positive interdependence occurs when one group member must first complete his/her task before the next task can be completed h Cooperation as a value: This principle means that cooperation is not only a way to learn but also the content to be learned This flows naturally from the most crucial cooperative learning principle, positive interdependence Cooperation as a value involves taking the feeling of “All for one, one for all” and expanding it beyond the small classroom group to encompass the whole class, the whole school, on and on, bringing in increasingly greater numbers of people and other beings into students’ circle of ones with whom to cooperate 2.3 Benefits of cooperative learning a Greater student achievement: Cooperative learning produces greater student achievement than traditional learning methodologies (Slavin 1984) Slavin found that 63% of the cooperative learning groups analyzed had an increase in achievement Students who work individually must compete against their peers to gain praise or other forms of rewards and reinforcements In this type of competition many individuals attempt to accomplish a goal with only a few winners The success of these individuals can mean failures for others There are more winners in a cooperative team because all members reap from the success of an achievement Low achieving students tend to work harder when grouped with higher achieving students There is 12 competition among groups in cooperative learning Some forms of group competition promote cohesiveness among group members and group spirit b Social benefits: Cooperative learning has social benefits as well as academic One of the essential elements of cooperative learning is the development of social skills Children learn to take risks and are praise for their contribution They are able to see points of view other than their own Such benefits contribute to the overall satisfaction of learning and schooling Students work with classmates who have different learning skills, cultural background, attitudes, and personalities Heterogeneous groups promote student learning These differences forces them to deal with conflicts and interact with others Social interaction improves communication skills that become a necessity to functioning in society c Economic benefits:Less materials are needed in cooperative learning One of the social skill taught in cooperative learning is sharing Material sharing does not hinder the educational process but teaches students the value of time and money They are also able to gain more skills through computer peer tutoring in a cooperative setting Students who work on computers have a natural tendency to help their peers even without suggestion by the teacher By using cooperative learning less equipment is necessary therefore money is saved without sacrificing the quality of education Cooperative language learning (CLL) Cooperative learning has been a powerful approach to language learning It is beneficial to all students since small group interactions provide meaningful input for language acquisition through conflicting ideas between group members which is necessary especially for language learning When a student is developing English language skills, this type of learning is particularly useful For teachers who are looking for a way to more actively integrate their students into their mainstream classroom, cooperative learning is clearly a top choice 3.1 Goals of CLL: Richards and Rodgers (2001) propose five goals of CL in language teaching: (a) to provide opportunities for naturalistic second language acquisition through the use of interactive pair and group activities; (b) to provide teachers with a methodology to enable them to achieve this goal which can be applied in a variety of curriculum settings; (c) to provide opportunities for learners to develop successful learning and communication strategies; (d) to enhance learners’ motivation and reduce learners’ stress and to create a positive affective classroom climate; (e) to enable focused attention to particular lexical items, language structures, and communicative functions through the use of interactive task 3.2 Advantages of CLL:In CL, students work together, discuss topics and learn to take charge of their own learning Team spirit is stressed as students learn to work together in mixed ability groups Each member is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping team mates learn 13 In general, CLL offers six learning advantages for ESL students: (a) Increase frequency and variety of second language practice through different types of interaction; (b) Opportunities to integrate language with content-based instruction;(c) Possibilities for development or use of language in ways that support cognitive development and increase language skills; (d) Opportunities to include a greater variety of curricular materials to stimulate language as well as concept learning; (e) Freedom for teachers to master professional skills, particularly those which emphasize communication; (f) Opportunities for students to act as resources for each other, thus assuming a more active role in learning Other benefits include improved social skills, higher self-esteem, greater use of higherlevel thinking skills, more positive relationships and better psychological adjustment There is less anxiety when students speak in the smaller group as they often feel anxious to speak in front of the whole class Moreover, when a student represents the group and reports to the whole class, he may feel more support because the answer is from the whole group 3.3 Disadvantages of CLL:cooperative language learning is not always effective when applied to those who are shy and lack social skills as they not know how to work in groups and this could result in task or social conflicts Another disadvantage is the group grades, it is not fair when one student is working in a group and all the others are just enjoying the grades due to his hard work Fear of failure is also a disadvantage since a student who avoids failure might not want to participate in the group task Consequently, he may express his worries by blaming the task being stupid or his group members being dumb Besides, in competitions will other teams, the losing team will stop trying This will not only lower their grades but also their self-esteem The dependency on the group members can make some students not able to work alone It is also difficult for the teacher to know when a single group goes off-track from the task when controlling many groups which means a lot of time has been wasted 3.4 Main differences between CLL and traditional method Though having several disadvantages as discussed , CLL is an approach foster cooperation and develop critical thinking skills as well as communicativecompetence through socially structured interaction activities CL, compared with traditional instruction, tends to promote productivity and achievement and providing more opportunitiesfor communication While traditional language teaching refers to the teacher-centered method in which many ingredients of grammar-translation method and audio-lingual method are used, CLL highlights the interaction and communication between students and students and teachers, take teachers’ role as guider, facilitator, and negotiator, and stress the autonomy and centricity of the students in classroom 14 When applying CL, there are several differences in the syllabus, the materials, types of leaning and teaching activities, the roles of the teacher and the learners in comparison with the traditional ones as discussed below: a The syllabus:Activities of a wide variety of curriculum orientations can be taught via cooperative learning because CLL does not assume any particular form of language syllabus and can be used in teaching content classes, ESP, the four skills, grammar, pronunciations, and vocabulary b Roles of the teacher:In CLL the teacher’s role is different from that in a traditional lesson He is always ready to render help to students when necessary The teacher has to create a well-organized learning environment in the classroom, setting goals and planning and structuring tasks, establishing physical arrangements of the classroom, assigning students to groups and roles and selecting materials and time (Johnson et al.1994) c Roles of the learners:CLL requires teamwork skills and active participation and involvement of all group members which means the maximum amount of time they spend on learning tasks Therefore, learners have to cooperate well with others to fulfill their common goal while managing his own task such as planning, monitoring and evaluating his work d Types of learning and teaching activities: Johnson et al.,(1994) describes three types of learning groups as follows: - Formal cooperative learning groups: these are established for specific tasks and involve students working together from one period up to several weeks to get the goals accomplished - Informal cooperative learning groups: these are called ad-hoc groups which last for only several minutes up to a class period used to focus students’ attention or facilitate direct teaching - Cooperative base groups: these are long lasting heterogeneous learning groups with fixed membership aiming at helping each other to succeed academically e The role of materials:CLL does not require a different type of materials but variations in the way of using the materials which means specially designed ones The materials may be simplified, modified accordingly or borrowed from other disciplines to suit the cooperative learning tasks 3.5 Application of CL principles in teaching English speaking skills to large classes - Heterogeneous grouping: Students are structured into small groups of four or five After giving speaking task, the teacher makes decisions about members in each group which includes students who are of different levels of proficiency They should also be of opposite sex as it is believed that students tend to work better with peers of opposite sex In addition, the shy students should be grouped with the more active ones who are 15 more willing to make questions, for instance, in a dialogue By doing this, when all students practice speaking, doing role-play, everyone must get involved in the speaking task and has the opportunity to show their different abilities and more importantly, help each other especially the low-ability ones - Collaborative skills: In speaking task, these skills can first be seen in how the group share the task: the leader, the note taker, the speaker, and so on This assignment is usually based on each individual’s ability However, it is often the case that someone in the group always prefers to be the leader or vice versa when no-one wants to be the speaker To avoid conflicts among group members, they should take each role in rotation They also have to negotiate with each other soon enough when having different opinions and ideas in order to have sufficient time for checking their work Otherwise, they may end up in dispute and thus, ruin the common task The collaborative skills in speaking lessons can mainly be found in giving and receiving feedback from other team members in order to perform the task, sharing credit for good ideas with others, acknowledging others' skill, experience, creativity, and contribution; listening to and acknowledge the feelings, concerns, opinions, and ideas of others - Group autonomy: As the teacher plays the role of a facilitator who makes suggestions when necessary, the students are supposed to brainstorm and make up their own decision on how to implement the task They can get a given speaking task done either by having an interview or an informal talk or whichever form of communication they may think of using available materials such as a dictionary or internet access and most important of all, their own abilities - Simultaneous interaction: Whenever a question is raised by a member, all the other members can respond at the same time With simultaneous interaction among group members, this CL principle is especially effective and useful when applied to teaching speaking to large classes This ensures the equal participation of all members and thus, is less time-consuming than individual practice Within a short period of time everyone is given chance to speak - Equal participation: To overcome the inequality participation and social loafing the teacher should note down in his observation sheets the frequency of speaking of each group member and assigns the role of group speaker in to each of them in turns - Individual accountability: Besides assigning the speaker who will speaks on behalf of the group, other speaking tasks should be equally divided by other members This can be done through calling them at random, one can be the interviewer at one time and the interviewee at others - Positive interdependence: The common task of speaking should be divided among members in such a way that each individual’s task can not be fulfilled if the others’ tasks remained incomplete For example, one is in charge of looking up new words in 16 the dictionary, another looks for relating information or topic on the internet, the last one is the speaker It is necessary that everyone be aware of his responsibility and how it affects others’ - Cooperation as a value: The cooperation among group members is not only appreciated in the way they all try their best for the common task academically but also as a value socially The communication interaction among members for a speaking task does not only bring about fluency, confidence but it helps build up friendship, understanding among them which will be developed to a larger circles Conclusion Cooperative learning (CL) has been considered as one of the educational innovations of our times and represents a research-based best practice for instruction CL outweighs competitive and individualistic approaches as it benefits students from developing critical thinking skills (Brandon & Hollingshead, 1999), enhancing social skills such as communication, presentation, problem-solving, leadership, delegation and organization (Cheng & Warrant, 2000) In a language classroom, CL has become a learning style which is recommended as an effective method for students to become actively engaged in solving a problem, discovering new ways of perceiving their world, intensely applying learning strategies to the next task, developing family-like community among classmates, sharing the excitement of a special discovery (Ovando & Collier, 1998) The application of CL in teaching speaking skills has also been implemented in many universities, college and schools in Vietnam Hoang Thi Lan (2005) applied CL to develop speaking skills for first-year EFL students at Vinh University Le Thi Bich Thuy (2006) carried out an action research on application of CL to second-year students at Gia Lai Teachers’ Training College Phi Thanh Tra (2006) had a research on the application of CL at high schools in Vietnam Quach Thi Tuyet Thanh (2010) recently applied CL specially in the aspect of enhancing participation in speaking PART III: RESULTS (Reached result) AND FINDINGS The findings of this study present common difficulties in teaching English speaking skills to large classes, the application of cooperative learning as an effective solution to these problems The researcher would like to propose several implications that may be applicable to the teaching context at her own university In this chapter suggestions are made for issues related to CL and its activities during speaking lessons CL implementation plan: It is essential that the teacher clarify possible problems in group work activities which can be done by informal talks, tests, observation and analysis of the scores in the previous semester The teacher then introduces the theory of CL, its principles and how these principles work in his teaching context, the benefits 17 that CL application brings about as well as difficulties the students may face, disadvantages of a large class of mixed levels that CL application may overcome Before real CL activities, students are explained how to work in a CL group, a list of questions may be used to see if they have fully understand CL principles To ensure successful implementaion, the teacher should consider the following factors : CL group structuring: On the basis of heterogenerous grouping, the students are organized into group of to emphasize individual responsibility and avoid social loafing The levels of proficiency of members should be mixed The teacher then decides which students will work together basing on their previous learning conditions, ages, levels, sex, etc The tasks are supposed to be assigned equally among group members As the assessment will be the same for everyone, each member must be responsible for his own task However, all members can get helps from their peers to fulfill their individual tasks They take turn to be the group speaker, the moderater, the notetaker, the leader after each speaking lesson The group members remain unchanged until the end of the semester for better understanding and cooperation Classroom arrangement: The students are arranged knee to knee to have the best contact with each other as well as to share materials, dictionary, computer, etc Besides, groups are organized further apart well enough not to disturb each other and leaving room for the teacher to walk around to give instructions when necessary They are also asked to speak and discuss as softly as they can since with the whole class speak at the same time they may cause too much noise for the neighboring classes CL atmosphere: Creating a cooperative atmosphere in the classroom is vital for CL activities This can be done by organizing the students in small groups of or which helps overcome their shyness The more proficient students will feel more confident to share while the weak and shy ones will feel safe to express themselves How to cope with difficulties in CL application: To better cope with these problems such as in task assigning, disputes during discussion, ect teachers should equip themselves with basic knowledge of CL, especially with practical issues An easy and simple training CL programme should be conducted before implementation with CL activities carefully selected and suitably designed for the students in terms of levels, time assigned, culture, and social demand Clear and understandable instructions are given to ensure that the students know what to Constant check and observation should be maintained to keep the students on track and avoid misleading The teacher’s role in a CL speaking lesson: In a CL speaking lesson, the teacher’s role swifts from traditional instructor to a guide who gives instructions at the first stage and then gets the students work on their own He helps them to solve difficulties while implementing the tasks without affecting the group autonomy At the end of each speaking lesson, the teacher gives assessment to each group as well as makes suggestions for better performance.Instead of lecturing the lesson, the teacher is 18 supposed to present the main points of the lesson and only gets involved when students need clarification instructions, or when the teacher feels the need to question about group’s answers, or to praise students for creative idea or good use of social skills (Johnson et al., 1994; Lotan, 2004) In general, the teacher should be fully aware of his role and take the above mentioned issues into consideration to ensure the success in CL speaking lessons PART C: CONCLUSION Conclusion: This action research has been realized to identify the common problems of teaching speaking skills to large classes at Ba Đình high school It was also aimed at finding a solution to these problems with the application of CL principles These problems are shortage of time for practice and checking, low and unequal participation of students, management of noise and self-discipline The researcher then investigated how CL principles worked to solve these problems and improve the students’ English speaking skills With the learning materials designed, classroom seating suitably organized for CL group work, the researcher used variety of tools which are class observation, informal interviews, questionnaires and students’ journals and speaking test scores, the discussion in the previous chapters has made it possible to draw the following conclusions The application of CL principles has resulted in greater participation of the students of different levels who showed more interest in the CL structured speaking lessons and were more responsible in group work performance Apart from the teacher’s guidance, they have learnt great deal from each other and thus improving group autonomy and interdependence The nature of participation of the students has changed towards a more positive way with more confidence and self- accountability In general, the improvement made by the participants of this study was far better than the researcher’s expectation with most of students got involved in CL groups in their speaking lessons which have obviously built up their skills More importantly, they have now suitable learning strategies for long-term learning The objectives of the study was accomplished and the questions of the research were answered The application of CL principles in teaching English speaking skills to large classes at Ba Đình high schoool will be more effective if its classrooms are well equipped with more facilities Besides, this application should be introduced and discussed in a workshop among teachers of the English department so as it can be implemented in a larger scale Limitations of the study: This action research was implemented with the first-year students in two large classes of Informatics Technology at Ba Đình high school As there are many other departments, the conclusions drawn may not be applicable for all students at Ba Đình high school Besides, within the limit of a MA minor thesis, the 19 scope of the application of CL principles was narrowed to the teaching of speaking skills with a view to overcoming the disadvantages of large classes and enhancing the students’ participation in speaking lessons Suggestions for further study: The researcher suggests further studies on students of other majors, other population of students or students of higher levels at Ba Đình high school for a longer period The conclusions on the application of CL principles will then be more general and comprehensive For those who are interested in CL application, studies on related subjects and with other skills would be beneficial to the teaching and learning of the English language The researcher also wishes to carry out a long-term research on teaching and learning with the application of CL principles at her university on the same population of the first-year students to see the effects of CL application on long-term learning and teaching.A full research is also suggested on the design of CL activities, unexpected effects on CL application There should be a more thorough study on the correlation between the nature of students’ participation and their achievement as well Hopefully, these suggestions will be of some interest to other teachers of English so as more researches will be carried out to bring the application of CL principles into full play 20 CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “Applying cooperative learning principles to the teaching of English speaking skills in large classes at Ba Đình high school” is the result of my own research in Ba Đình high school and this experience initiative has not been submitted for any other reseaches Nga Sơn, 25th June 2020 IMPLEMENTER Nguyễn Thị Lan Anh 21 REFERENCES Allyn and Bacon Smith, G A (1992) Education and the Environment: Learning to Live with Limits, New York: State University of New York Baloche, L (1998) The cooperative classroom: Empowering learning Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Brown, G & Yule, G (1993) Discourse Analysis (1993) Cambrige: Cambridge University Press Cao Xia (2006) How to Manage a Large English Class ELT Journal, Vol III, No 12 (Serial No 36) Chen, I J (2004), Utilizing Group Work Effectively in the English Language Classroom, TESL Reporter, 37, pp 1-7 Cohen, E (1994) Designing groupwork: Strategies for the heterogeneous classroom (2nd ed.), New York: Teachers College Press Collier, Virginia P & Ovando, Carlos J (1998) Bilingual and ESL Classrooms: Teaching in Multicultural Contexts, Boston: 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(2002) Individual differences and instructed language learning, Amsterdam: J Benjamins 22 Slavin, R.E (1990, 1995) Cooperative Learning: Theory, Research and Practice, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Thousand, J., Villa, A and Nevin, A (Eds) (1994), Creativity and Collaborative Learning, Baltimore: Brookes Press Wajnryb, R (1993) Classroom Observation Tasks: A Resource Book for Language Teachers and Trainers Cambridge : Cambridge Universtiy Press Wallace, M.J (1998) Action Research for Language Teachers, Cambridge : Cambridge Universtiy Press Wisker, G (2001), The Postgraduate Research Handbook, Basingstoke: Palgrave Canh, L V (2003), Understanding Foreign Language Teaching Methodology, Hanoi: Vietnam National University, Hanoi Publishing House Tran, H.L (2009), The effectiveness of Using Cooperative Learning structuring to teach writing skills to the 2nd year English major students at Tay Bac University Unpublished M.A Minor Programme Thesis Linguistics, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi Ha, N.T.M (2010) Enhancing the third year non-English major students’ participation in speaking lessons through collaborative activities at Hanoi Univiersity of Business and Technology, M.A Minor Programme Thesis, Hanoi: Vietnam National University, Hanoi Ali, Z (2008) Speaking Skills in the ESL Classroom - From Acquisition to Participation, from http://ezinearticles.com Connant, J.S (2010) Teaching large classes workshop, from http://www.sfc.education.sn Islam, R (2001) Reflections on large class teaching in the social sciences, from http://www.cadad.edu.au/largeclasses/pdfs/CaseStudy-08_Islam.pdf 23 DANH MỤC CÁC ĐỀ TÀI SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM ĐÃ ĐƯỢC HỘI ĐỒNG ĐÁNH GIÁ XẾP LOẠI Họ tên tác giả: Nguyễn Thị Lan Anh Chức vụ đơn vị công tác: Giáo viên trường THPT Ba Đình TT Tên đề tài SKKN Kinh nghiệm dạy kỹ nghe Tiếng Anh cho học sinh lớp 10 có hiệu Using a model-based approach to teach English writing to 10th Graders in Ba Dinh High School, Nga Son, Thanh Hoa’ The application of communicative activities to develop speaking skills for 10th graders at Ba Đình High School - Nga Sơn – Thanh Hóa Teachers’ corrective feedback on the 11th form students’ writing at Ba Đình high school, Nga Sơn, Thanh Hóa Cấp đánh giá Kết đánh giá Năm học Sở GD C 2011 - 2012 Sở GD B 2014 - 2015 Sở GD C 2016 – 2017 Sở GD B 2017 – 2018 24 ... in large classes at Ba Đình high school? - To what extend did the application of cooperative learning principles improve English speaking skills of students in large classes at Ba Đình high school? ... examinations Current situation of teaching and learning speaking skills at Ba Đình high school The teaching and learning of English speaking skills at Ba Đình high school face common problems that... "Applying cooperative learning principles to the teaching of English speaking skills in large classes at Ba Đình high school? ?? with the hope to contribute her small part to improving the teaching and learning