Using group work activities to enhance english speaking skill for grade 5 students at a primary school in nam dinh

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** VŨ THỊ THANH HUYỀN USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL FOR GRADE-5 STUDENTS AT A PRIMARY SCHOOL IN NAM DINH Sử dụng hoạt động nhóm để n ng o n ng nói Tiếng Anh cho học sinh lớp trường tiểu học tỉnh N m Định M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 Hanoi – 2018 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** VŨ THỊ THANH HUYỀN USING GROUP WORK ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL FOR GRADE-5 STUDENTS AT A PRIMARY SCHOOL IN NAM DINH Sử dụng hoạt động nhóm để n ng o n ng nói Tiếng Anh cho học sinh lớp trường tiểu học tỉnh N m Định M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 Supervisor: Dr Trần Thị Thu Hiền Hanoi – 2018 DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “Using group work activities to enhance English speaking skill for grade-5 students at a primary school in Nam Dinh” is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, and this thesis has not been submitted for any other degrees Hanoi, May 2018 Vũ Thị Thanh Huyền i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like primarily to thank Dr Tran Thị Thu Hien for helping me complete this study This paper would not have been possible without her constant support and encouragement Her patience and helpful criticism helped me confidently express my ideas into this paper I regard myself extremely fortunate in having her as my dissertation supervisor I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all my lecturers at the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies for their valuable lectures which have helped me a great deal in gaining a lot of theoretical as well as practical knowledge My special thanks go to the manager and teachers at Xuan Chau Primary School, Xuan Truong District, Nam Dinh Province in general and 50 grade-5 students in particular who have helped me enthusiastically in speaking lessons by applying GW activities to enhance students‟ speaking skills Finally, I would also like to express my deep gratitude and love to my devoted parents, my brother, my husband and my friends who gave me time and encouraged me to complete this study ii ABSTRACT Speaking is undoubtedly one of the most essential and important skills which language learners need to master However, for the students participated in this study, speaking in English lessons is a big challenge They are afraid of speaking in front of the class, many of them either keep silent or exchange ideas by their mother tongue While the students are more confident with written tests, they always feel reluctant when being asked to speak English and try to give answers as short as possible Additionally, they are fed up with speaking lessons As a result, speaking is the weakest one among the four language skills Obviously, it is necessary to find out an effective way to enhance the students‟ oral skill and attitudes towards speaking lessons This study is aimed at describing whether or not and to what extent GW activities improve speaking skill of the grade-fifth students at a primary school in Nam Dinh as well as propose some suggestions to increase the effectiveness of using GW activities to enhance English speaking skill for grade-5 students at a primary school in Nam Dinh The participants included one English teacher and 50 grade-5 students at a primary school in Nam Dinh The data were collected through the students‟ pre-test and post-test and the teacher‟s interview The results showed that GW activities applied created a joyful and exciting classroom atmosphere which provided the students with more opportunities to obtain knowledge with pleasure and helped the students enjoy speaking lessons more In addition, the study also indicated that most of the students had positive attitudes toward this new technique Some pedagogical implications, limitations and suggestions for further studies were included in this study iii LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS ELT: English Language Teaching ESL: English Second Language L2: Second language GR: Group work CL: Cooperation learning Q1: Question Q2: Question Q3: Question Q4: Question Q5: Question Q6: Question Q7: Question Q8: Question LISTS OF FIGURES, TABLES AND CHARTS Figure 1: Action research cycle…………………………………………… Figure 2: Result of the Pre-test …………………………………………… Figure 3: Result of the Posttest …………………………………………… Flow-chart 1: Steps in data collection procedure………………………… TABLE OF CONTENTS iv DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS iv LISTS OF FIGURES, TABLES AND CHARTS iiv PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims of the study Research questions Methods of the study Scope of the study Significance of the study Design of the study PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Cooperative Learning 1.1.1 Definition 1.1.2 Goals of cooperative learning 1.2 Speaking skills 1.2.1 Definition 1.2.2 The role of speaking in language teaching and learning 1.2.3 Approaches to teach speaking 1.2.4 Elements of speaking 10 1.2.4.1 Language features 11 1.2.4.2 Speaking processing skills 11 1.3 Group work 12 1.3.1 Definition 12 1.3.2.Types of group work activities 13 1.3.2.1 Game 13 1.3.2.2 Role play and simulations 13 1.3.2.3 Drama 14 v 1.3.2.4 Interview 14 1.3.2.5 Brain storming 14 1.3.2.6 Information gap 14 1.3.2.7 Projects 15 1.3.2.8 Problem solving abd decision making 15 1.3.2.9 Opinion exchange 15 1.3.3 Benefits of using group work activities in speaking lesson 15 1.3.4 Group work planning 17 1.3.5 Techniques for seating arrangement 19 1.3.6 The teacher‟s role in group work 20 1.3.7 Characteristics of effective group work 20 1.4 Young learners 21 1.4.1 Characteristics of young learners 21 1.4.2 Teaching strategies to young learners 23 1.5 Previous studies 25 1.6 Summary 26 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 27 2.1 The research setting 27 2.1.1 Research site 27 2.1.2 English textbooks 27 2.1.3 The facilities 28 2.2 Participants 28 2.2.1 Teacher 28 2.2.2 Students 28 2.3 Cambridge English Young learner Tests 27 2.4 Methods of the study 31 2.4.1 Action research 32 2.4.2 Action plan 34 2.5 Datacollection instruments 37 2.5.1 Pre-test and post-test 37 2.5.2 Pre-interview and post-interview 38 vi 2.5.3 Observation 39 2.6 Data collection procedure 40 2.7 Data analysis procedure 41 2.8 Summary 41 CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 42 3.1 Pre-test and post-test Analysis 42 3.1.1 Pre-test 42 3.1.2 Post-test 43 3.2 Interview Analysis 43 3.2.1 Pre-interview 43 3.2.2 Post-interivew 40 3.3 Class Observation Analysis 48 3.4 Summary 48 PART THREE: CONCLUSION 49 Recapitulation 50 Implications 50 Limitations of the study 52 Suggestions for further study 52 REFERENCES 53 APPENDICES I vii PART ONE: INTRODUCTION Rationale Being born and growing up from studious hometown in Nam Dinh province, the researcher always feel proud of myself as well as my hometown As we know, Nam Dinh‟s educational system is always on the first top all over our country However, the result of English has not still kept pace with other main subjects such as Math, Literature or Physics Accompanying with other English teachers in Nam Dinh province, the author of this paper always think about how to improve the quality of English for my students because English is one of the most important subjects now The goal of learning English is that the learners can use it to communicate with foreigners who also use English all over the world either by speech or written, so the use of English for the students is compulsory, because mastering English is a priority for many second or foreign language learners Richard (1990) says that “The mastery of speaking skills in English is a priority for many second or foreign language learners Learners consequently often evaluate their success in language learning as well as the effectiveness of English course on the basis of how well they feel they have improved in their spoken language proficiency” As a teacher of English at a primary school in Nam Dinh province, from her own observation and experience, the researcher herself has noticed that my students often experience foreign language anxiety especially in speaking skill When my English students take part in any speaking contests, they have never gotten high prizes Usually, they are afraid of speaking in front of the class, many of them keep silent or have discussion in Vietnamese While the students are more confident with written tests, they always feel reluctant when being asked to speak English and try to give answers as short as possible The fact that, the teachers still teach the students with routine activities without realizing that it would make the students bored and lost their attention to the teaching and learning process This is stated by Douglas, “Routine activities in learning can make the students bored As the result, their motivation and participation in learning will decrease” (1987:48) The most necessary duty is that the teachers should try best to find out the effective way which makes students go in for discussing the materials actively, so that they will speaking outside the class, it will help them review and strengthen what they learnt in class By this way, they could improve their speaking proficiency Limitations of the study Although the researcher has made effort toward carrying out this study, drawbacks were unavoidable due to many reasons such as limitation of time, researcher‟s experience First, the limitation of sample (50 participants of grade only) made the study not generalize for all students of the school, the findings seemed to be affected by students participating in the study, and the conclusions were tentative In addition, the study was only carried out in a school with only one main English teacher, so the findings may not represent for other teachers and schools Time was also a limiting factor due to the fact that data collected over a longer time period produces results that can be considered to be more reliable and valid Last but not least, the researcher could not directly control the class during the process of implementing GW activities in teaching speaking skill lesson She played as an observer role during the process The reason why the researcher did like that was if the researcher controlled the class directly and the English teacher was an observer, her comment may be not objective.In a nutshell, there are some prominent disadvantages seen in this study Due to these limitations, shortcomings are inevitable in this paper; all comments on the improvement are welcomed and appreciated Suggestions for further study Based on these limitations mentioned in the previous part, there are some suggestions for further studies of my own Higher Education and others‟ thesis For example, firstly, it is possible to use other strategies in improving speaking skill for students at school Moreover, the research was conducted at a primary school with one small population of students and only one teacher‟s opinion due to the time limitation and the size of the thesis Therefore, the results cannot be generalized It is suggested that a larger and further research should be done with more participants 52 REFERENCES Abe, Keiko 1991 Teaching English to Children in an EFL Setting (The English Teaching Forum) Yokohama, Japan: Kanto Gakuin Women‟s College Brown, H Douglas 2000 Teaching by Principles Longman, San Fransisco: State University Brown, H Douglas 2000 Principles of Language Learning and Teaching Longman, San Fransisco State University Burns, A., & Joyce, H (1997) Focus on Speaking National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South 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Needham Heights, MS: Allyn and Bacon Snow, C.E., Burns, M.S., and Griffin, P (1998) Preventing reading difficulties in young children Washington, DC: National Academy Press Thornbury, S (2005).How to Teach Education/Longman 56 Speaking Harlow: Pearson Tsui, A.B (1993) Helping Teachers to Conduct Action Research in Their Classrooms In D Freeman & S Cornwell (Eds), New Ways in Teacher Education Alexandria VA: TESOL Ur, P (1996) A course in language teaching Cambridge University Press Zyoud, M ( ) Using DramaActivities and Techniques to Foster Teaching English as a foreign Language: a Theoretical Perspective Retreived September 213 from www.qou.edu/english/conferences/ /pdfFiles/muntherZyoud.pdf 57 APPENDICES Appendix Syllabus for implementing GR activities for the 8-week course No Topic Competences Vocabulary/Sentence patterns GW activities - Role-play and simulations -Drama Unit What‟s the matter with you? - Asking and answering questions about common health problems - Giving and responding to advice on common health problems Unit Don‟t ride your bike too fast! - Expressing and responding to concerns about possible accidents at home - Asking ad answer questions about accident prevention Unit What you in your free time? - Asking and answering questions about what someone does in his/her free time - Asking and answering questions about what a family member does in his/ her free time -Vocabulary: toothache, earache, sore throat, stomachache, dentist, take a rest, carry, sweet - Sentences: + What‟s the matter with you? + I have… + You should/ shouldn‟t… + Yes, I will./ OK, I won‟t -Vocabulary: knife, matches, stairs, stove, arm, leg, climb, run down, fall off, break, cut, burn - Sentences: + Don‟t…! + Ok, I won‟t + Why shouldn‟t…? + Because… -Vocabulary: free time, karate, fishing, skating, camping - Sentences: + What you in your free time? + I……… + What does your…do in his/her free time? + He/she… Unit What happene d in the story? - Asking and answering questions about what happened in a story - Asking and answering questions about someone‟s -Vocabulary: order, far away, water melon, seed, intelligent, greedy - Sentences: + What happened in the story? + First,/Then/Next,/In the I - Project - Interview opinions of a book/story/character Unit What would you like to be in the future? - Asking and answering questions about what someone would like to be in the future - Asking for and giving reasons Unit What would you like to eat? - Asking and answering questions about what someone would like to eat or drink - Asking and answering questions about the quantity of food and drink end… + What you think of…? + I think… -Vocabulary: pilot, writer, architect, patient, look after, design - Sentences: + What would you like to be in the future? + I‟d like to be a/an……… + Why would you like to be…? + Because I‟d like to… -Vocabulary: a bowl/packet/bar/glass/carton/ bottle of…, sausage, egg, biscuit, chocolate - Sentences: + What would you like to eat/drink? + I‟d like …, please + How many/much…do you eat/drink every day? + I eat/ drink… II -Information gap -Game Appendix Pre-interview and Post-interview for English teacher PRE-INTERVIEW Hello This interview serves as a data collection tool for a research work that aims to propose using GW activities to enhance English speaking skill for grade-5 students in our school I would very much appreciate if you could take the time and the energy to share your experience by answering the following questions Your answers are very important and will be of much help for the completion of this work May I thank you in advance for your collaboration How long have you taught English? What you think about the level of your students‟ speaking proficiency? What techniques you use to enhance speaking skill for your students? How often you use GW activities in teaching speaking? What types of group activities have you ever used? And how to use them? Do you have any problems in applying GW to develop your students‟ speaking proficiency? III Appendix POST-INTERVIEW Hello After implementing GW activities in enhancing our students’ speaking skill, I would like you to share your feeling and experience as a direct teacher who took part in the process I would very much appreciate if you could take the time and the energy to share your experience by answering the following questions Your answers are very important and will be of much help for the completion of this work May I thank you in advance for your collaboration How is your students' level of speaking proficiency in English after using GW activities in learning speaking English? Do you have any difficulties in implementing GW activities to improve your students‟ speaking skills? How you rate the effectiveness and suitability of the GW activities you have applied? Do you have any suggestions or notes for teachers who want to use GW to improve their students‟ speaking skills? IV Appendix Observation checklist School : Xuan Chau primary school Subject : English Class : 5… Topic: ………………………………………… GR activity: …………………………………… Amount of students involves during the lesson: A all of them B almost all of them C most of them D a few The atmosphere during the lesson is: A stressful B neutral Amount of students is in each group: A Pairs B 3-4 C relaxing D extremely relaxing C 5-6 D More than Classroom seating arrangement is: A Pairs B enemy corner C opposing team D face to face E panel D public meting Technique for dividing students into groups: A hobby B level of proficiency C gender D pronunciation E birth dates D postcard The teacher carries out ten basic steps in implementing GR activity: A Yes B No Difficulties in implementing GR activities: A students make so much noise B students still use Vietnamese C time-consuming D Competition among students The percentage of the use of L2 during the lesson: A 100 % B.> 80% C > 60% D > 40% E > 20% F >0 V Appendix 5: Pre-test and post-test Pre-test Part Examiner does this: Examiner says this: Minimum response Back-up questions: expected from child: Usher brings candidate Usher to examinerHello in Hello This is (child‟s name) Examiner: Hello, my name‟s Tara/Huyen Points to Scene picture Look at this This is a garden The boys are playing football Points to the women in Here are the women Scene picture Where's the bird? Points to items in Where are the toys? the picture Points to Object cards Now look at these Which is the spider/lizard? Points to Object card Is this the spider/lizard? (pointing to spider/lizard) Puts Object card in place V/here's the tree? Under the tree Points to Object card Points to Object card Is this the T-shirt/hat? (pointing to Tshirt/hat) Where are the skirt and the jeans? Between the skirt and the jeans Are these the glasses? (pointing to glasses) Puts Object card in place apple red four Where‟s the mouse? On the mouse Is it an apple? Is It yellow? Red? Are there three? Four? I‟m putting the spider/ lizard next to the elephant Now you put the spider/ lizard under the tree Which is the Tshirt/hat? Put the T-shirt/hat Puts Object card in between the skirt and place the jeans Which are the glasses? Put the glasses on the mouse Removes Object cards Now, what's this? and points to an apple What color is it? in Scene picture How many apples are there? Puts Scene picture away and picks out three Object cards VI Is this the bird? Are these the toys? tennis What‟s this? Do you play table tennis? What sport you play at school? 4.2 Shows chips card What are these? Do you eat chips/fries? What you eat for lunch? Shows 4.1 card table 4.3 Shows giraffe card table tennis yes/no Do you play basketball? basketball chips/fries yes/no Are they chips/fries? Do you eat rice? rice What‟s this? Giraffe Do you like animals? yes/no What‟s your favorite animal? monkey VII Is it table tennis? Is it a giraffe? Do you like monkeys? POST-TEST Part Examiner does this: Examiner says this: Minimum response expected from child: Usher brings candidate in Usher to examiner: Hello Hello This is (child‟s name) Examiner: Hello, my name's Tara/ Huyen Points to Scene picture Look at this This is the dining room The girl is eating Points to the table Here‟s the table in Scene picture Where‟s the computer? Where are the oranges? Now look at these Which is the lamp? Points to Object cards Points to items Is this the computer? in the picture Are these the oranges? Points to Object Is this the lamp? card (pointing to lamp) I‟m putting the lamp on the desk Now you put the lamp next Puts Object card to the plane in place Which is the mirror/ruler? Points to Object card Where‟s the plane? Next to the plane Is this the mirror/ruler? (pointing to mirror/ruler) Put the mirror/ruler under the clock Which are the carrotseggs? Where‟s the clock? Under the clock Are these the carrots/ eggs? (pointing to carrots/eggs) Put the carrots/eggs on the phone Removes Object Now, what‟s this? cards and points to What color is it? pencil in Scene picture How many pencils are there? Points to the man Back-up questions: What‟s the man doing? Puts Scene picture away and picks out three Object cords VIII Puts Object card in place Points to Object card Puts Object card Where‟s the phone? in place On the phone pencil Is it a pencil? Is it pink? Green? green five Are there four? Five? drinking Is the man drinking? 4.1 Shows grapes card What are these? Grapes Do you eat grapes? What's yes/no your favorite fruit? bananas Are they grapes? 4.2 Shows radio card What‟s this? radio Do you like listening to the yes/no radio? What color is your/this white radio? Is it a radio? 4.3 Shows tennis card What's this? Do you play tennis? What you play with your friends? IX tennis yes/no football Do you like bananas? Is your/this radio white? Is it tennis? Do you play football? ... improvespeaking skill of the grade- fifth students at a primary school in Nam Dinh with a focus on what GW activities are the most suitable to enhance speaking skill for grade- 5 students in my school. In. .. investigating how cooperative GW technique presented via cooperative language learning can be employed in enhancing speaking skill for grade- 5 students at a primary school in Nam Dinh and how to best... research questions:  Can and to what extent GW activities improve grade- 5 students? ?? speaking skill at a primary school in Nam Dinh?  What should be done to best improve grade- 5 students? ?? speaking