PEER INTERACTION IN SPEAKING TASKS BY EFL COLLEGE STUDENTS IN VIETNAM

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES VÕ THỊ KHÁNH LINH PEER INTERACTION IN SPEAKING TASKS BY EFL COLLEGE STUDENTS IN VIETNAM DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING HUE, 2020 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES VÕ THỊ KHÁNH LINH PEER INTERACTION IN SPEAKING TASKS BY EFL COLLEGE STUDENTS IN VIETNAM DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 14 01 11 SUPERVISOR: Assoc Prof LÊ PHẠM HOÀI HƯƠNG, PhD HUE, 2020 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ VÕ THỊ KHÁNH LINH TƯƠNG TÁC CẶP ĐƠI TRONG HOẠT ĐỘNG NĨI CỦA SINH VIÊN CAO ĐẲNG CHUYÊN NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH TẠI VIỆT NAM LUẬN ÁN TIẾN SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH HUẾ, NĂM 2020 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ VÕ THỊ KHÁNH LINH TƯƠNG TÁC CẶP ĐƠI TRONG HOẠT ĐỘNG NĨI CỦA SINH VIÊN CAO ĐẲNG CHUYÊN NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH TẠI VIỆT NAM LUẬN ÁN TIẾN SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 14 01 11 HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PHĨ GIÁO SƯ TIẾN SĨ LÊ PHẠM HỒI HƯƠNG HUẾ, NĂM 2020 i DECLARATION I declare that this thesis is my own work The data in my work is authentic, genuine and correct i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincerest and deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Associate Professor Doctor Le Pham Hoai Huong for her great insights, constructive feedback, precious suggestions, continuous encouragement and longlasting patience She has put all of her heart and mind to support me, understood my difficulties, sympathised my circumstances and accompanied me to the end of the PhD journey I admire her optimist spirit and attitudes toward scientific work and learn from her how to make balance of life and work It is my honour to be her student and without her invaluable guidance and scholarly advice, I could not complete this PhD journey I would like to thank the lecturers at Hue University of Foreign Languages for their instructional advice and practical suggestions to different stages of my thesis completion The members of the panels, including Assoc Prof Pham Thi Hong Nhung, Assoc Prof Tran Van Phuoc, Assoc Prof Truong Vien, Dr Ton Nu Nhu Huong, Dr Bao Kham, Dr Truong Bach Le, Dr Pham Hong Anh, Dr Nguyen Ho Hoang Thuy, Dr Tran Quang Ngoc Thuy and Dr Nguyen Van Huy, have insightfully given me suggestions to enhance the quality of the thesis I would like to acknowledge those students who agreed to participate in the study I am grateful for their time and efforts to complete the speaking tasks, write learning diaries and join the interviews Without their devotion and willingness to share their work, experiences and thoughts with me, I could not have achieved my academic purposes I also owe many thanks to my colleagues, Nguyen Hoang Mai Thy, Doan Thi Thu Hien and Tran Thi Phuong Dung for their generous assistance of instructing the students, transcribing the speaking tasks, coding the data and translating the interviews Their ongoing support concerning the study contributed to my success I am particularly indebted to my parents, my mother-in-law, my husband and my three daughters for their understanding, support and compassion throughout the years of study Without the constant support of my parents and my mother-in-law in ii taking care of, driving and getting my children to schools and back, I hardly complete my PhD journey My heartfelt gratitude also goes to my husband for his spiritual support and empathy for my hard work and sometimes my irritation when I got stuck with the study I would like to express my special thanks to my three daughters, Khanh Phuong, Khanh Lam and Linh Dan, for becoming more independent of their learning and tolerant of my various times of absence from home The love and encouragement of my family gave me strength and determination to complete the study iii ABSTRACT Drawing on Sociocultural Theory (SCT) as a theoretical framework, this study investigated peer interaction in EFL context in Vietnam in which thirty English-major students work with their partners to complete two speaking activities: A decision-making task and a picture difference task The study addresses four questions (1) how EFL students interact in decision-making and picture difference tasks, (2) what interaction patterns emerge from decision-making and picture difference tasks by EFL students, (3) what students perceive to learn from peer interaction in decision-making and picture difference tasks and, (4) what challenges students face in interaction with peers in decision-making and picture difference tasks In order to gather qualitative and quantitative data for analysis, the study uses different research tools, namely transcripts of video recordings of English-major students completing two speaking tasks of decision-making and picture difference, transcripts of semi-structured interviews with individual students after two task completion and learning diaries written by each student after each speaking task The findings reveal that EFL students interact with their peers in English speaking tasks in three forms of talk, namely cumulative, exploratory and disputational, in line with Mercer‟s (2004) results The study also identified four different patterns of interaction with different levels of equality and mutuality, namely collaborative, expert/novice, dominant/passive and dominant/dominant, similarly to Storch‟s (2001) findings Importantly, the types of talk and interaction patterns are changeable and varied from each speaking task, which means that task types decide the fluidity of the talk types and interaction patterns Moreover, students in the study reflect to learn from their partners and the task implementation in terms of lexis, structures, pronunciation and intonation with the learning benefits focusing on lexis and structures than pronunciation and intonation Finally, EFL students also deal with some problems concerning their linguistic abilities and psychological factors during interacting with their peers to complete two tasks iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL English as Foreign Language ESL English as Second Language FL Foreign Language IRF Initiation-response-feedback L1 First Language L2 Second Language L-L Learner-Learner NNSs Non-native Speakers PI Peer interaction S Student SCT Sociocultural Theory SDA Sociocultural Discourse Analysis SLA Second Language Acquisition TL Target Language ZPD Zone of Proximal Development v TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v TABLE OF CONTENTS vi LIST OF TABLES xi LIST OF FIGURES xii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the Study 1.2 Rationale of the Study .2 1.3 Purpose of the Study 1.4 Questions of the Study .4 1.5 Scope of the Study .4 1.6 Significance of the Study 1.7 Structure of the Study CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Sociocultural Theory Perspective of Interaction .7 2.1.1 Sociocultural Theory and Language Learning 2.1.2 Interaction and Peer Interaction in Sociocultural Theory 2.1.3 Zone of Proximal Development and Peer Interaction 14 2.1.4 Mediation and Peer Interaction 15 2.1.5 Scaffolding and Peer Interaction 18 2.1.6 Communication Tasks for Peer Interaction from Sociocultural Theory 21 2.2 Interaction and Foreign Language Learning 24 vi Task 2: Storch’s interaction patterns Task transcription S5: Hello S6 S6: hi S5: Ok, I have a picture here and Today I will describe, describe mm the different S6: in your picture S5: Yes,my my picture mm and I will describe from the left to the right, ok? S6: ok S5: ok S5: uh…on the left I have a boy and a girl with the birds on his arm S5: Do you have? S6: I have I have too My picture is too mm The boy and the girl mm stand next to a tree S6: Yes or no in your picture? S5: Yes S6: And uh mmm… S5: next to the boy have the girl, another girl S6: yes, next oh mm next oh mm another girl She mm she‟s playing with the ball your picture is too? S5: No S6: No? S5: Yes S6: OK, uhm…Behind Behind the Behind the boy and the girl, mm my picture has a a a girl mm She stands mm mm She stands mm She she stands mm next to the sink the sink mm Maybe, she mm she mm she wash your mm she wash her her finger S5: what? S5: mm fingers, yes expert/novice Pause IRF techniques suggestion suggestion explanation confirmation confirmation elaboration question confirmation question confirmation phatic utterance suggestion elaboration rejection repetition confirmation elaboration question confirmation 214 collaborative S6: ok next behind behind the picture mm …in front in front oh in front of the picture mm there are there are two people, a man and a woman S5: Yes, I have S6: and behind behind behind their, behind behind them mm there are a little girl S5: a a little girl with the ball S6: No, another another girl S5: Ok S6: Yes, between mm the litlle girl play with mm the ball and mm the man and wonam, between between their S5: Between, on the table? S6: No, Between Between the girl who who is playing with the ball and the man and… S5: the woman S6: Yes, between them and behind them, there is a girl S5: and next to have next to on the right have three people on the table S6: people mm mm S5: a woman, a man and the chilren S6: Yes oh…mmm S5: have….mmm S6: on the table in my picture, on the table, there are a lot of mm …mmmfood and drink S5: food and drink? S6: Ye mm there are lots of your picture mm mmm… have a…mmm S5: No, it is not S6: is not? What what mm …mmm what mm …mmm what is what is there in the in in the the the the table the table? S5: mm mmm just have the mm bowl , yes just have the bowl S6: but I, but in my picture there are a lot of food and drink S5: Yes, behind, behind them have the girl, the boy on mm …mmm swing S6: the swing, yes My picture is too S5: has too elaboration confirmation elaboration elaboration rejection confirmation elaboration question rejection suggestion elaboration elaboration repetition explanation confirmation elaboration question elaboration rejection question explanation explanation elaboration confirmation correction 215 S6: Ye mm , my picture is too and next to next to them mm there there is a girl S5: Yes, I have a girl S6: And she is play slide S5: play slide? S6: Yes S5: Trượt ván? (skateboarding?) S6: Yes my picture, my picture S5: Trượt ván? (skateboarding?) S6: Yes S5: Yes, I got it S6: and mm Do you see mm a tree behind the table? S5: yes, I have the tree behind this the table S6: and behind the behind this behind this tree, there is a girl Pause S5: there are a girl and a boy? S6: No, behind, behind the the tree, maybe your picture mm there mm there is mm S5: don‟t have S6: Yes, don‟t have and and mm mm next to next to the, next to this this tree, there are a merry goround and three three three child three children three children play with this merry go-round S5: three children on mm play on the mm S6: the merry go-round S5: the merry go-round S6: Yes S5: yes, I got it, yeah S6: your picture don‟t have or have? S5: yes, my picture don‟t have S6: don‟t have S6: Yes so mm , so mm …1… 2….3….4….5…1…2… S5: ok in short, mm now we mm , we talk mm talk again about all of things in the picture S6: no all, we find we find the difference the difference between my picture and your picture S5: Yes, I find mm the ball and the girl elaboration confirmation elaboration repetition confirmation question confirmation repetition confirmation confirmation question confirmation elaboration question elaboration correction elaboration elaboration suggestion repetition confirmation confirmation question confirmation repetition explanation explanation explanation explanation 216 S6: the girl with sinking and the sink S5: Yes, yes and the girl with sink and the girl behind the ba mm the man and the woman , mm things things and have food and drink on the table and mm the line S6: the line ok S5: yeah with mm with mm S6: slide, slide S5: yeah with slide and mm a merry – go – round and children on mm on them S6: so, …mmm S5: we find …mm different things for these S6: seven different S5: Yes S6: mm , sum up , we sum up there are seven difference They are: the girl with sink with with the sink, the ball, mm the girl mm between the man and the woman and mm food and drink on the table, mm the girl behind the tree S5: the tree? S6: the tree the tree next to the table, there there is mm a girl behind this tree? this is diference, your your picture don‟t have yeah S5: yes S6: Yeah merry go-round and the slide S5: yes, this is different, S6: Yeah S5: my picture don‟t have S6: Yeah, your picture don‟t have Pause S6: mm I I see there there are some some mm birds is fly on the the sky mm S5: No, I don‟t have S6: You don‟t have? S5: yes, where on the right or on the left? S6: on the right S5: on the right? S6: yeah, in the sky So…mmm this is the difference S5: Yes, I don‟t have My picture have … mm one bird in front of the boy the 1st boy I I describe elaboration elaboration confirmation confirmation suggestion elaboration explanation repetition confirmation explanation repetition elaboration confirmation elaboration confirmation confirmation rejection repetition elaboration rejection question question explanation repetition confirmation elaboration 217 S6: Yeah yeah yeah I know S5: your picture have? S6: Yeah, I have S6: oh so, we have eight difference S5: yeah and these differences Pause S5: so, ok right now we can show S6: yeah confirmation question confirmation explanation confirmation 218 APPENDIX N: SAMPLE TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW AND CODING OF THE INTERVIEW Transcription of IS1 Interviewer: Hi S1, I would like to ask you some information about two tasks you did with S2 Please let me know what structures you usually use or exactly what you often said to your partner? S1: Good morning Mrs When I worked with S2, in the first task I often used structures like what‟s your opinion? How about you? That‟s a good idea, or I suggested the ideas, vocabulary and structures to my partner For example, when he/she would like to choose Clothes, I asked her the reason why she chose it When she couldn‟t give the reason, I suggested the ideas like when we were lost in the desert island for many days, we need clothes to change Interviewer: So what did you often said to your partner in the second task? S1: In the task of describing two pictures I used the structures to describe people, and things For example: He is wearing T- shirt with pants/ She is wearing dress, The children are playing with friends Interviewer: How about your partner? What did she say to you during in the first task? S1: As for her, she also used the structures to ask for opinions like me or she expressed her ideas For example: when she chose the map she explained that we need the map on the desert island to find out the way easily As for the picture difference task, she also used the structures to describe people or things or used prepositions of location during her describing so that I could easily imagine the location or where the pole sit in the pictures Interviewer: How did you contribute to the tasks? Code/subtheme Category/theme How EFL college students interact in speaking task use the specific structures to explain the opinions, help the other in providing ideas use the specific structures to describe the pictures use strucutres to ask for opinions 219 S1: During the task completion, I and S2 collaborated and came to consensus idea to choose the items Interviewer: How did you come to the conclusion of the tasks? S1: She and I took turns to talk about the items in the task, to 12 items you come to the agreement of the items to bring on the desert island and then concluded items, for example S2 and I chose clothes, fresh water, amp and knives Interviewer: So how about the second task? S1: As for the task of comparing the two pictures, each picture misses some things For example, I talked about the position of the birds and where they are exactly in the picture When I described like that she can recognize easily the position of the birds in her picture Interviewer: How about the order and direction? S1: She and I agreed on the starting point to describe, for example in our task we describe in circle collaboration for completing the task take turns to talk about the items describe the things, people with exact location set the rules of describing the pictures Ss report to learn from peer interaction in English speaking task Interviewer: What did you learn after doing the first task? S1: After doing the first task, I learnt the vocabulary and structures to ask for opinions Sometimes, my vocabulary is limited so I had some difficulty to explain my opinion to persuade my partner to choose the items As for the second task, there are a lot of new vocabulary and structures so my partner helps me during my speaking Interviewer: What are some other things you learnt like new ideas, the way to collaborate or communicative skills from your partner? S1: During working with my partner I leant the way to use body language when talking learn vocabulary and structures learn how to use body language 220 or expressing the ideas Interviewer: How about in task 1? Did you learn any new ideas? S1: In task 1, my partner and I share opinions to choose items but when I talk about my ideas, my partner objected to my ideas and said that item was necessary For example, I chose torchlight because when we are lost we need light but she had another ideas and it it‟s reasonable, I would agree with her Interviewer: What did you learn from her interacting or helping you? S1: As I said I learnt the way to use body language during her talking Interviewer: Did you have any problems during doing task 1, for example you didn‟t understand her or she didn‟t understand your speaking Or you didn‟t understand the vocabulary or structures or you had any difficulties or you couldn‟t collaborate with her due to her ways of working? S1: S2 spoke too softly and sometimes I didn‟t understand her talking so I asked her to raise her voice or sometimes she chose an item but she didn‟t know how to express the reason, I would suggest the ideas for her to continue with her talking Interviewer: Did you have any difficulty in understanding S2 during working? S1: There were many times we didn‟t agree with each other during doing two tasks Interviewer: So what did you and your partner to deal with the problems? S1: During working together, when we had problems with vocabulary or structures, or she asked for my ideas and we have limited vocabulary and structures so search Google or used dictionary Interviewer: How about the second task? Did you meet any problems? S1: As for the second task, I think it‟s easier than the task so during my working we didn‟t have any problems new ideas of using torchlight the challenges EFL Ss face in interaction with in English speaking tasks soft voice > ask to speak up, suggest for ideas didn't agree with each other use Google for new words 221 APPENDIX O: SAMPLE OF STUDENT LEARNING DIARY AND CODING OF THE LEARNING DIARY Transcription of LS1T1 I learnt many things from my friend‟s ideas and body language Sometimes, she did not express her ideas clearly I expressed my ideas fully but still not fluently We repeated words during the speaking However, we also tried to enrich our work with different words and structures I wanted to make my speaking more colorful but I have shortage of vocabularies/ structures There were many words that I wanted to use but I didn‟t know their meanings in English Therefore, I could not express my ideas On the other hand, I was lazy in learning new words/ structures Thus, my knowledge about them is limited When I didn‟t know say anything, my friends suggested and gave some words with similar meaning She also suggested some good ideas for our speaking Code/subtheme Category/theme learn ideas and language learn from peer interaction things can't say, can't express the reasons why ideas in various and get help ways from peer assistance from partner in lexis and structures During the collaboration, I myself gave some useful ideas and received supports from my friend I think I had one difficulty is that my friend didn‟t pronounce really exactly and wrong her voice was a little bit low Thus, pronunciation, sometimes, I didn‟t hear what she meant low voice Code/subTranscription of LS1T2 theme learn how to describe people and body language how to collaborate by using comprehensible structures I got the problem when I wanted to use the problems with word curly hair, merry – go – round but I specific words I learnt the way to describe a person or using interesting word/structure to make my speaking more colorful Besides, I also learnt how to make use of body language From my position, I collaborated with my friend, tried to use understandable structure to describe people, items The purpose was to let my friend follow my speaking easily difficulties/ challenges Category/theme learn from peer interaction things can't say, the reasons why 222 could not speak them out or could not  assistance describe the appearance of that character As from partner the result, I got the pause, my friend had to suggest me Besides, I had the shortage of item description structures There are some difficulties during my speaking practice, including: - Shortage of vocabularies and structures on describing items - Tense use - Shortage of confidence when speaking - Shortage of good interaction and get help from peer difficulties/ challenges 223 224 225 226 227 228 ... 4.1.2 Interaction Features in Peer Interaction through Speaking Tasks 77 4.1.2.1 Scaffolding in Peer Interaction through Speaking Tasks .77 4.1.2.2 Mediation in Peer Interaction through Speaking. .. equality of Vietnamese adult EFL students on conducting speaking tasks This includes the combination of interaction patterns in different speaking tasks The findings of the study may also inform EFL. .. Reported Linguistic Difficulties 120 xii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION The current study investigates peer interaction in speaking tasks by EFL college students at a teachers’ training college